Amelia's 1st Week

As I said in my previous post, Grandma and Grandpa S. came to help for a week when Amelia was born. We were really quite spoiled to have them here. Jeff and Grandpa ended up having to redo the connections to our septic drain field. Jeff had discovered a leak and our grass was getting saturated. They spent a couple hot days digging, cleaning out pipes and replacing them - Yuck! Grandma helped me and spoiled the girls. Here are a few pictures from the week.

Amelia's First Visitors

We are all excited to have Amelia Ann join our family. Julia had been waiting for her to come out of my tummy for so long, I was very excited to see her reaction and finally introduce her to her new baby sister. Friday evening, Jeff brought Julia and Grandma and Grandpa S. (who had just arrived in town) up to the hospital to see their new baby sister/granddaughter. Julia was very excited.

Julia is already a great big sister. She is a little timid around Amelia, which is OK, and continuously asks, "What's the matter with her" every time she makes a noise, face, or cries. Each day, she is getting more comfortable with her.

I returned home from the hospital on Sunday, June 27th, and was spoiled for a week by Grandma and Grandpa S. Julia never left Grandma's side. They were a huge help! I'm sure Grandpa was excited to be here as he got to help with the basement, and best of all fix/replace our septic pipes leading to our septic field - now that was a yucky job!

Below are a few picts of our beautiful new bundle of joy and family:




Above: the first day of our new family.

Below: Grandma, Grandpa, Julia and Amelia.



Above: Me and my girls!

Below: Grandma and her grandbabies!


Above: Amelia in her "going home" outfit (excluding the bonnet)

Below: Daddy and his girls, here Amelia has her special bonnet on. The bonnet was made by Grandma S. and is to be taken apart to be used as a hankey and her 'something old' when she gets married.


Below: Welcome home!

Amelia Ann's Birthday!

I was scheduled for an induction for Friday, June 25th, the day Grandma and Grandpa S. were also set to arrive. I advised our little baby girl on Thursday, that her time in my apparently comfy, five star hotel, was coming to and end. She could choose to come out on her own, or be evicted Friday morning at 9am. I guess that threat was all she needed. (I think we may now have another procrastinator in our family -the other one would be daddy, of course).

Thursday was a more active day with braxton hicks contractions and at 2:15am I woke up with uncomfortable contractions. These continued and at 3:00am I decided I'd better wake up Jeff in case this was the real deal. At about 3:15am the more intense contractions became pretty steady at every 10 mins. I hurriedly got ready, as did Jeff (although not quite as rushed - apparently I didn't seem panicked, could have fooled me.) Finally, after Jeff had to finish his waffles, we were off to our friends house with Julia to drop her off for the rest of the night (thank you, thank you Wendy and Jason). It was at this point that Jeff finally began to get a little panicky, and drove way too fast. We arrived at the hospital around 4:45am and dilated to 5cm! (I think it took at least 24 hrs. with Julia to progress that far when I was induced with her.)

Things progressed fairly quickly, I received an epidural and I think it slowed my contractions way down, but that was fine by me. I was fine with a longer less painful experience rather than enduring the pain. After just 10 minutes of pushing our beautiful baby girl, Amelia Ann, was born at 10:05am, weighing 7 lbs. 14.6 oz., and 20 1/2 inches long. She has sandy brown hair, and brownish, bluish, green eyes, that are seeming to turn more blue each day. She looks a lot like mommy.

Below are a few picts of our beautiful new bundle of joy:

Above: Me at 4:00am ready to go to the hospital.

Below: Amelia Ann, just minutes old. She weighed 7 lbs. 14.6 oz. (the scale is showing metric I believe)

Above: Amelia again, just 5-10 mins. old.

Below Pictures: Amelia a couple hours old.

Happy Father's Day & Due Date Day

6/20/10

Today is Father's Day and my due date. Jeff's enjoyed his father's day by helping mop the basement after the washer/pump somehow overflowed all over the basement. The rest of the day he's been cleaning and re-installing the toilet in my bathroom after we had taken it out to re-do some of our plumbing as we continue to slowly work on finishing our basement. What a glorious way to spend Father's Day. We love you daddy!

Unfortunately, I don't think Jeff is getting a beautiful little girl for his father's day gift this year. Unless things begin happening quickly, I'll be going over my due date. With Julia I was 13 days over (although I always thought it was miscalculated by at least 5 days). I'm still feeling pretty good, but quite round and ready to meet our little girl. Julia is also very excited for her baby sister. Julia likes to say she's inside my belly saying "knock, knock, let me me out."

Here are a few pictures of me as I've grown.

20 weeks

20 weeks

27 weeks

37 weeks

Jesus and Easter!

At Christmas and especially now at Easter, Julia has also become very interested in Jesus and God. During the lenten season, our church had the crusified Jesus hidden. Julia spent one mass asking over and over "where's Jesus" I tried a few different methods of answering, but all I would get for a response back is, "no, not that Jesus." When I tried to tell her he was in heaven and had pointed up, then she thought he was in the ceiling. Anyway, the question, "where's Jesus" continued, for my sanity and those around us, I chose to leave right after communion. Needless to say, I also skipped church until I knew the cruisifix was back. For many weeks she asked about Jesus and is still very curious about him and why he was hung on the cross. In her little mind, she thinks she will be hung on the cross when she dies too, I do my best to re-assure her that she won't. She's very matter of fact about it, but it sure makes death seem kind of scary to me if I were her. ... Finally, just recently (now June), we had a large storm come through. We had talked about thunder in the past and I had described it as clouds crashing into each other, apparently Jeff didn't think that was entirely all correct and when I asked what he'd say, he said he would have told her it was God bowling. So in our recent storm, I tried that method. I don't think she was too happy with God. In the morning she advised me that she wanted to go to heaven and tell God to "stop doing that, to stop bowling." Guess I need to get some tips on how to explain Jesus and God to a 2 1/2 year old. I'm glad she is so interested, but it's a tough concept to explain.


Now, for a quick recap on our Easter Celebration activities. ... We celebrated Easter with a trip to Minnesota to visit our families. In preparation, Julia enjoyed making her first colored Easter eggs. She wouldn't eat them, but mom and dad enjoyed them.

We were thankful to be able to see all of Jeff's siblings - it's always tough to get everyone together. It was nice to have the little cousins together to play. After spending time with Jeff's family we spent some time with mine as well. Great-grandma and Grandpa S. were able to drive down. We love seeing them and enjoy every precious moment we can get with them. Julia still gets such a kick out of Great-Grandpa and how he winks at her (he tried teaching her to wink at about 2 months). She finally (kind of) has a one-eyed wink down now at 2 3/4 years. Below are a few pictures recaping our festivities:

Above: Jacob, Carter & Julia on at Easter egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa L's.

Below: Julia enjoying her basket from the Easter Bunny.

Above: Enjoying another Easter egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa S's.

Below: A quick photo with Great-Grandma and Grandpa.

Below: Smiles with Aunt Michelle!

Getaway to Savannah

In March I attended a wellness conference for work in Hilton Head, SC. Jeff joined me at the completion of the conference for a quick couples getaway. My parents stayed with Julia while we were gone - thanks guys! We all enjoyed ourselves. Julia loved getting spoiled by Grandma and Grandpa S., and Jeff and I enjoyed a long weekend together. After enjoying the chilly beach on Hilton Head (the weather was unusually cool), we drove down to Savannah and spent a somewhat rainy weekend in Savannah. Although the weather didn't fully cooperate, we were still able to do everything we had hoped to do. We went on a trolley tour of the Savannah historical district, walked through many of the historical squares and along historic River Street, and enjoyed a haunted evening walking tour where we learned about various haunted houses, etc. We didn't see any ghosts ourselves - I was OK with that.

Above: Sunrise in Hilton Head.

Below: Us on the beach.

In Savannah we stayed right on the riverfront on River Street in a hotel in this old building, it was very nice.

Above: The mansion in the "Garden of the Good and Evil"

Below: Forsyth Park, a large, beautiful park near downtown.

Below: One of the many squares throughout the historic district.

Winter Catch Up

A quick catch-up on winter ....

Julia enjoyed playing out in the snow and making snowmen with dad. She especially liked the mommy snowman with the pregnany belly (me). It is now June and Julia still watchs Frosty quite routinely, makes Frosty out of play-doh, pretending one of her toys or usually one of her hands is Frosty and the other Karen. She continues to want to get on the train to the North Pole to visit Frosty.

In February we went to Sesame Street Live (second year we've gone). It's an evening show, so she was fairly tired and didn't react much at the show, but talked about it for a long time afterward.

Jeff's parents also came in February, we enjoyed their visit and went to a small fire truck museum near here.

Above: Julia begged to play in the sandbox - can't stay out of that even in the winter.

Above: Jeff and Julia at Sesame Street Live.

Below: The Sesame Street Live Show

Christmas Celebrations

We were back visiting our grandparents over Christmas. Julia was excited about Santa and really enjoyed getting presents. She did great taking turns and understanding that giving is also an integral part of Christmas celebrations. We didn't get to see Uncle Jeff and Cousin Alec, or Aunt Tammy, but enjoyed our visit with the rest of the family. Below are a few pictures of Julia enjoying Christmas.

Julia in her Christmas dress:

Opening her gifts from Santa, she was excited to get her computer:

Thanksgiving - Baby News Shared with Grandma and Grandpa L.

We visited our families over Thanksgiving. Jeff's parents didn't know we were expecting yet, so I had bought a cute little shirt for Julia to wear that said, "I love being a big sister" when most of his family planned to be together. It was a good plan, but it didn't really work as most people were together while eating dinner (where Julia was wearing her bib), or during nap time. We ended up coaxing Jan into reading her shirt and then spilling the beans at dinner. It was exciting to also find out Jeff's brother, Tobin and wife, Karen, are also expecting. Our due dates are less than two weeks apart! Julia and Carter (their first), are just four months apart as well.

Below is a picture of Julia and her cousins Carter and Jacob.

Jeff's sister, Tammy, wasn't able to make it up from IA, so we met her for a quick dinner half way. It was a nice, but quick visit.

We finally got Julia up in the combine with Jeff, but not for long. Maybe next summer she'll be ready for a ride with Grandpa. She does love to help feed the cows though.