Introducing....

....Claire Olivia!!!
Our beautiful new little girl arrived November 24, 2008 at 1:02 p.m. She weighed 6 pounds 4 ounces and was 19.75 inches long. She is amazing and beautiful and so very loved!! It all started Monday morning at around 7:10 a.m. I was laying in bed preparing for a long day of rest and relaxation when I had my first contraction. It definitely wasn't a Braxton Hicks contraction. It was in my lower abdomen and in my back too. I called Nate (he was already at work) and let him know. The contractions continued about every 10 minutes or so and lasted about a minute a piece. They were getting increasingly intense, so I called his mom (who works here in town) and let her know that I was thinking that maybe I might need to be heading to the hospital. I called the hospital and they told me that they wanted me to come in so they could hook me up and check things out. I took a quick shower and my mother in law picked me up at 9:30. We were at the hospital at 9:45. They put me in a gown, hooked me up and checked me right away. The nurse told me I wasn't going anywhere - that I was 5-6 centimeters dilated at that point. I was so surprised!! So at this point, Nate is on his way home and then to the hospital. He gets to the hospital at about 10:45. I was SO happy to see him!! Shortly after he got there, I got my epidural. That was really uncomfortable and not very fun, but oh did it help out!! I was having some serious back labor, so the relief was much appreciated!! I was a little worried because when I was in labor with Libby (at Anderson Hospital) I couldn't feel a darn thing with the epidural. I couldn't even move a muscle on my own!! With this one, I was still able to move my legs somewhat. At about 12:30 my doctor came in to check me and I was still about 6 centimeters. He decided to break my water then and told me he would be back in a few hours to check on me. I gave Nate the okay to go run to Dairy King and get some lunch with his mom. Seriously, not even 5 minutes after they left, I felt that uncontrollable need to push. I started to feel a little panicky, because I was worried they wouldn't be back in time. One of the nurses came in then and asked me how I was doing. I told her that I definitely felt the need to push. She checked me and sure enough I was completely dilated!! They started setting the room up and called the doctor. Just as I was dialing Nate's cell, he walked in. It was 10 minutes to 1 then. It took him about 4 minutes to eat and he was back. The doctor was still getting ready when they had me start to push. One push and there was her head. They suctioned her nose and mouth out. One push later there she was. What an amazing feeling it was. I am so glad that I wasn't 100% numb from the epidural because I got to feel the incredible experience of her birth. WOW. I was also overwhelmed because I actually got to hold her right away, unlike Libby. We got to do the skin to skin contact thing. It was so incredible and life changing. I'll post later about how things have been going this first week at home. I just wanted to get her birth story posted!! One of the coolest things about that day was that sweet baby Claire shares a birthday with her Aunt Carrie. What a neat thing that they'll always share!! I am so so happy that Claire made her entrance into the world when she did. She's such a blessing to this family of ours. She's so sweet and innocent and beautiful and our lives are so much better now and more complete now that she's in it!!

Could be any day now....

....It is amazing how anxious I am feeling right now!! Nate and I went to my doctor's appointment today and they ended up checking me (they said last week that I would be 38 weeks when they first checked me). Before the doctor came in, I made my prediction that I was only dilated 1 centimeter. She came in, my blood pressure was high. I knew it would be - it has been getting higher. I wasn't worried about it. She then checked Claire's heartbeat (150s - although it was right in the middle of a contraction so that's why it was that high). Then she checked me. I was absolutely shocked when she told me that I'm 3-4 centimeters dilated and 90% effaced. She said that because of the blood pressure they wouldn't let me go past 39 weeks. Awesome. So December 4th is the latest she will be here. Chances are likely that she will be a November baby. I can't even believe it. She also wrote a note that she wants me to stop working now. That's alright by me, especially now that I know how much progress I've made thus far. I would hate to go to work and be that close to going into labor and be 45 minutes away from the hospital!! She said once I reach 4-5 centimeters it would be considered active labor. Just pure craziness I tell ya!! Tonight we're going out to eat and then heading to Walmart to pick up formula, a bottle warmer (yep, Carrie, we thought about it and decided we're going to get one this time), some newborn diapers since the size 1s that we bought will likely be too big for her. We also need a bottle drying rack and baby wash and a couple of other things. Yikes!! I'm washing up the last of everything now and am getting the clothes together that I want to take to the hospital. That way I'm ready. It is so helpful to have my mother in law working in town. That way if I happen to go into labor while Nate is at work, she's right there and can take me. Nate will be taking Libby to daycare this week (except Thursday and Friday) so that will be good that she's there just in case. It's crazy how close it all seems now!! I know the original due date was only less than 3 weeks away, but this feels SO close!! Still no timeable contractions, so that's a good sign. I've just been taking it easy (as much as I can) and I'm hoping that I can keep her in there just a little bit longer.

Here's a page I finished this afternoon. I used Robin's new kit, Whoa!! SO much fun!!


And here are a few pictures I took of Libby earlier - gosh I love this girl SO much!!


That's all for now. I'm looking forward to just hanging out with Nate later this evening and relaxing and hopefully getting a full night of sleep!!

Happy Birthday Nate!!

Today is my sweetie's 33rd birthday!! Hard to believe how much time flies. Hard to believe he was only 25 when we started dating!! Sheesh!! Where DOES the time go?? I'm so happy that his birthday is on a Saturday this year - he definitely deserves a nice relaxing day off work and to celebrate his special day!! We're not doing too much today. I have a doctor's appointment this morning and we just plan on hanging out the rest of the day (per birthday boy's request). I have no problem with that!!

Just 3 more days of work till I'm on maternity leave!!!! :) Things are just working out so amazingly well. I only wish I could talk about them on here!! I will in due time - now's just not the time!! ;)

Ooooh we stopped at Target on the way home from work yesterday because I've been in desperate need of a new pair of slippers. Wanna see what I got? They're freaking adorable on, too!!
I want to go back there today and find some new slippers for Libby. She would LOVE a new pair, I know!! As much as she's obsessed with cute socks right now, she would love a new fun pair of slippers!! We'll see how things go.

Oh my goodness there are some suh-weet new releases at the Sweet Shoppe today!! Holy cow!! I picked up the CUTEST kits this morning!! Check out how adorable these are!!

First here's the little mini Christmas kit:


and it coordinates perfectly with THIS!!

So cute I can hardly stand it!!

My designers also did quite a number this week!! WOW!! I am so so lucky to be creating for such amazing artists!! Seriously!!

Manda put out a pretty new kit this week called Be Blessed. I love this so much!!

Here's the layout I did with it!! (Hard to believe that this picture is almost 2 years old!!!)


Libby and Chere got together this week to create a gorgeous kit called Skidamarink (how fun is that name?? Skidamarinky dinky dink, skidamarinky do, I love you....anyone remember that song??)

And a layout I did with it!!

Here are the rest of my designers new releases this week. I can't WAIT to scrap with these amazing goodies!!!

Robin's new kit:

Christy's new one:

And finally a beautiful new kit from Zoe:


And here are a couple of layouts I did this week. :)

Well that about wraps it up now. Libster just woke up and I need to eat a quick breakfast and take a shower before our appointment.

Happy Saturday!!

xoxo

Three weeks to go!!

This'll be a short entry since it's so late (okay 10 isn't THAT late, but it sure does feel like it!!). Our due date is three weeks from today!! That is SO hard to believe!! Here's my 36 week picture from last week:It's ALL baby in there, that's for sure!! She's running out of room now and it's been quite uncomfortable lately. Oh well. It will all be over soon enough and I'll have my new beautiful baby girl!! I'm SO excited about meeting her!!

I start my maternity leave next week. Wednesday will be my last day of work. I'm very irritated about the situation right now. Not as irritated as my coworkers. I love knowing that they're behind me and on my side!! Soon enough all will be worked out and I can't WAIT for that!! :)

Well, I just sneezed so that about wraps up this entry. Baby + full bladder + sneeze = fun!!

I'll definitely post more this weekend!!

Night all!!

xoxo

Sunday already...

*sigh* Why do the weekends always have to fly by???? I can't wait till I don't have to worry about that anymore!! Yesterday was a fairly uneventful day. Had my doctor's appointment. My blood pressure was a little high - I think that's par for the course at that office now because of my experiences with them this pregnancy. It wasn't anything they were too worried about. She said she was expecting that since I'm nearing the end of the pregnancy here. They did my Group B Strep test - that's always a fun time. HAHA. We recorded Claire's heartbeat. It's a little crackly and hard to hear, but I really don't want to wait another week to have to get it again. I go back next week of course, but they say that they won't start checking for dilation till I'm about 38 weeks. I'm kinda surprised by that, but nothing should surprise me about this place anymore. I honestly have a feeling that I will not be making it to 40 weeks with her, but we'll see what God has in mind.

We're so excited about our little family day out today. It will be so fun to watch Libby making Claire something at Build-a-Bear. Dinner will be fun too - I think we're doing Mexican which sounds completely yummy to me right about now. We might stop over at Target too to pick up one more pack of bottles for Miss Claire. Nate picked up some last night and we need just a few more. These are the ones we decided to use this time instead of the drop ins. We used drop ins with Libby and she had some gas problems and some very rough nights because of it. Hopefully these bottles will help out a bit with that.
I need to do her laundry this week (I hope to get started today) and Nate is going to start painting the room pink today. We had to do 2 coats of primer since the original color was so dark. I never realized just how dark the teal was until we tried painting over it. Libby wants to help paint too, so that should be cute!! We'll be bringing the crib upstairs this week and setting that up. It's all coming together - finally!!

We didn't watch our movie last night - Nate forgot to pick it up on the way home from the brewery tour and I didn't want him to get back out again, so we've postponed it for now. Nate turned on American Beauty and watched that for a bit. I absolutely HATE that movie. I hated it the first time I saw it years ago and I hate it even more now. It's just so wrong on so many levels and so depressing. I know that it's supposed to be like that, but I'll just live in my little bubble and pretend that that kind of stuff just doesn't happen, lol!! Gosh, I can't stand that movie!!

Some yummy, delicious new scrap goodies came out this weekend!! I have hardly scrapped lately except for a few pages - I'm hoping to get my mojo back soon!! Here's what's new this week!!

First of all, Zoe must have read my mind because I was just thinking about how I was wanting a new look for my blog. She and the Graffiti Chicks put out 2 new sets of the ever-so-popular Blog in a Box yesterday!!
Then she and Melissa Bennett got together and put out a gorgeous new Christmas kit!! :)

Bree was busy this week too!! Here are her new goodies!! :)

And she and Darcy put out an awesome greeting card set - how cute is this??

Libby has a couple of new kits this week: First up is Have Yourself a Maui Little Christmas. How fun is this??

And here is a Triple dip with Eva and Penny based loosely on Webkinz. On our team forum, there were some very surprised girls that I didn't really know anything about Webkinz, HAHA!! I'm still staying away, because they'll probably be addictive if I got Libby into them!! ;)


She also put out an awesome chrome alpha that I just love!! :)
Christy and Misty paired up and have given us this adorable baby kit!! :)

And Manda and Sara Amarie created this absolutely adorable kit!! Can't wait to use this one either!!
And of course Gina put out lots of new goodies this weekend too....I'm only going to post the kit because I'd be here all day if I posted everything, lol!!

Isn't this color scheme so cute??


And here are a few layouts I've done lately!! (there are a few I forgot to post last week)


(using a template from Bree's Inspired by Beth collection)

(using a template from Bree's Collection 21)
(using Libby's Maui Christmas and a template from Bree's new collection 22)

(for the Mix It Up Challenge on Bree's CT blog using a template from Collection 20 and Zoe's Happiness Kit)
And finally one using Gina's new kit!! :)


And that about wraps it up for today. Hope everyone's weekend is wonderful!! :)

xoxo

Yay!! Another weekend!!

I'm so happy that yet another weekend is here!! We've all been kinda sick here, so not a whole lot has been going on this week. I didn't scrap at all. I've just been so tired lately that by the time Libby gets to bed (8:30), Nate and I can usually watch TV or hang out for about an hour and then we're ready for bed!! I've been having some crazy Braxton Hicks contractions, especially in the evenings and at night. It's so strange how different this pregnancy is from mine with Libby. This is one crazy baby girl in there. I have to do kick counts a couple of times a week and on Thursday night I stopped after 50 minutes because I had already counted 73 kicks. Is that not unreal?? She's definitely doing alright in there!! LOL!!

Last night Nate and I grabbed a bite to eat and did some Christmas shopping. I tell you what - in previous years we have gotten Libby something really big for Christmas and this year, since she has SO much stuff already, we decided not to. We had SO much fun shopping for her this year and I think it has to do a lot with her age now!! First we went to Kohls. Nate needed a new pair of dress shoes for work and while he was looking there I was going to head over to try to find Christmas jammies for the girls. I can't find what we got for Claire on their website, but they are adorable!! For Christmas I got her a white sleeper with red trim with Santa, a snowman and I think a reindeer going across the chest and it says Baby's 1st Christmas. Too cute!! Then we got her a little onesie that is aqua with a cute little penguin on it with all sorts of sparkly sweets around it - it's SO adorable!! I think that might be her coming home outfit. We'll see. I can't wait to hold that warm little bundle of sweetness!! Oh and here's a quick picture I snapped of the two outfits since I couldn't find them online.

As far as Libby goes we found these jammies for her for Christmas:They're silky jammies and SO cute!! She doesn't know about them yet - she wouldn't be able to wait to wear them if she knew about them. She has been wanting a bathrobe, especially since Nate and I each have one. Well while we were looking for the jammies last night we saw this and knew we HAD to get it for her!!
We gave it to her last night and you would not believe how excited a little girl could be over a bathrobe!! She wanted to sleep in it last night but we had to talk her out of that!! She got up just now and the first thing we did was put on her bathrobe. It's cute because the little princess patch on it lights up everytime she moves. I'll have to take a picture of her later!!

After we went to Kohls, our next stop was Toys R Us. We got Claire her bouncer while we were there. This is the one we got her. It's so cute!! Then we got Calista and Dalton done...we didn't go overboard this year on anyone...and that was really nice. Calista has everything you could possibly imagine - for an 8 year old she is SO hard to shop for. We figured no one would be getting her any games so we got her Spongebob Monopoly. I think she'll really like that. Then we got Dalton these Melissa and Doug stackable construction vehicles.Here are a few things that we got for Libster:
And finally we got her her own digital camera. She has a pretend camera that she absolutely adores!! She tries to take pictures like I do when she plays with it. She's always telling me that she's going to take it to school with her to take pictures of her friends. So we were just browsing them last night and found a pretty sweet deal on this little camera. It was on sale for $33!! It's cute, durable and comes with software too. I think she'll have lots of fun with this!!
We got her a couple of other small things and we're pretty much done. Like I said, she's got so much stuff already, she didn't need a bunch of other gimmicky type toys. We looked at Barbies and dolls and stuff like that, but she's got that kind of stuff and we thought it would be more fun to pick out stuff that we really thought she would like. I think we did pretty good!! The only other thing we're getting is the Build-a-Bear that we're doing for she and Claire tomorrow. It feels so good to be nearly done with her!! There might be a couple of other things that we get, but we'll see!!

Today not much is on the agenda. Thank goodness!! We're off to the doctor at 10:30 and as long as I'm not seeing the doctor from last week I'm okay!! LOL!! It's supposed to be cold and rainy/snowy today so it's a good day to stay inside. Nate and Mike are going to go on a tour of the Schlafly brewery in St. Louis today for the beer blog that Mike writes for. Nate's pretty stoked about that!! Then we're settling in for a nice cozy evening of Scrabble (yes, we love playing Scrabble together, we're nerds!!) and renting a movie. We were thinking about renting Get Smart. Tomorrow we're just hanging out and getting stuff done around the house. Tomorrow afternoon we're heading to Build-a-Bear and doing Nate's birthday dinner with just the three of us. He and I were going to go last night but we just wanted to grab a quick bite and thought it would be fun to include Libby in the birthday dinner!! :) That's about it for now. I think I'm going to make myself a couple of eggs for breakfast and then grab a shower before the doctor's appointment.

Happy Saturday!!

So Happy Saturday!!!!

Yes, I am finally getting over my irritation from earlier. I'm trying not to think about it and wouldn't ya know, that helps!! LOL!! Today was actually a really good day!! It started off EARLY, that's for sure!! At 5am this morning I hear Libby saying that she wants her other baby doll. I believe it's Claire #2. She's so funny. All of her babies have been renamed Claire. It's easy to keep track of everyone, so that's good!! Anywho, she kept saying it over and over and finally I got up, went to her room and handed her the baby she wanted. Then I told her it was still too early to be up and that she should go back to sleep. I left the room, crawled back into bed, only to hear her start talking to the baby. *sigh* By this time I was up. Once I'm up, I'm pretty much up. So I went out to the living room to wake myself up a little more and sure enough at 5:30 she was ready to go!! She actually spent most of the day at Nate's mom and dad's house since they were babysitting Calista and Dalton. She came home for a nap and then she was off to play again. She and Calista had so much fun together today, so that's okay!! It actually allowed Nate and I some naptime and me some scraptime too!! Speaking of scraptime. Last weekend was DSD (Digital Scrapbooking Day) and it was FUN!! I did lots of fun challenges and bought lots of new goodies. I got some amazing deals. I've had SO much Kasia stuff on my list, I couldn't resist picking up some awesome deals from her!! Her designs are so amazing and SO inspiring!! One of the most fun challenges I did last weekend was a build your own sundae challenge. Bree Clarkson at Sweet Shoppe Designs hosted this challenge. She's an AMAZING template designer, so I knew this would be fun. Basically you chose which flavor "ice cream" you wanted. Chocolate, vanilla or strawberry. This determined which template was sent to you - there were three of them. Then you chose one, two or three scoops of ice cream. This determined how many photos were on your page. Then there was a huge list of toppings that you could choose from that determined what kinds of elements you use on your page. The toppings I chose ended up being flowers, bling (glitter, sequins, etc), tags and word art. It's hard only using 4 kinds of embellishments, but I was SO extremely happy with how this page turned out!!

I used SO many flowers, lol!! I love it though!! Well it turns out that I was one of four people chosen as winners of this challenge!! You know what that means? The four of us were chosen as full time members for Bree's creative team!! I am SO excited about that!! I can't wait to get started creating for her!! Speaking of Bree, There was another challenge on her blog that weekend. This is the layout I came up with using the template for this month's challenge:


I used Dani Mogstad's Holiday Spirit kit for this layout!! What a gorgeous kit too!!

I did a couple of SSD CT pages this past week. First I did this page using Zoe's new (last week new) gorgeous kit, Persimmon!! What a FAB kit this is!!


Next up is one using Libby's new kit from last week, Cotton Headed Ninny Muggins. I couldn't stop giggling when she showed us the preview last week. I LOVE the movie Elf and I can't wait to watch it this year!! That was one of my favorite parts of the movie - when he called himself a cotton headed ninny muggins!! LOL!!


Finally I did a page using one of Christy's new kits. She came out with 2 new kits inspired by High School Musical. Here's my page using Sweetheart:


I did another blog challenge - this time for Traci Reed's creative team. They posted a template based on an awesome layout and here is my take on the template!!


Then here are a couple of other pages I did using some Kasia goodness!! :)


And finally, as if it wasn't exciting enough to be asked to be on Bree's creative team, I got an invitation from the wonderfully talented and uber sweet Jaime Young asking me to be on her CT. She's so creative and talented and she recently expanded her creativity horizon by starting to design!! She's awesome!! Naturally, I accepted her invitation and here are 2 pages I've scrapped with her goodies so far!! :)


Well, not a whole lot else going on here. We've just finished up some yummy hot chocolate and animal crackers and are winding down for the night. Also, if you're the praying kind, please keep my sister and brother in law in your prayers. After running into a roadblock in their adoption process, they've just discovered that they'll be the proud adoptive parents of a new baby in February. God is truly amazing and the miracles that He works are truly extraordinary. I'll let my sister post about the whole thing and then post the link to her blog from here!! I'm so excited and proud!! I love you, Carrie!!

Well, that's all for now!! Nighty night!!

xoxo