Big Brother gives kisses!

Austin turns 2!

Austin turns 2 on Monday but we decided to have his birthday party a little bit early at Amazing Jake's with his cousins! He wasn't sure what to think of the candle-apparantly he only likes fire on television but not in real life. He was completely overstimulated and loved it! He ate pizza, went on the teacups, the frog dropper ride-he didn't really care for that, train, carasoul and played skee ball (with mom's help so they would actually go in a hole and stop rolling back to us). He got a helium balloon and party pack. He took a solid 3 hour nap when we got home. He loves his new little brother and gives him lots of kisses. He isn't sure how to share the attention and I'm sure we'll get that all figured out in the next couple of weeks. Tom let me sleep a full night last night and I'm lovin' life today! Two is definitely busier than one:)

Axel James Mead has arrived!

On Saturday the 17th, we were making ourselves laugh by trying everything possible to induce labor. I walked the mall for an hour including 40 flights of stairs, accupuncture-where he performed pulse therapy and told us within 1-2 days and he was right!, castor oil was on the list but wasn't brave enough to try that. I had a pedicure the day before, and bowling was scheduled for Saturday but I was too sore and tired from the stairs. On Sunday morning I felt sick and flu-like or like I was having the worst period ever. I talked to a friend that said that meant the baby was coming within 24 hours-she was right too!

Sunday night around 11:40pm, the contractions were going strong and got stronger when I stood up and walked around. That was the last symptom we were waiting on to know that I was in true labor. I timed them for 40 minutes and they were 4-5 minutes apart. I woke up Tom and said, "Get ready, we are leaving!" and he asked if I wanted him to time contractions and I said, "No need, I already have been for 40 minutes and this is the real thing". We got to the hospital around 1am. I was asking for an epidural and the check in nurse was skeptical I was really in labor since this was my first birth. Tom says I was persistent and firm on the epidural haha. He was cracking up. I ended up getting an epidural at 2:30am and that was heaven! Don't know how anyone has a baby without that epidural. My contractions starting slowing down so I got to sleep around 10 hours which was great since I hadn't slept the two previous nights. I started pushing around 2pm and Axel arrived at 2:45 at 9 lbs. and 23 inches long. His conehead was huge! By Friday he was 22.5 inches long which is still so long, it's crazy. He is perfectly healthy and we feel so incredibly blessed to have our two, beautiful healthy boys. Glad to be home and so grateful Aunt Janet has been in town to help us with Austin. She stepped in as my mom has passed away and Tom's mom is serving a mission in the Ukraine and was unable to be with us. Life is great!

Slight change to baby name

We have switched the middle name of Axel from Gene to James. Axel James Mead will be his name. We are down to 18 days before due date. He dropped about 10 days ago and the nurse said he will probably come a little early. We are holding her to that and hope it comes true! We are anxious to see his little face and hold him in our arms. Gayla's work had a baby shower on Tuesday and when Austin saw a co-worker's one year old, he ran up to her and gave her a hug. She then held onto his shirt and was walking with him as he scooted backwards. Then he saw another co-worker's 2 year old boy and got excited and gave him a car to play cars with him and they didn't stop running around the hour and a half we were there. We think Austin is going to LOVE having a brother of his own here at home at all times! Cherishing the nights of full sleep as they are not every night anymore. Axel loves to kick all day and night, which I'm grateful since he lets us know he is healthy but waking up at 2:30 and not being able to go back to sleep can be a bummer. I guess it is getting us ready for his arrival! We will post pics when Axel arrives!