GO PACK GO!

Loving my life

So I am starting to get a little sad as I am due to go back to work here at the end of February. The 23rd to be exact, I just think how much I am going to miss being at home with my two wonderful children. I am going to miss moments like this...
And this...And this...Evelynn is already sleeping in pretty long stretches for me at night. She will go for 4-5 hours and then another 4-5 hours which is letting me catch up on my sleep and feel very refreshed in the morning. Oh I forgot to mention that she is sleeping in her crib too! That did take about a week or so of screaming fits. We would let her cry in her crib at night for anywhere from 5 minuets to 15 minuets depending on how hard she was crying and how much crying we could listen to that night. Then Dan finally figured out how she liked to be "wrapped up" and that was that she has been sleeping wonderfully for us. That is until she goes through her next growth spurt, then she will be up every couple of hours again.

Darren is taking after Dan's love of Star Wars, and of course Dan is loving every minute of it. Pretty sure Dan is reliving his childhood through Darren. We will be out and he will see something and he'll say lets get this for Darren, in his head I hear him say "that way I can play with it too". I don't mind though it is pretty cool to watch Dan and Darren bond even if it is over Star Wars.As for Dan and I, we are struggling to find a balance between taking care of the kids and having time together. We will have been married for 5 years already with our anniversary in May. I can't believe it has been 5 years already, time has gone by so fast! We do have plans to put a play room in the basement to make more room for the kids. As they are slowly taking over the house. I am really looking forward to having this finished so we can have our living room back again. Dan has big plans to possible have it finished by March. But I do know that things like this can take a lot longer then planned. So I am just hoping it is done for summer because it will be cooler down there to play.

Evy's baptism is going to be February 20th, and you are all invited to come and share this day with us. We will be having a brunch at our house around 12:00 that Sunday. Come and meet Evelynn and share this day with us.

Six weeks already?!?

Our little Angel.
Evy will be six weeks old on Sunday already and I am not sure where the time has gone. I can tell she is getting bigger she stays awake more and has chubby cheeks. She is looking more like Darren did when he was a baby.

I wanted to post a few cute pictures that I took of Evy the other day. I received this awesome blanket from my Uncle and Aunt. So I have to use it in a mini photo shoot with her. I also used these pictures to make birth announcements. We had professional pictures done but it was kind of expensive to have them make the announcements for us, so I thought that I would just use pictures that we took, and these turned out to be perfect.

We also have a baptism planned for her on February 20th. Then our whole family will have been baptized at the same church here in Stevens Point. Which I thought was kind of crazy, considering I am not from Stevens Point.

I have time with her at home until February 28th, but it still doesn't seem like it will be long enough... So until then I am just enjoying the time that I have at home with both my kiddos.

Christmas

Evelynn and I have been home from the hospital since December 15th. Time has gone too fast and she is already growing like a weed. I wanted her to stay little for well at least a little longer. She already has such a cute little personality. She has actually been sleeping very well for us, and is actually a pretty easy baby(so far).

Christmas was great! Darren got so many cool toys, and our families spoiled our kids not that we didn't. Darren's two favorite toys, Whack-A-Mole and Uno Moo. At least those are ones that he plays with the most. He also got a new favorite sweat shirt, its a black Star Wars one, and it is funny watching my husband turn back into a little boy again now that Darren loves Star Wars too.

Hope that you all had a great Christmas and New Year and may the New Year be a great one for you!

Evelynn Leigh

Evelynn Leigh was born Dec 12 at 10:21am. We left the house early Sunday morning on the tail end of our first major snow storm. We got about 16" best I can figure. She was 7lbs and 18.5" long. Everything during delivery went perfectly and both mommy and baby have been doing great ever since. Evy (pronounced ee-vee) has been both a natural feeder and pooper and mommy is ahead of her healing schedule. Everyone will be heading home on Wednesday and we look forward to sleeping in our own beds. Hopefully Evy will allow us to do that. She has already gone 5+ hours during the night without waking up so hopefully that develops into a trend!

Darren was excited to see her when he came to visit and we think he will be a great helper around the house once we return home.

Stay tuned for further updates as I'm sure Darc will be updating again in the near future.

5 Days (not that I'm counting)

So here we are 5 days away from my scheduled c-section date. Getting nervous and excited all at the same time. I guess I was expecting to have her arrive early, just as her big brother did. I have actually been sleeping OK. Although my need to pee ALL the time is starting to get really annoying. The closer the scheduled day gets the more nervous I get. All the planning and everything is coming together. Which is something that I didn't have last time. So again a mix of so many emotions and questions all at the same time. Will I be in as much pain as I was last time? How will Darren react to her coming home? We have talked about it so much but does he really get it? Christmas, what on earth are we going to do for that this year? So much to think about but yet I don't really want to think about it, when it comes up I'll deal with it then.

However as the time grows closer to our family of three growing to a family of 4 I am starting to feel the need to spend more time with Darren, as soon my focus will be moved to her. I was actually lucky enough to spend the day with him and my niece Ella yesterday. We had a lot of fun! The kids were both very well behaved and took really good naps for me in the afternoon. Funny thing is I realized what it was like to have a little one around again and how much time mommy doesn't have for herself. It was good to get back to that mind set again, because I am pretty sure that I was in my Utopia that the transition would go perfect and smooth. HA reality check! But I have also come to the conclusion that it is what I make of it. If I think that things will go smooth don't stress about that small stuff than I think I will be able to hang on to my sanity. I also know that my house will not be perfectly clean, and its fine if it is a mess, because I know that it is only temporary(a year or so).
Anyway, yesterday when Ella left us for the day at about 3:30 Darren was playing some wii we decided to get bundled up and go play outside for a while. By that time we got outside it was about 4 and we decided to play outside until our Christmas lights came on. We were outside for almost an hour. But all the fresh air did all of us some good. I am sure you are all shocked to see that we played baseball outside in December, that is how much this kid loves that game. We also took his scooter around the neighborhood and looked at the Christmas lights. And there are not many up so we didn't see a lot. I took some pictures with my Christmas present, my awesome new camera. So Enjoy!

We are looking forward to sharing pictures of the new little one in the next week!

Official Word from the Doc

Well it is official, I am now on house rest for the remainder of my pregnancy. The doc said that it isn't "bed rest" but they just want me to take it easy and the big one no work.

We are excited that we had been fortunate enough to make it this far so we are celebrating. I am looking forward to enjoying the last 4 weeks of my pregnancy with as little stress as possible.

So I have a plan to just do a few things around the house. Getting the final preps done in baby's room, packing bags for the hospital, and doing lots of yummy cooking for the holidays!

The last part is the part that I think I am most looking forward to. I have always enjoyed cooking, and actually find it very relaxing. So I have plans to make cookie dough, and decorate slowly of course. I am not sure if this rest thing is what is making me so excited for the holidays, or if it is just the fact that Thanks Giving is already next week, and just a little over two weeks after that we are going to add a new addition to our family!

However I have not done any Christmas shopping yet. So family reading this I need lists, as soon as possible please. I have a feeling that I might be running short on time here. And well lest face it, I am not sure I am willing to send my husband out to do all the Christmas shopping, unless you all want Best Buy gift cards.

Looking forward to the holidays and so excited for the arrival of our little girl :)