Welcoming Wesley

I can't believe we are halfway through the year and this is only my second post! Needless to say, I am sadly behind. But I have come up with a brilliant plan to catch up and keep this blog up to date: I am going to try to blog current photos/events on Sundays and do a catch-up post (for example, Jace's first day of kindergarten which occurred over 9 months ago and has barely been mentioned here on the blog, making my motherly-guilt feeling a 10 on the mo-guilter scale. Like that term? I am thinking of using it regularly here on the blog since I seem to refer to my guilt level quite often in posts about my kids. Okay, I digress.) on Tuesday nights while Tim is at church meetings. I won't make any promises, but I am really going to try to do better.

So enough talk. Now to our most exciting news, we welcomed baby Wesley Kline Carroll to our family on May 31st at 5:01 am. He was 7lbs 15oz and 20 3/4 inches long and came out looking like the spitting image of his brother Jace (as a baby, not a 6 year old), but with Ethan's chin. Both Jace and Ethan were born one day before their due date, so when Wesley's due date came around, I was super anxious, especially since my mom was flying into town in just one week- I did NOT want to have a late baby! So I came home from church on my due date and, just like I have done with every pregnancy before, I started Googleing ways to induce labor and signs of labor in hopes that I would find some new breakthrough way to get the process started or maybe just reading about it would put me into labor. Well, guess what? It actually worked because when I got off of my computer to go make dinner at 5pm, I started having labor contractions. We waited around for a few hours and my contractions were getting stronger and longer, but were not very consistent. So we waited around until about 11pm when they were so painful that I could hardly breathe. Surely, this was the real thing. So my friend Amy came over to stay with our kids, and we headed to the hospital. Sure enough, I was already dilated to a 7. PHEW- barely in time for the epidural, of which I am a BIG fan! I don't know how you natural child birth women do it- it amazes me! But I was pretty proud of myself for making it all the way to 7cm without pain medication. Go me- now bring on the relief! So that is basically the story- another 4-5 painless, numb below the waist hours, a few pushes and he was here! I will be honest and say that during this last pregnancy, which was very hard on me and my body, I was pretty sure that I did not want to do this again. But after seeing the miracle of birth and spending the first few days mostly alone in the hospital with my new little angel, I fell in love and wanted to do it all again! As much as I hate being pregnant (I know they say hate is a strong word but I will say it again and again!), having a new baby is like an emotional and spiritual high for me. It just puts so many things in perspective for me. And each time I am more and more amazed at how precious my kids are and how important family is and how so much of what I spend my time and energy on just doesn't matter at all. So we will see what the next few years brings- maybe one more is in the cards for us:)

Anyways, here are a few photos of sweet Wesley. I admit that I was a little frustrated that he didn't fully cooperate with my dozens of ideas for photos, and I only got about 8 days out of him, but looking back I really did get some amazing shots of him even if they were not exactly what I was envisioning. (Check my business blog for more, though I may add some of those here later.)

And I still have a few folders of images that I have yet to even comb through. So more to come! This set was taken at 6 days. So sweet...

Enjoy and be sure to check back soon!