Holiday Decorating

We put up our tree and other Christmas decorations on Thanksgiving. I finished Heidi's stocking before Christmas, it is a miracle LOL! Here are the kids after we decorated... (Ethan is always dressed up like darth vader, ALWAYS lol)


Here are all my stockings, I am so proud of them. I think they look great!


Christian putting on the ornaments. He likes to walk by the tree and "accidentally" make an ornament fall off so he can put it back on. Sometimes when I look at the tree, there will be a ton of ornaments on one branch... Someone was redecorating again!


Megan and Ethan were great at decorating the tree.


Christian got to help put on the star.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving day. I got to sleep in a bit (Heidi was up from 2:30-5:30am!) and then I got up and started cooking. We were going to have fondue for dinner, but I got to thinking about it and I wanted the kids to have a regular Thanksgiving dinner. Jared helped the kids make a Turkey craft while I was cooking. Thanks to Jennifer for giving us the craft stuff!


We had chicken and stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, a yummy punch, chocolate and key lime pie (Jennifer gave us the lime pie, she is awesome!) It was all really yummy!


Christian woke up from his nap and he was feeling a little sick so I was trying to cher him up. It didn't work LOL! He is doing much better today. I guess the antibiotics are working well.



I am so thankful for my family and friends and church. It is a great time of year to really think about our blessings and I sure have a lot of them.

Heidi's Plate

I took Heidi to get her foot prints preserved on a ceramic plate when she was a few days old. I love how it turned out. I really like painting at those ceramic shops. I wish I would have done it for my first two kids. I got the idea when I was pregnant with Christian and so he and Heidi have a plate. Her little feet are so darn cute!

And here are some pics of Heidi sleeping on the couch today. I was trying to get her used to laying -not sleeping- on her tummy but she went to sleep pretty much immediately. She is so sweet :)

poor Christian!

My poor little boy has pneumonia! He had a cough yesterday but didn't seem too bad and this morning he didn't get up until 9:45 am and for a kid who normally gets up at 7 am, I was concerned. Then I touched him and he was burning up! I took his temp and it was 102. His cough sounded worse so I had Jared take him to the doctor. I am glad we took him! I sometimes try to not go to the dr because it never is anything and they send me home with nothing. Since we have a newborn, I have been taking the kids for everything. I don't want her to get anything. I made a bed for Christian on the couch and he is watching tv. He got a shot in each leg which the dr said would be very painful. He can't stand up without crying. I hope he gets better quick!

YUM!

We got a fondue pot! It is so fun to dip things in the chocolate. We are going to have a fondue dinner for Thanksgiving this year. I am not into turkey... yuck! So we had to try it out for Family Night tonight. It was a big hit. I think Heidi was jealous because as soon as the chocolate was melted, she woke up and started crying. I got to eat cold fondue lol! Christian liked to stab things with the fork and dip it, but he didn't want to eat any of it. Maybe next time...

First bath

This is probably the most BEAUTIFUL picture I have ever seen! I may be a little biased since she is my sweet baby, but seriously I can't believe I got this good of a picture from a 10 day old baby!


Heidi liked her bath ok, she seemed a bit nervous at first. No crying until I took her out. She is just so cute!!!

Iceskating at Mistletoe and Magic

Megan got to iceskate with her gymnastics team at Mistletoe and Magic this year. She had so much fun! I was worried she wouldn't be able to do it, but she managed to stay on her feet most of the time. It was really weird, it wasn't real ice, you can see the floor in some of the pictures. It was made from puzzle pieces and I guess they were wet. Whatever it was, it worked!

What a blessing!

Last Sunday we blessed Heidi. Jared's sister Dawn and her husband Dan came up from San Antonio and Jared's parents came from Washington. It was a beautiful day and everything went really well. Here is Heidi in the gown I crocheted. It is a little dark, but you can still see it ok. We are going to take her to get portraits done in the dress soon.



Here is the whole gang, minus me ( I was taking the picture)


My family. It is a pretty good picture, you might get this in your Christmas cards this year :)

All I need to know I learned in Kindergarden

Ethan has been telling us some funny things his teacher says at school. Here are a few bits of her wisdom...

Your bum is your "brain button." You have to sit on it for your brain to work properly.

Famous quote: "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." Ethan frequently tells this to his sister.

When applying elmer's glue: "Dot, dot, not a lot." Say this while using glue so you don't use too much.

I think they are so cute. I know there are more I am forgetting so I will be paying attention to see if there are more funny comments to share.

A great visit...

A few days after Heidi was born we were visited by my Nanny and Papa and my Aunt Rena. It was a great visit! My Nanny made me my favorite... homemade Boston Cream Pie and she brought fresh green beans from her garden and made pork chops for dinner. It was a treat! I love it when they come to visit, great food and great company! It is so nice to see Rena a lot more, too. I am so glad to have her back in TX. Here are a few pics of Heidi and her great aunt and great grandparents...

Heidi and Great Aunt Rena


Heidi and her Nanny



Heidi and her great Papa



Some random pics...

Daddy-daughter time



Cozy carseat


Sleeping Beauty


What a face!!!

Heidi Marie

Born October 31, 2008
1:07 pm
8 lbs 8 oz
20.5 inches long


She is here! My little pumpkin was born on Halloween. She is so beautiful!

I went in to get induced at 5:30 am. By about 7 am they had my pitocin going and I was starting to have some contractions. Everything was going pretty good. My doctor came in about 9:30 and broke my water, I was 4-5 cm and he ordered my epidural. YAY! The epidural lady came in a little while later (I am in some pretty good pain by now) and she put in the first epidural. When she pushed the medicine through the catheter, it ran down my back. She took it all out and started a new epidural in the space above the first. It went in ok. I was trying to be patient and wait for the pain relief, but it wasn't coming. OH NO! I was stressing out. This happens to me every time! I was ready to call the whole thing off and go home LOL! So my sweet nurse who I dearly love, called the lady back and she came in and gave me the THIRD epidural, and this time sweet relief! I was so numb and so happy! She checked me and I was still 4-5 cm. This was about 11 am. I called everyone to let them know to eat lunch and head our way. At about noon, the nurse came in and checked me again because she said it looked like the baby was decending a lot from the heartbeat tracings. I was 9 1/2 cm!! She called the dr and let him know the progress and told him she would call him when I was ready. She also called everyone to come in and get the room put together for the birth. It was starting to get exciting. I called my mom and told her she might get here quick and they were walking into the hospital right then. Megan came into the room to watch and my mom kept the boys in the waiting room. The nurse checked me again and I was 10 cm and the nurse she was training checked me too so she could see what it felt like. They put my legs in the stirrups and they wanted to see how I pushed. They each took a leg and when they pulled them back her head came into view. I didn't even push, so they told me not to push and they called the doctor to hurry and come. Then she urgently called for the nursery nurse to come... NOW! My friend Karalee was there and her and Megan saw the head and told me how much was visible, it was so exciting! Then I had another contraction. The nurse was sitting on the bed in front of me and she had to put her hand over me to keep the baby from coming out. I heard her say, get me a bulb syringe. I am thinking, what for??? Karalee says the head is out!!! OH MY GOSH!!!! My nurse was delivering the baby! She said the baby was sucking on her finger, how cute! Then she saw there was a cord around the neck and she thought she might need to cut it before the rest of the baby came out because it was too tight. Oh well, Heidi had other plans, she just came right out. I was just sitting there laughing, which was making her come out too. I couldn't believe it. When she came out we all cheered and laughed and right then Dr. Fanning walked in. The look on his face was priceless! I loved it! He asked the nurse "What happened? Why did you put her legs in the stirrups?" It was great. He took the bottom of the bed off and did all the yucky work. Heidi was on my chest just laying there looking around. She was really red and hot and I think they were letting her cool off a bit. She had a temp of 101 but it wasn't from being sick or anything. We were just hot. Then they took her and weighed her and all that fun stuff and the doctor finished with me. The nurse my nurse was training put the bottom of the bed back on and started taking the stirrups out and the bottom of the bed fell off and almost took me with it LOL! It was so funny. I am telling you, I was laughing a lot. It was a very exciting birth and I wouldn't have had it any other way. I loved that Megan got to watch the birth and I am so glad Karalee was there. She made it so exciting because she was so excited and she told me everything going on and helped Megan be relaxed about everything. It was amazing.

Here is my nurse, Nancy, who delivered the baby. She is amazing!

And here she is with nurse Susan, who helped out a lot that day.

After Heidi got a bath, they put her in the Halloween outfit I brought and Nancy took her out to show her off to all the other nurses. She called Heidi her baby. It was sweet :) Then we all got to go to my new room and on the way we had to stop a lot for everyone to look at her. At one point, there were about 12-15 nurses gathered around. Her witch hat attracted a lot of attention! Nurse Nancy proudly told everyone she saw that she delivered the baby. It was great! It was her first baby of the year that she delivered and Dr Fanning's first that he missed.

I think I remembered most of the details. I might have to add some later. It was all so fast and exciting. Here are some more pictures...

Megan and I when she got to the hospital...


Ethan holding his baby sister...


The proud big sister...


The whole family...


My sweet little pumpkin...


My awesome mom. This was this morning before she left to go home. I am so thankful she came to help out with my other kids! She did a great job.


Christian was a little nervous at the hospital, but since we came home he is getting more and more comfortable with Heidi. Here he is holding her for the first time...


My mom took some great pics when the kids came to see me in their costumes, I will post those when she gives me copies...