Welcome baby Eden!

Just twenty-eight days ago, Finley’s little sis, came into our lives and boy has it been a whirlwind. She was born at 5:30 am on Monday, August, 1st and labor & delivery was actually much quicker than with Finley. I was exactly 40 weeks when I went into labor and was scheduled to be induced if she didn’t come by Tuesday morning so I was pretty excited that she actually decided to make her debut when she did. I had been feeling contractions for a couple days but they really came on strong around 10:30-11pm on Sunday night. I laid in bed with Fin for a few hours until they started coming a little closer together. Then I went on the couch and watched a couple dvr’ed episodes of the Bachelorette (I know, I know) while I waited for them to come on stronger. Within an hour, I was getting a little nervous that perhaps I’d waited a little too long. Contractions were a couple minutes apart and very strong. I woke Jeff up, he packed Fin up in the car and we were on our way. Not without incident, however. First, Jeff set off the alarm when he opened the garage door to put Finley in the car. After entering his parents alarm code into our alarm key pad a few times, he finally realized and entered in our code just in the nick of time. On the way to the hospital, I had a few more contractions and asked myself, “why did I think going through this again was a good idea again?” We arrived at the hospital a little before 3pm, Fin in her pj’s, and a little freaked out and me in quite a bit of pain. When I was admitted the nurse asked me half a dozen of the most ridiculous questions like, “do you and your partner fight?”, “how do you resolve conflict when you’re in an argument?”, “how do you handle stress?”…when you’re dilated to an 8…the last thing you want to be doing is answering a ridiculous 50 question survey prior to being admitted to have your baby. WTF was that all about? I was admitted to my room, given an epidural, and waited for the doc to arrive. My parents got there around 3:30am and Fin was excited to meet her little sister. The doc arrived around 5:15am, asked me to push twice, and little Eden was here less than 15 minutes later. She was 8lbs 1oz and 20 inches long and had a full, dark head of hair. I was quickly reminded of why this was a good idea (the drugs helped a bit) and we are so blessed with a happy, healthy little girl.

Fin's Photo Shoot

Let's just say that I learned a VERY valuable lesson this past Sunday. "Do not have high expectations for a photo shoot with a 2 year old" Seriously. We showed up 6 deep + a dog at the photographers house on Sunday morning at 10 am. In tow we had Fin, Brett, Ashley, Grandma, Papa, Mom (that's me!), and Simon. Simon was actually the most well behaved of all of us! With us, I brought 4 changes of clothes, cupcakes, a cupcake stand, a tea set, balloons, sprinkles, confetti, a birthday hat, an Ipad, and I'm sure much more. Fin wanted NO part of any of it. She was on her own agenda. Only wanted her Papa and her and Brett decided to torment each other the entire time. We got a few good shots and I still haven't seen all of them but on one occassion we had to get Papa into the shoot so that Fin would sit down and 'behave'. Check out this photo, while definitely not planned, I can't get over how perfect it is. Fin runs her 'Papa' and definitely has him on a tight rope. I think this will be such an amazing photo and mean so much to her as she grows up.



More photos to come in the next couple weeks!

Mawkers

Fin loves to color, but she really only likes to color when she's got markers "mawkers" to draw with. Every once in awhile I'll let her sit in her high chair and go to town. Her activity usually ends up with mawker all over her hands, arms, and clothes. Tonight, we got an extra special treat, she colored all over her legs and then turned to me and exclaimed, "mama, look "wook" at me!" Boy was I excited.

Here's a couple photos of Fin with artwork all over her body.

It's a....

GIRL! We found out a week ago today that we're going to have another girl! I am pretty excited because I have sooo many items that I just wasn't ready to get rid of. Our due date is still July 28 and time is flying by. Finley likes to tell me that I have a bebe in my budha....

One Life Event After Another

It’s been a crazy month! Between raising an almost 2-year old, planning a wedding, being pregnant, and working full time; I’m not sure that I can take on anymore.

Fin turns two! In 20 days, our little one will turn two. She is the busiest girl around. She loves to mother her babies, color with markers, and torture Simon. Taking care of her babies consists of singing ‘wock a bye baby’ to them, then wrapping them up in a ‘bwankie’ and laying them face down on the carpet. This makes navigating thru the living room difficult when you’re trying to dodge 5-7 face down piles of babies throughout the house. Next, she loves to color, however, she’s decided she doesn’t like color crayons and prefers her ‘mawkers’. A coloring session usually ends in her drawing all over her hands, her belly and her clothes…but it does keep her occupied for about 15-20 minutes at a time. She is also OBSESSED with the iPad and frequently lets us know “ITS MINE!”. She knows how to swipe it on, pick her show, and watch upteen episodes of Caillou on YouTube. The best is when someone uploaded a dirty version of Caillou on there and Fin found it. All the sudden Caillou was shouting obscenities and I had to pull ‘her iPad’ away, this was followed by a complete and utter meltdown. No longer is she able to watch YouTube Caillou so we had to download actual shows from iTunes.

The Wedding The wedding turned out to be such an incredible weekend w/friends & family. On Friday, I stayed @ the Four Seasons in downtown with a few friends and we enjoyed a spa day with mom, Grandma, and Teresa and then had a fabulous dinner at Luc in Madison Park. The next day, we had a little brunch, got our hair done and took pictures in the balmy 30 degree (snowy) weather. We ended up at Terry Park in QA, walked through Pike Place, took a few shots at the Four Seasons and the Edgewater. The event itself was pretty memorable and I was so happy once we were finally married!

The pregnancy. I’m officially 19 weeks pregnant and have been feeling the little bugger kicking like crazy. I’ve been feeling much better than I did with Finley and the nausea has subsided for the most part @ about 16 weeks which I’m very thankful for. We find out this Friday (3/4) whether we are having a boy or girl and I couldn’t be more anxious for the news! I really wish I was one of those people who could have a little more patience.

WORK. Following the wedding, I headed to NY for 4 days for work. It wasn’t quite the way I imagined spending our honeymoon, but we decided to wait awhile before planning a more exotic trip. Most likely we’ll plan a little getaway after the baby is born. I stayed downtown at the Hilton and on Monday night, we enjoyed some Cuban food at this restaurant called Victor’s Café. We then headed to a rooftop bar called 230 Fifth street. We wanted to hang out on the rooftop for a bit but it was way too windy to enjoy the view. The bar was directly across the street from the Empire State Building and offered some fluffy red robes to wear outside. I’m not sure how I felt about wearing the robes. The following night, I met my cousin Nicole out and we headed to Little Italy to a small Italian restaurant for dinner. Overall it was a good trip but I was so ready to get back home.

Lil Mama

Watch lil Mama change her babies diaper. I wonder why one baby gets 15 diapers and the other gets 1? Sometimes I wish I could see into that little mind and discover what makes it tick.

Warning the video quality may make you dizzy.

A, B, C, 1, 2, 3

Love this bath time video of Fin. Especially the look on her face when she finds out I'm video taping her.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

We had such a great Christmas with Fin this year. She absolutely loved all the excitement and the thrill of opening all her gifts. On Christmas Eve, we went to my parents house for some prime rib dinner with Mark, Nancy, Margo, Tim, Teresa, Ashley, Brett, and my parents. It was fun to see Brett, Ashley and Fin all play together. We started a new tradition last year of a gift exchange with the adults so each person buys one food gift and then we do sort of a white elephant game on top of that. Jeff ended up with a bunch of this fabulous beef jerkey and pepperoni stick from Stewarts Meets in Yelm and I got a ginormous gift set of a bunch of different types of chili's and stuff to go with it. It's kind of a random yet fun way to try new stuff.

Fin got a new bike, piano, various Thomas the Train items, tea set, drum set, clothes, books, and an Ipad so she can watch hours upon hours of Caillou, Thomas the Train, and Barney. She is obsessed with Thomas and all his friends. She can name almost every one of those darn things.

On Christmas Day, we hosted a brunch at our place for my family. The kids ate some homemade coconut waffles and we made some breakfast pizzas, hashbrowns, and bacon. It was fun to start a new tradition of sorts and have the family over.

That evening, we went over to Jeff's parents house for dinner with his brother's family. Then, went to his Grandma Downey's for the annual Christmas night dessert and white elephant exchange. This is my fourth year in attendance and it's such a old school type tradition. His mom's side of the family is very big and everyone comes to celebrate. Everyone gets a stocking on the fireplace with a 'card' from his Grandma and the kids get a few small things to open. Then, the adults participate in the white elephant. I've seen several of the gifts being passed back and forth for the last four years so who actually knows how long they've been in the mix. It's quite the entertainment.

We are very excited to start the New Year and all it has in store. We have our wedding in February, a two-year birthday in March, a trip to Mexico in May, and a new little bundle of joy due in late July or early August.

Yes, we're pregnant again! Ak, it's so crazy to think that we'll be having another. I've been feeling a bit better than last time but still very tired and a lot of aversions to certain foods and smells. I go to the doctor on Thursday so hopefully I'll have more news to share in the coming weeks.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I took these 'bideos' (as fin likes to call them) of her on Thanksgiving and it took me over a month to get them off my phone. I love how it takes a 'picko' to get Fin to do something for me!

Post-picko