The Petersen Family: 2012

I have a million things to share, but one experience trumps them all... Luke! So I will dedicate this whole post to our little guy and catch up on the rest next time.

My (okay, Our, I have to share) sweet baby boy came Saturday, June 23, at 7:08 am on the WAY TO THE HOSPITAL! What an amazing entrance this little one made, looking back now it was an incredible experience but at the time, incredible was not the adjective coming to mind. Unbelievable in the true sense of the word is more like it. I could not believe that I was going to have my precious baby in a TRUCK on the side of the freeway. These kind of things do not happen to us! So many things were in place that made it be a wonderful, miraculous experience instead of a scary, dangerous one.

It all started the morning of the 23rd (Luke's due date), we were going to be heading into the hospital at 7 am to be induced. I woke up at 4 am with a big contraction, but it didn't last long and I fell back asleep. Same thing at 5 am, but this time I felt so uncomfortable I got up and walked around and just hung out on the couch for awhile. They settled down and I went back to bed and fell asleep again for a bit. Woke up at 545 with contractions again, decided to shower and get ready. Had contractions through it all, but was timing them and they were really inconsistent and I was able to breathe through them. Then all of a sudden, they went from being all over the place and just painful to every 2 minutes and super super painful. Woke up Tyler, got in the truck and took off.

Tyler was speeding down the freeway when we pull up behind a police car, so he calls 911 to see if we could let the policeman know our situation and maybe he could escort us to the hospital or at least not pull us over. They say they can't help with that, but we stay on the line anyway because now things have progressed from just having strong, minute apart contractions to realizing that he's not going to wait 15 more minutes for us to get to the hospital. I tell (ok scream) Tyler to pull over, I just wanted his help and I knew he was minutes away from coming. He pulled over, ran around to my side of the truck, my water broke, I pushed twice and Luke was born (8 lbs 21.5 in.). He was pink and crying and so beautiful, with so much hair, and I knew he was fine. Tyler luckily thought about bringing a couple of towels and a blanket *just in case* so we wrapped him up and I held him while we looked at this infant that had been entrusted to us. At that point, there was no more pain or fear and just so much love and happiness, it was the most amazing feeling and I knew we were being taken care of. Anyway, I'm getting emotional just thinking about it :) A lot of things happened after that but basically the ambulance came (911 was on speaker phone the whole time) within a few minutes and they took us to the hospital. I still feel sometimes like I'm telling someone else's story, it's so surreal.

This is me the night before he came, getting ready for bed. Little did I know what the next 12 hours held in store :)

Tyler was incredible through the whole thing, staying so calm and thinking so clearly. I'm so glad he was with me. He even thought about taking pictures with his phone when the paramedics got there. Here they are giving him oxygen.

Tyler tied off the cord (he is the scoutmaster, always be prepared) with paracord while we waited for the ambulance, then he got to cut it with a scalpel they had once they got there.

I had never been moved onto a stretcher before, and I was holding Luke so I couldn't help at all. It took 4 men to do it, quite fun! Lucky we were in the truck which was already high up.

Got a fireman to take a shot of us before we took off.

What a perfect little one, welcome Luke Jorgen!

Thank goodness mom and dad came out the night before so we could just take off like we did that morning. If they weren't there he might have come at home while we got the kids off to the sitters and all that that entails. Here's the moment wen they get to see their new brother. Kate looks wary but was really excited about it. Cole could not have been more proud.

Going home! I remember this moment with Cole, it felt so weird he was mine to take home with us, like do they really understand that I'm not sure about what to do? Now with Luke I couldn't wait to take him with us.

Just thought this was a cute smooshed face.

At home, such a tender, protective brother. Luke looks like he's not caucasion in this picture :)

My view for the first week as I walked around the house. So hard to put this sweet little package down.

He is now 8 weeks old, smiling and trying to talk, kicking legs and waving arms and getting his fist in his mouth now and then. Already growing up :( Such a GOOD baby, easy going and calm just like his sister and brother were. We feel so blessed! More new pics to come later.

This is it! The week where our family becomes a family of FIVE! We will be officially outnumbered by little ones. We can't wait to meet this little guy that belongs to us, I just get so excited thinking about what he will look like, how much hair he'll have, if he looks like his brother or dad. I haven't been thinking much about how hard it's going to be with three, I think maybe I'm in denial about how different things will be. But we knew he was supposed to come to us, so no matter what kind of experiences we'll be going through I know it will be worth it :)

I'm scheduled to be induced this Saturday the 23rd if he's not here by then, so I really like having an end date. I do have to say though, this pregnancy (minus the first 3 months which were awful) has been so terrific, I've felt like myself and been able to do everything I want to for the most part. I did have to stop running at 7 months which was fine, I've still been able to walk and do other workouts in the mornings. I'm still sleeping well and not feeling discomfort or pain at this point like I did with Cole and Kate, just being so big. And this guy is bigger than Cole was so far! I've been so blessed.

The kids are so excited to get him here as well, Kate will come and hug and kiss my belly and say "hi baby brudder, so cited to meet you!" and Cole has been offering to give him all of his toys and clothes that he has outgrown. I'm going to have two big helpers! Just need to keep a close eye on Kate that she doesn't carry him around or treat him like she does her dolls :)

I wanted to get all the pics up from the last month to let you know what's been going on around here so enjoy!

Cole finished up his last year of tball and will be doing coach-pitch next year. He LOVED it so much and got so excited for the games. He would run around on the sidelines before his game to get "warmed up". This kid has such a competitive spirit in him, I think it will benefit him in lots of ways as he grows up. Here's a good shot of his game face.

Mom and Tegan drove out and surprised us one game, we were so excited to see them!

We got to go to the zoo with Grandma and Grandpa too last month, we all had so much fun.

I love how my dad always pushes the stroller and carries my big bag for me. What a guy!

I can't get enough of that cheesy face!

Tyler got home from church and was relaxing when his little shadow decided to join in.

Cole has really starting getting excited about reading and writing since preschool ended (funny huh?), he'll sit down for long stretches and just write or try to sound things out. It makes my teacher heart so proud!! I must say he is very bright, from an academic perspective not motherly :) Here's his alphabet one day.

Our ward had a Father and Sons campout where just the dads take their boys and go camping overnight. Cole remembered it from last year and could not wait to go again, we had to make a countdown chain so he knew how many more days because he kept asking each day if it was the day to go or not. Tyler made it really special for him, I am not surprised that he idolizes his daddy and walks in every single footstep Tyler makes. Here they are in their tent getting ready for bed.

Catching slugs!

He's also been interested in drawing people more than he was before, this is the first voluntary unassisted picture he's made of our family. I'm on the left with the circle for my tummy! I love how we're holding hands.

Funny story...for mother's day Tyler was making dinner and put the oven fries (yes those were potatoes) in the stove to bake while we went for a drive up the canyon. Our stove has this great feature where you can set it and tell it when to start and turn off so you don't have to be home to do all that, I use it a lot. Anyway, we left and came home and smoke is billowing out of our oven! We had set it too high and it had scorched our fries. It smelled awful for about a week later. Lucky we weren't gone for too long!

Here's the pie I made for the 23rd of May. It was YUMMY! I love strawberry pie.

Cole's last day of preschool with his wonderful teachers. We love this class and are excited he'll be there again next year. It's so nice being at my old school and just walking him across the street.

This was a surprise when I went through my pictures, this is after we got home from his last preschool program and his teachers had given us this adorable book with lots of pictures of Cole and examples of his work. So we were sitting on the porch going through it together, and apparently Kate started taking pictures :)

One day we had this surprise rain storm out of nowhere and Tyler was moving around some DJ equipment outside, so we both ran out to get everything covered up. He was drenched from head to toe, then came in to give loves to the kiddos.

Once again, his little shadow just can't leave his side.

Another funny story...Cole and Kate were quite wound up one night at bed time and it finally got a little too crazy so I opened the door to their room and a cloud of whiteness came billowing out. Kate sat up in her crib and said "Cole doed (did) it!". Cole had decided that the full bottle of baby powder needed to be distributed evenly throughout their room. In Kate's crib (and on her), on top of dressers, beds, carpets, books, absolutely every surface had a layer of powder. We cleaned up the kids (after a stern talking to of course) and they finally went to sleep. As we walked out of the room, our feet were covered in powder and were leaving white footprints throughout the house! This is the next morning before I tackled cleaning. It just doesn't do justice to the amount of powder I wiped off things.

Another exciting night...the night before Kate's birthday we decided to camp out in the backyard and watch a movie and eat some popocorn. I don't know who was in charge of parenting Kate that night, but she had way wayyy too much popcorn without us realizing. We all went to sleep, but a couple hours into the night she started throwing up and continued every hour after that through the morning :( Poor kid! She woke up happy and ready to party though, such a trooper.

Next morning!

I'm turning two!

Rainbow birthday cake! Cole did such a great job of letting her have the spotlight for the day and making it special for her. I think it helped that he knows his big day is coming up soon :)

Playing at the park. I love this girl.

Playing in the backyard pool! Summer is the best.

Cole being Superunderwear man.

Another exciting dinner story! Tyler grilled yummy burgers for us and then left the grill on so it would burn off the extra stuff like he always does. He just left it on just a little high and long, we came out to huge flames and a melted grill. We really don't set everything on fire, it was such a weird week. Again, so lucky it wasn't worse than it was.

Here's Kate pretending to be sick...

Here's Cole really being sick. He caught a stomach bug and couldn't keep anything down for 24 hours. He's such an easy sick kid, no complaining or whining. Just wants to sleep or cuddle.

Kate's birthday present from grandma Morrill, two homemade aprons!! So very adorable. They already have seen lots of use.

Grandma's tub with bubble jets is the best!

Cole's last game of the season. He had watched a baseball game on tv a couple days before his game and saw a player slide headfirst into a base and decided it was cool enough for him to try. He talked about doing it all day and then really did. It was so cute, he didn't quite get to the base but he looked awesome! He did it several times before he decided it was more painful than fun.

Showing off his scratch from sliding as they await their medals.

Clapping for the other team.

Proud little baller! Can't wait till Kate can play.

His favorite two girls, our neighbors Ellie and Kate.

Tyler's parents moved into a new place and offered to fly him out so he could help with the move and projects. We went to the airport to welcome him back, the kids really missed thier buddy.