Thousand Oaks/Sandy River Delta

Since yesterday was Phil's last day home before going back to work and because it was pretty decent outside we decided to load everyone up and head to the dog park. Kyra had SO much fun and I was surprised at just how well the stroller goes over the gravel paths there, even with two in it. I love how easy it is for Paige to nap laying back all the way without interfering with the other seat, even when we have the shades up! It is a bit of work to get two kids and two dogs loaded in the car and harnessed, but for the most part everyone was fairly cooperative and I'm sure we'll get used to it. Echo has decided that riding in the car with his chin resting on the side of Paige's carseat is the best way to go and Paige seemed to agree since she stopped fussing once he did that on the way home. I felt great after the long walk but the grocery shopping trip afterwards may have been a bit too much as I was a little tired out by the time we got home.
Today is my first day at home all day with both girls. Bean was pretty crabby all morning and I was assuming she was just missing having her dad home and not liking sharing the only parent around but after she took a two hour plus nap I decided it was probalby mostly just that she was TIRED. Little sister was a good girl all day, just a hungry one. :) She eats like Kyra and Dad, frequently and lots! It will be interesting to see if she leans out like Kyra has and has Phil's metabolism or if she stays bigger and chubby like Mama. I'm really hoping for her sake that she takes after Phil, wouldn't it be frustrating to have to constantly watch what you ate when your sister could eat as much of whatever she wanted and be slim?

Visiting!!

Tuesday, we took the girls out to Phil's mom's house for the first time since Little Sister's arrival. G-Grandma Pat and Grandpa Curt hadn't seen Paige yet so they got to see her for the first time. The general consensus is that Paige looks more like Phil did as a baby than Kyra did but I think the difference is mostly just Paige's lack of hair since they really resemble each other quite a bit otherwise. Kyra had SO much fun playing with her kitchen while Phil finished putting the last screws in and things to assemble it now that she's a little bigger and more able to play with it. I was sitting on the floor with the little one in my lap and every once in a while Kyra would run over and slow down just long enough to give Paige a kiss or a snuggle before taking off again.
Kyra also figured out that she could climb into her mini-recliner all on her own. Now if we can just get her to figure out that we need to SIT DOWN in the chair we'll be all set.
Sometime Tuesday night, Paige lost her umbilical cord. Since she doesn't have the hernia like Kyra did (yet anyway, hopefully she won't get one) her little belly button is already more of an innie than Kyra's. :) Both girls got a bath before bed last night. Kyra is so funny in the tub. She just loves to splash and play. Up until very recently she would have an absolute fit though when I had to lean her back to get her hair wet or rinse it but then I started counting "one.... two.... three!!!!" when I tipped her back and now she just loves it and actually leans back all on her own when I get to three and giggles. Silly girl. Paige loves bathtime and being in the warm water. She didn't fuss at all until we got OUT of the tub and I'd dried her off, taken a bunch of pictures of her and had the audacity to start getting her dressed. Silly baby, doesn't she know that newborns are supposed to hate baths AND being naked?
We finally stopped being lazy and got over to get the rest of the things that Kyra had taken to the sitters while we were in the hospital having Paige today and she was SO funny when she got her teddy bear back. She's been doing fine sleeping with Paige's doggie instead but after Phil gave her Bear in the car, she was so excited that she wouldn't even let him go to get out of the seat, Phil had to do one arm and then the other and even that took some coaxing.

Already a Week Old!!!

I just can't believe it but Paige is already a week old today! I wouldn't have thought it possible but this time is flying by even faster than it did with Kyra. We're just trying to get in all the baby cuddles and snuggles we can now while she's still our little mushbaby. :) She's doing SO well. She's very alert when she's alert and is getting her days and nights straightened out nicely so we are getting some sleep. even if it is somewhat interrupted. She does really well with tummy time, no fussing and when she's laying on her tummy she's already picking up her head some to look around (she actually did that for the first time on her 2nd day in the hospital when she was laying in my chest, just picked her head right up and stared at me for almost a minute.) She was already starting to outgrow the newborn size swaddlers diapers when we were leaving the hospital because of her chubby little thighs so she's offically in size ones now. She's doing so great with nursing and eats like it's going out of style. So far she's mellower than Kyra has ever been. If Paige thinks there's something wrong or something that she wants, she's sure to let you know but for the most part she takes things in stride and is a pretty relaxed babe.
Today it was a beautiful day, sunny and in the mid-seventies so we took a walk this afternoon with the stroller. Kyra had lots of fun, Paige fell asleep and pretty much just napped. :) It was so nice getting out in the sunshine!

All Dressed Up!

Today was Paige's first time to church. I was amazed, we were actually on time even with Phil needing to be early since he was ushering today. He helped me get them ready and all of us were fully dressed on time to go. The girls were even coordinating in red, white and blue dresses. I'll TRY to get a picture of both of them but so far I only have the little one. After we spent some time visiting and introducing Paige around, I tucked her in her Peanut-Shell sling and she snoozed all through service! Such a good girl. When service was over, Phil was still ushering so I grabbed Kyra from the nursery while we were waiting for him and she was so funny. I still had Paige in her sling and when I took Kyra from the nursery worker the first thing she did was lean over to give Paige kisses. : ) She's such a great little big sister!
After church, Phil went over to help move Pastor T.J.'s family so the girls and I had the adventure of our second try at doing it on our own for a few hours and it went great. They weren't exactly challenging, but I did make it through two meals, naptime and playtime without help! When I got too worn out to entertain Kyra anymore I just let her sit on our bed with Paige and I and love on the baby. :)

Think I'll Go For a Walk Outside Now...

The girls had their first outing together in the double stroller today. It was SO nice out, sunny and warm that we loaded them up after naptime (well, Kyra's naptime, as you can see Paige was still napping) and headed out for a walk! Kyra loved it, especially after we turned her seat around so she was looking forwards and Paige snoozed the whole time. The flowers are blooming here and the trees are all budding out and it's really feeling like spring finally! It's supposed to be in the high 60's and low 70's tomorrow and Monday so I think we'll try to get out again at least once more.

The BIG Sister

We've been amazed at how wonderfully Kyra is doing at adjusting to being a big sister, especially considering how YOUNG she is! She has shown very little jealousy at all and is very interested in Paige. She loves to tickle and kiss her, both of which were her idea the first time she tried, we didn't suggest them. When she tickles she says "gickle, gickle, gickle" and wiggles her fingers until she's close enough to pat Paige and then just sort of gently pats her. She loves to watch Paige and talks to her while they're riding in the car. Kyra is learning to be gentle when she's touching the baby and does very well when she has help.
Tonight was my first shot at being home with both girls alone and it went really well! I even got to call my mom and talk for a while while Kyra was finishing her dinner and playing and Paige was taking a nap. The three of us sat on the couch together for a bit and Kyra was very good, talking to and playing with the baby but being very good about listening when I reminded her to be careful.
Everyone keeps asking if Paige looks like Kyra did when she was younger so I'm putting up a picture of Kyra when she was just home for comparison. :)

Paige's Birth Story

Warning you ahead of time that this is VERY long and a little graphic. :) Well after lots of waiting, walking and cod liver oil (that didn't do anything) I woke up Monday morning 38 weeks and 2 days pregnant having actual strong contractions, although I wasn't sure that's what they were! With Kyra, I only had backlabor until after we'd had the epidural and she finally turned the rest of the way so I'd never felt hard contractions in the front! I called the L&D unit and decided to go in and get checked and we called Amy and Angi. I was pretty sure that either they'd send us home or we'd go fast enough that the dogs would be alright until after she arrived so we just left them home. We got Kyra woken up and dressed for the zoo (where Angi was going to be Monday) and dropped off over there and got to the hospital around nine. Amy got there just after us as we were still getting admittance stuff finished up and getting settled in. When they first checked me, my cervix was at 7 centimeters but still very posterior so things were moving along and we definitely weren't going back home! It took a while to get a good strip on the baby since she kept wiggling around but once that was done she checked my cervix again It was about 8 centimeters still, about the same as the last time it had been checked but anterior now instead of posterior, YAY! I sat in the jacuzzi tub for a while, but not very long as things were moving pretty quickly. On the way there I was thinking I was going to end up getting an epidrual because her little head was sitting right on my bladder and that made the contractions REALLY hurt (worse than back labor) but she finally shifted down some while I was in the tub and that helped a lot, until all of a sudden I was wanting to push and thinking I was going to need the epidural to keep from pushing! I got out so the nurse could check me and was around nine centimeters with an anterior lip left. Since my doctor wasn't available that day we were going to have the on call doctor which was fine since I'd seen her before when I was in having my appendix out this fall. The nurse called down to her and gave her a heads up that we were getting close. The water hadn't broken yet so it was bulging and causing a lot of pressure! After another few contractions she decided to see if she could hold the lip back while I pushed and have it slip back behind the baby's head. It did but it took a couple times to get it to stay there. Then after another couple contractions she called the doctor to come down RIGHT AWAY and said I should blow through the next contraction instead of pushing. Phil says I looked like I was going to hit her but actually I was just wincing and trying to figure out how in the world I was going to do that at that point! The doctor broke my water right away once she was there and then they did let me push again and it was actually not too bad. Since I hadn't had the epidural I had a lot more feeling than I did with Kyra and was able to judge more when I wanted to push and when I needed a breath and my body sort of took over in between pushes too. The first half of getting her head out I wasn't even pushing, she just came on her own. Once her head was out, the doctor had to slip the cord over her head since it was around her neck once. All told, we only pushed for 15 or 20 minutes and she was out and on my tummy at 11:44 a.m. so we had less than 5 hours of labor! She was VERY purple when she first came out between all the facial bruising she had from coming so fast and being purple from having the cord around her neck and having swallowed a little bit of fluid. She did get to lay on my tummy for a little bit though and I got to see her right away. I was so much more alert and with it then I was right after Kyra was born, it was great! I was able to talk to everyone in the room and was really aware. Her first Apgar was only a 4 so they did pull her over to the incubator and suction her out with the bulb syringe to try to get her to wake up a little more but her second and third apgars were 9, which is great! She weighed in at 9lbs, 7oz (6.8 oz to be exact) and 20 inches long with a 14 1/4 inch head so she's about an inch shorter than Kyra was, has a quarter inch smaller head and weighs 12 ounces more!! I didn't stop bleeding the way I should have after delivering the placenta, even with the pitocin. The doctor ended up manually removing some retained fragments of membrane and placenta which is just what it sounds like and not very pleasant. They did give me some pretty intense pain meds for that part after the first two sweeps because it hurt so much and I was ok with ME getting the meds. For a while right after getting the meds I was VERY out of it (I felt like I was in a kaleidescope because I saw four of everything and they spun) but once my head started clearing I was feeling pretty good. It did take over an hour to get me fixed up to where the doctor was happy between the bleeding and a small tear that needed repairing and they said that they'd have taken me to the OR to do that if they'd known it was going to be so drawn out so I'm glad they didn't know! Paige never had to leave the room and she latched on to nurse for the first time while I was still coming out of the med fog (I had to have the nurse help her latch because I was having trouble matching up which baby should go with which nipple since I was still seeing double) and did great nursing. Amy did Paige's newborn pictures within hours of her birth so she's really BRAND new in them. Phil chose Paige's name with a little input and it's super special! She's Paige Daelyn so her initals are the same as Phil's (he didn't care for Philomena Darien ;) ) and her middle name is after my dad whose middle name is Dale. Paige means "young helper" and Daelyn means "day waterfall" which Phil thought was very appropriate considering that she was born in the middle of the day when we were all expecting a middle of the night labor and that she tried to bring her water out with her! She has quite a bit of hair although not as much or as long as Kyra's was. Her eyes are dark grey right now. It'll be interesting to see if they lighten the way that Kyra's did or stay dark. There is a problem with one of her little ears where it just didn't grow right so she'll have to go in to the audiologist pretty soon to see if there's any function on that side to preserve or if it will be just a cosmetic fix only where she wouldn't be able to hear on that side, but no biggie. She had a few visitors her first day, including Kyra! Kyra was a little jealous at first but she adjusted pretty quick to the idea and just wanted to touch Paige a lot (she still wants to touch her every time she sees her and all on her own decided that the right thing to do with a baby sister is wiggle her fingers and say "tickle tickle tickle"). All in all everything went wonderfully. It was a GREAT birth experience and we're just in love with our new little girl. :)

She's Here!!!

Paige Daelyn arrived at 11:44 a.m. on Monday. She weighed 9 lbs 7 oz and was 20 inches long. We came home this morning. :) I'll put more info up later on with her birth story but for now I'm heading to bed! Grandma needed to see updated pictures though.

Another Update

Well, there's not a whole lot of new things to tell. :) I keep putting off updating here hoping that we'll be able to post an update that we're headed for the hospital in labor, but not yet! Monday we had a morning OB appt. Still 4 cm dilated, VERY soft but still very far back cervix-wise. They did a non-stress test and little sister is looking good. The doctor said she just couldn't believe I haven't delivered yet! Monday afternoon we did a maternity session with Amy. I'd been sort of wishy washy on decided to do one since I just didn't feel very photogenic but I'm glad we did since we have the pictures from when I was pregnant with Kyra and I know that the girls will LOVE seeing them some day, especially when they're all grown up and it's their turn! (Although, if Phil has his way they'll be adopting since they'll already be going through menopause when they get married...) As much as I hate pictures of myself I have yet to have Amy take pictures of us and not end up with ones I actually like, even of ME! It was an interesting photo shoot since Bean was NOT feeling cooperative and mostly just wanted to run around naked and distract Amy and get in front of the camera. At one point she did bring me a remote control car to sit on my tummy, a present for Little Sister maybe? Even though she's normally just fascinated with bellies in general and especially mine, she wasn't about to kiss the tummy or cuddle or anything cute. :)

Besides the two on here, I put a few of the pictures up in a web album that you can go see HERE but be warned, there are some bare belly shots and a few nearly naked baby shots. ;)

Tooth Number Seven

Kyra had another tooth come through today! On the bottom, just to the right of the center two. I KNOW it wasn't even looking like it was about to come through yesterday but today when I was putting her in her carseat, there it was, just the tip through the gums! The matching one on the left is white and swollen today too so that one may be here soon!

35 Week Appointment with Little Sister

I had my 35 week appt today and will be going to weekly appts now. Phil wasn't able to be there as he forgot and volunteered to work today (normally his day off) for a special project but it wasn't a big appt or anything so no big deal, although, this is the first time in a couple months that it took the OB more than a few seconds to get little sister's heartbeat on the doppler and of course it was the appt without Phil! She was just being stubborn though and popped up after a minute or two. My cervix is still pretty far back, but I'm dilated to 3 cm already! Baby is low and head down with her head right on my cervix. In fact, she had her hand up on her head and when the dr. was checking me she could feel her little fingers. My OB said she was shaking hands to say hello! Hopefully this means that we'll go into labor on our own before hitting the April 1st induction date (which she said was fine for a date, 38 1/2 weeks is enough with my cervix already ripening.) I'm praying though that we can make it to March 21st as that will be 37 weeks and I'll just feel better about baby coming then. It does look like we're going to skip the whole 1st stage of labor again though since it's 0-4 cm! She was looking at when to schedule another ultrasound to check little Sister's size and decided to schedule it for NEXT week since she thinks we may or may not be pregnant 2 weeks out!

She's WALKING!!!

It's official, we have now gone from "she could do it if she felt like it" to officially walking! Last night after dinner Phil and I were playing in the living room with her and she was cruising around the outside of the superyard and she just let go and kept going! She walked all over the livingroom and office with itty bitty little steps for nearly half an hour! It was just so funny because I'm used to toddlers who sort of go a bit and then fall or sit down and then get back up and go a little more when they're just getting started, but not Kyra! Apparently she's been doing so much practicing all this time when we knew she'd be able to do it if she really wanted to that now when she feels like walking, she just gets up and goes! I'll try to get some pictures/video tonight if she's feeling cooperative.

BIG Little Sister...

Well there's not too much new to say about the Bean other than that she's finally almost entirely over her cold. Her fever broke last Saturday and the only remaining symptom is a little bit of a snotty nose still. She's still working on practicing walking and is getting very adept at walking along with one of us holding her hand, but is still unwilling to take more than a handful of steps on her own and that only rarely.
On the little sister front, we found out at the ultrasound two appointments ago that little sister isn't looking so little! At her last ultrasound (that was 31 weeks gestation and now we're at 33) she was already estimated to be almost 4 1/2 lbs and her estimated head circumference measurement was at 98%!! Our doctor said a that appointment said we'd wait and see how things looked as she continues to grow. I was pretty against the idea of being induced originally if there was any way we could avoid it, but as time is getting closer I'm a lot more ok with the idea. At this past Monday's appointment the OB said she would prefer not to see us go past 39 weeks since this baby is looking so big and since Kyra was a pretty big girl herself (she was 8lbs 11 oz and had a 14 1/2 inch head at what we think was just about 37 weeks). I'm ok with the idea now and just plan on doing everything possible to be as ready as possible when the time comes for an induction if we haven't gone naturally before then. As much as I don't like the idea of the pitocin

(I REALLY want to go without the epidural this time and I'm nervous that I won't be able to hack it with the stronger pitocin contractions) I do like the idea of having a cutoff date for having her on the outside where it's easier to know she's doing well!

Sick, Sick, Sick

Well, I've got a cruddy chest cold that I've had since Wednesday and now poor Kyra and Phil have it too. I had Kyra in to the doctor yesterday afternoon and the good news is that she doesn't have an ear infection, bronchitis or influenza. Now it's just a matter of waiting out the poor baby's cold.

Catching Up Again... :)

Last Monday, Kyra and I went to the zoo in the morning with a friend and the little girl she watches who is 2. Kyra and the other little girl had a blast, but the only nap Kyra decided to take was the one in the car on the way home from the zoo, so think twenty minutes or MAYBE half an hour! She was in a fairly good mood despite the lack of sleep, especially once Phil got home. Around 6:00 or so, she was playing in the exersaucer in our bedroom and Phil was laying on the bed visiting with her and I took advantage of their bonding time to come finish up some stuff on the computer and get the dishwasher going. A few minutes after I'd left the room I realized it was pretty quiet and thought, "Great! He's got her cuddling on the bed with him and she'll wind down for bedtime!" Nope, I walked past the bedroom door a couple minutes later and she was out cold in the exersaucer and he was sound asleep on the bed. :) Poor guys were both so tired! It took me three tries to wake Bean up and get her to come snuggle with me.











On Wednesday of last week, Kyra's 6th tooth came through. It just barely broke the surface to where I could feel the ridges and is taking it's sweet time about coming in the rest of the way, but once it does she'll have a matching set again. (It's the top one just to the right of her two front teeth.) She's already acting like she's working on cutting some more, bottom ones this time from the way she's behaving so maybe she'll be up for doing some real chewing before too long! She's already pretty tickled by the fact that she can bite off pieces of things pretty good now.
Yesterday, she took at least ten totally unsupported steps all in a row, which is the farthest I've ever seen her go, but she has yet to repeat that feat. We're not counting it as walking yet because she won't try to do it again, but at least she is finally willing walk with one of us holding her hand.

5 Teeth!

Sometime yesterday Kyra's 5th tooth came through! The top one just to the left of her two front teeth is finally through and seems to be coming in the rest of the way FAST! She practiced using it all day and wanted lots of things to munch on. She's getting REALLY good at taking bites of things now that she's getting used to having teeth that line up so she gets to have a lot of things whole and she really likes that.

Hairstyles of the Short and Wiggly

Kyra has officially graduated from having ONE hairstyle that works to two. She finally has enough hair and long enough hair that I can pull it up into pig-tails instead of just one spiky ponytail without feeling like I'm yanking it super tight or giving her and instant facelift. So now, she's gone from only having the option of Little-Cindy-Lou-Who hair to keep it out of her face to being able to wear Cindy Brady hair too. :) I've found a couple of really neat blogs about little girls hairstyles lately and I can't wait until she really has enough to play with. One of the women even has some "baby" styles up and I don't think it will be too long until I can do those with Kyra. I'm hoping that if I keep pinning her down to get her hair fixed every day she'll get used to it and be more tolerant of it as she gets older and we'll never have to chop off the length just for convenience sake. She's already better about it than she used to be when we first started pulling it up. These pictures were from the end of the day Sunday so she's a little dissheveled but you get the idea. :)












I had Phil take a couple pictures of how much I'm showing with Little Sister now after the business party at church on friday (should have done it before when I looked a bit more put together... but I forgot.) I don't know if it's just the whole second pregnancy thing of if she is trying to take up as much space as possible but I swear, my tummy looks the same now as it did in the maternity portraits that Amy took last year when we were 8 1/2 months pregnant with Kyra!! I'll post one of those too for comparison.

Birthday Video

Not much time today, trying to get ready for the "business party" at church tonight and Bean is being clingy so I need to go do what I can while she's napping. Wanted to put up her birthday video though now that I've finally got it done! This is the first time I've used One True Media to do a video instead of just the movie maker on my comp and I don't know how I like it yet but I think it turned out ok at least. Was sort of a pain having to mess with the audio by uploading songs individually and stuff though.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Can't Believe Our Baby Bean is ONE!!!!!

Well, it's official, she's a year old already!!!! She had quite an eventful birthday too. Since they had rescheduled my OB appointment from last week for 10:00 a.m. monday morning, we got up and headed over there first thing after breakfast for a check-up and my GTT. Then Kyra napped while Phil and I worked on getting things ready for her party that evening. After she woke up, she had a little lunch and opened her birthday gifts from us. She like the mega-blocks and especially the Elmo book but was not quite as fascinated by the clothes. :) She got a card in the mail from her Grandma and Papa in Wisconsin and thought that was very exciting when Phil showed it to her because there were two dogs on the cover. A tree had fallen in the park and the management was busy for most of the day trying to get it cleaned up so they weren't in the office for us to grab the key to the rec hall where her party was going to be and we finally got it just a couple hours before party time!



She had lots of fun at her party. Several of her friends and their parents (our friends, nice how it works out that way) were there and also her Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Jackie. The party was Elmo themed (very lightly Elmo... Mama's not that ambitious.) We had red plates, napkins, etc. and red and yellow balloons. I brought her Hokey Pokey Elmo, thinking we would set it on one of the tables for a decoration but she wanted to play with it in the Super Yard instead. She played with the other little girls for a while and then decided that she would rather sit on Mama or Dad's lap and socialize with the grownups. :) We had sloppy joes, chips, berries and veggies so nothing fancy, just easy for Mama and good leftovers for Dad's lunches this week. There were cupcakes too! Angel food and confetti and a sugarless banana raisin for Kyra. They were decorated with Elmo faces and a few Zoe faces too because Mama got brave and decided to try. i think next time we do cupcakes for something, I'll make a bunch of the Sesame monsters because they actually turned out sort of O.K. and weren't super hard to make. She was too busy to eat much beyond a few animal crackers but loved the cupcake she had after most of her guests had left!!