We're Home!

Hi Everyone!

Well we brought little Lily Grace home from the hospital this afternoon! We are all settling in pretty well so far. Just to give everyone a recap. We checked into the hospital Wednesday morning at 8am and I was supposed to be induced then. We had to wait around for a room because there were so many ladies having babies that day! It was about 10:10 when they got my IV started and things progressed well. I got my epidural pretty early on (my theory is why should I feel any pain if I don't have to!) and things were smooth sailing. Then all of sudden I felt a lot of pressure. The nurse told me to go ahead and try pushing to see how things were going. She pretty much immediately told me to stop and went and called the doctor. Dr. Sofia left a patient in the exam room to come deliver Lily! I pushed all of about five minutes or two contractions and she was here at 3:41pm! So it was about 5 1/2 hours from beginning to end. Ella was still quicker at 4 hours 50 minutes but she was also a week late.

We spent a little extra time in the hospital this time because Lily was go big at 9lbs, 1oz. They wanted to make sure she was getting enough to eat etc. She's doing great! All of her checkups and tests went well. She looks sooo much like Ella did when she was born (I'll have to post a comparison picture soon!).

Ella is a great big sister so far. She has tried to give Lily toys when she was crying and to give her the pacifier. She doesn't seem too jealous yet. Just seems to have accepted that this is the way things are right now. We'll see if they continue to go well.

Oh, and Lily has webbed toes on both her feet just like me and Andrew! (Ella didn't get the webbed toe trait) Lily also liked sucking her thumb when she was first born. She was having trouble finding it later though and we've had her "burrito" wrapped in a blanket most of the time. And she hasn't latched onto the pacifier quite the same way as Ella. So it remains to be seen if she finds that thumb again.

Thank you to everyone for all their well wishes and congratulations! And check the latest pictures link on the right for more pictures of all of us!

Like Father, Like Daughter

The Return of the Ginormous Belly!

39 weeks pregnant with Ella on the left, and pregnant with Baby #2 on the right.

Who knew my belly could get larger than it was with Ella?!

The Ella Report

Since a lot has been focused on her little sister lately (and she's not even here yet), I thought I would give a little update about our sweet little Ella. She had her two-year checkup at the beginning of August. She was in the 50% for weight and 90% for height. So maybe we have a little basketball (or volleyball) player on our hands. She also has excellent hand-eye coordination and fantastic motor skills (I'm not a proud parent or anything).

Her verbal skills are really starting to come along as well. Although we might like her to say useful things like: juice, food, etc. She has chosen what she says carefully and it works for her. Her current favorite words and phrase are: "Ah man" if something doesn't go her way; "Heeey" for when we change the television channel from cartoons to football; "uh oh" for everything if she drops it or breaks it; and "boop" for going #2 in her diaper.

She also says "baby" now and seems to fully understand that there is a baby in Mommy's tummy. She comes over and lovingly pats (okay, she smacks) my belly. She also gives the baby stickers by putting them on my shirt near my belly and brings small toys over and sets them on my belly. So it's nice that she is sharing with the baby already. ;-)

Her latest shenanigans involve jumping from various pieces of furniture to the floor and doing a tuck 'n roll type landing. She also likes to try to do somersaults but mostly just ends up looking through her legs as her head sits on the ground. She doesn't fully grasp the rolling over part of it yet.

We are thinking of sending her to NAA (Nemo Addicts Anonymous) because she is completely obsessed with anything and everything that has Nemo, a Nemo character, or even a fish resembling a Nemo character. Although, she does like to have a daily dose of watching A Bug's Life. Nothing seems to get her reved up like Nemo.

New pics

I've uploaded pictures from our baby shower onto the photo site if you want to take a look!

False Alarm

Well, we almost thought we were heading to the hospital at 3am Saturday morning. I started having a few contractions on Friday night around 10:30pm. They started increasing and getting stronger by 2am. They were 2 minutes apart for 45 minutes. We called the doctor and while we were waiting for him to call back, we quickly ran around the house packing a bag for me and a bag for Ella (we are dropping her off at a friend's when the big moment arrives). The doctor said it sounded like I was in early labor and if we were concerned at all to go to the hospital. Then all of sudden the contractions started to subside. So we decided to wait at home and see what happened and they eventually stopped.

It was a good fire drill for us though! And we realized how completely unprepared we were for the baby's arrival this early. So we have spent the weekend getting better prepared.

We almost missed our baby shower! Some friends of ours threw us a little shower on Saturday afternoon. It was so nice of them and they really went all out. They had all kinds of great food, games, gifts, and cake! It was a family shower so the significant others and kiddos were there too. I'll post pictures on our photo site in the next couple days.

And HAPPY GRANDPARENTS DAY to all the grandparents out there!

Check it out!

For the past four months I have been redesigning my dad's website for his condo business. And it's just gone LIVE! Check it out if you want to: Gary's Big Sky Condos

Let me know what you think! And if you are at all interested in visiting Big Sky, Montana for either a summer or skiing vacation, you should contact him! It's a great place to vacation.

Okay, that's the end of my shameless promotion.... ;-)

Hopefully, only four weeks to go...

Ironically, I'm wearing the same shirt in both pictures. I didn't plan that, I swear....I'm carrying much more basketball-like this time, so my belly looks a little larger than with Ella. But I have gained less weight overall. So, we'll see what we end up with. ;-) (left picture is Ella, right is Baby #2)

Labor Day Fun!

Hope all of you enjoyed your Labor Day weekend and were able to relax on Monday. We had a nice weekend with Tom and Pat visiting. Their time was filled with fun trips to entertain Ella intermixed with house projects. Tom has trouble sitting still when he comes to visit so we always try to find a little project for him (and Andrew) to work on while he's here. Although, we are pretty much all projected out now. Next time, he comes to visit he may just be forced to relax.

This trip's project was putting new faucets in our bathroom. We pretty much added all new fixtures in there except for the lovely gold and white faucets installed by the previous owner. They just aren't my style and well, just didn't match anything else in there. So we got new faucets. Of course, everything with a household project cannot run smoothly, so after working on it all weekend, the sinks are finally done. You can see the faucets here: Before and After.

Aside from household fun, I took Tom, Pat and Ella to the LA Zoo on Friday morning for a couple hours. As usual, Ella liked to just be free and run around as opposed to really looking at the animals. But she did spot a few of them. We were fortunate enough to hear quite a choir concert from one group of monkeys. On Saturday, we visited a place called the Kidspace Museum in Pasadena. It's for kids ages 2-7, but a lot of it really was for older kids. They had a babbling brook set up that you could wade in and Ella loved that! She was a tad bit angry with us when we told her it was time to go (after being there for at least an hour!)

Saturday night, Andrew and I were able to actually go out and enjoy a long peaceful dinner just the two of us while Tom and Pat babysat for Ella. We also went to see the Wedding Crashers (I'm sure we're the last people in America to see that movie this summer). We both really enjoyed it and found it pretty funny.

We went shopping at the Galleria (our mall here in Glendale) for a few hours and managed to find some good Labor Day sales. Monday, we went to the Hilton where Tom and Pat were staying and went swimming. So all in all, we jammed just about everything we could into one holiday weekend!

Check the Latest Pictures link on the right in a few days for new pictures!