Baby Blessing

So here are the pictures of Megan's blessing. She looked beautiful and the blessing Dan gave was lovely. We were so fortunate to have both sets of grandparents there for this special occasion plus Lori and Wayne and family. Enjoy the photos.

Birthing Details

I guess I forgot to write about the delivery day. It's on my sister's blog and didn't realize that it wasn't on mine. So I'm putting it on today. This is as of October 15th.
So I went to the Dr. earlier today. I was at a 3 and having regular contractions. I guess they thought the regular contractions weren't close enough so they sent me home! Craziness. So my sister took me to her house and we were timing the contractions. Earlier, the Dr. suggested that I take a bath to see if the contractions would continue or not. I took her up on it after I had lunch and they got closer after that. By the time Dan and I left for the hospital, they were 2-3 minutes apart! It was not intentional for us to leave when they were so close together, but the bath sped things up quickly and there is construction where my sister lives, which delayed Dan about 15 minutes.

Megan was breech so I ended up having a c-section.

My sister like the great things I said after I had my epidural, so here are my quotes:

• "God bless America and modern medicine!"

I was in quite a bit of pain before my epidural. Afterwards, I told the anesthesiologist:

• "Whatever you make, they should double your salary!" (And I wasn't kidding!)

Dress up

So a couple of weekends ago my sister and her daughter came over to see my Mom and sister and Megan and Jocelyn. My niece took Jocelyn upstairs and got her in dress up clothes. They are so adorable that I had to post. What a ham my daughter is!

More Pictures

So here are some more pictures of Megan and Jocelyn from Halloween. She's starting to look around more and she always smiles at Jocelyn. I love that. Not much writing, just pictures. Enjoy.








Now I'll add some Megan pictures from the hospital. What a cutie!

She's Here!!

Sorry for all of you who have been waiting for pictures. This is the first day that I've been on my computer and feel up to doing much of anything. I'm not going to write a bunch because it's late and I'm tired. I'm also stealing pictures from my sister's website so I don't have to upload them from my camera. Megan is absolutely beautiful. At her one week check-up she gained 6 ozs. She was discharged at 7 lbs. even, and now weighs a healthy 7 lbs 6 ozs. She eats quite well! Enjoy and I'll send more later.

Apple Picking

So in the beginning of October we went apple picking. It's a tradition that we do every year. I enjoy getting the apples and taking pictures of Jocelyn. And of course it doesn't hurt that the cider and apple donuts are amazing fresh! So this year we went to Indian Ladder Farms, which is where we went last year. I had to wait 10 minutes to get more donuts because people buy them so fast. I do have to say that they were amazing. I was in heaven and ate 2 right away. (It was near lunch time and I was hungry). So I have a couple of pictures with Jocelyn and me, Dan and Jocelyn, and I think one with her picking an apple off of the tree. We had a really nice time. It was supposed to rain, but it only sprinkled for maybe 5 minutes and then it was beautiful. Enjoy the pictures!!




So the next day Jocelyn and I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (thanks Cay) and I wanted to share the experience with you. As you probably know it takes longer to do things with a little one but it's great for them to learn and have fun together. But this is what I had to clean up afterward.

37 Weeks and Counting

OK, These are short snippets of our life. Sorry but I'm due in a week and wanted to get them up here. Here are a couple of pictures of me that I took when I was 37 weeks pregnant. Nice and Big!
I'm so ready for our little girl to come along. The doctor said at my 39 week appointment that she's measuring small, but so did Jocelyn. Thankfully I have little babies. I just hope that I can have a VBAC this time and it goes well. If not, C-section again. My main concern is that we all come out of this well. Though I would like to see her sooner than the 3 hours it took for me to wake up and see Jocelyn. The Doctors did blood work on me a couple of weeks ago and my platelates are in the normal range, so hopefully no HELLP syndrome this time. I could actually have an epidural. Hurray for modern medicine! I have one more blog to do after this and the next blog I do will probably be of our newest addition to our family!!

Our Newest Addition

Hello all,
I've been a slacker, sorry. I wanted to share with you all our newest addition that we are so happy about. It's our new fence!! We got this installed in September so that our yard is safer for Jocelyn to play in. We have a corner lot and sometimes people like to go around the corner pretty fast. So, here is our fence.

New Creation

So I've been wanting to reupholster my kitchen chairs for months now. I have had the fabric, even had it cut to the right size, but just needed a little bit of help to keep the material taut. Yesterday I went up to my sister's house and we did them all. I put them back on the chairs and they look fantastic. I just need to put stain guard on them. I was a dope and forgot to take before pictures, but those of you who have seen them will see a big difference. For those of you who have not, they were a very light grey that looked horrible to me. So, without further ado, here are my new chairs!!

Bragging Rights

So I've been meaning to brag about Jocelyn. A few weeks ago it was pretty warm and Jocelyn was playing in the sprinkler. Our neighbor invited us to swim in his pool, so we got changed and went over. At first Jocelyn sat in her blow up swim aid thing. Then she wanted me to hold her. Our neighbor asked if she wanted arm floaties. I said we'll try. Well, after a couple of minutes my little brave girl didn't want me to hold her. She was swimming on her own- kicking and using her arms and keeping her head above water. I was so amazed. She actually did this for about 10 minutes or so. She is such an independent little girl. I only wish I had my camera there to take pictures. Hopefully next time.

Here's another one

I made another nursing cover for my sister-in-law. Meg, I hope you like it! I think this is a great fabric and it's organic. It's nice because I can make it in about 2 hours. Not bad at all.

Happy Sewing!

So, I'll finish our Utah/Yellowstone trip in my next blog, but I was so excited with my sewing project that I wanted to show everyone. I made a nursing cover for myself that I think is great. This way the little one can't pull it off of me and I can see her while nursing. I love the print! I've decided to make one for my sister and my sister-in-law. They are so easy to make- I mean seriously, it's a rectangle. Not hard. I've decided to make one, and if I use it a lot, I'll make a couple of more. The cool thing is that on the inside are 2 pockets for putting things in and wiping the baby's mouth- it's terrycloth, perfect material. Anyway, I hope you like the pictures!

Friends

While in Utah, we were able to see one of Dan's closest friends, Kent, and his family. We see them every time we are out there. We always seem to have a great time together, and our kids played well together. The first picture is of Jocelyn playing in their pool. The second is of all the kids looking in a crate at a cute little bunny. You can't see it, but they were very excited to see it. And the third is of Dan, Jocelyn, and Kent before we had to leave. Kent even did some tricks on the trampoline which Jocelyn remembers because while in a hotel, she was doing the same moves on the bed. It didn't bother me because it wasn't our bed. At home this would definitely be vetoed, but on a hotel bed, who cares.

So we had a great time in Utah. The main reason we went was to celebrate Grandma Blood's 90th birthday. Her short-term memory has seen better days, but she remembers almost everyone. And became teary-eyed when it was time to leave. It was great to see some family from Texas that we never met. Dad Blood never once visited his older brother David. But it's understandable when both families have at least 8 children and, one lives in West Virginia and the other Texas. I remember when I was younger and the thought of meeting cousins that were most likely Dallas Cowboy fans was a difficult one. We were also able to catch up with Dennis and Claudia from Boulder, CO. It's great to see family that I haven't seen in more than 5 years (at least). Above are some pictures of the birthday party. Even without a piñata, we had a great time.

Still Here

Yes, we're still here. I've been a slacker. I was thinking that not much has been happening, so I didn't know what to write. But last week we went out to Utah for Dan's Grandma's 90th Birthday party. It was so great to see family I've never met before. Jocelyn had a great time with her Aunts and Uncles- she played with them for hours. We went to the cabin- she saw Dan fish, and we went to Yellowstone. What a great vacation. However, there was the lack of sleeping issue, but we're home and back to our schedule!! I will post pictures hopefully this week and fill everyone in on our vacation. It's late now and I want to go to sleep. But we are alive and kicking (And I don't mean the baby).

So a couple of weeks ago I came home to this! Hail everywhere. I was visiting my sister and heard about the hail. When I got home I wondered what the white stuff was and took a closer look and realized that it was hail. It was so bad that it put a hole in our mailbox. Some of it was the size of a golf ball. I was so surprised. Enjoy the pics!

I Wanted to post a couple of weeks ago but delayed. Sorry. Here is a picture of Jocelyn's birthday cake. Thankfully the picture looks better than the real deal. It started great, but I finished it in the evening and the humidity messed with the frosting. But it tasted great!


















And there are also some birthday pictures as well. She loves balloons, so I bought her a few. She was so happy! It's amazing how fast they grow. I love it. We had a joint birthday bash with a cousin, so that was a lot of fun as well.

My Weekend

So this past weekend we went out to Rochester. We had a great time visiting family. Our main purpose in going was because we were going to see Wicked, the musical. It was so fantastic. I don't even think I can describe it. And the plot was so great. I've had the cd, but some of the songs aren't on there because it would ruin the plot if you never saw it. I heard it's coming to our town next year some time, so I would love to see it again. For all of you wondering if you should see it, yes. Even if your spouse won't go with you, take a friend. It's amazing.

It's a .....

Baby!! We are thrilled. Oh, right you knew that. Ok, we'll tell you the gender. We are very excited to tell you we are having a little baby girl!! I think Jocelyn will be thrilled to have a new playmate. I know that I was and still am close with my sisters. So now comes the hard part; Naming this child. That's so tricky for me. Does anyone have any suggestions? And remember our last name. It can't be funny with that.

Thanks for the input.

My birthday

So, this picture describes everything about a birthday. Eating the icing on the cake. Jocelyn was staring at the icing and so I grabbed her finger and let her swipe it. Yummy!! I was fortunate enough to have a great friend and some family come on my birthday and make the best Ham and potato soup. Wow!!! Then Mom and Dad came later that night. We put Dad to work on Saturday installing a light, and putting in outlets in our basement. Yea!! We have more to do, but I think that Dan now knows what to do. I think it's much easier learning by doing than by reading a book.

We had a great Memorial Day as well. We started out with a breakfast supporting our scout troop. Good food. Then we had a large picnic for our entire church in this area. It was good to see some friends. Jocelyn played on the playground for about 3 hours!! She had a blast. She loves the slides the best, I think. Well, tomorrow is the big day, the day we hopefully find out what we're having. Yes, we know it's a baby (for all you smart alecky type out there) but we have our ultrasound. So, we will be posting from Mom's and Dad's house and let you know!! We are so excited! And we get to see Wicked on Saturday!!!!! My birthday present.

Stay tuned until tomorrow.

Week of Fun

So the week of the 4th, Jocelyn and I went out to visit Mom and Dad. We had a blast and on Wednesday we were able to visit some friends who owned a horse. Jocelyn sat on it and got right off. But later when others were riding a bit, she became more brave and so she went for a ride as well. She had a blast!


















And then on Saturday we had our Tulip Festival in Albany. We walked around a bit and saw a ton of tulips. I took a bunch of pictures of Jocelyn smelling flowers and being with Daddy. He was away on a business trip all week, so she missed seeing her Daddy.

I finally decided to get on board the blog train. It's such a great way to keep in touch with friends and family. So this is my initial post.