going home sweet home

Nyah is now 5 days old...I'm a little behind! We got to take her home on Wed evening when she was only 24 hours old (they kick you out of the hospital fast here in Washington!) I had her all dolled up for the drive home - she looked adorable! The nurses all gathered around before we left to see how cute she was. They kept saying how it was pretty obvious I was excited to have a little girl!! Here is our little baby doll, ready for the 15 minute ride home! :)

When we got home, Gabe got to hold his little sister! What a handsome big brother he is! (He is sporting a shiner from falling on a train and shirtless due to a very dirty shirt... our little man is all boy, that's for sure!!)

Snuggle time with mama before bed... I just cannot resist that soft little bundle! I would hold her all day if I could.

Our sweetheart is here!

NYAH LEIGH was born on Tues, March 23rd @ 3:31 pm. She weighed 7 pounds 12 ounces and was 19 3/4 inches long. I thought I would start off by posting some hospital pictures and writing up her birth story. What an amazing experience! There is absolutely nothing in the world as spiritual and awe-inspiring as welcoming your child into the world. I loved (almost) every moment... haha! :) Even through the pain and discomfort, I cherish each memory. I better get it all written down before the those memories of details start to fade - I want to remember every little thing! Here is our precious daughter...

Nyah's Birth Story
I realize now that I am completely clueless when it comes to knowing if it's "true" labor or not... For those of you that don't know, I waited way too long to get to the hospital with Gabe. By the time I realized that the labor was for real, my water had broken at home and I was in the middle of one minute apart contractions that felt like something I can never describe. It was an excruciating drive to the hospital, let me tell you! This time around we (especially Eric) were a little nervous of getting to that point before being tucked into a hospital bed with a nice epidural on board! So after several days of more regular contractions, that were starting to become more painful, we decided to head into the hospital.
4am Tuesday morning the contractions woke me up. My first urge was to get in the shower to relax and hopefully feel better. However, that is exactly what I did with Gabe and it ended up being the real thing. (So although it had worked that time - it made the contractions much easier and slower (hence why I was fooled into thinking them false) - I definitely should have gone to the hospital at that point.) That is why, when Eric heard my shower/relax plan, he vetoed it immediately and shuffled me and my packed hospital bag out the door! Luckily we have a wonderful friend here, Raelynn, that was prepared to come over in the middle of the night to be with Gabe. She took him home with her and he spent a grand old time with his buddy Ethan over the next 24+ hours!
5am Once at the hospital, I found out I was only dilated to 2-3 centimeters! How disappointing and not a little embarrassing. However, I was definitely in labor, albeit pretty early labor, so they admitted me and started antibiotics. (I'm GBS+) Over the next 6 hours I very slowly progressed to a 4... whoopee. :)
10am My Dr dropped by and decided to break my water to get things going a little faster, now that I had 2 doses of antibiotics. (I was between 3-4 cm dilated at this point.) Bad news: meconium in the amniotic fluid. I was so disappointed and worried. Knowing too much is a curse when it comes to these kinds of situations. I immediately started envisioning worst case scenarios of meconium aspiration - of ventilators and weeks in the NICU. But the baby looked perfect on the monitoring so everyone was pretty certain she had not pooped out of stress. Once I talked myself down from the unlikely hood of it becoming a nightmare meconium aspiration, I still was worried about her needing a resuscitation and being taken away from me and put in the NICU... deja vu, ick. At the very least, she would not be able to be placed directly on me after birth - an experience I had been looking forward to since I was deprived of pretty much all contact with Gabe for days after his birth. At the same time, I was so thankful to be in a hospital that had a NICU and a team of Drs/nurses that knew what they were doing and who would be there at delivery. Just knowing that we had all kinds of medical expertise available to us was a big comfort.
11am Time for an epidural! Labor was now entering a whole new level beyond "uncomfortable". Not too bad yet but let's just say I wanted it to stay that way! Once the epidural was working, I was so mad at myself for not doing it earlier. I felt a million times better. They say it doesn't make you tired but to me it feels like I have suddenly not slept in 2 weeks! Maybe it's the sudden disappearance of pain that makes you feel the exhaustion, I don't know. All I know was that I was so happy to just float away!
2:40pm Another check reveals the discouraging news that I am still only at 6 centimeters... after being in the hospital 10 hours! Eric and I were wondering if our baby would ever come! However, very soon afterward I started having what felt like a massive charlie horse with each contraction in my lower left back - it was awful! By 3pm it was getting so bad that we decided to have the anesthesiologist come in to bolus my epidural since I was only a 6 and wasn't going anywhere soon... or so we thought.
3:10pm The muscle spasm feeling has now spread across my left abdomen in what the doctor called a hot spot (a spot where the epidural is not working). We are just waiting for the bolus to start taking effect and I'll be honest... I am starting to lose my calm and happy facade! I'm in such intense pain that the nurses are a little alarmed and want to check me again, even though it's only been about 30 minutes.
3:15pm I am completely dilated and effaced and the baby has dropped so low that the nurses are running to call my doctor in! Eric and I are in shock... and a little giddy with excitement! (I have to add here that Eric's face was a moment I want to remember... when he heard them say the baby was coming right now he looked like he was either about to throw up or pass out! He leaned over and confided to me that he wasn't sure he was ready for this! He makes me laugh - and for some reason I thought his stress was kinda sweet!) Five minutes earlier we were preparing for hours more of waiting and now... our little girl is ready to meet us! I can't help crying even as I write this... what an emotional roller coaster childbirth is! My Dr got there extremely fast and I was pushing within moments of her arrival.
3:31pm Beautiful Nyah is born! Despite some minor shoulder dystocia, it took only about 4 pushes and there she was! I was crying and laughing, just like with Gabe's birth! She didn't cry very much but she was breathing and doing pretty well. They wrapped her up and let me see her for a minute then whisked her away to the NICU where they wanted to check her O2 sats on the monitor to make sure she was ok. My first glimpse of her face was wonderful - she was beautiful and here and healthy and a girl for sure! :) I couldn't have been any happier.

Nyah only had to stay in the NICU for about 15 minutes before they released her with a clean bill of health! What an answer to prayer. Eric brought our little bundle back to me and I got to hold her and really drink her in. There aren't words to describe the wonder and joy that filled me as I just looked at her. She is a miracle. She is healthy and whole, despite a million and one things that could have gone wrong during pregnancy and delivery. She is just gorgeous, despite the bruised face and broken blood vessels in one eye (from dropping so fast in the birth canal, I'm told.) She couldn't be any softer, sweeter, or more lovable. My heart is full to bursting with love for her and my family. There is no experience in life more spiritual than this. Holding a sweet, new spirit straight from our Heavenly Father. I'm going to love her every moment of our lives together and beyond. I'm going to teach her all the things she needs to know that will bring her happiness and success in life... that she is a daughter of God that loves her even more than I do and wants her to be happy more than anything, and that by following His teachings she will find the ultimate joy in life. What an awesome responsibility parenthood is... but I'm so excited to embark on the adventure another time! We love you all and thank you for your support! It's wonderful to be able to share these precious moments with the people that we care about the most!

sneak peek

I have finally finished the nursery!! And not a minute too soon... I think I may be in labor right now! Either way, I'm scheduled to go in to the Dr. tomorrow at noon and she wants to induce me if I am progressing at all (which I know I am). So hopefully, if all goes well, we should have our little darling here by tomorrow night! I had to post some pictures of her room beforehand since I have been promising my mom and sisters for weeks to get them up! So here is the grand tour of Nyah's room... it's pretty darn cute, if I say so myself! :) It turned out perfect for me!

View walking into the room:

Turn right:Turn left: Turn around (behind you):

Of course it will be even cuter when all those picture frames have actual pictures in them! I made the hanging tissue flower balls (thank you martha stewart!) - I think they turned out great. What do you think, Erin? (She was my inspiration!) I wish you could all come over and see it in person, it's just not the same in pictures. Oh well, let me know what you think anyway!

Gabe's big boy bed!

A while back I mentioned bunk beds for Gabe... well we changed our mind and got him a cute little twin bed instead. Even though we picked it up several weeks ago he hasn't slept in it until last night! I had ordered some bed rails and was waiting on those and then I'll admit, I put it off because I was afraid of the possible all-night-ordeal of changing over to complete freedom at bedtime! Well, our little man did pretty well last night - I was worried for no reason.... knock on wood, things can always change as I discovered with potty training!! Eric and I were so funny - we tucked him in then both of us hovered by the door listening and wondering what he would do! He just looked so small in that big bed - it was really weird putting our baby to bed like that. But he's not our baby anymore - he really is a little boy, through and through!
Anyway, he had a hard time falling asleep (was still moving around at 9:30pm) and got up originally to make a mess (maybe he thought he would be able to "clean up" and therefore prolong bedtime??) Well I foiled that plan, hee hee! When I came in to see what all the banging around was from, he eagerly got ready to clean up but I told him we would do it in the morning. I could tell he was disappointed, poor guy! But I certainly didn't want it to become a habit every night! As I tucked him in again and told him not to get up anymore, he told me he wanted his little bed...he didn't like his big bed. I felt so sorry for him! It really is a big change - probably hard to relax when things are so different. Even though he had the freedom to bring books and toys into bed (not allowed in the crib-which I have a good reason for, I'm not mean), he still was a little overwhelmed with it all. Poor sweetheart. It took a lot longer than usual but by 10pm he was asleep. I don't think he stayed in bed much before that but at least he never came out and never turned on the light. Eric and I were happily surprised! He didn't come in until 7am this morning and proudly told me "I get up, Mommy!! It's light outside!" He has never gotten out of his crib before so it was super cool to him that he could get up on his own. I just hope it doesn't give him any ideas in the middle of the night or, even worse, too early in the morning! :)



Here is a cute video of him in his new room - he loves his sports quilt! It is partially decorated -no blinds yet although they should be here today or tomorrow, thank goodness. I'm a little tired of living in a fishbowl!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

With as much Irish that I have in me, we could never let this holiday slip past without a celebration! I didn't quite make it out of bed in time to do a green breakfast :) but I did make a yummy Irish themed dinner. A leprechaun even dropped by and left a bunch of chocolate gold coins for us too! Gabe sure loved that part! For those of you that are wondering, the menu included Favorite Roast Pork, Colcannon, Cherry and Lemon Scones, and Roasted Asparagus with Balsamic Butter. (I know the pork roast isn't particularly Irish but it was a lot easier than the alternatives and this year I decided I could cheat a little! Especially since I fell and sprained my ankle a few days ago and have been limping around on a swollen foot on top of everything else! Oh brother!) Anyway, it was a fun dinner - click on the titles to get the recipes from Sisters Cafe. Hope you all had a great St. Patty's too!

baby shower

My new ward gave me a baby shower - what a surprise! It was incredible... the decorations, food, presents... I am amazed at how kind and welcoming this ward is. Some of the women that came I had never even met before - in fact, most probably! It was so nice and made me feel so cared about. I feel so blessed to be a member of the Church. It's wonderful to be immediately accepted into a ward family when you move away from your family and home. I don't know what I'd do without that!

Here are some pictures of the party. I got some darling presents! Cheryl and Caitlynn were in town that weekend so they got to come too - fun!

"oh maaannn...."

I have discovered a little echo in my life... I had better really start watching what I say! Gabe has surprised me so many times with the things he says. A while back when he would drop something or a toy would fall over, etc, he would say "oh man" with a mildly annoyed look on his face. It was so funny! I never realized I said that so much! I'm starting to discover there are a lot of things I say out of habit without thinking. Lately he has begun "bossing" Daddy around with all the things I say to him(Gabe) all day. It is HILARIOUS!! For instance at dinner he is constantly reminding Eric: "it's hot, Daddy- blow on it, Daddy - don't eat it yet, it's hot!" or admonishing him to "be careful please" when Eric does just about anything! When we pray he folds his arms then politely asks "want to say it, Mommy/Daddy?". One evening he paused in the middle of dinner and asked me " how's it going? How's your dinner going?Is it good mommy?" He is so cute!! The best is when I mess something up he tells me "it's ok Mommy. Try again!" Or when he messes things up he tells both of us "it's ok. We'll fix it!" Oh my goodness, I could go on and on. He is downright adorable. I have one more partial conversation I have to share though. We were at dinner and Gabe was arguing with Eric that Eric was not a boy...

E: "I'm a boy too, Gabe"
G: "no you're not a boy, Daddy! you're a super man"(I don't even think Gabe knows about Superman)
E: "I'm a super man? Why am I a super man?" (Eric is loving this!)
G: "you run really fast!"
E: "Why else am I a super man?" (he just can't help fishing for more compliments!)
G: "eat your veggies, Daddy" (uh, obviously Eric has pushed it a little too far!!)

After that last comment of Gabe's, I was falling off my chair laughing... it was so funny!!!!!

interior designer

I had to share this funny story with you guys...it will probably be funny mostly to all my girls out there! Last night when Eric got home I was proudly showing him how I had unpacked all the books and arranged them in the entertainment center - a daunting task that took over 2 hours! I had also unpacked all the small decorations and placed them on the mantle away from curious little fingers until I could find places for them. Well Eric saw the mantle and with wide eyes asked me if I was going to leave it like that!! I was like WHAT?!! I'm no interior decorator but did he really think I arranged it all like that?! I mean he has lived with me for almost 5 years! I didn't know whether to start laughing or get seriously offended! :) Luckily for Eric I have acquired a sense of humor and can laugh at his occasionally absurd assumptions! Goofy guy. So anyway, now you all know why I haven't posted pictures yet. The boxes are mostly gone but things are not put away completely yet so the house looks a little funny! I gave myself 3 weeks to get it together and that deadline is coming up this weekend... so hopefully I'll be ready by next week!

There on the chair is Gabe watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (the reason I can blog right now)! Isn't he cute? :)

The fashionable mantle... doesn't it just look perfect?! :)