The lifesaver

No, I'm not just trying to strike a pose, I'm capturing the ease and use of the sling Christina made me. I'm not that great at using it yet, BUT- the many tries I have made with it have been lifesaving. I think Leah has acid or gastric reflux. Monica had gastric reflux, but Leah's symptoms are a bit worse. She will spew fountains and jet streams from her mouth and nose when it hits her. She cries kind of often and the only way I can get her to calm down some days is to snuggle her very close to my chest and hold her. This happens the most in the evenings right when I need to start getting dinner ready. I love my sling! I can cook, do the dishes, clean up, sit at the table, play games with Monica and Leah stays nice and snug as a bug in a rug all happy and content!

Yo! Yo! Baby In the 'Hood!

There are a couple things that are great about this picture. #1. We didn't actually position the hat. We were going to go to the park and I put Leah's hat on straight. In the course of the trip she wiggled enough for it to totally go homey on us. The second thing that's so great is Leah fell asleep and right as I snapped the picture she got that little smirk which totally completed that "I know I'm bad!" look. HA! But all wannabe gangsta jokes aside, I think she looks 100% adorable!!

Naughty Girl

So last week Monica gave me a run for my money. She wasn't necessarily being more naughty than usual, she just expressed it in ways that were more unusual. Such as drawing with DRY ERASE MARKER that does not come off walls easy AT ALL!

She came into my room with marker all over her hands. ( I will never go to the bathroom in peace again!) So I asked her if she colored on anything else and she was very honest. She told me upfront that she colored on the doors, on the wall, and on her "stoos". I didn't know what that meant until I went into the nursery and saw both stools covered in purple. So I was MAD! She's colored with dry erase marker before and it did not come off the wall easily. In fact, I went through 4 magic erasers to get a couple tiny streaks off the wall.

But then, I saw what she had colored...to the untrained eye, it would appear that it was all just scribbles, but I had to try not to laugh because they were Monica's smiley faces on everything!

I will admit, when I saw how much she colored on the wall I was pretty upset. We scrubbed and went through two magic erasers on the wall before I finally gave up. Ryan is going to paint over it for me. But if you look closely, you can see the round face, the eyes and smiles.

Luckily it came off easily from the doors and stools. After a lengthy timeout, and a good talking to about why we only color on paper, you would have thought she learned her lesson. (And you would have thought I would have learned mine!) But the very next morning, she woke and found a pen on the desk and this time scribbled ALL OVER her legs! I didn't get a picture of it, but imagine what it would be like if you could trace every vein and artery and tiny blood vessel in your legs and you would have Monica's legs! Yeah, it was pretty bad.

But on a funny note...(we'll see who actually reads down this far)...Monica came into my room while I was nursing Leah a couple days ago and had a sweater on. I told her it was too hot for a sweater and to go take it off and put on a T-shirt. Very sweetly, she goes, "Ok, Mama, but I have to take off my boobies." And then she proceeds to take off her sweater, under which is one of my nursing bras! So I started giggling a bit and told her to take it off. So I'm thinking she is just going to take it off her neck. But no, there's more! She reaches in the bra and takes out two nursing pads!! So now I am laughing so hard that poor Leah is getting a bonafide milkshake and Monica finally realizes what she did was funny and started laughing too! I tell you what....sleep deprivation can make you lose your sense of humor sometimes, but there are some things that you just can't keep from laughing at!

An Evening With Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Dellon

Last night we spent the evening with Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Dellon. This isn't really a rare occasion, (we definitely need to do it more) but I finally remembered to take my camera with me to take some pictures. Monica loves "Grandma and Appa Appa", as she calls them and especially likes to run and play with the dogs outside. I got some good pics of her playing with Dandy.

She loved throwing the ball for Dandy and actually got some pretty good distance!

My camera has a "children and pets" setting...I'm still trying to decide if I like it, but it was fun to watch Monica with Dandy.

And I got some pretty good action shots!

Grandma and Grandpa got to spend some time cuddling Leah. It was fun to watch them and so sweet!

Leah checking out the grapes with Grandma. It was such a fun night for all of us! We had great company, great conversation, plenty of fun for Monica to wear herself out and the best melt-in-your-mouth pork roast dinner! Grandparents are the best, aren't they?!

A Precious Moment

I sat down for a minute to check my email before I got up to tidy up and start dinner when I looked over and saw this...Ryan reading a book to Monica and Leah all cuddled up. Leah was watching him as he read and Monica was so content and happy to be reading a book with her daddy... it just made me feel a rush of love for this wonderful man who is the father of my beautiful girls!

How to cram in as much excitement as you can in 10 Days...

What an exciting 10 days! Ok, so here's the timeline of major events for us...
June 26 - Monica turned 3 years old
June 27- Leah was born
July 4- USA's birthday
July 5- Our 5 year anniversary and Monica's birthday party
July 6- Leah was blessed

So needless to say, it has been an exciting time at our house and we have had so much to celebrate! I can't believe Ryan and I have been married for 5 years! We've been through the ringer it seems, a time or two and made it out still very much in love. I think about how we spent 28 months apart in our first 4 years, due to deployments and training, and how now all that time was worth it because now that Ryan is in school, we see him so much and get to spend far more time with him. He is my favorite person in the world to talk to, my favorite person to be around. I love that I can say he has never raised his voice in anger towards me, and has always treated me with respect. Eventually we will get to celebrate our anniversary on a real date, but for now, just hanging out with him and being held in his arms is all I need! I LOVE YOU BABE!



This was taken before church yesterday.

Ryan gave Leah a beautiful blessing, with Grandpa Lonnie, Papa, Uncles Matt and Mark, the bishopric and Mark Warner standing in the circle.

Beautiful baby girl!

Gramma Kris came to visit and was here to share the 4th of July with us! This is one of our favorite holidays of the year. It's the day of our great nation's birth and the day we get to celebrate our citizenship. After Ryan's service in the Army, there isn't a freedom we take for granted. The roof over head, the vehicles we drive, the opportunities for education, the food in our pantry...it's all a blessing and we can enjoy it all because of the land in which we live.

For Monica's birthday I made a Winnie the Pooh cake with little honey pots. We had a fun party with aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents!

More pictures!

Our beautiful girls!

She's a little more awake!

Sleeping on Daddy

Papa and Leah

Nana and Leah

Proud Daddy

Dr. Lori Saiz

Some more details

I was a little tired when I wrote the last post, so now that I have gotten a couple more hours of sleep, thanks to Ryan, I can write a few more things about labor and delivery the second time around.

My contractions started at 9:16am but didn't start getting painful til about 2:30. Ryan came home from school and got me and took me to the hospital. Poor guy...the contractions were REALLY getting bad and were about 4-5 minutes apart at this point so I was really crabby. I could tell he was really excited but, man oh man those contractions made it hard for me to be excited!

So we got to the hospital and got admitted pretty quickly. I was only in triage for about 20 minutes before they wheeled me to my room. So at 3:30 I was dilated to a 5. As soon as the first doctor came in, I started asking for the drugs. So I got the IV in about 4, and along with it came fentanyl! I loved this drug for the first 30 minutes until it wore off. But luckily I only had to wait for 30 minutes for the anesthesiologist to wheel her stuff in for my epidural. Then--she had to leave! She had to assist another woman who was going to get an emergency C-section. So I wasn't too frustrated. It wasn't like she was stepping out to take a cigarette break or anything like that. And she had a cart in my room. It's amazing how much longer you can hang on when you know relief is coming!So 30 minutes later she comes in and starts prepping me...the contractions are getting closer and stronger at this point, so I was really impressed when the sticking part and shoving the needle up my back part went on in between just one interval of contractions. By 6pm, I couldn't feel a thing and could rest. I LOVE TECHNOLOGY!

So I got to rest for a bit before Mom, Dad, and Emily came. Around 7, the doctor came to check me and see where I was at and I was dilated to an 8. I really enjoyed having everybody in there with me. We laughed and talked and watched "Men in Black", a family favorite. Just before 8pm, I asked the nurse to check me because I was feeling a downward pressure pretty intense but not really the urge to push. So she checked and said I was at a 9. Then about 5 minutes later I felt my water break. It was a really interesting sensation! So Dr. Saiz (my OB was on duty!!) came in and started prepping me and had me push a couple times to finish dilating to a 10. Then she left the room, and Dad left to go to the waiting room and Mom to go to the bathroom. We all figured it would be a while. After all, I pushed for 2 hours and 47 minutes with Monica. So Dr. Saiz came back and I had pushed just a couple times while she was gone like she asked me to. Then she had me bear down and push. Mom came in just in time to help with the oxygen. I only had to push through 2 contractions (about 6-7 pushes) and out came Leah!

Mom stayed with me that night and she was such a huge help!! I love my mom! Anyways, my very first impression of Leah was "Oh my gosh, she looks JUST like Monica!" It was deja vu for me. And for the first couple days I kept wanting to call her Monica. But slowly and surely the differences appeared and I only think she is Monica's mini-me when she is sleeping. With her eyes open, she doesn't look like her at all. So everything went well and FAST which I loved!