Just some pics

My cuties hanging out together.

Look at that bright smile, she's an angel.

Little Chloe, she's a star!

Happy Birthday Chloe!!!

This is from our first day home. It was also the first time I got to see her in something other than her diaper. I think the poor thing was a bit wore out!

This is our second day home. We already had a dr appt scheduled to have her weight and biliruben levels checked. Her levels were up, but it was such a small amount they basically said she was maintaining that level as opposed to increasing.

This is Madalynn later in the day while Chloe laid on the couch asleep. I put her in her bouncer seat with her biliruben pad to give her a change of pace.

One of the sad side affects of the biliruben light pad is that it seems to be giving her awful diaper rash. We change her quite frequently so I'm pretty sure it has to be the added heat from the pad making her bottom so red and tender. We decided to let her be bare while we fed and burped her last night. This is Joel holding her. He was so worried she was going to pee on him, which she did, but come on, it's just baby pee! She just looked so cute cuddled on him like this.

Today Chloe actually consented to holding her baby sister. She has been very good with Madalynn, she just keeps her distance a lot and seems a bit unsure of her yet. We don't want to rush her so we've been encouraging her but waiting for her to make the first move. It was so cute to see her hold Madalynn, if it was only for a second. We got a picture of it so that was great.
Chloe has been totally cute to watch, she'll come up and talk to her if she's crying, or sometimes she will just rub her head. We love it! Having a little bitty baby makes me realize how big Chloe is getting and that makes me sad. I don't really want to see my babies grow up. I just have to keep reminding myself to take it one day at a time. Anyway, that's a little of what is going on right now.

Madalynn's Debut!

Here is Madalynn making her entrance into the world. They had some problems getting her out as she has very wide shoulders. The assisting nurse had to get a stool to help give her more leverage to push on my stomach to help squeeze Madalynn out.

Here she is somewhat cleaned off. She surprised me by coming out at 9lbs 8 oz. I expected maybe 8 1/2 lbs.
Here are the grandparents peeking through the blinds waiting for me to get out of recovery. This is Joel's favorite picture. I suppose there isn't a lot to do while you're waiting for the mommy to get out of surgery and recovery though.

She did have somewhat high levels of biliruben so they have her on phototherapy to treat her jaundice. I was pretty upset about it at first because it seemed like we couldn't get a break. She was in the nursery for the first day and a half so they could moniter her respirations and heart rate. She has higher than "normal" respirations but they have decided that it is just the way she breathes. They did take off all the monitors when they put her back in our room today so that was very nice. This way, when we hold her, there aren't a ton of cords hanging everywhere for us to worry about. Now we are just waiting for her biliruben levels to drop so we can take her home hopefully tomorrow!
Here she is today, we were trying to get Chloe to stand next to her to we could get a pic of the 2 of them together but Chloe isn't that comfortable with her yet. It didn't help when Chloe saw Madalynn's belly button, or rather the shriveled up black thing that will become her belly button. Chloe was very disgusted by it and wouldn't even touch me while I was holding Madalynn until I covered it back up. Joel and I got a good laugh from it. I found out tonight that the only other baby here right now weighs 4 pounds less that my little Madalynn. I have to say that Madalynn is a very good baby so far. It can't be easy spending so much time in a bassinet with your eyes covered and while she fusses a little, it could be so much worse and I'm surprised it isn't. She loves being held and cuddled and we love to hold and cuddle her. Can't wait until we are home and we don't have to worry about light therapy. Anyway, we'll put up more later!

Baby Madalynn

So we had our 3-D ultrasound Friday. The woman had a hard time getting clear shots because the umbilical cord was floating in front of Madalynn's face. So the shots look a bit distorted and that's why. We were told that she weighed 4 lbs 11 oz. That is about a pound more than average for her "age". She has a bit of hair ( I have to take the doctor's word for it, I still have a hard time figuring out what everything is). We were also told that Madalynn would probably be at the average newborn weight of 7 lbs 12 oz - 8 lbs by June 5th and our c- section is scheduled for June 11th. It seems like there is a good chance Madalynn will weigh as much as Chloe did but be born 2 weeks sooner. She looks like she has very chubby cheeks that we can't wait to kiss!



I keep forgetting this thing uploads the pics in the opposite order that I pick them. I wanted to save this one for near last. But, anyway, we KNOW that Madalynn is a girl! I've had a couple of die hard friends swear up and down I was having a boy. Something about me eating "man food" and other crap. This girl loves her cheeseburgers (home cooked off the grill complements of Joel) and corn dogs (preferably from the oven so they have that nice crisp breading!) and lots of mustard!

This is one of her feet. They were both visible but I guess she pulled one away before we got the shot. If you look you can see her little toes in the upper middle left of the picture. I think it is very obvious but I've had more than one person not see it.

She looks like she is puckering up for a big kiss in this one, I think.

This one looks like she is grinning. She's already a happy baby! Let's hope that's what it is anyway.

I don't know if Chloe gets it yet. We went to see my sister Thur after her c-section and Chloe was fine with petting the baby and saying "aww, cute baby" over and over. When I tried to get her to hold the baby though, that was something else. She turned away and didn't want anything to do with him. By him I mean Noah. She kept peeking at him Sunday when we went over for supper too. We have to watch her because she doesn't get the whole fragile baby thing yet. I'm really hoping she is going to be happy about having a sister once Madalynn is here. The sooner she loves her and decides the new baby is a good thing the easier life will be for me and Joel.

Easter

These pics loaded backwards so this will be from the end to the beginning. This was the egghunt at my mom and dad's house. My soon to be brother in law thought it would be fun to hide the eggs way up in the porch rafters. We gave Chloe a leg up so she could get them.

This is the egg hunt at our house for Joel's mom and dad. Paul and Joel hid the eggs, Joel had to keep Paul in line to make sure the eggs weren't too hard to find. Chloe did a pretty good job of finding them all.

And here is Chloe getting a little help from her daddy finding eggs and carrying that big heavy basket around.

It took a little bit to get her up and around. Once she saw the candy in her basket though she was ready to go.

We are trying to get her to get up. She kept rolling over like she was still asleep and couldn't hear us but she could. She kept grinning a little grin while she was playing opossum. She's not really a morning person unless it is comepletely on her terms. She often sleeps until 10 if able. Not that I mind, being a night owl myself. You can guarantee that if Joel and I have the day off she's up at the crack of dawn, I don't know why it always happens like that.

Chloe's new room!

This is before we pulled off the tape and put the room back together.

The wooden letters I got and painted. I already have Chloe's but I have to repaint them because they are currently pink and blue and they don't match Madalynn's. Chloe's are a lot easier to hang since she only has 5 to space. This was a pain!

Madalynn's changing table in the other corner. I was very happy with how the room turned out.

And another shot of this side of the room. Chloe's bed wasn't in here yet so I don't have a pic. This corner is where the crib will be though.


And here is Chloe's dresser and her Dora table and the chest we had made for her 2nd b-day. Her bed will sit across from the dresser. Well, it is already back in there now. The mirror on her dresser left a weird glare on the wall. Now, if only we could afford to update the hideous carpet. Too bad you can't just paint it too!! I love how the room came out. It's looks like a whole new room. You can compare it to the pics we took when we first got the house and see the difference. Sometime soon we will be doing the stairwell and our bedroom. Our bedroom will probably be during my maternity leave, I think that's what Joel said, but after this room he may have changed his mind!

A little of this and that

We were taking Chloe's picture and she kept trying to get right in front of the camera. In the process of me trying to position her farther back she lost control of herself and dissolved into giggles. This is a picture of her mid belly laugh!

Chloe loves to paint, color, anything that can make a mess. She has watercolor paints that she uses alot. Recently, Chloe has found her calling as an artist. She paints me like 50 pictures in a row. I think all but one of these was a dinosaur. I asked for a puppy and she obliged and then she was back to painting dinosaurs, roar and all.

Here is Chloe catching a ride on Joel's back. One of her favorite things to do is jump on our backs any time she gets a chance.

Just a Quick Catch Up

She was having some tomato soup with her dad and somehow got it on her nose. Just thought it was cute!

So Chloe has been doing very well with her potty training. She just takes care of business whenever the need strikes without us asking and we love it! Today, she apparently needed a drink to help her pass the time. I thought it was funny seeing her on her potty with a drink.

Chloe's favorite activity is bath time. Tub tub as she likes to call it. She would take a few baths a day if I let her.

She had some hawaiian punch while watching a movie and I guess she decided to stick her hand in the cup. There wasn't punch anywhere except on her. I could not believe how red her hand was. This was why she had to have the above pictured bath.

Here is Chloe out enjoying her big wheel on our city sidewalks! She refuses to learn how to peddle though. We went halfway around the block on it until we ran into tree roots and decided to head back home. We had fun that day though! As for the pregnancy, I passed my glucose screening which was great because for Chloe I had to go back for the 3 hr test and it was not fun. They said all my test results were good and I was very happy about that. Madalynn has been moving quite a bit. I tried to get Chloe to sit still long enough to feel her but she just doesn't have that much patience. I finally got to hear her heartbeat without the help of an ultrasound at my last appointment. It only took 27 weeks to get to that point! The bad side of the pregnancy is that I have started having RLS. That is restless leg syndrom for those who aren't aware. So since sleeping isn't hard enought the way it is, I can't lay still long enough to fall asleep. It has made things rather difficult and me rather crabby. You can only go so long on 3-4 hrs sleep everyday before you snap! Joel is very understanding thankfully! And as for the people who want a picture of my fat prego body, tough luck, not happening!!! lol Just take my word that I have gotten much, much, much bigger in the belly area. I can still tie my own shoes so long as I haven't eaten too much.