Ridenour Ranch: February 2013

Beautiful necklace Gil got for me! It has St. Jude, St. Clare, and St. Michael. I love my children and feel very blessed that the Lord has given them to Gil and I for a bit!

Here are some pictures of our latest new addition to the Ridenour Ranch! Michael Johnnie was born on February 5, 2013 at 7:29 am. He weighed 8 pounds and 1 ounce and was 21 1/2 inches long.

He was born VERY quickly. I felt a contraction at 5:12 am, we left for the hospital at 6:24 am, and he came just minutes after we arrived. Thank God that we made it! He is a healthy little boy and momma is recovering very quickly.

Michael, or Mikey, as we have been calling him, has been a fairly good sleeper so far. But honestly, I would LOVE a solid 8 hours. I have NO IDEA when that last happened!!! Last night Jude was up to go to the bathroom, Cora needed more milk, and Mikey was up three times to be fed and begged back into sleeping. Luckily Gil is great about helping out (when he can be woken up!).

I have been keeping all the kids home with me on maternity leave. I am taking 8 weeks off. I've already forgotten all about school. Mainly because I don't have time to think about it! Gil took off most of the first two weeks, so that was very helpful. This is really only day three of being on my own. The days are pretty action packed around here. As long as I can be proactive about the day things seem to go fairly smoothly. I need to know what the schedule it. What is for lunch, what activities are we going to do, what TV shows are we going to watch (so I'm not tempted to let it run all day long!!!). Jude needs to know these things too. He is an EXTREMELY emotional three year old and when things don't go his way he lets me know! Cora can let me know how she feels too and her cry is soooooo loud. I have to remind myself that she is still a baby herself. She also cannot be left alone with Mikey around so that makes for a bit of a challenge. Thank goodness she takes a long nap in the afternoons still. And Jude has been having "quite" time in his room for about an hour. Sanity for mom!

I think the biggest challenge is going to be going places. Getting them all into the car (and out and back in again...) is time consuming, stressful, and exhausting!