Welcome, Baby Elsie!

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On July 11, we welcomed little baby Elsie Jennette Serafine!  We can't get over how cute she is and we love having a little girl around here with all these boys.

Elsie was born on 7/11.  Matt was really hoping for her to born that day so he could take her to 7/11 each year and get a free slurpie.  How exciting.  : ) 

But at 39 weeks and 5 days, she was my longest pregnancy yet.  Here's the story of her birth, if anyone is interested in reading it...it's mostly just for my own memory.  Feel free to stop reading if you wish.

In the month of July, Matt had two whole weeks off, and Hannah was at our house for the first two or three weeks as well.  We really hoped Elsie would make her appearance at the beginning of the time both Matt and Hannah were home.  Well, those two weeks came and went.  The last day of Matt's time off, Friday the 11th, I had a doctors appointment in the morning.  We were hoping we could talk them into inducing me that weekend, since Matt was starting his new job Monday and there was a chance he would be out in the boonies with the Marines, with no way to get a hold of him.  My appointment that day was with the nurse practitioner, and she wasn't too keen on me being induced.  She did call the L&D deck, and they put me on the schedule for Saturday night.  Friday night, however, I started having contractions at about 7:00 pm.  I don't know what I was thinking, but I timed them for two hours and they were always 10 minutes apart.  For some reason, I kept thinking that they would get closer together like any other normal person.  At about 9:30, I couldn't take it anymore, and my contractions were suddenly 2 minutes apart.  As we were getting into the car, I told Matt, "I sure hope we didn't wait too long."  Matt, being the calm and collected person he is, got us to the hospital in record time.  Once we got there, we made our way in, having to stop several times for contractions, leaning against the walls and Matt.  As soon as we got to the labor and delivery floor, I felt like it was time to push.  The girls at the desk got me a wheelchair, but I wasn't too keen on moving while I was having contractions.  The corpsman said to me, "If you're going to deliver, I want you to deliver in a bed and not in the wheelchair."  They pushed me a few feet into one of the delivery rooms, and got me into the bed.  When the nurse checked me, I was at an 8, and she told me not to push.  A few very short minutes later I was telling her that there was no way I wasn't going to push and I couldn't not push.  There was just enough time for them to get an IV in my arm, and tell me that the anesthesiologist was not in the hall and before any drugs could be administered I had to have a blood test to make sure I wasn't going to clot when I got an epidural.  When the resident said that they were going to order the lab, I knew it was a joke.  There were going to be no drugs for this girl.  

After telling the resident and intern that I wasn't going to wait anymore, they agreed to let me push.  They didn't check me again, that I know of, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't an at 8 anymore.  But three pushes later and Elsie was born!  She was small and pink and cute.  We were so happy to see her, and very glad her delivery was smooth, albeit quite fast.  I didn't even have a hospital gown on when she was born, I was still halfway dressed in my regular clothes.  I figured we were just trying to keep the hospital staff on their toes, having a laboring lady come in 20 minutes before the baby is born.  So far we've done that twice.  It makes for an interesting story.  : )  

We kind of think she looks a little more like Graham than Mason, and a little like her daddy.  Welcome to the world, Elsie!  We sure love you!

happy 4th!

We had a pretty fun and low-key 4th of July this year.  We had Hannah in town so she got to celebrate it with us.  We went swimming, Matt and Hannah played tennis, and we grilled up some dinner.  

moving day

On May 29th and 30th, we packed up our things and moved from north San Diego to even further north in San Diego county.  We absolutely loved the area we were living in, but we were wanting to back in a house that we owned and a little closer to Matt's work.  Since Matt's duty station was changing from the Naval Medical Center San Diego, the navy was willing to move us, even though it was only about 30 minutes from our old house.  Score.  Last year when we moved to San Diego, we did the move ourselves and collected the money.  This year was a little different.  At the time of our move, Matt was working horribly long days, and I was 8 months pregnant.  Neither of us could really muster the energy or time that was going to be needed to move our stuff ourselves.  So...we had the Navy do everything and it was wonderful.  

For the record, I packed nothing.  It was great.  We did, however, go through all of our things and super-organize everything.  We took down picture frames and put them all in a single pile, we condensed all our linens and things to one place, and so forth.  On the morning of May 30th, our movers arrived.  It was a team of three guys, and they were awesome.  They started packing at about 7 am.  (And a special thanks to the Dalquists and the Deans for watching my boys both days.  They loved playing with their friends and it made my day easier.)  By about 1 pm, the movers were ready to put everything on the truck.  They packed up our house so fast.  It was incredible to see.  By 5 pm, they were completely finished and everything was in the truck.  

Here are my little moving buddies having some lunch between play dates.

The next day, the movers were ready to deliver our stuff as soon as we were ready for them.  We were closing on our house on the 30th, so we had to wait until everything was recorded and we got the keys.  At about 3 pm, we had our keys in hand and the movers were waiting for us at the house.  They had everything unloaded in two hours.  Sadly, this is the only picture I took of the whole moving process.  Because Matt was working both days, and it was just me and the kids and the moving and the cleaning, I didn't really think about taking pictures.

Once everything was unloaded in the house, the movers were off and we were just left to unpack.  These few days of the move, Matt was working from 5 am to about 8 pm, and with an hour commute to our new house, it made for some really long days.  (After we moved, Matt had a month left of working downtown before he started working closer to our new house.)  Matt is awesome, though, and super motivated, so when he got home he was more than willing to help clean and finish up as much as he could get done before we all crashed in exhaustion.  We did have to laugh, though, because in all of the moving commotion, Matt never saw the movers.  He'd come home and everything would already be done.

Graham in swimming lessons

We signed Graham up for swimming lessons through the city, and he loved it.  He was the smallest one in the class, but he did great.  He was so proud of his swimming.  When he went off the diving board he told us "I was so brave!"

unclassified pictures

I always end up with a collection of random pictures on my phone that don't really belong under any specific category.  That being said, here are some of these pictures of our cute kids.  : )

The boys love to read.  And I love that they love to read.  There's no place better to read than the book box.

a really strange Saturday

A few Saturdays ago, we had big plans for our day.  Matt got up early, finished paining the toy room and entryway, and we were going to head to the zoo.  Our plan was to drop by the San Diego library to claim the boys' summer reading prizes before going to the zoo because we didn't know when we'd be back over in our old neighborhood.  Everything was going along swimmingly.  We hopped in the car after doing a few things around the house, and made a quick stop at Target.  (Where I found a really cute chair and bench for 70% off.  Score!)  After we left Target, we headed to the library.  As we were driving, the car started making a funny noise, then it quickly got worse.  It sounded as if our tire was flat, because we could hear a thump, thump, thump sound and it was getting louder.  As we were slowing down and getting ready to pull over, our tire exploded.  Or at least it sounded like it exploded.  My biggest fear is blowing a tire on the freeway and rolling the car an unheard of amount of times, so I was really glad Matt was with us and was driving that day.  

When we were stopped on the side of the road, I jumped out to check the tire since the cars weren't zooming past my side.  When I saw what the car looked like, I told Matt it was bad.  I don't know if he thought it was as bad as it was right at first, until he saw it.  What had happened, or what we think had happened was the tire, which didn't explode, lost all of its tread, and the tread caught the fender and basically mutilated it.  This picture below is after we had the new tire on and Matt pulled the fender back down.  When we stopped on the side of the freeway, the fender was completely rolled up into the wheel well.  We aren't sure, but suspect, that someone hit us in the Target parking lot, which made something on the fender bend in enough to rub on the tire.  Then, as we were driving, whatever was rubbing on the tire was making the tread come loose.  Once the tread was completely ripped off, the rubber caught hold of the fender and yanked it up.  We don't know for sure, and may never know for sure, but our car was pretty beat up.  We weren't going to let this ruin our Saturday, so once we had the tire fixed (thanks, also, for the help from a highway patrol worker) we made our way to the library. 

intern year: check

At the beginning of June, Matt graduated from his intern year of his residency.  There was a ceremony for all the graduating interns and residents at the Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park.  We're really proud of Matt's accomplishments this year.  He worked a really busy year, had a very busy schedule, and somehow lived to tell the tale.  : )  I was able to snap a few pictures of Matt in his uniform (or outfit, as Graham calls it).  I think he looks quite dashing.  Way to go, Matt.  One year done, and we're not going to count the rest.  : )

happy 30th Matt!

Matt turned the big 3-0 this year!  Seems a little old, right?  : )  Maybe not.  This year, we tried to make Matt's birthday special, despite it occurring right in the middle of our move.  Matt had to work on his actual birthday, and didn't get home until quite late, so we celebrated his birthday on June 1st, since it was his only day off that week.  The boys were so excited for his birthday, and I felt bad not telling them that it was actually Matt's birthday on the 31st.  The whole day went by and they had no idea.  Whenever Graham would ask if it was Matt's birthday, I'd just tell him we were going to celebrate it tomorrow.  But when we celebrated Matt's birthday, the boys had a blast.  Happy birthday, Matt!  We love you and are so fortunate to have such a wonderful husband and father in our family!  We hope that the next 30 years are just as great, and even better.