Christmas Eve

Our first Christmas Eve with just our family of five. We went to a beautiful service. Then as soon as we got home all three of my children were crying. Lucy stayed awake and wanted to be held from 6:30-11 pm. And while that meant she slept until 4 am (yay) it also meant that only one person could finish wrapping and finishing a big painting project. And that person didn't come to bed until 2:30 am. But it's ok because it's Christmas and we can take naps. 

Santa and some reindeer

This cute little reindeer farm near my parents town had Santa come the other night and then you can feed and pet their two reindeer named Klaus and Nutmeg. 

The kids loved it and Caroline asked Santa for skittles while Liam asked for a two headed snake. I think I know which one Santa thought was manageable. 

One month

Lucy is one month old! She weighs 8 pounds 12 ounces. There isn't a lot to report as there's only a few things she currently does. 

1.  Sleep. Lucy sleeps well and gets up to eat every 2-5 hours during the day and every 3-4 hours at night. She usually has 1-2 hours of wakefulness before going back to sleep. 

2. Have dirty diapers. 

3. Cry. She currently only cries when hungry or sleepy. 

The kids are adjusting well to having a baby sister around. Caroline loves to help out and Liam helps occasionally when he's not busy playing. 

We love having Lucy here and I can't wait to finally see her smile. 

Meeting Aunt Adriane for the first time!

Gotta be the same guy right?

Tonight Liam and I were reviewing his AWANA section that he would be learning for this week. In this section he is starting to learn the books of the New Testament. In case you forgot, it starts with Matthew Mark Luke John...

While Liam and I were working Caroline looked at Evan and said, "Matthew, Luke Skywalker." 

Close. So close. 

Sleep is so very, very important

It's no joke. Sleep deprivation is a cruel thing. It makes you do terrible things such as forcing your 2 year old daughter to finish her dinner of, wait for it, peanut butter and banana sandwich. Like shove it in her mouth and help her chew. And in the madness you have an out of body experience as you watch yourself forcing your daughter to eat while holding your infant and telling your almost 6 year old to keep his comments to himself because I have it all under control. Because you realize that you do not have it all under control. The tears come and then your husband comes home after working an 11 hour day to a wife who is on the verge of a breakdown.

This mommy thing never gets any easier no matter how many children you have. Having a newborn who needs to eat every 3 hours is the norm and only getting 2 hours of sleep at a time or less is hard. Like really hard. Especially when the newborn only will sleep while being held and as soon as you lay her down in the co-sleeper she jerks herself awake. Or when she decides that 11:00 pm is a great time to stare around the room learning about her environment. Or when she does stretch out her feedings to 3 1/2 hours or 4 hours but starts squeaking and grunting at 2 1/2 hours.

Lucky for us these are extreme cases. There are some nights where Lucy will nurse and immediately go right back to sleep. Not many but some. And while I usually have to battle my two older children to eat their healthy and nutritious meals we do not normally force feed them although there are usually threats of lost books before bed and always bribery of dessert.

This is a phase. Eventually Lucy will start sleeping for longer stretches. Someday my children will not have to be bribed to eat what is in front of them. In about a year I will no longer be sleep deprived and will once again be a contributing member to society. A year. Hopefully less.

I really pray it will be less.

Wish I could sleep like her!

Big accomplishments for a big sister

After one week of potty training I think she's got it. We may have had to sweeten the bribery by telling her if she pooped on the potty she would get ice cream so today she finally did it. She still can't wear pants or underwear if she's in the house or she forgets to run to the potty but this is going to be a long process. And lucky for her I've got 9 more weeks to help her be successful. We are so proud of her! 

Could there be anything cuter?

Snow

There's nothing better than snow in December to get our hearts ready for Christmas. This past Sunday we had a lovely snowfall that lasted most of the day and the kids couldn't wait to get out and play in it. Lucy and I watched from the window.

I'm all for staying warm inside and watching the winter fun from the window. I think I'll use Lucy as my excuse all winter long.

Lucy's here! A birth story

It's hard to believe that Lucy has been with us now for four days. We just got home from the hospital yesterday and the kids just got home from grandparents houses tonight. I want to try and remember everything about Lucy becoming a part of our family so here it goes.

I had a planned cesarean delivery since the other two kids were delivered that way for Monday morning. Evan and I showed up at the hospital at 5:15 am to start getting prepped with the nurses. We were both very excited but also very nervous as this is surgery. And we of course were hoping that this new baby would be healthy and that I would have no complications. Lucy must have still been very high because Evan said it looked like one of the doctors had to get onto the table to push her out. I could definitely feel the amount of pressure they were using as I could hardly breathe. But then we heard, "lots of hair!" and "female it's a girl!"

I was shocked. We didn't find out the gender beforehand but I was so sure that it was going to be a boy. I just kept staring over at her in disbelief. Happy but shocked. I know I commented to Evan on how small she was and also on how much she looked like Liam and Caroline. 

The nurse weighed her and told us that she was 6 lbs 5 oz. And again I was shocked. Lucy was nowhere close to her siblings weight and my belly was so huge! We got some skin to skin time while they sewed me back up and then we went off to the recovery room.

Later that night when the nurse was weighing Lucy she commented on the fact that the scale said she was 7 lbs 9 oz. She immediately dismissed the scale saying she would come back later with a different scale to weigh her again. A few hours later she weighed her again and now she was 7 lbs 8 oz. The charge nurse came in and told us that the scale in the delivery room was not correct and they recalculated her birth weight at 7 lbs 10 oz. That is much closer to her siblings who were born at 7 lbs 12 oz (Caroline) and 8 lbs 4 oz. (Liam)

Lucy has been a great eater and a great sleeper so far. She eats every 3 hours. She also has had plenty of dirty diapers. It seems this girl never stops pooping!

Last Friday we went to the pediatrician to again check her weight and we were told that Lucy looked a bit jaundiced. So due to the holiday weekend we had to go back to the main hospital and get her blood drawn. Luckily the bilirubin level was only at a 12.2 and the pediatrician said that that was fine and just to continue to nurse her as much as she wanted to flush everything out of her system. (Apparently 20 and higher means treatment with an overnight stay at the hospital, so we were very relieved to hear that we would not have to participate in that)

Lucy has no issues with her hips. Yay! I even had 3 different pediatricians check her to make sure. We are so very thankful for a clean bill of health and go back to the pediatrician on Monday.

I am very thankful that I am feeling almost back to normal, 10 days after having surgery. I move around pretty well and only take an Ibuprofen once to twice daily.

The kids are really adapting well to having Lucy around. Liam likes to hold her before he leaves for school every morning although he did tell me the other day after school that he forgot that he had a baby sister. Caroline is doing pretty good as well. I have noticed that she is a tad more clingy to Evan and Grammie but she is always looking for Baby Lucy and wants to touch her nose.

Welcome to our family Baby Lucy!