Annika is 5 weeks!

Here is little Annika showing us her new-found smile! She started smiling at us last week, and it is so much fun! I had forgotten how early smiling starts! She is a happy girl, and is a little peanut. She weighs just over 8 lbs! She had quite a drop in weight after her birth and is finally climbing back up! She's gaining like a champ now, though. And she's a great little sleeper, this Mama has been feeling quite rested in the morning. And I'm SO thankful!

Holding my two sleepy girls. It was a precious moment for me! And Jeremy just happened to come home in time to snap a pic.

The last two weeks have been great as a Mom of 4! I feel more like myself and Annika is into a daytime routine of sorts and taking care of the house, homeschooling, etc... are much more manageable! I'm treasuring every moment with my little newborn... I don't want her to grow! But I know all too well that every baby stage is my favorite. :)

Doing some backtracking...

Annika sure was spoiled that night!

The final side profile shot!

I wanted to post some pics of the fun baby shower that was thrown for Annika and I! It was held at Teeland's, a great restaurant/coffee house here in the Valley, while they were closed to the public. Teeland's, as you probably all know, was the first "general store" here in town way back when!



I was in early labor at the baby shower! It was a fun distraction to be hanging out with my good buddies during those first few hours of real labor. I would have much rather been there, than at home feeling that way! I was able to just relax through contractions and not focus on them. It was great to just try to ignore them, rather than focus on each one and how close together they were like I would have if I was at home!

What a fun night!

Smooches for Auntie

Jessica and Chantel

(don't forget 3 wk old baby Nathan!)

Rachel (due in April), Janeen (due, like now!), Jody, & Amber

Sarah & Jen

Mom, Janeen, and Jess checking out the spread.

My Top 5

Here's my "Gotta Have for Baby" list. Since I had Morgan 3.5 years ago, there is a whole new world of baby gear and products! Here are a few of my gotta haves, in no particular order! :)


1. Burt's Bees Baby Wash, Buttermilk Lotion, and Apricot Baby Oil ~ These products have been around for a long time, but I didn't have it with my other kiddos. Love them! (Thanks, Janeen for the yummy lotion!)









2. Swaddle Me Blanket by Kiddopotamus ~ Thanks to Anita Eller, (thanks, friend!) Miss Annika sleeps so well at night in her pink blanket.. it's a clever little blanket that velcros closed to keep baby cozy and sleeping! We love it so much, we bought one in yellow! (They have them at Fred Meyer!)





3. WeeAlaska J-Tai Baby Carrier ~ This is the best carrier I've used! The Baby Bjorn that I had with the other three killed my back! It's spendy, ($100 bucks) but well worth it! I only paid for a portion of it thanks to my Mom and a $$ gift from someone! http://www.weealaska.com/ If you live here and want one, they are available at Pitter Patter too!



We call it the "sleep inducer"! Within minutes of her being in the carrier, she's out cold!

4. Boppy Pillow ~ The old standby... I absolutely love this for nursing in the first couple months. It saves my back and leaves my hands free to read, knit, write a note, talk on the phone, etc... She likes to be propped up in it and lay there awake too!

5. JJ Cole Bundle Me lite ~ I love this carseat cover, and the print is super cute too! It's great for keeping the breeze out of Annika's face when we're loading up in the car! This is the one that we have.

Iditarod Fun!

On Sunday, my Dad, Jeremy and the boys took a trip out to the Iditarod Restart in Willow! They drove around on 2 of my Dad's snowmachines and had a great day! They even had official sponsor passes (my Dad's company is a race sponsor) so were able to drive right up front and catch the action in front of the barriers! What a fun memory made by all. The boys were sporting their new helmets too.. thanks Grandpa!

More favorites...

I just downloaded my Mother in Law's pics from her camera and have loads more photos of Annika's birth that I didn't have before. Here are a few of my favorites! Thanks, Anita!

Her first bath.

Meeting Auntie Jenny for the first time.

Mom, Jen, Morgan, and I at the baby shower just 12 hours before Annika was born!

The last two and a half weeks!

So the last two and a half weeks since Annika was born seems like an eternity ago, but yet it seems like yesterday! (I'm glad it wasn't!) Life has been crazy and I have had virtually no time to sit down and update this blog! I fall into bed around 9pm or whenever Miss Annika allows! We're doing well though and Annika is an absolute joy. She's as cute as can be and we are all enamored by her. Here are a couple pics of our first couple weeks together. She looks much different than she did in the first photos we posted of her. She has lost that swollen, newborn look! She has many of the same features of Gavin, we are finding!

My Mom has been here from Oregon, and that has completely saved me these past couple weeks. I was teasing her that my dishes are going to look like the Eiffel Tower after she leaves tomorrow! I haven't touched a dish in a month! Reality is gonna hit hard this week! She has been a HUGE blessing to us!

Here is Annika pondering her next meal.

Here she is, showing off her chicken legs!

I'll update again soon, gotta run! Annika is crying!!! :)

Days 2 & 3 with baby Annika

My sister took this picture just after we arrived home from the birth center. Annika was about 8 hours old and boy, were we tired!! Can you tell?? :) We were somehow functioning on ZERO sleep. It was Tuesday night, and we had been up since Monday morning.

Our little sweetie is now 3 days old! It actually feels like I delivered her days and days ago! I'm feeling great, and am SO thankful to be on this side of her birth! hee hee

Big brother Drew holding and snuggling his new sister. He is SO sweet with her.

Valentine's visitors! My buddies Tanya and Sarah came for a visit yesterday! (More pictures to come from our Valentine's cupcake decorating fun with Sarah's cute kiddos!)

Our last 3 days as a family of 6 have been great! Yikes! That sounds like a lot!
We are now... even more so... totally OUTNUMBERED! But... I have to add the disclaimer that my Mom is here and Jeremy has been home. I'll report back when she leaves and Jeremy is back to work like normal. :)

She's Here!

Meet Annika Scarlet back at home last night!

Baby Annika arrived yesterday, February 12th at 9:04 a.m.! She weighed 7 lbs. 7 oz. and is 20.5 inches long. She beautiful, just as we imagined she would be! There are more pictures to come, our camera battery was dead (oops) when we got it out of our bag to take pictures, but my Mom supplied me with some of hers and we'll add more as we get them!



It was a wonderful experience, wish I would have had the same with the other three! My midwife stripped my membranes Monday afternoon just hours before my baby shower that night. I was in labor at my shower, went home to try to rest, then things really picked up! We ended up at the clinic at 4:30 a.m. and she was born at 9:04 a.m. It went so amazingly well, I loved all of the options there for laboring. I spent time in the jacuzzi tub first, then on the birth ball, then on the bed, then ended up in the shower for an hour and a half until it was time to push! (little did I know!) Judi, my midwife, told me to try and stay in the shower until I couldn't stand up any more, and that's just what I did! Jeremy and Judi helped me back to the bed and I knew it was time to get her out of there!!! She was born 5 min. later. HOLY SMOKES, it was intense! It was SO cool though.

Auntie Jenny, getting her snuggles in before she flew home last night.

We stayed and rested through the day until about 3:30 p.m. and came home and slept SO well last night. (The kiddos are out at Grandma & Grandpa's house!) We're so thrilled to finally meet her. She's so precious.

Morgan hugging Baby Sissy for the first time!

Judi, my amazing midwife, here this morning for a home visit! She even brought me a dozen roses!

hmmm..

Now that I've reached my due date, I'm wondering what this little thing to the right of this is gonna say tomorrow? +1 day over?? We're due in: yesterday?

So no labor so far! My baby shower is tomorrow night, and we planned it that way so that my sister could come (she leaves Tuesday!) and figuring I'd have the baby last week like I usually do! But, I've recently thrown all expectations out the window. It's been a great lesson for me, a hard one, but a good one. I have so many starts of "labor" that I now think that I'll believe she's coming when I see her with my own eyes!

This is the first day that I haven't wanted her to arrive, because we'd have to cancel the shower with all my buddies! But God has a great sense of humor and a knack for teaching lessons, so stay tuned for it to happen in the middle of the night tonight! :)

just in case you were wondering...

I thought I'd give any of my far away friends an update on my still pregnant condition! :)

I am about 4 days from my official due date, and am ready to have a baby! It is frrrrrrrrrrrreezing cold here, I don't blame my little sweetie for staying put! It was -20 today at one point! BBBBRRRRRRR! But I did have an amazing prenatal massage this afternoon that was 1 hour long. It was so wonderful. She did the labor-stimulating pressure points on me to see if it would help things along at all. I've been contracting consistently since dinner about 3 hours ago, but I tend to do that all the time! I might have to be ready to push before I believe I'm really in labor when it comes!

So I'm at 2 cm, as of yesterday and am ready to roll when the time comes. My Mom arrived yesterday and my sister arrives on Thursday.

We've been in contact with my sis this evening, their town in Tennesee was hit by those tornadoes tonight. She said one rumbled by their house, they felt the shaking and things moving. So as of an hour ago, they were waiting for one more system to come through, then hopefully they'll be done. She said they've been hiding out in a central closet with bike helmets on the boys. :( Be praying for the Howells. Morgan prayed at bedtime that the "tomadoes" would stop and be put in a box. Well put, little one!

Sleep, where are thou?

Okay, so I know insomnia is so normal especially at the end of pregnancy, but it's driving me a bit crazy because I'm SO incredibly tired by the end of the day!

(And there's absolutely no reason for the polka dot teapot and cup... just thought it was cute, and red is my favorite color!)

Last night I was up from 1:30am-3:00am just laying there until Annika started kicking and punching like crazy that it hurt so bad I had to get up! Then all of the sudden I was starving! So I went out in the living room, plopped down on the couch in the dark and ate Oriental Chicken Salad and a ginormous Valentine sugar cookie covered with frosting and sprinkles. Then I laid back down and finally fell asleep, until I had this intense dream and woke myself up with my thumping heart!

Ugh, then I was up until after Jeremy left for work at 4:30am and finally konked out again after 5:30 sometime! I think it's really just God's way of getting all of us pregnant women ready to take care of a newborn in the middle of the night! But I woke up semi-refreshed after 8am sometime when Miss Morgan came in. Then came the boys who are supposed to play in their room until 8am if they're already awake before then. At least they all cooperated this morning! I might have turned into Monster Mom if it had been earlier!

So here's to sleeping through the night for this mama. Getting up to go to the bathroom 3 times doesn't exactly help matters either!

Wow, she's Full Term!

My pregnancy has reached full-term at 37 weeks! I'm now "legal" to deliver anytime from now on at the midwifery.

Last night I had the most vivid (and strange) dream about baby Annika. In the first part of the dream, she was born yesterday (I might add) and we were home and she looked like she was only 30 weeks gestation or so.. and I looked like a skeleton version of myself! We were getting ready for church (yes, the day after she was born) and my biggest concern was that she was too small for all of her clothes! Then all of the sudden, she was bigger, WAY bigger! But it was still the day after she was born! She had a full head of hair that already had a haircut, bangs and all. And my new concern was that she was way too big for all of her clothes. I was so disappointed that she was going to have to wear a pair of jeans and a pink Elmo t-shirt her first Sunday at church!!! It was SO real! I laid her down on a blanket so I could finish getting ready, and she sat up all by herself, stood up, and proceeded to walk to me! Wow, what a newborn!

I woke up laughing and telling Jeremy about my weird dream, and he told me that he had a dream that he was a Jedi Knight killing everyone in sight with a light saber!!! Yikes! He has had a bad neck all day from the stress of his dream and tensing up in his sleep! I think it was started by Drew coming into our room at 5 am this morning with a nightmare. He gave us a good idea, I guess!

The next couple weeks are gonna fly! My Mom flies in on the 3rd, two weeks from today and my sis, Jen flies in on the 7th for 5 days! My Mom is able to stay for a month, which we're thrilled about... can't wait for Grammy to come and stay! She's the best at "middle of the night baby holding and rocking!" Thanks, Mom! She's got lots of experience... :) And I'm praying that the baby isn't even 2 days after her due date, then Auntie Jenny will miss her!

Baby Annika is still in a funky posterior position, would you pray she decides to do a little roll so her face is facing my spine? She has the back of her head against my tailbone, etc... and it's not feeling to hot! I know God has an exact plan for her birth already, but since pain meds aren't an option this time, I'd love for her to be in the best possible position! If she follows suit, she'll arrive in my 39th week like the others...

I've been "nesting" like a madwoman. Cleaning, dusting, getting baby things all washed and folded, and packing the diaper bag with all of her newborn essentials to take with us to the birth. Morgan and I set up Annika's bed in our room this week. Now, that feels really real having her bed set up! Next up? Getting myself a bag packed.

Be watching for news of our sweet baby girl!

Bunko!

Another Bunko night down! Last night Bunko was at the home of your's truly. It was supposed to be Pajama Night... but only a few of us "got the memo!" :)

Here are some pics of our fun bunch!

One picture I really wanted to get last night was a lineup of all of us pregnant gals and our tummies or lack there of... There were 5 of us there last night! Allison is due in just 1 week, I'm due in 4, Janeen is due in 8, Rachel is due in 12 (sense a pattern?), then Elizabeth throws everything off by being due in August! :) She is the newest member of the pregnant Bunko girls.

To answer your question, Ashley & Julie!

Hi guys...

Okay, to answer your question about my pregnancy! I do feel so much better this time around than I did with the other three! I have a funny answer for you!! I attribute it to my Kitchen Aid breaking this last summer! (and I told Jeremy I don't want another one until after I have the baby!)

Usually I crave anything baked, especially cookies fresh out of the oven and baked them regularly through my other pregnancies... and I think I ate most of the batches myself! So no baked goods this one....

But since summer we've also added tons more fruits and veggies to our diet. I think the combo of no Kitchen Aid (who wants to hand mix cookies? It's just not worth it to me!) and adding more fresh stuff to our days has helped me gain just 23 lbs. so far!!! I feel so much better than I did at the end of my last pregnancies, so call it the Kitchen Aid strike diet! hee hee

more Sleepover fun

(see the next post for more sleepover details)

Here's a shot of our newly opened socks from our Sock Exchange! I think this is the 3rd time (or maybe more) we've done this as a group... Everyone brings a wrapped (new) pair of socks and we do it like a White Elephant gift exchange! Even Morgan got new socks that night! Thanks Cathy!

It was so fun to hang out and catch up on the lives of these girls that have been a part of my life since they were in 9th grade!

Sleepover Baby Shower!

Last Friday night we planned a reunion sleepover with all of our college freshman girls while they were home for Christmas! But, they all showed up at the door with pillows stuffed under their shirts for a surprise baby shower!! They were the most adorable and hilarious bunch of pregnant gals around! I kept cracking up everytime I looked at them... and I made them keep them in for a while! I heard all sorts of funny comments like, "It's so hot having that in my belly!" and "it's hard to hug people!" and "I can't bend over and tie my shoes!" Feel my pain, girls... :)

Caiti, one of the super talented girls in the bunch makes and decorates cakes as a hobby and made this beautiful cake for our party! It was SO yummy too.. we finished the leftovers off last night! It was chocolate with fluffy creamy raspberry filing! YUM!

Thanks so much you guys for a fun and memorable night! We laughed hard into the wee hours of the morning. And our little Miss Annika received some adorable and tiny pink things!!! Some of which is in the bag waiting to go the midwifery to welcome her!

So thank you Anita, Elizabeth, Erin, Caiti, Johanna, Emily, Cathy, and Diana for a fun and sweet evening with you all! (Diana missed out on our belly photo shoot!)

5 weeks left!

today at 34 1/2 weeks

in October at 25 weeks

I thought I should take a current belly shot to record how big my belly is growing!

So here I am today at nearly 35 weeks.... and then the picture I posted a while back when I was at 25 weeks! I wore the same shirt for effect. hee hee