1st day home from the hospital

We got home from the hospital last night.  Daddy had to go back to work today, but he was pretty eager to hold his little boy when he got home from work.


I just love watching D with our kids.  He loves them so much, especially when they cuddle with him.

E ready to go outside with her cute little hat.

 

Grandma and Grandpa C got E an Elmo, while it may be annoying at times, E loves it and constantly pushes him around the house in her baby stroller.  Its too cute to watch her play mommy to her stuffed animals and baby dolls.

Little man loves being swaddled,  our sweet Relief Society President gave us this blanket.

 

About to go out on his first outing.  What can I say, I don't do well staying at home all day.  We just drove around in the car though and looked at Christmas lights. 

 

 

The boy has arrived

On Tuesday, December 4th I went in for my weekly OB appt.  I was dilated 4 cm and 60% effaced...but not having any contractions.  I was so ready to have this baby but the doctor couldn't do anything because he and I were still perfectly healthy so she sent me home with an appointment for the next week. 
I went to my friend's house and she gave me a pedi/mani which was much needed. She also did E's nails.  E was so excited to show them off.  I wish I had taken a picture of both of ours.
After D got home from work, we went out to eat and then went to the mall to walk, hoping to induce labor.  We walked for about 45 minutes and then came home and put E to bed.  As we were putting E down at 8:30 I started getting contractions (finally!!!) and I thought maybe we should just put her down at our neighbors house because I might go into labor tonight.  But we just put her in her bed.  Between 9 and 10 I kept getting contractions that were about 5 minutes apart.  I kept trying to get D to pack his bags and he kept procrastinating, finally about 10:45 I was sure we needed to go and we got everything ready and thankfully some friends in our complex were still up and took E for the night.  We got to the hospital around 11:30 and I was 6 cm dilated and 90% effaced, so they admitted me to a room.  I asked for an epidural, but they had to put the IV in first and then by 1:00 am the pain of contractions was so bad, but no anesthesiologist yet....
The nurses checked me again and I was 9.5 cm.  She said I could have the Dr break my water and deliver now or wait 10 minutes for the anesthesiologist to arrive.  I painfully decided to just deliver the baby.

So after the Dr broke my water I painfully pushed during 3 contractions and at 1:27 am December 5, 2012 this handsome young man joined our family :)

After he was born we texted both our parents that little Ethan Ryan (from now on referred to as "the boy", "little man" or countless other nicknames...) had arrived.  D's parents said they would head up here in the morning after finishing up things at work, and my parents will see him closer to Christmas.

Grandma C with the boy

Besides the actual pain of no epidural, I was fine and so was baby. 

Me with my two sweet kids

 

Our happy family of 4-although from the look on E's face you wouldn't know it...she hates taking pictures :)

Grandpa C with the boy

On December 6 at 5 pm we were discharged from the hospital, ready to go home.

Taking our sweet boy out to the car.

E loves her little brother and was happy to hold him at home.  She has been very good with him so far. The boy is the most content little baby I have known.  He sleeps most the time and is happy for the short times he is awake.  He only really cries if he is getting his diaper changed and then he hollers :)  I feel so blessed to have his sweet spirit in our home and have enjoyed every moment, even those in the middle of the night with my sweet little baby.  I am so grateful for my two kids and my loving husband in my life.  Right now I couldn't be happier.

Christmas Traditions

We put the tree up right after Thanksgiving.  I wanted to help decorate and thought that getting completely ready for Christmas before the baby comes would be a good idea.  So now the tree is up and the presents are all wrapped (though still hidden so they don't get unwrapped early)
One tradition we started this year was I collected 24 Christmas books and wrapped them under the tree for E to open up, one each night.  We surprisingly already had 12 books and I got the other 12 from the library.  A 2 year old will never know the difference :)

Here is Daddy reading E the 1st book that she opened.  She loved getting to pick out a present and open it!  Her favorite thing is reading so I know we will enjoy this throughout the Holiday Season.

Merry Christmas!
 

 

 

Princess Pants and blanket

So its a month before Christmas and 2 weeks until the boy is due, and I finished Elizabeths pants and blanket finally. :)  I bought this stuff forever ago.  The pants are a little bowlegged but hopefully she will look great in them :) This year her presents are almost all princess themed because my little princess loves princess's.  She is such a girl and I love it!! :)

Painting

E loves to paint.  We dont have a paint apron.  So she just strips down.  and paints all over.

She even gets it on her forehead :)

But sometimes when she is painting and realizes what a mess she made it makes her upset.  She doesn't like being dirty.

 

Happy Thanksgiving

Yes, I know this is pretty much the same picture from last post, but I didn't take pictures on Thanksgiving, and she was too cute to not post it twice. Get over it.


Anyway, this year for Thanksgiving, we had some awesome friends that invited us to their son's country club Thanksgiving dinner in Hereford.  I was super excited for the invite, because we couldn't travel with me being 37 weeks pregnant. And lets face it, I didnt want to cook Thanksgiving dinner beign 37 weeks pregnant either.
In fact, the night before Thanksgiving, I almost went to the Hospital thinking I was in labor.  Thankfully (and unthankfully...) the labor pains went away after about an hour or so.
Anyway, so we decided to spend more time with our friends and ride with them to Hereford (about an hour away).  E was excited to get in their SUV, or Jeep as she calls it.  She did a really good job driving there.  The food at the country club was very good (and even better because I didn't have to cook, clean, or pay for it :)  One of the other little girls there got a Shirly Temple and E started to beg for one.  Since it was a special occasion I let her get one and she LOVED it!  She didn't eat much until dessert.  And then she ate some of everything that D and I got, plus one of her own.  I must say the coconut cream pie was so good!!  The only downside to this dinner was I couldn't take any home with me. :(
On the way home we stopped at our friends son's house for a few minutes and E found a play kitchen there that was too much fun to play with.  When it was time to load up in the car, she started throwing a gigantic fit...Not to mention it was like 3 pm and she hadn't had her nap yet.  So we drag her out to the car screaming hysterically.  We start driving back to Amarillo and she doesn't stop.  I try giving her the Ipod, Kindle, and putting a movie in the car dvd player.  Nothing got her quiet.  I think she was going to get quiet one time, but then she saw a bug in the car and that set her off again.  (Have I told you about her bug and hair phoebia?? She screams bloody murder whenever she sees any bug, hair, or something that resembles either one...I'm going crazy!!!)  We finally get the bug out of the car, but she sees dust specks in front of her and thought they were a bunch of little bugs.  Yeah. She was a mess.  I felt so bad for our friends.  I even climbed into the backseat to sit next to her and comfort her, to no avail.  She finally told me, "I want my bed".  I thought oh sweetheart, I wish we were home so you could have your bed.  I am not sure if she wanted it so she could take a nap, or because that is where she goes to calm down when she starts crying.  She finally calmed down about 15 minutes before we got to our car and fell asleep 5 minutes before getting to our car. Of course as soon as I pulled her out of her carseat she woke up, then we had to drive home and she didn't want to go to bed then.  But after another screaming fit, she fell asleep. 
Now, I was craving coconut cream pie because the one I had earlier was just that good.  So I run to Walmart and all they had was a Marie Callendars and it was frozen.  So I bought it, but couldn't eat it till the next day. I really need to learn how to make one.
Overall it was a good Thanksgiving, I am grateful for such great friends that invited us out to dinner with them.  Even though we weren't around our family for the first time this year, it was still a great day.  And I can't wait for this baby to come!!!

Thanksgiving

 

I made E this cute shirt for Thanksgiving a few weeks ago, with some friends in my church.  I found the idea on an Etsy page...didn't save the location, sorry.  And then created my own template.  It was super fun to make it, although I did ruin the first one and had to take out all the stitches, buy a new shirt and re-sew the turkey.  I even made one for my friend, who sent me a "Despicable Me Minion" hat for E.  She is going to get that for Christmas. :)  E loved her Turkey shirt.  I can't wait to do one for the boy next year!  Happy Thanksgiving!