Summer Meals

There is nothing better than a warm summer day followed by a delicious summer meal!  I have such wonderful memories of summers growing up on Westover Ave.  I can remember playing outside all day long and coming home to wonderful meal made by the best mom in the world complete with meat grilled by the best dad in the world :)  Today my new little family enjoyed just that.  Even though we don't have a backyard (yet) and we live in a very little apartment (for now), it felt so wonderful to make a summer meal for my family and enjoy it together.  

So... what was on our menu tonight??

Barbecue chicken, seven layer salad, and fresh watermelon :)

We even had a desert of pound cake with homemade whipped cream and fresh strawberries!

Soon the Martin's will be moving to Mobile and I cannot wait to enjoy our meals outside on the patio or deck or even on a picnic blanket.  I also cannot wait to watch my kids make a mess eating ice cream for dessert and then have a fun bath time before bed :) 

Roly Poly

My Growing Boy

                     

About one hour old :)

Today Joseph is 4 months old!!  I cannot believe how fast the time has flown by!  He has had some major milestones in the past few days leading up to his 4 month birthday :)  He just found his toes and rolled over all in the same day! He can now roll all the way over from his back to his stomach and back to his back!  What a big boy! 

To celebrate today here are some pictures from the past four months to see how much he has changed and grown :)

I know I am cute :)

Sweet Dreams

Got my hands up, they're playing my song...

        

All ready for the bay

                

Look at me mom!

Holding that head up :)

Playing in his Jungle Gym

My HAPPY baby

Emma's Excited

Here is an adorable video of my niece Emma when she found out that baby Joseph had arrived.

Joseph's Birth :)

So I know I am almost four months behind on this story and post but at least I am FINALLY posting!  I typed up the story of sweet Joseph's birth to post about three months ago so here it is for all of my followers!

Joseph Louis Martin's Birth Story

       It certainly was an adventure preparing for Joseph’s arrival.  By 37 weeks I was already 3 cm dilated, 90% effaced and he had dropped down into my pelvis as far as he could go so needless to say I was uncomfortable and ready to meet him over 3 weeks before he wanted to come out. J  Philip and I also ended up moving Jan 28 and 29 when we were 38 weeks and so were busy with a lot to do!  Philip signed up to present a huge presentation on the 27^th and was overwhelmed with that prior to the move so I spent those days packing up the kitchen and trying to get things organized.  Our wonderful friends Nick and Emily helped us move all of our clothing, kitchen items, and various things around the house on the 28^th and we hired movers to move our big furniture on the 29^th.  My mom was wonderful enough to fly up earlier to help us move in to the apartment and get settled.  It would have been extremely hard without her help and so I am so thankful and will one day (I promise) repay her.  We managed to get settled in and comfortable quickly and were able to relax a few days while waiting for Joseph to make his appearance. 

39 weeks

         Let me just say it is so hard to not be in control and just allow God to pick the right time!  I was getting a little frustrated and was ready for him to come at 39 weeks and then 2 days later I woke up with a scratchy throat.  This scratchy throat turned into an AWEFUL sickness beyond any I have experienced in a long time!  I was up all night coughing… coughing so much it was hurting my belly!  I am pretty sure it was bronchitis and I am still getting over it over two weeks later (along with Philip and my mother who I kindly passed it on to L).  So after wanting Joseph to come any time I all the sudden started wanting him to wait so I could get over this sickness!  I had my 40 week and 2 day appointment on February 14^th and was told I needed to schedule and induction for that coming Saturday the 19^th.  We scheduled our induction still hoping he would make an appearance that week.  Philip at this point was beginning his sickness and I was in the middle.  I made dinner for us that night (rice a roni and chicken- what a romantic meal) but Philip was so sick he could not eat L.  He went to bed around 8 and had a temperature of 101.  I followed not to much later but was awoken about 3:30 with my first contraction!!!! At this point in the night I had moved to the guest bedroom because I couldn’t sleep with my coughing and could spread way out with my big belly in another bed.  It was fairly short but I knew it was a real contraction.  At this point I didn’t know if I would go into labor that night or in the next few days.  The next contraction came 30 min later and lasted a little longer.  The next one was 20 min later and then all the sudden I had one that was 9 min apart then the next was 5 min after then 13 min and then 9 again.  I was a little confused because I thought it might be false labor since they were not even or steady.  I decided to wake up poor Philip and let him know.  He came out to the living room with me but all of the sudden I had 3 in a row that were about 5 min apart and Philip called the hospital to let them know we were on our way!  

       We got there at 5:30 and everyone was confused because they thought I had come in for an induction because that is the time set for you to come in to be induced.  I had to explain that no, I am in labor.  They checked to make sure I was in labor and see how far dilated I was.  I was 7 cm!!!! So they rolled me on into a delivery room!! Philip had to go downstairs and register us in, the nurses began hooking me up to all sorts of machines and asking all sorts of questions.  I was signing papers to who knows what… it all happened so fast. Philip came back up and held my hand for a few min and then he had to go while they put in my epidural.  That was one of the scariest things for me… I had to keep reminding myself that if Philip could do it three times before he had back surgery I could do it!  After it was in Philip came back and was so wonderful throughout all of labor.  I felt pretty good after having the epidural and so we just waited for me to become fully dilated.  

Happy Family

This part took some time because I was almost 10 cm for quite a while but of course Joseph was worth the wait J  Finally around 1:15 we started pushing to get him as far down as we could before they called in the doctor.  Because of the epidural I really enjoyed this part because I knew that I was about to meet my sweet baby boy and I could not wait!!!  They called the doctor in and only a few pushes later Joseph was born!! He let out a huge scream and all of the nurses were impressed with his nice set of lungs J  He was 7 lbs. 13 oz. and 21 inches long.  It was so wonderful to finally meet him.  Philip and I were so happy we could not even look at each other because we both started to cry every time we did.  Joseph was and is so beautiful!  I could not believe he was finally here!  We held him close for a while and then were told by the nurses that my parents and brother were waiting outside and were so excited to come in.  They came in and held Joseph and it was so wonderful to share him with our family. 

Sweet Little Baby Joseph

Back to Blogging...

So I know its been a while... but I am going to do my best to blog once a week from this point on... there is a lot coming up in the Martin household soon.  We are moving to Mobile and so will have much more to blog about in the coming months!

For now I am just so thankful to my friend Sheena Tobin for designing my new blog header.  She sent this to me back in November and it has taken me this long to figure out how to put it up as my header.