It's Birthday Time!

Can it be true?! My little Nathan has turned the big 2! Since our evenings are quite hectic (with John and Seth gone to football every night) we decided we'd better celebrate his party on Sunday evening... so John's parents, sister and grandma all came over and we had dinner, cake and ice cream and had him open his presents. We sang to him and he got all embarrassed that so much attention was on him - it was absolutely adorable!!! I made a WW cake for us all - but got him a little personal chocolate cake from Walmart - here he is chomping into it...Then I got all nostalgic and started reminiscing about his birth 2 years ago... John had just flown out to Wisconsin that morning with the Army and wouldn't you know it... that was the day Nathan decided to join us :) John's mom had come to spend the night with me "just in case" something happened and so I wouldn't be alone - This would be my second homebirth with Karen and I was pretty excited about it! I had just gotten done tucking in the boys when I really started contracting- so I called Karen and told her I'd call her if things kept progressing (since she'd already been out for a false alarm - oops :0 -- anyway, I called John about 9pm and told him that this was the real thing and he needed to get on the next flight home - he actually was able to make it back pretty quickly - but it wasn't fast enough to be there for the birth. I was so considerate and let everyone (Anne and my whole birth team) sleep until about 2am - when I went in and woke up Anne. I then called Karen and told her that I felt like I needed her to come over asap... upon her arrival, she checked my dilation and declared that I had waited too long to call her and that I was already at 9cm! Anne hurried and called all of the members of the "Team Vogt" birth team and they all arrived in record time - LOL. Looking back, I think my body was apprehensive to go through this huge experience without John by my side becuase it was a couple of hours before Nathan was born - he arrived at 5:32am weighing in at a whopping 9lb 6oz and was 22 inches long. John was on the airplane at that exact time - but the stewardess' got permission from the CPT. to let him be on his cell phone during the flight - so he was able to hear Nathan's first cries and we also sent him a picture over the phone right after he was born. He got back home shortly after 12:00pm. Here is a "before" "birth" and "now" shot of my little man! (and yes, I know, that I don't look 9 months pg. here - but I asure you I was - LOL... I never get real big when I'm pregnant - and so when I was pg. with the girls - although I only looked like should have been having 1 baby - to me I felt incredibly huge and miserable!!)

and here is a scrapbook LO I did for Nathan's 1st year book with all of the members of Team Vogt - I made these shirts up for them and had their favorite numbers printed on the backs along with their names -I though they turned out pretty cool :) Each of these ladies had a specific job to do that kept the whole birthing process running smoothly... I believe that they each "stepped it up" as well - since John wasn't there.. they knew I'd need to rely on them more! Which I totally did... (hey, Lynette - do you still have some "war wounds" that I left on you??? so sorry for that!)and here are 2 additional LO's I did for his 1st year book that have some of my most favorite pics of him! The bottom one (in B/W) is an absolute fav. pic of mine! He was/is such a cute lil' guy!

Happy Birthday my sweet little boy!!