No Pictures BUT............

I thought I should just clarify that I didn't really mean to say I was going to go jogging (thanks for the concern though!). More like walking and by the way I never did do anything at all. In fact, on Monday I never even left the house. Yesterday I don't think I left the house either. I had this terrible headache in the mornings. It was making me dizzy and I felt awful I couldn't function at all. Thankfully they have gone away and I feel much better now. I do realize that I should wait a few more weeks to run. I need to at least start walking soon though.

On another note my mom got here yesterday evening and I'm so glad. She made it safely and flew through New York and managed to not land in the Hudson so that was good:)

Cute kids

I finally got out to the store last week and got some flowers and such to make more clips for Emery. The girl has so many bows and flowers already but I just needed more. My goal is to try to have something of every color to match whatever she is wearing. Good use of my time eh?
This blows my mind. This super cute outfit is already getting small on Emery. She still is so tiny but there are a few things she is starting to grow out of. It kind of makes me sad. It's hard to tell but I think she is starting to plump up. Her cheeks looked really full today when she was in her car seat.
Chandler enjoyed some Nutella on his crepes yesterday morning. We *LOVE* Nutella in this family. I just take a spoon and have a nice spoonful to satisfy chocolate cravings. So. Good.
Today was the first time Emery went to church. Some people think it is still too early but I just need to get out and to me there is no difference between Chandler going and being around all the nursery kids and then bringing all the germs home versus bringing Emery and I hold her or she's in her car seat the whole time. (whoa, long sentence but I'm not fixing it.) Anyway, I made sure Chandler and Emery matched and Steve was cool enough to match too. I would have if I had any good Sunday clothes. Neither of them were very happy getting their picture taken.
I have to give credit to my awesome sister Kira for sending me this outfit. Super cute and I couldn't wait for Emery to wear it. Thank you Kira!
It was kind of a nice feeling at church today having two kids. It felt like we were a real family now. Emery was great and pretty much slept the whole time. I woke her up to feed her some but she went right back to sleep. Chandler was good and didn't try to throw his cars or books at her in sacrament so all was well.
Steve had to leave church early to bring his parents to the airport so I was left with two kids to bring home from church by myself. It was so nice driving home and Emery was sleeping and Chandler fell asleep and it just felt so peaceful. I was all worried that they would both start screaming or something.
I really wanted to get some picture of Chandler and Emery in their matching outfits but we didn't have time before church and then Chandler was asleep when we got home and by the time we got him up, there wasn't enough lighting for pictures. Plus Chandler was super grumpy. So I will just have to dress them up some other day and get pictures.

So, the novelty of not being huge and pregnant has worn off and I am starting to feel fat. I was feeling all skinny since I didn't have a huge stomach but now I'm noticing all the flab and it's really bugging me. I really want to start exercising again but I am so dang tired I can't get up the motivation. If my huge headache goes away tonight, I think tomorrow I might try going for a little jog. I have done sit ups, oh, 3 different times but that has been the extent of my exercise.

Emery is awful at night and it feels like I'm up every hour. I'm getting pretty sick of it. I just don't know how people say there baby only got up once at night. We apparently aren't very lucky with kids who sleep well. Chandler has always been a bad sleeper and I'm worried Emery is the same. I just want to have a kid that sleeps good. The most annoying part is I will feed her and she falls right back asleep and then I'll put her in the playpen and within 5 minutes she is awake and fussing. Drives me nuts!

Anyway, talking about sleep, I better go get to bed so I can get the most sleep possible.

SNOW!!!

Last Tuesday we woke up to beautiful snow. It was so pretty. On Monday night while I was up I looked out the window at about 1:30 and it had already started snowing. Great big giant flakes. I wanted to go out and catch some on my tongue. I was so excited that I woke Steve up to tell him. He lifted his head and looked at me and said, "WOW!" very sarcastically. Then he just went back to sleep. When I was done feeding Emery and got back into bed we had a conversation like this:

Steve: "so did you wake up Chandler?"
Me: "No, why?"
Steve: "because it's snowing."
Me: "oh."

Then I just ignored him and went to sleep. Then when I was up at 4 something I looked out again and everything was covered. It was so pretty and Steve actually heard me exclaim so he got out of bed to look for himself.
In the morning, I went to get Chandler and I told him that it had snowed so he went straight to the window and just starred out and kept exclaiming "snow, Wow, snow". So since Chandler and I were so excited, we brought the trash and recycling to the curb together. This picture Steve took of us walking back inside.
Everything in the city shuts down for snow because they have no plows or anything. Steve was sent an email to work from home and not come into work. Seriously it is dangerous to go out on the roads here because of all the crazy people who don't know how to drive in the snow.
Unfortunately, we don't have very warm snow clothes so we didn't last long playing outside. It has been super cold here (but I can't complain because if we still lived in Indiana we would be frozen. It was -20 or something.)
Can you tell who is who? Just kidding, of course you can since Emery has a bow on. Anyway, Chandler was about 6 or 7 weeks old when we put him in the little dog suit and Emery was 2 weeks old.
After we froze outside, I got Chandler to come in by promising hot chocolate. He was so cute drinking it. I was going to give him marshmallows but discovered we didn't have any. So then I thought we had whipped cream but it had gone bad. So he ended up being able to put chocolate chips in. He loved it because this kid loves "choc" (chocolate).

2 Weeks

Emery is 2 weeks old today. I had an appointment for her and she weighs 7 lbs. 15 oz. I'm thinking she won't be as big a chunk as Chandler was. But maybe she will be.....only time will tell. Oh, and her cord fell off at her appointment today. I was thinking it was taking forever to fall off since Chandler's only took a week. But the doctor went to look at it and then it suddenly came loose and she pulled it the rest of the way off. It's gross looking now.
I've always seen baby girls get the little bows put on their heads when they are in the hospital. I was very disappointed when Emery didn't get one. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and I made my own little bow for Emery.
I wanted a cute swaddle picture so I asked Steve to swaddle Emery while I was getting things ready. She turned out looking like a burrito instead of a cute swaddled baby. Oh well, I just don't like the square bottom. But I wasn't about to redo it because then it would wake her up and I would loose my sweet sleeping baby face.
Sure wish there was more of this at night. Well she hasn't been horrible but I sure wish I only had to get up once a night. I could handle that much better. I'm not really tired during the day. It's just when I'm up at night I feel so tired. I can't stand the nursing and me falling asleep and waking up 20 minutes later hanging out with a baby asleep in my arms. It's miserable feeling and would be much better if I could just stay awake, get the feeding over with and then curl up back in bed. We never let Chandler sleep with us but Emery ends up in our bed way too often. It is just so much easier and I can't believe I've been doing it........guess I'm selfish about my sleep.
Another difference of having a second child is Emery didn't get her first bath until she was a week old. I remember we couldn't wait to bathe Chandler at home and I put it off as long as I could with Emery. These pictures are from her second bath at home. You can see Chandler having his bath in the background. He really wanted Emery in the tub with him- sorry bud, not until she can sit on her own. Chandler is a crazy man in the tub.
If you looked outside our house right now, you wouldn't believe that this picture was taken yesterday. We got a couple inches of snow last night......YEAH (pictures to come soon). Steve and Chandler were having so much fun playing with chalk. Chandler would lay down and want Steve to trace him and then he would draw a tie on the outline. So cute! Last summer I would always try to have Chandler let me trace him but he would never let me. Somehow Steve convinced him.

Just some pics

I don't really have much to say except I *LOVE* the passed out after eating look of a baby. I could stare at her all day like that. I don't care what anyone says but she smiles all the time after she eats. I know a baby doesn't "know" how to smile at this point but she gives me big smiles everyday. I never have the camera next to me when it happens though.
Chandler thinks he is a baby at times. At least he hasn't tried climbing in when Emery's been in her chair!
Chandler kidnapping Emery..............no comment.........
This picture is from last week. Actually exactly a week ago so Emery wasn't even 1 week old yet. This is all three of us after we woke up from our afternoon nap. Except I don't think Emery woke up!
More of my cute boy with his hands in his pockets. Love that kid!
Last week when Steve went to pick up his mom at the airport, he left early and brought Chandler to this super cool lookout where you can watch all the planes taking off and landing. I guess Chandler was in Heaven and love love loved it. When we heard about this place we knew we had to bring Chandler so this was perfect.

The Name

About time for another blog post. I haven't been very good at it lately. In fact, I haven't really taken any pictures. I was telling Steve that by this time in Chandler's life we had hundreds of pictures. Well, maybe not that many but we had way more than we've taken of Emery. Oh well, it isn't like we need a million pictures of the same outfit:)
Anyway, I thought I would make sure I told you all where we came up with Emery's name. The middle name we had decided a long time ago. Margaret is a family name on both sides for us so that was easy. We figured as long as whatever we choose for the first name went with Margaret we would use it as the middle name. I actually thought that using Margaret for the first name and calling her Maggie would be really cute but we weren't sold on it.
As far as the name Emery goes, we had heard it just once before and we remembered it while talking about names. It was always the name we came back to and the only one we both truly agreed on.
When she was born, I still wasn't sure about the name but we both did the same thing we did with Chandler- looked at each other and shrugged and said, "I guess Emery since we don't have anything else." When I talked to my mom I said, "it's Emery for now." It took me a couple days before I actually called her Emery instead of Baby.

(I was trying to get a picture of the cute booties I made but Emery was moving too much. I can't seem to get sleeping pictures yet because she wakes up every time I've tried.)
Things have been going pretty well. We had a bad night two nights ago but last night was better so I'm recovered now. I stopped taking my Motrin so I was hoping that wasn't why Emery had a bad night. She seems to be nursing well and went 5 hours last night- but it wasn't all sleeping. I fed her and she was wide awake so I went to bed and Steve stayed up with her and said she fell asleep around 11 and she didn't wake up to eat until almost 3 I think. I was really surprised.
I realized that Emery doesn't look very girly. I think I need to make sure I keep headbands on her or something. Or always have girl colors on.
This picture kind of looks like Chandler I think. They really don't look alike but for some reason I think this one does.

Anyway, Emery's ready to eat so I need to go feed her and go to bed. Good night!

The Birth Story

I am finally going to try to write down all the details. I want a complete account for myself so I'm sorry if I repeat anything already mentioned. This will probably be long and I'm not forcing anyone to read it. There also might be details you don't care to know- so sorry.

On Wednesday December 31, 2008, I went to my check-up. I convinced the doctor to check me and she said I was 3-4 cm dilated. She told me to not be too excited which I already knew because I was 4 cm with Chandler for a week. So then I had my next appointment on Tuesday January 6, 2009. When the doctor came in, she seemed really surprised to see me. She thought for sure I would have had the baby already. So of course, she checked me and was very surprised when she said I was 5-6 cm. As she was feeling around she said she was running her finger around the baby's head and everything. Then she asked me, "are you sure you haven't felt contractions?". I honestly had not felt anything more than the normal tightening of my stomach. After she was done "inspecting" me, she said we should head over to the hospital and have the baby. "WHAT?!!" We were totally not expecting her to say that. I was really glad that Steve had come to the appointment with me. I had told him to work from home that day just in case but we really didn't think it would happen. We were joking on the way to the appointment that wouldn't it be funny if the doctor said to go to the hospital? haha, guess we shouldn't have been joking about it.
Anyway, we left the office and started freaking out. Well, I was (and I think Steve was too). We had to figure out what to do with Chandler and Steve had to tell everyone at work that he wasn't coming back and make all those arrangements. We got home and fed Chandler lunch and then put him down for his nap. I packed the bags (no, I didn't really have them packed) and made some phone calls. (all the while so nervous that I couldn't even eat any lunch which turned out really stupid of me) Thankfully an AWESOME youth in our ward agreed to come over to watch Chandler and when he woke up she took him back to her house.

We stopped at Wendy's on the way to the hospital because Steve needed food.......guess I should have eaten something then but still too nervous. We got checked in about 2:30 pm and started all the signing and annoying paper work. Steve had pre-registered us at the hospital but for some reason they said we weren't so we had to do all that too. I had to get annoying monitors put on and by about 3:30 PM the doctor came in to break my water. (I was kind of bummed because I just get whatever doctor is on call and it was the one that I had heard bad things about. Thankfully there was a shift change soon after so I ended up with a great doctor.)

After my water was broken, we walked around and I was hoping the contractions would start for real. Unfortunately they didn't really change at all. The nurse wanted me hooked back up so she could put the IV thing in me just in case I needed the IV or pitocin (which I had refused). I have never been hooked up like that before and the thing in my hand was so annoying and uncomfortable. We got to walk around more and we actually switched rooms because there was construction outside my room so in the morning it was probably going to be noisy. After getting to my new room, they started the pitocin (about 6:15 PM) since I hadn't really dilated any more. I was actually getting pretty bummed by this point because I was so positive I would go really fast.

I didn't start having real contractions that actually hurt until about 8:00 PM. They were regular before that but I was still reading my magazine during them so the doctor felt no need to check me. After I started having to cringe and have to concentrate the doctor checked me and I was 7-8 cm. After that I was in so much pain I didn't really know what was going on. I decided to stand by the bed and lean on it. It seemed to help a little but seriously, I don't think any position could have made those contractions feel any better. After I said something about wanting to push, they made me get back in bed quickly and the nurse started hurrying around.

The doctor checked me and realized that the baby was face up which I guess could be a problem. She made me turn on my side and push to see if she would turn. She said if I had an epidural, it wouldn't have been a problem because she would have just reached in and turned the baby but it hurt me too much and she didn't want to make me have more pain. She also said that my cervix wasn't totally thinned. (This was something I had no clue about. I just assumed that I had been totally effaced since I was first checked at the doctors. With Chandler I was totally effaced before I even went to the hospital.)

I really started pushing at around 9:00 PM and within 5-6 pushes the baby came out at 9:12 PM. It was so extremely painful and I thought I was going to die. With Chandler, I would push and he would come out a little then go back in. This time, I pushed and she stayed out so I never had a break from the pain. It burns so bad and it just feels like your body is ripping in half (which I did tear by the way). I seriously wanted that baby out so bad and pushed so hard that I had little red speckles in one spot on my neck. It looked like a hickey.

The embarrassing part was that the last 1 or 2 pushes I actually screamed. I can't believe I did it but after wards I looked at Steve and said, "I screamed, didn't I?". He just laughed at me.

Then the doctor had to stitch me up which sucked so bad because the numbing shot didn't work and I felt all of it. In a sense it seemed more painful than giving birth. It seemed to take forever and it seemed like she put a ton of stitches in me. I was miserable for that time. Then they pushed all over my stomach which hurt a lot too. But I finally got food after it was done so that was wonderful.
Can I just say that having a baby is a very messy business. I don't know why anyone would want to do it at home. Seriously, you should have seen the huge bag of laundry they hauled away from my room. I got cleaned up and my ice pack and Motrin and baby and everything was good. She ate right away and it was so natural feeling compared to when I first fed Chandler.

On a side note, the nurse who cleaned up Emery and checked her Apgar scores (both 9's) actually is in our ward. Great, she saw me in all my glory and screaming. She is new here though so I don't think she knows us. Steve talked to her today and told her and she remembered who we were from her shift.

So in all my labor was 5 hours 45 minutes. Just a little longer than Chandler. I was totally bummed it took so long. The difference is with Chandler I went really fast to get to 10 and then pushed forever. This time I took a while to get to 10 but once there the baby came really fast. I think had I been totally effaced, it would have been super fast (maybe the next time).

Oh and about the epidural. I totally didn't have one by choice this time. After it was all done though, I looked at Steve and kept saying, "that was so not fun. I didn't like that. I think I want an epidural next time." And things like that. So next time..........we'll see. Maybe I should experience no pain and see if it is as wonderful as everyone says it is. I just love how I can get up and walk around and it seems like I am much more free. Next time won't be for a while though so no need to worry now.
(I tried to take pictures today but Chandler wouldn't cooperate. Emery didn't really either so the few posted here are the best I got.)

Big Brother Chandler

Chandler has been a good big brother so far. He was timid at first but now he seems to really like the baby. He always says, "uh-oh cry" when she's crying- which she does a lot of (and is sounding horse because of it). He didn't wake up at all last night even though Emery was up all night long. It was a very bad first night home. Anyway, here are some pictures of Chandler and Emery:
This is the first time Chandler really decided he wanted to hold Emery. He was giving big "cheeses" for the camera.
He is so good at giving her kisses. Super cute. He has been overall really good. He has had some meltdowns but what do you expect when he is suddenly not the number one person in the house?
In the hospital he was trying so hard to get Emery to hold his fingers. He finally got her latched on to both his fingers.
Another cute thing Chandler's been doing is giving Emery her pacifier. If he sees one he immediately has to bring it to her. And if she is crying, he has to go looking for one.
Here we are getting ready to leave the hospital yesterday morning. It seems like I was barely in the hospital. I was admitted at about 2:30 pm on Tuesday and discharged about 11:30 am on Thursday. Crazy that we are trusted with a new baby that fast. Oh, and Emery screamed the WHOLE way home from the hospital. It was probably 10-15 minutes and it totally stressed me out. Chandler was so good and just starred at her next to him and occasionally said, "uh-oh, cry". At that moment, I just looked at Chandler and he seemed so mature and huge and old. It was really weird.
Emery soon after we got home yesterday. She calmed down and went to sleep.
Chandler trying to love Emery. He gets a little excited and puts too much weight on her but he was being nice and gentle here.
And here's our crazy kid showing off one of his newest discoveries........POCKETS! For the past month or so, he has discovered that his clothes have pockets. He loves putting his hands in them and just walking around. He was amazed when I showed him that his jammies have pockets. Steve thinks it looks like he has a smoker's jacket on. I thought his progression of smiles were cute. It's cutest when he has his hands in his jean pockets but I haven't gotten a picture of that yet.

Emery Margaret

Introducing.............

Emery Margaret

Arrived: January 6, 2009
At: 9:12 pm
Weighed: 7 lbs. 6 oz.
Length: 19 3/4 in.

Here is the very first picture of her. I guess Steve was video taping so he missed the slimy baby picture. At least we have it on video though.

I don't really feel like writing the birth story yet. So I'll just post a bunch of pictures for now. I always love the "being weighed" picture with feet in the air and arms going crazy.
The first picture with mom and dad. We have yet to get a picture of all 4 of us but hopefully this afternoon we'll get one.
Having her first bath. I guess the nurses were super nice and took both our camera and video camera into the nursery to film it all and take pictures. Steve just watched through the glass. I'm told she didn't really like her bath and the picture indicates with that sad frown.

Chandler meeting his baby sister for the first time. I was really sad that he didn't get to come see her last night. I worried about Chandler all night long because I thought I would get to see him before he went to bed.
Chandler sort of holding Emery. He didn't want to hold her at all but Steve put her on him just so we could try to get a picture. Hopefully this afternoon he will want to hold her.
Look at that skin color difference. Chandler and I were sitting on the bed watching T.V. and he was playing with her foot. It was pretty cute.
Poor girl has scratched her face all up. Her nails were super long and they were filed once but she is still scratching herself.
Me changing Emery's diaper for only the second time. Chandler was watching T.V. but he was very interested in what I was doing. And he even got up and threw the diaper away for me.

Chandler giving Emery a kiss before leaving to go home and take his nap. He was cute kissing her. When he realized I wasn't coming though he got really clingy and Steve had to pick him up and carry him out because he wouldn't go.