Matthew's first few days . . .

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From 3 to 4!

Wednesday afternoon Matthew and I were able to come home from the hospital so we could begin the adventure of life as a family of 4! Joshua LOVES his baby brother and has to be nearby him, holding him and watching everything we do with Matthew! Joshua is doing very well thus far, but there is a lot of adjusting that still needs to take place and the behavior issues that will arise with this are definitely coming, no doubt. As for now we will be happy with the fact that Joshua is excited and enjoying the novelty of the situation! In fact, yesterday afternoon Joshua was drawing (a new favorite activity) on his Doodle Pro and never even said a word, just drew the picture above! If you can't tell, it's a picture of our family!! From left to right is Joshua, Matthew (on top of Joshua's head), daddy and mommy (notice Cory has no hair and I have lots)! Amazing how far his drawings have come, but even more amazing is how unprompted by anyone Joshua drew a picture of our now family of four!

Brothers!!

Matthew Jon Hager

After a fairly short labor and a delivery that lasted all of a few minutes we welcomed Matthew Jon Hager into the world on Monday, April 20, 2009 at 3:02pm! Only 1 day overdue! He was 7 lb. 14.2 ounces and 19.5 in. (exact length as Joshua and only a few ounces heavier than Joshua). These photos were taken during his first bath an hour after his birth. We hope to have more photos of our sweet, adorable and content little guy on the blog later today.

As for the labor and delivery - contractions started at 7am at 10 min apart. I had a lot of back pain and abdomen pain that accompanied all this. I called Cory and work at 7:30am and put him on notice that this may be the real deal, I didn't want to assume as we didn't experience things this way last time as Joshua was induced. By 8am they were consistent contractions that lasted 30-45 seconds and were 5 minutes apart. I called my OB's office to see if my doctor wanted me to go to the hospital. The nurse called back about 40 minutes later telling me to go to the hospital. I prepared Joshua and his things for a day with Uncle Shawn and Owen as well as prepared the rest of my things for the hospital. Joshua was off with Uncle Shawn by 10:30am as excited as could be! Cory was home by 10:15am, packed his things and put everything in the car. We were at the hospital by 11am which was good because the contractions were getting stronger and were now 3-4 minutes apart. I was put in a labor and delivery room and quickly situated. I was hooked up to a variety of machines (fetal heart monitor, etc), cervix checked and looked to be at 5 cm. and the doctor on call broke my water. Soon after the much anticipated anesthesiologist came in to put my epidural in. Life was good once this was in place and contractions weren't felt again! About an hour after all this my cervix was at 8cm. When the nurse checked again around 2:40pm I was complete and she got the room ready for delivery. She had me do a practice push at 2:55pm and the doctor was called to come for delivery. The nurse then had me push twice during one contraction and on then twice again on the second contraction - the top of baby's head could be seen. On the third contraction I was about to push when I got sick and started to vomit. Apparently as I was vomiting little Matthew flew out and the nurse caught him on the bed! She calmly asked Cory to hit the call button for an extra pair of hands to help her since she was the only one in the room! A couple other nurses and a resident came in to help with the umbilical cord and the delivery of the placenta. The doctor on call came in just a few minutes later. It was quite the enjoyable experience, especially compared to the last time! Immediately after he was born I got to snuggle skin to skin with Matthew for about 45 minutes and feed him (he kid was a champion at eating from that very first moment, again very different than last time around)! We are doing well and hope to be home Wednesday late morning or early afternoon adjusting from a family of 3 to a family of 4!

Blessed Easter!

This year Joshua has really come to realize just what Easter is all about. Thanks to hearing the stories at home and at church as well as acting them out at school Joshua has really gotten to know the Easter story very well. We even got out the Resurrection Eggs the other day and he was able to recall most of the parts of the story from symbols he found in the eggs! It's so exciting! Knowing Joshua had a better concept of what we were really celebrating on Easter made the other Easter stuff fun and exciting, but not the focus.
Saturday night we treated Joshua and Owen to an early Easter dessert of bunny cake (created by the bakers at Arnie's). This was something I remember having as an Easter treat as a child, so I like to carry on that tradition with my own family. Sunday was a day of real celebration as we started the day with an Easter egg hunt around the house. Joshua would find an egg which contained a picture clue that led him to another egg (very similar to the hunt we did with him for Valentine's day this year). He loved racing around finding the eggs and reading the clues! His final clue sent him to the laundry room where he found his Easter basket! He adored his new bigger sized bunny bear and his new Lego set as well as the other little treats his basket contained. Then it was off to church and out to lunch with Papa and Uncle Phil. Then it was over to Grandpa and Grandma Hagers to celebrate where he received another bag of Easter goodies and had a ball playing with all the cousins. It was a busy, but very fun day. We feel blessed to celebrate our risen Saviour!

Owen and Joshua with the bunny cake!



Finding an egg!

Daddy helps with the clues.

Joshua found his Easter basket!

Classic Eater picture.

Playing with his new Lego set.

Dyeing Easter Eggs

Our poor deprived child (yea right!) has never dyed Easter eggs! Not really sure why we've never done it, but perhaps it's because I don't eat hard-boiled eggs and didn't even know how to make one (until today that is)! Today we had nothing going on and thanks to Erin mentioning she was doing this with Owen today it jogged my memory of having bought a few dye kits on clearance last year. We had all necessary items on hand so we got to work dyeing and decorating! Joshua liked drawing on the eggs with the "magic crayon" and then dunking them in the colors. He enjoyed seeing what his creations looked like coming out of the dye too. After all the eggs dried he added a few stickers to some and we put them in a dish for decoration. I'm sure we'll be doing this again next year as it was an easy and fun activity!

Dunking the egg in the dye.

Drawing with the "magic crayon".

Decorating with stickers.

Visiting the Dinosaurs at the Museum

Since seeing the billboard on the highway every time we went to preschool Joshua has been asking if we could see the dinosaurs. I have been wanting to take him, but have been waiting as I thought it would be something fun to do as a family. There are Dinosaur Discovery Nights offered a few nights a month from 5-8pm. For the week of spring break they have Dinosaur Discovery Nights Monday - Friday from 5-9 pm! It's quite the deal - for $10 a person you get museum admission (reg. $8 for an adult), admission to the dinosaur exhibit (reg. $2), unlimited carousel rides, admission to a planetarium show (reg. $3) and a pizza meal! It's quite the money saving way to go! We went last night with Shawn, Erin and Owen. The exhibits weren't very busy at all, however the line for dinner was a bit of a wait. The dinosaur exhibit was a huge hit with Joshua and Owen! The robotic dinosaurs were cool to watch and there were lots of activities to keep the boys busy like puppets, digging for dinosaur bones, coloring, cutting, tracing and rubbings of dinosaurs, dinosaur puzzles, plastic dinosaurs to play with and magnetic bones to make a dinosaur. We spent quite a bit of time in the dinosaur exhibit, but also got to see the animals and the streets of GR exhibits. The boys also enjoyed a couple of carousel rides! The only planetarium show available was at 9pm. Amazingly the boys were wanting to see the show at 9pm and even though we as adults were bored Joshua and Owen both loved it. We had a great night together! Check out the video below to see a bit of our fun.

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Happy Birthday Owen!

On Friday our nephew (Joshua's cousin) Owen turned 3 (I can't believe he is 3, but then again we have a soon to be 4 year old and I can't believe that either)! Owen had his big Lightning McQueen birthday bash with the whole family last night; talk about a full house there were 22 people there which included 9 kids under the age of 6! It was a fun time for all! The kids had a great time playing together, especially enjoying all of Owen's new toys. We also got to enjoy a cool cake that Erin made based on Owen's favorite seen from the movie "Cars". It was a fun evening and one I'm sure Owen will remember forever! Happy Birthday Owen!

Owen opens the workbench we gave him.

Owen opens his John Deere bike!

Joshua just had to try out Owen's cool new bike!