Happy Monday, dear friends! I can't believe 2019 is almost over. Is it just me or did this year fly by!? This year has been a crazy one for the books years for us. We started out the year with a one year old and now we're saying goodbye to it with a toddler and a newborn! At times it's seems like a lot but having Finn in our lives has also given me so much drive and focus. He is exactly the REFRESH I needed this year. He has given us so much love and joy already and I'm so grateful I was able to spend this year focusing on my time with Kai and preparing for Finn to join us. I've been able to let go of so much negativity that has been weighing me down and have been able to move on from the complicated emotions that 2018 brought. I'm truly looking forward to what 2020 is going to bring for our little family, but I'm so grateful for 2019 and the growth that happened during this year. I started my dream job this year, had such a powerful birth experience, and gained a lot of confidence in myself as a mother and woman. Let's take a walk down memory lane of this refreshing year!

I always look forward to a new year and a fresh start but I will be a little nostalgic for 2019 though. It's time to say goodbye though, so cheers 2019, it's been refreshing!

Hello hello everybody! I can't believe this is the last week of 2019! Where did this year go?! I feel like every year flies by faster and faster but I am so looking forward to what this next year is going to bring.

Now that Finn is here, it's time to do our monthly baby dates again for the next year! I'm so excited to be sharing these kinds of posts again...I really missed them after Kai turned one. I'll be titling them "Little Finn Bug Dates" and my goal is to most them monthly as close to the 23rd as possible. We call him our little love bug, so that's where is nickname of Finn Bug comes from. I ordered these fun little wooden monthly signs from Juniper Engraving and plan to use them for the monthly photos we take of Finn, too! So let's dive right in...

Weight: 10 lbs 4 oz
Height: 21 inches

Your birth was truly miraculous, Finn. Within days, I was feeling wonderful and from the moment I held you, I felt like it was the perfect fit. Everything felt so natural with you! You latched within the first 45 minutes of your life, you fit like a glove in my arms, and you were just so calm and peaceful with both me and your dad. We had to stay in the hospital for an extra day because of how quickly you came in to this world but it all worked out for the best. You had a little bit of jaundice after your first day of life, so it was a bit of a relief to have the doctors and nurses close to check on you for that extra day. Our hospital stay was so relaxing and peaceful, so I was grateful for the extra time to snuggle and bond with you, too. We came home on Monday, November 25th and started our journey as a family of 5!

You of course met your grandma within the first couple of hours of your life along with your big brother. They came to visit us every day in the hospital and were there to welcome us home. You also got to meet some of your great aunts and uncles as well as your Nana at your big cousin's birthday party! Nana held you all night at the party and you absolutely loved it. We wish your grandpa could be here with us, too, but we know he is smiling so big and looking down on you from Heaven.

You fit right in with our little family. Kai absolutely adores you. He gently pats you and loves to give you kisses. He gives you hugs in the morning when you wake up and enjoys holding you on the couch. He asks you to play all the time and likes to bring you his cars to share. You might be Wrigley's favorite right now, too. He loves how tiny you are and how you aren't a little terror on him, ha! He loves to give you kisses, too, and is always close by to keep you safe.

You're a bit of a lazy eater and love your sleep. You liked to fall asleep while nursing a lot and it was a bit of a challenge keeping you awake, especially that first week of your life. You lost a little too much weight by the time we took you to your first doctor's appointment so we turned to supplementing with some formula from a bottle to bring your weight back up. We only needed to do this for a couple of days though as my milk came in after only two days of nursing and pumping at home. You're nursing and drinking from a bottle like a champ now and gained two pounds in your first month!

Right off the bat, you got to celebrate your first Thanksgiving! We stayed home and celebrated this yummy holiday with just our little family. Grandma came over in the morning for pumpkin pancakes and we watched the Thanksgiving parade. Dad made a mini Thanksgiving dinner that we all enjoyed and just had a nice little cozy day at home. We've had plenty of adventures since then though! The following day, we went to the mall and you and Kai met Santa! We've had a good amount of trips to Target, went on a drive to look at the Christmas lights around town, and went to your big cousin's birthday party. Our favorite thing to do though is to just stay cozied up at home and enjoy our Christmas decorations and watch lots of Christmas movies.

Your favorite things to do are eat, sleep, hang out with your big brother, baths, slinging, and tummy time! You love being on your belly and I love getting down on the floor with you. You always open up your big beautiful eyes and look at me. You enjoy being in your rocker or swing and having Kai come say hi and bring you cars. You've been a wonderful sleeper and have given Mama and Dad some good stretches of rest during the night. I love snuggling you and watching all your cute facial expressions all the time. You like to make grumpy faces and you have the cutest little side smile right now.

You've brought so much more love and joy in to my life, which I didn't think was possible until you were here. Sure, I've been a little apprehensive this month but mostly it's because I love you so dang much. We're in a great groove now little one, and you truly fit in so perfectly with our family. We all love you so much little love bug, welcome to the crew!

Our time in the hospital with Finn was truly so special and peaceful. It was an amazing bonding time with him and it was actually relaxing this time around for us. I truly loved just snuggling with Finn in bed and I actually got up and moved around this time, which made a huge difference. We rocked in the chair and sat by the window. We kept it simple with minimal visitors so that we could just bond as our little family and get me the proper rest I needed.

These photos perfectly capture the pure happiness we all felt those first couple days of Finn's life and I can literally feel my heart beating in my chest when I watch the video that our dear friend Brandie created for us. It brings true tears of joy to my eyes and I'm so excited to begin this next phase of our journey.

​I can't believe at one time I was frightened to bring this little life in to this world. From the moment Finn was born, it felt like he's always belonged in our family. I instantly fell in love with this little boy from the moment I witnessed him coming out of me. Yes, I sat up enough that I could see him coming and it was the most magical thing I've ever seen. I'm so honored to be his mama and I still can't believe how blessed I am to have two little boys that I get to love an unfathomable amount.

Photos and video courtesy of Bourbon Oak Tree Photography & Film

Outfit Details:
Maternity Maxi Dress.- Amazon | Loafers - Nordstrom Rack | Bracelets - Alex & Ani

Kai's Outfit Details:
Sweater - Target | Jeans - H&M | Oxfords - Mon Petit Shoes

These very special photos were shot by our dear friend Brandie at the Chicago Botanic Garden when I was 37 weeks pregnant with Finn. We will truly cherish them forever! It's so wonderful to finally have Finn here with us, but I also love that I can look back on these to remember the journey we had to get to this point of having 2 handsome little boys.

Photos courtesy of Bourbon Oak Tree Photography

Well hello everyone! It's been a few weeks since I've been around these parts but for very good reason! We finally had our 2nd beautiful baby boy just before Thanksgiving! These last 2 weeks with our new bundle of joy have been filled with so much happiness and I've just been wanting to soak it all in as much as I possibly can. Today though, I want to share our birth story with all of you! So here we go...

Finn Joseph Cabrera joined us November 23, 2019 at 4:31pm weighing 8 lbs 12 oz and 19.5 in long.

The previous day I had my weekly check up for being 39 weeks. For the past 2 appointments I was only 1 cm dilated but I had been having so many false contractions I had high hopes that I had progressed a little bit more. Unfortunately though my doctor told me I was still only 1 cm! I was starting to get so frustrated because I was incredibly uncomfortable at this point. Caleb came with me to this appointment and we started to have the discussion about inducing. We had decided that if he hadn't come over that weekend, I would be induced on Monday the 25th. We wanted to be home for Thanksgiving and baby boy wasn't getting any smaller. My due date was Tuesday the 26th, so we would be almost right on target. This gave me such a sense of calm. I felt more in control and a lot of the anxiety of "when is it finally going to happen?!" melted away. My doctor also did a membrane sweep at this appointment with the hopes that it would get things moving. Well it certainly did! I could literally feel the relaxin releasing in my body the rest of the day.

I woke up the next morning tired and achy but no contractions. I decided to still go to my lash fill appointment that I had made for that Saturday morning. I wanted them to look good for photos on Monday, ha! Well about 30 minutes in to my appointment I started to feel some contractions. I had 3 that I believed were about 5 minutes apart. No big deal right? Well after those 3 contractions, my water broke! That's right...my water broke right on the lash bed. I had to tell my esthetician that I thought my water broke. Right away she took all the stuff off and had me go check and oh boy it had definitely broke! I was gushing water so I high tailed it out of there (thankfully I only live 5 minutes away so I didn't have any contractions while driving). When I got home, Caleb was already packing up the rest of our stuff. While we waited for my mom to get to our house to stay with Kai, I had a peanut butter sandwich with Kai for lunch. I was also chugging water in hopes of not being super dehydrated this time around like I was with Kai's birth. My mom got to our house really quick, we said our tear filled goodbyes to Kai and were off to the hospital!

When we got to the hospital they set me up in triage to get all checked in then moved me over to a labor and delivery room right away. I was at 3 cm when I got to the hospital and hadn't really progressed at all from the time I was in triage to the time I got to the labor and delivery room. This discouraged me a bit because I was having pretty steady contractions that were as close as 2 minutes apart and they were starting to get painful. Pretty much right away when we got to the labor and delivery room I asked for an epidural. They administered it and I started to feel a lot better. However though, I could still feel a lot of pain on my left side and after a little bit of time I started to feel faint and sick. My blood pressure was starting to drop but my nurse worked her magic by turning me on my left side and administering some medication to bring my blood pressure back up. I felt better within minutes. We then decided to try using the peanut ball to help move things along as well as started Pitocin. I also needed to get 2 doses of antibiotics 4 hours apart from each other because I had tested positive for Group B Strep. We figured we had some time to kill so Caleb and I put Friends on and tried closing our eyes for a little bit to get some rest.

After about an hour I started to notice a lot of pressure down low to the point where I felt like I needed to poop. I mentioned this to my nurse and she decided to check me just in case. While she was checking she all of a sudden had this shocked look on her face and said, "I can't feel anything. I think you're at a 10!" She called in another nurse to double check for her and she said the same thing. It was go time! I couldn't believe how fast I had progressed.

We started doing some practice pushes while we waited for my doctor to come. After only about 20 minutes they started prepping everything for delivery. I was honestly shocked by this. I had to push for so long with Kai that I was in disbelief at how fast this was moving along. After only 40 minutes of pushing, Finn was born!

They placed him on my chest right away and it was instant love. INSTANT. I felt this amazing connection with him right away and it all just felt right. Caleb cut the cord, we did skin to skin, and it was all so perfect.

I did have another 2nd degree tear in the same spot I tore the first time around and had to receive some stitches for it. I didn't even care this time though. I barely noticed any of what was going on except for how perfect Finn was. I also got the opportunity to see my placenta this time. One of the techs brought it over to us and explained the different parts of it, which both Caleb and I found so fascinating. They took Finn for a few minutes to do their routine check on him and thankfully all was great.

After the medical staff had left and it was just us and my nurse, we tried to breastfeed. Finn latched only after a couple of minutes and it truly brought me tears of joy. My hormones immediately started to level and I truly felt like I was on Cloud 9. 

We spent the next 2 days in the hospital because Finn had to be on a 48 hour observation to make sure he didn't get an infection from me being positive for Group B Strep. Since he was born so quick, I wasn't able to receive the 2nd dose of antibiotics I needed for it. While we were anxious to go home to Kai, it all turned out ok and it was nice to take advantage of the nurses help and peace and quiet of the hospital room. Finn was also testing a little high for jaundice, so it gave us peace of mind to still be at the hospital for a little extra time. We came home Monday the 25th and our journey as a family of 5 finally began!