Hair cuts (a first for Jillian)

 

Since we are blessing Sarah this Sunday and will take lots of pictures, I decided it was time to give the girls a haircut and get one myself. Jillian had never had a hair cut before and I didn't really want to cut it because it was so long and I was able to do so much with it, but it was not the same length in all places and it was still very fine baby hair. I hoped that if I cut it shorter that it would grow back in thicker and be the same length.

I turned on a movie and started on Annabelle. She's had several trims before so she's a pro a this. I forgot to take a picture of her before and after so I tried to get a picture in the middle of the cut to show how much I cut off. It's hard to tell in the picture, but I cut off almost 4 inches.

Jillian was a little harder. She didn't hold her head still as well as Annabelle did and her hair has a natural wave (I don't know where she gets it from- my hair is as straight as a board) and it would dry quickly and create a wave, causing me to be unable to get a straight cut across. I had to keep spraying her hair with water to keep it wet. Overall, I think I almost cut off 5 inches. I ended up cutting it even shorter than this picture shows. I was a little frustrated when I was done though because only some places of her hair are wavy and the rest is straight. So when it dried, it looked like I had not cut evenly because it was wavy and shorter in some areas and longer and straight in others. Oh well. I'm a little sad though because now it's so short that it won't all fit in a ponytail or even pigtails and I can't french braid it anymore. But I'm sure it will be long enough soon.


I also got my hair cut, but I did not cut my own hair. I had someone else do it. I got 4 1/2 inches off. It's now to my shoulders. Because my hair is so thick, I think it looks better longer and the person cutting my hair cut more off than I wanted, but there's nothing I can do about it.

Easter house

Annabelle received a foam Easter house that you assemble for her birthday. With Sarah being born just a couple weeks later, I was too tired to help her put it together for a while. Finally, the week before Easter, I told her we would put it together and have it on display for Easter. We decided to turn it into our family home evening activity. I thought that everything you needed was included in the box. After we got the basic house part put together, I realized that foam glue was actually not included and the house couldn't be built and decorated without it. So we took it apart and a few days later, we went to the store to get foam glue. Annabelle wanted to hold it and somewhere between the craft section and the checkout aisle, she put it down. I bought some other items as well and so I didn't even notice that it wasn't with my other purchases until we were driving home and Annabelle remembered that she had left it somewhere in the store. At this point, Easter was 2 days away and I wasn't going back to the store, so the house wasn't out for Easter. Last week, I finally got the glue and over the course of 3 days, we were able to make her Easter house. It was a very long tedious process because we could only glue a few decorations at a time and then we'd have to wait a day for the glue to dry before adding more. Anyway, it's finished. We put it out for a few days and now it's stored away with the other Easter stuff until next year.

Sarah

  

I can't believe it's almost been 7 weeks since Sarah was born. Here are some of the latest pictures and videos of Sarah and her sisters. They still love and adore her. Even Jillian hasn't shown any signs of jealousy or dislike of Sarah, which is shocking to me. Sarah is such a good baby. She sleeps really well at night and is usually very pleasant during the day, which is great considering she doesn't take a pacifier. I've heard of babies who "don't take" a pacifier, but I always thought the parents just didn't push it. I am a HUGE fan of pacifiers, and I thought there was no way I could ever survive a baby who doesn't like one. Well, Sarah as proved me wrong, at least thus far. I've tried to give one to her everyday for weeks, but have finally given up and I've got to say, I don't ever even think of giving her one now. Even when she's fussy, the thought doesn't even enter my mind. Perhaps if she were a fussy, colicky baby, I would think differently. I love having her in our family and can't wait to see what kind of personality she has.

 
This is also what Sarah has been doing lately. I think we've had 3 blowouts in the last 3 days, 2 of them ending up all over me as well as Sarah (sorry for the graphic picture). 

Napping during dinner

Jillian is in that stage where she's stopped taking naps everyday. But on days when she hasn't taken a nap, she's pretty exhausted by the end of the day. A few days ago, Annabelle and Jillian were eating dinner in the kitchen while I was feeding Sarah in my room. I noticed it got pretty quiet in the kitchen, so I decided to go out and investigate. When I walked into the dining room, I see Jillian with her head practically on her plate of food. She had fallen asleep at the table. I guess that day, I should have made her take a nap. It was pretty funny to see. Of course, I had to wake her up and she was pretty cranky right up until bedtime.

Annabelle's milestone

I had quite the shock when I came home from a meeting Sunday night and found that Annabelle had lost her first tooth. I didn't even know that she had a loose tooth. That morning, she had some toast and complained that the bottom of her mouth hurt when she bit into it. I just thought she was being silly. She never mentioned anything about a loose tooth. Anyway, so I get home around bedtime just as she's writing a letter to the tooth fairy. Apparently, while Michael was downstairs, Annabelle and Jillian were playing upstairs and all of the sudden, Annabelle noticed her tooth was gone. She and Michael searched everywhere for it, but we never found the tooth. Annabelle was very worried that the tooth fairy wouldn't come if we couldn't find the tooth. After much reassurance, she went to bed and fortunately, the tooth fairy came that night and left her a nice dollar bill.

I was completely shocked. For whatever reason, the thought that my 5 year old was old enough to lose a tooth never occurred to me. Less than 12 hours after Annabelle lost her tooth, I registered her for kindergarten. Talk about a lot for a mom to handle. But she's so excited about both losing her tooth and going to school. Even though summer is her favorite season, she can't wait for summer to be over so she can go to school.

Active again

Today was such a beautiful. I was already planning on starting a running routine again this week, but I knew that if the weather was bad, I would seriously lack the motivation to get out and run. Fortunately, it was gorgeous weather and almost even made me excited to go running. I couldn't get too excited because I knew it was going to be hard and I was going to be in serious pain tomorrow, but it was wonderful to be outside in such nice weather and I felt good doing something to help me get back in shape.

When I got home, Annabelle wanted to do some stretching with me, so here's a video of one of our exercises.

Easter Sunday

I spent quite a while on Saturday trying to decide and coordinate what my kids would wear for church on Sunday. My mom bought all three girls matching dresses, but even though she bought the largest size available for Annabelle, it was still too short. I didn't want Annabelle to feel left out if I dressed the little girls in matching clothes, so I had to go with plan B. All three girls looked so adorable in their beautiful Easter outfits, I couldn't get enough pictures. They are all my favorites.

Easter festivities

Friday afternoon, the girls and I dyed easter eggs. They had such a good time watching the eggs turn different colors, as well as seeing their fingers turn colors from putting their fingers in the dye. I was afraid there would be a big spill at some point, but for the most part, there was very little mess to clean up. On Saturday, we were going to get together with another family and have an Easter egg hunt and dinner together, but unfortunately, some of their kids were sick. In the morning, Annabelle and Jillian searched for their easter baskets. They were bouncing off the wall with excitement. Annabelle has been counting down the days until easter several times a day since Monday. Later that day, we did the egg hunt and had a fabulous dinner. It was a fun-filled family day.

Two best sets of grandparents ever

I was so lucky to have my in-laws, whom I love, come stay with us for a week, followed by my parents coming from southern Illinois for a week. Annabelle loved having constant playmates, through I know she tired her grandparents out.

One month old

As I expected, I have been extremely busy and tired over the last month and this is the first time I have the time and energy to blog about the last month. Let's start with Sarah's birth. After having some very minor contractions starting around 4 p.m., my water broke at 8:20. Michael had just sat down to dinner at a restaurant with his coworkers after just finishing a seminar to BYU-I students interested in attending law school. Fortunately, my good friend called me about 5 minutes before and when she heard that Michael wasn't home but that I was having some contractions, she immediately come over to keep me company. Literally 2 minutes after she walked in the door, my water broke. I texted Michael to come home and my friend helped me pack up the kids, and then she took them to her house for the night.

Once my water broke, the contractions started coming hard and close together. I even had a slight urge to push while making the 6 minute drive to the hospital. Once we got there, at about 8:40, the receptionist told us we had to wait for a nurse to take us up to the delivery unit. As we're waiting and I'm doubled over in pain, the receptionist asks us questions about when the contractions started coming and if I was sure my water had broken. Her bored tone of voice made Michael and me think that she thought I was just some first time mom who thought I was in labor when I really wasn't. Michael joked and told her that my water had broken on its own for our other two children and from the time my water broke to the time the baby was born was 6 /2 hours for the first and 3 1/2 hours for the second. Maybe this baby it would only be an hour. Little did he know that he would be about right. Finally, a nurse came and led us to the delivery unit.

I had every intention of getting an epidural and to speed things along, Michael stayed at the check-in desk to give the secretary all my insurance stuff while I went in to get the IV, which is required before you can have the epidural. Three painful pokes later, they finally get the IV in, but I am progressing so rapidly, that there's almost no chance of getting the epidural before the baby comes. This was the most miserable, painful time of my life. I have never been in so much pain. At first, I tried to handle the contractions as calmly, quietly, and dignified as possible. But soon, I couldn't control myself and I was screaming and moaning. I had only one volume and that was loud. Anytime the nurses asked me something or I needed to tell them something, I would yell. I didn't mean to yell at anyone, I just couldn't help it. I also had a hard time speaking clearly while in such pain. At one point, I screamed out, "Can't you just suction this baby out?". I was at the time thinking of when Jillian was born, she was having a hard time coming out so the doctor put a suction cup on her head and suctioned her out. After I yelled this, one of the nurses looked and me and said in a shocked voice, "No way. You're going to push this baby out". At the time, I didn't understand why she said that. Of course I was going to push the baby out. What else would I do? I was only asking (screaming) for some immediate way to get the baby out. Michael later informed me that everyone in the room thought I said "section this baby out" which they assumed meant having a C-section. It was only then that I understood the nurses response, though it still confused me. Why in the world would they think I wanted a C-section when I was so close to delivering her?

Michael, while trying to keep things light, would make little remarks, such as, "If it would help, I could always turn on ESPN and we could check the score of the game" or "I hope there aren't any women outside this room touring the facility because you're probably making think twice about having kids". The nurses were giving him dirty looks for saying such things and one even told him that he better be quiet or else I might hit him.

A short time later, I had a very strong urge to push, but unfortunately, the doctor wasn't there yet. The nurses began preparing to deliver the baby themselves when the doctor rushes in wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt. He has only enough time to put on the scrubs covering before sitting down and telling me to push. In three extremely painful pushes where it felt like my insides were being ripped apart, she was out. At 9:30, less than one hour after arriving at the hospital and one hour and fifteen minutes after my water broke( Michael was off by 15 minutes), Sarah Nicole Brown was born. She weighed 7.5 lbs and was 19 inches long.

I wish I could say the pain was over, but it wasn't. I continued to have severe cramping in my abdomen and I started shivering and shaking all over. After Sarah was born and the doctor was finishing up with me, I kept saying how much pain I was still in. The doctor tried to get my mind off the pain by asking me the silliest question ever: "Linds (he had a thing with calling me this), tell me where you went to high school". Really? I just had a baby and am hurting and you ask me about high school? You know what I said to him? Through clenched teeth, I responded, "I know what you're trying to do and it's not going to work." So what does he do? He asks me a second time where I went to high school. I didn't even bother to respond the second time. If you're going to get my mind off things, ask me about things that matter now, like how old are my other kids, are they excited to have a new sister, where did you and your husband meet. These are things that are important to me now and things that I would like to talk about. Not high school.

Anyway, a few minutes later, I got some ibuprofen for the cramping. Those stopped shortly thereafter and I was able to have the IV removed, get up, take a shower, move over to the recovery unit. The only good thing about not getting an epidural was the recovery was faster and easier. I felt almost back to normal within a couple hours of Sarah's birth. Though I was totally unprepared for delivering without an epidural and would never choose to do it again this way, it went fast and I'm grateful that everything went as well as could be expected. It's been one month today since Sarah was born and I already can't imagine life without her, though I can (and often do) imagine getting more sleep. Welcome to the world, little Sarah.