FaMiLy PiCtUrEs

We had pictures taken yesterday and our awesome photographer was SO excited about our pictures that she stayed up til 2am editing them and got me my disc today!! There are 143 photos onmy disc and I love every single one of them. These are just a few of my faves!! Enjoy!! :)

If you're looking to get some pictures done, Emily is doing a holiday special right now. Go check out her pictures and her special pricing on her photo blog..... http://emilygleavephotography.blogspot.com/

CATCH UP

Wow, it's been a while since I've done a post. So I'm gonna just quickly sum up the last 2+ months in this one post!!

Alana started Preschool

The week before Makelle was born, Alana started preschool at Watch Me Grow Preschol in Washington. She was so excited, the time couldn't go by fast enough that first morning.

She picked out her own backpack...of course it HAD to be princesses!!

Mayelyn wanted so badly to go with Alana to preschool and cried hat first day we dropped her off, but no she likes the time we get to spend together while Alana is at school!!This is the mouse mask she made on the first day. She was so excited when I picked her up that first day. She told me every little thing they did. I loved it!! Brian ran the marathon

On Oct. 1st, Brian ran the marathon. He finished with a time of 4:38.....20 minutes faster than our time last year. He said it wasn't as hot this year and he didn't have the muscle pain in his upper thighs like last year, but he also said he was wishing I was running with him cuz it just wasn't as fun without me. We both ended up crying when he said that.....that's how amazing it was to run together last year.

^This is him just before the finish line, he had been blowing kisses to his girls who were holding up their signs and cheering him on!! And a family picture with the finisher! Baby Blessing

The week after the marathon, we blessed Makelle in our ward. The whole day was PERFECT!! The morning just went so smoothly and we were to church early for the first time since Makelle was born! Ha!! :)

Family of 5!! She seemed to know it was HER day and was so happy.
Staheli Farm

We went down to Staheli farm on a Saturday afternoon and got lost in the corn maze. Alana was so excited at first but when I said that I really was lost, shegot scared and started to cry. Poor girl. So we went back and saw the animals and pushed the girls on the big swings and that made them happy. They had so much fun that they didn't want to leave!!

Pumpkin painting

One night for family home evening, we let the girls paint on some pumpkins. They loved it. We carved a big pumpkin afterward, but I didn't get a picture of it.

Halloween
We had a lot of fun this Halloween. Alana andMayelyn couldn't wait to get all dressed up. We had our ward trunk or treat on the Friday before, then we went to a carnival at the Washington city community center on Saturday night, then went to my parents trunk or treat on Monday. They had way too much candy from so many days of dressing up. Alana got to wear her costume to school on Monday too!!
We had The Princess and the Frog, a witch, and a ballerina. I didn't dress up cuz I was too busy getting everyone else ready!! :)
Cutest ballerina ever!! Growing baby
Makelle is already 2 1/2 months old and she is a BIG girl!! I took her to the doctor on Wednesday and she is 13lbs 8 oz and 24inches long. She's gained almost 6 lbs and grown 3 inches since birth!! She's already wearing 6 month clothes!! I bought the girls these matching jammies thinking they wouldn't be able to wear them all together til maybe Christmas time but I had no idea Makelle would grow like she did!!

Alana LOVES to match with her sisters lately. Alana and Mayelyn both thought it was way fun to match with Makelle!!

Something new

With so many girls to get ready, there's always a lot of hair to do at our house, so I was wanting to chop my hair off but Brian talked me out of it. I still wanted a change, so I decided to go dark. I had some red tinted brown put in plus some fun maroon/purple throughou the middle of my hair!! It's a fun change and I love it!!

I started back running when Makelle was 5 weeks old, I really had to make myself wait even that long!! Lately I only make it to the gym once a week to run cuz I'm always so worn out from the long days of keeping up with everything and not getting much sleep. Makelle usually only wakes up 1-2 times a night to eat and goes right back to sleep but she moves around a lot making it hard for me to sleep. I still have a ways to go to get back to the running pace I was at before, but I've been running on a treadmill most days, so I'm hoping to get faster and more steady with my pace this timer around.

To sum up the last couple of months: CrAzY!!

Getting used to 3 kids and having a baby again keeps me on my toes. We are continually feeling VERY blessed and we are so thankful for these 3 beautiful girls that our Heavenly Father has sent to us. We wouldn't trade them for the world!! :)

Guess who's here!!

Makelle Suzanne Blair was born August 30, 2011 at 11:07pm. She weighed 7lbs 9oz and was 21 inches long.She's the first of our girls to come out with red hair! (Alana and Mayelyn both had brown hair with just tints of red in it when born)




This was her the next morning. Bright eyed and so alert!

We stayed in the hospital about 27 hours total.
She is such a good baby and her sisters love her to pieces!!

The birth story:

So Tuesday morning I had a doctor appointment at 8am. I got a call on my phone around 7:40 saying that my doctor (Winward) had an emergency and wouldn't be in that day but that I could still go in and be seen by another doctor. I wanted to know whether I'd progressed any and if she was gonna come before my scheduled induction on Thursday, so I went in and saw Dr. Rogers. My sister in law goes to him and I had a feeling that if he were to strip my membranes, I'd probably have her that day. So I got there a little before 8 and got right in. He checked me and I was a 3+ and 50% and he said he was going to check to make sure she was in the right position, but I'm pretty sure he was stripping my membranes pretty good cuz it hurt! I went home and told Brian what the deal was but hadn't felt any contractions yet so I started to wonder whether he'd really stripped my membranes or not. Then around 9:45 when Brian was leaving for work, I had a good strong contraction. I decided after he left to sit down and see if the more were gonna come. I had one every 15 mins then they started getting closer but were kinda all over the place. At 11:00, I decided to get the girls showered and ready...just in case. Then while I was making their lunch I called Brian to talk to him about what to do since by then I'd been having good strong contractions for about 2 hours. I kinda felt like it was surreal and that they were gonna stop as soon as I actually started to believe I was in labor. We decided that Brian would be ok to finish the job he was on and I finished getting the girls ready to go stay at my mom's house that night after lunch. Brian got home at 2:00 and we took the girls to my mom's. Then we came back home and Brian showered. I didn't feel ready to go to the hospital yet. My labors are usually pretty slow going, so I didn't want to get there too early and be sent home. So, I gave Brian a haircut while we waited for more time to pass. Finally, just after 4:00 I decided we could go in. We got there and I got hooked up and they asked the billion questions that they do. I decided as part of my birthing plan this time that I didn't want any pitocin and wanted minimal i.v. fluids and so they put that down for me. Then at 5:00 they checked me and I was only at a 4+ and 80%. (Remember, at 8:30 that morning I was at a 3+ and had been having contractions since 10:00.....yeah, slow going!!) They admitted me after that and got the i.v. of antibiotics going right away. They got the first bag in really quick and then locked down the i.v. and disconnected me from the lines. It was SO nice to be able to get up and walk around without having to take the little cart thing with me. At 6:15, I called my mom and asked if she could bring the girls over to help the time pass a little quicker and cuz I was missing them already. They got there an hour later and it was fun to see them, but I didn't get to see them much. My nurse came in and said that my doctor had called and asked if she could come break my water. I guess they have this new thing where they can break the water one hour after the first bad of antibiotics has been put in. I said that was fine so she left to go tell my doctor and then what seemed like only seconds later, there were 4 nurses that came rushing in, layed my bed down flat and asked me to get on my left side. One was fussing with the heart rate monitor strapped to my belly and the others were watching the monitor and grabbing the oxygen to put on me. Makelle had had a big dip in her heart rate so it sent off some alarms. My nurse checked me and I was at a 7 and as she put it, really stretchy. My doctor showed up a few minutes later and decided there was no way she was going to break my water then. My nurse said that sometimes when the mother goes through a lot of progression really quick that it can cause some distress on the baby, so that's why Makelle had the dip. It was pretty scary. I was left on my side with oxygen on for over a half hour to make sure she'd be ok. My girls had to witness the whole thing and even had to say bye to me with my oxygen mask on. Alana seemed pretty scared by the whole thing, she wasn't sure she wanted to get close to me to give me a hug to leave but she did. After that, the time seemed to fly by. Our friend showed up that was photographed the birth and we had fun talking. At 9:30, they started the other bag of antibiotics and got that in pretty quick. Then just after they unhooked me from the i.v. I got nauseous and had to have Brian grab me a barf bag. I hadn't eaten since lunch, so I just threw up the water I'd had. My nurse came in and noticed me puking and said a lot of women have that problem when they hit about 9 cm. So I knew I was close. I got up one last time to go to the bathroom and then started feeling like the contractions were getting pretty intense. My doctor got there about 10:40 and I told her that I was feeling some pressure and that it might be a good idea to be ready for the baby to come out just after she broke my water. So she got everything set up and broke my water. Barely any fluid came out since Makelle's head was so low. On the next contraction she checked me and I was at a 9+ but there was still a little cervix in the way, so she had me try a little push on the next contraction to see if it would move out of the way. She also said that Makelle was facing sideways and was turning face up instead of face down during the contraction. So on the next contraction, even though I wanted to push so bad, I decided to just breath through it and let my body finish getting ready for Makelle to come out. Then on the next contraction, I pushed her out. With her coming out kinda sideways, I was glad she came out as quick as she did cuz she was putting quite a bit of pressure on my tail bone.

I still can't believe how quick it all seemed. Even though I was basically in labor for 13 hours, it all felt really fast. To give you a better idea of how quick it was, my doctor got there at 10:40, had to set up the room, and Makelle was born at 11:07!! After they checked Makelle out, they gave her back to me and when I put her in my gown to do skin to skin, she automatically tryed to start nursing. She didn't want to just cuddle with me. I've never had one of my girls want to nurse so quick! She's one smart girl already!! We got moved up to the recovery floor at 12:45 and even though I was pretty tired, I couldn't stop starring at my new baby girl.

We got home at 7:30 Wednesday night and it felt so good to be home!!

Makelle is such a good baby. She is, of course, a good eater and she goes 3 hours in between feedings at night. Her only bad night was our first night home. She seemed like she just wanted to nurse every hour that night, but the next day she got on a 2 hour schedule and has slept better since then.

Alana asks to hold her quite a bit and actually loves to just sit and hold her for a good 10-15 minutes sometimes. Mayelyn asks to hold her too, but not as much as Alana. Mayelyn thinks it's so funny when Makelle's arm move around and touch her when she's holding her.

I wasn't sure I was ready for a newborn again and everything that comes with it, but now that she's here, I don't want her to get big. I just want her to stay tiny like she is!! :)

I'll be posting more pictures of the birth and of Makelle as soon as I go through the 300+ pictures and decide which ones I love the most, they're all sooo good!!