About Me

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San Antonio, TX, United States
I am a wife, mother and a Christian. I have a loving husband, Chris and four, handsome, and active boys. We are so very blessed with a wonderful family. We are even more blessed with our Christian family. God has truly smiled on our family. We are growing in His love daily.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

The box

We got a jogging stroller for Eli. Liam became obsessed with the box it cam in. He decorated it. He played in it. He made Lexy our cat play with him in the box. Now this meant Lexy would go in and them Liam would follow her and trap her in. I know. I know. Every kid loves a box. He had this box for weeks before we finally had to let it go. It was very cute.

Hiding in the box and yes it is on the train table

Where is my Liam?

Using the box as a seat to play angry birds on the roku

Playing in the box

Train Museum

Chris and I took Liam to the train museum one Saturday morning. The museum is free for all military. They also offer free train rides. Liam is slowly growing out of his love of trains. He likes to play with them but more to add in his super heros and other toys. His train table these days are full of ninjas, super heroes, and transformers. The trains are transportation for non flying super heros and ninjas. He did love the train museum. It was nothing super fabulous but still fun for him. What is not to love about riding train? We were also able to see how a train was set us for different classes of people back then. Liam loved it!

Chris and Liam 

playing on the train

jumping

Baby Blessing

Our Church had a baby blessing for Eli. We are so blessed with our Church family. They have been a wonderful support for our family. The Sunday before we welcomed Elias into the Church with a special prayer for him.

Our cake

Eli's piggy bank

Family picture

With Blaire

Ringing the bell

Bruce talking about our family

Prayer over our family and Eli

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Eli's first few days home

We were very excited to bring Eli home. Liam was very excited to get his brother home.
Eli coming home

Lia,'s first time holding Eli

Kisses for his bother

Uncle Seamus fell asleep while holding Eli

Look at that face


Silly boy

Uncle Seamus

Seamus and Blaire watched Liam for us while we were in the hospital. I love having Blaire and Seamus down the street. This is one of the text pictures I received.

Look at that face. I can't believe Seamus let him play with his NCO sword. 

Bowling

One day while Eli was in the NICU, we took Liam bowling. He loved it.

Bowling! 

Ready, Set, Bowl!!!! 

He loved carrying in the ball. 

Introducing Elias Peter Torres

I am finally getting things back on track here. I took a bit of a break from the blog since I had Eli. But I wanted to share our story.

Shortly after we returned from the wedding, I decided to get a move on cleaning and setting up Eli's room. We needed to move our bedroom furniture from the spare room to the master. But first I had to clean the master bedroom and bath. I was 6 weeks from my due date so I thought I would get started!

 It was July 30th. Liam was home and helping me clean. When I say helping I mean he was shooting his nerf gun in the large empty mater bedroom. I was cleaning the walls and feeling good so I thought I would just keep going until Liam's nap so I could take a nap too. In the process of cleaning I thought standing on the coffee table to reach something would be a great idea. Let's just say grace and balance have never been a friend to me. So as I fell off the coffee table and landed on my stomach. I made a call to Chris and made him come home. Since it would take him 15-20 minutes to get home, he called Lauren. Lauren came over to check on me and wait for Chris. At this point, I had not felt Eli move yet. Lauren suggested waiting about 2 hours and resting. So Chris sent me to bed and took care of Liam. Eli started to move a bit but it didn't feel right to me. After 2 hours, we called labor and delivery and told me to come it. Chris stayed home with Liam until he woke from his nap. I drove to SAMMC and checked it at L&D. We had been to L&D before for some preterm labor and waited a 2 plus hours. However this time it was instant access to a room. I was in a room before Chris could get there. Lauren took Liam for us until Seamus and Blaire could home and take him.

At the hospital, they hooked me up to the monitors, drew some blood work and started an IV. I wanted for Chris to arrive. Thankfully my contractions stopped with the IV fluids. Chris arrived and we waited for the doctor to come talk with us. Eli was looking great on the monitor, so we thought we would be going home that night. The doctor arrived, did an ultrasound and said that we were just waiting on lab results. Chris and I thought we would be going home soon. The doctor came back in with my lab results. They were not great. It seemed to be pointing to a bleed with the placenta. My H&H, platelets and fibrinogen were all low. Mostly my fibrinogen was super low, about 400 points to low. I would be spending the night at the hospital for observation. I sent Chris home to get me my toothbrush and then to bring dinner back.

*side note......... Chris had to bring me dinner because I ordered the steak for dinner. It sounded good but was terrible. When I told him this he said "order steak from the hospital was like ordering the steak from a strip club." *

So we called Blaire and Seamus to let them know that we would be needing them to stay over night with Liam. I had to find someone to watch Liam after Blaire and Seamus went to work. I made some phone calls and thankfully our friend Linda would take Liam for the day. I spent the night getting poked every few hours for blood draws. So much for getting some rest.

The next morning, July 31st, the doctor came in with some news we were not prepared to receive. My blood work was not improving. In fact all my counts were dropping.  He told us that we had 3 options and he would be disscussing them with the head OB. Option 1 - get some blood, Option 2 - deliver the baby Option 3 - get blood and deliver the baby. So Chris and I started praying that no matter the result we would trust that God had a plan and we would be fine. It didn't take long for the doctor to come back. They decided to deliver the baby. We would start with a small dose of pitocin to see if Eli could handle the contractions. If he could not handle the contractions, they would be scheduling a c-section. Chris and I got on the phone and began to set up child care for Liam before we started the pitocin. Thankfully Blaire and Seamus would take him and then Linda was going to keep him at her house for a few days too. I spent the whole day laying around waiting for some of the medicine to work. It would take 12 hours. We were in for a long night.

The morning of the 1st brought new medication and hopefully a baby. They kicked up the pitocin at 8am and I they started the epidural about that time. I say started because it took four attempts to get in in the right spot and working. That was not the best experience. However, once it worked I was much happier. By 10am, the epidural was working and I was napping. It was nice to be able to sleep for a while before the baby. Chris and I took a nap until about 245pm. The doctor came in to give us our plan for delivery. We were to deliver in the OR just incase something went wrong and the NICU team would be standing by to help with the baby. The doctor check me and said I was at dilated to 9 and she would be back soon but first wanted me to roll onto my side. Our baby was not showing on the monitor. However, before she could roll me, it was time to push! We didn't even have time to go to the OR. We did a quick set up and started pushing. It took 5 minutes of pushing and we had a beautiful baby boy! Chris cut the cord but he had to go get checked out. They held up Eli for me to see but I wasn't able to hold him.

It was hard. I heard him cry but the NICU staff wanted to check him out. He was taken back to the NICU right away. I wasn't about to see him until 8pm. It was the longest five hours ever. He was perfect in every way. He spent 20 days in the NICU. His time in the hospital was tough. We had some very rough days and nights. Thankfully the doctors and nursing staff at BAMC were just wonderful! We were very blessed with a wonderful Church family that helped with Liam. My mom came in for Eli's last week in the NICU and his first week home.



Elias Peter Torres

 Visiting Eli


 My sweet Boy! 



Liam meeting Eli 

Daddy and Eli












This was our first family picture! 


Sunday, September 30, 2012

Quick Trip to Florida

We made a quick trip to Florida for Seamus' wedding. I knew Liam would love spending time with his cousins. It never disappoints to spend time with our family. Plus what is not to love about a wedding. We flew in on a Thursday and left on Sunday. Like I said super quick.  Despite the quickness, it was wonderful to see everyone. Our days were packed with wedding stuff and lots of pool time!!!! Liam and Noah spent as much time as they could in the pool. Pictures of our time at my parents house were sparse. We did lots of running around getting last minute stuff done!

The plane ride to Florida was terrible for me. I felt so sick on the plane. Our day started at 330am. We woke Liam up at 4am to leave and get on a plane. He did great with all the travel. I thought he would fall asleep on the way to my parents house from the airport. NOPE!!!! He was a chatter box with his Nana! It was cute! He was excited to see his cousin Hammy! Let me tell you Hammy was uber excited to see his Turtle! I love that my sister and I have kids so close in age! THe boys spent some much needed time in the pool and playing. That night our family friend Gary Grenade came for dinner. Yes his last name really is Grenade! Since Liam had been up since 4am, bedtime was not an issue.

Friday lead to a busy day. It was the rehearsal dinner. Plus the bride and groom were arriving that afternoon. There was only one thing I demanded while in Florida and that was Steak N Shake! Oh how I love them!

My guy! He loved that hat! 

After a much needed Steak N Shake lunch I was off to pick up the girls from the hotel and then Blaire from the airport. We were off for a mani/pedi! It was great to spend some time with the girls. We then had to rush to the rehearsal dinner. It was an amazing dinner with lots of food! We had it at Magginos. I did start having contractions and was a little uncomfortable.  Thankfully some rest and water and it was all better. 

The next day was Wedding day!!!!!!!! The wedding was at 6pm so we lots of time to get ready. Chris and I were in charge of getting Seamus to the hotel on time. We did succeed. We all got ready and had some pictures taken. Chris was not a fan of the dress blues. He looked great but the jacket was stiff. He couldn't move his arms. 

This is what happens when Seamus us given a sword. 



The ceremony was beautiful. Blaire was stunning. I cried like a baby. In fact I started crying when Blaire's brother Bradley walked me down the aisle. That is what you get for having a pregnant lady at your wedding. I was full on sobbing!!!! I know this is not very surprising. 

Saying Vows! 


After the ceremony, it was picture time!!!! We had to hurry through the pictures sue to some major storm clouds. We all made it inside before the torrential down pour.  I can't say the same for wedding party that was after us. They were poured on. I felt so bad for them. The rain was so bad it was raining sideways and kinda looked like a hurricane rain. We did have one issue..... Chris' best man speech was in the car and he needed it ASAP! Now this was during the monsoon! Thankfully we had a fabulous valet guy who ventured out into the rain and wind to the car and got the speech for us! The reception was great. Everyone had a wonderful time. 

He thinks he is so funny! 

My dad and his girls! 

Seamus having a good time! 

This is a sample of the wedding pictures. There was some amazing lightning! 



Sunday we enjoyed breakfast with everyone and said our good byes to everyone! Here are some pictures of the boys! 


The Boys!!! 

Playing cars! 

My Hammy..... Look at that smile!

Baby Ethan. He is so darn cute!