Life Lately...

Let's start with cute pictures first, for a change! :-)

All snuggled up.

3rd... I mean... 1st bath!! We'll call it that anyway. Poor 2nd child... her parents already forgetting to take pictures on 'special' occasions. ;-) She's not a big fan of bathtime yet anyway.

Love her cute little snuggle buns.

Weekend outing... Cosi! FYI, if you're interested in checking out the Dinosaur exhibit... not really worth it. I wouldn't have spent $75 for our family to see it again, that's for sure! Unless you have a Cosi pass, which we ended up buying, and then it's worth the $4/ person.

A picnic! Ava loooved it. She came home and played 'picnic' with her dolls all afternoon. Complete with a baby carrier carseat sitting in the 'grass' on our living room floor. :-)

Now, for the question everyone's been asking... how are we?! This family of four is awesome! And by awesome, I mean I've been living on wee hours of sleep a night, nursing around the clock every 2-3 hours (except last night! Stella slept in 4 & 1/2 hr intervals! YES!!), my personal hygiene has admittedly fallen by the wayside, my house is a disaster zone (except the dishes... thanks to Daddy), and my laundry is out-of-freakin'-control!!

Eric has been on a wacky work schedule for the last week or so, going in at 11am and not getting home until 9:30pm some nights. Umm... that... is... a... painful... day!! He's running a job where they work on a roof all day long in the heat. So, we're talking temperatures of 140-160 degrees up there. Poor guy sweats buckets all day. Then he gets home and I just want to dump the children on him and run! Ha!! On those late nights when he gets home the kids are in bed, or getting there, and I'm deciding whether to shower or collapse in my bed. So, he's physically exhausted and I'm emotionally exhausted by the end of the day. When he's home, he tends to take care of Ava while I take care of Stella. What's that called? Man to man defense? Yea, that's how it works!

Ava started out throwing larger than life 2 year old tantrums (which fade a little more everyday), she asks to be 'the baby' and have her diaper changed, sit in the bouncy seat, and sleep in mommy & daddy's room... and occasionally picks up a binky and puts it in her mouth, however, not sucking on it because she never liked binky's, but just to have it there... in her mouth... like a baby. She also started busting out heartbreaking statements like, "mommy, why you always with baby Stella? Can't she drink juice from da frigerator?" and "can you put her down so I can hug you?" which have also faded over the last week. Don't know how many more of those statements I could take! Bless her heart... her life as she knew it is over! :) She loves on her baby sister in the sweetest ways possible, though. She greets her in the morning with a, "good mooorning sweetheart! she's so cute mom... can I see her face closer?!" and she climbs up on the side of her crib while I change her diaper and get her dressed. She always calls her 'sweetheart'... or 'lil fella'...haha. If Stella is crying and I'm not right there I'll hear Ava say, "it's okay sweetheart, mommy's comin', mommy's comin." She gets a serious confidence boost when Stella's crying and she gives her a binky and it soothes her. She'll say, "Mom! Look! She's happy now! I did dat! I gave her her binky!" Witnessing all of these things makes the craziness of mothering a newborn and 2 & 1/2 year old well worth every minute!

So, we're all adjusting... slowly, but surely. I remind myself everyday that she is only a few weeks old (3 to be exact) and expecting a predictable routine to fall into place with her so quickly is unrealistic. That's always the hardest thing for me... I like predictability and schedules. Newborns don't do schedules. As I tell my 2 year old everyday... we have to have patience. :) Actually, she is starting to fall into a little more of a routine... which might be why she slept so well last night. Let's hope it keeps up!

Stay tuned for another day when I've had a good night's rest for another update!

P.S. I need to take more pictures of my baby! I had taken 120 or so pics of Ava by this point!

More hospital pics

Yea! Lets do this! (post epidural ;)

My sister was working and got to come down to labor and delivery to witness the main event!

Sweet Daddy ;) Always such a good labor supporter.

The A-team! Dr. Turner and my nurse Katie.

See, the pink gown makes for some cute postpartum pics ;) Distracts you from my puffy eyes and face! lol.

She was soooo proud to hold her baby sister!

precious!

Lit'l peanut...

Another sweet baby girl... so blessed ...

Hospital Pics

These pictures were taken by a photographer at the hospital as our official newborn pics. She did great. So much better than the typical mugshot looking pics we're all used to!

Presenting... Stella Jolie Williams

Our Sweet Baby Girl is Here!!

Stella Jolie

July 5, 2011

11:20 am

6 lbs 15 oz

20 inches

The "story" : (the short version )

It was about 8:45pm, on July 4th, at the Worthington fireworks festival when it all began. :) Isn't that a nice start :) Eric, Ava, & I were out and about with our friends, the Seeds, walking around downtown Worthington with our children, enjoying some Independence day festivities. I had been contracting on and off all day (like usual) when, after a visit at Graeter's and a very large turtle sundae, we started walking back down the hill to our cars, when I felt a large GUSH of fluid fill my britches. I squealed, "Oooh crap, guys! I think my water just broke! Oh man, or maybe I peed myself?!? But it won't stop! And it's very warm!! Ahh!" I froze in the middle of the sidewalk, one hand holding myself and the other grabbing Jess' arm while also crossing my legs, (water still flowing!) and trying desperately to cover what felt like an ocean of wetness down my legs. I must've had THE MOST terrified look on my face, because my sweet friend Jess assured me that it does indeed feel like you've peed yourself! Ok, then! Well, now what!? (The labor & delivery nurse in me left the building at. that. moment! I felt clueless despite seeing this stuff almost everyday:) We continued walking to our cars, but only after the lady in front of us, who happened to hear the excitement behind her, yelled "Well, Congratulations!!" Ha! We hurriedly made our way to our vans... drip, drip, drip... and I pretty much shuffled the entire way there! I was convinced I peed myself. I thought, "ok, if my water did break, these contractions will pick up and then I'll know for sure!" Our friends offered to keep Ava for the night and watch the fireworks while Eric and I went home for our bags... or to at least figure out what in the world was going on here! More leaking on the way home... "this has to be my water, right?!" I'm telling you, labor is not a straight forward science. Especially when you're the one going through it! Like textbook though, my contractions got considerably more intense and closer together within the hour. By the time we got to the hospital, they were baaaddd. I was 2-3 cm when I got to the hospital, they tested to see if my water broke, and the tests came back negative! What the!? Now, listen... I am self-admittedly a rockstar pants-pee-er. Especially during pregnancy, I have the weakest bladder. I know when it's happening, obviously, and how to make it stop... know what I'm sayin'? You can stop the flow of urine! Not amniotic fluid! Right? Confusing. Regardless of the skeptical tests, my contractions were coming much more frequently and stronger! So something was brewing! :) So, I was admitted to the same room we had Ava in... Eric's request. Thankfully, there were rooms available! Labor & Delivery had been so busy lately I was afraid I'd come in in labor and have to deliver on a cart. Ha! So, after a few hours and only very little cervical change, I got pitocin and promptly an epidural. I wanted to have more cervical change before getting the epidural, but when the word pitocin is mentioned, I know better, hook me up with the epidural! Forget waiting for more change! This is exhausting! The rest is history :) Labor went well, except for a one sided epidural that left me high & dry. My cervix changed from 5.5cm to 10cm in an hour, so I can't blame the epidural... but ouch! After waiting painfully for 35-40 minutes for my doctor to get there I had miss Stella out in ONE contraction! 4 pushes and she was here! Unbelievable! I couldn't have asked for a better delivery. She came right up on my belly, crying & pink, my beautiful sweet baby girl. And my care team was amazing... absolutely the best experience ever. Unlike my ornery Ava, who needed a vacuum to pull her chubby butt out, which brought 8 million people into the room at the time of delivery, Stella came into this world peacefully. Although she screamed & screamed & screamed foreeevvver after she was born. My little firecracker. Stella was exactly one pound smaller and one inch shorter than Ava. Ava was born at 41 weeks, and Stella at 39 weeks + 4 days, so I'd say they are pretty comparable. Eric chose Stella's middle name. Jolie is the french word for 'pretty'. I had given him the duty of picking a middle name and it came down to the day before she was born before he decided on one, but he did it and it's beautiful... just like our new baby girl! And that's a wrap... ;)