Finley Marie Zietz

(This post is 2.5 months late-goes to show you what our lives have been like lately!)

It's a Girl!!! We were very surprised and excited to find out that our third baby is a girl! Finley surprised us a few days earlier than my scheduled C-section on Monday, March 23rd. All of our kids seem to come with some flash, even though they were all c-sections. I was scheduled for Friday 3/27. We celebrated Tucker's 4th birthday a bit early with our family on Sunday 3/22. That night I just felt something was off. I had even told Max that morning that I didn't think I was making it until Friday. After everyone left I started to have contractions. I went to bed because they weren't too bad, but then around 3:00 I woke up and never fell back to sleep. I was definitely in pain, but it would come in waves and it wasn't unbearable. I had never been in labor before so I had no clue what to expect. I was googling what contractions feel like, how far apart they are supposed to be, etc. I even downloaded a contraction counter app! They never got more than 60-90 seconds, and were hovering around 45-60 for the most part, and never got closer than 5 min apart. It was actually good because I made a list of what to pack for the hospital. Then at 6 when I was still awake and walking around, I took a shower and started to pack. Max woke up then and was like, "what's going on?" I was in denial about all of this thinking that maybe it was just a false alarm. The contractions seemed to let up a bit, but then they came back. Finally at 8:00 I called the Doctor's and they told me to get to the hospital. I still was thinking that it wasn't a big deal, so I asked if I could just come to the office. She said definitely not, and told me to get there sooner than later. Of course, as soon as I got off the phone, they seemed to be a lot less painful. I never felt like they were unbearable, but they were certainly uncomfortable and would stop me in my tracks.

After I got some stuff together, and my mom made her way over, we headed to the hospital. Once we got there and I was hooked up, it was confirmed that I was having some very regular contractions so I was definitely going to be having the baby that day. I was only dialed 1 or 2 cm at first. At some point my water broke and then they started to move pretty quickly to get me prepped. There was something weird with my blood work which made me a little nervous. Also, my blood pressure had been elevated since I got there. I typically have very low blood pressure, and the last time I didn't was when Tucker was born. I was a little anxious because of this and then at one point, the babies heart beat literally slowed down and then just stopped. I could hear it. It was scary. Thankfully the nurse was in there then, and after what seemed like forever (probably a minute in reality) and having me flip from side to side, her heart beat came back. I was like, just get this baby out. I don't want to go through this again!

Well after a ton of antibiotics for a variety of reasons, and 3 hours at the hospital, and a very confused husband (the whole gender reveal thing was a little confusing....) we heard, IT'S A GIRL!  

I think I was honestly more surprised about how small she was than that she was a girl!  

Arriving at 12:37, at a mere albs and 4oz, 18.5 in, Finley Marie was born! We loved the name Finley, and she got her middle name because my original C-section date was 3/27, my Great Grandmother Mary's Birthday. We didn't want to use Mary exactly and my mom and sister's middle names are Marie, so we chose that. We also couldn't think of two other women who embody everything that we want for our daughter to be, so it was an easy choice!  She's adorable, not letting us sleep for very long at night, but we love love love her and are so happy God chose to bless us with her! We are now officially outnumbered!

The boys are LOVING their new sister and thing she's so cute too:)

Christmas 2014

We have a total of 6 different Christmas celebrations/events/places to go over the course of three days, the 24th-26th. We are always exhausted by the end, but enjoy every second with all of our families!

1. Christmas Eve brunch at my parents with my uncle's family. We actually managed to get all of the cousins smiling in one picture!

2. Christmas Eve night is at our house with my immediate family and grandparents-we have the traditional crackers, lots of food, and a made-up game that D always does an awesome job with, and late night rockbound and serious laughter. And Baileys. And lots of wine. And lots of fun. This is one of my favorite parts of our Christmas celebrations!

I grew up not really doing the whole Santa Claus thing so it has been a big debate for me to figure out how I wanted to combine the fun that is the mystery of Santa without having Santa and his presents overshadow what Christmas is really all about.  After much thought, we came to the conclusion that Santa would bring gifts in our kids stockings, and all of the other gifts would be from us- we don't need Santa getting all the glory for the good gifts!  We also told the kids the story of Saint Nicholas (thank you Veggietales St. Nick movie) and they picked out gifts from the World Vision gift catalog to give to children who need them around the world.  On Christmas Eve night we did write Santa a letter and left him some treats. The letter asked Santa to make sure that the gifts we sent got to the kids who need them. Santa wrote a letter back letting the boys know that the gifts made it to the kids, and thanking them for loving other people like Jesus does. And he made sure to tell the boys that he left them a few treats in their stockings too.  

It's nothing dramatic, but will hopefully be a tradition of stockings, giving gifts to others, and hopefully not having to lie too much to the kids in the process:) 

3. Christmas Morning! We aren't quite at the wake up super early to see what Santa brought/mom and dad bought phase yet (thankfully!) but the kids were SO excited to start opening their gifts. They thought it was very cool that Santa would leave them gifts in their stockings. They were most excited about the snow markers and toy cameras ($5 total at target for those rare finds!).

We attempt to make sure that there aren't too many presents, but every year it still seems like there's a ton by the time they get their gifts from everyone! They need to detox on the gift receiving after three days of presents:)

These trucks were their big present...safe to say, they were their faves. I actually attempted to vary the presents this year so that there were some books, games, crafts, toys, clothing items, and random stuff. (i'm writing this so i remember to do that again next year!)

4. Christmas Morning #2. It's still a little weird not to wake up at my parents house on Christmas morning (this is only the third year we've woken up at our own house!), but we love going over there still in PJ's after we open gifts at our house to MORE gifts and brunch at their house. To me, Christmas will always be opening gifts at my parents on Christmas morning.  I'm sure at some point if/when there are more families/kids and people move that will change, but I'm holding on to that for as long as possible:)
The kids were so patient as they indulged us in our "one person goes at a time and we all take turns opening a gift" routine:)

Mom surprised Dad with snowshoes- a totally random gift that he was so pumped about-of course we have had no snow so far!

And we surprised Mom with new show shoes too! Now it just needs to snow!

There were plenty of helpers to unwrap the gifts!

We are such traditionalists...our usual spots!

This was all Chris wanted for Christmas...he couldn't wait to open it:)

5. After an attempt at decent naps (there are quite a few very late nights during the holiday weeks!) we went to Christmas dinner at my Aunt's house with my family and my grandparents.  My cousins are so great at playing with our kids-kinda like how we used to play with them! It was pretty nice out so the kids had to get out on the trampoline to burn some energy for awhile!

These two! Ashley was born the day after we got married, and she just loves playing with Brayden. I'm so grateful that they have so much love (and attention/free babysitting!) for our kids.

And the ones who started it all! Love my Grandparents!!

My hysterical Dad, and even more presents!

This was my favorite moment of the night. No one in our family is really musical, or really cares to be, but my grandmother can play the piano and has always had a piano at her house.  We haven't done Christmas dinner at her house for the past few years so we haven't been near a piano on Christmas, but we used to sing a few very off-key Christmas carols.  They sold their house this year and reallocated a lot of their things to their kids houses. My aunt has the Piano now. Grandma was all excited that we could sing a few carols.  We did, sounded terrible, but these two little boys (especially Brayden) sat there and "played" with her the whole time, and actually sat and played nicely. Brayden was so enamored and just kept staring at Grandma. He has such a special love for them. I'm so grateful that they get to grow up with their great-grandparents too, because I have such wonderful memories of having my great-grandma as a big part of my life up through middle school!

Winding down the night with some new toys:)

6. The day after Christmas has become the day we celebrate with Max's family. It's nice to have a relaxing day, especially after all the stuff going on the two days prior, to just hang out.  It was gorgeous out (super warm!) so the kids were able to play outside too.  They actually took naps, which was huge, so we were able to celebrate with Max's mom and his sister's family without kids that were too cranky after a week of non-stop activities/no routine!  I was also a MAJOR slacker with my camera this day-I think the exhaustion peaked and I just sat...unless someone needed something, but the kids had fun playing with everyone and opening yet even more presents! These kids are set for a LONGGGGG time!

The cousins winding down at the end of the night.

Our one and only family shot from all of the Christmas events! 

Last few Advent Activities!

This is certainly delayed, but here's the last few activities of our Advent celebrations!

One of the volunteer firehouses in our town does this great fundraiser every year where you can pay to have the decked out fire truck with Santa visit your house. I dropped off gifts for our kids the week before and then Santa delivers them to our door!  We've done it a few times now and it keeps getting more fun as the kids get older! Tucker was giddy! Brayden was definitely excited too, just a little more confused as to what was going on. It was a big Gombos/Lovelett/Zietz family extravaganza of fun!

And this was when Santa made all sorts of inappropriate comments to my sister...as captured by this picture:)

So much for a good family pic:)

I love that Tucker goes to a Christian preschool for so many reasons, but I really love that their Christmas celebration is completely centered around the birth of Christ. This was their super cute Christmas production...Tucker was an Angel. In typical fashion, he stood there barely doing the motions, except for his few favorite songs. I'm sure his 10:00 bedtime the night before didn't help his attention either!

Christmas Eve has been at our house for the past few years and we love hosting it!  It's always filled with lots of laughs, food, some sort of home-made Danielle game, and some sort of Rockband performances. Although this year only D, Max and I were around for the rockbound extravaganza! I have the videos from some of our best performances but they are in the family vault:)

Putting the kids to work so the adults can play the Christmas version of Family Feud!

 Boys vs Girls!

And finally,  Christmas morning!!! All of our Christmas celebrations will have to be in another post!