Baby Matthew

Matthew Joseph Gustafson joined our family on May 1st, 2014.  Our second bundle of joy has been the sweetest addition to the family and I am so thankful for our family.

I found out I was pregnant in September.  We were so excited and a little stunned- as we got pregnant more quickly than planned.  I had wanted two summer babies- I love planning birthday parties and activities to celebrate my children.  But May was just as wonderful as it meant our family was going to grow.

My pregnancy was fairly easy- if you can call growing a human being easy!  Baby Matthew (who was not named Matthew until after he was born) liked to hang out upside down in utero for the majority of my pregnancy.  We even were prepared for a c-section as Matthew hadn't decided which way he wanted to come out days before his birth!

Dr. Finnegan was my wonderful OB who gave way to my suggestions of a "May Day" baby.  Boys can like flowers too, right?!  Because Matthew was considered an unstable lie on Monday before he was born, we entered the hospital on May 1st without knowing whether we would be induced or prepping for surgery.

Luckily, Matthew was head down and ready to go! After an ultrasound that confirmed our hopes, the nurses started pitocen at 9:30am.  Things moved quickly and I received my epidural at 11am.  I had a wonderful anesthesiologist who worked hard to make me comfortable.

At 11:30 my water broke.  Dr. Finnegan was scheduled to assist in a surgery at noon, which then got pushed to two.  Thankfully the surgery was cancelled all together because I dialated quickly and Matthew was raring to go!  At sometime after two, Finnegan came by quickly to check on me in his street clothes and asked me to push just to see how things were looking.  I gave one push and Finnegan ran out the door as the nurse shouted at me to stop!  Matthew's head was on it's way!

Once the nursing staff convened and Finnegan had changed, it took three short pushes and out came my second baby boy!  Casey was able to pull Matthew out which was very special.  He claims he delivered Matthew! (We'll give him that!)

Matthew Joseph (who still did not have a name) was 8 pounds, 11 ounces and 21 inches long with beautiful white-blonde hair.  He was perfectly healthy and wonderful in every way.

It took a few hours to decide on a name, but we agreed to name the baby after important men in Casey's family.  Matthew is Casey's brother, Jeremy's, middle name.  Joseph is the middle name of Casey's brother Josh, and Casey's father, Mark, who died in a mudslide in Washington state in March of the same year.

Mason was so excited to be a big brother and has been the most loving child we could hope for.  Matthew is the sweetest, most easy going baby.

God blessed me with boys.  I hope that I can teach them to love bravely and unconditionally.

Four. Years. Old.

Another year has passed and I am thankful that for at least one day, I can look back at the most memorable moments of our family.

Today Mason turned four years old.  I love him more and more every day.  How is that possible?  And in this last year, we have had big changes in the Gustafson household.  We welcomed Matthew Joseph to our family on Thursday, May 1st at 3:36pm.  We are so happy that Mason has a little brother to grow up with and he is already the best big brother!

I will post separately with Matthew's birth story, as today is a day to celebrate Mason.

Mason had a "minion" birthday from Despicable Me last weekend.  It's been a minion kind of year as Mason chose that as his Halloween costume last fall.  Grandma Carol made the cutest minion cake accompanied by cupcakes and I even tried my hand at minion cookies!

For Mason's actual birthday, today we went to The Bay in Broomfield.  It was a great day in the water, despite the rain!  Mason has taken swimming lessons since last November and he is quite the fish!  Mason has learned to swim the length of the pool, dive from the side of the pool, enjoys any slide he is tall enough to get down, and even has jumped from the large diving board with enthusiasm!

My picture collage posted today to celebrate Mason's birthday:

Some of my favorite pictures of this boy!

 


The last year was joyous and exhausting, but I wouldn't trade a minute of it (thank you pregnancy!).  Mason loved preschool (almost as much as I loved him going to preschool two days a week with me!).  September brought historic flooding to Longmont and the northern Colorado area which left us stranded at home for three days before the roads were safe to travel on.  The holidays were wonderful and spent as a family.  We travelled to Montana in April as Casey's father passed away.

Mason still cracks me up without fail.  I've been jotting down what I call "Masonisms".  Here are my favorites from the last year:

• 8/5/13 (As we pass Coors Field) "I want to work at the baseball stadium.  I want to hit with my bat at the stadium".
• On repeated occasions: "Silly Mason".
• "I live in Firestone in Colorado".  My teacher friends were very impressed by my three year old's knowledge of geography.  What can I say?
• 10/25/13 "I'm going to pancake PopPop"!  This has been a recurring theme and shows his love for his Grandpa!
• 11/8/13 On a day running errands... "Mommy, where are we going?"  "Crazy".  "Are we at crazy yet?"
• 11/22/13 "I caught a catfish and now I'm going to catch a dogfish!"  (Probably followed by a "Silly Mason").  

I am blessed every day to be surrounded by two amazing boys and a wonderful husband.  I couldn't be more proud of my family and I pray each day that we continue to love each other more.  

Here's to another year!