The guts.

Nothing, it would seem, brings more joy to my children's souls....

than pumpkin guts.

Just terrible.

Has it been almost a year? Since my last post?

Shameful. Yes.

I thoroughly apologize, and I again am motivated at this point to chronicle our family's journey. I used to scrapbook, but other things have taken over and I haven't kept up on it. Ivria has a beautiful scrapbook of her first year, and at some point I will have to do the same for little Meirah......

As you can see from the picture above, the girls have grown. Ivria is 3 1/2 now, Mimi is 17 months. Where the heck did the last year go? Can anyone tell me lol? So much has changed around here---we finally were able to buy a house, and Jim and I both recently stepped out of leadership at church to spend some time focusing on our family and our vision. I don't know where God is leading us yet, but I'm finally ok with being on the ride. This big transition means a lot less $$$ to go around, so I am looking for a little part time work, as well as selling my jewelry on Etsy. It's a unique time for me, because even though we have not really enough money to pay the bills, I am so at peace about it. And it's not that I just don't "care"..... it's that we have begun to pay much closer attention to our moola, and that knowledge is freeing. God has provided for us in tough times before. This time seems harder because we have two kids now, and a big ole house payment, but I can't wait to tell you next month how God has figured things out for us this month.

More pictures and stories about my wonderful family to come.

Yay!

A small victory this week. I had to take back a pair of new pants for the smaller size. God Bless Breastfeeding.

Pumpkin fun

Four months old

Potty training? No problem!

Well, apparently this time it was the parents of the house that needed training. I pulled out the potty chair yesterday, and decided to let Ivria run about naked for part of the day. She did a #1 for daddy last night while I was away. So today after she got up I took her pants off again and so far, (it's 1pm) she has gone like four times! Without me asking her to go! She just waltzes in, does her business, and then comes to tell me to look at the "poopoo" (everything is poopoo right now). So she already has everything figured out. we made our transition to Pull-ups last week, and I'll do the naked thing for a few more days. Ofcourse she wears pullups when she naps or sleeps or we go anywhere. So, I guess it just took mommy and daddy to catch on to the fact that Ivria is a big kid now.

Ivria pausing for a snack, the potty chair is convenient I suppose.


Happy baby Meirah


Last week we had a great trip to the zoo.

Ivria had a great time getting eaten by a shark,Feeding the "budgies",And posing with some Lemurs.
All of us had a great time. Meirah slept in the stroller for the most part. After feeding the goats, seeing the show, and checking out the ever popular "FISHIES!!!!", we all agreed that it was a successful family excursion.

Update

Things are really settling in around here! Meirah has become the sweetest baby you will ever meet. I swear all she does is smile all day. We have ventured out of the house on our own without Jim plenty of times now, and are feeling successful in general. We have an offer in on a house right now and are waiting to hear about that. And Ivria is learning how to ride a tricycle too! I'll get some pictures posted soon I promise.

A few smiling baby photos have shown up on my tatting blog if you cannot wait til I get some posted here.

Ooooooh. My oh my.

Currently doing a heart wrenching "CIO" with Meirah (cry it out). I don't think she managed to nap longer than an hour at any given point today..... she wanted to nurse all day, and I think she is to the point where she is smart enough to try talking me into letting her nurse to sleep every time. Some may say that's not a bad thing but our life is structured in a way where that is not always possible. So, she doesn't yet beleive me, but it is in her best interest to sleep a little more independently. At about six weeks of age Ivria did the same thing where she didn't want to sleep unless she was being held, so I suspect that it is partially a developmental thing. With Ivi I let her have a pacifier to sleep and that worked like a charm.... this one is such a light/busy sleeper that she distracts herself with the darn thing so that plan is out the window. Jim stayed with me today because of a killer migrane, and even with him home I accomplished nil :-) Mom has been here since June 3rd, but this week she is up visiting her mom, so I am all by myself during the day this week. I think I'm just having to resign myself to the fact that I'll not be able to accomplish things as well as I would like for the next few months. Just got to remind myself that these first few months are as precious as they are difficult, and they will pass quickly.

Good news is that Meirah's checkup went well :-) our little chunkerino weighs 10lbs and 11oz already! I was worried for some time because she wasn't making as many poopy dipes as I would expect, but the doctor says her positive (understatement lol) weight gain nullifies my concern. Yay!

Life as me :-)

I just thought since I had a few moments (and there is a mountain of laundry with my name on it) I'd sit and ponder the past three weeks. Meirah was born 3 weeks ago tomorrow, I can't beleive how fast it's gone by. And I made it this far and I'm not gone cookoo yet! The girls are really great. Jim is SUPER great. He has been volunteering and helping without me asking, and I couldn't be happier with him. He is of course happy that his wife is returning to her "normal" state...... Normal being still 20 lbs overweight and nursing most of the day, but hey, it's life :-) I think we are all getting into the swing of things, Meirah was giving me a run for my money last week. She had three nights in a row where it took 6+ hours to get her to sleep for the night, so the colic alarm started going off in my head. After a little reading and a little observation I'm starting to suspect that she might not be able to tolerate a great amount of dairy in my diet. I could live on milk and cheese, but she seems to have more tummy bubbles on days where I consume any great amount. So I'll get some rice milk and try a week with no dairy and see how she does.
Mom comes into town on Wednesday, and I'm so excited! It will be great to see her, she hasn't been out since Ivi was born. And I think it will also be nice to have her around as I transition back into my work role at church. And, it'll help to have her here while I figure out my routine around the house again. Jim took two weeks off and did all the housework and then some, and I've been on my own while he is at work and it's hard to get back into the swing of things! It's so great though to have Jim's support, like today, he did the dishes (which got out of hand from the weekend) first thing this morning and that was enough to get me motivated. Go Jim! He really is a super hubby. Sigh. He makes me happy in so many ways! And he makes cute babies.....

Our cutie pies have been getting along really well. The only jealousy that Ivria has exhibited has actually been toward Jim, if he is home and busy with a project for what she deems is too long, she gets out of sorts. Once we hit 3 or more time outs before nap time we know something is up. So Jim, being the good daddy he is, took Ivi into her room before her nap and spent some one on one time with her, and she has been a doll all day since. She doesn't really seem phased by me giving Meirah attention when it's just us girls a home. THank goodness! And Meirah is getting better at napping on her own. I was able to give Ivi a bath and do her bedtime story on time without interruption tonight. Today has actually been mostly stress free. I say mostly because we are in the process of trying to buy a house, and I just found out that our health insurance premium went up by $200 a month, which takes us back out of the ballgame.......I'm so frustrated because I found a house that we could have been able to afford! So I'm looking into other options, but it looks like we are stuck with that health coverage until October. Graaahahaharrr! I do need to be grateful though, because it looks like all of our birth costs are covered at 90%, and that means the little savings we have right now will remain intact. :-) so I get all worked up over that and then I realize that it's once again time to tend to my new baby. And then I walk over to see her sleeping peacefully, and I realize that I could be living in a cave and I'd still be happy because we are all healthy and happy and I know there are people out there who can't say that right now. A family we know just lost a pregnancy at 8 1/2 months along. I have no room to be anything but humbly aware of God's blessing in our lives.

Firsts.

This week brought us a few "firsts". Meirah had her very first bath, which she thoroughly enjoyed. She loves to chill out in her little bathtub hammock. (check out those chubbs!) And Miss Ivria had her first Ice cream truck. Papa came over and while we were walking with him around the neighborhood, the truck came by and Papa treated us to some yummy ice cream. He chose a cotton candy flavored popsicle for Ivi and she gobbled it all up, and got all sticky in the process of course. A picture of her eating that first ever popsicle is at the bottom of this post.

I put these in just because they are sooo cute.

Yummmmm! She is concentrating very hard here :-)

Life is good :-)

The days have just flown by! Jim goes back to work and Meirah is two weeks old tomorrow. it feels like she just came home, but also like she has been here forever.....don't ask me how that works.


Anyway, we have had a very eventful weekend! Here is Ivria and her daddy, checking out the big "choo choos". Jim's dad lives right across the road from the tracks downtown, they are standing in the front yard right there. Ivria's great fascination with trains can be attributed to my dad, who has had train sets since I was small. While we were down there on Saturday we had a BBQ, and the three boys, Jim's brother Will and his family (also with two small daughters) were there, in fact it's the first time in 13 or so years that the three sons have been together at their dad's house. Pretty cool day.

Yesterday after regular service we had the annual "vision meeting" at church, and Jim was officially ordained as a Pastor. Yay hubby! He's been looking towards this for ten years, so it's awesome to see his dedication come to fruition. I am SOOOOOOO Proud!

And here are the girls after the long weekend, snuggly on the couch. Ivi isn't really asleep, just being lovey. Meirah however is asleep. That's how she looks much of the day still :-)

Quick pics!

Hi all, here are a few quick ones,. A blurry no-makeup mommy with her girls at the mall play center this morning, and a cute smoochy daddy picture as well.

Meirah Nicole, born May 12 09, 8lbs, 20 inches

Here is our princess just a few days after her much awaited debut.

We can't tell you all how happy we are. Big sister Ivria is adjusting well so far, I figure there won't be any real difficulty until Jim has gone back to work and there will no longer be a parent fully at her disposal :-) Until then we are enjoying the time as a happy family. This morning we let Ivi come down the hall to see her sister on the bed, and she laid down next to her and gave her a gentle hug. Sigh, happy times.

Anyway, on to the birth story!

Everything finally got rolling around here on Monday night. After much false labor, I was sitting here at the computer when my water broke. I was totally surprised as I had not experienced this with Ivria, so I ran off to the bathroom, and sure enough! We were gonna have a baby soon! So I called Jim at work and told him that he probably had a few hours before he really needed to be home, but the gals at work sent him home. We got everything packed and had Lola come pick Ivria up for us, and settled in for the start of Labor. I started having some mild contractions, and at 10:30pm we headed to the birth center. I really thought things were going to move quickly, but baby had other plans I guess.

I was dilated to 3cm when we got there, but my contractions died off and by about 2am we were taking a nap on the bed. By 6am we had only dilated another half cm, and were sent off by the midwife to have some breakfast.

So here we are, at 6:30 in the morning after being up all night, at Denny's. You can see how thrilled I am to be there, instead of delivering a baby already!!!!

The whole point of getting out a bit was to distract me from worrying about the labor, and it worked. By the time we got back to the birth center, the contractions had picked back up and I was dilated to 4 cm finally. Between 8:30 and 11:30 things finally picked up momentum.

At 11:30 we were dilated to 6 cm (FINALLY!) and I was begging for the birth tub.

Sparing you all the gory details, Meirah arrived happy and healthy at 2:23 in the afternoon.

Here is a very happy daddy!

And here is our good friend Melissa, who came along for support. She assisted our midwife Joan in catching Meirah. Joan was the one who delivered our first baby, in the same room in fact!

And here is a very tired and swollen, unglamorous mommy, who couldn't be more content with the experience. It was frustratingly slow in the beginning, but once she arrived, all of that went away. I feel great at this point, in fact we were home in time to catch american Idol that night.

Thank you to all our friends sending their prayers and good wishes. Lots more updates to follow! Jim is off work for 2 weeks, so we will all be chillin at home enjoying our new status as a family of 4.

THis is it for sure!

It's almost 6pm and my water just broke! No contractions yet, but I'll call the apropriate people as soon as I hear back from the midwife, I just paged her.


Keep me us your prayers!

SO NOT FAIR!

Grrraahahahahaarrrrr!


I had solid progressive contractions from 2pm to 7pm tonight. and then they quit. They really had me fooled this time! I even called the midwife. I swore I wouldn't be calling in early.

Sorry Dad!

Grandpa has been hoping that darling Meirah would make her appearance on his birthday, tomorrow the 7th. Unless something drastic changes, it's unlikely. I've been having contractions on and off for days now, so I had the midwife check my cervix today at the appointment. I'm 50% effaced and dialated to 1cm, which translates to "mmmmm, probably not this week" in laymans terms. However, I am more than welcome to try and move things along, like in the evenings when the contractions are the strongest I can walk some and see if things progress. This weekend should bring sunny weather so I'll head outside for some exercize!

Definitely getting close!

Well, we had a good false alarm last night. I had an hour of contractions about 6 minutes apart, then they went away, and then they came back every fifteen minutes or so, but they were still pretty wimpy. So Jim got home from work and I thought that it might be a good idea to finally pack us a bag for delivery, and while I was on my feet I was having them every 3 minutes, and they started to feel like they meant business! Still not getting too excited I went and laid down for awhile, and voila, the went away. If it was the real thing they wouldn't slow down or stop, so at no point did I really feel like we needed to call in to the midwives yet........ I woke up this morning and all is back to normal. So yes, a false alarm. It was weird, because I never had any false labor with Ivria. As soon as we started with her it was real labor. Glad I know the difference this time. I'd hate to be waking the midwives up at all hours for no good reason. I guess it's good that I'm not delivering yet, tomorrow we go in for an appointment to check on the baby and talk over our birth plan with the midwives. It's probably a good idea for us to get the details out of the way.

It's getting closer!

We are getting so antsy around here..... things are definitely rolling along with this pregnancy! last week I asked the midwife about a particular sensation I've been having and she confirmed my suspision that I'm starting to dialate. This morning I woke up early to go to church and baby had definitely dropped, and my hips hurt so bad! So I took it easy and made myself sit on a stool to lead service, otherwise I jump around too much. The more active I am right now the more braxton-hicks I get, so I need to play it real safe for a few days. We will be 37 weeks along on tuesday or wednesday, and that is the magic number to deliver at the birth center. So the plan is that I'm going to stay off my feet for the next few days just in case. I'll have Jim do the dishes and peel my grapes and that sort of thing :-)

True.

Preggo pics

Time for Bubbles!

Daddy is my hero

Running out of room......