A New Baby and Some Pirates & Princesses

On Thursday, my mom and I went to be with my sister-in-law at the hospital for the delivery of her last baby. She has 2 little girls and this would be her and my brothers 3rd child. They decided to not find out what this baby was (my favorite way to do it) so I was excited to be there when the baby was born. We got to the hospital and she had been there for about 18 hours waiting to progress further. She was at 4.5 cms and then an hour later at 5 cms. It was slow going. She kept saying she felt bad we were all sitting there and was trying to send us away to do things instead of sitting there bored. Luckily, we didn't listen to her though. My brother did listen to her though and went to get something to eat.

The nurses started coming in more frequently and then finally said the baby was not tolerating things very well so they would move Emily around trying to help the baby. I started to call my brother then, but thought, no, he will be right back and he probably needed a break. Then Emily's face got really red and she said her epidural was not working anymore because she could really feel some low pains. They checked her again (20 minutes after my brother had left) and they said she was complete and ready to push. I hurried up and called my brother who had just sat down to eat at a fast food place about 10 minutes away - that would be 10 minutes when there is no construction traffic. He was on the way, but we were not sure if that was fast enough - the baby literally went from not wanting to leave to on the express train out!

The nurse asked Emily who was staying for the delivery because it needed to be 2 people, 3 at the most. She said everyone is staying and the nurse agreed to let us stay if we stayed in the corners out of the way. I had no idea I was going to get to stay in the room for delivery - I was so excited! I have delivered a baby naturally, but watching it happen it totally different! So, there were about 15 of us in the delivery room standing there in silence waiting for my brother. Emily did not push through 4 sets of contractions waiting on him to get there. I called him a few more times and he finally answered and he was in construction traffic, that he finally just went around the flag men and barrels and slid sideways into some grass near the helipad and came running in. All of us were sitting there watching through the window as he got there - it was pretty funny (well, now it is, then it was more of excitement and relief). He came in and she got to start pushing - which lasted about 45 minutes.

At 3:15 Emerson Lauren Gunn was born weighing 7 lbs 4 ozs and was a long 21" tall! I could not believe it was a girl - I just knew it would have been a boy and have been calling this baby Max for months! Emily did great and I will never forget getting to watch that baby being born - it was amazing! Womens bodies are amazing!

Happy tears :)

The next day Nathan and I took Noah to the Disney Pirates & Princess show in Little Rock. We felt Ryan was not old enough yet for this, she just doesn't have the attention span for it yet and tickets are not cheap. So, we are hoping next year she will be ready, but this year she had fun with Granny instead.

Souvenirs!

This is how he stayed the whole time - he loved it!

Sophia used her amulet to call Cinderella - Noah was SO excited! 

Sophias grand finale :)

The show kept Noah's attention the entire time, he did not look away at all! He was dancing, singing, and smiling the whole time. It was a great show and was timed perfect - not too short, not too long and a good intermission. Noah wanted a souvenir and I was so excited he picked the cheapest thing! He also insisted that we bring Ryan something - he is always wanting to make sure everyone has something :) When we were leaving they gave us fliers for a superhero show coming in January, I am thinking that will make a good Christmas present :)

Dancing with the pirates :)

Tick-tock croc getting Hook :)

The Jake & The Neverland Pirates crew

All of the cast!

So many memories packed in the last few days :)

My Best Friends Wedding

Before we get to the wedding, let's back up to where this all started. I knew Chance growing up, he and my brother were friends so he spent lots of time at our house. Cassie and I have been friends since we were little also. Our dads worked together and we would have play dates when we were little (sorry about that whole falling asleep during the tea party thing Cassie :) ) Flashing forward many years, I ran into Chance at Tech in the parking pass line. He told me if I had any single friends to hook him up - I told him I had this one friend Cassie and that I thought they would be good together. He was all for the hook-up, Cassie on the other hand was not sure about dating someone younger than us. I kept mentioning Cassie to Chance and Chance to Cassie over the next few years and finally just gave up on them ever getting together. Then I got a phone call at about 3:00 a.m. from Cassie from a bar on Dickson Street. The conversation went something like this: Cassie- "Hey, guess who I just ran into at the bar? Chance! You were right, he is cute!" Chance- "Jessie, we finally met but she didn't even know my name" Me - "Smooth Cassie, real smooth. Well, I am glad you guys found each other and I would love to hear more about it not at 3:00 a.m." Cassie - "We gotta go, bye!"

Not long after that Chance moved to Hawaii to work as a chef. Cassie went to "visit" him a few months later. Then I got another phone call from Cassie (this time not in the middle of the night thankfully) that she was not coming back and asked me to put her stuff in storage. I was so happy for her (and a little concerned and honestly a little jealous too) - this was going to be an amazing time in her life. Cassie and Chance have been together ever since. She finally found someone to love her in the way she has always deserved and that I prayed for her to find for so long. I love hearing about their adventures and I vicariously live through her sometimes :)

I was SO excited when they got engaged and then a little sad the wedding was going to be in Hawaii. Then overly excited when the wedding got moved to Arkansas and I was asked to be Matron of Honor! I have never held that title before and was SO happy to get to! They got married at a lake house in Eureka Springs. The pictures online of this house were nice, but it was amazing in person! I loved it! The wedding was on the front porch and the reception on the back porch and gazebo. Everything turned out so simple and beautiful - a perfect combination. Noah was her ring bearer and he was the cutest little thing ever! I may have heavily bribed him but it was worth it. About 30 minutes before the wedding I could not find him anywhere, then I found him swinging at the swingset with his head down and a sad look on his face. As he got closer to me I could see why he was so sad - he had fell in a mud puddle. In his wedding clothes. Before pictures and the wedding. I knew if I yelled at him he would melt down, so I had to stay calm. I took him inside and got him washed off while he was saying "I am sorry I did that" over and over. Thankfully after about 30 wet napkins and spraying his shoes off I was able to get the mud off or lighten it to where you couldn't see it in pictures. He is always keeping me on his toes I swear!

The ceremony was beautiful! They wrote their own vows (something I always wanted to do but was too shy to do that in front of everyone). I really had to try not to cry, especially with the bride, groom, most of the bridesmaids and guests crying. After the ceremony it was time for the amazing food Chance and his chef friends prepared - it was all SO good! I am not one to try new things but I was trying it all and then asking what I was eating. Since I don't cook I am amazed by even the simplest cooking, so this stuff was blowing my mind! It did give me the desire to want to cook more, but that is only part of my problem, the talent still is not there :)

We stayed at the reception until about 10:00 then had to get Noah to the hotel to sleep - he was partied out :) I just loved everything about that whole day. Getting to see old friends, watching two awesome people declare their love, eating good food, watching Noah play and make friends, and just making awesome memories. I can't wait to see what the future holds for Cassie and Chance and I hope to get to make it out to visit them in Hawaii in the future!

Ryan is 2!

Most people say they can't believe how fast kids grow, and while I feel that way about Noah, for some reason I always feel like Ryan is older than she is. Maybe it is because she is my second child, but I can't remember life before her as well as I can Noah so it just seems like she has been here longer than she has.

I gave Ryan her gifts from me before church - a cradle and highchair for her baby dolls. She loved them! She fed her babies and put them in the cradle by counting to 3 and put their covers on them the same way I do to her every night, it was SO cute :) Nathan decided she needed a gun since he had gotten Noah one at this age, so a pink .22 is what he got her!

We then went to church and I was happy she didn't have to switch class rooms yet. She literally just started willingly going in and not crying a few months ago so I didn't want to interrupt that with a new classroom and teachers already. Thankfully, the classes were combined so the 2 year olds got to stay put for a while. They did tell me they would work on slowly transitioning her, and I knew they would, but it was good to hear that they cared. After church we went to a local hotel that put Ryans birthday on their sign and to get her a Happy Meal (her birthday lunch of choice).

Then we went by my moms house to let her open her My Twinn doll. We sent them Ryan's picture and they made a doll to resemble her. She was not loving it at first, but warmed up to her later. We then went home and let her open her present from Noah. I let him go and pick her out a toy for her birthday each year. This year he picked a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for her. He was so proud that he helped wrap it and was telling her how to unwrap it. She loved it and they actually played nicely with it for a while together :)

Then Daddy came home! He had been gone to the races and Ryan was very happy he was home (for a few minutes anyway - then she was Mommas girl again, until he got the chips out) :) Nathans parents always come over on Sundays so they stopped by and brought Ryan a gift - a pink princess castle! The kids played with that non-stop until bedtime! Daddy even got in for a little while :)

Since Nathan was gone this weekend, we are having Ryan's party next weekend. So, there will be another post and pictures from the day we all get together and celebrate our little princess turning 2!

Abandoned Dinosaurs and Tigers

This last weekend we went to Eureka Springs to my best friends wedding (there will be a separate Blog about that once I get some pictures to go with it - I was a little busy and didn't get to take any). Nathan was valet parking at the wedding and spotted a dinosaur in the woods while driving some wedding guests. The next day we decided to go check it out. We figured out it was once a very popular dinosaur theme park call Land of Kong that had the world's largest King Kong statue, world's largest Noah's ark mural, and over 100 life-size dinosaur and cave man replicas! It was open from 1967-2005 - how have I not heard of this before? We went to Eureka Springs a lot growing up and I have never heard of this at all. We threw around the idea of sneaking in and looking around, but decided not to. It was pretty grown up and there were no trespassing signs everywhere so we decided to just look from the road. The place looked so cool, even all run down - I really wish there was somewhere like that to take out little dinosaur lover Noah!

After that we went to Turpentine Creek Tiger Refuge. It is a 465 acre refuge for tigers that have been rescued from bad situations. They also had some lions and tigers and a monkey and wolf. We went on a guided tour and got to see the tigers up really close - it was really cool. Noah seemed to really like it, even though he was "all out of walkings" until the end of the tour so we carried him through most of it. Some of these poor tigers were abused with cattle prods and others kept in captivity and then let loose in the wild with no way to take care of themselves. They are not using much of the 465 acres due to the expense of housing the animals ($22,000 to build each habitat area for the animals). I believe the guide said they are only using about 22 acres currently. I want to go back and visit again someday and see how it grows.

It was nice to just have Noah and be able to focus on him for a day, but SO strange to only have one kid. I am not sure what we did with our time and attention (and arms) before Ryan came along :)