New Swingset

My hardworking husband has been busy building a swingset for the kiddos and today he got all the swings on and moved up by the house so that we can use it. It still needs a coat of paint and he is planning on building a slide for it later this winter, but definetly useable now.

Random Pictures

07/31/09 - 6 days before delivery.

Charlie in her usual messy, unbrushed hair and her favorite shirt.

Putting up the new fence to keep the kiddos contained.

Cori at 3 weeks old.

August 30, 2009 - Cori's Dedication

Us, Pastor Tom and Godparent Vince & Tifanie.

Cori at 5 weeks old.

Charlie and her friend, Grace.

Updates

I'm not going to begin to try and remember exactly whats been happening the last 8 weeks, but here goes with a little bit of updating.

We had a baby...post below. Her big sister likes her most of the time. The first few days she didn't think we should feed her at all and it didn't matter if she was nursing or getting a bottle. She has gotten over that and I'm not saying...gentle, that's her head, don't poke your sister, etc. near as often anymore.

Praise the Lord business has picked up recently. The boys have been busy putting in fence, building and grading an arena, pasture maintenance and a few other odd jobs in between. And there are still projects on our schedule so we should be busy for awhile.

I feel like I'm busy, but couldn't really tell you what I get done every day. Some days I think all we accomplish is getting everyone fed and dressed. Actually, the girls stay in jammies all day sometimes! Makes for less laundry, right? Between cooking, feeding little ones, cleaning, invoicing, collection calls, banking, post office trips, park trips, etc...I have managed to harvest things from the garden and get some canning done...14 quarts of chili, 10 quarts of spaghetti sauce, 20 pints of salsa and a gallon of pickles and froze some green beans and sweet corn. I still have tons of tomatoes, peppers, etc so there is more to come in my future. You would never guess that there is anything growing out there amongst the weeds. I'll post pictures later just to show you how bad it looks.

My Babywearing Little Girl

After a day of seeing mommy wearing baby Cori, Charlie wanted to wear her babies too.

Big Sister Charlie

BIG SISTER CHARLIE
Charlie was so excited and not so excited about have a new baby sister. In the first week or so, we had many ups and downs with loving kisses followed by “No mom don’t feed her again!”

I still hear things like “feeding her again?” but it’s more of a statement than an upsetting issue. Charlie has been our little commentator since she started talking, so many times a day I hear…baby Cori pooped again….my blankie…my nuk…my (fill in the blank)…baby Cori eating mom’s boobs again….and the list goes on and on. If you ever want to know what’s going on or what you missed, ask Charlie, she will be sure to tell you. And I never thought I would talk about my boobs so much especially with my 2 year old.

Cori Suzanne

CORI SUZANNE
Our newest little girl was born on August 5th at 8pm. Cori Suzanne weighed 6 lbs 11 oz. and was 18 ½ in. long. The day started normal enough. I had a scheduled OB appointment (39 weeks) in the morning and had left Charlie with a sitter. As I was talking to my midwife Renee about being dilated, thinned out, swelling and all the other joys of being pregnant…induction was brought up.

At this point, I was so ready to not be pregnant and a little worried that I was going to end up going overdue. Joe had a very full plate scheduled for the following weekend and I was thinking it would happen then and I wouldn’t be able to get a hold of him. So, Renee tells me she is fine with inducing me if I wanted. I wanted to wait a few days…for the weekend…it would be more convenient for Joe, etc. Renee left to check the schedule and see about getting me in on Friday morning (the 5th was a Wednesday). She came back after a very long time and tells me there is no way I can get in for a scheduled induction at all on Thur. or Fri. but I could get in today at 1:30 pm. It was about 10:30 am at the time. I called Joe thinking there was no way he would agree to that. To my surprise, he says…sure I’ll meet you at home in 2 hours.

Labor went really well. I was induced about 2 pm and my contractions progress steadily over the next few hours. I was planning on a water birth and was as my contractions got closer together and more intense it sounded like a better and better idea. I was dilated enough to get in the tub around 5:30 pm but baby’s heartbeat kept dropping every time I would have a contraction, so we waited my contractions out a little while. I stayed hooked up to the monitors hoping it was just a sporadic thing, but noticed rather quickly that it was very consistent and happened with every contraction. Renee was worried that she had the cord wrapped.

So, since I could not get unhooked from the monitors, I could not get in the tub. We decided on an epidural then and got that about 7 pm. At that time, I was dilated to about 7 and sat back and chatted with my midwife, Renee and our awesome nurse, Kim (We were the only ones delivering at the time). It didn’t take long and I was feeling ready to push and asked Renee to check me again….fully dilated…YEAH almost time to meet our little girl!

8 pm our little girl was born…after pushing just 3 or 4 times. It was probably a total of 10 minutes. It turns out the cord was around her tummy and probably was being squeezed as she was moving down with each contraction…so I could have been in the tub had we known. Oh well, better safe than sorry. In just a few minutes I had my little girl snuggled up nursing like a champ. It was a nice peaceful labor and delivery. It was just Joe and I with one nurse and our midwife. There was no family standing outside the door waiting to come in the second after delivery and our phones weren’t ringing a bunch of times…both of which happened when we had Charlie.