Pictures

Cameron and I had a little photo shoot while everyone was at church today. :)

These top two are my favorite.

I really love this face! It makes me laugh so hard!

Birth story...

I really love to hear other people's birth stories, so I hope this doesn't bore anyone too much, but I really just love how each little baby that gets here is always so unique and there always seem to be amazing things that accompany births. They are just a miracle to me and I love seeing the Lord's hand in getting these pure, beautiful little spirits here. So this is how Cameron came. :)

Tuesday - I wake up at 1:30am with contractions.

5:30 - I decide that I'm about ready for an epidural and we head to the hospital.

As it turns out, waiting until I was ready for an epidural backfired on me! They were full and had no room for me! :( So we hung around in a waiting room for a while.

6:15 -We walked into a little triage room with three beds separated by very little space and a very thin curtain and my heart sunk! I looked around and thought..."Oh please no. Please don't tell me I'm delivering a baby in this tiny room sandwiched between two other people!!! Can we go somewhere else????" Meanwhile the contractions are getting more and more intense and I am WAY past ready to have an epidural. They check me and I'm only at a 3-4! I couldn't believe it. I've been sitting at a 3 for the last two weeks and have been laboring for the last 5 hrs and I haven't gone anywhere?! How can that be?!

After starting to get me admitted, they to check me again and I'm already at a 6. So decide they better get things going and they give me the relieving news that they are moving me to a nice, spacious, private delivery room. I can't tell you how happy I was to hear that!

7:30 - Still waiting and still ready for that epidural. Sadly there are many people in higher need - a lot of emergency C-sections that morning. I try to be grateful that I'm not one of those needing an emergency c-section and keep breathing through the pain, but at this point I really just want to cry and tell Justin that I don't think I can do this anymore! I keep thinking of my mom and my friend Dana and keep telling myself, Breathe. Just breathe. You can do this. Breathe.

8:00 - The anesthesiologist comes in and I just want to kiss her I'm so happy she's finally there!!! I sit up and I feel the urge to push! I tell the nurse, but she reassures me it's probably just because I'm sitting up now and feeling pressure. I try to believe her. :)

8:15 - I really feel the need to start pushing. Nurse checks me and says, "Oh my. You are at a 9. The baby's head is right there. I'll go get the dr." Anesthesiologist says, "What?! You can't be at a 9! I haven't even put any drugs in you yet. We haven't even gotten the good stuff to you!" And she very efficiently gets the drugs going. I know it may seem silly that I even had an epidural when I was already at a 9, but I was so ready to not be in pain anymore I just welcomed it. I felt proud of myself that I had gotten that far without any drugs, but I didn't feel the need to continue any further. Maybe next time. We'll see. :)

In the end I was glad that I did have the epidural because I got to just relax and enjoy one of the most amazing experiences of me and Justin's life!

As our amazing dr, Dr. Rankins, got all ready, she turned to Justin and said, "Do you want to help me deliver the baby?" Justin was so excited!!! It was amazing!! I watched in awe as he got gowned up and put gloves on - it was so surreal. He starts his OBGYN rotation in July and will be helping deliver babies then, but I can't tell you how exciting it was that the first baby he got to help deliver was ours! She helped and coached him through it and he coached me with pushing and in 5-10 minutes he was holding our little baby boy! The look of joy on his face while he was seeing the baby's head and delivering the baby was something I will never forget. It was such an amazing thing to do together - like an amazing partnership in bringing this baby into the world!

8:38 - They brought the baby right over to me and Justin and I spent an hour with him before they took him to do all the measurements - the three of us just relishing this experience and enjoying our first moments together.

It was perfect. Everything about it was just perfect! What started out as a crazy experience ended up being one of the most amazing of our lives. It all progressed really fast. And now we have our family of four and it is the best thing ever! Definitely has it's challenges, but it really is wonderful! Life is just so good! :)

Cameron Jay Peterson

(Cameron holding Braden's finger - so precious!)

Here is our little boy!!!

Cameron Jay Peterson was born @ 8:38am on May 3, 2011

7lb 8oz and 20in long

He has quite the pair of lungs on him (but luckily for us he doesn't cry much! :), he is so precious and sweet and he just sleeps all the time! A wise friend of mine, Dana, once said that you are blessed with the baby you can handle at the time. For us that is most definitely true!

Cameron is such a little sleeper. Justin and I don't know what to do with ourselves! He just eats and sleeps, all the time! Braden was definitely a good little eater too, but he was never a sleeper. It is quite fun to have a sleepy, snuggly little newborn around!

We are all loving it! Even Braden. :)

I will post more about the birth and things later, but for now wanted to get a few pictures up.

One of the rare moments with his eyes open! I thought I better document it. :)

At first I was amazed that I didn't find Cameron to look anything like Braden. Then I looked at a few newborn pictures of Braden and realized that I was wrong! They look way more alike than I thought they did. Now every time I look at Cameron I feel like I am seeing a little newborn Braden again - except he sleeps all the time and has hair in the back. :)

Above is Cameron at the hospital, below is Braden the day we brought him home. There are definitely a few differences, but a lot of similarities!

40+ weeks...

40 weeks. We made it!!! The due date has come and gone and this little boy is just being so good to his parents! Justin has successfully completed one national exam and one final, and this little baby is just hanging out in there. :) One more final Wed. and another national exam Thurs to go!

I'm really amazed, because I've been dilated to a 3 for the past two weeks almost, and didn't think I stood a chance at making it this far! The dr. was also amazed I've made it thus far.

We'll see if he'll stay in there another few days, or if he just can't take it anymore and needs to come join us before then!

Justin played intramural soccer, as he always does, and it just gets more and more fun to go support him. His games were all pretty late so we didn't get to go to them all, but we decided to keep Braden up and go to the last few anyway so that he could watch his Daddy play soccer. The whole team loved Braden and are so amazingly fun and sweet with him! They call him their little lucky charm - they always win when he comes.

And it held to be true! Here they are as the champions!

It was so much fun to go and cheer them on and Braden ate it all up.

My favorite part of the whole thing was that when they went to take the championship picture the guys all said, "Hey, get Braden in here. He's our mascot! He's got to be in the picture too!"

Only 2 and he's already posing for soccer championship pics. :)

It melted my heart!

And we even had a beautiful sunset to top it all off. :)

Life is so great!

Happy Easter!

Isn't he just so handsome in his little Easter outfit?!!! I love it. :)

I found the pants and vest at the thrift store for 69 cents each a few months ago! And the bow tie is the amazing crafty work of my sister-in-law, Elisa! She's so talented. It was just the perfect touch to his little outfit!

We had such a fun Easter weekend! Braden has been so excited for Easter all month long!

He LOVED dying the eggs:

(We took off his shirt so I wasn't so anxious about him spilling dye on it)

Then later in the week we had a little Easter Egg hunt for a few friends:

They were all VERY happy with their spoils! :)

The next day we went to our ward's pancake breakfast and easter egg hunt, which Braden was doubly excited about because he LOVES Easter Egg hunts and he LOVES his Curious George book, where Curious George goes to the pancake breakfast fundraiser. Braden thought it was so exciting that he was getting to go to a pancake breakfast, "Just like George!"

Sunday morning was perfect! I had Braden's Easter basket waiting for him in our room when he got up the next morning. (He always comes into our room and snuggles with us in bed while drinking some milk in the morning) But to my surprise, he didn't notice it at all! After a while I pointed it out to him and his face lit up and he just sat there, looking at it in awe. I finally persuaded him to go over and see what all was in it and his reactions were all "ooohhhhh" and "wow"!!! It was so fun to see how excited he was about some bubbles and some Easter candy!

We spent some time that morning watching some Mormon Messages about Christ, and playing while listening to some beautiful Easter music. He loves the picture of Christ stepping out of the tomb (but is always so concerned about how Jesus' one foot seems to be "stuck"in the tomb! haha!).

Justin had informed me that growing up they didn't hide the plastic Easter eggs, but always hid the boiled eggs that they had dyed. I thought this was a really good idea! So we hid them for Braden to find and then ate them with our breakfast. Braden loved it just as much as the ones with candy, so it was great!

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend and a wonderful way to celebrate Christ and all things becoming new again with Spring. I loved starting some new traditions with our family, and having Braden old enough to participate and be excited about them!

Amazing Friends

I have some amazing friends here in VA! Cami threw me a baby shower and we all got together and had so much fun! She is so creative and made amazing favors for all of us, decorated so cute and fed us delicious food! It was great to get together and spend some fun, relaxing time with friends. It was perfect.

Thanks Cami and everyone for a great baby shower!!!

I just love these guys!!!

Braden's thoughts...

A few fun moments of Braden over the last few weeks:

Braden, upon seeing a picture of Jesus showing the nail prints in His hands to the disciples after being resurrected:

B: He got a scratch. Jesus got a scratch. (full of deep concern in his voice)

Me: Yes, he did. He got a scratch for us. He's showing His scratch to His disciples.

B: Yeah. They gonna get a band-aid for Him. So He can heal. They gonna get a band-aid for Him. Make him feel better. Yeah.

Justin and I were sitting on the couch. Braden comes in the room and announces:

B: "I just gonna go play baseball a little minute. Be back in little bit. I just gonna go play baseball."

Us: "Oh. Okay. That sounds fun!"

B: "Yeah. I gonna play baseball. Be fun. Be back, real soon." Then seeing the back door is closed. "Uhhh, I just need keys. I just need the keys so I can go play baseball a little minute. Mommy, daddy, I need keys go in the car."

Song he made up before church the other day. I listened from the bathroom as he sang this to his balls: "Goin to church....and this little ball goin to church...and this ball going to nursery....and we're ALLLLLL goin to church...."