First day of First Grade! and meet the teacher for 2!

Oh my, I have 2 children starting school, one started today, the other cried in his room wanting to know why he couldn't start today! (he starts next week!) Yesterday evening we had "Meet the Teacher". We already know Nate's teacher, she was Gwen's first teacher, so Nate is entirely comfortable there. He didn't know the assistant, but I don't think he really cared, he just jumped right in. We also met Gwen's teacher and assistant. Gwen's teacher is new to the school and we met her the night before at the "ice cream social" for new families. I was fairly impressed, since she remembered Gwen's name. Gwen said she only confused 2 of the boys today, still fairly impressed. Gwen's class is small, only 17 kids, and she has 2 new kids to the school in her class. She is enjoying class so far, and already came home with homework! The nice thing about 1st grade homework is apparently she has the whole week to work on it, and since they started on a Wed, she apparently has until next Friday to finish. The nice thing is we don't have anything to do in the evenings/afternoons, except pace with Rachel, so homework can easily be done while I pace. Which will likely be nice for Gwen, I won't be breathing down her neck while she's trying to do homework, just checking as I pass by. Here is another slideshow from yesterday and today. I swear I will post pictures again on here, but only if I don't have more than say 5 pictures, gotta keep the amount of uploading to a minimum!

Meet the teacher/Gwen's first day - flash slideshow maker

Miss Rachel

I haven't decided what to do about the blog, but I have deleted some photos, which I don't think will be a problem, but I realized I have some pictures to post, so here we go!  Pictures of Rachel.  Mostly sleeping, some awake.  She's a great sleeper at night, but sadly she seems to need to scream to fall asleep. And she doesn't really like it when I stop walking during the day, which makes me tired, because she is heavy.  I have perfected the use of the sling and I've tried to rock her after she's fallen to sleep, but the dang kid still wakes up!  I am looking forward to having the mornings free, with just Rachel to work on some of this sleeping thing, she'll be 2 months in a couple days, which means in at least a month or 2 she should be more receptive to a schedule. 

Misc Rachel - flash slideshow maker

The baby years

There are certain things you forget about newborns and how it all works when you go years between a baby. I don't recall forgetting anything between Gwen & Nate, but between Nate and Rachel, there is a world of difference in what I remember. So as not to forget the things I love about newborns here we go:

• Sighs, babies sigh all the time, and it is hilarious to me, because really what is so taxing in your life, little one that you must sigh?  I don't know but I love it.
• The "drunken" baby syndrome after they drink the milk-the bobbling head, the unfocused eyes, love it!
• The shocked expression every time I go to burp her, she even looks kind of shocked when she burps, don't even get me started on how funny they look when they poop!
• The flailing arms and bouncing checks when I burp her, love it. 
• The sad expression of the "fake" cry.  Not the colicky cry, the why aren't you getting my needs met faster cry!  

I won't go into the things I don't like about newborns!

And now we come to the worst thing, I have exceeded the storage limit of my google account!  So I can no longer upload pictures without paying a storage fee.  Which we all know I can't do.  So, I am going to have to consider what to do.  I think my 2 options are to buy storage or open another google account and start a new blog.  I am thinking I will likely start a new google account...I'll let you know.  Although if I did slideshows and videos from other sites, I could get around this, so I guess I will have to consider and get back to you!

Hi

I've been really busy lately, newborn + starting of school + renter leaving = very busy!  Sorry about the blog not being updated regularly.  Today, I am going to post a blast from the recent past, Rachel's first bath.  The poor kid, wasn't particularly fond of the bath, and really still isn't, but mostly because I really can't get the temperature right, or maybe because she is like, why aren't you feeding me ten minutes ago!
 

Rachel's first bath! - slideshows

The kid is 6 weeks now, and I think that we are getting the hang of her. I mean we can now mostly get her to sleep without crying and she will fall asleep, only at night. We've learned that even though she is awake and alert she still needs TONS of sleep during the day. I spend most of my day making sure she hasn't been awake for more than a half an hour or so, if she has I start trying to get her to sleep. Because, if she is awake more than that it is impossible to get her to sleep and stay asleep. She is a fabulous night sleeper, for 6 weeks and I couldn't be happier about that. I still wish she could sleep during the day, not on top of me or in the sling. I only hope all this walking around with the almost 12 pound baby is helping get off the baby weight! I am pleased that she no longer cries all day, that she is calming down and is starting to smile. Hopefully things will continue to get calmer around here, especially as I get all this school stuff taken care of.

My babies!

I took this picture today during "tummy time", the kids as usual give the full assault whenever I try to do the tummy time with Rachel.  Everyone wants their picture with Rachel, to hold Rachel, to kiss Rachel...translation the newness hasn't worn off yet.  I do wonder if it ever will.  Rachel still doesn't care about them, really, but they think she does.  Gwen is convinced that Rachel loves her second best, after me of course, sadly Daddy is in last place according to Gwen.  Nate declares that he isn't in last place because he gives Rachel lots of hugs and kisses.  Gwen is also convinced that Rachel says "hi" to her and waves to her, I haven't told her that Rachel is cooing and randomly flailing about.  I guess the good thing about all the love is I got a pretty cute picture out of the deal, I think...I apparently got Nate mid speak.  Rachel is almost smiling, I think she is thinking, look how I've got these 2 wrapped around my finger! 

I've heard a rumor that Grandpa might get to glimpse the blog this weekend, so I thought I'd put this angry Nate picture up.  It was Nate's idea to put this "present" from my cousin on, so I don't know why he is giving me the stare down when I took the picture.  Nate is likely the only kid in this family to ever wear this thing, but I guess as far as bibs go, this would be a good one to collect the spit-up and stuff, wouldn't want to get a Buck's bib dirty, now would we? 

For my Mom

If there is 1 thing my Mom loves it is a picture of groups of kids together, especially cousins and what not. These pictures right here are the closest things my kids will ever have to first cousins, only kid missing is Christopher. And now we have 2 babies a couple months apart, so exciting!  And, even more exciting is Jess's sister had a baby today so there are 3 little babies only 3 months apart, all girls!

Jess doesn't believe me, but I think Rachel is bigger than Emily.  I declare it so!  She just looks bigger to me.

As you can tell, Emily was a little off her game that day, Rachel was pretty good, as far as Rachel goes.  Jess doesn't believe Rachel is a fussy baby, guess she hasn't called during the fussy periods! 

It was nice to see the girls!  We've seen them a lot this year and it has been so nice, fun living closer to "old" friends!

1 month

Yesterday, Rachel turned a month old.  To celebrate we had a Doctor's appointment.  Rachel is now:
11 lb 4 oz
22in long
This means she has grown 1lb9oz and 1 in in a month!  Look at how surprised she is!

She is doing mostly well.  She has stopped crying when she is awake, she now only cries when she is refusing to sleep.  See, an improvement!  Everyday is a little better.  Today I was able to put her down for a 3 hour nap and made dinner!  Of course that will never happen again.  I am a little gun shy to take them say to the grocery store in the afternoon.  But we'll get there, and soon enough the older kids will be in school and I won't have to attempt to do anything with all three.  The kids still adore Rachel and she is not the worst baby we've ever had.  And doesn't she look cute in her dress made by my friend? 

I am out of titles

This newborn thing is harder than I expected.  I remembered that I have difficult babies, but somehow that didn't translate to the fact that the baby wouldn't just slide right into our routine or we would have a slightly different routine, but I didn't expect that we wouldn't have any routine.  Which truly is ridiculous because what newborn has a routine?  She sleeps well at night, of course that is after Eric walks her, to get her into solid sleep.  She seems to enjoy movement to help her get to sleep, she doesn't have the ability to self-soothe yet.  But, all of this is familiar territory for us, both Gwen and Nate had the same problem, I just seemed to have blocked it out. 

Gwen and Nate really enjoy holding her.  I took these pictures during the day one day, Rachel was better positioned, but it is hard to take pictures and monitor, but I think it is important to document this for all of them.  What was funny about this picture is that Rachel was sucking on his arm, Nate thought it was hilarious. 

Here is a picture of the sleeping princess...

This picture from today, I was making lunch, Gwen decided to read to Rachel.

In a couple months, I guess we'll get into a routine and she'll learn how to self-soothe and go to sleep on her own.  The kids will lose interest in her and life will be at the new normal.  I just hope I remember to re-button my shirt! 

Your daily Rachel

or is it Nate? Here is a link to a picture of Nate from this age, what do you think?

Think this girl is also going to be blond? We are currently thinking grey eyes, not light blue like Nate, but darker blue. Although comparing pictures I realize Rachel looks just like Gwen, but with lighter hair, shocker, at this stage all my kids lock the same. In hilarious news Gwen told me that this morning that Nate woke her up. I said oh, I'm sorry, how did he do that. She said I could hear him opening up the candy wrappers. That's right, the sound of Nate opening candy wrappers woke her up. Fortunately she still is a tattle tale and came and told us immediately. Daddy has to learn a better place to hide his candy overnight.

Tummy time!

Yesterday we did some tummy time while the older 2 were outside playing in the rain.  Since the other 2 were outside, I got some front row action for tummy time and snapped some pictures.  Now, I didn't exactly get any pictures of her lifting her head, which she can do, I got her making faces, which hopefully you will enjoy more than 5 pictures of her lifting her head. 

Tummy time! - slideshows

Dr's appt

Rachel had her 2nd Dr's appointment today.  Looking good!  She is back up and past her birth weight, a whopping 9lbs 14oz!  At this rate she'll be out of 0-3clothes in about 3 weeks.  She was still 21in.  Things are going well, she had some good eye contact this morning, was very alert and not a bit cranky. 

I thought I would include these pictures I took the other day.  I typically leave the car seat in the car and just sling her, she seems to really enjoy being in close contact and to be swaddled so her limbs don't flail and wake her up.  I put her in the car seat after shopping with Gwen this weekend and this is the position she was in, I thought it was funny, so I snapped a shot.

Mom has been saying she looks older already and I didn't believe her.  But I realize what it is that makes her look older, she has lost some of her chubby cheeks as her face has elongated a little, not that you can tell from this picture.  But still, trust me her face isn't so smushed anymore.  (smushed appears not to be a word by spell check, but I think it totally is and I can't think of another word in it's place, sorry!)

The birthday boss

Today our first born turned six!  Ack!  Actually it isn't a huge deal, you know because she knows everything, so she actually seems so much older.  Or maybe because I just had a baby and she just seems like almost an adult, in comparison.  But anyways, this isn't all about the new baby, this is all about Gwen.
So, how's Gwen's these days, well she's starting first grade this year.  We've been working on her reading this summer, not because she's a terrible reader, but because we are trying to build her confidence, we want her to be comfortable when she starts first grade. Everyone who has had Gwen in their class has said lovely things about her, like I wish I had a whole class of kids like Gwen.  We just wish we would see that kid at home more often!
Gwen is rather bossy, she thinks she is Mom #1, Nate gets the brunt of it currently and is starting to fight back.  I spend most of my time reminding her that I'm the Mom here.  Of course, this is real convenient when Nate is doing something he isn't.  But I keep reminding her that no one will want to play with her if she continues to try and demand people play her way.
Gwen is a sweet and caring sister to her siblings.  She loves to dote and hold her new sister.  And she tries to keep her quiet and happy, which is a difficult task, for sure!  When Nate got his shots last week she was so upset about it that she was also crying and I had to shoo her away, so I could comfort Nate.
Gwen also knows everything about everything, or so she says.  We are talking to her about her attitude and not being so rude.  I am slightly concerned about the teenage years!
Today we had a "playdate" for Gwen.  I had 3 little girls come over, and play with her.  I made cupcakes and the girls played and had a good time.  I shuffled Nate off to one of the girls' Mom who has boys, so it was just us girls!  I knew with the new baby and all the attention she's been getting today had to be pretty special for Gwen, and I think it was.  But I think she took this "MY NEW PRESENTS" thing a little too far.  We try to let the kids have 1 day with their new presents to share or not share according to their will.  At 4 and 6 it isn't going over so well, but I hope with each year it will get easier!
Here is a slide show from today.

Gwen's 6th birthday! - free slideshows with music

Comparison

Gwen, Nate, Rachel

I thought it would be fun to compare a picture of the kids. Although sadly this is as close as I could get to them all being the same position.  So, do you think all my babies look alike?  Chubby, chubby, chubby!

More photos

I found some more pictures to post. None of which have anything to do with each other.  Here is one more from the hospital. 

Just arriving home!

Before Grandma left.  We had a really hard time getting Nate to cooperate!  This one looks pretty good.

I think her hair is lightening up, kind of like what Nate's did.  Also her eyes appear to be gray, but who knows if they will continue to change. 

I'm having a hard time getting pictures because of this right here.  Every time I go to take a picture, the older kids get in the way.  Today during tummy time, the kids were playing and heard me talking to Rachel and ran over and I couldn't even see her anymore, they plopped right in front of me! 

Sure I know it is good they love their sister!  I just wish I could get more pictures so the Grandma's don't get so irritated with me! 

All Rachel, all the time

Alright, now that Rachel is a week old, I guess it is time to post the last of the hospital pictures! 

The first night Rachel and I spent the night alone in the hospital, Eric was toast and apparently was fortunate enough to go to bed at 8p and slept until 8am the next morning.  I on the other hand wasn't so lucky.  Rachel is something of a pistol, now not near as a pain as the other ones, but around 2:30 in the morning (you know when she was 1 day old!)  She really couldn't be settled, I tried nursing and rocking and walking after about an hour I gave up and called in the nurse, who re-swaddled her and she quieted for a couple minutes, and I tried nursing her again and then she went out.  But it was truly a pain in the tail, and a foreshadowing of our first week. 

Rachel at this point loves to be held.  She especially loves it when someone who is not me is holding her, unless she is being nursed and just fell asleep.  Sometimes she will sleep in her pack-n-play.  Sometimes she will not.  We haven't really figured that out yet, it is kind of a crap shoot. 

Rachel doesn't seem to want to spend anytime awake yet.  She will be fine for about 20 minutes, if that then she will start crying.  Fortunately, Eric and I have a lot of experience with crying babies.  We've done this before!  Of course she is 100x better than Gwen and the jury is still out whether or not she will be better than Nate.  At some point Nate started to fall asleep on his own.  I am not sure that Rachel will. 

Rachel has a strong urge to suck.  I am not sure if that is because she is 9 pounds and I am not keeping up with her or she needs that to soothe.  We don't typically use pacifiers, and I am holding out for a while to make sure it doesn't interfere with her growth and my production. 

But, my word, when she sleeps she sleeps like a champ!  All Gwen wants to do is hold her, Nate just wants to kiss her and touch her.  When she cries they come running.  There doesn't seem to be any sibling rivalry, but I wish that it wasn't 100 degrees here so I could at least take everyone outside! 

Rachel's hospital bath

Another difference between this hospital and the last was that they waited until the baby was at least 6 hours old before they gave Rachel her bath.  I thought it would be fun for the kids if we waited for them to be there before she got the bath.  So, late in the day, almost evening of Rachel's first day she got her first bath.  This has to have been the craziest thing I have ever seen.  The aide put down a paper sheet thingy that was to soak up the water in her bassinet. 

She kept squeezing water on Rachel from the wash cloth and then she would wash her. 

I think you can see it here in this picture, the inside of the bassinet is soaked with water. 

Gwen was the ever patient watcher.  Once Nate was sure Rachel wasn't crying out of stress, he just sat back in my lap. 

I can't remember what they were talking about here, but it sure looks interesting. 

Wet and angry, see the water?

Finally hair washing. 

We apparently didn't take any pictures of the clean baby, I think it ended up being time to eat and the kids left shortly after that, Nate possibly traumatized for life.  Gwen happy to help with bath #2! 

Rachel's birth

I know some of you are likely curious what happened with Rachel's birth.  Rachel was at least 10 days past her due date by the time I went to the hospital on Sunday.  I was not in labor, showed no signs of going into labor anytime in the near future, but it seemed like it was past time to get her out.  I really thought she would come out before the agreed upon induction date, but what do I know, apparently.  If you don't what to hear about Rachel's birth in detail, I would stop reading now. I have not included any pictures, so you don't have to feel obligated to continue on this post.  
Our induction time was 11am Sunday, so we went to Church, went to the hospital and checked in.  They started me on the IV antibiotic and told me I would need 2 doses before I started anything and those doses needed to be 4ish hours apart.  Can I make an aside here, penicillin IV BURNS!  Just an FYI!  So they started the first IV at 12ish, when it was done we started walking the hospital, had some lunch and did some birthing exercises (squats, lunges, stomping) until dose 2 at 3:30.  At 4 they tried to break my water, that did not work, they could not get a place to break.  Rachel was still high and I wasn't much dilated.  My only option was pitocin.  Those that know me know that I wrestled with this for some time.  I wanted nothing to do with pit, but it was truly my only option, so we had some dinner and I got some pit, probably around 6.  The cool thing about the teaching hospital was they have all the latest things (well, I don't know that for sure), but they had wireless waterproof monitors, so I could walk around the floor while they monitored the baby remotely.  COOL!  They continued to monitor and increase the pit until I was at a good contraction level.  The thing I noticed is while I was doing the aforementioned exercises I could feel no pain, but as soon as I finished I would get another one.  The Dr checked me around 8 and broke my water.  Rachel had moved down a smidge and they started to decrease the pit to see if I would continue laboring without the pit. The pit was turned off completely around 10 and the midwife checked me at around 11, still no more progress, so we had no choice but to go back on the pit again.  I laid down in bed to rest and they started the pit at 12ish, I was at 4cm.  By 12:30 I was in real labor, at about 1:30 Eric suggested the shower.  The nurse came in, informed me I finally looked like I was in labor and started to get the room ready.  At 2ish the nurse checked me, I was at 7.  About 10 minutes later I declared it was time to push.  They moved me to the bed and said I was at 9, but NOT TO PUSH.  At this point I was over their suggestions and told them I was pushing.  They kindly informed me that my cervix wasn't all out of the way yet, I didn't really care.  Finally my cervix was clear, but the midwife still told me I couldn't push because I would tear, I told her I couldn't help it I had to push.  She told me to breathe and look at her, I made it through most of the way through the contraction without pushing, but the last 10 sec or so.  And EVERYONE was yelling at me not to push.  I maybe was a little cranky!  Finally, she said I could push and I did, but apparently not good enough because they were fussing at me again.  But, I finally got the head out and the shoulders (which BTW when you have a baby with a 14.25 head circumference, you really don't notice the shoulders!) and they laid Rachel on me.  It was 2:21am.  Apparently now they do a delayed placenta cutting if possible, so they didn't cut the cord until 2:26!  This apparently allows the stem cells to flow into the baby after birth, seemed like a good idea, before birth, during birth, I realized I was still having contractions and although Rachel was on me, it felt like an eternity.  

Rachel!

Rachel was born this morning at 2:25 am, she is a rather large baby and I will detail her birth in another post, but I wanted to post some pictures.  Here she is right after they weighed her!  Wow!  I can not believe she is so large!

She has been a good baby so far, although I am finding it difficult to keep on her hat.

The big sibs don't really know what to think yet, but they appear to love holding her, and get upset when she cries.  She is so large that really they have to hold her together! 

Grandma enjoys holding her also.  She was holding her and holding her and holding her and Gwen wanted to know why she couldn't hold her again, when Grandma had one of her extended holdings. 

So as not to repeat myself

Today we had our final Dr's appointment before the baby makes its grand entrance.  As those of you who have been with us through all 3 pregnancies, you'll know that our babies are late.  Eric and I were both late, why wouldn't our babies be.  Today I am 40 weeks, 5 days or some such nonsense. Hardly dilated but I think the baby has moved down a tad.  Conditions are "favorable" for birth, she just has to move down and she is taking her own sweet time.  The Dr said I looked well rested, and not near as exhausted as I did the previous week, which can be attributed to the visit from my Aunt, who basically took over all responsibility while I just rested.  Thank you Auntie! 

Tomorrow I will be having a stress test-basically they hook us up to monitors and check the baby's heartbeat over 20-30 minutes and make sure she is comfortable and not in duress.  We have an induction scheduled for Sunday, just in case the baby doesn't come over the rest of the week.  I asked for as late of an induction as possible to give this girl a chance to make her exit naturally.  We are hopeful that she be here soon!

So there you have it, yes I am still pregnant and I am ok with that, thank you for asking.  I would like her to finish her business and come out before Sunday though, I'll even let her pick the day!   Now off to get ready for Grandma who arrives soon!  

Art project

I decided that we should do art projects everyday! Then we did this first project and we haven't done one since!  The kids loved it, but I feel like it was an utter failure!  We took all our broken crayons and wrapped up some cookie cutters, and cupcake holders in foil and proceeded to put in the broken crayons.  You can see Gwen diligently working here. 

Here are 2 molds, we put them in the oven at 200 or so and then let them melt. 

Nate was our broken crayon label peeler...tough job for a tough kid! 

Gwen and her handy work...

Here they are partially melted

But this was the problem, we couldn't keep the melting crayons contained as hard as we tried. 

We did get some successful crayon pieces and the kids loved it, and now we have way less crayons, but Eric was not pleased with the clean up...I was too pooped to do anything but peel all the foil.  We did eventually figure out that boiling water worked cleaning the crayon wax...we might never do another art project this summer.