The Imagination of a 3-Year-Old

I LOVE this picture of Bridget. Man, I'm a lucky mom. Although she has her difficult and less than desirable moments like any child, she's such a great kid with a great personality. It's too bad you can't tell things like that from a picture.

Anyway, I had to take the time to post about this little girl because I want to remember things about this particular stage of life she's in. For the past few months, her imagination has been growing by leaps and bounds. I could easily say that at least half of my conversations with her every day are about things she imagines about.

It seemed to start a few months ago when I was still pregnant with Felicity. She would pretend she had a baby in her belly too. And her baby was also going to be named Felicity. For a little bit that was the extent of it. Everything she pretended was about babies, but over the summer it's evolved into much more than that.

For example, she likes to tell me about her "grandchildren." When she first told me about them they lived on Drury Lane (you know, by the Muffin Man). But depending on the day they may live somewhere else. They also seem to celebrate their birthdays quite often, and their ages can move in either direction. One day they're 5, then 15, and then 4. And there's 4 of them - all the same age.

She also likes to tell me about her pretend best friend, Mora. Mora is her same age, and does everything that Bridget does. Lately she's been talking about Mora more than anything or anyone else.

In her little imaginary world, she also has a job. She used to work at Flying J (just like her dad did) but now she works at Zions (just like her Dad does). And she also has some coworker named Kelly.

This is such a fun stage, and I love to hear all of her stories even if they aren't real.

Solving My Child's Sleep Problems...Again

Once again this book has saved my life and my sanity. As mentioned in previous posts, Felicity was a great sleeper until the beginning of July when she got her first cold. And since then, things got progressively worse. Last week, it was to the point that she was waking up 4-6 times a night, and even getting her to go to sleep and stay asleep was sometimes a difficult ordeal.

For some reason, I had it in my mind that I needed to wait until she was 6 months old to go through the sleep training process in this book, so as I skimmed the chapters I needed to for a refresher and was looking for something that stated that. I guess my memory was faulty because it didn't state that anywhere that I could see, and I was desperate for a good night's sleep so we started the process on Sunday night (the 14th). I figured that if it didn't work because she was too young, I wasn't really out anything since I wasn't getting much sleep anyway.

The positive thing about the first night was that it only took Felicity about 15 minutes of crying and me going in a couple of times before she cried herself to sleep. The rough part of that night was that she woke up 4 times during the night and Bridget woke up 3 times (and yes, I was the one to deal with each of them each time). Bridget usually sleeps through the night or maybe gets up once to go to the bathroom, so I'm not sure if Felicity's crying disturbed her that much or if I was just that unfortunate. Needless to say, I was one VERY tired mom the next day.

During the day that day, things actually went really well for her naps. She didn't fuss for very long, and she actually took longer naps than usual. I was just grateful to be able to put her down awake instead of spending a ton of time rocking her to sleep only for her to wake up when I laid her down.

The second night, a miracle happened - she only fussed for a few minutes and then slept through the night for 9 hours straight! It was the best night's sleep I'd had in a LONG time. Maybe it helped that Nate slept on the couch downstairs so I got the whole bed to myself too! I felt like a new woman and actually woke feeling rested.

Since those first two nights, she's continued to sleep through the night for 9-10 hours. If she does wake, she cries for less than 5 minutes and goes back to sleep on her own.

So life is good at our house again. What's kind of ironic though is that now that Felicity is sleeping great, Bridget has decided to give up naps. I knew it was bound to happen soon since she is 3 1/2, but I was hoping it would last just a little longer. So now I'm just working on getting her to have some quiet time in her room in the afternoon.

Kimberly's Birthday

It's true. I'm now another year older, and hopefully wiser too. My birthday ended up being pretty low-key, but it was great nonetheless.

Although I told Felicity that all I wanted for my birthday was for her to sleep through the night, she opted not to give me that gift. The kids did sleep in allowing me to as well, and that at least helped with my sleep deprivation. Then Nate and I made one of our favorite breakfasts - Crunchy French Toast. The morning and afternoon were spent doing typical Saturday activities which included Nate taking Bridget shopping with him for my birthday present - a flat panel TV for our bedroom.

As I debated about where I wanted to go to dinner, the place that sounded the best was Cafe Zupas. I know gourmet soups, salads, and sandwiches don't sound like a very exciting birthday dinner, but I love that place. Afterward we headed to Coldstone to pick up a birthday cake, and then took it home to eat it.

After getting the girls ready for bed, we just hung out waiting for it to get dark because I was fortunate enough to have my birthday fall on the night our city was putting on fireworks. I know this sounds crazy to some people, but this was actually Bridget's first time watching fireworks (at least the first time since she was an infant). Her sleep has always been more important to us than fireworks, and we would have let her stay up a couple of other times this summer for them, but she opted not to take naps those days. Anyway, she took a nap on my birthday, so she got to stay up and see them. She loved them, and I'm pretty sure she thinks they did them just because it was my birthday. It was a great way to end the day.

4 Months

I wish I could say that the last month was full of sleep-filled nights for all of us, but it ended up being quite the opposite. After the cold Felicity and I both had at the beginning of July, her sleep habits took a turn for the worse, and she only slept through the night twice all month. Her naps continued to be about the same too (45-60 minutes 3-5 times a day).

On a positive note, she learned to roll over at 3.5 months as mentioned in a previous post. That week she rolled over about 10 times but hasn't done it since. It was funny too because right after she learned to roll over, I'd find her sleeping on her side in her bed all the time, and then she stopped doing that too.

In desperation to try anything to help her sleep through the night, I tried giving her rice cereal mixed with milk in a bottle last night but it didn't help either. No surprise. I tried that when Bridget was a baby, and it didn't work with her either.

Here's the stats from her doctor's appointment:
Height: 25 3/4 inches (93rd percentile)
Weight: 16 lbs. 14 oz. (96th percentile)
Head: 16.1 inches (47th percentile)

West Yellowstone Reunion

How lucky are we that Nate's parents live in a place as beautiful as this:

and this:

We had the opportunity to go visit them for the second time this summer (we went the 2nd weekend of June too but I didn't blog about it because we didn't do much or really take any pictures). This time all three of his siblings and their families and his grandma and her husband were able to come too for a little family reunion.

Here's a picture of Nate's mom with all 5 grand kids:

We all arrived in West Yellowstone on Thursday, the 21st and just spent that evening hanging out. On Friday, we headed into town to go to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. In all the years I've visited West Yellowstone, I'd actually never been there before, and it was a fun afternoon. They have several bears and wolves there, but they only let one or two of the bears out into the habitat at a time. When they change the bears, some of the workers go and change the habitat and put out food for the bear or bears that come out next so you can watch them find it and eat.
They also had a wolf den that kids could play in or climb on top of as well as some exhibits and videos to watch to learn more about bears and wolves.

A couple of the activities the grand kids loved were going for rides in the Razor and making s'mores over a campfire.

Saturday was our boating day. The weather was perfect, and everyone had a great time going for rides, some went tubing, and a few wake boarded. I spent most of my time on the beach with Felicity while Nate and Bridget rode in the boat and went tubing. Nate even tried 3 times to get up on the wake board but wasn't successful. Then we switched and he hung out on the beach so I could go for a boat ride. Thanks, Matt, for bringing your boat so we can all enjoy it.
On Sunday, we went to church and then everyone headed home except for us and Nate's grandma and her husband. We enjoyed another relaxing day around the house with Nate's parents and then headed home on Monday.

Overall, it was a great trip, and we really enjoyed spending time with family. Bridget especially loved spending time with her cousins. She and Tanner were great friends and played very well together.

Rolling Over

Felicity learned to roll over today! I could tell during tummy time this morning that she was getting close, so I had Bridget go get the camera for me. When I turned the camera on, it informed me that I needed to change the batteries, and of course that was when she rolled over. So this video is actually the second time she did it just a few minutes later. I'm impressed because she's not even 4 months yet. Way to go, Felicity!

3 Months

Felicity is 3 months old now which means Bumbo chair time! Well, in our case she has a different brand (Bebe Pod), but most people are familiar with Bumbo chairs so it's easier just to call it that.

Anyway, as you can tell, she's still full of smiles all of the time and even laughter too. Sadly, her sleeping 7-8 hours straight at night only lasted for a couple of weeks. Last week she and I got colds. That's right. It's July and we got colds. Boo! And she pretty much hasn't slept as well at night since then. She's nearly over it, so I'm hoping she'll go back sleeping better soon. And she's a cat napper during the day - usually 45 minutes to an hour each nap about 3-5 times a day.

I didn't think it was possible, but she gets cuter every day. Her little personality is even starting to come out already. She and Bridget are also becoming best friends, and I get a kick out of watching them interact.
Quite often when Felicity wakes up, Bridget runs into her room, climbs in the crib, and plays with her. She's such a good big sister.

**Post edit** I realized after I posted this that I left out something I wanted to include. This girl LOVES her hands. If she's awake and doesn't have food or a pacifier in her mouth, more than likely one or both of her hands are there or will be shortly. She sucks on them all the time (and sometimes very loudly) which also means her hands and chin are often covered in slobber. She's been enjoying her hands for the last month or so, and it will be interesting to see how long this continues. Hopefully she doesn't become a thumb-sucker someday.

Lagoon

Every June, the company Nate works for does a company party. This year it happened to be at Lagoon Amusement Park, and it also happened to be the week before Nate was quitting. Score for us! I used to go with my family and extended family when I was a kid, and I've gone a handful of times as an adult, but Nate hadn't been in a really, really long time.

Bridget was pretty excited because every time we've passed by it while driving on the freeway she's mentioned wanting to ride the Ferris wheel. We never did make it to the Ferris wheel because of all of the other rides, but we had a really good time. Here's Bridget enjoying some of the kiddie rides:
Nate and I were never able to go on any rides together because one of us was always with Felicity, but we were both impressed by how many rides there were that we could each go on with Bridget. And boy was she a brave girl! I hated roller coasters as a kid and didn't ever ride one until I was about 10 when my dad forced me to. Here we are enjoying some of the rides with her. Check us out in the third car back of that roller coaster. She really wasn't a fan of how fast it went, but she wasn't traumatized either.
One of the last rides Bridget and I went on that day was called Rattlesnake Rapids. I knew you got a little wet on this ride but didn't realize how wet until we were standing in line and watching people get off it. We managed to stay pretty dry until the very end with the unavoidable waterfall.
And here's how Felicity spent the afternoon and evening - chilling in her car seat attached to the stroller. She was such a good baby the whole time.

A Leap of Faith and a New Job

With the recent arrival of our little Felicity, Nate and I had some big decisions to make regarding employment and child care. These decisions weighed heavily on our minds throughout my pregnancy, and I hoped we would be able to make a decision regarding my returning to teaching or not next year by the time she arrived and my maternity leave started.

With the hope of me being able to quit my job and stay home full-time, Nate started seriously job hunting in January. He spent numerous hours searching for jobs, submitting applications, and had a few interviews but no job offers.

Felicity arrived, and I told my principal that I would let him know my decision as soon as I could, but without Nate getting a better paying job or at least better health insurance, I wasn't sure I could quit. In the meantime, we were starting to feel a time crunch as the school year came to an end. My principal was putting pressure on me to make a decision, and Nate still didn't have a job offer. Nate and I both wanted me to be able to quit and stay home with our girls, but it just didn't seem like it would be financially possible. I'm the one who carries our health insurance, and luckily our coverage lasts until the end of August so that bought us more time for him to continue job hunting.

So on the last day of school (May 27th), we took a leap of faith and I quit my job. I actually cried after I did it because I've loved teaching the past 9 years. We hoped and prayed that if we kept doing everything we should and Nate continued his search, that the Lord would bless us and everything would work out.

Within days of my officially quitting, Nate received a phone call for a 2nd interview for an operational analyst position with Zions Bancorporation (owners of Zions Bank and other regional banks throughout the western U.S.). He'd interviewed with them at the beginning of May and never heard anymore, so he figured they'd already filled the position. He passed the 2nd interview and a few days later had the final one. While he was waiting to hear from them he even had an interview lined up at another company, so things were definitely looking more optimistic. Last week, Zions called and offered him the job. What's even more amazing is there was never any discussion of salary during the interview process, yet when they offered him the job, the salary more than replaced the income we were losing from me quitting. And even more amazing, my health insurance coverage ends on August 31st, and he's eligible for benefits at his new job on September 1st. Another positive note is that Zions owns banks outside of Utah, so it may offer us a way to move out of Utah like we hope.

The only downside to the new job is the commute. Nate's current commute is about 6-7 miles and takes about 15 minutes. His new commute will be over 30 miles (one way) and probably take 30-45 minutes. I realize many people commute that far or longer for work, but for us it's a big change.

Nate's last day at his current job is July 1st, and he'll be starting at Zions on July 5th. We couldn't be happier that we took that leap of faith and just hope that Nate enjoys his new job, new coworkers, etc.

2 Months Old

This picture was actually taken about a week before she was 2 months old, but it's one of my favorites because it shows off her beautiful smile. That's been one of the things we've enjoyed the most from her the last few weeks. She started smiling (the real reactionary kind) at just over 5 weeks, and continues to be full of smiles, laughs, and coos.

Felicity continues to be a very mellow, easy baby. She started sleeping through the night (as in a 7-8 hour stretch) just like I hoped she would. At first it wasn't consistent, but now it is - much to my delight. And she's already established a bit of a routine for herself. She generally goes to sleep around 10 pm, wakes to eat somewhere between 5:30-6:30am, goes right back to sleep until 9-10am, and them wakes to eat and play for about an hour before going down for a morning nap. The rest of the day can vary slightly depending on how much she wants to sleep or be awake, but she tends to eat around the same times everyday because she's so consistent during the night and morning.

The only bad phase she went through started at around 6.5 weeks when she decided to start having nightly screaming fests starting around 9 pm. The first time it lasted for about an hour and nothing would calm her down except a bath. Some nights her screaming would only last 5-10 minutes and sometimes it would be 30 minutes. Thankfully, this phase seems to have recently ended.

I wasn't able to get her into her pediatrician until she was a week past her two month mark, but here's her stats from that appointment:

Weight: 13 lbs. 14 oz. (96th percentile)
Height: 23.25 in. (76th percentile)
Head Circumference: 15.5 in. (58th percentile)

Felicity's Blessing Day

Perfect day

Beautiful girl

Wonderful blessing

Deciding when to bless Felicity proved to be a little more difficult than I thought it would be, but we finally decided on June 5th - just one day shy of her being 2 months old. Several of my family members were in town over Memorial Weekend (see previous post), but that weekend didn't work for Nate's parents. We decided it was important for Grandma and Grandpa to be here for it, and we also hoped it might be better weather since we were planning to do a luncheon in our backyard afterward. It was a good thing we went with the day we did because the weather was perfect (about 80 degrees) and the weekend before was chilly and rainy.

My only fear in waiting as long as we did was that she might not fit into the blessing dress I made. It's the same dress Bridget wore, and it was huge on her because I didn't plan on blessing her at 5 days old when I made it. Bridget grew very quickly both in length and chubbiness, so I anticipated the same with Felicity. Luckily, the dress fit Felicity perfectly.

Lots of good food and great family

Memorial Day Weekend

Even though we didn't have the greatest weather over Memorial Day weekend this year, we had a great time thanks to my siblings that came to visit with their families. Jessica, Matt, and Colin came from Oklahoma, and Jill, Rob, Elaine, and Charlotte came from Phoenix. And Megan was nice enough to drive back and forth from Salt Lake for several days.

Our visitors got to meet Felicity for the first time which was nice because I'm sure she'll be quite different by the time they get to see her in person again. She was an especially big hit with Charlotte and even Colin liked her at times (see picture below). It was fun to see how much Colin had changed too.
One of the fun things we did was go to Boondocks Fun Center on Saturday afternoon. A few people had fun on the go-karts. Bridget was a little nervous about it at first, but loved it by the end and still talks about it.
The weather wasn't great for the bumper boats, but some of us braved the water anyway. Bridget was excited until she got wet; she ended up crying through the last half of the ride.
We also got to spend Friday evening having dinner with our great friends the Weights, but I forgot to take our camera. I'm not very good at remembering it most of the time (which is why I should also mention that I had to still a couple of the pictures above from Megan's Facebook - thanks Megan).

Other than that we just hung out, visited, and let the kids enjoy playing together.

Half Marathon #2

One of our big events this month was Nate completing his 2nd half-marathon. This time it was the Ogden course which comes down Ogden Canyon and ends in downtown Ogden. With the crazy cold and wet spring weather we've had this year, we got lucky with perfect weather that day which I'm sure many people were grateful for.

Nate's goal was to run it in under 2 hours, but having a newborn in the house along with the less than favorable weather this spring made training much more difficult for him the past few months. He did improve upon his time a little from the Layton half-marathon he ran in the fall, so that's definitely something to be proud of. He also seemed to recover better this time around. This time he finished in 2:10:09. That's 2 minutes 1 second faster than his Layton half time.
I also have to give myself props for making it to the finish line by 8:50 AM with both girls to watch him finish. Getting up that early as a sleep-deprived mother of a newborn and getting all three of us ready by myself was no easy task.

Way to go Nate!

By the way, you'll notice I'm not in the family photo, and that was on purpose. I may have gotten us to the race, but I didn't want any lasting evidence of how I looked that morning.

I should also mention how much Nate's example has influenced Bridget. She's decided she wants to run a "kids' k" this summer, so we're hoping to find one for her to do. She informed us that she needs to get some running clothes like Daddy and some Powerade to give her more power to run.

1 Month Old

This outfit along with those kissy cheeks are the reason I've recently started calling Felicity chunky monkey. She's definitely starting to fill out and even has the fat rolls on her thighs to prove it. I love it! And I love kissing those cheeks at least 50 times a day every day. Our motto has been and always will be "chubby babies are cute babies."

Felicity's first month has flown by, and she's doing great. Overall, she's a very content baby and has made having two children easier than I imagined (or maybe my expectations were just more realistic this time around). Her sleeping 23 hours a day only lasted about the first week, but it's fun to have her awake a little more so we can interact with her too. For the last couple of weeks she seems to be in a pattern of having 2-3 days where she sleeps really well during the day and night. Then she'll have a day where she's awake almost all day long only taking mini 5-15 minute naps here and there. This is fine except that she wants to be held more which makes it more of a challenge to get things done. The good thing about those days is that she sleeps really well that night - usually giving me one 4-6 hour stretch before waking to eat.

It's also amazing to see how much she's grown and changed already. She still has a lot of hair, but most of the hair in the front is falling out. She's also starting to look less like Bridget did as a newborn (I've thought that and others have said the same). She does spit up a lot more than Bridget did at this age which isn't my favorite. She also gets the hiccups quite frequently. For the first couple of weeks it was multiple times a day every day, but it's started to lessen to maybe once or twice a day now. She's also started to like bathtime now which is an improvement from her crying all through her sponge baths the first 2 weeks.

I can't wait to see what the next month brings - hopefully her sleeping through the night is one of them.

Easter

The festivities that go along with each holiday are something I enjoy, especially now that Bridget is old enough to understand and participate in a lot of them. Here she is dyeing Easter eggs and loving every second of it:
We did 2 dozen eggs, but she was loving it so much that she probably would have done another 2 dozen if we'd had them.
Saturday night, we went to my cousin Cat's house to get together with a bunch of my extended family and decorate homemade chocolate covered marshmallow eggs (my Aunt Jennine's tradition). It was great to see some of my cousins that were visiting from out of town and that I don't see very often.

On Sunday, Felicity and I went to church with Nate and Bridget for the first time since she was born. Part of the fun of having 2 little girls is dressing them alike on occasion, and I couldn't resist getting them matching Easter dresses. Too bad Felicity won't be fitting in hers for very long.
Sunday afternoon, we went to Nate's extended family gathering at his Aunt Linda's house. Bridget was so excited to do the Easter egg hunt and actually remembered doing it last year. Luckily, the weather cooperated and it was decent (although not warm) enough.

The Meaning of a Name

Have you ever wondered why your parents decided to name you what they did? For this reason, I thought it would be a good idea to share how we decided on the name Felicity. When we found out we were having another girl many months ago, we didn't have any difficulty at all deciding on a name. We like names that are less common but not weird. And we definitely aren't into strange spellings of names. We also prefer names that people won't automatically shorten to something else (i.e. I introduce myself as Kimberly and 5 seconds later the person is calling me Kim).

With those qualifications, one of the first girl names that came to mind for me was Felicity. Some people may remember the TV show that ran for 4 years (1998-2002) starring Keri Russell. That's one reason I like the name. It was a great show, and Keri Russell was awesome in it. I envy her curly hair and would consider not straightening mine every day if I could get it to look like hers. Since my Felicity will no doubt have curly hair someday, it seemed appropriate.

More importantly though, is the actual meaning of the name. It means happiness. Because of the meaning, I had a very strong feeling that that's what her name was supposed to be. (I had the same kind of impression when I was pregnant with Bridget about her name). When I think back to what my life was like a year ago, it felt anything but happy to me. After my second miscarriage, I grieved for months. Even though I have an amazing husband and beautiful daughter, I felt like I our family wasn't complete. I felt so physically, emotionally, and spiritually broken that it was hard to feel happy about anything. During my pregnancy this time, I slowly began to feel that happiness return as each appointment and milestone passed. By the end, I could hardly wait to hold her in my arms and have her safely here. Giving birth to Felicity was truly one of the happiest experiences of my life. Babies really are bundles of joy, and the past 2 weeks have been full of joy for me. Even when I'm up with her in the middle of the night and so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open, I love every minute I get to spend with her.

Felicity's 2 Week Stats

Felicity had a great 2 week check-up. Although I was looking forward to seeing how much she'd grown in 2 weeks, I wasn't looking forward to the PKU test. I remember Bridget screaming through the entire thing, and it was torture to watch and hear that. Luckily, Felicity was a real champ and didn't mind it one bit. She didn't cry at all when the nurse poked her heal or repeatedly squeezed blood out of it. Here's her stats:

Weight: 8 lbs. 6 oz. (52nd percentile and up 5 oz. from her birth weight)
Length: 21" (76th percentile and same as at birth)
Head: 14" (40th percentile although I swear it was 15" at the hospital, so either her head shrunk or somebody didn't measure right)

Felicity's Birth Story

Introducing the new addition to our family...

Felicity Anne
Born April 6th
Weight: 8 lbs. 1 oz.
Length: 21 in.

A lot of people have asked if she looks like Bridget. In my opinion, she does although she has more hair and it's a little longer than Bridget's was. You can make your own opinion if you'd like. In the pictures below, Bridget is in the two pictures on the left and Felicity is in the two on the right:
Although I didn't get pictures of everyone that came to visit, here's the few we did take: (Top left: Nate's mom; Top right: my sister Megan; Bottom left: Nate's Aunt Linda; Bottom right: my friend Emily)
If you are not interested in the actual birth story, you'll want to skip this part and just scroll down to the other pictures. I'm writing this down for my own personal record and want to do it before I forget details.

As mentioned in the previous post, Felicity decided to beat the induction deadline the doctor had set. Tuesday afternoon (the 5th), I was still contracting but they were now spaced out about 20-30 minutes apart. The major difference was that they were more painful than the ones I'd had that morning that were 4-5 minutes apart. By the time I went to bed that night they were about 10-15 minutes apart and still quite painful. I was able to get some sleep from about 11pm-1am. When I woke up at that point they were definitely painful and starting to get closer together. I stayed in bed timing them and trying to let Nate sleep as long as possible. By 3 am they were about 5 minutes apart and so painful I got out of bed. Nate got up shortly after that, and by 4 am we decided to call my Aunt Jennine to have her come stay at our house with Bridget while we headed to the hospital.

We checked into the hospital at 4:45 am, and once I finally got settled in my room and the nurse checked me, I was 4 cm and 95% effaced which was definitely progress from the day before. I could hardly wait to get my IV so that I could get my epidural. I was hoping that the epidural would allow me to get some sleep since I was anticipating a long day of labor. Since Bridget was born by planned c-section, my labor was considered to be the same as that of a first-time mom. I was also a VBAC (vaginal birth after Caesarian) which is higher risk and requires my doctor to be on the hospital campus the whole time I'm laboring there. Anyway, the epidural took almost 20 minutes and 3 tries to get working properly. My right leg was completely numb because it got a double dose and my left leg was numb with some feeling like it was supposed to be. I got the shakes really bad and almost constantly after that (a normal side-effect of labor I'm told), so I didn't get the sleep I was hoping for.

My doctor arrived around 7-7:30 am and broke my water. I was 5.5 cm at that point and she told the nurse to give me a tiny amount of pitocin (even less than they give most people to start with) just to help things along. At one point I was a little panicked because I could feel pain right by my scar on the left side. Luckily, it was just labor pain that went away when I pushed my epidural button. The next time the nurse checked me (I think around 9 am) I was already 9 cm! I was shocked and I think she was too. At that point they quickly started to get everything in the room ready. When she checked me about 20 minutes later I was completely dilated and ready to go.

With the risks of VBAC, they didn't want me to have to push for very long, so I just waited to push and gave the baby a chance to continue to come down until my doctor got there around 10 am. The hospital had several nursing students there, so they asked if it would be okay with me to allow some of them to watch and help with the delivery. I had a total of 5 nurses (3 of them students) and my doctor there. I started pushing at 10:10 am, and by 10:27 she was born! I couldn't believe how fast everything went and how amazing the whole experience was. It was a million times better than having a repeat c-section, and I loved feeling great enough to leave the hospital just 34 hours after checking in.

Many people have asked how Bridget is adjusting to having a sister, and I'm happy to say that she's loving it. No jealousy whatsoever...yet. She's been looking forward to this for months and loves to hold her, cuddle with her, give kisses to her, and help take care of her. Here's a picture of of them cuddling together at the hospital the 2nd day:
Our first day home together, I was getting ready for the day while Felicity was sleeping on our bed. Next thing I know, Bridget comes in with princess books and starts "reading" to Felicity.

Many times a day she asks to hold her sister.

I just love my two beautiful girls and feel like the luckiest mom in the world. (Don't mind the tired look on my face and the fact that Felicity looks cross-eyed - at least she was awake).

We tried to get a good family shot, but this was the best we could do.

The Final Few Days of Pregnancy

My due date came and went last weekend just like I expected it would. During that weekend, I finally had contractions for the first time ever (I never had a single one with Bridget), but they were few and very far between. In hindsight, I realize they were Braxton Hicks, but I was just happy for any sort of sign that this baby was on her way out.

Monday 4/4, I taught school even though my contractions were 10-15 minutes apart consistently, but they weren't very painful yet. The regularity made me hope that she was on her way within the next 24 hours. So when I woke up at 3:30 AM on Tuesday morning and they were 4-5 minutes apart, I thought it was finally time. They weren't really uncomfortable yet, and since I was new to this whole labor process, I figured they would stay close together and just start to get more intense. I packed my hospital bag and waited for the intensity to increase, but it never did. In fact, all they did was start to get further apart again.

I had an appointment scheduled for early that afternoon, so I called my doctor's office to see if I could come in earlier. They told me just to come right away. My doctor informed me that it was false labor because contractions don't slow down with real labor. When she checked me, she said I was between 2-3 cm dilated and that the head was much lower than it had been the week before. Her recommendation was to induce me the next morning, and I was ready to be done so it was scheduled for 7 am on Wednesday the 6th. The doctor also joked about how often all it takes is just scheduling the induction to get a baby to come on their own. And sure enough, that's what happened. More to come on that story soon...

35/35

Since I have yet to post a baby bump shot, I decided today would be the day since I'm now 35 weeks and only have 35 days left until my due date. I really don't like taking pictures like this, but I don't want this baby to feel less loved than her older sister. It's hard to believe how close we finally are to meeting this baby girl because it feels like we've been waiting a very long time for her to join our family. We're mostly ready for her arrival here at home, but I still have a ton to do at school to have everything ready for my long-term sub. When I went for my last doctor's appointment a little less than 2 weeks ago, she was already head down, so let's just hope she stays that way.

Here's another picture taken 6 weeks weeks ago at 29 weeks just for comparison.

First Business Trip to New Brunswick

This past week marked a first in our marriage. In the nearly 5 years we've been married, we'd NEVER spent a single night apart from each other. A lot of people think that's weird or crazy, but that's just the way it is. Anyway, we can no longer make that claim because Nate had to go on a business trip to Saint John, New Brunswick and was gone for 4 days. In case you're not exactly sure where that is, it's on the southern border if you look at the map below:
I've spent the last 6 weeks dreading this trip for several reasons: I'm very near the end of my pregnancy, and if something happened while he was away, he probably wouldn't have been able to make it back in time. Single-parenthood is a lot of work. Trying to get myself and Bridget ready and out the door before 7 am in the mornings was going to be a huge challenge alone. And last but not least - I would miss Nate and the feeling of safety I have when he's home.

We did survive, but I'm so glad it's over with. The days were fine, it was just the nights and getting ready in the morning that were a little rough. Here's the highlights of how it all played out:

DAY 1: Nate left the house at 4:30 am to drive to the airport for his 6am flight. It took him nearly all day to get to his final destination for that night - Bangor, Maine (also pictured on the map above). Bridget and I had a pretty laid back day together because it was President's Day. My awesome friend Emily came over for a play date with her daughter to help cheer me up. Also, Bridget came down with her millionth cold of winter over the weekend, but it wasn't too horrible - yet. I also found out late in the day that I didn't have day care for her the next day because the woman who watches her wasn't going to be able to make it home from her weekend trip in time. If I wasn't completely swamped at work with grading and trying to get my long-term sub plans done, I would have just taken the day off the next day. Thankfully, my friend Emily helped me out and watched my sick child for me.

NIGHT 1: Bridget's cold took a big turn for the worse. Between her nose running like a faucet, a fever, congestion, and the worst cough she's ever had, she was up 3 times in the night. I should also mention that one of those times included having to change her PJs and all of her bedding because she wet the bed for the first time in about 4 months.

DAY 2: We made it out the door on time that morning! I felt like the worst mom ever not being able to stay home with my sick child, but I really appreciated my friend helping me out. I spent the rest of the day taking care of Bridget and resting myself. Nate and his co-worker drove the 3 hours from Bangor to St. John that morning and spent the rest of the day in meetings.

NIGHT 2: This was by far the worst part of the whole 4 days. Her cold continued to get worse, so she wasn't sleeping well at all. Between 2-4am she was up almost constantly, not to mention the other couple of times she was up in the night. I think in total I got maybe 5 hours of sleep (which is not nearly enough for me). And she even woke up for the day by 6:15 (not good).

DAY 3: Even though her cold was horrible, I had no option but to take her to daycare (not that it matters too much considering most of the other kids have colds already). We made it there on time and after I picked her up, we had a pretty lazy day together including naps for both of us. Nate was in Saint John until the afternoon, and then they drove back to Bangor that evening.

NIGHT 3: This night was the best of the three, and she was only up a couple of times for a quick trip to the bathroom, and her cough seemed to finally be a little better. I actually didn't feel exhausted when I woke up that morning.

DAY 4: I could hardly wait for Nate to get home that afternoon. We made it out the door again on time (I was so proud of how well we did with this all 3 days), but it was hard to wake her up that morning because she was so tired. By the time she woke up from her nap that afternoon, Nate was home, and we were both so glad to have him back.

All I have to say about that experience is that I'm grateful for technology and being able to talk to Nate on the web camera every night. I also don't know how single parents do it. I know that there will probably be future business trips, and by then we'll have more than one child. But hopefully, I won't have the stress of working outside of the home to deal with because that would make it a lot easier. By the way, Bridget slept through the night completely Nate's first night back. Grrr...not fair.

Valentine's Day

We've never really been into celebrating Valentine's Day much, but this year I decided it was time to do a little something special because Bridget seemed to show some interest after hearing advertisements and other people talk about it. For several days beforehand, she asked if it was "Valentime's Day" yet, so she was pretty excited when it finally rolled around. When I picked her up from daycare that day, she knew it was here because the woman who watches her had a banner and some decorations up in her house.

So what did we do? Really nothing too exciting, but it was enough for her. We made some delicious chocolate cupcakes and made some chocolate dipped strawberries to go on top (and just to snack on, of course). Then I helped Bridget make a card for Nate.
We surprised him with our treats, and then I made one of his favorite meals for dinner - meatloaf with garlic mashed potatoes and vegetables.

If we hadn't already made heart-shaped sugar cookies a couple of times during the couple of weeks before, I might have continued my mother's Valentine's Day tradition of making individual giant heart-shaped sugar cookies with everyone's name on them. But I needed some variety, so that will have to wait until next year.

A Little Girl Who Loves Snow

Although Nate and I both hate the snow and cold, our little girl loves every opportunity she gets to go out and play in it. This picture was actually taken the day after Christmas when I bundled her up to play while Nate shoveled the driveway and sidewalks. She was running everywhere making snow angels as fast as she could. If you click on the picture to make it larger, you can see the huge smile on her face while she's doing it. It makes me laugh because I remember trying to teach her to do it last year, and she hated laying in the snow. What a difference a year makes!
She really wanted to help shovel too so the other day we purchased a kid-sized snow shovel, and she's been begging to use it ever since. I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities over the next 2-3 months, and I'm in no hurry for another snowstorm to come.

Our Merry Little Christmas

This Christmas marked our 4th and last as a family of three. Out of those 4, 3 of them have been spent just the three of us, without any family (much to my dismay). Nate doesn't mind because he's not big on Christmas (although he's getting into it more and more every year), but since I come from a large family, it's not ideal to me.

Several months ago we thought we might try to travel to West Yellowstone to spend Christmas with Nate's parents, but since the roads between here and there can be terrible or even closed we weren't sure we wanted to chance it. The final decision was made when Santa decided to bring Bridget a play kitchen for Christmas and didn't want to haul it all over the place. At that point we invited Nate's parents to come spend Christmas with us, but they decided to stay at home. We tried to make the best of our little celebration, but I was really missing family and shed a few tears several times over the course of those couple of days (hey, it doesn't take much to make me cry when I'm pregnant).

It didn't help that Bridget was sick with a cold and fever again (she was on Thanksgiving and her birthday too). I went ahead and made a nice dinner on Christmas Eve - turkey, twice baked potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and homemade rolls because that's what my family always does. Bridget didn't have much of an appetite and spent most of her time at the dinner table whining and crying. Because she wasn't feeling great or in the best of moods, we opted not to go look at Christmas lights after dinner like we'd planned, so it wasn't as special of an evening as I wanted it to be.

We did let her open one present before bed - new Dora PJs from her cousins Charlotte and Elaine. We thought she's go right to bed as terrible as she was feeling, but she was so excited for Santa to come that she got out of bed about 3 different times and didn't finally settle down for the night until around 10pm.
Luckily, she seemed to be feeling better Christmas morning and had a great time opening presents. At first she'd open something, play with it for several minutes, and then move onto the next item. But soon the excitement took over and it was hard to keep up with her hence the lack of pictures. She loved the play kitchen Santa brought, and the other pictures are of her playing with the doctor kit Nate and I got her. She thought it was pretty fun to give Daddy a shot and take his blood pressure.
Even though we missed our families, it was nice to be able to talk to some of them on web cam which helped a little. Hopefully we'll be able to spend next Christmas with a larger group.

Pre-Christmas Fun

One Christmas tradition my family had for many years was lots and lots of holiday baking followed by creating numerous plates of treats to deliver to neighbors and friends. For many of those years, my mom would also make us go caroling when we delivered them, much to our dismay. This year, my sister Megan and I got together and spent nearly an entire Saturday having a "bakefest" for the same purpose (minus the caroling though). It was a busy day, and no pictures were taken during the process due to the fact that we started in the morning in our PJs and didn't shower until later in the day...no one needs to see that. Anyway, here's what we made that day:
From the top and going clockwise: sugar cookies, fudge, peanut butter kiss/peanut butter cup cookies, spritz cookies, ginger crinkles, heath bars, and dipped pretzels. The bag to the side contains corn chex candy.

Last Saturday, we decided to spend the day doing fun things as a family rather than filling the day with last minute Christmas preparations. For breakfast we headed to Kneaders for breakfast with Santa and Mrs. Claus. Unlike most children her age, Bridget loves Santa and has no fear about sitting on his lap. She even asked him where his reindeer were. Although we don't live as close to a Kneaders as I would like, it was well worth the 20 minute drive so she could see Santa and we could all enjoy their yummy french toast.
After breakfast we headed to the movie theater to see Tangled. This was actually her second movie theater experience (we went to an IMAX movie on bears over the summer), but this was the first time she'd been to a "full length"movie at the theater. She sat still for about the first half of the movie, and after that she roamed up and down the empty seats next to us and climbed on and off both our laps multiple times. Amazingly, she did pay attention to the whole movie even while moving around and spent the rest of the day talking about various parts of it.