eyes

2 weeks

Today Miss Avery Ann is two weeks old. At her appointment she was 20.5 inches long and weighted 7 pounds 12 ounces. That is up 9 ounces since her last appointment when she was 4 days old.

As you can tell from her pictures, she still likes to sleep a lot, I still haven't got a good picture of her with her eyes open. At night she sleeps at least one 4 hour session...which is double the amount the either boy slept for their first 6 months. She's a gassy little girl, which hopefully doesn't turn into colic (like Gage)..her Dr. today said that it might?!?

Time is really flying by - Happy 2 week old birthday Miss Avery.

Dear Daddy

Dear Daddy,

Thanks so much for helping mommy at my 2 week appointment today. It was nice of you to get me dressed and ready to go home. Mommy was surprised when she took me out of my seat when we got home. She said you might need a little help in the little girl clothes department. I guess next time we need to leave the pants up to mom?

love,

Miss Avery Ann

One Week

Miss Avery is one week old now. She is a good little baby. She loves to sleep, nurse and make messy diapers. She likes to open her eyes and look around and listen to all the craziness she has joined. She is already a better sleeper at night than Gage or Noah. Gage is such a big helper, he loves to hold her and sing "You are my Sunshine" to her over and over. Noah, well, he loves her in that "special" two year old way. He seems like the most ginormous kid since we brought little Avery home.

Besides sleep deprived - and she really just wakes up to eat and then goes right back to sleep, so I can't complain, I feel pretty good. Wade's been back in rotations all week, so I know I couldn't do it without my parents. They are great at taking the boys outside to race trucks on the driveway, make robot crafts or read books to them every day.

I was able to finish Avery's pregnant album last night (while wathing Grey's). I totally miss paper scrapbooking, and love the 365 project because I get to do a little of it at a time, but since we are not really in our own space right now, digital is really nice. Plus, I was able to finish my pregnant album within a week of having her! I didn't finish Noah's book until a month ago, and the only reason I finished it was I was packing the scrapbooks for storage (sad!) and thought I better just finish those last two pages that had been lingering for the past 2 years.

Now I just need to print and I'll be done! I am going to do her first year digital, so I can't wait to get started. YAY for finally getting to scrapbook girl colors!

Third

One....
Two....
Third time's a charm....

YAY! Avery doesn't have to be on the Billi blanket lights! She still looks a little dark & yellow to me, and since Gage and Noah and lots of our family has had jaundice we really thought all our kids would have to spend 2 days being little space alien worms during their first week of life.

I put this outfit on her this morning and it looks like it will be a "one time use" outfit. She is already too long for it. Darn, it's cute. I have another one just like it in pink - but I got them on clearance for $2! I can't be too sad about one time use at that price.

Happy Wednesday. We are heading outside for playtime!

Home

After 24 hours - we got to come home yesterday! I love that my OB agreed that a 3rd time mom doesn't really need to stay in the hospital for a long time if she feeling good.

Thanks for all the nice comments, and to Wade for actually blogging about little Avery. I guess it takes a baby girl for him to blog about something, I'm pretty sure I even did Noah's birth when we had him.

Congratulations to Allison S. for winning the baby birth-day. She was within 10 minutes! The best part not only did she win, but she won on her birthday!

Coming home:

As we were waiting to be discharged yesterday (we waited and waited and waited, it's a long story) a knock came at the door and we were delivered this birthday cake for Avery! It was so cute, we had to take her picture with her first cake. Too bad she couldn't eat some of it, it was tasty.

Tuesday at my Dr. appointment my blood pressure was still pretty high, so after some discussion I got the go ahead to be induced Thursday.

Thursday morning Wade and I headed to the hospital bright and early (5am) and they started the pictocin around 8. After a relatively relaxing morning of just hanging out hooked up to an IV the nurse picked up the speed with the IV and things started moving along and getting regular around lunch.

Mr. Dr's office is right across the street from the hospital so at lunch time he came over and decided to break my water. I had been warning him all along that nothing really happens until my water breaks, but once it does, everything moves fast. So around 12:30 he broke my water, I was only dilated to 4 cm so he went back to the office.

Then things started moving. I had the nurse call for my epidural. It felt like forever for him to get there and I was in a lot of pain with contractions while he was giving it to me. After getting the epidural and still having a lot of pain I told the nurse to check me and she discovered I was fully dilated and ready to go, she called the Dr. and told him to run over ASAP! I had gone from a 4 to a 10 in an hour!

A few minutes later my Dr. came running into the room, he had literally ran the distance from his office across the street. He sat down and had me do one push, and her head crowned, I pushed a second time and her head came out and then one more push and she was here! I think we were all in shock how fast things went. Yesterday when my OB discharged me from the hospital he said to me, "If I deliver your next baby, don't let me leave after breaking your water!"

We are all doing good, it's so nice to be home. She looks like Noah in the face, but has lots of dark black hair like Gage. Gage and Noah are in love with her, we are glad Avery Ann is here and part of our family.

Avery Ann

Introducing Avery Ann

Born: 2/12/2009

Weight: 7.8lb

Length: 19.5

Mom and Baby are doing great.

baby tag

I've been tagged on Facebook a couple times. It's easier on blogger and since we've got baby on the brain around here, I thought it would be fun to fill out this baby tag.

1. WAS YOUR FIRST PREGNANCY PLANNED? Yeah

2. WERE YOU MARRIED AT THE TIME? Yes

3. WHAT WERE YOUR REACTIONS? I was excited, Wade, in denial. He made me take 3 tests and visit the Dr. before he got the idea. Then he said, "well good thing I have 9 months" He was such a goof ball, we had been married for 3 years and talking about starting our family for a while.

4. WAS ABORTION AN OPTION FOR YOU? NO

5. HOW OLD WERE YOU? 23, 15 days shy of 24 when I had him

6. HOW DID YOU FIND OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT? I took 3 tests - refer to number 3

7. WHO DID YOU TELL FIRST? Wade

8. DID YOU WANT TO FIND OUT THE SEX? Yeah!

9. DUE DATE? March 15, my birthday

10. DID YOU HAVE MORNING SICKNESS? yeah, at night

11. WHAT DID YOU CRAVE? Arby's Roast beef sandwiches, with horsey sauce. I would eat there on my lunch break from work and then convince Wade to take me there for dinner that night. I always made sure we went to different Arby's so the people didn't see me two times a day!

12. WHO/WHAT IRRITATED YOU THE MOST? nobody

13. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CHILD'S SEX? male

14. DID YOU WISH YOU HAD THE OPPOSITE SEX OF WHAT YOU WERE GETTING? no, Wade thought it was a girl, I didn't really care. I had read somewhere if you craved protein that it was a boy, so I kinda thought boy, but you can't always believe what you read. I didn't really care.

15. HOW MANY POUNDS DID YOU GAIN THROUGHOUT THE PREGNANCY? 40ish

16. DID YOU HAVE A BABY SHOWER? yes, 3

17. WAS IT A SURPRISE OR DID YOU KNOW? I knew.

18. DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS DURING YOUR PREGNANCY? at the end I had high blood pressure and was measuring smaller with lower amniotic fluid so I was induced. I've been induced with high blood pressure with each baby.

19. WHERE DID YOU GIVE BIRTH? LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City

20. HOW MANY HOURS WERE YOU IN LABOR? 5 total

21. WHO DROVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL? I drove myself, I had stress tests every other day for the blood pressure and so I was going in for that and they decided to keep me. Wade wasn't even with me.

22. WHO WATCHED YOU GIVE BIRTH? Wade

23. WAS IT NATURAL OR C-SECTION? natural

24. DID YOU TAKE MEDICINE TO EASE THE PAIN? epidural

25. DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS GIVING BIRTH?I had some complications 2 weeks after, if you really want to know details, email me. Wade and I are both VERY glad it didn't happen with Noah and hope it won't happen again.

26. HOW MUCH DID YOUR CHILD WEIGH?6 lbs. 15 oz.

27. WHEN WAS YOUR CHILD ACTUALLY BORN? March 1, 9:30 pm

28. HOW MANY DAYS WERE YOU IN THE HOSPITAL?2 days.

29. BREASTFEED OR BOTTLE FEED? Bottle and he turned out just fine. We missed the breastfeeding class while I was in the hospital because he was getting his echo cardiogram, he had 6 problems with his heart when he was born - most have fixed themselves. Wade had some nice words who he deemed the "Breastfeeding Nazi Nurse" She made me cry because I didn't go to that class, but being with Gage during that test is where I needed to be.

30. ANY OTHER MEMORIES YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE? The Dr. and the nurse staff all commented immediately about how loud he was. He has been "loud" and "spirited" ever since.

31. WHAT DID YOU NAME HIM/HER? Gage Oliver

32. HOW OLD IS YOUR FIRST BORN TODAY? He will be 5 in 18 days!

Soon

I had an appointment yesterday. The ultrasound confirmed she's still a girl....always good to know, since her clothes are washed and put away. The ultrasound tech said she had very cute lean feet. I could have told her that, they fit perfectly in my ribs, just like Gage and Noah's did. She guessed that the baby weighs 7 pounds 13 ounces - give or take a pound. It's hope it's minus a pound, Gage was 6.15 and Noah 7.4. If she is 8.13 I won't believe it!


We now have a date, it's sooner than later.

If you haven't made a guess yet, click here and leave a comment.

Clams

Yesterday was the opening day of a clam season! (This happens about once a month, at different beaches, if the low tide falls on weekends, from October -May.) It's something Wade has wanted to do since we've been here, but it's never worked out. Finally it fell on a weekend that we could go!

My parents are experts at this - apparently we did this a lot when we were growing up I just don't remember, since we moved when I was 3. I'm sure I was a lot of help at that age too.

So Saturday we got all our gear packed, Wade bought his license ($6), and we headed off to the beach. I said a little prayer that I would not be having a "water birth" 3 hours from my hospital.

Who would have guessed that you needed so much gear to clam dig. Knee boots are a must, but if you have hip waders that is better. You need a bag or basket to keep your catch in. You need a shovel - the sell certain clam digging shovels. And if you want to make life easier, you need a clam gun. (the big tube type thing my mom is holding)

First step, you walk way out during low tide and look for the little spit bubbles that clams make. Then you take your gun - or shovel - and dig. The gun is pretty easy, you shove it and and then pull it out and it works like a vacuum. Then you kick through the dirt and look for the clam.

We totally lucked out. We drove for an hour and a half to the beach and hit our max (15 clams each) under 15 minutes. Wade even took his time digging and finding holes. It took more time to put on all our gear than it did to actually dig the clams. My mom and Dad said that never happens! Sometimes they walk and walk for 2 hours trying to get their max.

Since my Dr. told me to "Not do anything AT ALL" this weekend, my job was to sit in a camping chair and take pictures. I barely had time to take the pictures I wanted before they were all done!

There were people, and holes, everywhere! We had great weather too -the sun was out for a while and there was no rain.

Here are the clamers with their catch. You limit at 15 a piece. Wade got the biggest one - Gage is pretty proud of this.

Since we drove all that way, and finished clamming in such a short time we thought we better at least spend some time digging and playing on the beach.

All these dirt piles are places people have dug for clams. It really was crazy how fast everyone on the beach was maxing out.

After our fun day, we headed home to clean our catch. This is a picture of Wade holding the biggest clam of the day. While I really like to eat clams, I think they really are an unattractive creature!

You de-shell them, clean them and cut out the middle big part (intestines). Then you eat clams! We cut some strips and tried our own fried clams for lunch today and chopped the rest. We are having clam chowder for dinner tomorrow and freezing a ton!

It was totally a fun outing, worth the time, money and drive. Next up on Wade's Washington to-do list: deep sea fishing again (mostly because last time we went I smoked Wade and caught the 25 pound King Salmon!)

Birthday Festivities

February and March are full of birthday festivities in our house. I really can't afford to get behind on blogging. This week we celebrated Wade's 33rd birthday. I'm sure he will appreciate this is the second time that I've pointed out his age. He really doesn't like any hoop-la or celebrations, but where's the fun in that?


As you can tell, he was very excited about his presents. Maybe it was because I wrapped them in baby girl gift bags left over from my baby shower.

We spent the day hanging out as a family. He took it off work and we played at the YMCA, walked around Cabela's and dreamed and played some Lego Star Wars on the Xbox 360.

For dinner we went to The Oyster House in downtown Olympia. Wade took some pictures of the sound before dinner. These two pictures were actually taken at the same time - one with flash and one without.

Don't we look like we had a lot of fun at dinner?


We ended the night with birthday cake and watching his favorite show, Lost.

Happy Birthday to Wade. We were glad you had a good day, just a little sad you didn't get to share it baby girl for the rest of your life (just kidding, kinda!)

Doctors & Statistics

Disclaimer: I went to the Dr. yesterday. This post has NO information about the baby because of the giveaway, but I'm positive this baby will come before her due date.
~~~
My sister sent me this email. I thought it was pretty funny since both our husbands graduate from medical school in May.


Doctors
(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.
(B) Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000.
(C) Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.

Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept of
Health and Human Services.


Now think about this:

Guns
(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000.
(Yes, that's 80 million)
(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is
1,500.
(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .000188.

Statistics courtesy of FBI


So, statistically, doctors are approximately
9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.

Remember, 'Guns don't kill people, doctors do.'


FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT
ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.

Please alert your friends to this alarming threat.
We must ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand!!!!!



Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Happy Birthday Wade

Happy 33 Birthday to our Wade!

He has the rest of the week off work. He requested something he saw on the Cosby show once - to "sleep until my eyes pop open" So we are trying our best this morning to hold in our excitement to see him. Later today we have some fun activities planned. Some of you have guessed one activity will be to have a baby. We will see.

Hopefully later this week we can post pictures of today.

If you haven't made your baby guess below, there's still time!

Baby Girl Birth-Day Giveaway!

Yesterday was moving day - so glad it's done, we found more mold as we moved things. I'm so happy to not worry about bugs!

But apparently this means Baby Girl thinks it's about time.

Last night I started having contractions, the real ones, not braxton hicks - they hurt and they came 3 to 4 minutes apart. I am the mother of two and have never had contractions on my own - without drugs. I know exactly what contractions feel like, but I've never had to make the decision on when to go to the hospital. Plus, now that we've moved we are 40 minutes from the hospital that I am going to deliver at, I am crazy - I didn't even know what to do last night! (Wade had a good laugh when I told him that my OB had given me a pamphlet on this exact subject last appointment that I glanced at and then threw away.)

Well, obviously, since you are not looking at pictures of our cute baby girl, after a few hours the contractions went away.

All this information leads to me to the purpose of this post:

Baby Girl Birth-Day Giveaway!

Leave a comment with the time and date you think our baby girl will be born on. (If someone else has already guessed your time, guess another time.) After she is born we will figure out who was closest and the winner will receive a $10 Amazon.com gift card!

HINTS: My Dr. thinks my due date is Feb. 27. My ultrasound said Feb. 22. I was induced with both Gage and Noah 10 days early. My next Dr. a appointment is Thursday afternoon.

Happy Guessing!