A blessing and a birthday

Ty was blessed on March 8, 2014.  We were so lucky that Nana and Papa were in town.  Usually it is custom in our church to bless the babies on a Sunday, but Nana and Papa were leaving on Saturday to fly back to Florida, so we were given special permission to have the blessing in our home on Saturday morning.  

We were also grateful to have a few other people that are important to us be there for the blessing.  Joseph's twin brother Christopher and his family came into town, as well as our friends the Whiteheads and the Rasmussens (who are like family to us).  We also had a few members of the bishopric there.  It was so wonderful to listen to Joseph give our son a beautiful blessing and be surrounded by so many people that we love.  

Ty was blessed in the outfit that Joseph wore almost 31 years ago.  I think Nana must have had a few flashbacks.

Nana, Papa, and baby Ty

 The family

The whole gang. (Minus my children who refused to come get in the picture.  You win some, you lose some.)

March 8 also happens to be Jake's birthday!  He was so thrilled to have some of his cousins and best friends in town for the weekend to help celebrate.  

How is this boy 6 years old?  We love him immensely and his wonderful example.  We couldn't ask for a better big brother!!

Introducing...

Ty Joseph Dougherty

Born 2-3-2014

19 1/2 in.

8 lbs. 1 oz.

THE STORY

I went into the hospital on the morning of February 3 for my scheduled induction (my babies never come on their own).  Usually all the doctors have to do is break my water and my body takes it from there.  This baby was no different.  They broke my water at about 8:30 and we were off and running!

Of course, I hadn't eaten that morning and I was STARVING, so my goal was to get this baby out by lunchtime.  At first my contractions were small and sporadic, then after a couple of hours they picked up to be pretty intense.  By about 1:00 p.m. my contractions were really intense, and very close together.  I was sure that I had progressed to at least a 9 so I had the doctors check me.  I had only progressed to about a 6!  Ugh, at this rate I was going to be in labor and without food ALL DAY LONG!  I was beginning to think that I was being a little ambitious to think that I could have this baby by lunchtime.  I was in a lot of pain, but I was pretty insistent that I didn't want an epidural at that point.  I decided to have a painkiller drip through an IV instead to just take the edge off the pain.  Joseph had also not eaten all day, and he was getting pretty hungry.  The nurse told me that the IV medicine could slow labor down and it was also making the contractions more manageable so I told him to go ahead and go to the cafeteria to get something to eat.  I certainly didn't want him eating in front of me!  

After Joseph left all of a sudden my contractions REALLY picked up.  I mean, INTENSE!  For about 15 minutes my contractions came one right after the other.  Finally I asked the nurse to check me again and she said I had progressed to an 8.  She said, "You better call your husband and tell him to get on his way back here...I don't trust third time moms, this baby could be coming any minute!"  So I called Joseph in the middle of a crazy contraction and, you guys - he didn't answer his phone!  Where the heck was he?  I left a message that went something like, 

"Hey......Joseph....eeeeeeeehhhhhhhh....hmmmmmm.....uuuggghhh.....you gotta get back here, I'm....AAAHHHHH....just.....UUUUUUHHHHHHH....GETBACKHEREBYE."  

Literally 3 AGONIZING minutes later I was screaming, "I GOTTA PUSH!  I GOTTA PUSH!!" The nurse checked and sure enough, she said, "OH YES YOU DO!!!  GET A DOCTOR IN HERE NOW!"  But Joseph still wasn't there!!  The rest was a blur.  People kept saying, "Call your husband!" but I could barely breathe, my doctor hadn't walked in yet and all I wanted to do was push that baby out!  Somehow I garnered the wherewithal to call Joseph again, and this time he picked up.  That conversation went something like this:

Me: WHEREHAVEYOUBEEN??

Joseph: Uhh, I went to get some food...what's going o-"

"GET BACK HERE NOW!!!!!!"

"Ok, I'm in the parking lot!"-click

My doctor still was nowhere to be found.  Luckily, another doctor had been roaming the halls and she ran in ready to catch the baby.  She kept saying, "Push any time, push any time!" but I was trying to wait for Joseph to get there.  Finally, after what seemed like forever (but was actually only one minute) Joseph and my doctor both ran in at the same time.  The doctors looked at Joseph, let him take off his jacket and put down his Quiznos and yelled, "Grab a leg!"  After one intense push, Ty Joseph Dougherty made his grand entrance into the world at 1:38 p.m.  He weighed 8 lbs., 1 oz., and was 19 1/2 inches long.  I ate Joseph's Quiznos immediately after.  :)  

Ty is a joy to have in our family!  We are so blessed.

My Boys

My beautiful mom and baby Ty

My precious boy

Alumni Football

Hey, I told you I’d come through with a post about Joseph and Christopher’s alumni football game.  Better late than never, right?

A couple of weeks ago (ok, I guess it was more like months now...) the twins participated in a high school alumni football game that they got roped into playing in.  Well, they’ll tell you they got roped into it.  I think they secretly loved getting back in full pads and playing the game that brought them both quite a bit of notoriety in the day.  

It was so funny to listen to the fellow fans around us as they looked at the roster.  We kept overhearing things like, “Hey!  The Doughertys are playing!  There’s no way we’re gonna lose this thing!”  

And they were right.  The Dougherty brothers led the Grinnell Tigers to a 26-16 win over Tama.  I can't tell you how fun it was to watch these two boys play together again.  I didn't realize how much I missed watching them in college.  Even though they're 30 years old now, they still played an amazing game.  What was even more fun was that this was the first time that Jake and Eli had the opportunity to watch their dad play football.

This was the best shot I got of all three boys together.  Well, at least Jake is smiling at the camera...

Joseph and Christopher were numbers 4 and 14 respectively.

During halftime, Jake really wanted to go out on the field and say hi to Joseph, and while they were out there, Joseph let Jake try on his helmet.  The local newspaper photographer captured it.

Jake and Eli both felt like they needed Joseph's gatorade during halftime.  I'm not sure how much of that Joseph actually drank.

Eli loved seeing his daddy play!

The boys in action.

What good-looking guys!

We even had a surprise spur-of-the-moment visit from Papa!  We were so thrilled that he could be here for a little while and watch the game and spend some time with us.

Both boys played a great game.  Christopher was actually in a lot of pain after the first or second series (the guys on the other team were vicious!) but he played through it anyway.  He found out later that he had cracked a rib!  Joseph came home with some of the biggest bruises I've ever seen.  He said, "I don't know if it's just me, but I never remember hurting this badly after a game before."  

Immediately after the game, they're teammates were already talking about doing it again next year, but both boys said it was they're last time getting into full pads.  I guess we'll see, but it sure was a good time!!

This is embarrassing...

Guys, I'm so embarrassed!  You know how when something is so embarrassing that you just avoid acknowledging that thing until it becomes so painfully obvious that you finally just HAVE to acknowledge it?  That is like this blog.  It has been so long since I've updated and so much has happened that instead of coming and updating, I just avoid it and pretend like everything is cool so as not to feel totally and completely overwhelmed trying to document all the awesome things we've done.  Well, the time has come that I have to bite the bullet (obviously).

So, here goes nothing!  First things first: Our Dougherty Family Reunion in Vegas, Baby!

We held the first ever Dougherty Family Reunion in Las Vegas over the week of Memorial Day.  We had so much fun being with all of the family.  Joseph has 6 siblings, and every single one of them, plus their spouses kids and Joseph's Gram were in attendance.

Festivities included lots of swimming in the pool:

In true Dougherty fashion, there were plenty of opportunities to play sports including baseball, basketball, and volleyball:

We went to lots of different parks where the kids played with cousins and did one of their favorite activities: feeding the ducks (or huge geese, in this case):

We also had a surprise baby shower for one of Joseph's sisters:

We went to the baptism of our niece:

 We went to the Bellagio and watched Cirque Du Soleil perform "O":

We also walked around the strip, ate at a buffet, did some awesome shopping, celebrated my mother-in-law's birthday and just played around in general:

We had such a wonderful time and can't wait until we can all get together again.

Next update: Joseph's Alumni football game! (Spoiler alert: Joseph ended up with lots of scrapes and bruises, his brother Christopher cracked a rib...it was eventful to say the least!  Stay tuned!)

Just keep swimming

I'm not sure how many people still read my blog, but I know that my sister does, and she loves when I update it.  In fact, if I haven't updated in a while, I can count on a nasty text from my sister who puts me back in line.  And guys, today is her birthday!  So as a little birthday gift to her, here is an update - Happy Birthday sis!

My boys love the water lately.  They can't get enough of it.  Every single chance they get they are begging to turn on the hose, play in our kiddie pool, or run through the sprinkler.  Finally, after many days of begging, the weather was finally warm enough to get out the little kiddie pool and make a splash.  

Jake wasn't excited or anything.  It's hard to get any sort of emotions from him... ;)

Joseph has also been doing a lot of continuing ed classes, and since his company pays for travel and the hotel, we've tagging along and taking a lot of mini-vacations.  Of course, all the kids care about is that we get to spend time at the hotel pool!  Before we are even out of the car, the goggles and floaties come on so they can jump in the pool first thing.

(Even as I type this, Eli is coming up to the computer looking at the pictures yelling, "WATAH, WATAH!!" (water, water))

Hey, at least they're pretty easy to please!  :)

Camping out!

About two weeks ago our friends in MO called us and said that their ward was having a father/son campout and wanted to know if we would like to join in the fun!  Of course, as is usually the case, we didn't need too much coercion to make the trip (we're pretty much always looking for an opportunity to get out of Ottumwa for a couple of days, hint hint you guys.)  The two dads took the older boys while Jess and I stayed home with the babies.  Jake and the twins were in absolute heaven!  Jake has been wanting to camp out for basically his whole life, but we haven't been adventurous enough to take the whole family yet, so this was his big chance.  It was all he could talk about for days.

Joseph said that Jake was even excited to go to sleep!  Around 9:00 they were all sitting around the campfire and Jake asked if they could go in their tent so he could get in his sleeping bag.  I don't think he's ever once asked if we would put him to bed at home.  Maybe this whole camping this isn't such a bad idea...  

Jake in front of the tent

 Can you tell he's excited to get in there and get in his sleeping bag?

The boys in camping heaven

Of course, Jess and I enjoyed a wonderful night of our own!  No pics since the boys had the camera, but it included shopping, manicures, ice cream, and girl talk until the wee hours of the morning.  :)  Love these guys!!

Let's go fly a kite!

We had one of our favorite people come visit us this past week, my sister Bethany!  One of the days she was here it was SUPER windy outside so we decided to go out into the backyard and fly a kite.  I’ve never had a kite fly up so easily.  We just let it go and it flew right up! 

That little speck up in the sky is our kite!

We were having a great time flying our kites until this happened:

 

 It got all tangled in this tree in our neighbor's yard:

By some miracle we were able to finagle the kite down from the tree without the use of a ladder.  After that we called it a day!!

Lesson learned: Don't let Eli hold onto the kite by himself!