Nursery Photo

Finally Delaney's nursery photo is showing up on the hospital website. Apparently when the photos were taken, the wrong box was marked telling them to "hide" our dear baby girl. Who wants to hide this angel??

Go take a look... and sign the baby book for her. We printed Christian's comments out from when he was born and kept them in his scrapbook. What a treasure your comments are.

http://www.newbabynews.net/hospitals/sh7/public/showBaby.pl?babyID=h7-15998&st=

Surprise Visitors

A knock at the door last night made our evening!

The girls opened it to find My dear Jessie and her handsome prince, Matt, coming to visit and meet Delaney. We loved visiting with you two and wish you much luck in Texas this summer.

♥ Love you so much!! ♥

Did I Mention?

My Mom delivered Delaney pretty much single-handedly!

She was kinda freaking out but did such an amazing job.

I missed it. My eyes were closed the WHOLE time.

From 0 to 80

This is what happens when we take the baby away from Big Brother.

0 to 80, literally!

At least he loves her, right?

♥ Delaney is Loved ♥

(If this isn't showing photos, simply click on the "X" in the top right corner of the slide show. That should restart it.)

Meeting Baby Sister

Belly Shot

OK, so Jessie kept bugging me for a belly shot and I just COULDN'T do it.

But... on our way out the door Friday morning to have this watermelon, I decided to grab a shot for the books.

Here it is.

Holy Moley!

I didn't realize I was THAT huge!!!!!

No wonder I got asked if I was having twins just days before delivering.....

We're Home...Finally

And she has a name:

Delaney Katherine ♥

So. A quick update as I head upstairs for a nap...

We've been in the hospital until this afternoon while they monitored Delaney's blood sugar, rapid breathing, and administered antibiotics through an IV. Her white blood cell count was high on Sunday, so rather than coming home, she was admitted into the NICU for the IV to be put in and the first round (6 hr.) of antibiotics to be administered. She then was sent to Pediatrics where we've been since Sunday while they ran a blood culture to see if there was an infection. Thankfully she is fine and we are home.

Nursing is progressing... slowly. Her rapid breathing makes it very difficult for her to nurse. We are getting enough in through supplementation to keep her blood sugars high enough, though.

I would love to post more... and I have gads and gads of photos to share. BUT I am just too tired.
Thanks for all the wonderful emails and comments and dinners! I have so many family and friends to be thankful for. You are all so great.

One last thing. For you women out there - you'll appreciate this little piece of info.

3 pushes.

No rips or tears!

Can I EVEN tell you how fortunate I am?????

She's Here!

Our family is so excited to welcome into this world our new baby angel.

Baby #4 (still without a name) was born:

Friday April 18

12:36pm

Weighing in at.....

(sit down for this)

12 lb. 3.4 oz!!

22 1/4 inches long

14 in. head

We are still in the hospital, most likely coming home Sunday. Because of baby's size, they are closely monitoring her blood sugar levels and rapid breathing. All is well, though.

She is beautiful and we are so in love with her.

Thank you to our many visitors. You've brightened our days.

More pics to come after we return home.

For your viewing pleasure, here is a video of the moment they weighed baby.

NOTE the nurse's comment at the tail end of the video, "I would've said nobody did this vaginally." Well I have news for you, lady!

(remember to pause music before viewing)

Yet Another Baby Update

I visited my doctor today for a routine check up.
All is well.
Good news! I am dilated to a 3 and 70% effaced!
Do you even KNOW how excited I am???
My dream is to go into labor myself in the next day and a half.
If not, I check in to the hospital Friday morning at 6am.
Everything looks great.
We're just trying to get everyone healthy before baby comes and get the house in order.

Doctor's prediction: 9lb 12oz (without ultrasound)



(Julee- Happy Birthday!!!!! ... and I know what you're thinking... April 16! April 16!) Ü

Twilight Book Club

Last night I hosted our ward's book club... on Stephenie Meyer's book 'Twilight'. Let's just say, it's a popular book. We had 22 ladies in my living room. Can you say COZY??

Here we all are minus Teresa who had to sneak out early.

(Thanks, though, Teresa, for the pics!)
We had great discussions on this book; however, it was difficult with that many girls to keep side conversations at a minimum. Cracked me up! Everyone loves these books and had so much to say.

Refreshments.

So... as many of you know, the vampires in these books don't eat real food. So to provide refreshments based on the book was a bit difficult and I had to get a bit creative. Here's what I came up with:

Candied apples representing the forbidden fruit AND the apple on the cover of the book. Yes, I hand made the concoction to hand dip the apples in. I only burned myself three times. :(

(Anyone figure out how to eat a candied apple?? Morgan's having a heck of a time figuring it out...)

Vampire bitten cupcakes.

See the fang marks?? Inside they were filled with "blood" (cherry pie filling) so when you bit into them, they bled!
Red punch with a frozen ice cube hand in it representing Bella's bitten hand.
Test tubes filled with "blood". (tomato juice)
Pitcher of "blood".

For those of you who attended book club, you'll appreciate this video.

My dear Morgan was taking our picture and FOOLED us by setting the camera to 'video mode'. Listen to her giggle. She thinks she's so funny!!

(remember to pause music before playing video)

Go Ducks!

After laying Christian down for his nap yesterday, I opened my front door to go unload my van and look what I found!

These sweet little ducks have lived in this area every spring for years now, migrating amongst the neighbors' yards. I tried feeding them some bread, but they didn't seem too interested. My guess is they are fed very regularly.

Sadly, the girls were at piano lessons and Christian was napping, so it was only me that got to enjoy this "wildlife" in our yard.

Cheesier Than Cheesy

Ok, so new song. I just couldn't resist!!
Julee recently made a post on The New Kids on the Block going on tour again and boy oh boy did it bring back memories for me.
So this song is dedicated to Julee, Paula and Carly. Back in the day (I was 12, I think), when we had no internet to google lyrics to our favorite songs nor iTunes to download these favorite songs, we had to learn the lyrics the old skool way: Recording the song off the radio onto a blank tape, press play, pause, rewind, play, pause, rewind as we recorded the lyrics onto our paper. (remember doing this at Papa's, Carly??) Yes, I know ALL the words to most NKOTB songs from that first cassette tape... My dear husband despises music like this, which just cracks me up when I pull it out to listen to it. haha!
Enjoy my blast from the past, as cheesy as it is.

Baby Countdown

It's official!

We're inducing on Friday April 18.

11 more days.

Holy cow, that's SOON!

(sorry, Julee.)

Cheese with My Whine??

No thanks. I do not want any cheese with my whine. Would any of YOU like some cheese with my whine?

I've been sick. And I hate it. I've missed out on some really special family gatherings this weekend and it breaks my heart.

So I came down with some sort of eye infection - pink eye? I don't really know. But they prescribed a spendy antibiotic/steroid eye drop that I take 4 times a day. After 1 dose, my eye was already noticeably better, thankfully. I have to wear my glasses for several days and throw my contacts away. Good thing I have disposables.

I have a cough. A bad, deep, burning cough that triggers migraine-like headaches. Ouch! My sinuses are stuffed up. I can't breathe. I can't sleep. And I have to push out a watermelon sized baby in less than two weeks, ha!

Ok, I'm done whining. Did you get your cheese??

Congratulations to my sweet little brother in law, Michael, and his newlywed bride, Sherrilyn, on their sealing this weekend! I so wish I could've been there. I am so happy for the two of them.
Thanks to my Papa for stopping by and hugging my kids. I missed you and I love you so so so so so so much!

Brace Yourself

The day has come.
Olivia has been counting the days, the minutes for this special occasion.

She got her braces OFF!!















And she finally gets to chew gum again!
I don't know what was more exciting for her - getting the metal out of her mouth, or being able to chew gum.

Congrats Livvy! You have a beautiful smile. ♥

I'm Gonna Miss This...

So I have a confession to make. I faithfully watched The Celebrity Apprentice this season. The finale was last Thursday, which I DVR'd since we were out of town... and then watched it when I got back. Who would've ever guessed it would make me cry?? Being the cry baby I am, not even I would've guessed I would've blubbered. But I did. Want to know why? Trace Adkins. He has a new song out now titled "You're Gonna Miss This". I have never been a country music fan. Never. But after hearing this touching song... well... I have to say, I am now a Trace Adkins fan.

The lyrics in the chorus struck me so hard:

You're gonna miss this
You're gonna want this back
You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast
These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you're gonna miss this

It reminded me of my children and the stage of life we're in right now and how much I love them and YES, I AM going to miss this. I don't want to hurry them to grow up. I love having them with me, I love spending time with them. No, I don't enjoy the squabbling, the whining, the tattling, but guess what? It comes with the territory. I signed up for this and I don't want to hurry it by because there will come a day when they're all grown and gone that I will miss it. I know this. I will want those sticky fingerprints and snotty kisses back.

So don't complain about having your kids home from school on a no school day. Enjoy your kids. Love them. Because guess what?

You're gonna miss this.

(to hear the song it its entirety, turn your speakers up...)

The Vacation Had to Come To An End

We're back. And I don't want to be. I love vacations and I have such a hard time coming back to reality. So much now to do, it's not even funny.

Unpacking.

Laundry.

Cleaning the house!

Soccer starting.

Track starting.

Orthodontist appointments.

Dinners to make.

YW activity to plan.

Phone calls to return.

Emails to return.

BABY ARRIVING SOON!

But most importantly, finishing Eclipse. This one I don't have a problem with. ;)

We had such a fabulous week away! We stay in Newark, CA at a hotel we absolutely love. They upgraded us at no charge to their Executive Suite this time because they were so full. We didn't complain!

The kids and I slept in every day, did some swimming, shopping, watched a ton of movies, I did a ton of reading... It was wonderful.

Martin worked hard every day going to various auctions. By Friday, his first day off from auctions, our dear Christian came down with the croup early that morning... so instead of a fun excursion into San Francisco, we stuck close by the hotel to give the little guy a nap. Poor thing. Croup is the worst sounding cough! It always scares me even though I know it shouldn't. Thanks to my Resident Doctor Friend, Kirsten, for your advice. You may as well be a doctor after all your trips to the ER with *P* for croup. I appreciate your advice on it all...

We received Monopoly for a Christmas gift and finally broke into it on this trip and ended up playing it every day we could. I tell ya, our Morgan is a fast learner. Our third game she kicked our tails winning everything on the board, bankrupting all three of us! We're all now addicted to this game!

We were so surprised to find out that while we were down there, our sister in law from Hawaii, Mele, was only 20 minutes away from us! She was in town visting her mother and sisters so we had the wonderful opportunity to meet up with her and have dinner and do some Old Navy shopping. It was so great to see her and Akemi. My girls and Christian love their baby cousin. Thanks again for the oufits, girlfriend!! The girls can't wait to wear them when the weather warms up.

On our way home, we finally decided to hit the Jelly Belly Factory and take a tour to see how Jelly Belly Jellybeans are made. It was fascinating and the kids loved it.

Of course we also hit our Krispy Kreme and In 'N Out Burger!

We left the Bay Area about 10am and got home at midnight... long day. But the kids did beautifully travelling that long. Poor Christian was still under the weather and just looked miserable (puffy watery eyes, snotty nose, etc...) So sad. But he did SO well. I was so proud of them all.

So here we are. Back home. Back to reality.