Sunday, October 28, 2012

Pumpkin Carving!

Yesterday we decided to finally get out and get a pumpkin to carve.  Instead of going to a pumpkin patch this year, we headed to the good ole grocery store to get our special pumpkin :)  That's just how it goes with a newborn...
I had seen a fun idea to carve a Hello Kitty out of the pumpkin and SK was very excited that Daddy was up to give it a try!  SK was a big helper while Daddy did the detail work of carving out Hello Kitty's face on the pumpkin.




On another note...Today marks the first time we actually got Evie dressed for church wearing something other than a sleeper or onsie :)  We actually had time to get both girls bathed and dressed this morning with time to spare!  Well...at least time to spare before making it to church...we haven't been able to make it back to Sunday School yet.  AND let me tell you our little trick to have so much time on our hands this morning...SK gets up and comes in our room to tell us "the sun is up!"  I send her to go look at the clock in the kitchen to see what time it was since I didn't have my phone by the bed.  She comes back informing us that it was 8:15.  I jump in the shower thinking I could quickly get myself a shower before Evie woke up and Michael and SK went to go get breakfast going.  I get out of the shower and find Michael back in bed.  Turns out that it was only 7:15...not 8:15.  SK pulled a good one on us :)   I think she knows that if it was still in the 7 o'clock hour we wouldn't get up....smart kid and a stinker :)

I did take a second before leaving for church to document getting EJ dressed today :)   Isn't she cute!

(SK wanted to take a pic of me and EJ)

Off to eat lunch and have a restful afternoon hopefully if the girls decide to go along with that :)

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Nana and Papa's visit

I am slow to blog these days...I guess I am too busy soaking up cuddles and such :)

And most of the time when I do get a chance to get on the computer, it is one handed while I am feeding Evelyn or holding her...
I wouldn't trade it for anything though :)

So, I will eventually catch up on here.  Starting now...
I can't believe our baby girl is almost a month old already!  We haven't had a weight check since last week (which she weighed 6 lbs. even, so pretty much back to birth weight).  She is doing good though and we will find out her weight at her 1 month check up next week, so hopefully we are still doing good at gaining weight!
We had a fun weekend this weekend, as Nana and Papa drove up to meet their newest grandbaby and see their first one too :)
It was so special to have them come up and stay with us!  They got here on Thursday and stayed until Monday.  We had some fun times hanging out at our apartment (including painting, leaf hunts, playground time, movie and popcorn nights, ect. ect...)!  And we even ventured out to the Art Museum and the Zoo on Saturday!  Oh, and a stop at Ted Drewe's for custard too!
We miss having family close by during this time of having our new little one, but these times that we do get weekends together are so special!  We are so thankful for family that love our girls (and us!) so much!
Nana and Papa--We wish we could see you guys more often and love yall so much!  SK and Evelyn are so blessed to have yall for grandparents!  We are counting down the days till we get to Alabama to see yall again!
Now for picture overload...
 Papa getting snuggles with Evie!

 Nana getting kisses from her girls!


Playing on the playground in our princess dress :)


 Lots of crafts went on this weekend :)

 Photo op when heading in to the Art Museum

Sea Lion exhibit (Evie is alseep in the stroller...) 

On our way to see the Elephants!

We had so much fun!  SK was sad to see them leave, but we are now counting down the days till Mimi's visit next week then counting down till we head to Alabama!

Thursday, October 11, 2012

2 weeks old!!

I can't believe our baby girl, Evelyn is 2 weeks old already!  She has been so much fun to snuggle with, so that is why you haven't seen me blogging too much.  I spend most of my time feeding, changing and snuggling with my girls.  SK loves to get in on the snuggles too.  Just this morning SK climbed up in our bed when she woke up (at 8:30!!!) and wanted to hold her sister.  So we sat in the bed and snuggled all up and chatted while Daddy got ready for school. 
So how are things so far?  They are good.  Nursing is hard.  I am having a hard time getting my milk supply where it needs to be to put weight on our little one, but we are working through it and doing what we can for her and me to get things going better.  She loves to nurse, which is good :)  We just need her to get more calories to get her weight up....you could pray for that for me :)  She is getting supplements for now to make sure she is gaining weight and that is okay with me.  In the end, we just want a healthy baby and that is what is most important.
Moving on...
Evelyn does sleep well at night waking just to eat then goes right back to sleep (at least for the last nights...).  It might help that she doesn't get put down in her bassinet at night...she gets to cuddle with momma.  I kinda like it as much as she does I think!  We will get her sleeping on her own at some point...I am not really worried about it right now.  I want to soak in these cuddles as much as possible.  I know from experience, they grow up fast :)

More random thoughts...
*It is starting to get cold here.  I finally got around to puting up SK's summer clothes so she will quit asking to wear her summer dress when it is 50 degrees or less outside.
*We had another photo session yesterday with Evelyn!  It is crazy that a month ago I was so sad that we wouldn't have our friends that typically do our photos in town to take any good pictures of Evie as a newborn, and then it turns out that we get 2 photo sessions for free!  The one we did at the hospital was a gift from the family that I nanny for and then the next one was with a photographer that is trying to build her newborn portfolio and wanted a newborn to practice on :) 
I have seen a few photos, but will wait to reveal those till we see the rest that she got yesterday!  I will say that they are awesome!
alright...times up for me...off to be with my girls!  pics coming soon!

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Quick Sister Post

So tonight at bedtime we sat down to say bedtime prayers together as a family.  SK first off had to be holding her sissy before we prayed.  Then...she folder her sweet hands and prayed:

"Dear God, thank you for letting me have a little sister..."

there was more to the prayer after that including praying for mommy and daddy to get rest and Evelyn to sleep good and more things as well, but I was too busy wiping tears to clearly hear the rest.
Yes....Thank you God for giving Sarah Kate a little sister.
Just had to post this while I could...I don't want to forget such sweetness.

Evelyn's Birth Story

I'm back!!!  And sweet Evelyn Joy is here!!  I know I have updated facebook with photos and such, but  I thought it was time to get back on here and write down the birth story while it is still somewhat fresh on my mind :)  We have been soaking in every minute with her and being a family of 4.  I love my girls so much and have had so many moments where I just look at how SK is with her sister and just melt :)
As I write right now, Evelyn is snoozing on my chest while SK is sitting beside us watching White Christmas (her choice!).
Ok, on to the birth story....
So last Wednesday (one week ago today....crazy!!!) we finished up getting ready and tidying up the house and then put SK to bed for the night.  Then we sat waiting for the phone call to head to the hospital...and waited....and waited.  They had said for me to expect a phone call around 8-9 p.m.  At 9:05, I called to check.  They were just getting ready to call me to tell us to head on up :)
So we called our neighbor who was going to spend the night with SK at our place and she came over and we headed up to the hospital.  It was a busy night at the hospital (we heard later that there were 18 babies born Wed. night!) so it took a little time to get checked in and situated in our room.  The nurse checked me to make sure I still needed cervadil (really not sure how to spell that...) before doing pitocin in the morning.  She checked and I was 1 cm. dialted and really didn't need to cervadil.  After putting the monitor on me she saw that I was already contracting regularly on my own (but I wasn't feeling it at that point).  She called my doctor to see what he wanted to do and they decided to start me on a very low dose of piton and then up the amount in the morning.
After starting the pitocin we tried to get a little sleep....poor Michael had a chair to sleep on, so he didn't really sleep at all that night...)  I then progressed to 4 cm dialated by the next time she checked me and we decided to go ahead and get the epidural (this was around 6 a.m.) since it looked like I was going pretty quickly.  After the epidural I stayed at 4 cm for another hour or so.  Then they decided to up my pitocin starting every 30 minutes to get things going and not stall out.  I was feeling pretty good after the epidural too :)  Doctor Jewell was confident that we would be pushing by lunchtime, so that was encouraging!
Well...then I got checked at 9 and I was up to 7 cm.  Woohoo!  Well...at this point sorry if it gets too much information...there's your warning...
I had not had a catheter put in yet and needed it :)  So the nurse did right after she checked me.  Within the next contraction I was fully dialated and the epidural wore off.  Yep.  I felt everything.  Just needed to empty my bladder and then I was ready to push :)  Like I said, sorry if that is more than you needed to know!  At that point the nurse was a little crazy running around calling for everyone.  She made a quick call to the anesthesiologist to give me a boost in my epidural and called in for Doctor Jewell to come quickly.  I was laying on my side and feeling so much pressure with each contraction and my nurse made it clear that I stay on my side and don't push!  A couple minutes later the anesthesiologist made it in and gave me some boost and Doctor Jewell comes running in literally panting from running across the hospital.  It was quite the scene to watch everyone scrambling :)  Well...they got all set up and with the next contraction I was feeling some relief (not complete, but not as severe) from the boost of epidural and was told to push :)  Good timing right?  It took 2 contractions and Evelyn Joy made her debut!
Oh...and backing up a little....Dr. Jewell broke my water sometime around 8 I believe and the fluid wasn't clear.  He talked with us about how there would be a NICU nurse in the room for the delivery and he would need to give Evelyn directly to her to have Evelyn checked out and suctioned well and make sure she was breathing well.  He told us not to worry if we didn't hear her cry right away that she would probably just need good suctioning and be fine.  I still got worried though.  We called family and had them praying and prayed ourselves that she would be fine and we would be able to hear her cry quickly.  Fast forward to her birth and she cried immediately!  I remember even when she had just her head out she let out a little peep of a cry that Michael and I both heard.  It was the best thing to hear :)
So Evelyn Joy was born at 9:59 a.m. and weighed in at 6 pounds 1 oz.  Not much bigger than her sister.  She was 19.5 inches long, same as her sister at birth :)  She looks so much like her sister except one thing...the hair!  Both of our girls had about the same amount of hair, but SK had blonde hair and Evelyn has dark hair (I would say black...or maybe really dark brown...)  They have the same mouth and facial features.  Michael and I can see maybe a little difference in their eyes and nose, but not much really.
After Evelyn got all cleaned up Michael brought her over to me.  It was such an incredible moment to have my husband bring our second daughter over, just like he did with SK.  I sit here and tear up because I am still amazed that I am holding a baby in my arms.  This time last year, we didn't know if we would ever experience this again.  I didn't know if I would ever be in a delivery room again and experience all of the fun things of bringing home a newborn from the hospital.  God gave us such a gift and I am amazed every day (and night) when I look at her sweet face that God gave us this child.
She is beautiful.  I love her so much.  And to see her Sk interact with her is heart melting too.  That will have to be a whole other post coming up though....
More blogging to come soon hopefully....right now I am off to be with my girls :)
I do want to remember to blog about how Sk was when she first met her sister and how she is loving her sister so much.  And about how things are going now that we are home....later....I will try to get to that.