We had a baby.....in a driveway!!!

We joked about this happening, but NEVER did we think it actually would happen! We thought we left with plenty of time to make it to the hospital, but just 4 miles shy of the hospital we pulled over to the side of the road and delivered the baby ourselves!!! And that is how our little Michael Christopher came into the world!

 

Here he is soon after delivery while we waited for the ambulance to arrive! Chris put his hat on him to keep him warm, oh, and he tied off the umbilical cord with a shoelace, love that man!!

 

 

 

 

This is me being loaded into the ambulance and telling Chris to be sure to grab my glasses from my bag and bring it into the hospital so I could see!

 

And here he is, soon after being born! He was pretty bruised up, and his eyes are still a little blood shot from the "unassisted delivery" as the doctors would call it.

 

 

 

My perfect baby boy!

 

 

And my happy little family!

 

Big sister Taylor has proven to be an excellent big sister, as expected!

 

 

This is the driveway where Michael was born.

 

 

And while we were in the hospital, the people who live at the house where this driveway is, stopped by to see us! They saw the story in the paper and came to meet us!

 

 

Here is a link to the story in the paper:

 

http://www.onlinesentinel.com/news/Jackman-couple-delivers-baby-in-car.html?pageType=mobile&id=1&start=1

 

 

Here is Grammy getting some cuddles in at the hospital.

 



 

And Poppy got some snuggles too!

I am so grateful that Grammy and Poppy have been able to come up here and stay for so long to help out! Their help has been invaluable! They have kept the girls busy, so adding a new baby has not been a crazy adjustment for them. They've also picked up our mail, gone to the store, vacuumed and mopped my floors, made breakfast, lunch and dinner, and so many other things that would be too much to post on here. I am so blessed to have them here, and I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do this when they leave. Riley has already been crying when they talk about leaving:(

 

 

It's been nice being back home with my whole family. Here is a picture of Michael out enjoying some sunshine. My future Marine, maybe??

 

Later that night we had a bonfire and roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. It was a great night!

 

And in other Demanski news, my buddy earned her first stripe in karate! She was so proud, and so was I! Look at that smile!!

A bear!!

We saw our first wild bear today! The girls thought it was so cool and haven't stopped talking about it! It was getting a little too close to the car for my comfort, so this is as close of a picture as I got!

 



Summer solstice fun!

 The first day of summer actually FELT like summer up here! It was great! We started off doing some bubbles, which usually ends up with me blowing the bubbles and the girls and the dogs chasing them and trying to bite the bubbles. Normal, right?

 

 

Then, we were getting too hot, so we broke out the sprinkler!

 

Daughters of Marines always break out into practicing their low belly crawls under the sprinkler when it comes out.

 



Then, we discovered a pile of dirt, which brought about endless fun!

 



 

Especially when we realized that we could then make dirt hand prints all over the garage!

Since it was such a rough day, we had to end it with soaking our feet before bedtime! I don't know where they get this habit from! It could be from their mother with the pregnant Michelin man feet right now!!

 

 

Oh, and not  on the same day, but we did get a new car! We traded in our Tahoe for the Suburban because "we just couldn't fit" into the Tahoe anymore. My husband says this says more about me, then about the car, but we NEEDED the extra trunk space since we'll be filling up almost all of the seats, especially when Shelby is with us! So, an extra 3 feet of car for Mommy to back up, YIKES!!!

Chores

We implemented a new system in our house. The girls are good about helping around the house, and they have certain chores they are expected to do just to be productive members of the family! But, we decided to add some "quarter chores." The girls have a few chores they can do around the house, and once completed they earn a quarter. We're hoping this will also teach them about saving money to buy things they want. Here they are in action doing some of their chores this week.

 

Taylor is unloading the silverware from the dishwasher.

 

 

And taking the laundry out of the dryer and putting it into the basket for me.

 

Riley is switching the laundry from the washer to the dryer. And this girl has quite the sense of humor. While she was taking out this crib sheet, she asked me if this was one of my "big underwear." HAHA, she's so funny!!!



Mothers Day gift

When you can barely keep a cactus alive, and your kids give you a plant for Mothers Day, what do you do? Well first, you try like crazy to make sure this little seed will grow into the flower your children are expecting. But, if your this mom all that happens to bloom are some dead weeds. So, does it make you a bad mom if you go to your local florist (yes, we have one here) and buy flowers and just put those in the pot they made you instead? I sure hope not....look at my beautiful Mothers Day flowers!!

 

 



Guns and karate

When your 36 weeks pregnant and it's been raining for 2 days, and you have kids who've been cooped up, and your all ready to get out of the house, what better thing to do then go the shooting range! And that's just what we did today!

 

 

 

Here's what Taylor did at the shooting range! Going potty and covering her ears!

 

Riley has been doing AWESOME at karate! She was a little intimidated at first since she is the youngest kid there, and she started in the middle of the class, but you'd never know it now! She's loving it, and here she is in action!

 

Here she is sitting on the floor, in the middle listening to her Sensei.

 

 

And here she is in action, it's blurry, but we were trying to catch her in action!

Here she is about to attack.

 

And here she is taking down a boy in her class!

 

 

And here she is getting flipped over by her Sensei!

 

She loved that part! It was an action packed week, full of guns and karate and everyone had a blast!

Garden!

The garden is in, thanks to some super cute helpers!

 

 

Chris was a super cute helper too, but I didn't get a picture of him. :)

This made me crave some fresh fruits and veggies, but it just doesn't taste nearly the same as fresh from you garden, so I impatiently wait for it to grow!