Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas Day!!! It started early, but I think that is par for the course with a 7 year old. Around 4:30 I heard Charlie and Annie go down the stairs, after about 10 minutes they came up to tell us Santa had come. I told them they could go lay on the couches in the front room and look at everything. They came upstairs about every 10 minutes, I was able to drag this out until about 5:45. I told them they could wake up Audrey and we could all go down stairs!

What joy it was to watch their excitement and thrill of the day! The kids got tons of great gifts. Both Charlie & Annie got Nintendo DSi's and they are in 7th Heaven with them. After the presents we had our traditional Christmas breakfast! Monkey bread and eggs with ham and cheese.

We all stayed in our pj’s all day, the kids played with their toys, John and I vegged out on the couch and tried to get some rest! My parents, Caitlin, Brian and Courtney all came over about 2:30 and we had a great Ham dinner and spent a great afternoon and evening all together.

Merry Christmas

We have had a wonderful Christmas season at our house this year! We are truly blessed to have the 4 greatest kids!

Christmas Eve

At our house we always make home made pizza on Christmas Eve. The family gets new pj's and then the kids get to open a present!

Tonight after we had done all this we all settled down in the family room and watched The Christmas Story.


Then the kids helped get a plate of goodies ready for Santa. John and I were shocked all the kids were asleep by 9:30! After that John and I got out our presents for the kids and put them under the tree and went to bed about 1:00 so Santa could come visit us!

John's Big Day!

Today is John's birthday! He turned 35 today!!! We got up and opened presents with him before the kids had to head off to school. Since today is the last day before Christmas break at school the kids each had a Christmas performance and John went to watch them both!

Tonight we had Pizza (John's favorite) and his favorite cake - chocolate with white frosting. It was a great day and a perfect way to start out our holiday break!

One of my favorite things..

Often when we go to down load the camera we often find really random pictures that John or I did NOT take. I am not sure who was the photographer this time but I was downloading pictures and this is what I found....

Want to play Barbies with me?

Emily has adjusted very easily into our family and house so far - the reality is she is a GREAT baby and sleeps a ton! I was on the computer this morning and Emily was next to me in her little bouncer seat (it is so comfy looking I want one in my size). Anyway, I turn around and this is what I see?



Audrey has been really good with Emily, for the most part she doesn't understand why she is asleep all the time and when she is awake I am feeding her or changing her. She wants her to be awake so she can hold her and play with her! Sometimes Audrey wants to hold Emily so badly she will tell me while I am nursing her, Emily's done, my turn to hold her. Or my favorite "put the ninny away, I'll buckle it for you and me hold her now".

Hopefully this is the beginning of a long friendship!

Christmas Traditions

One of the kids favorite traditions at Christmas time is to make gingerbread houses with John! This year John went to the store and got extra candy to go with the kit he got at Sam’s club. Everyone had so much fun putting it together! (& eating it!)

(I got this picture of Emily while John was holding her after they finished the gingerbread house.)

A quiet Saturday at home for mom!

Today John took Charlie & Annie out to do some Christmas shopping and run some errands. Audrey and I had a great afternoon. While Emily napped she and I made some Christmas goodies together. She is getting to be such a big girl and helper. A friend brought us matching aprons and she loved wearing them!



Tonight a friend that John plays basketball with invited John and the kids to a Christmas program with a special guest. The kids had a the best time and loved getting to meet Santa. Emily and I just hung out at home together - okay, really she slept, and I picked up for a little bit, took a nice long shower and laid in bed watching tv and read a book!





John has been so wonderful these last few weeks, he has been taking the kid out a ton and running all the errands for me! I am so blessed that he is involved so much with the kids, he works so hard all week and still makes sure he spends most of his free time with the kids!

No Fight in me!

I think I have been doing really well adjusting to life with 4 kids even though life has been a little crazy. Emily is a great baby and I have been able to get lots of sleep at night so I feel like I am not falling apart most of the time, I have been able to stay on top of the house and I have great friends who have been bringing in meals.

John has been sick since the day we had Emily – he finally went to the doctor today and has a sinus infection and had to have both tubes replaced in his ears, one was infected and the other had slipped out and there was something wrong with it. Charlie had a cold when we first came home, I have been back to the doctors everyday to have Emily’s blood work done for her billi levels. When we are home she is attached to a machine and can only move 3 feet from it so we spend most of the time with her up in my bedroom next to the bassinet. Today Annie started crying when she went to the bathroom and finally got her to tell me after her telling me she couldn’t go to the bathroom for 2 days (she had me convinced she was just constipated) but that it was actually when she peed that it hurt – poor thing! I knew right away she had a UTI and we just needed to get antibiotics for it so I was able to have the pediatrician order a urinalysis to be done at the same time I took Emily in for her labs.

So when it was time to head into town for Emily & Annie to go to the lab I had no fight left in me and just let Audrey wear what she wanted to Kaiser...

Yes, she wore a green velvet with furry trim dress, sneakers with no socks and A witches hat to Kaiser. As we walked in I could see and hear the other mom's laughing and smiling at us, I just held my head up and acted like I had no idea why anyone would be looking at us.

But on the good news front, Emily's billi level went down today so we don't have to use the blanket anymore and we don't have to go to the doctors again until Friday. Annie did have a UTI but we were able to get her antibiotics and she will feel good as new soon! Also, John got medicine so he will be on the road to recovery and no one else has come down with Charlie's cold so really in the grand scheme of life it isn't a big deal to have a 3-year - old Christmas Witch ~ Really she is adorable!

Yellow baby!

She’s still yellow!

I was hoping that after 2 days on the blanket Emilie’s billi levels would have come down but they are still the same. Hopefully it just means that the billi blanket is helping her maintain the level where it is at and not letting it rise any higher. So we keep her attached to her little light machine and will take her back to the doctors tomorrow for another test! She is a great little sleeper though, I got this adorable picture of the 2 little girls together this morning!




This evening Annie had a little girl scout activities for Daisy Scouts. John went with her and she got her daisy pins and they performed some girl scout songs and the girls scout motto. She loves her daisy troop! There are lots of her friends from school and the neighborhood in it and of course her best friend Gracie!

Snow Day!

It is cold here! Yep, cold enough that when it started raining this morning it was snow! It is the first time it has snowed here since we have had kids! They loved it. They all got out their coats and found gloves and were outside playing in it! It was awesome to see them so excited about it!

After the snow I headed out with all 4 kids (Charlie has had a cold so I kept him home from school just to give him another day to get over it – we don’t need anything worse at home right now!) I dropped the 3 older kids off at my moms and headed over to the doctors with Emily. Her billi is still high today so we will keep her on the billi blanket and try again tomorrow to see if her levels have dropped.





The blanket is this pad attached to a 4 foot hose that when turned on is a photo therapy device to help the body break down the billiruben in babies. There is a cover that goes over the pad and wraps under Emily’s arms. She just lays in her diaper and then we swaddle her over the pad. At night it is cool because she glows blue!

Another day !

Today we all got up and had a quiet morning at home. I had to take Emily back to the doctor and while I was gone Uncle Brett headed out to go back to Wisconsin.

We will all miss having him here, the kids LOVED getting to be with him and he was wonderful with all of them. He was truly a great help and lots of fun to have around.

At the doctors we did some lab work for Emily and she is jaundiced. They are having a billi blanket sent home for her to wear and we will have to take her back to the doctors every day until her billi levels start coming down.

This evening we set up the Christmas tree! The kids had such fun hanging all the ornaments and getting it set up! It is so much fun to watch your kids get excited for the holidays and to have them participate in family traditions.

We survived our first night as a family of 6!

I know people always say they have a great baby, but we really do! Emily is amazing and Charlie, Annie and Audrey are being so wonderful it is going well 24 hours into this!

The kids all love to sit and hold Emily. They don't understand why she sleeps so much and they can't play with her yet but I am sure it will all come. Emily slept great the first night home, she only woke up once or twice and both times I had to rouse her so I could try to feed her. It made it nice to feel rested so I could interact with the other kids and spend time with them.

We have been so blessed to have such amazing friends. I have had friends bringing in dinner since Monday night and they have signed up (a friend coordinated this calendar) for another whole week!!) It has been so nice to not worry about cooking and we are just using paper plates so it is making life so smooth!

Today while the kids were outside riding bikes and scooters Annie fell off her scooter and face planted it! She is going to have a doozie of a scab on her nose, lip, and chin - luckily she is fine, just a little banged up!

Audrey's a big sister! and Charlie & Annie Meet Emily Ann

Today when we left the hospital we tried to time it so we could get home before Annie & Charlie got home from school so Audrey could meet Emily by herself. We just barely made it. School is out at 2:00 and the kids get to the bus stop about 2:20. We walked in the door at 1:55!

I went in first thinking Audrey would want to see me since I hadn't seen her in a few days, nope - we were wrong she ran up to me and hugged me and asked where her baby was. John was just a few steps behind me with Emily and it was the sweetest thing to see Audrey try to pick her up out of the car seat and love her.

Audrey is enamored with her little sister and is so excited to finally be a big sister! (I love the picture with Emily's foot out - Audrey just needed to see that she had them!)



Soon after we got home Brett ran to the bus stop and got Charlie and Annie, they were all so excited to meet Emily and to hold her! Emily seemed to not be phased at all by the excitement and noise! Hopefully that is a great sign.

I feel WONDERFUL!

For me pregnancy is not any fun. I am sick and sore and this time around by the end I was just plan old exhausted!!! It is amazing to me that less than 24 hours after giving birth how great I feel.

Emily and I had a great 24 hour stay in the hospital before we got to go home. We had Emily at the Kaiser in Roseville, which is this brand new, state of the art hospital and clinic. My room was so nice and the nurses and doctors wonderful. I think not only were they great but they were so understanding every time I said, she is my 4th. They really left us alone for the most part and I was able to rest and spend a quiet day with Emily.

After her delivery they cleaned her and myself up and around 9:00 we moved over to a different room for post labor. After the long night John and I both fell asleep within minutes of getting situated. Around 10ish my mom came in and a while later John took off to head home to be with the other kids and take care of a few things that he needed to!

It was great to have my mom there to be with Emily so I could nap and get some rest, I was able to shower and get clean and just spend some quiet time recovering! Emily has been just wonderful all day, she slept most of the day and rarely even made a peep!

Around 9:30 Emily was a sleep and I was falling asleep when my nurse came in and said that the hospital had a fully staffed nursery and if I would like Emily could go over and they would bring her back to me in 3 hours so I could nurse her. None of the other hospitals I delivered at would take your baby to the nursery and bring them back so you could nurse, if you sent them to the nursery they would give them formula. Not that I have a problem with formula at all but it was so nice that they wanted the moms to get rest and still nurse. I tried to wake up Emily at this point to nurse her and around 10:30 the nurse came back and got her. I was asleep within minutes and at 1:30 when the brought her back it woke me. Emily had slept the entire 3 hours and I had to try to get her awake again to nurse. After an hour or so of this the nurse came and got her again and I slept like the dead until almost 6:00 when Emily was brought back to me (again she had slept almost the whole time). I feed her and then she and I both slept again for a few more hours. Truly it was heaven. After not being able to sleep well for the last few months I felt like a whole new person in the morning.

On Friday morning John came out early and we waited for discharge to be done (oh yea we also still had to decide on her name!) Emily at this point was slightly jaundiced so we scheduled an appointment for Sunday for her to be checked again.

Around 12:30 we were all packed up and headed home!