Name and pictures

We finally decided on her name-Rachel Marinda. We tried Rachel out on her yesterday and decided to go with it. For anyone who doesn't know Marinda is a combination of both of her beautiful grandmother's names-Mary and Linda.

Here she is getting lots of love from her boys

If you look closely you can see her wrapping her daddy around her little finger-

My little angels

And one more even though it's not the best. Photo opps are rare when
she sleeps and eats all day.

Not sure why . . .

the link doesn't show up on the page, but I promise if you scroll over the word "link" in the previous post it will take you to the pictures. I will try and get some up today, the day is still young and I've already showered and put mascara on :)

Baby girl's arrival

I have no doubt there will be plenty of pictures to come, but not too many right now so I will post a link to the ones we have. We have just been lazy and not taken too many pictures. I'm starting to feel willing to move around some more so I will make the effort to get the camera soon :)

For now I am going to write down her delivery details (she is sleeping). I will try to not write anything too detailed, but honestly birth is kind of gross! Amazing, but gross. I had been having contractions for a while; it probably wasn't really that long looking back, but time passes differently when you're miserable. Wednesday night I felt nauseous, which was the same thing that happened with Matthew. Contractions started around 2 a.m., they were kind of close together, but not very intense for a couple of hours. Then they slowed down, but were a lot harder. We called the midwife around 6:30. I had an appointment scheduled for 10:30 so she said to just plan on coming then unless things picked up very suddenly. We made phone calls and dropped Matthew off at a friend's on our way to the birthing center.

*Climbing onto my soap box* There are lots of different ways to have babies and lots of different women. I think each person should do some research and then decide what they think will provide them with the best experience. A birthing center is not run by crazy, old fashioned people. They just have their own philosophy. Okay, I'm done, now back to our regular programming-

When we got to the center around 10:30, I was dilated to a 5. I was having a lot of back labor so I got into the tub (I wasn't able to get in with Matthew so I was glad to be able to this time). I didn't really want to do water birth so I climbed out after a while. Oh! One funny thing. Brian was so wonderful and he was helping coach me and keep me calm and relaxed between contractions. So he was "shushing" (?) me like I do with Matthew almost every day when he needs to calm down, and I said "No, I don't want to be quiet" in a very stern angry voice. However, you are not allowed to make funny jokes about what a woman does during labor-consider yourself warned. I was a lot more vocal this time than with Matthew, but that's just what happened since I went completely natural. The midwife was awesome in encouraging me and reminding me to drink my water.

I don't know what time I started pushing, but I did a couple, then the midwife said that position wasn't good for the baby so I moved. I pushed a couple more times and at 11:48 she was here! I went from a 5 to pushing in a little over an hour. I did end up with a couple of stitches and a shot of pitocen because they wanted to make sure I didn't bleed too much. And she is just perfect :) At both ultrasounds they said she was going to be closer to 7 lbs, but she wasn't. She weighed 5 lbs 13 oz (which is going to be easy to remember because that's her birthday too) and was 18 1/2 inches long. We stayed at the center a few more hours for monitoring then headed home. Brian was joking about how he wouldn't even be heading home from work and we had been and had a baby in less time.

I know Heavenly Father was in charge of everything. Things couldn't have worked out better! I was worried about how the timing would work with Brian and getting Matthew taken care of, but it was perfect. I knew I was in labor before he would have left for work and we dropped Matthew off at a decent hour so I didn't have to feel guilty about inconveniencing anyone too badly. Lots of thoughts and feelings going on right now that are a little too personal for me to post, sorry.

She is a little angel :) Matthew just adores her! He wanted to see all of her little fingers and toes, help get her pajamas on, show her her around the house, read her a book and much more. Brian is pretty smitten with his baby girl, even though he was nervous when we first found out. Her hair is kind of crazy lengths and patchy, but I guess she can't be completely perfect. She likes to have her hands right up by her face. She hasn't taken to the pacifier right away, but she did get her thumb in her mouth before we even left the birthing center. I think she likes her brother. He can be talking (which he does a lot) right by her when she's sleeping and she's so content. But if I move her just a little bit she stirs. When she's awake she just looks at him and it's so cute :) So many blessings and so little time . . .

When we finalize the name I will post it along with whatever pictures we've managed to take. And now she's waking up, what good timing!

150th post

Last week we went to the Plains Center for preschool to learn about the prairie.
Here he is on the wagon ride.

Building a prairie

The boys were kind of sad when we looked at the calender and realized I wasn't going to let them go on the father and sons camp out (which was later canceled). However the boys camped in the back yard last week when Uncle Jase was here. Matthew really wanted to have his McQueen tent inside the bigger tent (?). So this is the picture of the tent inside the tent-

Bedtime books

So everything is ready for baby girl-diapers, car seat, clothes, meals in the freezer, time off work approval and even the blanket. I decided to crochet a blanket and finished it last week. Here it is :)

I also wanted to write down a few of the lessons we have had in the last little while-
* Matthew is not allowed to lock doors; which led to this lesson-
* It is possible to kick doors open like you see on t.v.
* Playing hide and seek with mommy's wedding ring is a bad idea, especially when said mommy is pregnant.
* Putting rocks down mommy's shirt while she is bent over helping put shoes on is not good manners.
* Matthew is the fastest one in our family (he tells me this regularly).
* I have the cutest boys in the whole world (and I knew this one already, but I've been thinking about it).

Insert creative title here

The quality of this post will leave much to be desired, but at this point you'll just have to be thankful for what you can get :)

Brian and I decided that we finally feel like adults now because we bought a car. It's a Subaru Forester and will be the first time we've had to make car payments. I like it a lot (the car that is) and hopefully I will drive it soon. A quick shout out for Matthew-we were at the dealership for about four hours and he was such a trooper. He did such a great job! Also we found out that my credit score is higher than Brian's which is funny because he is so on top of our financial stuff and I just get to keep reaping the benefits!

Here is me today, just shy of 38 weeks. I had grown three inches between my last two appointments which were 9 days apart. Yay? Anyway, this will probably be the last pregnant photo so enjoy it if you can. . .

I had to take a picture of Brian in one of his elements. We got a stove for emergency preparedness and we used it to roast marshmallows tonight after the boy was in bed.

Matthew has to be one of the sweetest kids ever! He has been so patient with me and I feel like I've had to tell him "no" or "after mommy rests" a lot. We made these caterpillars a couple of days ago and I wanted to highlight something worthwhile that we've been able to do.

The boys mowing the lawn. Matthew is so excited about everything outdoors, even the chores.