Happy Birthday Russ!

Happy birthday to Russ today! He's getting his wish that he stressed to me quite often of no gifts today. Mostly because of Rachel's birth. Haven't been able to get him any gifts. Although I would guess just having had her before his birthday was a gift for him. He was starting to get worried she was going to be born on his birthday.

I chose this picture of Russ with Rachel (taken with my cell phone camera shortly after she was born) partially because it was the most recent picture I have of him and partially because it reminds me of what a good father he is.

Hope you have a great birthday today, Russ! The kids and I love you very much!

Welcome Home Rachel!

Early Wednesday morning our newest daughter, Rachel, was born. She weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long. Wednesday was actually her due date. I had never gone to the due date before so this was new for us. The closest I had gone to the due date before Rachel was 5 days before the due date.

I don't know if it would have been as hard as it was going to the due date if I hadn't been having lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions the entire week leading up to the due date. Had them fairly regularly every day but they would eventually stop. None of them were strong enough so I knew they would stop and knew they weren't likely to develop into active labor. I did find it interesting though that the two days before the due date the Braxton-Hicks contractions slowed down and never really got as regular as they had been.

I pretty much knew right away when actual labor started. Those contractions hurt. The Braxton-Hicks ones were uncomfortable but not really painful. They quickly got close and regular so we didn't wait long before heading to the hospital. Labor with Rachel was probably my shortest labor at about 4 1/2 hours. When we got to the hospital the contractions were quite regular at 2 minutes apart. Yes, I opted for the epidural. Yes, it was very very nice to have.

We came home from the hospital Thursday evening. The kids were all very excited to have her home. Even a couple of neighbor kids greeted us when we got home. I was worried how Dylan would be with a baby since he's such a mama's boy. He hasn't seemed jealous at all and even tonight when I asked Russ to take the baby so I could cuddle with Dylan for a minute Dylan got upset and said he wanted me to hold the baby and cuddle with both of them. He sometimes gets upset that I'm not holding the baby. Wonder how long it will last.

We are all glad to have Rachel as part of our family. She is a good baby and seems pretty laid-back most of the time. The only exception so far has been when the chocolate I decided to eat caused her to have some gas and such. Guess that means no more chocolate for me for a while. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for such a sweet and beautiful baby.

Molly's Birthday

Today is Molly's 7th birthday. Funny how quickly children grow up. We celebrated her birthday last night, partially to make things easier for getting stuff done that we need to today and partially because it's possible that I could go into labor at any time and we didn't want her to have to miss celebrating her birthday. I was actually due with Molly two days earlier in the month than I am due with this baby. Molly has kind of been hoping the baby would be born on her birthday, but at this point in the day, I don't think that's going to happen.

Anyway, I had talked to Molly earlier about what to do for her birthday since we didn't know what would happen and with my doctor giving me a 50/50 chance of making it to my next doctor appointment. We decided that we would just invite a few friends and have cake, a pinata (since we almost always do a pinata) and then go see Toy Story 3 since we hadn't seen it yet and it was one that the kids have been wanting to see. I asked Molly if she wanted me to buy a cake or make one (really hoping she would say buy one because this much pregnant I wasn't really feeling like making anything). She said she wanted a cat cake and wanted me to buy it if they had one. Make it if they didn't. Luckily, when I stopped by the store to look at their cakes one of the workers asked me if I needed to order a cake. I told her how Molly wanted a cat cake. She thought for a minute then showed me a picture of a small cake they make to look like a cat. I thought it was perfect. She said it would only feed about 4 so I also ordered a quarter sheet cake to go along with it. Molly loved her cake.

Two of the four girls Molly invited made it for the party. They all seemed to have fun. We had to kind of rush through the cake and pinata in order to get to the movie in time. I chuckled at the way the girls basically danced to the car on the way out.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures from the night. I took a picture of just Molly with her cake but apparently it didn't turn out. I'm thinking I'm going to need to break down and get a new camera one of these days. The first is of all of the kids just before singing to Molly for her birthday (which reminds me that I laughed to myself watching Toy Story 3 when they had a short segment of celebrating Andy's sister's birthday and said, "Happy birthday Molly!"). The next is a picture of the cakes for Molly.




In addition to it being Molly's birthday, we are dog-sitting my sister's poodle, Maygun for the long weekend. I think Dylan and Alyssa are going to drive me nuts with the dog by the end of the weekend. They won't leave the poor thing alone. Which is funny considering how Dylan is typically afraid of dogs. He was scared for a few minutes but quickly got over it when he realized that this dog wasn't going to jump up on him or really pay any attention to him. Alyssa keeps trying to carry Maygun around. Let's just say the dog pretty much stays right next to me. Can't really say as I blame her.