Little Miss Meredith!

Believe it or not....I finally had my baby!  Anna was right!  It's a girl.  Meredith Irene Larson made her way into this world on March 15th at 4:10 in the afternoon.  She weighed 6 pounds 10 ounces and is 20.5 inches long. She is beautiful!  And I'm not biased at all.  :)

I'd talked to Josh about getting hospital pics for me with the DSLR.  I had it all on auto settings for him, and even sent him an instructional blog post to read through so he'd know what kind of pictures I wanted.  He really did a great job!  I asked for slimy baby...and I got some slimy baby.  :)  

I've got some more to process, but these were the standouts.  

I always tell Josh how annoyed I am with myself that I cry every time I see a baby born on TV and every time a friend has a baby....but not so much when I have my own.  What's up with that? 

Slimy/vernixy baby.  :)

We were a little surprised at how tiny she is!  Wallace was born 2 weeks earlier than her and outweighed her by half a pound.  Baby weights make no sense to me.

The realities of having a baby now a days.  Hospital cables everywhere, and new mommies texting their friends with all the details.  :)

It's so wonderful to have a full-term baby!  You get so much time to bond with them without all the hovering nurses and staff.

Josh went with Meredith when they got her all cleaned up and bathed.  

My Mom came up to the hospital and brought Anna and Wallace to meet their new sister.

Wallace was a bit timid, but Anna just jumped right in there and was ready to hold her and sing to her.  It was pretty adorable.  :)

I tried to get a few nice pics of her once things calmed down for the evening.

My sister brought all of my nieces up to meet Meredith.

And she took over the camera for a little bit.

And Aunt Palani came over this morning to meet Meredith, which gave me just enough time to process a few pictures!  Thanks Palani!  :)

*sigh* Nothing to Report.....

I know I promised my bestie Jen that I wouldn't complain even if I carried this baby past term....but that was ages ago.  Now that I'm faced with the possibility of it....I think I'm starting to complain a lot.  Mostly about the wait.  Having 2 preemies has kind of "spoiled" me.  I'm not used to waiting for a baby to arrive at all. This is all new territory, and I'm starting to freak out about how big the baby might be, and how my labor will go, etc.  It's so simple when your water breaks....you just go straight to the hospital.  What if I have to labor at home for days and days!!! Scary!  "/

Today I texted Jen and floated the option of unpacking my hospital bag (which is collecting dust) and putting all of the baby stuff away...  Maybe the baby will come if I'm not prepared for it at all!  :)  It's not helping that Jen totally had her baby on time this go around..and I appear to be doing the same.  Amazingly enough our pregnancies were almost exactly 4 weeks apart again this time.  How does that even happen!  Last time I delivered early and she delivered late and our boys are only 4 days apart.  I'm beginning to think that this time her baby's going to be eating solids by the time I go into labor.  

I decided to practice a little with my fancy new flash this week.  I bought it to try to get some good indoor pics of the baby since the weather's been a bit unpredictable.  Didn't know if I'd be able to take natural light photos outside.  This is about to be a non-issue since we're just about done with winter here.  Ha!  And to think I bit some delivery guy's head off for not getting the flash here on it's scheduled delivery date....

So, I'll admit it....we let the kids veg out and watch tv in our bed with us after bath time in the evening.  Sue me!  This is probably a horrible habit I'm letting them form, but honestly, I remember doing this as a kid too, and I wasn't scarred by it.  They'll be fine.  Anyway, I thought the flash did a beautiful job!  Before this I'd use a lightscoop to bounce the flash off the ceiling, and I was honestly impressed with how much better this flash did.  At about 15 times the price of the light scoop, I was happy to find out I didn't waste my money!  

Even the kids are tired of waiting for this baby to make it's debut.  "/

So...since I made it to full term, my doctor allowed me to return to work.  Gee...thanks a lot.  Nothing better than returning to work right about when all you want to do is lay around and vegetate....Usually my return to work papers trigger an increase in oxytocin...not so much this time.  Thank goodness my buddy Rachael has loaned me her work maternity clothes.  I didn't have a lot of great options since I'm typically still in yoga pants when I go into labor.  And I've gotten some interesting comments from complete strangers this time around since I've gotten so much bigger.  I'm honestly shocked that people think it's okay to ask if I'm having more than 1 baby.  One guy actually told me I look 15 months along!  One man on the elevator in my building quietly said, "You know....You're starting to show..."  That one actually made me laugh.  :)  But in the past week I honestly think people are starting to pity me!  This pregnancy is no longer cute.  I'm pretty sure it's now getting to the point of making others a little uncomfortable to look at.  "/  I'd take a pic, but I'm already in my stretchy night clothes....maybe tomorrow.  

The only awesome thing about getting off bed rest is getting to work out again!  I've been super impressed by how fast I was able to get back into "shape".  It feels great!  Every day Josh calls to ask how I'm feeling, and I'll let him know that I spent 45 minutes on the elliptical and nothing's happening!!!!!  It's so ironic to spend 6 weeks on bed rest so worried the baby would come early, just to get to this point and feel like the baby will never come....  

Oh well...I figure I'm about 3 weeks away from a pina colada, and that makes me super happy!  :)

Prepping for Baby #3

I've actually been nesting a little!  :)  Usually the babies are such a surprise I haven't even had a chance to pack a hospital bag, but this time I've made it a point to prepare at least a little.  I even went through all of the old baby clothes and pulled out hospital outfits for both a boy and a girl since we're having a surprise.  :)  I feel so prepared!  Oh, and I even remembered to put a few receiving blankets in the hospital bag so I don't have to surround my baby with clothes and stuff to get a good fit in the car seat on the way home...  (so sorry Wallace....)  

I ordered a new infant car seat since the old one was pretty worn out.  I love it!  And so do the kids.  They've both been sitting in it since I pulled it out of the box.

We've also been trying to take the kids to park as often as we can before the baby gets here and we all end up on lock down for a couple of months....Today we actually managed to remember to pack some balls and snacks and stuff.  Usually we get to the park and realize the kids aren't going to have much fun just walking around...

Wallace is hilarious when he runs.  He always looks like he's just about to fall down.  I thought he'd grow out of this, but so far he hasn't...

Josh was trying to teach him how to catch a ball today...

....and it just kept bouncing off his face.  "/

It happened a few times....

This is Wallace saying "Seriously Dad....stop bouncing the ball off my face!"

So he moved on to throwing the ball for Anna to catch.  :)

Josh tried giving Anna an impromptu lesson in soccer.  She didn't do too bad!

Had a tough time with the no-hands concept though.  Maybe she'll just be a goalie.

Wallace was about this interested in the concept of soccer....he's definitely my son.  :)

Going to work!

Not me...not yet that is.  ;)  Tonight I was starting a load of laundry and noticed that I was about to wash Josh's wallet.  Anna saw me hand it to him and quickly grabbed it...then she started asking "where's your glasses?.....where's your rings?"  And pretty soon we noticed she'd pretty much gotten herself all ready to head out the door.  :)  

Admiring her Aggie Ring!

Took her a few tries to get her thumb pointing up.  "/

Anna's new boots!

Well...I left them off the Western Day post. 

Aren't they awesome!!

Also...the kids are still working on mastering their bikes.  Wallace got totally pissed when he kept running his into the fire pit...

Anna's doing great with hers though....especially if she's on a level surface with lots of room to go straight.  :)