Birth of Baby Gideon Asher!! Christmas and Grandparents!

Gideon Asher Kirkman born December 14th, 2015 at 5:26 am weighing 7 lb 3 oz and 20 inches.

Caleb and Malachi meeting Gideon for the first time

Samuel sitting with Santa Claus

Betsy trying to get Malachi close to Santa Claus (he was scared of him)

All the kids with Santa Claus

On their carriage ride with Grandma

Malachi really liked Caleb's dinosaur he got from Santa

Caleb is the cutest little Santa Claus

Betsy with her Jingle Bells

Samuel makes a cute Rudolph the Red Nosed-Reindeer

My Mom and I walking the halls of the hospital during my labor.  I think we ended up walking just under 2 miles, before the contractions got too intense

Baby Gideon getting weighed

He found a finger to suck on

Smiling in his sleep

Austin and Gideon

Samuel and Gideon

Betsy and Gideon

Sweet little baby boy.  

Caleb at his Preschool Christmas party

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Joseph and Gideon

Betsy dressed up as "Anna" from Frozen for School

Austin going Christmas Caroling with the YW

Joseph and Grandpa Hardy at his court of honor

Grandpa Hardy taking a nap with Gideon

Grandpa Hardy giving Joseph some much needed "male bonding" time

such a sweet baby

Caleb loved getting two oranges in his stocking

Malachi loves his new blanket

Malachi especially loved climbing on the presents

Austin at her orchestra concert, she is the one in the back with the Santa hat

Cute little Christmas baby

Joseph loves his new chess board

Austin was happy to get some new dresses

Malachi loves his new football

Betsy is ready to dance

Joseph is happy about his binoculars 

At the bug museum with Grandma and Grandpa Hardy

Such a sweet little boy, growing so fast

Austin loves her little brother

I just love those chubby cheeks

Caleb loves Gideon too

Gideon with Grandma Stevens

Austin and Malachi

Baby Gideon almost 4 weeks old

So obviously a lot has happened since my last post. So on Sunday the 13th at 11:30pm, I woke up to my water breaking.  I have never had my water break on it's own, every single time, my water has broken right before I start pushing, so I was quite surprised.   I hadn't had any contractions yet, but I called the hospital to see if they wanted me to come in or wait.  They told me to come in so they could get the antibiotics started.  I called the babysitter, who watched the kids in October, and asked her to come over, and changed my sheets and put my clothes in the laundry, cleaned up the carpet, where my "water" leaked, and packed my hospital bag.  Then I woke up my Mom and told her that we needed to go to the hospital.  The babysitter arrived, and I gave her instructions, and my Mom drove us to the hospital.  I still hadn't had any strong contractions, but they started soon after arriving at the hospital.  They checked me, and I was still at 3cm, but my water had indeed broken, and was still leaking out lots of fluid.  It was so weird, I'm not used to that part.  They finally got me moved into a room and started me on an IV and antibiotics, they gave me that first dose around 2am, so they needed to get one more dose in about 6am in order for the antibiotics to have their full effect.  My Mom and I walked around the hospital in between them monitoring my contractions.  I had also been texting Travis about my progress.  We ended up walking almost 2 miles according to my Mom's tracker, going back and forth on the labor and delivery floor.  My contractions were getting pretty strong and close together by 4am.  After that, I just concentrated on  getting through the contractions.  They checked me and I was at 6cm, but not long after I started wanting to push, so they got everything ready and checked me again and I was ready to push.  After several minutes of pushing, Baby Gideon Asher Kirkman was born December 14th at 5:26am weighing 7 lb 3oz and measuring 20 inches long.  I got to hold Gideon right away, and we just got to cuddle together for the first couple hours.  Such a sweet little spirit, I love the strength of the spirit surrounding the birth of new child.  I always feel so close to heaven during that time.  I'm so grateful that my Mom was able to be there, it was a special experience to have her there with me, since my husband couldn't be.  We did get to Facetime with Travis, so he got to see his new little son.  Gideon nursed well right away, and they finally weighed him and bathed him.  He is a good, healthy baby boy.  My Mom and I took turns holding him, and I got to shower and get cleaned up.  I took some Tylenol and Ibuprofen to help with the after birth pains, and tried to sleep as much as I could.  That afternoon, my Mom went home to take care of the kids.  I stayed in the hospital for 2 days with Gideon, since he couldn't come home for 48 hours, since they weren't able to get that second round of antibiotics in me before I gave birth.  I have always gone home 24 hours after birth, but I kind of enjoyed the peace and quiet of the hospital room, and having food delivered to my bed.  The first day I didn't have much of an appetite, but by the second day I was feeling a little better.  A friend picked Gideon and I up from the hospital on Wednesday the 16th by 9am, and we were able to come home.  It was nice to be home in my own comfortable bed, and to see my sweet little Caleb, and Malachi (the other kids were at school).  My Mom is such an angel, she has been absolutely wonderful in the way she took care of me, my kids, the cooking, and the house.  I don't know what I would have done without her.  The sleep deprivation has been pretty rough.  The kids still had school, that week, but my mom helped to get them off to school, and she let me sleep as much as could during the day, since I was so tired from being up in the night with Gideon, Malachi, and Caleb.  Caleb started waking up in the night again after I went to the hospital.  Gideon is loved by everyone, and there is always someone wanting to hold him.  Malachi has had a rough time  adjusting to not being the youngest anymore, but is doing a little bit better now.  My Mom was able to get all the kids to their activities.  Austin had an Orchestra concert, Caleb had a Christmas Preschool program, and on Saturday my Mom took them to a Christmas party on post that I had signed the kids up for, where they got presents from Santa, played games, and got their faces painted.  My Mom even took them to church all by herself on Sunday, she definitely wins the Super Grandma award.  Sunday evening my Dad flew to Kansas and arrived at our house.  The kids loved having Grandpa around to play with.  I liked that there was someone to wrestle Joseph to the ground!  Joseph went on a winter campout for 2 days during a snowstorm, My Mom and Dad stayed at a hotel, but took turns coming over in the morning to help me out, so I could get a little more sleep, since Malachi would wake up by 5am every morning, and Gideon is still waking up every hour or two.  They took the kids swimming, and to an insect museum, and to several activities on post.  Christmas Eve, Caleb got an ear infection, so I had to take him to the hospital to get him some antibiotics, I had given him some Tylenol to help with the pain, and he was being pretty silly and hyper from it.  We also had a Middle Eastern Christmas Eve dinner, my Mom made hummus, and sfeehas, and we had baklava for dessert, then we read the nativity story, and Twas the night before Christmas.  Christmas morning was full of present opening chaos.  The kids had tons of gifts between both Grandma and Grandpa Hardy and Grandma Stevens, and then all the stuff from Soldier's Angels.  The kids had fun tearing everything open, while Malachi enjoyed climbing and jumping on the presents.  We had our cinnamon roll Christmas Tree for breakfast with bacon, scrambled eggs, and Orange Juice.  We spent the day playing and relaxing, and had a nice ham dinner.  My Dad was quite the handy man while they were here, fixing my kitchen sink faucet, putting together bikes, cleaning out the garage, and many other projects, although I think the one he was most proud of was fixing the stove.  Samuel had gotten angry, and I went him to his room for a time out, but he pushed too hard on the display/timer of the stove to set the time for his time out, and it broke out of it's frame, so my Dad had to pull out the stove, unscrew the back (sliced his finger doing it), and take out the display, and took it to the hardware store where 3 associates tried to help him figure out how to fix it, but they had no idea, so my Dad finally bought some wire, and managed to hook it into the display to hold it in place, and so far it has held!!  My Mom and Dad left the evening of the 27th, to get ahead of a snowstorm predicted to come during the night.  We were sure sad to see them go, they were a great help.  The kids and I managed to get through the next week without any other adults around.  But the church and chaplain spouses helped by bringing in dinners, so at least I didn't have to worry about cooking.  We tried to make it to church last Sunday, but when I got everyone in the car to leave to go to church, the car wouldn't start.  The battery was completely dead.  One of the kids must have gotten in the car and left a light on or something.  I tried to jump start the car with our portable jump starter, but it was dead too, after trying for 20 minutes to get the car started, saying prayers, and Malachi, Caleb, and Gideon all crying, I gave up and sent everyone back inside.  I plugged in our portable charger for the next 40 minutes, then tried one last time to get it started, but it didn't work.  For some reason we were not meant to go to church that day.  We all changed back out of our church clothes.  Later that afternoon a friend came over and jump started it for me, but since I no longer needed to go anywhere, I just pulled it back into the garage.  So, Monday when I needed to run errands, our neighbor came and jump started it.  Then we ran our errands, never turning off the car, and after that the car worked again.  I was changing Gideon's diaper, and Samuel came in and exclaimed that Gideon's "vocal" cord fell off.  I started laughing and said that he meant to say his umbilical cord., silly boy.  Gideon passed his hearing test finally after the third attempt, and has been gaining weight rapidly, at already over 9 lbs now.  He is a healthy, happy, baby boy.  We Facetime with Travis everyday, so he is getting to watch his baby grow.  Travis' Mom flew in the evening of the 6th, and we've been enjoying her company for the last several days.