Our sweet baby GIRL!

Baby Addison Hope was born on June 9th at 4:00 in the afternoon and weighed in at 8 pounds 13 ounces. It is quite ridiculous that I'm just now posting this little angel baby's pictures, because she is almost four months old, which I can hardly believe! Her birth story is already fading from my memory a bit so I wanted to be sure and "write it down". Don't judge me for waiting so long....we're really busy at the Landress house!

I began having contractions about 10:00pm on June 8th which was a Wednesday night. We went to church as usual. I proclaimed to the ladies at church that I was feeling no signs of labor though PAST due and was very ready to have this baby. Little did I know she was going to make her debut the very next day. I stayed up all night timing contractions, trying to rest, packing last minute items, doing dishes/laundry, and finally decided about 3:00am it was time to get serious about calling the doctor and getting to the hospital. Mitch was already up at this point showering and getting his bag together

I called our wonderful sitters Linda and Brittany Wiggins who had agreed to be on standby any hour to come and stay with the boys. Just as promised they came over dark and early and stayed with the boys. It was such a blessing to leave the boys in bed undisturbed. We also made calls to my parents and Mitch's parents to let them know Addison was on her way and they should be too!

Mitch and I loaded up in the van and at this point my contractions were steady about 4-5 minutes apart, but not terribly painful. When they checked me in triage I was still in pretty early labor, so my doctor sent word that I could either go home or walk the halls of the hospital and then be examined again. Since we live an hour from the hospital, I opted for the walking option (I was trying to avoid pitocin and an epidural so my wonderful doctor didn't want to interfere too much with my progress).

Mitch and I walked, and walked, and walked for about 2 hours. Same floor, same confusing circles. At this point I had not slept and was exhausted. The contractions were not extremely painful yet but were getting stronger. My doctor checked me again and agreed that I could be admitted. She stripped my membranes to help things along and told me to walk some more (glad I packed my tennis shoes, even though I looked pretty ridiculous in hospital gown).

Due to a miscommunication, the nurse insisted on hooking me to a IV bag of fluids for my next marathon stroll around the labor and delivery floor. My contractions were getting more intense at this point and were only 2-3 minutes apart. I could no longer walk during the contractions but had to stop and hang onto the hand rails along the hallways (so that's what they are there for) with both hands and breath through them. All the while dragging a very rickety IV pole down the hall with me. Mitch was in charge of timing contractions and driving the IV pole. We're a good team! We both stayed very calm but I was in quite a bit of pain. After about an hour, of walking, stopping, timing, walking, stopping, timing, I was admitted to my room. Here they hooked me to the monitors and I took a seat in the rocking chair. And I rocked and rocked and rocked, stopping for contractions that were getting more intense. Mitch massaged my sore legs between contractions, but not during (please don't distract me during a contraction) My nurse checked my progress after a whole lot of rocking and discovered that I was 8 cm! Woohoo! As a completely unimportant side note, my delivery nurse was SUPER sweet and looked a lot like Casey Anthony....fortunately she wasn't Casey though and we didn't mention the resemblence to her, for fear of retribution! At this point I was told to stay in bed and on the monitors and she also told me that my water had broke. I knew that it had not broke, but she assured me that she thought it had so I couldn't get out of bed.

At this point I was terribly shocked that I had got to 8 cm without excruciating pain and stress and I was VERY excited because the nursing team started transforming the room. You know how it goes, they started gearing up the room with all the medical instruments, mirror for me to watch, the baby bed/warmer. As you can imagine, we were thinking....THIS IS IT! Any minute now. There were also tears for the first time. They were tears of pain and excitement.

Little did I know that my "transition" labor would take another 3 hours! All the other hours were a breeze, but the combination of being confined to the bed and the more intense contractions and the lack of sleep (I had been up about 30 hours at this point)....let's just say I didn't handle it as well as all the other hours combined. Lots of tears, lots of pushing that little button to get the nurse to come in, and a couple doses of Nubain. When my doctor finally came in to check on me she discovered that my water had not broken (I already knew that) and decided to break my water. She also is a wonderful, reassuring presence and coach. She made me sit up in bed, relax, breath, and within 30 minutes of her coming in Baby Addison Hope made her debut! The cord was very tangled around her, but my Doctor quickly unwound her and we got to see and hold our sweet baby girl!

Of course, no words can describe the sweet joy of holding the baby that you have longed for and felt inside you for months and months. It is a miraculous gift of our Creator and in that moment Mitch and I both felt completely blessed and totally in love with this new little Landress!

Fun Baby Tidbits

* When Noah found out I was going to have a baby, he looked at me (Mitch was sitting right across the table from me) and said very seriously....."does Dad know yet?"

* Noah REALLY wants a sister. We find out next week who is living inside there. We've really been talking to him about how God knows just what our family needs and that we are going to be happy and grateful with whoever God chooses to give us....boy or girl!

* Mitch has a whole list of names (just ask him) that he is pulling for. I'm having a really hard time settling on any of them so far and sadly I'm not much help in the suggestion of names department either. I'm hoping that after the ultrasound (NEXT WEEK!), when we'll know the gender I can be of more help. Right now I'm admittedly pretty useless.

* Levi doesn't really get it but will say, "baby in dair?" and point to my belly.

* Noah's name suggestions include sweetie and wife. hmm...probably not going to go with either of those.

* This pregnancy has been really very easy so far! God has been very gracious to me. Even in the beginning the nausea and tiredness were not unbearable and even when it was a bit much, I was just grateful for the sign that things were "normal" and my body was doing it's thing.

* There is some debate about the due date. My calculations were June 10th but according to measurements at my first ultrasound the baby was measuring big. So the Dr. set my due date at June 3rd. Just knowing my history of gigantic children, I'm betting on it being just another large baby!

* The boys are roomies now! In preparation for the baby's arrival we went ahead and put them in the same room on a bunk bed. This probably deserves a post all of it's own. So more on that later:)

Our Latest Little Miracle

This is the first glimpse of Landress Baby #3. We are thrilled beyond belief that God is allowing us the opportunity to raise another child for His glory! This ultrasound was done at 12 weeks and is a pretty incredible image if you ask me, of course I am a little biased in my opinion I'm sure. God had already knit together this little person in my womb in 12 short weeks. As the tech was taking measurements we could see the baby kicking, squirming, stretching. All the while, I was feeling no movement yet! God is performing a miracle INSIDE of me, while I just sit back take my prenatal vitamins and consume completely ridiculous amounts of ice cream, doritos, and cheetos. I can certainly not take any of the credit for the work He is doing in me. In fact, I'm quite humbled that he would even allow me this opportunity to carry, birth, raise, cherish, instruct, and discipline another child who will bear His image. Praying that God would find Mitch and I faithful in pointing this little one to Christ and eagerly awaiting the day we will look on his or her sweet little face!

Noah's "Real" Glasses

A while back I blogged about the Fake Blue Glasses that Noah has worn for a couple years now off and on. Well several months back Noah's dream of wearing real glasses became a reality. What a lucky guy, huh?

We stumbled upon a free eye exam that turned out to be a huge blessing. It was there that we discovered he had a bad astigmatism and actually wouldn't even be legal to drive if he were an adult. Who knew!?! Not his very attentive parents! Anyway, it was a little disheartening to watch him take the exam. I assured them that he knew his letters, but he was doing so poorly they switched to pictures. He would say things like "that one looks like........hmmm....a bench?" Or "that looks like a ..... whatever that is". Sad and funny all at the same time.

He's had the glasses for month or so and loves them! We go back in December to get the lenses that will give him 20/20 vision. They're having to wean him to the correct Rx because it would be too much of a drastic change to give him the correct lenses now. "Writing It Down" so that I'll remember to get Levi's eyes checked!

The Things They Say.....

Noah: Mom I love you to past the chocolate kind of love.

Levi: Instead of Knock-knock at the beginning of jokes. Levi says, "Ding Dong" Usually when you say "who's there" the answer involves a puppy and barking and of course laughing!

Noah: When someone does something wrong, instead of saying they broke the rules, Noah says they "cracked one of God's rules". Unfortunately he's much better at pointing this out when someone else does it rather than himself. Guess we all have that problem!

Levi: If you ask him his name he says he's "Beanths" His nickname is beans, he's got a bit of a lisp.

Noah: I love everyone that knows me....even my family!

Levi: He calls every grandma at church by their "grandma name"; Gigi, Mimi, Coco, etc. It makes their day when he calls them by their "name". BTW his own grandmas are Nana and Mona...we're not sure where mona came from.

Noah: At least once in every sermon that Mitch preaches, Noah will look up at me and whisper, "Is that right?"

Levi: Last night at church Levi called me "Mrs. Jennifer"

Our Birthday Boy - Levi Beans

It is so hard to believe that our baby Levi is Two Years Old! Levi is truly a joy at the Landress house. He talks up a storm and loves getting in on whatever Big Brother Noah is doing.

For Levi's birthday we decided to take him to a Character Meal at Disney World. Thanks to Papa's great discount this is a fun option for us for birthdays. So Noah, Mitch, Grandma, Papa, Aunt Jessica, and I all joined Levi for a fun lunch at the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom. Also went on a few rides and had a fantastic day!

Some of the days highlights:

Levi yelling "ALL ABOARD!" at the Train Station.


His face lighting up when he saw the characters.


Levi enjoying me singing the Winnie The Pooh song to him at lunch (he may be the only person around that enjoys my singing!)

The way he now finds "hidden mickeys" EVERYWHERE. Basically anytime three circles are in any sort of proximity it's Mickey Mouse.

On Levi's actual birthday we took him to Toys R Us to pick out a toy from Nana and Papa. Of everything in the store he picked out a piano/keyboard. He is a little music lover!
Some of Levi's Favorite things these days are Barney, playing cars, listening to music, going to "chuch", and of course Frog and Purplish (his two favorite stuffed animals). We love you Levi Beans!

He's Learning Too

Three to four days a week, Levi, Noah and I sit down at the table and do "school". It's just part of our day now, worked into our routine. Usually both the boys have a snack and I have my mid morning caffinated beverage. Levi has a coloring book, some crayons, and usually something else that he insisted on bringing to the table with him.

We usually sit there for about an hour working on Noah's school work, but recently I've been amazed at the stuff Levi is picking up. He's nibbling away at his snack and will suddenly blurt out something I've been teaching Noah. Like when we're counting Levi will often say the next number. He sings along when we sing the days of the week. He walked up to our world map recently and pointed out Antartica (it's the one closest to his eye level, I guess). Noah was going on a shape hunt around the house the other day and Levi came in the living room with a peice from a puzzle and proclaimed "octogon"!

I love homeschooling and just to be honest, some days are much better than others. All in all the good days outweigh the more difficult ones and it's very fun to watch Noah get better and better at reading and to see the things Levi is picking up along the way too!