Cowabunga!

I was disappointed to hear that State Fair had ended for the year already. We had been thinking about entering 'the girls'-aka my chi-chi's-in the Dairy cattle competition. We without a doubt would have come away with a Blue Ribbon in 'production'....I just know it....

Thats my story and I'm stickin' to it!

Yes, I do realize my newborn is over a week old now and I haven't posted more than a few pictures of her precious face....but I'm sitting on a bag of frozen vegetables right now, so whine to someone else about it.

I thought I'd share a little more in depth of how things went last weekend. I know you all have been just sitting on the edge of your seats waiting to hear all about it, right? RIGHT?!

Friday I went into the doctor because I was having so many contractions and so much pressure in the you-know-what. But alas, I was not dilated a single centimeter. Darn you, you stupid cervix!!

I was so burnt out. SO exhausted. And I knew my doctor was not one to be real gung-ho on inducing labor early, so I had no hope for relief anytime soon. Then ,that precious doctor spoke words from heaven: 'well, if you were sitting here wringing my neck telling me that you couldn't handle to have this baby in you another second then I could see about possibly getting things started tonight.'

uhhhh. Tonight tonight?? Like this very day tonight? Like I could potentially be holding a baby in my arms instead of my too tightly stretched belly as soon as tomorrow?!

WHOA.

We discussed how we would go about things and she sent me home to talk to John about it and see how he felt.

I believe his exact words were: 'Do we really have to wait until tonight?!'

I'm choosing to take that as him being SO excited to meet his new daughter rather than the idea that he wanted to do this sooner on the off chance my whining would stop that much sooner. :)

8:30pm we headed over to the hospital and got settled.

Oh, hold on...my veggies are melting...

Ok.

Without going into too much detail, the next morning we officially started induction. At which point I got my GLORIOUS Epidural. An Epidural which was to me like manna from heaven. Pure gold I tell ya.

The AWESOME thing about my glory-drug was that I felt literally not a thing. The entire labor and delivery. How sweet is that??
The downside about it is, again, that I literally could not feel a thing. In other words, each of my legs might as well have weighed 500 pounds, and my butt a good 700lbs by itself, which made it impossible to turn over from side to side without help and made me bedridden for the entire laboring day. Which made for an incredibly boring day for all involved. I think everyone there was hoping to see me writhing in pain, for their own entertainment. Well, I showed them...Jerks.
As you can see, we did manage to find things to do to keep us entertained:

John stole my SWEET hospital slippers for the weekend, and decided to take a picture of them as proof of how incredibly fabulous they were:

He then came over and flung my half-dead body off the hospital bed and took up residence on it himself because he felt he needed a little rest before 'we' started pushing. For those of you concerned, I know how to army crawl-which obviously came in handy at this point when my dead-legged body was sprawled on the floor.

After my long trek across the hospital room floor, I pulled myself back up onto the bed and managed to check some email.

I also had plenty of time during the day to finish some sewing. I know. It's weird.

It's a tradition between my sister and I to take a picture of the dilation chart each time the doctor confirms that we have, in fact, dilated further. Don't ask why. Again, it's weird. But we are ok with that.

Finally, John felt bad for the whole bed fiasco, so right before 'push baby out time', he held a mirror for me while I fixed my hair. Because everyone knows that newborns are so freaking judgemental, and the last thing I needed was that child holding my bad hair against me until the end of time.

With the help of a little Journey and Def Leppard playing in the background on our laptop, we pushed our way towards becoming parents for a second time and the reward was so great:

Samantha Jane joined our little family at 9:40pm on Saturday. She was 8lbs 8ozs and just darling as anything.

I think her big sister thinks so too:

And now starts a new adventure in our lives. Poor, poor daddy. :)

Just a sneak peek...

She's here! We did it!!

We managed to create/labor over/birth another DARLING little girl!! Wahoo!!

We get to head home tomorrow, when I will fill you in on all the details and share too many wonderful pictures with you, but for now, to scratch that itch for ya, I'll give you all a look at just few little precious moments from the last day or two.

Thank you so much for all your prayers and thoughts during this baby waiting period!

Miss Samantha Jane:

Mom, Dad and Sam!

Big sister showing SO much love for 'her baby':

We are so crazy in love with our two girls:

The countdown to d-day begins.

D-day=delivery day

D-day=the day I will be pushing a human out of my hoo-ha.

D-day=the day my hoo-ha will forever hate me for.

You get the idea.

I gave the good old doctor a call yesterday because I had been having contractions all morning about 10 minutes apart, give or take a few minutes, and baby had significantly dropped.

In fact, she has dropped so far that her head is now in between my ankles. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, considering now I can see what she looks like. She seems to be sporting a giant cyclops eye. Not the most horrible news-glasses will be cheaper, right? Oh I kid, thats just terrible....

ANYWAY, back to calling the doctor: She said it wouldn't hurt to come on in, and she could tell me for sure if I was in labor.

Saweet. Let's get this show on the road.

So, we scrambled to gather all our hospital things 'just in case' and we headed on over.

Long story short, that jerk uterus of mine has decided t doesn't want to dilate yet. Ohhh we are going to play that way, huh?! Fine....

So, we were sent back home, with meds to help me sleep at night should I have more contractions, and were told to call should they become a little more regular/stronger.

Well, feeling sorry for myself, I decided I should go get some cuteness added to my feet. Because Lord knows, thats the first thing this child will see when entering the world-my toes, and I would hate for her to hold against me the fact that I couldn't even take the time to have someone rub and pamper them for me before hand. So, I sacrificed an hour out of my day yesterday and made sure daughter #2 would be proud of my tootsies.
Here is how they turned out:


When I was pregnant with Olivia, I had my toes done, and had them put a little 'O' on my big toe in rhinestones. This time they put a little 'S' on each toe with some pretty rhinestone accents.
'S' for Samantha. Which is the baby's name, for those of you that aren't up on the times. :)

I went back for my regularly scheduled appointment today and discussed how this whole birthing thing was going to go down.
Looks like I will go in next Wednesday and start the good old induction! Yowza. A new baby in one week. CRAZY.

I'm a little nervous, ok TERRIFIED, being as my last labor and delivery experience was nightmarish, but I know I can do this. I was a little concerned with being induced-you hear all these horror stories-but it turns out that she doesn't care to use pitocin to induce unless absolutely necessary, instead she will use a more gentle medication to soften the cervix and get contractions going. That made me feel a little more at ease. A little. :)

So, thats the story morning glory. Sorry that I've been so scarce. Just been a little preoccupied mentally. You know, what with thinking that I'm going to have to be pushing a giant child out of a particular orifice in the near future and all.


AWESOME.

She got schooled.

Well, my little girl is officially a school-aged child. For the next 15 years or so, there will never be an extended amount of time that she will not be attending school.

And that just gives me hives.

Her big day started with a nice breakfast of eggs and a juice box. We know how to dine up in these here parts.

And of course she made time to shine those pearly whites. She takes this task VERY seriously as you can tell by the look on her face.

Who could forget official first day of school picture time?? Oh not this momma, you betta baleeve that!!




After dropping Liv off at school, being that it was just a short day for her, John and I had a little time to waste. So what did we do? Take stupid pictures of course. Duh.

He told me to stick my tummy out as far as I could, so I did:



Then, he made this face:



I think he still likes me. I DID let him knock me up, afterall.



Livie's first day appeared to be a success:



So, how did we celebrate? With a Cotton Candy-flavored ice cream cone, of course!!

I sure am proud of my little lady, and so thrilled for her as she embarks on this exciting adventure! I love you Livie-loo! :)

Absence makes the heart grow fonder...

Or the cervix dilate quicker?
One could only hope....

You may (or may not) have noticed my absence from blogging as of late....

Between this giant head lodged in my pelvis and the fact that my precious girl is starting preschool for the very first time tomorrow, well, this momma is a little emotionally preoccupied as of late.

Which is a bummer because I've got some great posts brewin' in the old noggin. One may or may not include racist sheep.

Yes, I said racist sheep.

I know, you can hardly wait.

I'll be back tomorrow with tons of too cute for words pictures of Miss Olivia heading off to class to corrupt all her little classmates with her overbearing mothering skills.

Where did she go??

You all will NEVER believe what my child did to me yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon, nap time rolled around. Everyone breathe a sigh of relief with me now: ahhhhh! We turned the TV off, and began to climb the stairs.

Thats when it happened.

That child of mine had the nerve to tell me 'Goodnight mom. I can pray and tuck myself in this time. I don't need you to tuck me in.' And she proceeded to march her little heiney down the hall to her room and lay down in bed.

Uhhh 'scuse me?!

As if I'm not a major mess with her, my 'baby', getting ready to start preschool for the first time next week, now she decides to go all independent on me?!

I DON'T THINK SO!!

I think she needs a good time-out. Yes, I think that will get her to re-think how she gets all grown-up on me! Hmph!

Wedding weekend: Part deux

Sooo when I last left you, which was entirely too long ago, I shared a few pics of us getting ready for the wedding day last weekend. Here are a few more to finish off the beautiful day :)



There is nothing like pairing a beautiful dress with an awesome pair of Superman undies. I'm tellin' ya, this girl knows all about her accessories.



I'm pretty sure you have never seen two cuter girls in your life. I DARE you tell tell me differently. Go ahead, try. I'll punch you in the face.



Here we are in our 'princess dresses', as Liv likes to call them.



Keeping my legs closed for any extended amount of time is increasing with difficulty lately. At least I shaved those puppies, huh?



And while you may think I'm sacrificing in the greatest way to pin this aisle runner, you would be mistaken. Thats just a front. It actually feels DANG good to let the old belly hang like that. So, thought I would do something productive while I was down there.
I still don't get why they made me get up when the wedding started. Whatever.



Here we are, all of us girlies, in all our hair-sprayed, make-up plastered, glory.



And here we are in the food line. Please make note that I am the FIRST one in line. I would like to tell you that they made me go first because I'm 'the pregnant one who needs to eat', but that would be a lie. I'm just selfish.



And finally, here I am with my beautiful Miss Magoo. Isn't she stunning? She looks like a model right out of a bridal magazine!

Thank you my precious friend for letting me be a part of your big day. You mean the world to me and I love you to pieces!

Wedding weekend: Part 1

It was a humdinger of a weekend.
I know, that was a stupid word to use, but I've always wanted to use it in a sentence and now I have, therefore I can officially now die happy.

It's taken me a while to blog about this weekend, well, because between being up every hour the night before the wedding with braxton hicks contractions, and racing with a 3 year old all weekend, I'm kinda pooped!

I think for now, I'll just scratch all your itches by sharing some fun pics, then I'll detail about it all at a later time....cool? Cool...


Here we are at the rehearsal dinner, the bride is the one sitting next to me in the white shirt.
All but one of the us went to high school together! It was fun to all be together again!


Here we are spending the night in the hotel room. As you can see, Liv is WAY more excited than I am. It could have something to do with the fact that I don't fling MY limbs all over her while I sleep or that I don't start yelling gibberish about not being able to catch the butterflies in the middle of the night and scare the pee out of her. I'm just sayin'...



Here we are 'getting our hair did'! She likes it when I get her hair tangled in the brush when I'm blow-drying it. She really does.


The finished product! This weekend I taught her 'pain is beauty'. She'll learn to appreciate it in time.
The second picture is of her and her bestest friend Miss Kaylee, who is the bride's daughter. The bride is also my dearest friend, so it was just an extra special time for all of us.



Mommy and Livie all purtied up! We clean up pretty nice, huh? :)

Wedding weekend: Part 2 coming soon...

Trying to let my guard down....blog style!

This morning while visiting My mom at the church office, Pastor Greg came down the hall and mentioned to me that he would appreciate it if I would just open up on my blog a little more. That I just seem so guarded and hesitant to share much of anything on here. So, I'll work on that a little more in the future, but just for you Greg.

Note to self: try to feel more comfortable writing about poo and contraction inducing love making. Check.

Well, as most of you know, Liv and I are in a wedding this weekend. Myself, as the maid of honor and Livie gets to be co-flower girl with the bride's (my dear Megan's) daughter.

I called my sister at the beginning of this week with a very important question. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi sister, I have a gross question for you....

Sister: Ok! (said with a hint of excitement, because she's just weird like that) :)

Me: I can't for the life of me reach my toes without feeling like this child will be squeezed up and out my throat, so do you think you could take my old nail polish off, and repaint my toes for the wedding?

Sister: Oh yeah, of course. I thought you were going to ask me about some weird discharge you were having or something.

Me: *dry heaving in the background* EWWW no!! Just my toes! Paint my toes!!

Sister: yeah, no problem, geez, thats not gross....

Hows that for opening up?

So there you have it. Momma's got a new set of SAWEET looking tootsies:

Try not to be too jealous of the totally awesome flip flop tan lines. I know you want some just like them, but we all can't have what we want, now can we??

Baby bash!

No, I don't mean bashing the baby, I mean bash as in party. Oh, nevermind....

This post is long overdue (as most of my posts seem to be), but I wanted to share with you the lady bug themed baby shower that a few precious friends of mine decided I needed to have for baby #2 Saturday afternoon. Never mind the 8 bagillion 18 gallon tubs of clothes I have left over from Livie's baby days, this child needs to know how great a brand-new un-spit up on onsie wears! I'm so blessed to be so spoiled by such wonderful friends :) (In case you were wondering about the lady bugs, that is the theme for babys nursery as well!)



This is where I spent most of my time during the shower. There is nothing like food made specifically for a pregnant woman. I'm pretty sure if you were to go back, the imprints from my feet would still be there in front of the table. PURE HEAVEN.



My awesome sister made me this for the nursery! In case you can't make out the little poem, it's says: Ladybug, Ladybug on the tree; Fly down here and sit with me; Rest on my hand, I'll count your spots; 2...4...6...8 Polk-a-dots!


Grammy got Livie and Sam these precious matching dresses!


And of course Liv felt the need to put hers on IMMEDIATELY!! and prance around the rest of the shower with multiple layers of clothes in the 100 degree-plus weather. Thank you Lord for air conditioning!! *whew*


And one of my dearest friends, Emili. Thank you, my Emili, for making an uncomfortable pregnant gal forget her aching uterus for a day. I love you!