Bennett Unsupervised

I would like to be able to say that I watch my kids every second to make sure they stay clear of danger... but I am quickly learning that with two that is nearly impossible. So the last few days I have been doing my best to keep the busy three year old in sight and happily on a project while I am going through the learning process of breast feeding and caring for this little lady.

Last night I was feeling a bit out numbered and as soon as I sat down to feed baby girl I noticed Bennett had been a bit quiet... So I tried coaxing him out of hiding by yelling "Hey Bennett what are you doing in there?" with no answer and just some thuds and movement in the bathroom I knew I had to get up and check it out...

And this is what I walked into. I panicked at first because I have heard kids can choke on baby powder in the air... but as soon as I noticed 99% was applied directly to his scalp and probably pretty harmless, I had to grab my camera and capture this cute moment... Oh this lil guy keeps me on my toes and makes me laugh on a daily basis. It is moments like these that I realize how lucky I am... we have two healthy, funny and mischievous little kiddos and we couldn't feel more blessed!

Pretty girl

I wont lie... we don't have a lot going on around here. All cleaning, cooking, and nesting of any kind has come to a screeching halt as every single free second is spent cuddling this little lady. We even used my well needed nap time today to take some pictures of my girl and this adorable hat her auntie Jania got her.

Here she is, 10 days old.

Such a lil helper :)

One Week

Anna June has been just enjoying life, eating, pooping, sleeping, you know all the normal baby stuff. I must admit I have spent most of the week recovering physically, attempting to catch up on my sleep deprevation and staring at our beautiful little lady in amazement. Although I think she looks a lot like her big brother our experience in the first week could not be different this time around. She is so alert during the day, just checking out her world around her and usually zonks through most of the night (I am sure this will change now that I have said it outloud). We are relatively relaxed around here and Bennett loves just showing Anna everything there is to know about living and playing at home.
Our big accomplishment of the week... we are back at birth weight, 7 lbs 3 oz! I was unable to breast feed Bennett due to the complications in his mouth so this time around breast feeding was a priority and a little bit of a challenge. I contacted our friend Nancy this week and being a feeding therapist she was soooo helpful. Our little girl has been doing great from days and to hit this milestone of being back at her birth weight is a little celebration for me and baby girl!
Here are some pictures of our sweet girl at one week old... I must say, the prettiest girl in the world.

Sitting in her brothers blue bouncer :)

Loves the soothies binkies... not the cutest binky but they help with breastfeeding and she loves them.

Here is what I stare at all night... She loves her bouncer and so we let her sleep in it for now...

Our boy trying with all his might to give Anna a balloon for the picture..

The Bunting

Since 1966, starting with my cousin Teri, this bunting has brought every single baby on my dad's side of the family home, including me, my sisters, cousins, my cousins kids and Bennett.

So here is our little girl in her "bunting pictures" I think she looks pretty beautiful... and I am sure someday her daughters will look beautiful in it too.

 Here is "Aunt T" (my cousin Teri, the first in the bunting). She came with her daughter Sami today to meet out little girl and brought us dinner! Yum! Having dinner ready so early definitely made me feel like my first day home as a mama to two was a complete success :) Thank you guys!

Day 3 and Day 1,169

It is day 3 with our little girl and its seems about time for an update. So far she is proving that she has all of life all figured out. Here are some of her likes and dislikes so far.

Likes: She loves to suck on the back of her hands and act starving most of her awake time. She has to have her bear that makes heartbeat sounds at night. She loves her portable bassinet bouncer (disliking her fancy, pretty bassinet we had set up next to our bed). She loves staring at her brother and taking all of mom's attention away from him. She prefers to be naked and hates changing her clothes.

Dislikes: getting her diaper changed, gas, baths and getting her pictures taken (I told her she was going to have to get used to this one)... pretty much anything other than snuggling and eating... good thing mom is a big fan of snuggling!

So I guess our update could be summed up by sayging that we love her more every second, Love how sweet her big brother is with her and couldnt feel more complete with her finally here as part of our family.

1,169 Day Check in for our little man Bennett:

Likes: He loves his preschools, the old toddler group and the "new school" at the Children Museum. He still has his unconditional love of anything with a motor, tractors, trains trucks etc. He loves playing outside with Daddy, getting muddy (see below from this afternoon). He is enchanted with spending time with both sets of Grandparents and all of his cousins. He especially loves his new baby sister!

Dislikes: Naptime and Nighttime "I no wanna go nap!" (but he is still asleep within 5 minutes most of the time), Mom's eggs (loves grandmas though), he is understandably not a fan of going to any kind of Dr. He is honestly one of the happiest kiddos I have ever met and I could list a million more likes than dislikes.

As you can see our little man is still keeping us busy and is 100% the cutest, most perfect little man in the world!

Pretty sure we couldn't get any luckier.

Dad's first hair cut... I hate to admit it but, it is way better than when I do it... Looks like it is now his job :)

Anna June meets her six cousins!

After our first night home with our daughter we were both pretty anxious to add our son back into the mix... After four nights at Grandma & Grandpa Jones' we missed him dearly. So Saturday morning Anna was able to see her big brother again and meet her aunties, uncles and cousins!

It was a great day with the three "Jones Girls" and our 7 kids!!!! I was so excited to share this time with my sisters who both have 2 little ones of their own. The kids are always a ton of fun and play together so great... it was a busy house and I loved it! Anna's cousin Maddie was also here... I know Anna will look up to Maddie always and hopefully Maddie will teach her everything she knows and Anna will be just like her in 13 years!

Anna got her first bath at home from Grandma Ruth. She got her all lathered up in Bath lotion and as we were combing out her hair I was surprised again with how pitch black it is... and maybe even a little curly (I hope!)

Thanks for coming to meet our little lady! I hope that she grows up to be a perfect mix of her two aunties and that our kids will know what it is like to have such great cousins as I had sisters growing up.

Anna June Olsen

So here I go. This is going to be my attempt to capture the last 48 very eventful hours into one post. First let me just say that as I type this, I am listening to my husband and son run around the living room playing some crazy cars and legos and I am sitting in our bed watching a Harry Potter marathon on TV and staring at the prettiest little girl on the planet snuggled up in all pink on my lap. (I appoligize in advance for how long this post is but I just dont want to forget any a second of it! I am obviously an oversharer but I cant imagine not keeping all these memories for us!)

I guess the story of our delivery all started a couple months ago at a check up with our Dr up in Bellevue. With both our pregnancies there has been complications and a lot of anxiety on my part and I am pretty sure I could never had made it through without our amazing Dr, Dr Wall. My whole family laughs at what this man has had to put up with during my pregnancies and how well he has dealt with all of my craziness. He offered to deliver us and I was ecstatic! So from that point on I was determined to make it near term and to somehow plan it so that we could make it all the way to Kirkland to deliver at Evergreen Hospital with Dr Wall.

As 39 weeks approached I hoped that maybe Dr Wall would induce us and relieve me of the fear of being in labor on the freeway in rush hour. So a few weeks ago the date was set... February 16th would be our little girls birthday!

The day approached and I secretly prayed I wouldn't go into labor until our magical day we had planned. We had an appointment set for Wednesday morning and so with the kiddo at grandma Ruth's and the dog all settled away we packed our bags and headed up north. We saw Dr Wall on Wednesday morning and everything looked great... we were to see him bright and early the next morning when we check in to the hospital. Joel and I headed off to a day of fun to enjoy a day alone before our big day. We went out to lunch with some old friends and even hit happy hour at the Red Hook brewery. I was excited to get settled into the hotel that night and wait for the early morning call.

So at 4:30 am I woke up and quickly dialed Labor and Delivery as I was instructed to see what the plan was and where to go when we got there at 7:00... but there was some bad news. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was excited about seeing their baby that day and they were full from overnight check ins. I was delayed a couple hours and after the nurse officially calling and cancelling on us we had packed our bags to head back to Olympia completely devastated. Dr Wall was going out of town the next day so had there been no room we would be sent home with no plan on our delivery. Needless to say I spent the entire morning crying and praying for a miracle.

At around 11 the nurse called back and said that they had worked some magic and they were ready for us. I was soooo excited and we headed out to meet our girl puffy red eyes and all.

We got to the hospital and I quickly apologized to the receptionist for crying over the phone so many times that morning and she said they had many cryers that day... hehe apparently they had had double the amount of babies they usually had and the nurses were all on required overtime... we felt sooo lucky to get in as they had turned away many elective inductions that day.

That is when we met our nurse Sue and were shown our room. The room was huge and I was so excited to hear we would be there until discharge. I was also pretty excited to hear that we didn't have to share our nurse and within minutes Sue, Joel and I were preparing for our little girls "birthday party". Sue was determined to have the baby born before her shift was up at 11 pm and I had no faith in that guess at all.

We started the pitocin at the lowest range and I was off walking. They encourage the moms to get out and "walk the baby out" and I was proudly pushing my IV around at a swift pace thinking "man this isn't bad at all I could do this all day until she arrives!" The Dr came in at 4:30 and broke my water. I was happily reporting how I was "uncomfortable but handling it well" ... boy was I not ready for what happened next.

My pitocin was still really low but for some reason our little girl took this all as a clue to get out and she was determined! To say it lightly, I was immediately in complete agony. They made me walk the halls again and I think I used some choice words at this idea... but got up anyway. I only made it about a half hour and I was pretty sure I was going to die. How anyone could make it through this process without an epidural is completely insane to me. It was for sure the longest 2 hours of my life and I am sure I wasn't much fun for anyone around me either... including poor Sue, the lucky anesthesiologist and my supportive hubby.

After the epidural was placed I think I almost kissed the Dr and I was feeling a lot better. But then they informed me that all that pain had done the trick and it was almost time to meet our baby girl. I waited about another hour and Dr Wall came in to check on how things were going around 7pm. The Dr stayed the whole time with us and I am pretty sure I wont ever forget our Dr, nurse and Daddy singing to American Idol as I tried to pushed her out.

I couldn't have been more happy with the Dr and Nurse that helped us welcome our little girl. It was so special, joyous and I might even admit a bit of fun. Around 8:32 (just as daddy had predicted) after about 30 minutes of pushing our Anna June came out screaming and we were delighted! 

The first time I saw her all I could think was "oh lordy, that girl looks just like her big brother!" She was amazingly beautiful with dark hair, dark eyes and all the features of her big brother. They gave her to me right away and let me visit for 30 minutes before weighing her and making her all pretty. She weighed in at 7 lbs 3 oz (a lot smaller than I had predicted) and 19 1/4 in long. She had great apgar scores and was looking picture perfect from the first second!

I honestly dont remember anything after getting our little girl in my arms... I just stared at her, in utter disbelief that they were going to let us keep her. As a worried Mama, I searched and searched for any flaw and have yet to find one.
Our first look...

A few hours later Grandma & Grandpa Olsen came to visit and give her her first bath. She loved it and I must admit she was just getting cuter by the second all wrapped up, clean and with a cute hat our nurse made. She started breastfeeding like a champ and we settled in for our first night with our newly born daughter.

She slept ok that first night, mostly in moms arms and by early morning everybody was on the mend. I could not believe that after spending the first 6 weeks of Bennetts life in the hospital they were actually talking about discharging us that next day.... and boy were we ready to get our little girl home!

The day was great we had many visitors and the first up with Big brother Bennett! He came with Grandma and Grandpa Jones and I could tell as soon as we walked in he was a bit nervous about being at the hospital. Anna gave him his present (a Diego view finder) and he was sooo excited. I asked him if he wanted to take Anna home and he said "no I want to take my Diego toy home" He bounced around the room laughing and snacking and really not even seeming to care he had just become a big brother... but being three I guess we will let it slide... he has many many years to enjoy his baby sister.

Auntie Jania and Dane and Shar came by that afternoon and we were set to head home around 9pm.

We arrived home around 11 pm and settled in as a mom and dad to a little daughter! 

I couldn't be happier with our special day and our special little girl... I sit here dreaming of years to come watching her grow into a little lady. She is perfect and sweet and we couldn't be happier.

Here are some pictures in our room... Our sweet girl less than one day old...

A Matinee for Three

As our time as a family of only 3 is quickly coming to an end I was hoping to use this rainy Saturday to spend together enjoying our first little bundle of joy!

I must admit the day was pretty lazy but around noon we headed over the the theatre and Bennett was beaming and yelling "we are going to the BIG MOVIE!" he was sooo excited. He even ran to the pantry and tried to take the jar of popcorn kernels with us.

He was delighted as we bought the tickets for Beauty and the Beast 3D or "Beast" as Bennett calls it, got our 3D glasses and headed for the popcorn stand. We got there a bit early and Bennett loved the previews in 3D. A little after the movie started he got pretty unamused with the 3D glasses that had a thick layer of popcorn butter smeared all over them. I am sure the next 30 minutes of movie was pretty blurry for him and he started getting antsy. We decided to take a break that quickly turned into a run for the arcade and we gave up.

Thankfully we were right under the mark for a refund so there was no harm done. Bennett had a great time but I think we will be waiting a bit before trying again.

I can not believe that any day now our little family of three is going to be a family of four!!! It is days like today that I look at him in awe with how big of a boy he is and how fast this time with only him has gone. Before we know it we will be taking our little lady to the movies for the first time!

 I am so antsy for her to get here and I must sadly have googled "how to induce labor" more times than I would like to admit... no such luck yet!