They watched over him...

Can you guess who arranged this manger scene? That's right, Peter, our animal lover. He made sure all of the animals (the sheep, the lion, the giraffe, the camel and the tiger) had a front row view.

Lucy's Blessing Day

Lucy's blessing day was the first Sunday in December and we were surprised with some fun snow! Occassions like these always remind us how blessed we are to have lots of support from loving families, both from those present and those not. Kevin, Matt, my Dad and a few friends were in the circle. My dad said Lucy just looked up intently at Kevin, as if concentrating and listening well, during the blessing. We were lucky to have my parents, Kevin's mom, Matt and Doreen and their kids, my Aunt Debbie, Grandma Powers and our friends Jason and Alisa there.
This was the best picture of our family that we could muster. Peter is actually pictured asleep, and stayed asleep when we set him back down.

My mom made this gorgeous dress with Irish Linen and Swiss Lace, I think I got that right, when I was blessed. I'd say it has held up pretty well!

I'd also say the meaning of her name (bringer of light) is appropriate!

And lastly, I'd say that to anyone else all these pictures look exactly the same. Well, not to me, so I'm posting all of them:)

My lovely photography assistant, Miss Jillian

This was taken about two weeks ago (at about 6 weeks old) and she already looks so much bigger to me! She looks a lot like her big sister but she has blue eyes, which are quite easy to lose yourself in, I must say. She has started to smile and make the tiniest little sweet noises.

Some thoughts, random ones

Random Thought #1: I was talking to a friend recently about adjusting to three kids. In general I feel like we're not doing too poorly but there are times that I feel exhausted, overwhelmed, in an overall state of grumpiness because I always seem to be running late, hearing that sound, you know the one, when you squish a Cheerio underfoot, and carrying at least one child screaming behind me. Try as I might to have things run smoothly by waking up just a little earlier, or preparing something ahead of time, or whatever, it doesn't seem to add up to enough! My friend shared with me something her mother said to her when she had a five year old, a three year old and newborn twins. My friend said she thought she was probably complaining about her husband not picking up the slack, and don't we all try and find WHO could possibly be to blame when the everyday doesn't seem to be the glimmering castle and ball gown we think it should?! Anyway, her mom said "You're giving 100%. And your husband is giving 100%. But that just isn't enough! THEY are taking more than 200%!" And it's so true! All those completely dependent people (and let's not forget synergy!) and only one mom and dad. It sounds discouraging on paper, but it was exactly what I needed to hear! No wonder I feel like I can't keep up! No wonder my house is a complete wreck! (My midwife suggested I hire some help a few mornings a week:) What I really need to do is take lots of deep breaths, do lots of body scans, and stop worry about what others might think of my messy but lived in house!
Random Thought #2: Peter is two! Yes, he's been that way for a while and it took me this long to realize it. He was being so completely frustrating the other day and it was like a bolt of lightening came down and struck me "He's two!" For some reason, this made me breath a sigh of relief that perhaps this isn't a permanent personality change but a phase. Frustrating for both of us, yes, but a phase. I'm sure it's frustrating for him too, learning to express himself and be heard by so many of the other bigger people in his life. We're reading Ramona Quimby to Jill right now and Beverly Cleary is so wonderful at describing (and reminding a parent) how hard it must be to be a child! At one point Beezus calls Ramona a pest. Ramona thinks to herself "Now that is just not fair because most of the time I really am trying not to be a pest. And no matter how hard I try I will just never be as big as everyone else in the family!" I'm paraphrasing but this little book really is just as much for parents as their children! I know my boy really is just trying to please me so hard all day long and it must be so discouraging for him when I don't recognize that!
Also the phrase opposition in all things comes to mind with the age of 2. We have at least 10 to 15 major meltdowns a day, sometimes even when he was getting his way to begin with but either didn't hear what was said or didn't get what he wanted fast enough. It's just rough being at the bottom of the totem pole! I got a visual reminder of this the other day when I was running him all around to the ward building, then to Jill's parent-teacher conference to be babysat by people he didn't know and back to the chapel. It was pouring down rain, his sweatshirt was hanging off of his shoulders, his froggy boots were on the wrong feet and he was stumbling after me shouting "Don't leave me, Mommy!" At the same time some of our sweetest family moments lately are surrounding this sweet boy. Today I wished I had a video camera on him all morning- he was saying the sweetest things. As we drove past a pasture by our house "We love you hor-shies! We love you horshies!" When I told him I was going to gobble him like a turkey "I'm not yummy. I'm a people." When we were running into a building to get out of the cold "Wait for me. You're my best guys." The capacity kids have to love and forgive is truly amazing! Why do I ever forget or fail to see that?
Random Thought #3: Tonight Jillian asked me if I was going anywhere (I went to a Relief Society Activity last week). I told her I was going to hang out with her, my favorite thing. She said "That's my best thing, too. Being with you, and my Peter and my Lucy and my Dad."
Random Thought #4: The fall here is gorgeous!
Random Thought #5: I realized about a month ago that I have become no fun. All work and no play and plenty grumpy about it! Why I had "decided" on this attitude I can't pinpoint but I think it had something to do with "I'm working hard here, darn it, and I want people to know it!" Anyway, I'm working on that because I still have lots of good years left in me! Ha!
Random Thought #6: Another Peter funny. The other day we were at the doctor's office for Lucy's one month check up. Peter was following the doctor with his eyes and then started following him with his body, just staring up at him. He's got quite an imposing physique, probably 6'4" or so. Anyway, after a while of closely watching the doctor examine Lucy he said very somberly "Bunnies eat carrots." The doctor's response was perfect, and also very serious. "Yes, yes they do."

Drum Roll, Please! Presenting...

Lucy Kate

Born September 30, 2010

6:35 a.m.

Welcome to the World, Sweet Baby Girl!

Getting scrubbed up


Little Lou came out screaming with a loud, lusty cry. Just like her big sister.

LOVE that grin!

All of a sudden, my baby Peter looked huge compared to Lucy.

This little girl has been anticipating Baby Sister's arrival more than anybody, telling everyone she met Lucy's name and asking me every morning if Baby Sister was coming out that day.

Cue the Sesame Street song 'Cause I've got five people in my family...

The Name

Kevin, Jillian and Peter had all been calling Baby Girl "Lucy" for at least a few weeks now. I had liked the name but felt hesitant to call her that because I still had several names I really liked as well. (Ava, Lola, Sadie, Scarlett - don't be surprised if you see these in the future. It would have made things easier if we'd had twins and we could have come home having used two names we really liked.) So we spent significant time in the hospital discussing names. In the end Kevin had to put my toes to the fire and eliminate each of the names one by one. Do you like Sadie or Ava better? Let's try calling her Ava now. Let's try calling her Lucy now. In the end, the tipping point was the meaning of Lucy, which is bringer of light. Isn't that a great meaning? If you shorten it to Luc, spelled Luz in Spanish, it means light. Kate is after my sweet sister. After talking to my dad and mom, it seems we all have this problem when it comes to committing to names. I guess they were discussing Katie's name up until the few minutes before her baby blessing and my dad was asking my mom "What should I say? Is it Kaitlin McCall?" Even then, my mom didn't say yes or no. She said "Just say that and we'll change it later if we have to." Hadley's name became official 30 days after she was born because the insurance company had a policy where you had to have the name in by then to put the child on the policy.

It seems like she becomes more of a Lucy each day. So far her nicknames are Lulu and Little Lou. She has black hair and looks so much like Jillian and Peter both did. She's a GREAT eater and has been so mellow so far. Jillian and Peter are having a blast with her. The only problem we've had so far is fighting over who gets to hold her and when:)

They had the funniest chariot-type rides to get patients down to their cars. Behind me my bags are on a cart attached to this seat.

The Details

So...I had decided to go with the midwives instead of the doctors. At UNC you can deliver in the hospital and have an epidural if you choose, so I thought I would try it out. I had a great experience but towards the end was getting impatient:) Kev is on call every third weekend so I wanted the baby to come so he could get the maximum time with us and so I would be at my most recovered state when he had to have his next crazy weekend. But this is considered a social induction and they were willing to let me go 42 weeks, which would take me right up to his next on-call weekend, no thanks. (He was on call the weekend before my due date on Sept 24, 25 and 26. The midwife kept things interesting and stripped my membranes on the 23rd without really having a definitive go ahead from me. Kevin was worried the baby would come when he was on call and my mom was REALLY nervous too. He ended up being at home during most of the nights he was on call and no baby came that weekend.) Then the following Wednesday I had another appointment and she REALLY stripped my membranes. For like, a whole minute. Our due date was the next day, the 30th, and I was thinking the baby would come maybe on Saturday or Sunday. The rest of that day I felt really crampy. I had Kevin dye my hair that night because I didn't want it gray for pics:) and we cleaned the house, vacuumed, etc.

The Labor

At around 1:30 a.m. (on the due date!), we hadn't gone to bed much earlier, I was awakened by pretty strong contractions. By 2:00 I told him I was going to get up and shower and see if they went away but that he should probably call his mom to come over. They weren't going away so I painted my toenails and we got ready. The plan was to call our neighbor to come over until Gayle got there but no one picked up so we just waited for her. A little bit nerve-wracking but luckily I wasn't in as much pain as with Peter. So Gayle got to our house and we headed for the hospital around 2:45ish, I think. We got there around 3 and luckily there is not a line at triage:) We saw our midwife and she said I was at a five and 90% effaced. What's my birth plan? "I think I'd like an epidural." It just sounded too long to go all the way from a five to ten and I had gotten virtually no sleep that night. So they got my I.V. in, got my labs and got me to my room by around 4:00ish, I think. It's all kind of a blur:) The anesthesiologist finally came around 4:30 and decided to give me a spinal block plus epidural since my other kids came fast once labor started. That's a pretty dense but fast drug that they actually use for c-sections but I was REALLY grateful at that point because I was counting down each second, hoping each contraction would be the last I felt. At the same time the nurse had called in some other nurses to set up the table because the contractions were coming on top of each other and she felt like we were going to have a baby fast! It seemed like the spinal block had slowed down my contractions so around 5:00 I felt like maybe we could rest. By 5:45 I was woken back up just from the pressure of contractions and all of a sudden I felt and heard a huge "POP"! It seriously felt like a water balloon had just broken between my legs. I quickly called the nurse because with Jillian and Peter right after my water broke the baby came! At this point, I got butterflies in my stomach. We had thought we would have to wait to meet her when it seemed like labor was slowing. But we were going to meet her soon after all! The nurse came in with the midwife and they said calmly "Okay, there's her head, we'll have you start to push now." I pushed through three contractions and she was born on around the 8th or 9th push at 6:35 a.m. The whole process was pretty surreal. Much less frantic than with Peter and much less time and waiting than with Jillian. It took a few hours to grasp the baby we had with us was ours!

Kevin was able to take Thursday and Friday off of work. It was so enjoyable being at the hospital with just him and Baby Girl. Grandma G brought Jillian and Peter to meet her around 10:00 on Thursday morning and then they spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday at her house. They came home with new treasures and fun stories about what they had been up to at Grandma's house. We're so grateful our kids have such fun and doting Grandmas, who think up fun games and activities practically nonstop when they are with them. It was SO nice to know that while we were in the hospital they were being loved by Grandma! We decided to leave the hospital on Friday evening and spend a quieter night at home before the kids joined us. We rented some movies, got some Cheesecake Factory and reminisced about what it was like coming home with just Little Jillian. In fact, we kept calling Lucy Jill, they look so much alike and it felt so much like when we brought Jillian home.

Saturday and Sunday made up conference weekend and that was a neat way to spend our first few days home. My mom has been here since Saturday afternoon and now she's spoiling us. I've gotten to take several naps and just hold my baby all day long. The kids have gotten pumpkins, gone to the park and explored the Life Science Museum. Life is good. I'm really trying to relax so that by the time everyone leaves I can be feeling good enough to take one tiny adventure each day so we don't start to feel too cooped up.

P.S. I had a wonderful experience delivering at UNC! The whole philosophy of...everything was very holistic and I loved the nurse and midwife who delivered Lucy. I would definitely do it again (especially since she came on her due date, hehe.)

I wish I had a picture: I get out of the shower to find Peter with a pair of those lovely mesh panties they give you at the hospital on his head. Luckily they were a fresh pair:)

Peter loves this owl "pack-pack." Grandma brought it when Lucy was born. He loves to pack it full and carry it around. He can't wait to attend preschool and says he'll go when "I be four."

Cheesecake to celebrate Baby Girl! Thanks for organizing this Teresa! Nantucket was delicious and the company was wonderful.

This was a gorgeous day at the lake. The sky was as blue as I've ever seen it and the lake is huge and beautiful. The beach is well kept and they even have life preservers for borrowing. Jillian was giving Peter some swimming lessons, which partly consisted of pushing on the back of his head as he doggie-paddled and loudly encouraging him. (His feet or knees were still touching the ground.) He loved the attention from his big sister and I loved watching them enjoy each other's company.

Jillian's first day of preschool

"I'm so excited I can't stop talking to smile, Mom!"

Jill and Miss Jane

The class bird, Sky. This name made me laugh because it reminded me of a comedy skit. "Thanks for this nice cage! Did I mention I've been blessed with the gift of FLIGHT?!" Anyway...

Peter and I got to stay for that first day. It was only an hour and the kids got to meet all the other kids with their parents and siblings still there. I really appreciated how they eased the kids in to the transition. The only disappointing thing was for Peter when he realized on the real first day that he wouldn't be staying there too. He kicked and screamed as I drug him down the hall. Then I got him into his carseat and we both had a good cry. I can't believe she's this old! Even though it was hard and even a tiny bit heartbreaking, I'm grateful these two love each other so much. I'm also grateful Jillian has the opportunity to attend this preschool and is surrounded by such sweet teachers and children.

Jillian's friend from church, Isaac, is in her class.

Peter's face in this picture kills me. "You mean, she goes to school with all the other kids, and I don't get to go?" "It's okay, Big Guy. I miss her too, but we've got to let go a little bit."

And, in keeping with tradition, an after-the-first-day-of-school ice cream treat! Thanks for establishing this tradition Grandma Powers- we'll make sure and do it every year!