Two Months

Gwen is getting so big!

At her two month checkup here measurements were:

Weight: 12 lbs 6 oz 75%

Height 23 in 50% (I personally think they measured her hight wrong. I'm sure she grew more than 2 inches in two months)

Head 15.25 in 25%

Gwen loves her brother and adores her daddy. She is sleeping well through the night and has recently found the joys of fist sucking. She is a very well mannered baby and is always so happy in the morning. When I go get her from her bed in the morning she always gives me the biggest grin. She is also very attentive and always wants to be in the heat of the action.

One Month

Gwen is already 1 month old, she is growing like a weed and her hair is starting to lighten up a little bit. In one month we have all grown so attached to her, none of us can remember what life was like without her here with us.

I took some pics of her with these really cool "month" stickers my friend Kristen gave to me. I love this idea! Thanks Kristen!

In one month she has grown so much, she is starting to get chubby and has quite the personality. Gwen sleeps pretty good during the night and usually only wakes up once to eat. She is already starting to smile and melt our hearts. Gwen loves it when you talk to her, loves mornings, loves baths and she also loves her brother. Nixon loves her so much as well, every morning when he wakes up he comes running in the bedroom to her cradle and says "Good Morning Sunshine." She just beams at him and gives him the biggest grin!

Gwen is such a funny baby, I swear I change a dirty diaper at least 30 times a day. We joke that every time she coughs, sneezes or even breathes she poops. She loves to lay naked, but I don't let her because she is definately not trustworthy yet!

Spiderman, Spiderman does whatever a Spider can

Halloween was fun this year. Nixon is getting old enough where he is really starting the realize the fun in the Holidays. His cousins are obsessed with Halloween so with all of their talk about the fun day that was coming up, Nixon was really looking forward to the day filled with dressing up and treats.

He chose to be Spiderman and I bought his costume pretty early, like in September because I didn't want to worry about trying to find one with the new baby. The only bad thing is I had to hide it from him so he wouldn't bother me about putting it on him every day until Halloween.

I think that Nixon made quite a cute Spiderman!

We were able to go to our Ward Trunk-or-Treat the week before Halloween. It was really fun to spend time with our fun neighbors, and get to know others a little bit better. We ate soup, breadsticks, and drank homemade Root Beer. It was pretty warm and all the kids went outside to trunk-or-treat. There are some fun people in our ward who spend hours decorating their cars with lights and scary creatures. Blake and I just stayed close to the car so we could keep little Gweny warm. He made out like a bandit with lots and lots of candy for Mommy and Daddy!

Halloween day itself was a hard day for me. I had to go back to work pretty quickly after having the baby because they didn't pay for a very long maternity leave, so Halloween was my first day back. I was excited to get off of work and take Nix trick-or-treating.

This was Nix Trick-or-Treating, he had a blast but didn't really want to wear the mask that went with his costume.

We only did a little bit of trick-or-treating, mostly just to our neighbors right in our cul-de-sac and then we made the drive to our various family members to show off Nixon's costume. I am a bad mom and not only did I forget to take any pictures of Gwen, but I didn't even buy her a costume. She did have a really cute outfit that she wore though!

I don't know why it is so small. The shirt is darling it says "I Love my Mummy" Thanks to my sweet friend Erin who found that for her!

One of the stops we made was at Aunt Patrice's to visit her, Broc, and Haley. I tried to get a picture of all 4 of the kids together, but they don't hold still long enough to do that. This one is a pretty good one of Spiderman and Aurora (aka Nixon and Jaycie) Also you can see the hobo (Brielle) up in the top lefthand corner.

Going home and First Bath

We were so excited to bring sweet Gweny home from the hospital. We have such amazing friends and family that were there to help us with anything that we needed. Nixon was able to spend the first few nights at Grandma Nancie's house, which he loved. That was so nice for Blake and I because we were able to get a little bit settled in and used to having a new baby around. We had a lot of visitors the first few days and we were so excited to show off our new baby, Nixon included.

Nixon loves his baby sister so much. He always wants to touch her and kiss the top of her head. He is such a good helper and is always willing to help her find her binkie, or bring a clean diaper to mommy or daddy.

The first night home, Tauna and Corrie came over to help me bath Gwen. I always get so nervous with the first few baths because of the umbilical cord stump, and Tauna absolutely loves bathing newborns.

Getting undressed and ready for the bath.

Nixon helping, but mostly being silly. He is a hoot!

Helping with the ice cream scoop?

Getting her hair washed, She screamed throughout the whole bath until we washed her hair. That called her right down and she loved it!

All wrapped up in the cute hooded towel Grandma Nancie made for her.

All ready for bed. After we got her jammies on her she pretty much passed out. That bath was hard work for her, she had cried so hard that she tuckered herself out!

Gwenyth Ann Tingey

Don't mind the bathroom picture, this was about a week before Gwen was born, I was ready to POP!!

I wanted to take a little bit of time and write my experiences from the day Baby Gwenyth was born. Right now I am working at Zion's Bank, and I decided that in order to spend as much time with my new baby as possible I was going to work up until the day she was born, or my due date whichever came first. My due date was Oct 3 and I had decided that if she hadn't come by then, then my Doctor was going to induce me. I was scheduled to work on Sat the 1st, but using my brain, I convinced someone to trade me for the week before just because it was so close to my due date. You never know what could happen, babies come when they want to! Luckily for the girl I was scheduled to work with, I had traded so she didn't end up spending half the day alone.

I ran a few errands on Saturday morning. I decided it would be a good idea to go grocery shopping and stock the fridge up for monday. As I was walking the isles I had a few contractions here and there but didn't really think anything of them because they were inconsistent. After grocery shopping I decided to get a car wash because my car was in desperate need of one, and Nixon loves going through them. As we were going through the car wash the contractions got steadily worse.

It was around 1:00 and I remembered that Nixon hadn't eaten lunch yet. I went to the closest McDonald's and was in the Drive Thru line waiting to order. At this time the contractions were very steady and got extremely painful. I was in line forever, seriously how many people have to go to McDonald's at 1:00pm. While waiting in line I am debating whether or not to get food for myself. I kept thinking that I should because I hadn't eaten anything all day, but I just did not feel like eating anything still. After getting Nixon's Happy Meal I decided it was time to call Blake and let him know to head home from work. After I call him, I call my Mom and Mother in Law and let them know we were heading to the hospital. I get home, and right after I get home one of Blake's Aunts show up right behind me. Patrice was a life saver for me that day and put away all my groceries so I could finish packing my bag. She also took care of Nixon for me until my mom was able to get him.

Blake and I get to the hospital at about 2:00 and get all checked in. The nurse asks me a whole bunch of questions, one of them was how far dialated I was at my last Dr. visit. Three days before that I was only dialated 1 cm. After the nurse checked me I was still only dialated to a 1, but I was definately having contractions. She told me I had two options, she could call the Dr. and he would most likely send me home because I wasn't progressing, or we could wait an hour and see if there were any changes after that. I decided to wait an hour because I was in so much pain, and I was going to refuse to go home. As I was waiting for the hour to pass, Corrie (Blake's Mom) and Tauna (his sister) were there cheering me on. Tauna was my own personal Cheerleader and would get so excited when she noticed me having a contraction on the computer monitor. She would say "come on get closer and bigger." I kept telling her that I was glad someone was enjoying my pain because it wasn't very fun for me.

When the nurse came back to check me an hour later I had dialated 4 cm. She told me that she wasn't going to send me home. This is also about the time that we were given the news that my Dr. was out of town, and so the on call Dr. would be delivering the baby. I was ok with this, but a little bit sad because he was the one that delivered Nixon.

Well things got underway and she started getting me hooked up to an IV and everything. After the 4th try she finally got my IV in and then went to get the anesthesiologist to do my epidural. At this point I was in so much pain I had to force myself not to cry, and I just about broke Blake's hand from squeezing so hard. After what seemed forever she finally got there with the stuff to get me numb. After doing it twice, I was finally starting to get a tiny amount of relief. I just laid down to try and get comfortable when the nurse decided to check my progress again, and in the process she broke my water, and she said I was fully dilated and ready to push. She called the Dr in and the rest of the nurses came rushing and within minutes little Gwenyth was here. After Gwen was born, the nurse apologized for trying to send me home, she said it wasn't very often that a birth went from 1 cm dilation to a 10 in a matter of 2 hours.

Gwen was born at 4:46 PM, weighed 7 lbs 10 oz and was 21 inches long. I was only in labor for a matter of 3 hrs. After she was born, the nurse apologized for trying to send me home. She has been such a good baby from the get go. She hardly cried, even right after she was born. She really only started screaming a few seconds after she got her first shots.

Gwen is such a sweet tempered baby. She is definately going to keep my on my toes because she was trying to hold her head up all by herself within a matter of seconds from delivery. She is also a very good sleeper, the first night in the hospital I sent her to the nursery around 11:00pm so I could get some sleep. When I woke up at 7:00am and hadn't seen her during the night I was really worried. Luckily within a few minutes the nurse brought her in to eat. The nurse said she just slept the whole night and had just woken up and wanted to eat.

We are so blessed to have our sweet Gweny in our lives.

Blogging? What the Heck is that?

Wow, I can't believe it has been more than a year since I've posted something on this thing. I feel that I have a fairly valid excuse. See we adopted this dog a year and a half ago from the Humane Society, I may or may not have written something about her at some point I just don't remember now. Well this dog, that I felt that I really wanted and needed at the time, is totally on my last nerve and chewed the cord that downloads pictures from my camera to my computer. Needless to say, I have over a year of pictures stuck on a memory card in my camera. I really should just follow my good judgement and go buy a new cord, but life is too hectic, and the only time I really think about that is usually in the middle of the night.

Well anyway, I do have a few pictures that I took on my phone that I was able to download so I thought I would post a few of the "newest" exciting news here.

Well Introducing Miss Gwenyth Ann Tingey

Born Oct 1, 2011 at 5:56 PM 7 lbs 10 oz, 21 inches long.

She was so excited to come into this world. I was only in labor for 4 hours before she made her grand debut. We love having our sweet baby girl. Even Nixon loves her to pieces.

This was the first time he got close enough to actually see her. Everyday the first thing he says when he wakes up is "where is my baby" or when he gets home from Preschool the first thing out of his mouth is "I want to look at my baby." I'm so glad that he loves her and wants to be around her. That was one of my biggest worries about having a new baby.

Well, I hope to get a new camera cord before Oct of 2012. So I can catch up on some of the past due posts that I'd like to share.

I'm actually kind of sad that I wasn't able to keep up to date as time went, not for anyone but myself. There have been so many cute, funny and memorable things that I wanted to remember. I'd post about them now, but I can't think of any at the moment.

Just for my own sake I hope to keep up on this a little bit more. It's such a good way to keep track of the things that my family are doing.

Three Years Old

Nixon turned 3 Years Old Today! We opened presents first thing in the morning, just the three of us, then invited all of the family over for burgers, cake, and ice cream.

He asked for a Batman/Superhero party and he got just that. It's a good thing he has two Grandmas who are experts in the cake making department. Grandma Nancie made this awesome Batman symbol cake, along with the help of Uncle Loren who drew the design to be piped on.

And Grandma Corrie got really creative and freehanded some webs for the Spiderman cake.

Whoever the photographer was, didn't do a very good job at taking the pictures, they are pretty far away and the only one that we have of Nixon blowing out his candles is super blurry. Oh well. So this was right after he blew out the candles. It's so funny when one of the kids have a birthday, of course all the nieces and nephews want a turn at blowing the candles out, so we have to relight them enough times for everyone to have a turn. This was Nixon's turn.

The cake tasted just as good as it looked. Nixon loved it! His very favorite though is "white" ice cream. He loves it!

Here he is opening some of the awesome gifts he got from family and friends. He is one spoiled boy!

I just love that face! He is so sweet and handsome!

Whats a Superhero Party without a cape.

It's a good thing Grandma is on the ball!

Grandma Corrie spent a lot of time making this really cool cape for Nixon. One side is blue with the Batman symbol, and the other side is red with the Superman symbol. He LOVED it, he probably wore that thing around for two months strait, even to bed.

I can't believe how big Nixon is growing. He is actually 3 1/2 now, and time just keeps flying by so quickly! I keep asking him if he will just stay this big forever because he is just so fun. He tells me "Mom, I can't. I need to be big as Daddy is."

Some of Nixon's favorites include:

Reading stories

Playing pretend, he is always some sort of superhero and I am the "girlfriend"

Running and playing outside in the dirt hills

Watching movies at the "movie peater"

Wrestling daddy

Batman and Spiderman

Singing silly songs

Chasing his dog

and playing at his cousins house.