The Big 3-0!!!

So yesterday was the day! I turned...wait for it....30 years old!! I can't even believe that I'm not in my twenties anymore! Ugh! Its not that I feel old, by any means! It's more like I don't feel that the number matches me. I still feel 26-ish. But for a 30 year old (sigh) I feel like I've done pretty good! I'm married, own a house, and have two of the most perfect little kids ever!! Those are great accomplishments, in my opinion!! Hopefully, the time will start slowing down so I can take a breath and appreciate this life I have made for myself more! It seems to be flying by, and that makes me sad. So so sad! For my gift, Mark bought me a new lens for my camera. A beautiful, 75mm 1.8 prime. So hopefully adding that to my bag will help to capture these moments that whisk by and leave me with beautiful pauses in time that I can stare at when life does start to slow down. Until then, call me the "Mamarazzi!" My kids are going to hate me!!

Smile caught by Daddy

When Mark got home from work today, he just barely had time to walk in the door when I said, "Here are the kids, baby just ate, I'm going to Staples" and off I went! If your wondering why on earth I was using my few-and-far between chances to be alone to go to Staples, don't get to excited! I needed a calender. One to put on my fridge to feel more organized about things I have to do during the week. If I don't schedule it in, it won't get done!

So anyways, when I got home my camera was out. It is very rare for Mark to break out and attempt all the bells and whistles of the DSLR. He is a cell phone pic kinda guy. I was so impressed with what he caught! Not only are they decently composed, but he caught a smile!! The first ever documented smile of our squishy little Avery! As you will see, the happy time turned sour quickly, but still cute as can be, tears and all. Love this baby and love my husband for the effort he puts towards being an awesome daddy!!

Smiley..

Not so smiley!

Four weeks old!!

I can't believe how fast time has gone! It has been such a busy four weeks too! Its crazy how quickly I got to feeling better this time around! I was sooo uncomfortable for so much longer with Cameron! This time, after a few days I was feeling great, other then my leg, but that's different! Avery is doing awesome too! Her EEG came back perfectly and she hasn't had any problems since the day we went to the ER. Hoping it stays this way!

Right now she is eating 3oz bottles every 2-5 hours, depending on the time of day. She's usually up for most of the morning, switching between playing and being fussy. After her noontime bottle she will sleep for about 5 hours, which has been great! Cameron's nap is in there on most days to, just no where near as long!! Most nights she will fall asleep around 9, then I'll wake her for a quick feeding around 11, just to top her off and make that stretch go further. Then she'll go until about 4 or 5, at which time daddy wakes up to feed her. Then she goes back to sleep until 8:30ish. Pretty good sleeping patterns for a one month old!

What else? She loves to be held. Her favorite sleeping spot is in someones arms or her car seat. She can sleep through a ton of noise, which helps having her big brother around! He doesn't know what, "quiet, Sissy is sleeping" means! She's has the prettiest blue eyes and creamy, smooth skin, more like Marks tone. Her dark hair is starting to thin out a little and I'm scared that she is going to look like an old man with a receding hairline soon!! Hopefully not!! At her one month appointment she weighed in at 7lbs 10oz, which puts her in the 11%. That's what Cameron was at birth, so she's a month behind him in size. She still feels like such a peanut to me and is still doing good in her newborn size clothes. She has some time to go before we can start working all the adorable 0-3 month clothes. I can't wait until she can fit into all the teeny tiny jeans and dresses that we have, not to mention the shoes! Oh, I can't wait for the shoes!! It will come soon enough!!

Okay, enough words, how about some pictures??

Looong week!!

So this week..where to begin!! As most mom's, no all mom's, can tell you, the first few weeks home with a newborn is hard. This being my second, I definitely thought we would handle it much differently then with the first. We had no experience with Cameron, so everything was scary and unknown. It was gonna be a breeze, just cuddling with a squishy little baby and loving every minute of it. Yeah right. I'm never that lucky!

After being home a few days, Mark came down with a stomach bug. A pretty awful stomach bug. One that kept him sleeping on the couch, all day and night. So as he slept miserably down stairs, I was awake feeding the newbie upstairs. Oh well, I would have been awake anyway I guess! Then as this started to clear up, I noticed my sweet little Avery having little jerking fits that scared me to death!! I had to bring her in to the doctor on Saturday for a weight check (she likes being little, 6lbs 4oz now!) and mentioned these to her. She listened to what I had to say and said if I could put my hands on her and she'd stop jerky, all was fine. If not, it could be something to have looked at. That night she had an episode and I tried to hold her still and it didn't keep her still. I freaked and we brought her into the ER. After a long night, which included Mark trowing up in the hospital bathroom, we left with an appointment for a neurologist. After meeting with him a few days later (with no fits in between) we had a EEG scheduled, but he was pretty confidant that it was this thing called Fifth Day Fits which begin happening on a baby's 5th day of life (exact for Avery) and seem like little seizures, but end as quickly as they start and never show up again. So we will see through the EEG. All I want in the whole world is for my kids to be healthy, so I'm praying we get good results!!

But wait, that's not it! This past weekend, I woke up one night with awful pain in my leg. It was swollen to double its size and I couldn't put any pressure on it. We went straight into the ER and yup, my blood clot was back! Same exact spot as last time. So now, more meds and bed rest AFTER the baby came. Ugh! I have been to so many doctors appointments this past week paired with two trips to the ER! Its been crazy, but I'm keeping a positive attitude! It was a perfect pregnancy and birth, so I can handle a minor (ha!) set back. I mean, look what I got out of it? And now I'm getting a little extra cuddle time with my brand new squishy little baby, while daddy does the foot work, and loving every minute of it!

Introducing my Baby Girl!!

Okay, so took some time to get back on the blog, but she's here! And I'm sooooooo in loooove! I'll start with the inevitable birth story (but try to make it short!):

We went in on our scheduled induction date of Saturday, February 13th at around 10 in the morning. After getting checked in and situated in our room, our nurse Marla (whom I can not rave enough about!!!) told me that I was already contracted regularly, just not very strongly. Monica (our doctor) came in and predicted that it was going to be a fast birth, which made me happy. They got me started on pitocin and suggested I do some walking, so to the halls we went. We went up and down for what seemed like hours, but probably wasn't! I was starting to feel the contractions a little more stronger and decided to try out the yoga ball to see if that could get things working a little faster. Monica came back in and sat and chatted with us for almost two hours, which made the whole process seem much more pleasant and personal. She's a sweetheart and I'll have more babies, just so she can deliver them!

Okay, flash forward to about 8 o'clock. The contractions were coming on much more strong and I could tell they were going to start getting bad really soon. I opted for an epidural, which came super quickly, but never really kicked in! They kept increasing the dosage, but it never felt the way it did with Cameron. I had full feeling and movement in my legs and could feel LOTS of pain in those contractions. I'm thinking it took the edge off, cause it wasn't that bad, but it would have been cool to not feel anything! Regardless, they broke my water about 20 mins after the epi. I swear, after that, my belly shrunk down to virtually no bump at all! I had no idea so much fluid was taking up so much of my bump! At that point, I changed my mind from thinking she was gonna be huge, to thinking maybe I had a little one coming. The pressure started immidiately, and within a few minutes everyone was ready for me to push. I pushed through three contractions, about 8 minutes, and she was out! It was 8:57.

We named her Avery Cate and she did end up being a little peanut! She was 6lbs 13 oz and 20 inches long. She has dark brown hair and beautiful blue eyes. She was super alert and looking all around the room at all her visitors. Both sets of grandparents came in to meet her right away and were in love. The whole experience was just as amazing as it was with Cameron. We are so in love with our little girl and I just can not take my eyes, hands and lips off of her. She's perfect, in every way. Sorry if I sound like a sap, but come on, I just had a baby! I feel blessed to have her as my daughter, to have been able to keep her safe in my belly, to give birth to her and to shower her with my love for the years to come. I love her, love her, love her!

Tomorrow is the Big Day!!

I get to finally meet my Baby Girl!! I am head over heels excited about it already and I still have the whole night (and labor!) to wait! I was supposed to go in to get induced Friday morning at 7:30am. But wouldn't you know, I woke up at 3 am throwing up and didn't stop until around 1pm! It was awful, 1) to be that sick on such a special day and 2) to have to cancel the birth of my daughter! Who does that? I do, I do! I just keep telling myself, there is a reason for everything and she didn't want to be born on Friday. She wants to share her birthday with either Justin on Feb 13th or her second cousin Danielle (and the rest of the world!) on Valentines Day, so who knows! All I know is that I am wishing for a nice, fast and easy labor and birth and a beautifully healthy little girl that I can finally touch and show her how much I have loved her the last 10 months! And God, I can't wait to see Cameron's reaction!! He is so in love and obsessed with my belly right now and I don't know what he is going to do when the belly is gone, and the baby is here instead! Should be an exciting and interesting next few days!! Come quick Baby Girl!!

Weird shadow, but here is my last "dressed in real cloths" belly pic! 38 weeks and a few days!

Yikes, its been awhile!!

So it has been forever since I posted last! Not since last year actually!! The main reason for this has been because of my computer with all my photos on it was broken for awhile. But (ta-da!!) it's back! I can't believe how much I love this thing!! So here I am, trying to add pictures to at least some of the posts that I had journaled on as time went on. It's going to take awhile, and be kind of weird to see all the posts from me from practically the summer, but I have to get it done so I can start blogging about current stuff again!! Bear with me for a bit!!