After getting back from the hunt we started dying our eggs. Bradley wanted to do all of his blue and Gracie wanted to do all of her pink :) I had to convince them to try the other colors :) Sammie did very little, she dropped an egg in one color but pretty much wanted to dump the colors out, so she mostly played with the stickers. It seems to be a tradition now to put the stickers on our faces instead of the eggs :)
We've gone to public egg hunts every year since Bradley was 1 and I've always had mixed feelings about them. I always thought it was a fun idea and COULD be fun, then we get there and it's a mad house and people are pushy and aggressive. You'd think they hid $100 bills in the eggs the way people acted. And a lot of them were very unorganized and unprepared for the amount of people that showed up. And yet, afterwards Bradley has always seemed excited about the 2 eggs that he did get, so I keep going :) This year they had one at his preschool. We were to bring a dozen filled eggs the day before for each child participating. We showed up Saturday morning and went in the gym area and sang songs until it was time for the hunt. It was such a nice day and they were able to hide some inside as well as outside all around the building. They let the under 2 year olds go first, then 4 and under, then older kids. It was by far the best hunt I've ever been to. It was busy but not terrible. No pushing, no rushing to be first in line to get out, no parents hurrying to pick up eggs before other people, and no one stuffing their baskets full when you weren't supposed to take more than 12 each. It was SUCH a nice, relaxing experience this time. We took our time and found them all around outside. People left pretty quickly and there were still many eggs on the ground so I was able to put Sammie down and she wondered around finding eggs, then putting them back to find more. Bradley was able to hunt for eggs with his best friend from school Adrian and we all had a lot of fun!
The morning after Gracie's party Tammy woke up wondering if her water had broken and she went in to see the doctor. He checked her out, water bag still in tact, but she was already dilated 2 cm - which can mean nothing because she can be stuck there for weeks, but she was also having regular contractions that weren't going away. I told her I had a feeling something was happening. She went back to work and had contractions all day. Around 4 I told her I thought she should go take a warm shower to see if contractions sped up - that's always what told me if I was in real labor or not. So she went to Mom's house, took a shower and tried to relax a little. Not too much longer I was on the phone with her and she was out of breath, couldn't speak through the contractions and was close to tears from the pain - and I couldn't stop smiling or contain my excitement :) Her doctor met us at urgent care at 7:30 to check her out and she was 5 1/2 cm and in active labor and we went to the hospital. She did amazing! She held out until about 11 for the epidural and handled everything perfectly. She dilated pretty quickly but he was pretty high still so she had to wait until he dropped lower before they could break her water and speed things up a bit. She started pushing at 6:15am and literally 3 contractions and less than 15 minutes later he was born! She was 1 day shy of 37 weeks so no matter what he was going to have to go to NICU for the first 12 hours to be watched carefully, which was understandably hard for her. He ended up having a little low blood sugar at first, then was having issues with his billiruben levels, so had to stay in there longer. 2 1/2 days later he was out and they went home. He had to have blood tests done every day for a while and they had one scare and almost had to re-admit him to the hospital because the billiruben levels were rising again, but luckily they went down just in time! He is amazing and adorable and Tammy and Craig are doing wonderful and I just love seeing them as parents! It was such an amazing experience being in there with her and I THANK her for that! It was incredible experiencing the miracle of birth from a different perspective.
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Her party was late this year, really late for me - later than I've ever had one before. We had Sammie's party on her actual birthday, then Gracie's birthday was 6 days later. I felt bad for her on her birthday because she thought since it was her birthday now all her friends were coming over. She kept asking when they'd be there and I had to explain several times that it was just us and her birthday PARTY would be later. It kept getting bumped back. Kevin had to work all day Saturday and Sunday one weekend, then we had Tammy's baby shower, then Poppy was going to be out of town, then we finally found a day. It was over a month late and I felt really bad. Bradley was even asking me if she was turning 4 now :( It wasn't THAT late! :)
Originally she said she wanted a Piggy Party. Since Bradley was a Dinosaur for Halloween and he had a Dinosaur party, it only made sense that she would have a Piggy Party since she was a Piggy - I totally get her reasoning. But I thought it was kind of hard to plan everything around pigs :) So I thought a Rainbow party would be fun, especially since the party was so late it was really close to St Patrick's Day :) I had a lot of fun planning and decorating. I do realize that they are getting older and soon I will probably have to have their parties somewhere cooler than my house, because I can only make my house somewhat entertaining - so I am enjoying the party planning here while I can :) I was hoping the day would be nice enough for outdoor activities, but it wasn't. My house isn't all that big and seems much smaller with a dozen kids running around, but I think they all had fun, and Gracie had all her friends there and she was happy :)
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