Four Months?

Angela is actually 4 1/2 months now. I tell her she is such a grown up baby! She is quite the chatty one some days and loves to make the oddest sounds and coos. She loves to play with her toys (like her playmat or her exersaucer) but she also loves Mommy and Daddy attention. I finally found her ticklish spot, and she makes the funnest giggles! Walks are her very favorite thing, and I am so sad it's getting too hot. Even at 7am, it's 80 degrees. Yuck. We started baby cereal, and she loves that too. What she doesn't love is naps. While she has been sleeping well at night for some time now, she still fights her naps. Three times a day. Every day.

Ryan finished graduate school. Hooray! He has been spending much more time with us both. Angela loves spending time with her daddy, and I love watching them play.

Even though Daddy went to ASU, Angela is a true blue Cougar.

7 Weeks and 7 Things about Angela

Angela is now seven weeks old. Today, in fact. She isn't doing too many "tricks" besides looking cute/beautiful or sad/pathetic to suit the situation. Instead of her achievements I thought I'd share some of my favorite things about her in general as well as some of my favorite pictures.

1. I love her hair. When it's wet and uncombed, it goes super curly! When combed, it's just wavy but oh so soft. I love to rub my cheek against the top of her head when she's lying on my shoulder.

2. She has several adorable gowns, and they're my favorite for night time. When I feed her, often her little feeties stick out of the bottom. Precious.

Look at those little feeties!

3. Angela came to this world alert and wanting to learn. She loves to stare and look around her, taking it all in. At least once a day she makes good eye contact with me and I try to have a long conversation with her. She sits and listens very well, although I have to infer a bit from her responses.

This is her at less than one week old! She's already staring intently.

4. When Angela's not alert and learning, she's eating or sleeping or crying. Being so busy makes her a serious baby. But we do get the occasional smile and it just melts our hearts!

5. She has lots of pretty faces, but she also has some pretty funny ones too. She makes a face like a pirate when she's being burped and makes a little turtle-like face when stretching. But the best one is when she's doing her "business." I laugh basically every time she poops.

See those curls! This isn't one of her better faces though.

6. Her cheeks are really filling out and I noticed her thighs are too. She may or may not be growing an extra chin.

7. I love to give her kisses. I kiss her nakey tummy, I kiss her chubby cheeks, I kiss her little hands, and I cannot resist kissing her sweet, sweet head (I sniff in the sweet baby smell while I'm at it).

Our Christmas Angel

The blog has taken a back-burner to the baby. When I went to put on my shoes to go home from the hospital, they broke. Into the trash they went. I can't help but think that was symbolic of ending a stage of life. Anyway, I know she's six weeks old now, but I better start at the beginning.

While some of you love the gory details of child birthing but I know some of you don't. So I'll try to keep it clean!

When I went for my last appointment, my doctor said progress was pretty minimal (as in half a centimeter minimal). We had an induction scheduled for the following week and he and I both expected I'd be keeping that appointment. I'd been having contractions at 20 minutes apart all week, but they obviously weren't doing much for me. Nonetheless, my mom was just waiting for the phone call to jump in the car and drive here from NM. We were worried that the crazy, unusually severe weather would keep her from coming. But things let up Christmas Eve, and her and my brother drove here in between blizzards.

We had dinner at Cafe Rio (note: everything I ate was mild thanks to heart burn, so this did NOT make me go into labor) and came home to watch our traditional Christmas movies. At 9pm (during Garfield's Christmas) I felt really sick. Contractions starting coming 10 and then 5 minutes apart. After an hour and a half I knew it was the real deal. My family, however, was skeptical. I insisted we go to the hospital and the on-call OB recommended it. My poor Mom and brother grabbed their unpacked bags (they'd only been here six hours) and followed us to the hospital. We got there at 11:30ish and I was admitted an hour later.

Yes, I had an epidural, and I am not ashamed. Once the real contractions had started, they were HARSH! I was very glad to have the shot. So I labored through the night in peace. The next morning we went to work on the pushing (most pain of my life--the only part that brought me to tears). That went on for about two hours. Then the on-call doctor came in, immediately did an episiotomy(which then proceeded to tear). And when I really thought I couldn't take it any longer out came my squirmy-wormy miracle, screaming like a banshee.

Then I really started crying. She was perfect and worth every ounce of physical pain and emotional heartache I'd felt. And it may sound cheesy, but I absolutely knew she was sent from Heaven specifically to me.

Christmas at Lawry's

Ryan and I had a nice dinner out last night. I was thinking it could be our last one for awhile! I was also thinking about a family tradition we had growing up.

Every year at Christmas time we had dinner at Lawry's. For the holidays, the restaurant hired "carolers" to sing to the patrons during their meals. The carolers dressed in Charles Dickens-like attire and were always very talented. We usually spent the first part of dinner trying to decide what requests we would make when they got to our table and almost never settled on just one. Luckily they indulged us and usually sang an extra song or two. My dad always tried to force them to take a tip (the gratuity kind, not the advice kind) even though they always ardently refused. It was against policy. But that didn't ever phase my dad!

For some reason, those are my best holiday memories of our family together, even more so than any of Christmas day. One year in particular we must've been having a good time. After dinner our server told us that our dessert was covered. Apparently the couple a few tables away thought we looked so fun that they wanted to buy us dessert. If you know our family, you'll know that was a GREAT way to get to our hearts. It was delicious. But more than that it's proof that we were so happy in that moment even somebody else noticed it. I will hold on to those memories forever.

Gratitude

A year ago yesterday I was intently scanning the ultrasound screen hoping futilely that three little heartbeats would suddenly appear somewhere.

A year ago today Ryan and I were in the OR waiting for the anesthesiologist so that they could do a D&C.

This morning I woke up feeling a little sad but mostly so grateful. I'm grateful for the growth we've had in the last year and especially grateful to have a little one (and yes, grateful she is just one) still trying to do somersaults inside a tummy she's quickly outgrowing. More grateful than I can really put into words.

On a lighter note, I've been thinking about the importance of saying "thank you." Ryan is so good about thanking me. He thanks me for dinner. He thanks me for cleaning. He thanks me for doing the dishes. When I worked, he thanked me for helping him provide for our family. I'm not saying he literally thanks me for every single thing I do every single time I do it, but he is good about saying it more than often enough. I would do all of it anyway, but it sure is easier to do knowing he appreciates it. Hopefully he knows he much I appreciate what he does too. He works so hard at his job and then has to put in all the extra hours of class time and homework. Then he still manages to find time to listen to me blabber on and on about my unexciting day when he really feels like this:



Anyway, enough with the mushy stuff. Let me just say that I'm glad it's Thanksgiving and hope that you all have a very happy one!

Winnie the Pooh and a Dirty Mirror

If I post another picture, do you promise to ignore my dirty mirror? I didn't realize how dirty it was until looking at the picture (which could be because I need to change the light bulbs in the bathroom). Well, I feel large but I still get plenty of comments about how small I am. In fact a waitress asked if I'd like a drink last Friday. On the other hand, a friend at the storehouse was laughing at me yesterday. I asked her why and she told me that I looked like Winnie the Pooh toddling around. Nice. Another lady at church told me I'm starting to waddle. She also giggled at me. I'll have to let you be the judge:

Nursery and Other Matters

The nursery is done! If Angela came tomorrow (which, we hope she doesn't for her own little sake) then we would at least have a room for her. I feel really fortunate not to have too many complaints. Obviously bending over is getting harder as is sitting for long periods, but for the most part I'm comfortable and we both seem to be healthy. Just don't ask about the heartburn.

Ryan is still working away. He was on "break" for two weeks but that turned out to be a joke. His professors decided to give him homework as well as a project. At least he was at home and not in class until 10pm. He also took his first ever business trip, and it did not leave him with a good impression. The important thing is that he survived and of course hopes he doesn't have to do it again any time soon.

I'm getting my to-do list done little by little and am still volunteering at the storehouse. My mission technically ended (although that reminds me that I never was released either . . . ) but I will keep going as a volunteer as long as I'm feeling up to it. They know not to expect me back after Christmas though! Even though everyone jokes that I will just bring baby girl with me and let all the "grandma's" take care of her while I work. We'll see. I told them I'm not making any promises about that.

So here are the pictures! For some reason it seems like LOTS of yellow in the first picture, but it's just the angle inside the crib, I think. It's not really a yellow nursery except for the bed spread.