Notice anything different?

It's been a fun and definitely memorable week.  Here Sam is after a visit to the dentist.  He was accidentally kicked in the mouth by a neighbor kid with roller blades on while playing football...yes, roller blades on while playing football.  Over the two days while I was in the hospital, his gum started to swell.  This tooth has been an issue since it came in...it was a "gemini tooth"...baby tooth merged with a tooth bud that didn't go away in the womb...and an expensive tooth at that.  But now, no more tooth.  When the dentist stated that his recommendation would be to extract it and Sam heard that it should be taken out...he piped up with an "Okay!"  He's been wanting to be like the big kids and join the "No Teeth Club"...this wasn't how I expected it to happen.  :)  I got to watch the whole procedure...wish it wasn't my kid that it was happening to...but it was really cool.  He was a super trooper and is very happy to share a smile and the story with anyone that will listen.  

Introducing Andrew James...

A baby is such an amazing miracle and blessing.  I have been spending countless moments just staring at him and enjoying every moment with him and the family moments that we are all sharing together.  Could it be that my husband is on the way out the door to the "V" doctor and this could be/is the last?  I know that I'll get a comment from him on that!

After a very quick delivery...9 minutes from the time I got on the delivery bed to the time he entered this world...I look back at the morning and chuckle...a lot.  Some might think that I was trying to break my mother's record of not making it to the hospital and giving birth to my sister, Misti, in the back seat of their car.  No, it just so happened that Eric was having an early morning international conference call that he was the head of that morning at 6am.  We both thought that Nugget just might wait until this time to make his grand entrance.  Sure enough...I started having contractions before the call started and I went downstairs to eat breakfast and was timing them.  They stayed steady and 3 - 4 minutes apart.  I wasn't for certain if they were the real deal or not as I had been having contractions for about a week and they would stop after an hour.  An hour passed and they started to get a little more intense.  Called the doctor.  Went upstairs to tell Eric and you can imagine the look I got from him.  Woke up Jack and Sam so they could get ready for school and told them that I was heading to the hospital.  Woke up Eric's mother...thank goodness she was here already.  Planned on driving to the hospital by myself...then started to think that perhaps that wasn't the best idea.  Went back upstairs to make sure Eric couldn't come (was going to have Rose come with me). He was trying to transfer the call over to someone else so that they could take over for him...got that done and out the door we went.  I knew and was preparing myself on the way to the hospital that an epideral was pretty much out of the question.  Arrived at the hospital...checked in dialated at a 6...went to the delivery room...started yelling "shit" and people started flooding into the room...and there he was...

So perfect.

Everything was done.  I looked at Eric and wondered if he was going to make it.  Seriously.  I remember the nurse asking him if he was going to be alright, too.  I then introduced myself to my delivery doctor.  Told Eric that I would do that again and he said to not go there.  :)

A day's work all before 8 o'clock.