Maternity Pictures in Sedona
Two weeks before Rylie was born we did our maternity photo shoot in Sedona. It was my first time there and I was just blown away by the beauty of the red rocks. (Sedona is about a 3 hour drive from our house.) We had a great time hiking the trails in Sedona and shooting pictures along the way. Derek had a blast picking up rocks and exploring. It was a fun afternoon and a memorable one for our family. Thanks Rien for capturing this sweet time for our family. Check out her website.

Swim Lessons with Derek
I have been taking Derek to swim lessons for the past 3 months. It has been so fun to watch Derek develop his swimming skills and truly enjoy the water. The day before my c-section was my last time taking Derek (for a while as Matt will take my place while he is on paternity leave). Derek LOVES the water. He jumps in off the side of the pool, picks up rings on the step, floats on his back, goes down the frog slide, and holds his breath going under the water. We are so grateful that Derek loves the water and can't wait to practice the skills he is learning in our pool this summer.

Rylie's Birth (3-9-12)

Here are the details of Rylie's birth. I wanted to make sure to remember all the details so I just giving you a heads up. Grammy flew in Wednesday night so that she would have a day to get used to Derek's routine. On Thursday we went about our normal activities. I took Derek to swim lessons (1 last time before Matt takes over), while Matt and Grammy watched. Friday morning we had breakfast together and then Matt and I headed to the hospital, while Grammy took Derek to the zoo.
We checked into the hospital, signed all remaining paperwork, and got settled in our pre-op room. I had an IV placed in my arm and we hung out for about 1 hour watching college basketball until we met our anesthesiologist. He went over the entire c-section procedure and reassured me that I would not feel a thing. Then I was wheeled away to the OR and Matt was left to put on his scrubs and wait in the "man cave" as they called it. In the OR I was prepped and given my spinal. Within no time I could not feel my legs and feet...such a weird feeling. When they rolled me onto my back (on the table), I felt like I was going to pass out. The anesthesiologist put something in my IV and within a few minutes I felt back to normal. Matt joined me in the OR and our doctors arrived. The atmosphere in the room was so relaxed and layed back. The doctors were talking to me and we were having a good time. I couldn't believe how relaxed things were and how I was TOTALLY ENJOYING EVERY MINUTE of the surgery. Sounds crazy, I know, but compared to Derek's long/intense/emotional birth this was a breeze and totally enjoyable. I kept waiting to feel them cut me open and I was ready to scream. I finally asked if they had cut me yet and the doctors said I was already open and they could see Rylie's head!! Once they had me open, Matt stood up and watched the rest of the surgery. He watched (and narrated to me) as they pulled Rylie out!!! At this point I was so overjoyed that I was enjoying everything that I started to cry tears of joy!! Matt snagged some cool pictures of Rylie being delivered and then I heard her cry! Oh what a sweet sound it was!! They cleaned Rylie up (I could watch everything) and Matt cut the umbilical cord. They wrapped up Rylie, and Matt brought her over to me. All I can say is that I was overjoyed and grateful. The doctors stitched me up and the whole surgery took about an hour!! Unbelieveable considering Derek's delivery last 2 1/2 days before the emergency c-section and my body was so drained at that point that I couldn't enjoy anything.
We were wheeled into the recovery room where we rested for an hour and then were taken to the maternity floor. I remember looking up at the clock and thinking how fast everything had gone...and now baby Rylie was here with us!

Recovering from the c-section after Rylie's birth was totally enjoyable too!!! Again, this time was much different than with Derek's birth. I felt great within the first 4 hours (once the spinal had worn off and I could feel my feet). I did NOT get a spinal headache. I did NOT have crazy hot flashes. I was NOT nearly as sore. I did NOT have any panic attacks. I couldn't wait to hold Rylie and did NOT want to give her up. God allowed me to be confident in my abilities to take care of my newborn and I couldn't wait to get out of the hospital and be home doing my normal activities.

Derek and Grammy came to visit us later that afternoon of the c-section. Derek was so sweet meeting Rylie. He has been calling her "Yi Yee" since December (when we picked out her name). He came to visit just as they were giving Rylie her first bath and enjoyed watching. Rylie gave Derek a present and once he saw what it was, he was over her and on to playing with his cars!!

Rylie is an amazing baby. She is totally different than Derek was. Rylie eats, sleeps, and poops. She is not awake for very long and then goes back to sleep again. She can sleep through anything (which is wonderful, since Derek is very active and loud). Derek did not nap much at all in the beginning. He was always awake and when he did sleep he wasn't usually in a deep sleep and would easily wake up. We are so grateful that Rylie is such a good baby. We have caught ourselves several times playing with Derek and totally forgetting that we have a 2nd kid.

Rylie's birth was a truly amazing experience, one that Matt and I are absolutely grateful to have been able to experience. I am so thankful that I got another chance to experience childbirth and that God blessed us with such an enjoyable experience. We have done a lot of reflecting on Derek's birth and comparing it to Rylie's birth (its kind of hard not to). While Derek's birth was so difficult we would NOT trade the experience or what we learned from it. It was his tough birth that allowed Rylie's birth to be so truly beautiful and special. We are so grateful to have a healthy son and daughter.

Rylie Elizabeth Buman

Born on March 9th at 12:21pm, 7lbs even, 19.75", mom (Christen) and baby are doing well.

Stay tuned for more pictures to come...

21 Month Highlights
I wanted to make sure to write down some highlights from this month prior to the arrival of our baby girl! I am sure that I will get behind on blogging, but hopefully at some point I'll catch up.

Derek now says his name, "Derr-Derr." It is the cutest thing! Sometimes he will refer to a toy or food by saying his name before the object. His verbal skills have really taken off this past month and he is saying many two word phrases. He has also started saying thank you instead of signing it. For the longest time he had invented his own sign for thank you (a double fist pump) and just this month he began to use the words!! He absolutely LOVES talking about all the animals he knows (especially owls and turtles). One of his favorite games is making the sounds for the animals and having us guess. We just LOVE hearing his cute little voice communicate his thoughts to us. He has also started calling me Mommy instead of Mama (which is totally fine by me, but funny since we always referred to me as Mama). 

Derek is such a happy boy. We love him so much!

This past week I took Derek to his last two MyGym classes (at least for a while). We attended the older class with 2 - 3 year olds. Each child took turns introducing themselves (instead of the parents doing the introductions) and when it was Derek's turn he proudly said "Derr-Derr." It just melted my heart!! He also did all the warm up exercises by himself and the balancing skill. It is so neat to see how much he is learning and what he is capable of. 

 


Here is the new stool we bought, which allows Derek to be more independent. Now we can ask him to wash his hands and he drags the stool over to the sink and washes his hands (with some help of course). He still LOVES to help me make my cappuccino each morning!

 Checking out the baby swing by giving Squiggles a ride!

Helping to get the bottles ready!

I looked up after Derek had been playing for a while and this is how I found him dressed!

 The Cozy Coupe still one of Derek's favorite toys!!

Saying "cheese!"

 Pointing out an airplane

39 Weeks Pregnant!!
Let the countdown begin....4 days (or less) until the birth of our baby girl (via a scheduled c-section)!! I feel so blessed to have had a healthy pregnancy and I can't wait to meet the baby girl I've been carrying around for 9 months. Her nursery is finished, clothes are washed and hung, bottles and breast pump supplies are sterilized, maternity pictures are taken, and our hospital bag is just about packed. My mom arrives Wednesday night to watch Derek while we are in the hospital for the c-section.
We chose her name back in November and have been calling her by it ever since. Derek calls her by her name (its the SWEETEST thing EVER) and having him be familiar with her name was one of the main reasons we were excited to pick her name ahead of time.
Please pray for a safe surgery and transition for us as we become a family of 4!!!

2 Moments to Remember:
This morning Matt went to Dunkin' Donuts to get coffee and muffins (for Derek and him) for breakfast. As we sat down to eat, Derek wanted nothing to do with the Dunkin' Donuts muffins, but kept asking for my Gluten Free pumpkin muffins. I thought it was quite ironic as I was drooling for the fresh blueberry muffin from Dunkin' Donuts and would give anything to eat it again, that Derek wanted "more" of my GF muffin. If only he knew how lucky he was to eat non-GF food.

Tonight after his bath Matt asked Derek who he wanted to read to him, Mommy or Daddy? Derek reached over and put a hand on each of our legs and said "two" with a huge smile on his face. (Clearly meaning he wanted both of us to read to him.) What a smart boy!! Our hearts melted!

36 Week Ultrasound
We had an ultrasound last week to make sure things checked out fine for our baby girl ( I was measuring just 36 cm, did the same with Derek as well). Everything looks great and we are so thankful!! Baby girl continues to be active. She is head down and measuring about 5 1/2 lbs. The doctor says that I just have small babies (fine by me)!!! I LOVED seeing her chubby little cheeks. We think she has Derek's nose. We continue to pray for her (and would LOVE your prayers as well) as we await the c-section date of March 9th.

Thomas The Train
Derek LOVES Thomas the Train. We read books about Thomas and his friends and he watches the TV show (sits long enough for  the 15 minute episodes). Recently I bought him this 35 piece puzzle (for later on - I had no intention of him having any interest in it due to the large number of pieces). When I brought it home he was so excited to see Thomas that he was asking to work on it. He stayed focused and helped put it together! Each time he works on it he gets better and better at matching the pieces.

The Thomas books have taught Derek colors, opposites such as big & small (Gordon & Percy) long & short (Thomas pulling cars & without cars), numbers, and shapes. It is so fun to watch Derek get so excited about reading Thomas books and learning at the same time!

Green Eggs and Ham
For the past few weeks Derek has been obsessed with reading Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. We have been reading it at least several times a day. We even caught him reading it on his own before his nap with our webcam! He is getting so familiar with the book that we can pause along the way and he will fill in the rhyming word!! This week several friends posted on Facebook the link of Tim Tebow reading Green Eggs and Ham (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgaLkgbNOxQ). It was a BIG hit with Derek! Yesterday alone I think we watched the video 7 times. (Watching it was a great distraction for me to cut his hair too!!) I just LOVE that Derek enjoys reading so much. He asks to read when he gets up in the morning, before his nap, after his nap and right before bed!! I hope this keeps up.