December in review and a Little New Years

This is a timely post eh? More than half way through January and here comes a December review finally! I'll make it less late by adding in New Years too. Just for fun.

I certainly hope everyone had some joy in their Christmas and got to go to church for the uplifting festivities we find there. I'll never forgot the one Christmas I worked retail and I got to make it to one 1/2 sermon the entire month. It's amazing how empty that can leave you feeling. So now I cherish the time spent there every year. This year was the jackpot for being able to attend all things church because I was maternity leave!!! No excuses!

So we start December with decorating our home. John lit us the first fire of the season and we decorated the tree. A few days prior Ellie and I decorated our little "candy" tree in the play/guest room. I had been promising her to do that so we could do something special together. The first few weeks Evie was pretty fussy and often awake during the day so Ellie and I didn't get a lot of time together.

My girl mom dreams came true with dressing my kids alike for the first time with much more to come...

Evie turned 1 Month on the 5th of December! Through that month she was a good eater-very consistent, woke appropriately-every 2 hours on the dot basically-at night and was very alert during the day. Funny thing. Ellie was always zonked out during the day as a baby and was so tiny (still is!) but Evie is just the opposite. I kinda like these differences which make them their own person. They are starting to look alike more. The same eyes and ears-but Evie has my side of the familys skin tone and hair color I think.

We made peppermint cookies to 1) take to the police officers in our town to show a little appreciation and gosh they were so nice. They gave Ellie a little stuffed animal as soon as she walked through the door and they thought I was dropping Evie off. True story. I said ah no. Just here to drop cookies off...Merry Christmas! and we booked it out. You know police stations are great but they aren't meant to give you the warm fuzzies...

Ellie fell in love with the reindeer in our front yard.

Christmas crafts and a chilly visit to the church playground

We went to our local Christmas parade. It was super cold that morning but we bundled up and had a good time. I've never seen so much candy at a parade. They gave out other little things too. Ellie got the cutest little doll that I remember from the Happy meal toys from when I was little! I know it because I still have one from that collection! After the parade I took the girls to the Christmas Market to finish some shopping.

The last weekend before Christmas we went to Asheville to see the Christmas light display at the Arboretum. We also ate at a German restaurant before that and it was so good. Brought back all the good feels about Germany.

These are just some really sweet pictures from various days.

We made more Christmas cookies and my OCD really shined bright. I had to take deep breaths and try not be a complete control freak!

Christmas weekend was so fun. We went to a wedding on Christmas Eve, then to church and then to John' parents house for dinner and gift exchange.

On Christmas day Santa came (duh) and after we quickly looked at presents and played a little we went to church to sing Christmas hymns. After church we went straight to John's grandmothers and had lunch with family. John still had two more days off after this which was awesome.

Fast forward a few days to New Years weekend and my parents, brother and sister in law came to visit and have Christmas! We had a great time and I tried to hang while everyone was here. I caught some sort of nasty stomach virus (I blame you YMCA!) and woke up feeling bad Saturday morning. Thankfully my mom stepped in to help with food and we all still really enjoyed it all. We ate, opened presents, watched football and played cards. Thankfully my parents stayed another day which helped out a lot since I was still not feeling great.

I went back to work the following Sunday and it was a good start back. I'm part time now so only 2 shifts a week but its enough. I treasure this time with my kids and I'm glad I have the option to just work part time at this moment. 

November in Review

Another month has come and gone but this month will always, always stand out as one of the best months ever. The highlight of course being that we welcomed our little Evie into our arms and into this world.

This post will reflect on 3 main memories from this November: Evie's birth story, the couple of following weeks and then Thanksgiving.

Birth Story
Let's start with babies. So Evie's due date was the 3rd of November. I NEVER in a million years thought I'd make it to her due date, much less past it. I was dilated, constantly having contractions and all bets even by the doctors was to go early. By the time I finished with work (the Wednesday before Halloween) I had a time set to have a procedure done which would hopefully induce labor. Well clearly it didn't do anything so I had an induction set for the day after my due date. I also never thought I'd be Ok with an induction, WRONG. I was so uncomfortable and so oddly anxious to see this baby. Also my OB was on call that weekend and I really was hoping she could deliver this baby too. We tried to go on Friday morning for my induction (we dropped Ellie off at John's parents the night before) but when I called for the final OK, it turns out the inn was full. No open rooms. Hmmm...OK. I was actually really upset. John took the day off still and we ended up just spending it together which was really nice and needed. Saturday morning roll around, phone call #2 to the hospital. This time its a go!

Fast forward to getting checked in and seeing that I was 2-3 cm already. Oh and as I was being admitted, my water broke. In the end it seems like I would have been coming regardless! HA! My nurse kept asking if I was ready for an epidural. My contractions at that point were still irregular and I had been juuuust given the lowest dose of Pitocin. I wanted to walk to get things started. Side note: Don't forget second labors can go much faster that the first-which was really, really long. I never got to walk. The contractions picked up fast and furious and I was asking, and then pleading for a working epidural. Longish story short the first epidural didn't work and I dilated to 10 cm without pain relief. Now let me say that women all the world round do this and its OK, no problem to them. I wasn't expecting this to be a basically medication free labor so it was needless to say a rough few hours. I screamed, cried and pleaded. The second epidural worked(!!)  plus a fine dose of Stadol before that so I was pretty out of it and super drowsy for about an hour? before the baby was delivered. There were a few other things which happened but the important thing is that a healthy, beautiful baby girl was born just 6 hours or so after my water broke! I was so much more alert during this delivery than with Ellie's. With hers, I had been awake for about 2 days straight so things were kinda blurry but I woke up enough for Evie's to be very aware. But Evie was born quickly, was very alert and nursing well right away.

I said it before and I'll say it again, deliveries while so, so beautiful and sweet are also just as scary and situations are poised to change at any moment. The 20 minutes or so we waited to get Evie out were a little frightening but we were in good hands, well cared for the whole time. I'm so thankful she is here and we are both well! What a blessing.

We went home the next day after a quiet and very nice stay at the hospital. Ahh, now we begin that wonderful postpartum time!

The same bonnet Ellie wore home

John mercifully took a week off so I had help for a few days but then he worked from home part of that week so I was pretty much on my own for the end of his vacation. A nice reality check. JK, it was all fine but for real it's amazing the time split just by adding in a newborn and still recovering a bit.  My parents came for a week the Friday after Evie was born and stayed for a week to spend time with grandbabies and to help me out as well. THANKS! By the time my parents got here, I basically had a laundry list of some little "to-dos". Hey, I mean, ready and willing? Sure I'll put you to work! The biggest thing on my list was this large, wooden hap hazard playset in our backyard which needed to be torn down. Once I realized this playset was beyond repair back in April, I had it on my hit list. My dad had a plan to get rid of it and he and my mom set to work over a day and a half. The end result? IT'S GONE!! yay!! (That's a lot of work! chainsaw to pieces, drag to trailer-must be acquired first- and haul to dump which is 20 minutes away in 2 trips-whew).  Also per my request, my dad made a beautiful chalkboard to hang in our dining area, so that was fixed up and then there was lots of cooking, shopping and entertaining children during this time. We were really thankful, esp. since I was still feeling pretty bad for most of that week. It was nice to have the help.

 

As close as Ellie would get to holding Evie lol

John's sister Holly got married to Jonathan on the weekend of the 19th! It was a beautiful, intimate ceremony. We walked into it right on time, which was nice you know since John had to walk his mom down the aisle! The kids were great-Ellie danced the entire night-, the food was awesome and the couple beautiful and happy.

The following Thursday on Thanksgiving, we left for our first road trip as a family of 4 to NC. We left quite early and the trip was not bad at all. A couple of extra stops to nurse a baby and for everyone to go to the restroom and done! Ellie is a great car rider and entertains herself well plus a few toys/activities I bring, snacks and books. Though she is banned from crayons in the carseat for a while...We had of course a wonderful meal with my family (I was honestly sad when it was over! I could eat that food all year round.) and we got to see lots of family which was the best part. Little Evie and Ellie were loved on by many! We stayed through Sunday and took a 10 hour trip home to SC (craziness!) but importantly we made it back safely.

 And some DIY newborn photos just for fun...

Hope you and yours had a wonderful Thanksgiving too!

That's about all for now! See you next month ; )

October in Review

Good evening all! I'm just sitting here relaxing, waiting on a certain baby to show up. Due date is tomorrow...just sayin'.  Before all the baby stuff starts I wanted to go ahead and do a quick review of our October. It seems like there was a lot going on...I was constantly thinking the baby was coming at any time (laugh), scrambling to all the things on my to do list in case of an early arrival (at least I cleared some space early) and trying to do some special "fall" things before we have all things Christmas beating on our doors-which I'm not a fan of early Christmas stuff btw. That should wait until after Thanksgiving at least in my humble opinion.

So here go...

At the beginning of October, as some of you might have seen, Ellie and I took maternity pictures together. It went really well and timely. If you are wondering about John just know I ran the idea by him but he hates pictures...esp. posed ones that he can't attempt to ruin by making faces, etc. So it was completely fine with just Ellie and I. Brooklyn Ash photography did a great job!

Ellie and I have continued on our "homeschool" lessons...still going well I can report. It's very laid back and informal but we both enjoy it most days.

We celebrated Jo-Jo's (John's grandmother) 91st birthday! Its always a good time to pack into her house with all the cousins, aunts and uncles to celebrate. We even got to meet the newest cousin, little Owen!

Ellie got to pick out pumpkins since we couldn't make it to a pumpkin patch over the weekend. Momma was feeling not so great and just wasn't up for it. On the flip side she thoroughly enjoyed visiting the nursery and picking out pumpkins. I tried again to take her last weekend to the patch but she turned me down! Have you ever???

The baby grew....

Ellie got to see the fire trucks during story time at our local library. She HATED the firemen trying on the fire suits and refused to look at them and was on the verge of tears but thankfully she stuck it out and we got to see the trucks afterwards!

We went to see SC Children's theatre puppet show production. This was our 3rd trip to see this group in a year and other show didn't disappoint! Ellie got upset when they were taking the scenes down to switch stories but otherwise all good...I guess she was just really into it.

On the 23rd we hosted my in laws to some dinner (more or less catered) LOTS of treats and pumpkin carving outside. Some pumpkins were great (all but ours LOL) and some got honorable mentions. John was cracking us all up with his efforts. Nothing was going like he wanted and it was pretty hilarious. Ellie colored hers which kept her entertained and made kind comments about all the pumpkins around her. I painted mine like a donut. Go figure.

On my next to last shift, some of my co workers threw a little last minute shower for me. It was a nice surprise. I'm glad this little girl could get some special things just for her.

And....I finished my shifts so I'm on maternity leave!!!

John and I had a night out together and it was so nice. We had dinner and a movie (classic I know) but going out with your spouse and laughing together is good for the soul.

Yay for bathroom portraits 

Lastly we rounded out October we dressing up like Anna from Frozen (duh) and going to trunk or treat at our church on Sunday and going around the neighborhood on Monday night. We didn't stay out long but Ellie seemed to really enjoy herself and stocked up on candy! Also on Halloween in an effort to keep us entertained, we went to the lake in our old neighborhood and had a picnic. It was so beautiful out there and I wish we had gone back sooner!

That's all for now. Hopefully we will be starting the next post off with some baby photos! Pray for us!