Oh my heavens!

I'm back! Okay, everyone says that having 2 kids keeps you busy and now I know why. It seems Madelyn is adjusting just fine to her new baby brother and daddy is adjusting well too....however, Mommy is having a hard time!!! :-) Maybe it's because I have a newborn baby right in the middle of the busiest time of the year? Or maybe because I am finishing up school and had to take an online quiz the weekend we came home from the hospital or because I had to work on a presentation for school when he was 2 weeks old? Or maybe it's because I am 4 years older than when I had Madelyn and the sleep deprivation is taking a much bigger toll on me now??? Or maybe because I had to go shop for a dress to wear to graduation 3 weeks postpartum (I was asking one sales lady if a particular dress looked okay and she kindly said "honey, that dress isn't going to work....it's too tight. Not exactly what I needed to hear!) ha ha ha....

I'll be okay, really. I'll make the adjustment eventually :-). We did finally get our Christmas tree up and decorated after several days of just the tree being up with no ornaments. Madelyn was very insistent on asking "Is it time to do the ornaments now?" until finally the ornaments came out.

Last night we took about 50 pictures or more (no joke) just to try to get a good one for our Christmas cards. It became kind of funny after a while...Justin and Madelyn were good sports and we finally got a decent picture of our children!!

Drew is growing so fast already. Last week at his 3 week check-up he weighed 8lbs 10oz; he has already gained 2 pounds! We love him so much and Madelyn is especially enjoying him. It has been so sweet to see how her motherly instincts have kicked in. She loves to try to "calm" him down when he is crying by saying "It's okay, it's okay...Madelyn is here". It is really sweet. It will be fun to see how their relationship will evolve as he gets bigger and more mobile. We'll see how motherly she is towards him then!

So yes, graduation is FRIDAY!!! I cannot believe that after 2 1/2 years of non-stop school it is finally over!! It seems surreal right now with everything else going on but I'm sure it will sink in on Friday. God has been so good to work out all of the timing and issues I was so concerned about regarding me going back to school. Madelyn was 2 years old when I decided to quit my job and return to school full-time to be a nurse practitioner. It seemed like such a grueling task at the beginning of it all. How would we afford me not working and the enormous thought of all the student loans?!! And then there was the issue of having another baby. I wanted so badly to have another child before Madelyn got much older. So now it is all behind me- I'm graduating, we may have a ton of student loans but overall we survived, we have another baby now which ended up being perfect timing, and I have a job waiting on me whenever I'm ready to start in January. I could not have made it through school without incredible support from 2 people: Justin and my mom. Justin has been so encouraging and definitely picked up where I slacked around the house! I love you, buddy and thank you so much for ALWAYS being there for me and for allowing me to do this! Mom (& Gene) has helped us in so many ways that I can not possibly name them all! Mostly, she has helped us tremendously with Madelyn. Thank you, thank you mom!

So now I will update everyone with recent pictures of the latest happenings~~~~

Madelyn with Santa at Fantasy of Trees

Here we are freezing our tails off at the Knoxville Christmas parade! Mom and Gene watched Drew at our house...too cold for him!!