fun filled morning

Saturday morning we decided to get out of the house! Whoo hoo! Annie was ten days old and ready to take on the world. :) Actually we went to a nearby tennis court to give Audrie her first tennis lesson.

She did really good... well I mean for a two year old! She actually hit the ball when Jamie hits it to her, so I was impressed (better than I can do).

Jamie likes to watch the tennis channel and especially with the French Open on right now, so Audrie gets to see her fair share of tennis on tv.

I think we have a little Wimbolden star in the making...

Jamie is a good coach! And after their little lesson, Jamie and I actually played for awhile and Audrie was a really good ball girl- chasing all my stray shots down.

Here is what Annie thought of all the tennis playing...

Then we headed over to a little splash park in Rogers to let Audrie run around in the water. (The splash park is open every day of the week from 10am to 8pm... but just fyi you have to push the silver buttons about every 10 minutes on the sprinklers to keep the water going... when we first got there it looked like it was closed... but we realized you have to turn it on yourself if no one is already there playing.)

I can't find Audrie's bathing suit! The last time I saw it was a few months ago when we went to Florida, but it's since disappeared. So I just let her run around in her clothes (and brought her extra to change into afterwards). 

She really wanted to take all her clothes off (because that's what we let her do in the back yard at home), but we managed to convince her to keep her clothes on in public.

She really liked playing there so we'll definitely be going back lots this summer.

And here is what Annie thought of the splash park...

We made it home in time for lunch and to make some homemade popsicles. I saw on my friend, Becca's, blog about making these with Juicy Juice (100% real juice and no preservatives or dye) and we dropped a couple cherries into each mold. Pretty tasty!

I'd show you what Annie thought of the popsicles, but I think you get the idea! :) 

The girl likes her beauty sleep!

one day at a time

Ok fine. I'll wave my white flag and let you shake your finger at me and say I TOLD YOU SO. Having two kiddos IS hard. And Annie is THE easiest baby on the planet and still Jamie and I looked at each other last night and said "are we gonna make it?!". He went back to work today and the smile on his face couldn't be bigger as he went to his office of buddies to watch the French Open on his one of ten tvs and pretend to work all day. He even said "I wonder if my boss will let me work this weekend, too??". I could have punched him in the face. The problem is not our sweet baby Annie (who, honestly, is "practically perfect in every way"), it's that we are not used to being home all day with the fiery tornado of energy otherwise known as Audrie. Of course we LOVE and adore Audrie and her awesome personality, but we've loved it from 4pm to 8pm every evening! So it's been quite an adjustment for everyone. I just keep singing... "One day at time, sweet Jesus". Plus my wise mother told me it WILL get easier and she's never wrong...

So anways, here is what we've been up to lately:

We've had lots of company coming to visit the new baby! I really tried to remember to take a photo of everyone who came to hold Annie, but I sadly failed and left tons of people out. We also had a cute photo mat for people to sign a message for Annie and, again, I forgot several people. Sorry!

(click the photo to enlarge)

Audrie has still been super cute with Annie- helping me change diapers, running and getting stuff for me, singing to and rocking Annie... it's been adorable watching her with her "sissy". We do have to remind her a lot to be gentle but over all Audrie is doing amazing with the baby!

We've been trying to give Annie one bottle of breastmilk every day so she it won't be too much of adjustment when I have to miss a feeding. And she has done GREAT with the bottle. (But, like I said, Annie has been easy with everything so far... she really is the most laid back baby ever.)

I have been really looking forward to having a baby in my sling again and it is just as fun as I had remembered! Annie loves it, too. My little kangaroo baby!

Our neighbors, Terri and Stuart, brought over a present for Audrie (a Mrs. Potato head) which Audrie LOVES playing with. And the other day she decided to put the toy earrings on...!

(I told her to make a silly face and this what she gave me...)

And, oh my goodness, THE best present in the whole wide world... our neighbors Becca and Sam moved two weeks ago and they left this huge pink playhouse in their back yard. So I waited a week and then I called and asked what they were planning to do with it and they said we could HAVE it. Jamie spent some time scrubbing it clean and from the moment he got it set up- Audrie has LIVED in this thing. She wakes up and the first word on her lips is... house?! It's awesome.

We were at my parents house the other day and they taught Audrie how to open and eat peanuts so here she is enjoying a snack in her house.

And she also "cooks" ALL day long in her house. She brings us little samples of her culinary work and tells us a great story of the ingredients... usually chicken, french fries and pie. Yum!

I know she looks a little sunburnt in these photos but it's really just the reflection of the pink playhouse on her skin. Although Audrie does have a much better tan than anyone else in the family because she loves being outside.

And last but not least, the ice cream truck has finally returned to our neighborhood. It's been about 2 years since we've seen him (tough economic times, I guess??) but last night we were all out in the front yard playing and Jamie's ears perked up like a little hound dog. He heard in the faint distance the tunes of the ice cream truck. The horrible torture is that you can hear it for about 30 minutes before it finally turns down our street!

But we got some ice cream and the nice man promised to return every Tuesday and Saturday evening. So you KNOW where we will be!

At 7:30am this morning Audrie informed me that she was going outside to wait for the ice cream truck... gonna be a long wait, girl!

Ok, there you have it. Our riveting week in review. Thank you to everyone who has visited and brought us yummy dinners. And for those of you who think you'll get to come over and cuddle a sweet baby... beware that we make you run a few laps with the toddler first! ;)

one week old

Kim came over the other day and did a little photo shoot with Annie. The pictures turned out so precious and I was even more impressed with Kim because Annie was actually not in the mood to have her photo taken but somehow Kim still managed to snap these wonderful photos! If you want to see all 50 of them you can go to Kim's website (http://www.kimlowery.com/) and click on LIFE, then PROOFING at the bottom. The password is anniebeth2010. Thank you, Kim!! Annie is lucky to have such a talented aunt!

oh how i love jesus

sisters

Well from the moment we came home with Annie, Audrie has been smitten. I'm not quite sure how long this love infatuation will last, so I'm trying to enjoy each moment. But Audrie adores Annie. Wants to hold her all the time, lays down with her in the floor, helps change her diapers, sing songs to her, anything Annie is doing Audrie wants to be next to the "baby Annie". It's very cute!

She even read her some good night stories the other night.

Oh and it just melts my photographer heart when Audrie "takes pictures" of Annie on her toy camera!

"Say cheese, Annie!'

 

And sometimes in the morning we let Audrie lay in bed with us and watch a cartoon. And so now she has to be holding the baby while she watches her cartoons.

And Annie is such a good sport about it all. She is a very chilled out baby! Just let's Audrie hug her and squeeze her all day.

I love Annie's little smile in this next photo... so happy in her sister's arms.

We are all doing great since we've been home. Annie really just has three stages of her day: eat, sleep, poop (rinse and repeat!). Here she is looking so tiny in her crib...

We are all so in love with her!

Here are our two daughters having their first heart-to-heart... (or it actually looks like Annie is telling Audrie here all the trouble they are going to get into very soon!)

We are just taking it one day at a time and trying to enjoy these precious moments!

annie's birth

Ok, here we go. The story of Annie Beth's arrival into this world!

I had been having contractions on and off for several days and getting very anxious for this baby girl to hurry and get here. So Jamie decided to make himself my personal "inducing trainer" and about 9pm we set out walking the hills in our neighborhood (we carried the baby monitor with us to check on Audrie). Jamie made me walk so fast and for so long (about 45 minutes of serious sweaty walking) that my huge stomach was hard as a rock when we went to bed.

Later that night I was laying in bed reading (around midnight) and I started feeling a little crampy and uncomfortable so I got up to do some things around the house. About an hour later (1am) I started to have some serious contractions and was pretty sure I was in labor. But knowing how Audrie's birth took about 6 hours- I thought I'd at least let Jamie sleep for a little longer before I woke him up. About another hour (2am) I decided that these contractions were a little more serious and I woke Jamie up. I told him that I was in labor and little scared because my contractions were getting pretty bad. He asked if he had time to take a shower and I said sure. I started gathering stuff up to put into the car and from that point on the contractions started rocking my world. I had to stop everything I was doing each time a contraction hit, brace myself and say every bad word I could think of.

Somehow I managed to call a few people- my mom, our friend Emily (who we had arranged to keep Audrie), Kim (who was taking photos for us) and Jamie's mom. We got Audrie out of bed and into the car. I was determined not to scream in the car because I didn't want to scare Audrie, but it was tough. I was in a lot of pain. We drove the 5 minute drive to Emily's house to drop off Audrie. (Audrie didn't make one peep the entire time- it was like she knew something was going on.) We gave her hugs and headed back on the road to the hospital.

Since Audrie wasn't in the car anymore I let loose with making sure Jamie knew exactly how I was feeling. He claims I was screaming at him about going the wrong way and I was not being very nice- but I can't imagine what he is talking about. I think his main concern was that I not give birth in his lovely car. Jamie was speeding like crazy and running every stoplight. Luckily there was no traffic and it was only about a 10 minute drive. We parked and managed to stumble into the emergency room.

At the front desk the man was being extremely slow asking me a bunch of dumb questions and I was crying and clinging to Jamie. The crazy thing is- I knew I was in an immense amount of pain, the contractions were hitting me one right after an another, but I honestly had no way of knowing exactly how far along I was. (With Audrie I had an epidural and laid in the hospital bed for a few hours feeling no pain before they told me it was time to push.) I was having Jamie rub my back while we stood there (again he says I was yelling at him about not rubbing hard enough and rubbing too hard, etc).

Then my water broke. And almost instantly I felt the need to PUSH! The nurses came and put me into a wheelchair. They started asking me a few questions and I tried to calmly explain that I had a strong desire to rip off all my clothes and push this baby out... they began to run me down the hall. It was like something out of movie scene. I was screaming, they were running and pushing me in the wheelchair and yelling orders at people down the hall. Jamie was running beside us and trying to calm me down. I was very scared.

Somehow they got me into a hospital gown and into a bed. Someone put an iv in my arm. I remember them trying to put a fetal monitor across my belly. And another nurse put a cool cloth on my head. Jamie grabbed my hands. Kim showed up with her cameras. There were nurses scrambling everywhere.

It felt like a million degrees in that room and Jamie was fanning my face and saying some very sweet things that I can't remember. I was trying to breathe between contractions.

I heard them trying to reach my doctor on the phone and her saying that she wanted me to wait until she got there before I started pushing. Um, NO. Thankfully the nurses said I could go ahead and push (but honestly I don't know how they planned to stop me).

I remember telling the nurses that I only wanted to push one time and they needed to get this baby out of me! I think they may have chuckled at me. (Jamie says I was yelling at a lot of nurses, but then apologizing for it!) So when the next contraction hit me I pushed through a level of pain that I really don't think there are adjectives to describe. One push got Annie's head out. A second push and she was HERE (if you look close at this photo you can see Annie's tiny little feet and hands as they hand her to me). We had been at the hospital a total of about twenty minutes!

Annie was perfect. And somehow I forgot all about being scared and the pain. And we just instantly fell in love with our newest baby girl.  

I love this next photo with her hand announcing to the world "I'm here!".

Jamie managed to dig my fingers out of his arms and went to welcome his baby girl.

Tiny little feet!

Weighing in at exactly 7 pounds and 20 inches long.

I was so excited to hold her and tell her how much I loved her.

She calmed down when she heard Jamie's voice, too.

I was so amazed with how GOOD I felt. I had just been crying and yelling through the worst pain of my life but the instant she came out, I felt like a brand new woman.

Jamie definitely earned a few more crowns in heaven for how amazing he was to me the entire time.

Annie was pretty ooey and crusty but we still loved on her and thought she was the most beautiful thing we had ever seen.

It was kind of hilarious how after the delivery one of the nurses asked me "ok, what is your name?!" and we had to fill out all the pre paper work stuff just as a formality. But obviously we didn't have time before!

So then everything was calm and really peaceful. I fed Annie (and she ate like it was the best meal she ever had). Jamie and I looked at each other and said "what just happened??".

Our room had large windows and we saw the sunrise. We started calling friends and family.

My mom arrived first. She held her newest grandbaby (I think number 21 for her?) and told me how proud she was of me.

It was so wonderful because I got to keep Annie with me for several hours after delivery. And even though she was still a little crusty I just had to put a hairbow on her!

We had some good bonding time with her before visitors started arriving.

We were so excited for Audrie to get there to meet her little sister.

And Audrie was SO super sweet about meeting her. All smiles and cooing over her "sissy'.

She wanted to give her kisses and hugs.

I really wasn't sure how Audrie would react but I was so impressed with how she seemed to truly love Annie right from the first moment.

Our family of FOUR!

Jamie's mom got to spend some time holding her second grandbaby, too. (I'm pretty sure she's telling Annie here about all the cookies she's going to feed her soon.)

And Kim. I'm crying here as I type here about how extremely blessed we are to have her in our life and to be there to document with these photos of our precious day. What an amazing gift she has.

We had a photo on our phone of a picture Kim had taken of Audrie when she was born. We think Annie looks completely different from Audrie but it will be fun to see over time how that changes.

We had a steady stream of visitors through the day but it was never overwhelming and we loved showing off our little girl.

The last visitor left about 9pm. Jamie shut off the lights and crawled into the hospital bed with Annie and me. And we actually all slept really well. What a day! I'm sure I've left out tons of details that I will want to add later. But that's the story of how Annie decided to make her entrance into this world!