The early days.....

After a long night......

My mom and Cole.....she helped out after I had him and had fun sleepover's with Ava in her bed! Ava loved it!

These are just a few pics from my Mom's camera when she came to visit. I still haven't downloaded all my other pics......

Anyways, these early weeks have been pretty tough being sleep deprived! Cole loves to nurse and it is every 2-3 hours non-stop! Ava was completely opposite and would go 4 hours even more at night where I had to set an alarm to wake her up. Brec was about every 3-4 hours, but Cole is much more frequent. Especially in the early morning around 4:00 a.m. he will wake up after an hour and a half and want more and then he stays in his light sleep mode where he is grunting and is soooo loud and he wakes himself up. So, I am not getting much sleep these days, but feel like I am surviving somewhat!! I am looking forward for even a four hour stretch and that is pathetic!! But, I am loving my sweet little dude and think he is adorable and know that they don't stay little for long so I am enjoying it. Even though he is my little crazy pooper and farter......(seriously, just yesterday while I was changing him he did the biggest fart in my face while I was changing him and then last night, or I should say this morning around 4 a.m., he did an explosive poop all over me. Right when I lift his bottom up and wipe, his gas powered poop projectiles in my direction all over. So, I had to wake Briant up to help clean myself up, change my outfit and wipe up the bed......so gross!) All that we do for these kiddos......I am going to get more gray hairs.....sad, but true that I already have some that have sprouted out and I am still in my 20's.....love my kids, though!!!!

Introducing........

Cole Richens Howard

Born March 9, 2010 @ 5:01 a.m.

7 lbs 2 oz, 20 inches

We are so in love with our sweet little guy who is just perfect! I bet you all want to hear about his birth story so I will tell.......

I started to have contractions at 2:00 a.m. that woke me up, and I have never woken in the night from contractions, so I was a little alarmed. I started to time them and they were about four minutes apart. I still wasn't sure so I got up to see if anything changed, but they were still about four minutes apart so I decided to wake Briant up around 2:20. He was totally disoriented and said some jibberish and to let him know and he fell back asleep! I then waited another ten minutes and told him that we needed to go and to call his mom. So he got up right away and called his mom and we got busy packing...totally unprepared! B's mom showed up around 3:00 and we made it to the hospital in about 20 minutes...by this time I was having contractions every two minutes and they were very painful!!! I was so scared I wasn't going to be able to get the epidural again and have to go natural! I had to go to the registration desk and the lady was taking forever and then finally they took me back to triage and left me there....I was still so scared and told Briant to go and tell the nurse that I go really fast and that they needed to check me. They came in right away and I was at a 6 thank goodness, still time for an epidural. So, with what seemed like forever I finally got my IV and then got my epidural and I was finally relaxed and in heaven that I was not going to experience another traumatic birth. The doc checked me right after the epidural and I was at an 8 and he broke my water and said we would be having the baby in about 5 to 10 minutes. He then came in and said for me to push just a little and the head was seriously out and then one more little small push and the baby was out.....soooo easy! They layed him on me for a while and it was so amazing! After they weighed him and wiped him down a bit they gave him back to me for what seemed like forever. It was so great to have that bonding experience and not have him taken away from me for a while doing a billion tests.

So far, he is doing great! He is the best nurser in the world and latched on right away and has not had problems since......that has always been the hardest part for me and I was totally not looking forward to breast feeding this time, but he is making it so easy!

He has the sweetest cry and has been an angel so far. We just got home this morning so we will see tonight what our first night will be like, but so far he has shown signs of being a great sleeper. We love him so much and are so happy he is now part of our family!