To My Beautiful Wife Brittany, Daughter Avery, and Son Liam,

The last time I blogged and wrote was the day our angel Avery came into our lives on March 28th, 2009. Since then I have left it up to the one with more creative talent to write about our family’s adventures. However, today I would like to tell everyone about our adventure yesterday when Liam arrived and express my love to the most wonderful woman, best friend, lover, and mother I know, Brittany.

Yesterday morning we woke to phone the hospital at 6 a.m. to find out if we were going in to have Brittany induced or if we were going to have to wait until Wednesday to meet our son. When Britt called she was all the sudden taken over by her nerves as she was told we needed to be to the hospital by 7:30 a.m. At that time we called in the troops. Nana Vickie was overwhelmed with excitement to come and pick Avery up to spend the day with her while Britt and I went to the hospital to bring our son into this world. After making the phone calls we went to wake Avery up to so we could try to prepare her for what was about to unfold.

When she woke up she was so excited she jumped out of bed to see her brother, much like presents under the tree on Christmas Morning. A little confused that we had to go to the hospital she then wanted to lay in bed with dad and watch "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse". So that is exactly what we did. Until she got ants in her pants and wanted to go on one of Dad and Avery's famous drives around the block to get Mom a coffee and her a muffin and then of course to drive to Pappa Dale's to say hi and tell him what we were doing. So we left the coffee shop and she insisted on turning up her new favorite song "I just can't wait to be King," from the movie "Lion King,"

When we arrived at her Papa Dale's she was so excited she could hardly contain herself. She ran around for some time with Dale and Sheri, like she always does chatting their ears off. Sheri was preparing to give Dale a Lyme shot and was teaching Avery how to administer the shot. She told Avery, "Okay now we take the alcohol wipe and rub it on his bum." To which Avery replied, "I don't want to lick his butt." The shot ended up waiting until we left because of the laughter.

Once home, Britt and myself then started to get nervous and gave Avery a big hug and kiss and left for the hospital.

When we arrived at the hospital things started moving quite fast. We got Britt admitted, into her room, and within 40 minutes they started to induce her. After they started things started to slow down a little bit. This gave me a chance to catch up on some much need email clean up... you know you all need a couple of hours for that inbox cleanup... admit it! And Britt caught up on some new gossip in her smut magazines and by accident I purchased one she already had read, my comment was old news is still news.

As we were on the road to delivery, Nana Teri had stopped by our house and visited Avery and Nanna Vickie on the way up to the hospital. Once at the hospital Teri was great additional moral support for Britt and was a trooper as she hung out with us during the day.

Brittany's contractions started getting closer and closer. She then asked everyone and if there had been a dog in the room she would have asked it as well if it was time for the epidural. As the consensus came in she decided to take the bullet and get it.

The anesthesiologist then walked through the room and to our surprise it was the same doctor that put Avery under for her procedure. Joking around and laughing about Avery and the coincidence it was time to get down to business as he said. Britt's nerves were a going and before she knew it, that procedure was now complete and she was on the path to numb legs.

At 2:00 p.m. roughly five minutes after the anesthesiologist left the room her water broke and it was now just a matter of time before we were to me Liam. A couple hours came and passed, her contraction got closer and closer and by the time 5:00 p.m. Doctor Cox had Brittany pushing. The only thing that Britt could think about was, please don't let this last three hours like it did with Avery. Well, I here to tell you that it didn't. 34 minutes later and the final push, we were able to me our blessed little man, William Dale Holt. Everything went pretty routinely and like almost every child birth there are their uniqueness’s. Liam came out almost like Avery. Avery came into this world scalped and with a little cone head. Liam however came out with little scrapes and a major cone head. Major enough that he could have worn a fedora on the left side of his head and it would not have fallen off. It looked like someone had cut a softball in half and stuck it to the side of his melon. Liam had us worried for about ten minutes with his breathing. But after it was all said and done, he turned out just fine.

Once he was here I went to get Avery from the waiting room with here Nana Vickie, Nana Teri, Aunt Lindsay, and Aunt Ashley. I took Avery into the room as Brittany was breast feeding and one of the first things out of her mouth was, "mom, why is he licking your boob!" She was so intrigued and curious that she just wanted to hold, touch, and kiss him. When Liam came into this world he brought her big sister a present. He brought her life like doll so she had a baby of her own to take care of. And she loved it! And as long as her little brother wasn't around she played with it. But when he was around she just wanted to hold him and kiss him with the biggest smiles.

I will update everyone later on the first sleepless night at a later date. For now I would like to say this.

Avery,

You are going to be the best big sister! You show so much concern and are so willing to help with your little brother Liam. It is an absolute joy to watch you with him and I cannot wait to see what tricks and secretes you are going to show and teach him. You are a caring and a kind little girl and I promise that we are going to have just as much fun if not more with your little brother around. You and I will always have our special daddy daughter dates and our around the block drives to Papa’s.

I love you sissy more and more with every breath!

Brittany,

As I said with our first child, you are the most amazing woman I have ever met. And the strength and compassion you showed yesterday makes me more amazed and more in love with you! You said it the best and I feel a little guilty for stealing this, a little guilty, "I fall more and more in love with you with each kid!" Babe I couldn't have said it better myself. You truly amaze me and I am so blessed to have you as my best friend, lover, wife and the mother of my children. You amaze me more and more and for that I fall in love with you more and more every day! Thank you for giving me the wonderful life that we have and the wonderful children. You are the best mother to Avery and I can only imagine that with the addition of Liam you are going to be that much greater. I am so proud of you!!!!

I love you Brittany! Every day of my life I love you! And every day of my life I fall even more IN LOVE WITH YOU!

William - Liam,

In the twenty hours since you have been here your mother and I can't express what we are feeling inside except by saying it is overwhelming love and excitement. We look forward to seeing you grow and become the kid, the son, and then man we know you can. You have an unconditional love from a family you will be proud to be a part of. A father, a mother, and a big sister that will love and adore you every day. The only favor we asked, don't grow up to fast!!!! Please. We do have your Yankee room ready to go!

I love you Liam! AKA Snow

The reasons for my massive blogging...

So, in the last week, I have tried really Really REALLY hard to catch up on blogging. The reason? I am being induced this coming Tuesday!! I know I'll have my hands super full again so I wanted to catch up as much as I can!

Here's to our last weekend as a family of three!

Get this baby OUTTA me!

Avery's Drawings

I thought these were too funny to not document. You'll see why:

This is Dad's grumpy face.

This is Mom. Notice the three circles. One is for my tummy with baby brother in it. The other two....well I'll let you take a guess.

More photos from Swim Kids

I think I have a problem with taking pictures! I take too many. But it sure is fun looking back at them!

Snowbird

We spend a lot of time up at Snowbird. Whether it may Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter, we always find a way to spend a weekend up there.

Last winter we bought a 30 day family ski pass. Due to aweful snow conditions and me getting knocked up, we only used 8 days. 8 DAYS!!!

We were worried we were out a lot of money. We called Snowbird and told them our situation. They informed us that we can either roll over our unused days (by buying another 30 day family pass for the next season) or use the credit towards lodging and the spa during the off season. SWEET!

This has worked towards our advantage this summer. We have been able to spend many weekends away from the hustle and bustle (and the heat!) and get some massages in as well!

Next ski season, we think we may try out a few other resorts Utah has to offer. Snowbird will always be our second home, but we want to explore too!

We have become friends with the photographers there. They captured this phot and we LOVE it!! 

What do I do while the "kids" are having fun? Plant my bum on a bench and enjoy the views.

What usually happens after our fun weekend!

Nick's favorite photo from this summer

SUCH.A.HAM

Auntie Smash

My sis and her hubby moved to Dallas, TX in May to sell pest control. In June, Ash moved back to Salt Lake and into our basement to open up a Yogurtland in Bountiful. Her brother-in-law and sister-in-law own a couple of the chains in Utah and gave Ash the opportunity to manage one.

We have been so happy to have her with us again. Avery is pretty much obsessed with Ash and won't leave her alone when Ash is home. We are going to be sad once Jon moves back and they get a place of their own!

My favorite, Red Velvet Yogurt with Mochi! YUMMY!!!

Baby Project

When we found out we were having a boy, we knew we wanted to do a baseball theme for the nursery. Nick, of course, wanted to do Yankees right away. I wanted to try for a vintage baseball theme. After looking for the perfect bedding, we were able to agree on Pottery Barn's Varsity Bedding. It's great because it wasn't overly expensive and they offer the same bedding when children graduate from their crib. Plus, it's not too much baseball.

We decided to turn our current playroom into the nursery. Only problem is, it's on the main floor and our master bedroom and Avery's room are on the second level. We thought about doing an addition to add a master suite, but three different bids came in at $250,000! Wowsa! Our house was built in 1927 and to add on to our house requires a lot of structural support and work. We decided to not add on and start saving for a bigger house in a few years. The reason we put baby boy on the main floor, is because he will not be mobile for a while. Where as Avery would answer the door in the middle of the night, no questions asked. To make a long story short (sorry) we installed a security alarm. Hey, it's a start.

Once we decided where baby boy was going to sleep, we got to work. I found some baseball inspirations on Pinterest, of course. But I absolutely fell in love with a vintage looking scoreboard by Pottery Barn Kids.

Avery went to summer school for a week at the beginning of June, so I took advantage of the alone time and started on my project. It took me about three weeks, but I think it turned out cute. I scaled it down, but it still turned out HUGE! :)

I need to add a couple of things to it, but it's now hung over the crib and we are pretty happy with the results. Thanks Pottery Barn for having creative minds!

The inspiration.

After two years in storage, I broke out the good ole' Cricut.

The paint unfortunately bled a lot, so a lot of touching up was required. This was the most time consuming part.

This was before it was actually hung. I still need to add scores to it, but it's basically done! For the scores, I'm using Avery's birthdate and our Anniversary date. But, I may change it to the baby's birthdate instead.

Swim Kids

We have emphasized as a family how important swim lessons are. Avery has asked us numerous times why she has to take lessons and we tell her in order to swim at Papa and Nana's, she must stay in lessons. She started back up in April with 15 minute lessons at Swim Kids in Holladay.

 At the beginning of June, I decided to sign her up for 3 hour swim camps twice a week. They don't swim the whole time, but play with other kids, do art projects, play sports outside and then swim in a group lesson for 45 minutes.

She fell in love with these camps! What started as trial run turned into 3 months of swim camp. Today was our last camp day. :(

Avery has become quite the swimmer. She is at a level of a siz year old. In the fall, we upped her lessons to 30 minutes. (15 minutes may seem too short, but the amount of work your muscles go through can fatigue a small child.)

We are working with the owner of Swim Kids to put her on track for Swim Team. By Spring, she will be in Pre Comp swimming! I love that Avery decided for herself something that she loves!!!

Just a few photo's"

She reminds me of an Olympic swimmer celebrating by screaming "GOLD!"

Tonsillectomy and Adenoid Surgery

About a year ago, Avery started having major sleep problems. She would wake up atleast 6 times a night. We thought it was a phase and that it would pass. But it never did. I asked her Pediatrician advice on what we could or should do and he flat out told me she was a naughty child! I had been having some problems with her Pediatrician and finally got tired of his poor bedside manner with Avery.

(Examples: We would wait in the exam room for almost an hour EVERY time we went. Avery would ask him questions throughout the entire exam and he would cut her off snapping "Avery, I need to talk to your mom now!", I took her in about a weird and sharp bruise on her back and he lectured me about the anatomy of a bruise AND the final straw was when, after an hour of waiting in the exam room, Avery was making noises with the paper that covers the bed. He abruptly went over to the bed, ripped off the paper and threw it away and said that noise drives him crazy. Uh Sir? You chose your profession! Not me!)

Anywho, sorry to vent.

So I changed Avery's Pediatrician over to my OBGYN who happens to be a family practioner as well. I talked to her about our concerns on Avery's sleep patterns. She immediately went to work and made a checklist of things to try. We tried new ways of putting her to bed, noise machines, crying it out, new routines, melatonin (which worked MIRACLES but we all did not want Ave to rely on it!), etc. We finally decided to try an ENT to rule out her tonsils and adenoids.

In May, we finally saw a specialist and he confirmed that Avery had enlarged tonsil and adenoids. We scheduled surgery a month later so we could think about this major decision.

When the time finally came, we decided to go through with the surgery. I was a wreck, to say the least. Major water works.

We woke Ave up at 6AM to head to the hospital. When we woke her up, she asked if we were going to go pick up her brother. How sweet! We hadn't even talked about that yet! We didn't really explain to her before what we were having done. Once she had to change into her hospital gown, she was not going to cooperate! She had peed that morning yet and refused to do so before the surgery.

They gave her some "Happy Medicine" to relax her. The ansethesiologist came in to meet us and especially Avery. He talked to her about animals and said they were going to go look for animals in a little bit. That seemed to calm her nerves. Once the medicine kicked in, she was loopy and just plain silly. We entertained her by letting her take pictures of herself with our phones.

Once they took her back to surgery, we were sent to a waiting area. I bawled like a baby. But twenty minutes later they came to update us and said they were done. Ten minutes after that, we were able to see Avery. She was in hysterics coming down from the anesthesia. She was very upset because they took her undies off due to her soiling them. (I didn't even think to bring a spare.) They offered her a pull-up and she refused. She was SO SO upset about her undies!!

They warned us that recovery was harder than the actual surgery. And boy were they right! It took us a good two full weeks to recover. By that time, she was so tired of popsicles and ice cream. All she wanted was chips and fries.

I am SO glad I didn't read horror stories on the internet prior to the surgery. Otherwise I would not have gone through with it. I scared myself silly and hardly slept while Ave recovered. She would sweat too the point we could wring water out of her pillows and sheets. I took this as a bad sign and just knew she was dying! Ugh! I hate that Negative Nelly that lives deep inside my head!

It has now been two full months since her surgery and she is sleeping so much better. She talks in her sleep still and has some bad nights, but for the most part, she sleeps through THE WHOLE NIGHT!

Can I get a Hallelujah??

The decisions we make as parents are hard! I never realized how hard until we had to do it! Thank goodness I have a great partner in crime to help with these big and hard decisions!!

Somebody is a little loopy!

Off to go look for animals.

Recovery. :(