Lucy

Isn't this picture sweet? I love how they are looking at each other. Adoringly, of course.

Cutie.

Love her, love her, love her.

Lucy's First 2 Days

Here I am heading to the hospital at midnight. I think my face pretty much says it all.

And she's here! So I'll try to give a little of the "birth story." We got to the room a little after midnight and the nurse started observing me and the baby. I was starting to have very mild contractions (on my own) at that point. I didn't get any induction medication until 2am because the baby had such a high heart-rate and the nurse wanted it to come down first. It finally came down - once the baby stopped dancing in my tummy. By about 3:30am I was having stronger contractions and asked the nurse to check me. While checking me she broke some of my water - "crap!" was my reply. I had delivered within 15 minutes of my water breaking with my previous 3 experiences and I didn't want that to happen again! But I wasn't super far dilated so maybe I'd have time? I told the nurse to get the anesthesiologist in right away! Remember, I really wanted an epidural this time. By 4:15 the anesthesiologist was up (I was having yucky contractions at this point) and I got my epidural. Ahhhh. I smiled again. I think I was around a 5? Then at 5:30 I told my nurse I was having lots of pressure and that maybe she should check me. She told me that she'd come back in 30-45 minutes and would check me then. She left. 3 minutes later I told Ben to get her back in her to check me. She checked and was surprised (I wasn't): fully dilated. I told her I wanted to push and so she'd better call the doc. She (somewhat rudely) told me I did not have to push - I had an epidural. (Oh honey wait until you have a baby and feel that most intense of all feelings known to womanhood: the need to push when your baby is down.) But I'll give the nurse credit as the epidural did help me in not pushing when I so wanted to. Deep breaths, deep breaths until the doctor came. He came super fast, checked me out, had me push and then told me to stop. He got things ready. Told me and Ben that on the next contraction I would do 3-10 second pushes and that would probably be enough for the baby to come. Into the first 2 seconds of the first push, Lucy came out. :)

(picture taken at a later point) The handsome dad with his brand-new beautiful daugther.

Hat looking funny on Lucy, but this is Lucy in the first few minutes of life.

The kids and grandma and grandpa came around 11:30 that day. So fun:
The Big Sister.

The Big Sister and the Peeping Brother.

Oh so sweet. I have to say that Miles is just about the sweetest when it comes to Lucy. He loves her. He says such nice things about how cute she is, what cute clothes she has, etc. He's been angelic to her.

Jonas is a doll, too. He loves to hold her.

The new family of 6 all at the hospital. I love it! (But Darn It, should have changed out of my fancy gown.)

All the kids admiring our new beauty.

Grandpa Max holding Lucy for the first time.

Grandma Diana and her 16th grandbaby. Such beauties.

Here we were coming home from the hospital - Ben and Emmy came to get us. The boys eagerly greeted us.

And here's the whole family again - this time at Home Sweet Home.

p.s. I know a lot of these pictures don't show close-up shots of Lucy. Those will surely come in the next few days.

Introducing. . .

Lucy Dee

8/16/10

05:55

6lbs. 3.6oz.

18 inches

Totally and completely adored

More details and pictures to come tomorrow (I hope). . .

The Talent Show

So I already mentioned briefly about our ward's talent show. It was something that Miles just had, had, had to do. But what to do? Well we decided his greatest talents are learning about things and talking about them. So he had this book of animals that he loved and he chose 4 of those creatures to talk to about.

In the video I missed one of the greatest moments: when he first got up on stage and took the microphone, he said "Hi!" and then giggled an adorable giggle. It was awesome. The video might be a little hard to understand, but he did a great job I think. :)

POP

Week 39:

Well hopefully in the next few days you'll see a new post announcing our newest babe (I go in Monday at midnight!).

Until then I think the song, "Pop goes the weasel" will be permanently stuck inside my head. I've been hearing lots of "Looks like you're going to pop soon."

Awesome. I look like a balloon.

Emmy's Bed

So Ben has been working really hard to get Emmy's bed made. Yes, Ben made the bed. I'm very impressed with my husband and so I will boast about him. But, really, he has some talent. He designed it himself, too.

I love it.

Love it.

Love it.

Pictures don't do it justice (but it certainly does my painting job justice - we'll have to do some touch-ups for sure).

Cute, silly girl on her new bed. Oh how fun! I have a really cute idea I want to do on the wall at the side of her bed, but that will have to wait. If I do it, I'll show some pictures later.

All the kids were pretty excited about it! Even Wilson was overjoyed. Okay, maybe not overjoyed, but at least taking part in the evening fun of putting up Emmy's new bed.

38

38 weeks into my pregnancy - yet only 1 week to go. Pretty sweet deal. I hope. I have never made it passed week 39 anyways, so getting induced next Monday doesn't really shorten the deal much for me. (Though no telling what would/could happen this time?). All in all I am feeling just fine. Just getting a little annoyed at having no lap. I want a lap. It will be soft and mighty squishy for a while I am sure, but a lap none-the-less. Seriously, that is what I am most looking forward to with my body.

I learned that I can not mow anymore. I mowed the backyard Friday morning and sorely paid for it all evening long. I think I pulled, stretched or strained my iliopsoas muscle. But all was fine Saturday morning. I have also learned that I cannot bend over and pick up dog poop anymore. Dangit. But that gets my back side and thus my sciatic acts up all evening long. Oh my poor old body.

The little babe inside of me is getting bigger and running out of space. She moves like crazy all over me. All checks out well so far with the docs. At my last appointment the doctor said she is head down, so hopefully she'll stay that way. Half the time though she feels sideways.

I register Miles for school this week - he starts full-day schooling in 2 weeks. I totally have mixed emotions. I'm excited for him to start 1st grade - so fun! I'm excited for him to be gone all day, yet it makes me mighty sad, too. Sad for me in losing my first boy. But even more sad for Jonas in losing his greatest (and worst) playmate. That's what makes me cry - Miles and Jonas spending so little time together. I know that Jonas and Emmy will become better friends and so that is fun. And perhaps even Miles and Jonas will become better friends not being around each other all day long??

I don't think Miles is super-excited about starting back. But I really think he'll love it. Yes, love it. He loves learning and doing. In fact, it is where he thrives. He is super excited about eating lunch at school. I've decided that once a week he can chose a meal to eat from school. Fun, fun.

Here's a random picture of a big mushroom in our front yard:

It was especially exciting when Ben mowed over it.

Awesome.

I think that's it.

Bonbons

So I would have liked to sit back and eat bonbons during my time alone, but that wouldn't be worth much would it?

So I did bunches of other stuff. Like tons and tons of cleaning - which has already been forgotten and seemingly worthless as my kids are back to being. . . kids. Sigh. But it was so nice to have a clean home. . . while it lasted. I did about 7-8 loads of laundry. Changed out sheets (finally) in the kids' rooms. Cleaned out and cleaned up our (lame) fridge. Painted an end-table. Sewed a little tie and crinkly blanket for a newbie in the ward. Grocery shopped. Ran errands.

And for some fun stuff: talked to family and friends. Went over to a friend's house and watched a movie. Read. Napped. Enjoyed peace and quiet. Took Scout on walks. Slept in until 7 each morning. It was really divine.

I was also able to start and just about finish a project I've wanted to do for quite a while. See, my boys get up and they are not suppose to come out of their rooms until 7am. When they do come out they are dressed and beds are made. It's really great. Except that they dress themselves goofy quite a bit. Silly clothes. Unmatching. But what really drives me crazy is Miles wearing clothes that don't fit it - halter-tops just don't look good on people, really. And I can't get rid of those shirts b/c they fit Jonas just fine. The boys also tend to wear the same clothing 2-3 days in a row. And my boys are not neat and clean boys. :) I thought this could be a problem, especially come school-time when we need to be dressed, appropriately, by 7:45. I didn't want to battle Miles about his clothes when I'll probably be stressed enough getting 4 (4!) kids ready and out the door by then (thank goodness my folks will be here the first week of school!). Anyways, to make a short story even longer, I saw this "clothesline" a couple of months ago on familyfun.com and loved it. So I painted it in our boys' closet (which has no door) and think it's practically perfect. So the night before I'll "hang up" the boys' clothes and then *hopefully* we won't have battles in the morning. So far the boys love it - and I'll try to include them as much as possible in the picking out of their clothes.

p.s. I think it looks better in person. But whatever. :)

Family Trip Minus Mom

Well we finally did it - had the family take a trip sans Mom. We've probably "talked about it" for over 5 years. But, really, it's harder said than done. I always end up wanting to just go with them or something like that. But Ben really, really wanted to do this for me - give me a break before the storm, perhaps? :) So I let him - even though it was a little hard (I wanna go to beloved Littleton, too; What if you all crash and die while driving?; You gonna watch them around water, right?; and the such).

So Ben went up to his parents' home for the weekend and truly had a delightfully wonderful time.

This is on their drive up - stopping for dinner. Too bad the mosquitoes decided to dine on my children. Oh I felt their pain. They were {maliciously} attacked. (I HATE those buggers in case you don't know me.) My kids must all take after me, too - they all were driven CrAzY by them and all came away with quite a few bites. Ben said he didn't get one! I love this picture b/c it shows Emmy annoyed (or something), Miles itching, and Jonas probably swatting one away or something. :)

(The pictures are slightly out of order. . .)
Saturday afternoon they went to a park nearby that also has a splash pad. The kids really loved it there!

Yea, water!

Isn't she somethin'?

A crawfish caught by Miles.

The proud boy and his crawfish. Miles gets on these "quests." These extreme desires to do something, catch something. Like when we had to go minnow catching. But this time it was crawfish catching. So first thing Saturday morning Ben and the kids went out to find some crawfish. Ben caught the classic ones "that got away" and were much larger, but Miles caught this one on his own and with his bare hands. That kid and luck.

Jonas and his cattail. Where else would you put a cattail?

Wilson loves this bed. We still call it Grandma Gwenn's bed, although Ben's sweet Grandma passed away almost exactly a year ago. Even when she was living, Wilson would make himself comfortable on this bed - and Grandma Gwenn stated she actually liked it. :)

Oh, this is where the crawfish ended up. I think Miles was totally fine with it.

Stopping on their way back home at this park at this quaint little town.

Such adorably cute people!

So a great trip and one that I think will now have to become an annual tradition. :)

Oh, and here are a couple of videos I just couldn't resist (even if they are a little blurry):

I don't know why I find this toy so darn funny, but I just do.

Oh Jonas.

Oh the joys of being a kid!

Quick and Random

Just wanted to invite everybody to my house since it's the cleanest it's been in. . . years. And probably will not be this clean again for. . . years. I'm serious.

Now, it's not super-clean even - but things are put into their places, floors vacuumed and mopped, dressers dusted. There's still plenty to be done - washing the windows, scrubbing the toilets, etc. But cleaning for 6 hours yesterday has cured me of the desire to clean anymore!

Also, look how lovely this is: http://www.bundlebabyshop.com/p-390-pretty-pushers-delivery-gown.aspx.

2 more weeks and 1 day and definitely counting. . .