June 28th, 2012

I woke up at what seemed to be the norm for the last month, at 3 am with not the norm cold sweat and feeling 'different'. Its hard to explain. With Kade I knew I was in labor because my water broke and the contractions went crazy and definitely made their presence known! I guess I just expected labor to kind of start the same as last time so when my contractions just kept coming I didn't think anything of it. I wasn't in pain and more just uncomfortable but lets be real.... at this point that wasn't anything new! Finally after an hour and a half of very consistent and pretty hard contractions I called Cole (He fell asleep downstairs haha) and told him to come up. We talked a bit and I told him I wanted him to be aware but at the same time I wanted to wait a bit because I didn't feel like packing up driving and in just to be turned around. If you know Cole you would understand why I waited so long before I said anything.... He gets just a bit worked up and is geared toward action. He literally laid next to me wide awake as I just tried to relax asking me every 2 mins how I was feeling and telling me that we should just go in. I love him ;) Another half hour went by and it was now 5 am and I couldn't remember the last time I felt them move...... Something I think every mom worries about at some point. I gave the go ahead to Cole to call Leslie to come over and hang till Kade woke up.
Leslie came straight over and in the meantime we got our bags packed. As she walked in the door she couldn't stop telling us how relaxed we seemed and I just laughed. I told her that we would more then likely be back in a couple hours and that we just wanted to be sure the babies were okay.
On the way we laughed at how different last time was. Guide was under construction and my contractions were so close and pretty painful that every bump we hit added that much more to what was already going on. This time we were joking around and laughing! haha Go figure.
We got to the birthing center and started filling out all the paper work and got admitted. They started the monitoring and said it would last about 20 mins and then they would tell us whats going on. They made sure right away that both Kallen and Kennadi were okay which finally put me at ease. 20 mins turned into an hour and Dr. Mallory came in to check me and gave us the news that I was 6 cm dilated, extremely soft and ready to go. Hearing those words were scary, surprising, exciting, relieving and overwhelming! Because they both were breach we knew a C-section was in order. I'm not going to lie, I was a nervous wreck about surgery! Something completely foreign for one and for two I knew I wasn't going to be able to hold my babies right away like I wanted. However, everything moved so quickly that I didn't really have a moment to think to hard about all of that. Before I knew it I was being told to take deep breaths and bend over as far as I could. It took three attempts to get the spinal in and on the second attempt they hit something that made my whole body tweak out and let me tell you that is such an ODD feeling! My baby belly was so big at this point I had a hard time so Mallory told me to take a deep breath, think of yoga and he basically sat on my shoulders haha While I couldn't breath I was just thankful we got it in and that it was working!
Once I was fully numb they went to work and Kallen made his appearance at 8:31 am and Kennadi right after at 8:32 am. I couldn't believe how quickly it all happened and that they were finally here and healthy! As soon as they said Baby A 8:31 am and heard his cry I bawled like a little baby... Not surprising but the weird part was being so incredibly happy but still so anxious to hear Baby B. Kennadi came out crying as well- HUGE relief- but had to be 'worked' on. Her breathing wasn't very regular and just to be on top of everything they took her to the nursery right away.

One of the many reasons why I love Cole so much is because of the way he loves his family and the way he is over the top protective. We knew right away that they were making sure we stayed calm, and I know there could be a lot of things worse than her breathing not being 100%, but as parents anything short of perfect is scary. I could tell Cole didn't really know where to go so I told him to go with the babies to the nursery and that I would see him in a bit. For as quick as it took Kallen and Kennadi to arrive it felt like forever till I got to see them again. Once I was all stitched up, I got taken to the recovery room and Cole was running back and forth between me and the babies giving me an update every 5 minutes :) My mom stayed and kept me company the rest of the time.

After all of that (I know I might've gone on and on) we have added two brand spankin' new beautiful and healthy babies making us now a family of five! I really am so in love and feel so complete. Just when I think Cole and I make a great team, we're tested yet again and I am amazed. My dream team:)

Kallen Douglas 8:31 am 6 lbs .04 oz and Kennadi Ann 8:32 am 5 lbs .08 oz

Thank you God for your many many blessings!!

Performance PARADE!

Julie had her students chose local businesses to do some research on and give some feedback on what they think would improve business such as marketing. The students that chose Performance Driving School decided it would be fun to get in the Lynden Farmers Day parade and I thought it was a brilliant idea! Cole on the other had thought it would be awesome however, he didn't want to be in it.... haha Mr. Center of attention-- Kidding! I told him to buck up and go get em. We got T-shirts made, had Crew and Brodes in the gator, both Tom and Cole in the Cruz and the students tossin' out candy. Something really simple and totally awesome!
While Julie walked the parade on the sidelines to watch the boys in the gator, I had Kyler and Kader further down the way posted up and hangin out. Chuck and Leslie and my mom and dad hung out with us to make sure that if they boys decided to run someone could catch them. At that point they were just a tad too quick for my extremely pregnant self! Courtney and Kendal decided to join our group as well and the three littles had a bawl chasing down candy and playing tag around all the adults.

Hey good lookin'!

Some of the best mascots out there!

These two goofy kids are becoming best buds for sure. It's pretty cute to watch them play together.

Courtney and Kendal

Memi and the boys

Lizzie Lou (Kades daycare buddy) found us and also hung out :) She is such a lovey!

Kade took off for Auntie Leah and Uncle Jimmys house so my dad went and chased him down! :)

Papa and Kykys

Family photo op.... Pretty sure this might've been the last one taking as a family of three:)

Kade was in LOVE with every horse and every tractor what went by. There was a lot of neighing going on!