The Day our Lives Changed forever!

Here is Bryce's birth story for those of you who are curious. For those of you who are not, you have been warned. Bryce's due date was August 8th. When that day came and went, I was getting anxious and ready to do anything to make his arrival come sooner. On August 9th, I spent the day washing the walls in our house and bouncing on my exercise ball! Early the next morning on August 10th, around 1:00 am my water broke. I woke Shane up and he immediately started running around the house, getting dressed, and somehow stubbed his toe during the process. He had the car started before I even had my pajamas off. Off to the hospital we went! Luckily my water broke, but I was not having any contractions, so the hour and half drive to Peoria wasn't as bad as what I had imagined it would be. We got to the hospital and were told to relax and get some sleep while they waited to see if my contractions would start on their own. After about 3 hours and no contractions, they gave me pytocin to get the party started! At 10:30 am the morning of the 10th I was dilated to a 5. I then got the epidural and Shane and I started betting on when he will be born. Unfortunately, the epidural slowed the party down and I was only progressing about 1 cm every two hours. By 6:00 pm I was finally to a 9! It had been a long day, but the next time they checked me I was ready to push and meet our baby boy. But, when they checked me again at 8:00 pm I had somehow gone backwards to a 7. Oh no! And, Bryce's heartbeat was going up and down, so they backed off the pytocin. At this point it had been almost 20 hours since my water had broken. I was exhausted, Shane was worried, and Bryce was suffering, so my doctor suggested we do a C-section. We agreed. They prepped us for surgery, and we were on our way. Bryce was born at 12:34 am on August 11th weighing 8 lbs, 10.8 oz, and 20 inches long. After a very long day, we finally got to meet our baby boy! We both cried when we saw him in the delivery room! Here are only a few of the pictures from that memorable day!

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Shane's Triathlon

On August 4th, Shane competed in his first triathlon in Canton, IL. Despite the heat, and the fact that I was almost 9 months pregnant, I went with Jolene and Myrl to cheer him on. First they had to swim 500 yards, then they biked 12 miles, and then they ran 3 miles. Brett and Shane competed against each other and I think they both had a great time! They are already talking strategy for their next tirathlon on September 22nd at Oak Run.


Before the race, ready to go!


After the race, a little worn out! (Shane is gonna kill me for putting this on here!)

Our New Home!

The middle of July we moved, yet again, to a townhouse in Ottawa, IL. We love it. I figured up that this is the 10th time I have moved since I graduated high school. Geez! Maybe someday we will finally be settled! Here are a few pictures of our house. Our Streator apartment was only one bedroom, this townhouse is much bigger and we finally have room for some of our wedding gifts from September!





Downstairs bathroom

Our full basement. The black, white, and red color scheme is my design style from my chillicothe apartment. I finally get to use it all again!



Our makeshift bedroom in the basement for our overnight visitors.












Baby T's room. We had so much fun shopping at IKEA!



Upstairs bathroom. I love all the cabinet space!



Our bedroom! We love our King size bed with our foam mattress. Shane tosses and turns and I never even feel him!