It Finally Happened...

Jared is always complaining about how his body is falling apart from playing sports too much. Well, it finally happened! On Thursday night he was playing basketball and completely severed his achilles tendon. Yeah, not good. Luckily our friend was there to take him to the emergency room so I could stay home with the kids. Thanks Derek! Right now he has a cast on his foot and has to use crutches. He saw the orthopedic surgeon yesterday and is scheduled to have surgery on Tuesday where they'll re-attach the tendon. After the surgery he'll have a cast for 6 weeks with crutches and then a walking boot for another 6 weeks after that! He's getting out of a lot of baby duty and is definitely going to "owe me one" when this is over! Since the accident I've informed him that the only sports he's allowed to play are ping pong and fishing. Those are sports right?

2 Month Checkup...

I can't believe Lexie is already nine weeks old! We went to her two month checkup on Monday and she weighed 11 lbs 1 ounce (60th percentile) and was 23 inches long (75th percentile). She is the sweetest little girl and is smiling so much, especially in the morning. She's cooing and talking a lot, but mostly to her Papa. It's amazing how well she sleeps too. The other night we put her to bed at 10:30 pm and she didn't wake up until 8:30 am! Most of the time she'll go to bed around 10:30 and wake up around 5:00am and then go back to bed until 8:00am. I'm so thankful she sleeps so well at night because I rarely get a nap with Kaitlyn around!

Baby Blessing...

So we blessed our sweet Lexie last Sunday.  She looked beautiful in her dress, but we didn't get many pictures because we waited until after chuch and by then both our kids were a  bit grumpy. We tried to take a family picture but Katy refused to smile, so Jared and I made grumpy faces too.

Nana and Grandpa come to visit...

Nana and Grandpa finally were able to make their way out to Houston to visit. Katy was so excited to have Nana and Grandpa "come on a plane" to stay at our house. Kaitlyn instantly bonded with Grandpa and would not let him out of her sight. Nana was easily Lexie's favorite and would fall asleep within seconds of Nana picking her up (why can't you be here at 2:00 a.m.)?  Some of the highlights of their stay included a visit from Santa Clause, trips to the park, family pictures, one of Judy's famous cakes, Lexie's baby blessing and a game of phase 10 - which I won =) !

Thanks for the visit; we miss you already!

Merry Christmas!

Since Alexis was only 4 weeks old we didn't want to travel for the holidays. I thought it would be kind of boring and lonely, but we had a great holiday spending time as a family. No traveling, no stress, no drama...just how I like it! On Christmas Eve we went to a fabulous holiday party at a friend's house and had a great time. It was fun being with friends, eating good food, and watching the children re-enact the Savior's birth. That night, after the party, we put the cookies out for Santa, put Katy to bed and then spent 3 hours putting together the gift from Santa (a new kitchen)! I love how we spend so much time and energy putting together the Santa gift and then we don't even get credit for it! Anyway, we had a great time as a family and this year was even more special as I held my little baby and pondered how Mary must have felt as she held her special little baby on this important day.

Christmas Cookies...

Here are some pictures of Katy and me making Christmas cookies. She helped with every step of the process including pouring, mixing, rolling out the dough and cutting out the cookies. At the end I let her lick a beater. I turned around for a second to put the cookies in the oven and I hear her say, "I want to dip it". I look over my shoulder and she had finished licking her beater and was trying to dip it in the bowl to get more dough to eat; just like her daddy! Don't worry, I made sure everything stayed sanitary!

Alexis Marie Hickman

Alexis is now two weeks old and I have yet to post any pictures! She arrived on November 24th at 12:27pm and weighed 7 pounds 2 ounces. They gave me the pitocin at 9:30, I felt my first contraction at 10:30 and she was born before 12:30. Everything went really well except for the fact that I had a resident administer my epidural. I felt like I was on an episode of ER and this was the first epidural the guy had ever given. By the time he came to my room it was 11:30 and I was having contractions right on top of each other. He kept poking me with the dang needle over and over again and probably put the epidural in at least 5 times! Finally he called the Attending in and he did it correctly in 2 minutes; however, by then I was fully dilated and ready to push! I was so mad, because there wasn't enough time for the medicine to start working and I was not ready for a natural birth! The good part is that it was really fast and it's a lot easier to push when you're bottom half isn't numb!

She's only 16 days old, but so far Alexis is such a sweet, good natured baby. When she was first born she looked exactly like Kaitlyn did, but with brown hair and brown eyes. Every day she looks a little different and gets a little bigger. Kaitlyn is such a great big sister and loves to hold Lexie and play with her. Anyway, we are so blessed to have this little angel as a part of our family. She has such a sweet spirit and we love her so much. Enjoy the pictures!