A Lucy Update

Well I have to admit that I really don't like posting newborn pictures. I can't take them well. To me the pictures always turn out funny-looking - such an injustice to my beautiful babes. :) But inquiring minds want to see more pictures of our Lucy Babe. And so here are 2 fuzzy pictures for your enjoyment:

I also need to admit that Lucy is a good baby. An easy baby - if you can call babies that. :) I usually think she has a problem or is sick, but really I guess (and hope) she's just a good baby. She sleeps a lot and falls asleep when she's tired - never mind she's on the floor with 3 other children crazily playing nearby. If she's tired, why she'll just close her eyes and fall asleep. Yes, Just. Like. That. Okay, not all the time - but the majority. And if she does fuss and cry - it's only a little. Sometimes she'll cry once you put her in her crib - but then if I go and hold her she stops crying in under 10 seconds. No joking. She's crazy. She sleeps pretty good, too. Some nights she has to be held by mom or dad to sleep - but she sleeps. Other nights she sleeps in her crib and just wakes up to feed. Pretty much, if she is fussy then just hold her and all will be well. She's a delight. I don't know how long it will last, but it's enjoyable for the moment.

She finally started putting on some weight. She was a pretty pathetic grower - less than 1/2 oz./day. But my girls apparently just aren't marathon eaters like my boys were. However, when I went for her weight check on Monday she had gained about 1.5 oz/day the last 4 days. Whoa. I was truly shocked. (She's up to 6lbs. 5 oz.)

Lucy doesn't mind tummy-time. Sometimes she lasts as long as 5 minutes on her tummy - that's huge in my book. Without crying. Even huger (if huger is a word?). She is a side-lying girl, for sure. She frequently turns to her right side to sleep, lounge, etc. I've never had a side baby. Interesting.

The first week of her life she was pretty in to sucking on her thumb, or fingers - whatever made it to her mouth. She'll still stick her hands in her mouth - but not nearly as frequently. I thought for sure I was going to have a thumb-sucker (my first!), but now I have my doubts. Time will tell.

My poor kids (my 3 other kids) all have colds and so I am constantly reminding them (sometimes not very nicely, dangit) to stay away from Lucy. I really don't want an RSV baby. Pleeeeease. So they do usually keep their distance, but they love her so much and want to be right up close to her. It's adorable. They are all so good with Lucy; I'm lucky.

What else can I say about her? Her tummy is loud and rumbles a lot. She doesn't seem too bothered by it. Her room (which is the laundry room) is getting a "baby-makeover" (nothing too much) - I'll post pictures when I've got the curtains up.

What else can I say except I Love Lucy.

Emmy's BirthDAY

Emmy's birthday was a good day. Whenever she was asked what she wanted, or what she would like for dinner, etc. - it was always something "pink." So we did a lot of silly "pink" things for our special little girl.

The traditional streamers-on-the-door walk-through.

And here is some "fun cereal" that was requested to be pink. Luckily we found something - and something that's not completely junk, too.

Emmy got one present in the morning - a little doll's highchair. We had fun feeding her babies.

YUM. Jonas and Emmy eating cake batter.

And snack time - pink milk and graham crackers.

It was hard waiting to open presents. But we had to wait for Miles and Ben to come home. Luckily Ben was able to get off early and so she didn't have to wait forever (though it probably seemed like it).

Oh she loves her tiara. Or "bracelet" as she calls it. Such a beautiful princess.

The kids all got to watch "Sleeping Beauty." Emmy's first real princess movie, I think. She was really studying the ways of a princess and would tell me things like, "Princesses hold their [dresses] when they dance."

And a lovely pink dinner, too! It wasn't too disgusting eating pink homemade mac 'n cheese.

And a pink cake, of course. My parents took Jonas and Emmy out in the morning for a couple of hours and so I was able to work on this while they were gone. My parents took them to the local children's museum (pretty much a glorified playroom) and then McDonalds. They had a fun time and so did I making the cake. I melted starbursts to make my letters and shapes. And I added a jello packet to my frosting to dye it pink and flavor it a little, too.

The beautiful birthday girl. Happy Birthday Emmy - we all love and adore you!

Happy Birthday Emmy

Wow, Emmy, another year has gone by. A lot has happened in this past year. You have done so much and have become so much more of a personality! We love watching you, literally just watching you, and seeing you do what you do. It’s charming.

One of the big events this past year was you starting gymnastics. This was a very special thing because this was your thing – not your brothers. This was all you and all for you. And, yes, it made your brothers slightly jealous of you. Every week we took you – either your dad or myself – to gymnastics. You love it, love it, love it. And you’re good at it, too. You can already do a “flip-over” on the tiny bars all by yourself (we do spot you, of course). You are pretty fearless of doing things. But you fear help from anyone else but mom and dad. At gymnastics they have wonderful coaches but you will never let them help you out. I’m not sure exactly why.

You are a very active girl, a girl on the move. You do gymnastics a lot in the house, you dance, you prance, you run, you fly, you hop, you jump. You go, go, go. Just like your brothers. We even took you skiing this year and you loved it as well. You’d go down the slopes with your dad – loving every minute of it. I love that you are willing to try new things. Active things.

You try your hardest to keep up with your active brothers - and you do a wonderful job. You are not afraid to play rough with them. In fact, lately you have been playing too rough for your brothers! Both Jonas and Miles will come up to me telling me that you are playing too rough. I know exactly where you learned it from, though! You’re just dealing what you’ve been dealt. You play pirates, monsters, and dragons.

However. . .you also want to play “princess” all the time. All. The. Time. You call it princess but to me it’s more like “mom and baby game.” You are usually the mom and I am the baby. You feed me (things like oatmeal noodle soup). You tell me when to lie down and nap – then one second later you “ding ding” wake me up. We go “swimming” and to “gymnastics” and to “work” while playing this game.

The mothering instinct is alive and well in you. It’s neat to see. This became obviously apparent when you found out I was going to have another baby. You would talk constantly about holding the new baby – and you’d pretend to be holding a baby and rock back and forth. You expressed your desire to help me feed the baby, change the baby, hold the baby, etc. It was so sweet to see and hear you express your precious desires of mothering.

And you know what? You are a darling, darling big sister. Is it a little hard for you? Indeed. Is it a little hard for me? Indeed. But we’ll do it together and help each other out. Your little sister was born just about a week ago and you’ve done such a fantastic job with this big change in our lives. In your life. You are no longer The Baby. But you will always, always, always, always, be One of My Babies. In some ways it breaks my heart that you are no longer The Baby. You held that position longer than your brothers. It was a part of you that is no longer there. That makes me sad.

Yet, at the same time, it’s so neat and dear to me to see you as The Big Sister. Even though it is probably a little hard on you, and at times you are telling me that I am done feeding Lucy, or that I need to put Lucy to nap – I know that you love her. You kiss her. You want to help change her. You talk to her. Lay by her. Do tummy-time with her. You’re doing a good job with this change and I’m proud of you Emmy-girl.

Another completely sweet thing you do is sing. You sing all sorts of songs. Your favorite song used to be one that you made up. We call it “Pretty Flowers” because those are the only words to the song. You sing “pretty flowers, pretty flowers, pretty flowers,” over and over. It’s adorable. Once you sang “Me Am a Sad Princess” and that was a fun song to hear. Your dad and I always have to sing you some songs before we leave your room at night. You especially like “Twinkle Little Star” and have sung that to Lucy about a hundred times in her first week of life.

Yes, you have your bad moments – that often turn into my bad moments. Sometimes you are completely irrational. I know, you are supposed to be at your age. But, still, it drives me crazy. CrAzY. You are not very good at being potty-trained. Sorry, you just ain’t. You can scream like, well, like a girl I guess. And you do. But at nighttime when I come in to check on you, I just stare at your beauty and sweetness and goodness. I love you so much and truly think the world of you, my Emmy-girl.

Emmy you are simply adorable. Simply irresistible to your dad and mom.

I love you,

mom

p.s. So I wrote this a few days ago and usually like to review and add or change things. But I haven't had the time. And right now your li'l sis is crying. So I hope the letter is okay. I know I missed a lot of great things to write about you. Maybe later. :)

1st x 2

So today was Miles' 1st day of the 1st grade. Wow. I love how this picture has his lunch box in it with him because he is just too excited about eating lunch at school - but especially getting to eat school-lunch once a week! And I mean Excited. He gets to pick out what day of the week he wants to eat at school - this week he chose to eat on "spaghetti and breadstick" day and next week is "beef and bean nachos" (of course he had to ask me what nachos were first). Love it.

Isn't he just sooooo handsome?

The siblings - minus one.

The whole family! We all walked Miles to school - even my parents came. So truly, a family event. :)

And here is the school boy in his classroom. We were excited to see some familiar faces from last year. And we met the teacher a little bit and she seems quite delightful. Miles didn't stop talking to her pretty much the whole time we were there. Which would have been fine and dandy if there weren't other kids coming and such that his teacher also had to give some attention to. . . Oh that kid. Talking is truly his talent.

I can't wait until I get to pick him up and get the full report. Oh what fun times!!!

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.