Max meets his fans

Max had lots of visitors at the hospital those first few days and once he came home as well. We're so lucky to have such a wonderful, loving family to share these special events with.

Max Has Arrived

Maximus Alan Freed

March 24, 2009

10:25 am

8 pounds, 13 ounces

20 1/2 inches

Newborn

It was a long, cold night in the hospital waiting on Max to arrive. My labor with Max was so different from my labor with Ellie. With Ellie, once my contractions started, they progressed very quickly...to the point that we had to run a red light on the way to the hospital at 1 am. I was expecting a similar type of labor with Max, but he had a different plan.

I started having contractions on Sunday night (Max's actual due date), but they were fairly mild and with no real pattern. So Jason went to work on Monday, and Ellie and I stayed near the house finishing up last minute tasks. In the afternoon, some of the contractions started to become a little uncomfortable, so as I tried to get Ellie to lie down for her nap I made the phone call to Jason that he should probably try to wrap up at work and head toward home. We had a scheduled doctor's appointment at 4 pm on Monday, at which my doctor told me I was 3 cm dilated and 65% effaced. We didn't really discuss scheduling an induction because she was fairly sure I would have the baby in the next day or two.

We headed home after the appointment and then the real wait began. As some of the contractions grew stronger, we phoned Jason's Aunt Pam to come and stay with Ellie since we thought we'd probably be taking a trip to the hospital that night. After putting Ellie to bed, we decided to finally go to the hospital around 10:30 pm. With my labor with Ellie, we called our parents on the way to the hospital and my parents barely had time to get there from Farmington before she was born. So we thought we'd better call them this time as well. Jason put the calls in to our parents and my sister, unfortunately Max was not an anxious to show up as Ellie was.

It was a long night for all of our family waiting around the hospital, but we were glad to have them there with us. My contractions were very strong but never became very consistent. My water had only partially broken during the night, so in the morning the doctor broke my water fully and then there was no stopping Max (I would have asked them to break my water much sooner if I knew it would speed up the labor so well). At about 10:10 am I started pushing and Max was born at 10:25 am.

We are so happy and proud to have Max join our family.

Zoo time

We've enjoyed some beautiful weather over the last week, so in an effort to get out of the house, do some walking, and hopefully hurry Max's arrival along (4 days till my due date), we took a trip to the zoo. This was likely our last big outing as a family of 3, which is a little sad. But we're very excited to become a family of 4 and share these types of outings with our little guy.

Hurry up and get here, Max!!!

New Baby's Room

The nursery has been transformed from a princess's room to a space fit for a prince....an athletic prince. We kept all the same baby furniture and just redid the decor for our little boy. Decorating the room for this baby was a little more fun for Jason than decorating for Ellie was since he got to go through all of his old sports memorabilia to hand down to his son. And yes, for those who didn't already know, we plan on naming him Max.

Hurry up and get here, Max!

Ellie's Big Girl Room

Ellie was never a great crib sleeper, so we decided to move her into a "big girl" bed soon after she turned 2, since we knew that the new baby was on its way. She insisted that I post some pictures here, since I had posted pics of her baby room and was preparing to post some pics of the new baby's room too. It is a very sweet, girlie room, that fits her perfectly.

Birthday Party

We all went to a 2-year-old birthday party recently and had a great time. Ellie loved playing with all the kids and all the new toys. A special guest arrived, and Ellie was over the moon. As soon as Cinderella appeared, Ellie ran right up to her and gave her a big hug. Alivia, the birthday girl, was not as enthused to see her, but she did finally give her a hug when she left. Cinderella gave each of the little girls a bracelet, and Ellie hasn't stopped talking about her..."Hey Mom, remember when we saw Cinderella at Livi's birthday party?" "Hey Mommy, remember when Cinderella gave me a bracelet," and on and on.

Computer Genius

Kids' abilities with computers amaze me. Ellie recently developed an interest in computers after seeing everyone else in the house playing and working on them daily. So we decided to let her have a go of it.

We've found that noggin.com and playhousedisney.com have lots of fun games. The first few times that Ellie played a game, she needed lots of help maneuvering the mouse, but that didn't last long. She's now a pro. She'll go from game to game, using the back button when needed, or the "red X in the corner" to close a window that she doesn't want open. I'm sure she'll be posting her own entries on this blog before we know it.

Ace of Cakes

Gran has developed a new interest in cake baking and decorating. She made these amazing "present" cakes for my Great Grandma's 96th birthday party.

Then she found a decorating idea for a Diego cake after playing online computer games with Ellie. It was just a random Monday night, but we got to have a very special desert that evening. Ellie may have enjoyed helping out a little too much.

In January, we took Ellie to see Disney on Ice, and she loved it. When we were at Disney World before Christmas, Ellie's favorite part was all the live action shows, so we thought she might enjoy Disney on Ice as well. And Boy, did she ever. She was on the edge of her seat the whole time, pointing to different characters and talking about the show. And she really hasn't stopped talking about, so in February we decided to try the Playhouse Disney show.




For the Playhouse Disney show, we invited Ellie's cousins, Kameron and Paige, along too. Ellie was just as excited to see this show, since she loves all the Playhouse Disney characters and shows. I personally didn't think it was as good of a show as the Disney on Ice show (and tickets were a lot more expensive), but Ellie enjoyed it just as much. She knew more of the music and activities (Little Einstein's patting, clapping, blast off stuff), so she really had a ball.

We'll have to see what show comes to town next.

Amazing Balloons

One Wednesday evening, when I had no energy to decide on dinner much less prepare it, we headed out to Culver's for a tasty butter burger. We were in for a surprise though because it was Family Night at our local Culver's. There was a balloon artist there and he was amazing. He could make tons of different animals / characters, and he was so fast. He went from table to table, making whatever each child wanted. Ellie first requested a frog, then a penguin, but was finally persuaded by the Ariel balloon. We took one of his cards and will have to keep him in mind for upcoming birthday parties.

Dress Up Time

Ellie is a very girlie girl and loves to play pretend. She got some adorable dress up clothes for Christmas, as you can see. She'll get all dressed up and tell me how beautiful she is. Then she always makes sure that I take a picture of her.

3 weeks and counting...

It has been a while since I've updated the blog, and I've been getting numerous requests (or threats) to post something new, so I thought I'd oblige. While I have lots of new pictures on my camera, I have yet to find the time to download them to my computer, so this will be a text only post. I'm hoping to get some pics posted next week when I'm off work.

Yes, this is my last week of work before my maternity leave begins. I'm still feeling pretty good, but it is starting to get more uncomfortable sitting at a desk all day, so I'm looking forward to the time off. I'm hoping to go full term, because I have a lot of projects (cleaning and organization) to get through during the 2 weeks before my due date.

I had my 37 week appointment today, and Ellie and Gran joined me. Ellie and Jason came with me to the 35 week appointment a couple of weeks ago, so of course Ellie was now the expert on visiting Mommy's doctor. She led Gran into the waiting room, told her how we had to sit down, get a magazine, and wait for the doctor. I always take the early morning appointments since I go into the office afterwards, which means I rarely have to wait long for the doctor, and today was no exception.

The nurse soon called my name, and we all headed into an exam room. As soon as we laid our coats down, Ellie asked, "Mom, you gonna take your pants off?" Nope, nothing gets past her. Ellie only has to hear or see something one time, and it is forever ingrained on her brain, which is one of the reasons why modesty is a big deal in our home. Since she was at my previous appointment, she kind of knew what happens at the appointments later in the pregnancy, although she was only allowed to stay in the exam room with me to hear the baby's heartbeat, and then she waited outside.

She's rather captivated by the little swish, swish sound of the baby's heartbeat, and I must admit that I am too. As much as I feel him moving around day and night, it is always such a comfort to actually hear the heartbeat, nice and strong. We can't wait for him to make his debut!

Our Little Comedienne

Ellie has been developing her sense of humor lately and is learning to tell jokes. She is fascinated with knock-knock jokes right now. We mainly stick to two basic knock-knock jokes -- the banana, banana, orange joke, and the boo-who joke -- but she seems to only be able to remember one punchline, so this is how the typical joke goes...

Ellie: Knock, knock.

Mommy: Who's there?

Ellie: Banana.

Mommy: Banana who?

Ellie: Oh, don't cry it's just a joke.

I think this version of the joke may be funnier than the correct version!

Christmas 2008

Ellie and her cousins, Paige and Kameron, waiting patiently for the present opening to begin.

Ellie enjoying her new 'puter' which up to this point seems to just make sounds. We'll have to work on actually using the mouse to pick out things on the screen.

Look Out!! The present-opening carnage has begun.


Ellie and Uncle Nick

Ellie and her Daddy

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. It seemed to go by in a whirlwind though, likely because we squeezed 4 Christmas celebrations into a little more than a 24 hour period. Ellie really got the hang of opening presents this year, and it was so much fun to see the joy of Christmas through her eyes. We talked about Santa a lot, and how she needed to be a good girl (what are we going to use to make her behave for the next 11 months?) so she was ready for the big guy, although she didn't want to share any cookies with him on Christmas Eve.

For the next week after Christmas, anytime we would go to visit someone's house, Ellie would ask if we would get to open presents. And after New Year's as I was taking down Christmas decorations, Ellie came up to me and said, "I don't want Kissmas to be over. I want it to stay Kissmas."

Disneyworld

We decided to forgo Christmas gifts for each other this year and instead take a trip to Disneyworld all together. The Marler clan descended on Orlando for a quick weekend trip and had a great time. Ellie was so excited to visit Mickey at his house, and boy did she light up when she saw him. She went right up to him and gave him a hug, after waiting in line for nearly an hour. She obliged us and let us take her picture with the other characters too, but when we got to Goofy, she was done. (And of course, she still remembers and likes to tell us that she DID NOT see Goofy at Disneyworld).

She especially enjoyed the live action shows and the electric light parade sitting on Jason's shoulders. All throughout the parade, she would lean down to talk into his ear and ask whether he saw Donald, or the princess, or any other character that caught her eye.

But the best part was spending time with our Arizona family that we don't get to see often enough. Ellie had a wonderful time with her cousins and will likely keep talking about it for months to come.

Ode to the Wii

Oh, how we love you, Wii. You give us countless hours of fun. From the first time we took the controllers in our hands and woke up sore from swinging the tennis racket and baseball bat too hard. To the anticipation we felt waiting for Rock Band to be released. And even now, as little Ellie imploring asks her Daddy to play Mario Kart, just so she can see the Mi's of Gran, Papi, Aunt Laura and Uncle Nate in the crowd. Or when she runs into the living room, guitar around her neck, hoping for some special bonding time with Daddy and Mississippi Queen. Yes, you're always up for a good time, Wii, and for that we applaud you.