Grant Alan McRee - birth story

On Tuesday, June 20th I was getting ready for bed.  I was reading and watching TV.  I noticed after midnight (and I never stay up that late) that I was having some mild contractions around every 3-5 minutes.  I had some at the Dr. office the previous Friday, but I ate some lunch and drank some water and they went away.  I drank tons of water and laid down, but they just didn't stop.  Around 1:45 I decided to wake up Alan and tell him we probably needed to go over to Huntsville just to see what was going on.  He was so sure they were going to just send us home.  We called our neighbor Michelle over to sleep so we didn't have to wake the girls and headed out.  We arrived at Huntsville around 2:30am and they went ahead and got me in a room and hooked up to the monitors.  I was contracting very regularly and they justified my trip to the hospital (yay for me - I was so afraid they were just going to say false labor and go home!)  At this point I was only 36 weeks and 3 days - not quite full term.  I was only 60% effaced and 1 cm dilated.  The on-call Dr. ordered meds to stop the contractions.  I got shots of brethine and they would stop them for about an hour and then gradually start back up.  My new Dr. (Dr. McCain) came on call at 6:00.  He ordered another round of the brethine shots just to see.  The same thing happened so around 10:30 He checked me again and I was more thinned out so they ordered the c-section!  We were having our baby today!!  They moved pretty quick to get me ready and we were in the OR by 11:30ish.  At 11:53 I heard my sweet baby crying and he was absolutely perfect.  He was 6lbs. and 14oz. 20 inches long.  We had gotten the NICU spill about preterm white boys, but they immediately said no need for that!  They let me see him and then he and Alan were off.  My surgery was finished and then I was sent to recovery for over an hour. Afterwards we were moved to our room and around 2:30 I finally got my sweet baby!!  He had lots of dark hair and looked so much like Mallary did when she was born.  He definitely has his daddy's lips.

VBS and Point Mallard

Operation Overboard is over and a huge success!  The girls had so much fun at VBS this week and topped off the week with our usual church potluck picnic and Point Mallard night.  This was Mallary's 1st year of VBS and she loved it.

 Performing at the picnic

 Time to swim

 Mallary and Daddy going down the slide

I had told Debbie I would help with registration or something else easy this year.  This was my last thing to make it through before I said Grant could arrive so anytime now....

A Sweet Shower

My friends, Faith and Ashley, hosted a "Sweet Shower" for Baby Grant.  Yes, I think we've also officially confirmed his name too!  The girls had yummy key lime cupcakes, chocolate treats, ice cream sandwiches for us to celebrate.  We got lots of little last minute boy things we needed and tons of diapers to say that we are finally ready for him to arrive!

Dance Recital Time

It's time for another dance recital - Gracie's 4th year and Mallary's 2nd.  This year's theme was "Let's go to the Movies".  Gracie had 3 dances and Mallary had 1 and then they both danced in the finale.  Gracie got to add jazz this year and loved it.  Both girls danced so well and had a big crowd of Mommy, Daddy, Meme, Papa and Nanny and Nana and Aunt Pat there to cheer them on.  Afterwards they got some flowers and trophies for doing so well.  (Mommy's goal was to remain pregnant through the dance recital and goal was acheived!)

Softball Tournament Day

I haven't been very good about taking pictures this season.  For one, Mallary is attached to me during the games.  This is her most favorite time to ask for hugs (I think mainly b/c she is bored) and the other reason is that on the rare occasion I get the camera out - Gracie strikes out - UGH!  She has had very few this year, but I think it was a jinx so I just didn't take many.  We finished the season 8-3-1 (League Champs!!!) and went into the tournament #1 seed.

Gracie hit her 1st triple today so I had to capture her on 3rd base so proud of her!  Coach Daddy made her use her bigger bat for the tournament and it made a big difference.  She's had a double, mostly singles this season and just very few strikeouts. 

Now, today was Tournament Day.  Not just a tournament but double elimination tournament and Wow, what a day!!  We started off at 9:00am playing the Stars and won 6-0.   We were in the winners bracket so we didn't have to play again until 1:00. 

We lost our 1:00 game (Game #2) against the Diamond Dolls - it was a good game, just didn't make it happen.  This was the game Gracie got her triple.  Next up 2:15 (Game #3) game against the Sassy Sluggers.  They were the only team we had lost to all season  and all really close games.  We won and really played great and knocked them out of the tournament.  Game at 4:00 (Game #4) Rematch v. Diamond Dolls - we win!  but now we are tied with 1 loss each so we have to play the tie breaker game (Game #5).  We pull it out and WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP!!!!  So proud of Alan and all the sweet girls!!!  They did so well and never complained about being hot, tired, hungry, etc.  They earned their trophies for sure this season!

Gracie at shortstop

Break in b/t games - attacking coach Alan

Closing Ceremonies

 Gracie getting her trophies!!  

One for the League Championship

and One for the Tournament!

The girls with their trophies!!! So Proud!