Pink Bliss

With a wife, three girls and recycled birthday supplies, it's a hopeless cause for David to try to avoid pink. So, my poor husband will just have to learn to endure pink birthday candles, pink wrapping paper and babies dressed in pink. Luckily, he seems to be okay with the girl thing and I'm okay with that because I love pink. Happy Birthday David!

More kenzi

It's funny how nervous I WAS watching other sibling handle their babies, but I was amazed at how good and helpful Abby and Jeana and been with their sister. I love that they just can't get enough of her. Here Abby was playing on the computer with her and I love how engrossed Kenzi looks.

Bath time!

My parents were sweet enough to take the 32 hour drive to come and help. And even though recovery was so much nicer this time and I had previously stocked my freezer with meals for a month, it was still so helpful to have them and to be able to rest and give Jeana and Abby some extra attention those first few days. The girls were very helpful and even bathed their own babies while grandma gave Makenzi her first bath.

All clean!

Helpful Hands

More pictures of Grandma and Grandpa helping out. The girls had a lot of fun with my parents and grandma even made a cute advent for Christmas for me so I could have something new to put out.

She even got to go to the 'restaurant' the girls opened up outside!

Jeana again, helping out her own baby.

She's HERE!

Finally, the day came, and wow time seems to fly, maybe not so much when my ribs get bruised from a baby constantly kicking my right ribcage or the sleepless nights of not being able to find any comfortable resting position. But it never ceases to amaze me that a few weeks after they come, all of the seems like a distant, mostly forgetable past.

Makenzi finally joined our family on October 10, 2010. She weighed 8 lbs 5 oz and was 19 inches long. The best labor and delivery yet! Everything went way smoother than I could have planned, but maybe that's because for 3 months I kept fearing the worst after a very challenging and quick previous labor. I kept fearing I would have a baby in the car and thought how disappointed I was David hadn't done his OB/GYN rotation yet, but at last it wasn't necessary I made it to the hospital with plenty of time to spare and in the end, the doctor let David deliver Makenzi anyway.

I love how these tiny little people can really come with such individual personalities. I love that from day one they seem to have their own opinions on certain things. In all the ultrasound pictures, she always had her hands by her face, when born, that didn't change, if her hands weren't by her face, she was screaming. We kept trying to swaddle her and she would wiggle and scream until her hands were freed. One nurse even came in and said, "good luck with this one." Well, once we learned the trick, things turned out okay and she's been a sweet baby ever since!

David, who was on a pediatric rotation at the time, was able to switch his rotation to the hospital I delivered at and then was able to spend more time with me. My other fear, being I would go into labor while he wasn't around or not be able to get ahold of him or he would be too busy. But so many blessings came our way. We had her on a Sunday he WAS home, things went smoothly, the doctors he was rotating with let him off early both days to come spend time with me! Yeah.
These two are AWESOME big sisters!

In the end I don't know if Abby had more fun watching Scooby Doo in my room or hanging out with the new baby.

She came out with big cheeks and still has big cheeks, but it seems we are just good at making chunky babies! But I still think they are cute that way.

Well done and ready to go...

Honestly, I don't like having my picture taken and I dislike pictures of me pregnant even more. I prefer to not take them, I prefer to not keep them or share them and wouldn't have even taken them had my mother-in-law not kept pestering me. So, I finally snapped a few pictures and I guess it was good timing because she came the next day. So, you can move right along through the rest of my blog... go on, no need to stop here.

Baby's room...My new favorite haven.

I kept claiming since we were finally in a house, when we did finally have another kid, I was determined to have a cute nursery and I also claimed I didn't care if I had to buy all new things. Then a funny thing happened, I got pregnant. And I looked at the budget. And then I was sad because it seemed silly to buy a new crib and dresser when I already had one, even if I didn't really love the looks of them. So I thought I could keep being sad and jealous of so many cute nurseries I saw on-line, or I could do something about it and decorate on a budget. How you say? Well, spray paint of course! So, 18 cans of spray paint later (that's only partially a joke, I finally got smart after spraying two side panels hanging in the air to prevent dripping) and after covering david's garage with the majority of the paint...(in my defense the previous owners had also painted in his garage and I did lay down drop-cloths, but didn't think about covering everything else, oops, sorry honey) good thing it was your garage and not mine! Though mine was also filled with other painting projects.

Anyhow, after several cans of paint for furniture and about 40 swatches of bluish-green shades for the walls which Dave all thought looked the same, (and a few research studies to pay for the decor on clearance) and my kind mother who spent way to much of her own time on an adorable quilt I LOVE... I really liked the way the room turned out. Did I mention because of my stressed-induced melt down about two weeks before she came, Dave who really didn't have the time, even finished the dresser for me and helped set up the room? What a sweetie!

Ikea (and 5 pieces of scrapbook paper) totally have their place. (see picture frames)

The color of the dresser and crib before the remodel.