Vienna Jean is Here!!!

Vienna Jean came on Wednesday at 2:14 pm weighing 8lbs 3 oz and measuring 20 in.

Vienna's due date came and went, and I was still pregnant.  My midwife told me at 37 weeks that I was pretty dilated, and by 38 weeks I "could have this baby anytime."  Honestly- those words should NEVER be told to anyone, and I felt like I was very overdue at 39 weeks... At 40 weeks, I was miserable and felt eternally pregnant.  So at 40 1/2 weeks, I was induced.  Thankfully, my mom made it into town the night before, and was able to be with Cambry while we were at the hospital.

I had no idea labor could be so easy! I got an epidural before I had pain.  The midwife broke my water about 10:30 am on Wednesday.  We chit chatted with the nurses, watched some day time TV, and I even took a little nap.  Before I knew it, I was fully dilated. I told the staff that my first labor was very quick, and Cambry came after two pushes.  So when it was time to push, immediately in walked a whole slew of people in scrubs, all manning their different posts.  This labor was longer... In a series of 4 contractions- about 5 minutes, Vienna was born at 2:14 pm.  

Just enjoying labor. 

It was so interesting the difference in the way our babies came out. Cambry fired out like a rocket so anxious to be released from confinement. Vienna gently slid out and really didn't make much noise.  

Mom's first time holding Vienna.

 Cambry was so curious at first about this little heap of flesh. She became less and less curious and seemed to be annoyed that every time she'd come to the hospital to visit and Vienna was still there with her parents.

Now the family is more complete. 

She's not sure how she feels about being this close to her.

The Beck was such a big help with Cambry. The first day, Cambry wasn't quite sure what to do with the Beck. By the second day, they were best buddies.

Playing with Grandma Beck at the hospital.

 She has so much dark hair!

 Devin made this cute sign and got some super cute balloons that make Cambry's eyes light up every time she sees them.  Hopefully at some point she'll feel similar about her sister.

Wrapping up only child-ism

The past few weeks it's finally hit me that we're going to be a family of 4 very soon.  Although I've been preparing for Vienna to come, I have been cherishing the time I have with just Cambry.  When I'm too tired to want to do anything but pass out, I find a reserve from somewhere and make sure Cambry gets to be my baby for a little bit longer.

Right now she's fascinated with running water.  While I made dinner, she was totally into taking several drinks from her lego, and completely drenched herself.  

I left Cambry to play with a friend for my Dr. appointment.  When I picked her up, she was wearing her friend's clothes...all boy clothes. First blow out in months, little stinker.  

The other morning it was a chilly 68 degrees when we left the house.  I brought her a blanket, which worked great while she was in the stroller, but as soon as she was out walking, she kept tripping over it.  Which is why we came up with a cape for Super Cambry.

The next morning we tried a sweater, shoes, and socks.  She kept looking down at her arms and touching her feet like they were foreign entities.  It warmed up later and I took her sweater off, and she was so SAD!!  I mean big dime sized tears rolling down her cheeks.  So she wore a sweater in 88 degree weather.  Worse things have happened.

 This was so funny watching this toddler in a pink frilly outfit stare at this steam roller doing it's thing.

Cambry and friend at the park

Naturally the foilage and stairs were more fun to play with than the playground equipment.

Little friendly game of peek-a-boo

I've been saying for a few months that Cambry's personality around strangers is cat-like: ignore her and she'll like you, give her attention and she'll run away.  We had a run in with a cat and it was hilarious to watch.  First they circled each other for about 3 minutes.

Next they took turns getting within inches of each other, then retreating.

Finally after about 10 minutes, they were brave enough to touch.  I had to hold back my initial instinct to kick the cat for touching my baby.  Yuck- get your tail out of her face!!

After a few more minutes of touch and retreat, they decided to be friends.

Hurricane Irene

For the past week we've been listening to the forecasts for Hurricane Irene. The grocery stores sold out of water, bread, milk, and beer.  Who knew those were the essentials?  It was supposed to be a brutal storm and hit us this afternoon.  The city's carnival was canceled and most people stayed indoors, turning it into a ghost town.  Although we're grateful for our safety, after all the hype we were disappointed it was only a stiff breeze and a weak rain fall.  To be honest, the most frightening part of this experience was how COLD I was when it dipped down to 71 degrees.  I bundled up and made soup for dinner.  How pathetic that after a couple months where the low is in the mid-eighties, I am shivering at 71 and I'm 8 1/2 months pregnant!!

Naturally, Devin took Cambry out in it to puddle jump.

Our complex maintenance guys boarded up the bottom floors of the buildings.  As you can see, there are some displaced pine needles and leaves.  What a ruthless storm!!

Oh ya, and some twigs by our front bumper.

We went out for ice cream... to celebrate how cold it was?  Honestly isn't she so great?  Eyes closed, leaning into the spoon, enjoying every morsel.  

Uh, still working on teaching her table etiquette. 

Just Another Day in Paradise

My friend inspired me to document a regular day for us, since it's I have a feeling in the not too distant future, I'm going to cherish the simplicity of our weekday routine.  So here's what a typical day looks like for us:

6:45 We all wake up and eat breakfast.  We have family scripture study and prayer, put on our shoes, and brush our teeth. 

7:15 We're out the door to walk Devin to the Bus stop for work/school.  

7:35 We wave Goodbye to Daddy, and C and I are off on our own walk. Cambry is in and out of the stroller, in and out of the neighbor's front yards, and along the way, I get a little exercise too.

9:00 We get back home and relax, stretch out my achy body, read books, and/or play with toys. We get ready for the day, I clean up the kitchen from breakfast, C helps me empty the dishwasher, throw in a load of laundry, and make beds.  Lately I've been able to put on a Baby Einstein and C actually watches it while she plays and I tidy up.  It's the only thing on the TV that keeps her attention that I've found so far. 

10:00  Second Breakfast and clean up and pack up diaper bag.

10:30  Depending on the day we go to the pool, visit 1 of 4 awesome museums in Raleigh, check out a park/playground, go to story time at the library, go to a department store to explore, go to the mall to ride the escalators and window shop, go to an OB appointment, to the pet store, or have a play date with a friend.   Sometimes we just stay home, but it's far easier for me keep her entertained and her mind and body busy when we're out, than when we're in our 2 bedroom apartment. 

12:30 Lunch and clean up.

1:00 Nap time.  I've recently switched her to one nap, and she was ready for the transition.  While she's sleeping I sometimes take a power nap (sometimes is becoming more frequent), check email, change/fold laundry, read BOM, blog, once a week I make bread, and I usually make most of dinner since C gets quite demanding of my afternoons.  While I'm in the kitchen, I listen to the news, online pod casts, programs on mormonchannel.org, and talk radio to keep my brain active and sane.  Sometimes I leisurely read, surf the world wide web, or do nothing at all. 

2:30-3:00 C is awake and is usually hungry pretty quick. After snacks are done, we play together- roll around on the floor, play tag, play with toys, and as always read books. Baby Einstein is creeping into our afternoons too.  Cambers keeps bringing me the remote to turn it on, and as I'm getting more and more tired the closer I get to my due date, it can come as a welcomed relief.

5:00 Finish up making dinner

5:30 Devin comes home and we eat dinner, and it's Daddy daughter time.

6:00 Devin bathes her and gets her ready for bed while I clean up dinner and the kitchen.  

6:30 Cambry goes down for the night.  Even though Cambry is a little energizer bunny in the day time, I'm so grateful for that in the night time because she sleeps SOO WELL after wearing herself out all day.  I feel really blessed to be able to be a stay at home mom- to catch all the little things that excite her, to hold her when she falls and needs comfort, to be apart of her development, to start setting boundaries with her, and to constantly be teaching her throughout the day.  

Devin and I have the evenings to play games, watch a TV show, catch up on each other's day, do our church callings, make a batch of cookies, or just hang out.  He'll have to start doing more homework in the evenings now that he's back in school, and I've recommitted myself to be a very supportive wife instead of a distraction.

10:00 We go to bed.

Add about 30 trips to the bathroom, little rests here and there and that is a very typical day for us!

This is why I don't fold laundry while the stinker is awake.  

Prego pics:  37 weeks pregnant (I wasn't sure what to do with my arms).  I forgot how curved the spine gets to compensate during pregnancy.  No wonder it feels like it's going to snap.

HOW LONG HAVE I HAD A LARGE BELLY???  The other day I was making pancakes for breakfast.  I was at the stove over our 12" frying pan.  I reached up to get the syrup in the cupboard above the stove and totally burned my belly on the pan!  Hello!  I now have a big painful blistery line- if that scars, I'll have a great memento for my stupidity.  I guess I'm grateful I'm still not used to my proportions- since I am not going to be this way for much longer.

NC Zoo Take 2

Who's the happiest to be at the Zoo again?  That's right, our little animal lover!

We stayed on the North American side, since last time was mostly the African side.  It was a lot more relaxed this time since we didn't feel like we needed to see everything, and I'm not waddling too fast these days.

The turtles were a big hit.

This lady had a red tail hawk.  We thought it was cool to look at for a sec, but she was really interested in telling us all the drama that it has suffered since it lives next to the playground that is under renovation.  Thankfully we have a toddler that likes to run so we were able to cut it short.

C gets stuck in spots and can't move on without multiple explorations.  Its quite entertaining to watch. She just runs in circles, stopping and squatting every once in awhile for a closer view of something.  This mosaic captured her for several minutes.

I guess this is what I'd do all day too if I was taken out of the arctic to the tropics.

The zoo has a pretty creative play area that makes you feel like the size of an ant since everything small is super sized. Here's Dad and Cambers sliding down the leaf...

and C climbing back up it.

The black bears definitely enticed her to come join them.

This brought back a lot of memories of Yellowstone last summer where we were hiking to a waterfall and turned the corner to an entire mountainside filled with Bison- the closest being about 25 feet away.  It was a little anticlimactic seeing them behind a railing.

My giant buddy... and a Bison statue. That tummy sure is getting large.

I kind of feel bad having this photo in with all these wild animals, but we saw these Amish people and were so excited/startled, that I snapped a quick one of them.  We wondered how they got to the zoo, and I'm not going to lie, I looked for a horse and buggy in the parking lot when we left (to no avail).

In the Aviary Green house, little sweaty head discovered and rediscovered x 15 the floor air vents that blew her hair (and my skirt) up.  I don't think she found a single bird in there she was so consumed with these.

On our daily walks I'm always picking leaves for her to carry.  She was quite confused why I wouldn't pick them for her in the tropical bubble, and took matters into her own hands.