brothers

Connor is loving being a big brother. He is so sweet to little Blake. I was a little worried since Connor is so wild and not so gentle with other people...but so far so good.

Newborn Pics

When Blake was 5 days old, we had his newborn pics taken by our friend Sara Fuccillo. Here are a few of my favorites!

He's finally here!

Blake Mac Herzog finally made his arrival on Monday, November 28th at 8:51 am. He weighed in one pound heavier than his big brother at 7 pounds 7 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. We were scheduled to get induced the day he arrived but obviously Blake didn't like that plan and decided to get things rolling on his own. I woke up at about 4:00 am having contractions but didn't think much of them since I had been contracting almost everyday since 33 weeks. At about 4:30 I decided to start timing them just for fun...they were between 2-5 min apart at this point. At 5:00 I decided to take a shower to see if they'd stop...nope, they got worse. I decided to wake Nick up and let him know what was going on. We all got ready I dried, straightened my hair, put make up on etc. (looking back I wish I would have just left for the hospital...who cares how you look in labor!) then took Connor to Doreen's. At this point the contractions were right on top of each other and hurt super bad. Once we arrived at the hospital at 6:30, they checked us in and the nurse checked me. She said, "I have good news and bad news." I thought she was going to send us home. Nope...she said I was an 8 and I could not get an epidural. Ahhhhhh! That was some of the worst, scariest news I'd ever heard!! She said the baby would be here within the next 40 min and that she was going to leave the room so I could freak out then she'd come back to start my IV. Lovely...so at around 8:oo am after freaking out, begging, texting my doctor, some how a miracle happened. The anestesiologist was suppose to be in a C section but the girl's doctor was late, so I got my epidural after all! Even though I only had the meds for about 40 minutes, it was a much more pleasant 40 minutes than if I would have gone natural!! Right after that Dr. T broke my water and said the baby had flipped and was transverse...completely sideways...ahhhh....all I could think of was C-section. Not fun. He said it would be at least 3 hours of weird laboring positions and hopefully the baby would flip. So Dr. T left, my mom & sister left. Within about 15 minutes all of a sudden I felt lots of weird movements and tons of pressure. I called the nurse and she was shocked to see the baby had already flipped was head down, I was at a 10, and Blake was ready to come out. She quickly called Dr. T and Nick called my mom and sister. They told me not to push...that's hard to do. Anyways, the doctor made it back just in time for me to push maybe 4 or 5 times and little Blake made his appearance! My mom and sister were coming down the hall when they heard his cry, shoot! Anyways, he's perfect. We love him very much. Connor loves him very much and is adjusting well to being a big brother. I learned that if you are 4 days past your due date and your contractions are that close together, get to the hospital quicker next time...Life is good!

Trick or Treat!

For Halloween this year, Connor wanted to be a yellow Power Ranger...we looked all over for a costume and couldn't find one since the Power Rangers are really more 1990's...but found a yellow transformer one and pretended it was a Power Ranger :) He had no idea and was really excited to wear it. We were a little nervous he wouldn't put it on like last year, but he did and had a lot of fun. We trick or treated on our street with the Balls again this year. Brian was a cute little monkey and Garrett was a hot dog.

Maris Farms 2011

We took our annual trip to the pumpkin patch a couple weeks ago with the Palmers, Bailey's and Horans. It was hard doing this without Lise since this has been a tradition with her for a few years now. Other than that, we all had a great time. Maris Farms is packed full of fun kids activities, you could stay there all day!

Spray Park

On one of the hot days towards the end of summer we took the kids down to the spray park in Olympia for the day with Macs, Palmers, and Horans. Most of the kids had fun...Connor wasn't a fan (shocking...)

Nick's 31st Bday

For Nick's 31st Bday, we went up to Crystal Mountain and road the gondola up to the top with Phil & Steph. It was gorgeous up there! We had a picnic, went for a super long hike, and had a minor scare when I almost fainted for some reason right before we rode the gondola back down. Other than that, it was a really fun day!