Happy Father's Day!

Ben, thank you for all that you do and all that you are for our family. Our boys are so lucky and we truly love you and all the hard work you do does not go unnoticed. You are the world's best dad-- we love you! Mandy, Everett and Rollin

Rollin's First Two Weeks at Home!

Rollin is adjusting nicely to life at home with his family. He is eating like a champ and is the best baby in the world. He rarely cries and if he does he is very easily consoled. The only rough patch we are having is nighttime! We forgot what it was like to have a newborn that has his days and nights confused :) He generally gets up a few times a night, but nursing and then burping and getting him back to sleep seems to take hours! Needless to say, we are very tired. Thank goodness my mom was here for two and a half weeks to help us out. She did all the laundry, dishes, cleaning and most importantly entertaining Everett. Everyday they had so much fun together, whether it was going to the park, the farm, on wagon rides and eating her yummy meals. We have ben fortunate enough to get out and about with him a few times, to dinner and lunch or for walks. Abby came to visit as well and we had a great time. We are really enjoying being a family of four. Here are a few pictures from our first two weeks!

Welcome Rollin!

We are very excited about the arrival of our newest son, Rollin Vincent at 12:28 p.m. on Wednesday, June 3rd. He weighed in at 7 lbs, 10 oz, 21 inches long and head size of 12 3/4 inches. He has blond hair and is as cute as a button. We had a second c-section scheduled for noon on June 3rd, but around 1 a.m. the night before I went into labor! Well, I did not know it was labor because I have never felt contractions before. I woke up with extreme cramping and suffered through fairly regular contractions until 5:30 a.m., when I finally woke up Ben and we went to the hospital. The ride to the hospital was very painful and right when we checked in I ran to the bathroom to throw up! They quickly hydrated me (I had been unable to drink anything because of the scheduled surgery, so I was very dehydrated). My doctor came in around 6:30 a.m. and said they wanted to keep the surgery as scheduled since all the players would be there. Much to my dismay, I had to wait another few hours (they seemed long!) and tried to sleep a bit, but really just sat there and talked with Ben. I was very worried about the c-section this time since I had a fairly bad experience with Everett (the epidural did not work). Well, this time it was MUCH better. The recovery was hard for about six hours or so, but I quickly started to feel better and now at three days post surgery, I only have very minor pain and feel great.

When they took Rollin, the doctors remarked that he was coming June 3rd no matter what, he was fully engaged and ready to head down the birth canal, so he was glad to get out of there! He cried (but not as much as Everett) as they washed him off. They took me to recovery and let Rollin and Ben go with me (a new procedure at the hospital, with Everett I did not see him for hours), so although I could not hold him right away due to the pain, he was right beside me and that was very special.

The last few days have been good, we have been enjoying him so much and taking this time at the hospital to really spend some quality quiet time with Rollin before we head home to Everett. Everett loves his baby brother and comes by the hospital each day, but admittedly does not like it here very much because there are no toys and no where to run around.

We had the good fortune to have my sisters, parents and adorable Lucette and Violet here for the birth and for a few days after. It was so special they all made the trip to see Rollin and spend time with Everett. Everett LOVES his cousins and he thought it was so special to play with them and get spoiled by Grammy and Pap Pap. Also, Everett is IN LOVE with Pap Pap, we have never seen anything like it. If Pap Pap is in the room, Everett has eyes for no other, he is always wanting to be held by Pap Pap, loved by Pap Pap and playing with Pap Pap, it is so cute.

So we are now a family of four and could not be happier! Here are some pictures of our newest addition that we love so much. More updates to come as he grows older and stronger.

Lots of love, The Scandlens (Ben, Mandy, Everett and Rollin)

Memorial Day Weekend 2009

We only have a few more weekends as a family of three, and we had a very busy and fun Memorial Day weekend. The weekend started on Thursday night when Ben and I went to a Nationals Game alone! It was very fun and a much needed night away together. We left Everett in Gloria's very capable hands- we are going to miss her this summer! Friday Everett and I spent the day together at music class, at the park, getting new shoes and going out to lunch. Friday night we celebrated Ben's 34th birthday! We can hardly believe how old we are getting, especially since I remember celebrating his 19th birthday with his brother and dad so many years ago! We went out to dinner at a restaurant in Arlington, my parents came up to celebrate with the birthday boy, and we had cake and opened presents after dinner. Everett was so excited about the candles on the cake, he is adorable. On Saturday, Everett and I took Ben on a mystery trip to the National Museum of the Marine Corps. The museum was so well done and I think Ben really enjoyed it, brought back many memories of his time in the Marines. On Sunday we headed out to Delaplane, Virginia to a strawberry festival with our friends the Gambinos. Everett had such a fun time getting his face painted, petting the farm animals and generally running all around the place. Delaplane is beautiful, it is about an hour from DC in the Virginia wine country. Today we hung around the house, hit the local "sprayground" and ran errands. Back to work tomorrow (only two more days until I am off for four months!). A great weekend overall and so great to spend quality time with Everett. Everett continues to make us laugh all day long, he is developing quite a personality and is such a happy little guy. We hope he just loves his little brother when he arrives next week!

Mother's Day

Ben and Everett planned a very fun mother's day weekend for me again this year. While we had hoped to making traveling to the Greenbrier a yearly mother's day tradition, our plans were sidelined due to doctor's restrictions to not travel too far from home. Since the Greenbrier is about 5 hours away, Ben booked a night at the Chesapeake Bay Hyatt in Cambridge, Maryland. Despite a minor glitch that caused us to be decked out in Walmart's finest (we forgot our suitcase at home! Thankfully I remembered Everett's suitcase), we had a fantastic time. The weather was amazing, and Everett could not get enough of walking the halls in the hotel or the grounds by the pool and the bay. He thought he was such a big deal and stopped to talk to everyone! They booked a nice massage for me, we spent a ton of time in the pool, went for walks and ate at the yummy restaurants. I am so lucky to have Everett and Ben in my life, they are so good to me. Everett and Rollin got me the nicest mother's day card as well. I love being their mom :)

15 Month Birthday!

Everett celebrated his 15 month birthday this past week. He had his check-up and his stats are: 29 lbs, 8 oz (95%) and 33 inches tall (90%). So not much has changed, always seems to be in the same percentile, which is great news! We had a great weekend spending time with our little man and also spent lots of time on Rollin's nursery. It was so fun washing all Everett's old clothes and folding them and organizing, cannot wait for his arrival. Everett is doing great these days, running all over the place and "talking" up a storm. Right now he says about seven words (mama, dada, dog, baba, there, duck, bye-bye) and laughs all the time. We feel so blessed to have such a happy little boy and we are so excited about all he has accomplished these past 15 months, the time sure has flown by! We look forward to spending lots of time with him these next few weeks, as soon enough, he will not be king of the castle anymore :)

Everett's Favorite Things

As Everett is nearing his 15 month birthday next week, I wanted to list some of his favorite things.

1) DOGS!!- Everett is obsessed with dogs, everytime we see one (either live or on tv) he hoots and hollers, points and yells DOG!

2) Walking- Everett will walk around all day long with no mission in sight. He loves to be independent and explore everything.

3) Being outside- if we could play outside 10 hours a day, Everett would. He loves the park.

4) Older kids- Everett loves watching older kids and wants so badly to be able to play the grown up games they play.

5) Books- Everett brings us book after book each night before bed. He loves to sit and listen and look at the pictures and turn the pages. It is very cute.