"I love you, baby Ivy"

I just wanted to write down a couple things about our first few days home and how Ezra is adjusting to his new sister. That is probably the number one question we get about how we are doing--what does Ezra think about all this? Well, so far, he LOVES his little sister. He wants to hold her, show her all his toys, and hold her some more. He has been going up to her throughout the day and saying, "I love you baby Ivy," without being prompted by us. He will hold her and look at us and say, "MY baby Ivy." When she cries, he gets very concerned and says, "Don't cry baby Ivy. Poor baby."

Right before Ivy was born, Ezra and I had a talk. I told him that when Ivy comes, I would really need his help. He was being silly as usual when we were having this talk, but Ezra hears what we tell him (whether he chooses to do it is another thing), and I know that he took this talk to heart because he is already being such a helper...going to get a pacifier, or a burp rag, or just trying to figure out why Ivy is sad. This morning as I was dressing Ivy for church, she started crying. The next thing I know, I hear a little boy's steps running into the hallway, I see him pass Ivy's room running, and realizing we're in there, stop in his tracks and back up. Her crying had awoken him and reminded him that he had a new baby to tend to. 

Tonight as Ivy was hanging out in her swing, Ezra was bringing up his little dinosaurs and setting them on the tray of her swing, one by one, explaining that this one is a stegosaurus and this one is a brachiosaurus and this one is a t-rex. It seems he is already taking the responsibility of being a big brother very seriously. She needs to know what kinds of dinosaurs these are! She does not sleep as much when he is around. She watches him. And I watch both of them already interacting. I hope I never forget Ezra telling her "I love you baby Ivy." It's amazing how quickly she has just become a part of our family.

A few more pictures of Ivy

We've got a little extra time to post pictures, on account of this:

 I'm not sure if there is anything cuter than a newborn baby with little sunglasses on under a bili light, but obviously the circumstances aren't what we would like. Yesterday they told us that Ivy is "Coombs positive," which made it sound like a good thing, but it basically means that her blood type is different from mine so her little body was having to fight off all of the blood that wasn't her type. Basically it makes her jaundiced and so here we are still in the hospital, letting her hang out under the light. We'll find out in a few hours if we can go this evening or if she'll need to stay longer to get her bilirubin levels down. She is being a trooper! And we are watching lots of food network.

So! Time for a few more pictures.

Ivy "facetiming" gramme

 I like to call this one "the smirk"

 Engrossed in Goodnight Moon

 Talking to daddy. I have a picture of Chad and Ezra very similar to this. We are in the same recovery room that we were after Ezra was born so a lot of these pictures look alike to me.

 Love this one...it almost looks like she is smiling at me.

Ivy's birth day

It has been quite the 24 hours! Ivy decided to surprise us yesterday and we are so glad she did. Monday night the 16th I started feeling bad and having a few uncomfortable contractions, but nothing major. I put Ezra to bed, took a shower and was still able to sleep. The moment I woke up Tuesday morning I thought it could be the day that Ivy would come. Chad was getting off work and I texted him and told him that if he was going to the gym before he came home he better make it quick because I needed help getting Ezra ready for Superkids. Soon after Chad came home I started timing my contractions. From 7 a.m. to about 11 they were about 5-6 minutes apart. My doctor had told me that once my contractions were about 4 minutes apart I needed to head to the hospital. Well, they weren't yet obviously, but I still felt the urge to call the doctor's office. Oh, before I did that, I went and got my hair cut. I had an appointment and I knew they were just going to tell me to hold off on going in to the hospital, so I just went and got my hair cut, timing my contractions through the entire thing. My hair stylist said that was a first for her, but she is also a mom of three so I'm sure she wasn't too weirded out. Anyway, so I called the doctor on my way home at about 10:45, and sure enough they didn't think the contractions were close enough together or long enough to warrant going in, but the nurse said that if they did get stronger or longer then I needed to go in. So I went home. And called Emma, probably just to make sure I wasn't making a big deal out of nothing. Meanwhile I needed to hang up the phone because the contractions were hurting bad enough that I couldn't talk. I called mom too, to let her know that she might need to come, but not to get on the road yet. Then, I woke up Chad who had just gone to bed after working a 12 hour shift and being up all day the day before. I think I was kind of hoping that I was not in labor because I was going to feel really bad about waking up Chad. I waited until I really couldn't wait anymore...contractions were about 3 minutes apart, lasting about a minute each. So I woke him up and said "I think we need to go." We made arrangements for Ezra to be picked up from Superkids and where he would go afterwards, and off we went. By this time I started to be in a lot of pain. We got to L&D triage and I was so afraid the nurse was going to check me and say I was not in labor, just a few contractions, and to go back home. Luckily my doctor told me a little later that he would not have made me go home. Anyway, the nurse told me that I was dilated between a 5-6! I was so excited. I knew this meant we were going to get to meet our baby girl today. So they admitted me right away (but not before I informed my nurse in my triage room to go ahead and call the anesthesiologist for my epidural). I think I was admitted around 2. I'm not sure when the anesthesiologist got there but I think it was probably about an hour later. It was too long, whatever the amount of time was! Anyway, he finally showed up, got that big ol' wonderful needle in, and things went pretty quickly from there. My doctor showed up right after the epidural was placed to break my water and I was at about a 9. He went back over to his office for a few minutes, and then it was time to have a baby. I delivered Ivy after pushing for maybe about 7-10 minutes. It was the most perfect labor and delivery I could have asked for...and I even got to have her a few days early, something I never thought would happen. We are so thankful to God our Father who gave us a perfect, beautiful healthy baby and protected me and kept me safe through her delivery as well.

So now, what y'all are really waiting for...pictures! We had a good nurse photographer this time who knew how to use an SLR camera and get the pictures in focus so Chad and I weren't having to be the photographers. 

Check out that hair!

 Here she is! And there is my wonderful doctor, whom I will miss...he is quitting private practice in about two months.

 Daddy counting fingers...he said after she was born that he saw her hands at first and thought a finger was missing. I guess he is just triple-checking.

 Ezra meeting Ivy for the first time. He still doesn't know what hit him! He was looking over at the Parrishes, like "Who is this supposed to be?" It will be hard for him to share them with her.

 Not impressed, dad.

 This picture looks a lot like Ezra to me.

Taste and see that the LORD is good! blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Psalm 34:8

Ivy's shower

Yesterday some of my dearest friends hosted a shower for Ivy and me. It was so nice and we got lots of fun things. Here are some pictures from the day (thanks Amanda for being photographer for the day!)...

DeLeisha made this canvas to hang on our hospital room door, and then I'll hang it in the nursery when we come home from the hospital.

 The food...everything was delicious.

 My wonderful friends. I would do anything for these girls! From L-R DeLeisha, Tiffany, Heather, Amy, moi, Elena, Monica, Cassie. (Tiffany #2 not pictured)

 Opening gifts...

 Ten bucks I'm saying the word "adorable" or "cute." It came out a lot yesterday, and I know I say it a lot because when we unloaded everything into Ivy's room last night, Ezra kept picking up little outfits and saying "How CUTE!" in a high, squeaky voice.

 The haul!

Quite possibly the last pregnant belly picture I will take. 38 weeks. I think the last time I took one was at 28 weeks. 

Thanks again to everyone who made it yesterday and especially to my friends. I love you all! Now it's just time for this little girl to get here and start wearing all these clothes! :)

Last monthly menu for a while

Hooray! I only have 2 weeks or left in my pregnancy! I planned out the meals for the next two weeks today and after that...I don't know...pizza, cereal and chick fil a for a while I guess. Sounds pretty good to me.

Most of the recipes are from Jaime Cooks it up. I had never made anything from this website before until yesterday, when I made the Braided Sandwich Loaf which was delicious and we ate every bit of it for leftovers today. So when I find one recipe that I like from a website, I try a few more to see if there are a lot of winners. If you try any of these, let me know what you think.

Teriyaki chicken and noodle bowl
Pioneer Woman's meatloaf
Smoky cream cheese-stuffed chicken
Baked creamy chicken taquitos
Braided Sandwich Loaf & Broccoli cheese soup
Sloppy joes
Sweet BBQ meatballs with brown rice
Crispy chicken with creamy italian sauce & bowtie pasta

So, about the braided sandwich loaf...the recipe makes a lot. If I had made the whole thing, it would have made two loaves, and one loaf fed Chad & me for two meals. I made all the dough, let it rest/rise, and froze half of it. So I will use the frozen dough to make the second meal. It was really good bread and I bet it would be great for pizza dough/calzones etc. I did almost have a mixer catastrophe--you are supposed to mix the dough on high for 7-8 minutes, and it made my mixer fall off the counter onto our tile floor. It took a hunk out of the tile but the mixer is fine...whew! I would have been very sad if my mixer had bit the dust. Anyway, the recipe allows for a lot of tweaking it to your family's taste, and you can fill it/top it with all kinds of different things. Plus, it's easy and pretty quick to make, for a recipe where you make your own dough.

Ezra 29 months

I will try not to get too sentimental about the fact that this is the last monthly post about Ezra before he becomes a big brother...all of a sudden, not a baby anymore. We are so excited to welcome Ivy to our family and to get to know her little personality, but I am surely cherishing these last few days when it is just Ezra. He will have to share the spotlight soon enough. Ezra is still such a sweet little boy. He has been a very easy two-year-old so far, and he is mostly obedient though he tends to ignore us or get distracted easily. His favorite things to do these days are puzzles, read books, play with his dinosaurs and cars, and watch TV. His favorite things to watch on TV are Little Einsteins, Beauty and the Beast, Tarzan, and Lion King. He is quirky and funny. Sometimes he is quirky/particular in a not-so-good way, like the other day when he got his hair cut. He is getting better at responding "yes" to questions instead of just repeating whatever we said, and sometimes he'll respond "nah" instead of no which makes us laugh. He still does well sleeping in his bed, and is very good to not get out of bed even if he doesn't want to go to sleep. Tonight he cried before he went to sleep but still stayed in his bed. He is very into spending time with his friends these days and requests to go see Trevyn, Aiden, and Toni & Charlie on a regular basis. His culinary repertoire seems to be narrowing. He requests grapes, pancakes, "square" cheese (yes, the super healthy processed kind), cereal, tortillas, macaroni & cheese, and burritos on a regular basis, but not much else. He is very suspicious about food, but he did eat pad thai at a restaurant tonight. He sleeps from about 8:30 p.m. to 7 a.m. and takes a nap from about 1:30-3:30 in the afternoon. He is just like any two-year-old that says, "No, MINE" a lot. He says too many things that make us laugh that I don't have time to write them all down, but tonight on the way to dinner we were listening to the radio and a song came on that said Jesus in it, and Ezra started saying "No. MY Jesus." Usually I kind of get on to him about saying mine, but I let it slide this time. :) He is getting better at making full sentences. Not always grammatically correct, but he gets his point across. For example when he wants to go somewhere, he says "Want ready go." He has no interest in potty training yet. We did get him some toy story underwear for Christmas, and he knows that when he starts to "go tee tee potty" he can wear them. But he is not ready yet, at all, and neither am I (especially with a new baby coming any day now), so we will wait on that one. Just took this video the other day to get a "snapshot" of Ezra at two and a half years old. I think he thinks that Baby Ivy and Noelle are two different people. He always sticks that "and" in there. It's confusing because he has a cousin named Noelle too, so I guess he thinks that Noelle is going to come whenever Baby Ivy shows up. Another funny story, the other day my dad was visiting and we went to Barnes and Noble to get Ezra a little Thomas the Train book that also has little train figurines in it. Ezra saw us buying it, and constantly asks to open Thomas but I told him he couldn't open it until Ivy came. It's his little "there's a new baby so here's a new toy to make you feel included/distract you" present. Anyway, anytime we talk about Baby Ivy coming he says, "And open Thomas?" He won't forget about Thomas and apparently that's the thing his little two-year-old mind is most excited about with the arrival of his baby sister.