The Name Story

Mr. Connor. You look like a Connor....which is part of the reason why we named you that. I wanted to have a "reason" for naming you what we did but having a story about the many times we changed your name will have to do :)

 Connor has always been a name that I like. We like names that sound like they've been around for a while (old English royalty sounding) so Connor was always on our top 10 list. However, I think the reality of this perhaps being the last child we name made a difference in our fickleness.

 

For 2-3 months, his name was either Edmund or Owen-both great names but we just couldn't settle on either one. One week it would be Edmund and then the next it would be Owen. Both had fantastic meanings and reasons behind why we would name him one or the other. We just couldn't pick between the 2.

 

3 weeks before Connor was born, we went back to the drawing board with names. I took out my top 10 list and ran them by my husband one more time. Our eyes landed on Connor. It became our top name in a matter of hours for no reason whatsoever!

 

We decided we were too fickle to fully commit though so we waited until he was born to make it final.

Connor means "strong-willed" and "wise" and he has already fit the strong willed part by being so late! :) And, seriously, he just plain looked like a Connor to us so we were glad to finally have a name for our 3rd child! So, Connor, that is how we came up with your name

Tristen's middle name was after Aaron so we wanted Connor's middle name to be after his grandpa. Joel is my dad's name.

 

That's the story behind his name! Yesterday he gave us his first half smile...I can't wait for smiles to come full force! He also has been blessing us with 6 hours of sleep the last 2 nights! Sleep had been hard to come by lately with 3 different schedules going on (Aaron works until midnight, Connor has been up 2 times during the night, and the other 2 wake up at 6:30 for the day) but the past few days Connor has decided to sleep 6 hours straight, eliminating one night feeding. I will take the extra sleep!

 

Tomorrow we're off to the Zoo while another house showing takes place. Looks like I better make some cookies tonight....come on potential buyers, someone buy our house! I'm actually looking forward to a messy house again someday :) 

Connor's Story

This little one is already 5 weeks old! Here's a little recap of his birth story...it's short and sweet (very unlike the pregnancy with him- I felt like I was pregnant for an entire year!)

 

I was due July 19th and really believed that THIS baby was finally going to be my early bird-or at least a few days early. Little did I know he would be my latest!! I had a Dr appointment on Wednesday, July 23rd-4 days after my due date. My doctor gave me the option of waiting a whole other week or getting induced the next day. My response was "I want this baby out! Tomorrow sounds great!"

 

So, bright and early on July 24th, I headed into the hospital for a scheduled induction....the only difference from the other 2 kids was that this time I was in the early stages of labor when I headed in (I was grateful my mom had come the night before just in case I went into labor on my own!)

 

I LOVE epidurals (how did I ever think I would go without an epidural!) but have always waited to get one until a few hours into labor. This time, at 9:30 am I thought, "I might as well just get it earlier than later since I know I want it." And oh am I glad I did! Got the epidural at 10, fell asleep watching TV and then woke up to strong contractions at noon. I woke up and the nurse said, "Oh my. I need to call the doctor because you're ready to have this baby!" The doctor got there a bit later and Connor entered the world at 12:31!

 

A few hours later, the kids came to visit! It is SOOO fun to see Tristen especially with this baby. Just today he said, "Mom, I REALLY like my brother. He's so cute." Since he's older, he actually gets it this time....it's been fun :)

 

Aubrey has been adorable as well but we have to constantly watch every movement she makes around the baby. She likes to mother and kiss him constantly-and sometimes those kisses are a bit much for Connor :)

 

We loved the first few hours with this little guy! He looks JUST like Aaron! I had forgotten how small babies come...the first day I was so in awe of how tiny his feet were :)

Getting ready to head home!!

 

So, that's his birth story. Everything went great and I was so glad he finally got here!

 

The recovery for me has been pretty brutal though. I have not taken it easy this time and have been sick with flu symptoms quite a few times over the course of 5 weeks. *sigh* So, my advice to new moms-take it easy like the doctor says-especially the part about not lifting! I think I overdid it by moving way too many boxes...Ouch. Hoping I feel completely better soon.

 

Next up: How we came up with his name! We've never been so back and forth with a name before and because of that, I'm still getting used to calling him Connor because we went through so many names before deciding!

Adventures in Home Showings

It was only 5 years ago that we sold our last home and yet, my memory fails me that any funny or out of the ordinary thing happened during the process. We had a handful of showings and a low ball offer that we were willing to work with. Our house sold within 3-4 weeks I believe?

Oh, but this time...the stories just continue and continue :) What a funny/random/CRAZY month of August we have had! I attribute it to the fact that we have 3 children now, my husband has to work odd hours which means he can't help much, and we don't have carpet so our dog's hair shows if we don't sweep daily. It has been quite the adventure so far with no offers yet. Boo. Maybe soon.

So, here are a few of the stories so far: We've been able to laugh about most of them although at the time we weren't always amused!

*Showing #1: The first weekend we put it on the market so the house was freshly painted, organized, as perfect as it was going to be. We came home to find the potential buyer had dug his finger into a very small hole in our wall and attempted to see if it was plaster or sheetrock. He must have been pretty curious because our very small hole became a significant one that we had to fix. Umm, thanks random stranger!

*Showing #4: Aaron was working during this one and I had a birthday party to take the kids to. I had left the house spotless and was going to pick up the dog quickly before the house showing at 2:30. Leaving myself plenty of time, I got home at 2:00 and thought I could quickly get the dog and double check the house. As I opened up the door to the house, I saw a car out front and just KNEW it was our 2:30 showing-coming a half an hour early! I grabbed the dog and ran out the door without double checking the house. The dog had decided to have fun in the house (something she never does anymore!) and left our couch cushions completely overturned and dug up a spot for herself on our bed-leaving it a mess and unmade! Ahhh!! So embarrassing! However, that was the only person who called for a second showing...

*Showing #4 Second Showing: After the fiasco with the dog and coming SO early, we left our house especially spotless for the second showing. I had made fresh cookies for her, literally cleaned every tiny area of my house and we were SO hopeful. She was supposed to arrive at 4 so we left an hour early JUST in case she came so early again. At 4:15, we got a call that she never showed up and decided against it. Oh.my.goodness! Feeling a bit defeated, we devoured the cookies and decided not to go to as much trouble again :)

*Showing #6: Last Friday night, we had an hour's notice before a showing....we've kept our house as clean as possible so it wasn't that big of a deal but still a bit of a rush. Little did we know that an hour would be plenty of time compared to our next showing!

*Showing #7: I don't recall ever looking at houses on Sundays. I guess I just assumed that Sundays were off limits so on Sunday afternoon, we were finally relaxing in a house that was "lived in" and not show worthy. At about 2:00, my very clean husband said, "Maybe we should just clean the house, just in case." Reluctantly, we did the dishes and tidied up the place so we could rush out if need be. At 3:00, we got a knock on our door. No joke! It was a realtor and a young couple asking us if we didn't receive a call about a showing! Ahhh! We asked them if they could give us 30 minutes and they must have heard "a few minutes" because they stood by our front door, waiting for us to get out. Our kids were still napping so we grabbed them and their blankets, tidied up the rest of the house and were out the door in 5 minutes flat! Needless to say, we haven't heard from that couple. HA!

*Showing #8: They came 45 minutes later than what was told to us. I had just parked the van in the back, unhooked Tristen from his carseat (thinking the showing was over!) when I saw a person walking to the door. I quickly hooked Tristen back up and we drove around the block until it was finished.

After all these crazy showings, I wish I could go back to when I was looking at houses and realize that the houses with young children were just plain brave and amazing to try to sell their house with little kids! I would have ONLY looked at houses that I was really serious in....because it's just mean to kick a young family out of their house for 1-2 hours each day while you say, "Just for fun, let's look at this one." :) Oh boy...how my perspective has changed :) Thankfully we can laugh about it and know that it's just a house-which is really a pretty trivial thing :)

Sorry, that was a really long-winded post but it's something funny that has been happening as of late. Now if only one of them would actually want our house, then we could relax just a bit!

Hopefully this weekend I'll finally have time to write about Connor's birth and how we came up with his name...I'm so behind on posting things! Sorry!! :)

Adding to the Busyness

Have you ever had those moments in life when you think, "Life is so chaotic, we might as well just add more chaos to it since it's not going to slow down anytime soon?" Well, that has been the last 3 weeks for us. I'll bullet point it for you:

*July 23rd: My husband got offered a full time position...he has been working a .6 for a year (which is totally normal for an RN!) and we were so hoping and praying that someday he would get a full time position. Well, the day before Connor was born, he accepted a full time RN job doing the exact same thing only more hours! Wahoo!!!

*July 24th: Our 3rd child, Connor, was born!

*July 25th: We begged our doctor to let us go home after only 24 hours in the hospital. Other parents say that hospital stays are vacations....they are definitely not for us! We couldn't wait to get out of the hospital and get back home! My doctor is great and cleared us to go home.

*July 26th-Aug 4th: Umm, seriously, WHEN did August start? My days are so mixed up as of late and I didn't have a clue it was August already!

*Aug. 4th: So, right now we're in a 1,000 square foot house. It is absolutely doable to fit 5 people plus a dog into this house.....but it's been pretty cramped and hard to have anyone but our family in here. We decided to leisurely look at homes to fit our growing family. Well, our "leisure look" turned into us finding an acreage the first week we were looking!

*Aug. 5th: Met with a realtor and was told we had to put our house on the market the next day to try to get our house sold! WHAT!?!?! Umm, we had a 2 week old at this moment with gifts and toys everywhere! But, we stayed up late and got up early and cannot believe that we pulled off getting our house sell ready in a day's time.

*Aug. 7th-present: Trying to keep our house spotless....with a 3 1/2 year old, 2 year old, and 3 week old child. Oh.my.goodness. This is officially crazy! We've had 3 house showings and we're praying that more come through and our house sells!

Another part of our journey...we're trying not to get too invested in the house since there are so many variables but we're also cautiously optimistic that this COULD be the place that we settle into for quite a while. We shall see! In the meantime, we'll be spending quality time at parks and stalking our house while we check out the prospective buyers :)

Oh, and here are some recent pics of the kiddos for the fun of it: