You won't believe this.

Emma ate at 8:00 last night, went to bed at 10:00 and didn't wake up until 8:00 this morning!!!

Did you hear (read) me???????

SHE SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And just because I wrote about it, she'll be up all night tonight. Think of me at 2 am.
*****
Did you see the new pictures I put up on Flickr? I took the kids to get their pictures taken about 3 weeks ago- some of them are up there. Jack has a baby of his own now... the doll my Aunt Rita gave me is now his baby, Ali. He feeds her, burps her, and occasionally throws her on the floor. What a great daddy he'll be someday!

6 Weeks

Emma is 6 weeks old today and I find myself breathing a sigh of relief. She has completely come out of that "newborn fog" where all they do is cry and sleep and you keep saying to yourself "Thank god she's cute cause if she wasn't I'd be REALLY frustrated with seeing her little face at 3 in the morning every night!"

At 6 weeks this little girl is just a cuddly little bug that I can't get enough of! She's officially smiling now- I got a goofy one this morning that I wish I'd caught on camera! She loves looking all around and holding her head WAAAAY up when you burp her. She loves watching her big brother, loves her swing, and still loves to be swaddled up and held real close when she's trying to fall asleep.

Is it possible to love your baby even more now than when they were born? Maybe it's that we were so busy trying to survive the first 6 weeks that we couldn't take the time to really sit back and enjoy her. Whatever it is, I'm overwhelmed with love for this little Emma Lemma Ding Dong.

6

Happy 6 year anniversary to us!

How did we celebrate?

* A kidless dinner
*A brand new DISHWASHER AND STOVE!!
*A million new picture frames for all the pictures we've wanted to frame for years....

6 years of marriage, 2 kids who we adore 99.9% of the time and want to sell .1% of the time, and a wonder dog who usually drives us crazy all the time........ and we still love each other! Amazing.

A Few of my Favorite Things...

Here are a few things we've added to our lives to make things SO much easier!

Mama's new ride

Jack and Emma's new ride

A weekly outing for sure!

My new car is fabulous! Much roomier than the old one, and I love the sunroof!! It's no minivan- but it gets us to where we need to be.

Jack and Emma's new stroller is just what we needed. We went for the double stroller option since Jack still likes to have a comfy seat to sit in. When he's ready, we'll take out his seat so he can "sit 'n stand".

We finally got our own Zoo pass! So now I can take the kids whenever I want to and not have to worry about staying long enough to get our money's worth. Bring on the animals!

** In other news, Jack and I start our weekly "Mom and Tot Tumbling Class" tomorrow morning! That should be very interesting. I'm not much of a tumbler you know! I think it'll be fun just to have some Mama and Jack time no matter what we think of the class.

On Thursday Jack and I have another date as we attend our 2nd movie of the summer. Last week we saw Horton Hears a Who and this week it's the Bee Movie. A local theater puts on the program every summer. They show a different kid movie every week, admission is only 2 bucks and the popcorn is free. Jack was all about the popcorn last week and loved the lemonade too. I'm so glad that Moe Moe and Bampa can come over and watch Emma so Jack and I still get our special time together.

We haven't made it to the stores yet for that new dishwasher. Emma is actually in the middle of a really good nap and I'm pretty sure nothing in the world could make me wake up our little demanding princess! Yikes!

1 Month Dr. Appt.

Emma had her one month appointment today. She's doing really well! Here are her stats:

11.4 pounds (95%)
22 inches (80%)

Her belly button looks all healed (it had been a bit gooey at her one week appt.), her tear duct has unplugged (it had been clogged and her eye was usually a goopy mess), and the burst capillaries in her eyeballs have totally disappeared. So all we're left with is a little baby girl, who if I do say so myself, gets cuter every day!

We had a super busy 4 day weekend. Nae Nae and Dude were her from Florida to visit. We went to a Brewer game, went to the zoo, had a special blessing at church for her godparents (Nae Nae and Dude are 2 of her godparents, but they won't be able to be here later this summer/fall for her actual baptism), and spent a lot of time just hanging out all together. As fun as the weekend was, we're all pretty exhausted! I'm looking forward to this week as we work on getting Jack back onto his normal schedule.

After a weekend full of attention (which he eats up as any other 2 1/2 year old would!), tonight he was in heaven as he played upstairs in the playroom with his cars and trucks all by himself. I could tell he really just wanted some alone time to play and chill out so I let him be. He came downstairs every so often to show me something, but he played by himself for over an hour and was happy as a clam. Tonight he was sound asleep by 8:00.

On the agenda for tomorrow... shopping for a new dishwasher! Ooooh the excitment!!! Actually, we REALLY need a new one, so it will quite possibly be the highlight of July! Taking 2 kids to various stores to search for the best dishwasher... wish me luck!

1 Month

We adore you, Emma Lemma Ding Dong!

Catching Up

**I put a link to my Flickr pictures on the right sidebar...

**My cousin's little boy, Elijah, is now at home recovering from the surgery that removed the tumor. They are cautiously optimistic about everything. So far he's doing just great. Thanks for all of your prayers and wishes for them!! Check out her blog in the coming days for an update.

**We had a great 4th of July. My parents stayed with us for the weekend and joined us for all the fun. We enjoyed the local parade, had a cookout at Moe Moe and Bampa's house, walked around the 3rd Ward, and just hung out together. It was so laid back and relaxing. A perfect weekend!

**Emma is getting bigger every day. She's now in size 1 swaddlers, and drinks anywhere from 4 to 6 ounces at each feeding! She is starting to stay awake for longer periods of time and is sleeping really well at night. I'd say we had a really rough beginning with her, but it's all coming together now. We've finally figured out what works best with her- thank goodness!

**Brandon and I were just saying today how Jack has really settled into this new life with a baby in the house. He doesn't care if Moe Moe holds her anymore! He continues to check on her, kiss her, hug her, and let me know what she's doing. This morning I woke up to his little feet running towards my bedroom and then his little voice saying "Mama! Wake up! Baby Emma cry! What a good big brother.

**Finley is enjoying the air conditioner we put in the playroom- and has almost forgiven me for buying him the wrong dog food. It must have been my lack of sleep. We had switched his food a few months ago and he was LOVING the new stuff. When we ran out, I automatically told the people at the store to get us his old kind. I didn't realize what I had done until he ate his breakfast and promptly threw it all up on the floor! His poor stomach! Since his food is pricey- we're making him finish it. At least he still loves us!

**Timmy and Liz's wedding was a blast. The whole weekend went much smoother with 2 kids than we thought it would. I'll get some more pictures to post. It was beautiful! Jack did a great job as the ring bearer- he walked down the aisle with Timmy. It was so cute!!!

**We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Brandon's sister and brother-in-law (Nae Nae and Dude). They're visiting us at the end of next week and we CAN'T WAIT! Jack has talked about them and their dogs pretty much non stop since we visited them over winter break. Hurry up and get here!!!

**I have ordered Emma's birth announcements so you should expect to get one in the next 2 weeks. Leave a comment if I don't have your address!

The Wedding

Pictures

Thanks to a genius I know, I've created an account on Flickr so you can see pictures without me having to spend a lifetime putting them on the blog.

See if this works:

www.flickr.com/photos/finleysfamily

What day is it?

The following is the beginning of a post I started over a week ago. Time flies when you have no time to blog!

You gotta love the total chaos, confusion, and mind-numbing exhaustion that comes with having a newborn in the house! It's been an interesting few days to say the least. Our perfect little calm baby we had in the hospital showed what we're hoping aren't her true colors on Saturday. Instead of sleeping sweetly and sucking on her bottle like a newborn should- she preferred to scream her little head off and leave us wondering what the heck happened to our little angel! She had some sucking issues the day after she was born, but had it all pretty much figured out by the time we went home.



On Saturday however, she would get so incredibly mad that she'd scream and cry and not be able to settle down and remember how to suck on the nipple correctly. That led to an exhausting day and night filled with bouncing, running the water for white noise, swaddling and reswaddling, hushing, singing, and pretty much anything else we could think of to calm her down. Good times!

Yesterday was much better and today has been really good as well.



I'd like to think we're figuring her out a little more as time goes by. We've realized that if that bottle isn't in her mouth within 3-4 minutes of her waking up- good luck! She'll revert back to her screaming and head shaking as she tries to remember how to suck. She sometimes has trouble falling asleep on her own (something that is COMPLETELY foreign to us since Jack was just about the best sleeper ever) and needs our help to do so.

.... that's how things were in the days after we brought her home from the hospital....

Things are much calmer around here now! Emma is finally settling in and starting to become more predictable. She still has trouble falling asleep on her own at times, but is much easier to calm down when she's mad. We don't have to run quite so fast for the bottle when she wakes up, she's getting much better at remembering how to suck on the nipple even if she's really mad. She likes to sleep as much as Jack did, it just takes her a little longer to settle down. Last night she was asleep by 10. She woke up at 2:45 and was back asleep 45 minutes later. It sure feels good to be getting a lot more sleep around here.

Jack is doing really well. He really and truly loves his baby sister. He loves to come up and kiss her on the head, give us updates on if her eyes are open or closed when we're in the car, and show her all of her toys when she's playing under her activity thingy. He's been acting out a little bit- and needs his Mama to put him to bed and give him a bath. Overall I don't think we could ask much more from him. His little world has been turned around over the past almost 2 weeks and he's really done a good job handling it.

I have a bunch of pictures to put up. Before I do that though I need to hook up our external hard drive and dump all 74 million old pictures onto it before our computer crashes! So hang in there!

*** On a very different note, we got some really upsetting news late last week. My cousin, Liz, and her family are going through a really rough time right now. Her baby boy Elijah has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. You might have checked out the link to her blog while reading mine- hers is called The Petro Family. We are keeping little Elijah and the whole family in our prayers. They are constantly on our minds and we hope you all will say a bunch of prayers for them too.

And then there were 4...

We're home- and there are 4 of us! Well, 5 if you count Finley too!

So far everything is going really well. Jack is adjusting to his new baby sister. He comes over and rubs her head and gives her smooches every so often. We're not pressing him to do anything he doesn't want to. It'll take lots of time for all of us to settle into the routine of being a family of 4.

As for Emma's arrival, it was amazing! As you know from the previous posts, I saw the midwife on Monday at 3:45. After that I started having more cramping/contractions. We went out to dinner with Brandon's parents and by the time we got home, I knew something was up. Since I was induced with Jack, I never experienced any labor symptoms without pitocin so I was really unsure about what I was feeling and what I should do. The contractions were getting a little more regular and painful, so I called the hospital at 10:45. They said to come on in. I told them I'd wait a little bit longer, I still wasn't sure if it was really real yet.

I started timing the contractions after that, and once I realized they were 3 minutes apart, I decided it was time to go! We called Brandon's parents to come and stay with Jack and we headed for the emergency room. Once I got into my room and was checked out, it was about 12:30. I was already 6 cm dilated! Since it seemed to be going fast, I signed up for the epidural right away. After at least 3 attempts to make the epidural work (only my left leg was numb) it finally took effect. I got about 10 minutes of pain relief until they broke my water and I was 8-9 cm dilated. At that point the terrible pressure started and before I knew it the midwife was there and I was pushing! I pushed through maybe 4 contractions and out she came! It was amazing. Since the epidural really wasn't that effective, I could actually feel what was going on and I felt much more in control than I did with Jack. Just as she was about all the way out, the midwife had me reach down and pull her out and onto my stomach! It was incredible. That's exactly how I wanted the delivery to go and I got my wish. I just didn't think it would happen quite so fast! She was born at 4:33 in the morning.

I'm much less sore this time than I was with Jack. Maybe it's because I didn't push for as long or something.

Emma is a total doll. Her face was pretty bruised from being born so fast, but that has pretty much gone away now. She has lots of dark hair and beautiful big blue eyes. We are loving her to pieces!

And now for some pictures... they are a tad out of order

Yikes! Looking really good while in labor!!! :)

11:45 and headed to the hospital

Uncle Timmy and Emma

First hair wash

8 cm

6 cm

4 cm

Mama, Jack, and Emma

Brother and Sister

Thanks for the shirt Auntie Sizzy! Beautiful girl





Going home outfit
Jack wanted Emma to lay down with him after his nap
2 kids passed out in the car

Headed Home

She's finally here!

Emma Kate
Born Tuesday, June 10th at 4:33am
8lbs. 4oz.
20 inches

How dedicated am i??

posting during a contraction!!!

i called and the nurse said i should come in- what?????? i don't think i'm ready for that!!!!!

pretty consistent contractions now not too painful, but getting more intense... we'll see how i feel in the next hour. then we'll go in. maybe.

Hmmmm...

Still a good 4 cm dilated- forgot to ask how effaced.

She stripped my membranes AGAIN! Since then- more contractions/cramping and it's getting a little painful.

She said that since I'm already 4 and have been having contractions- if I just happened to go to the hospital tomorrow and she just happened to come and see me, she'd probably break my water. I said I'd be taking her up on that offer!

We'll see how tonight goes, and make a decision tomorrow. For now I'm not feeling so great. Maybe this could be it.

Miserable

Ok, I admit it. I'm feeling miserable!!! I can't sleep well anymore, feel nauseaus a lot, and everything pretty much hurts.

Time to make your grand entrance baby girl! We're ready for you!!!

I have another appointment today at 3:45. It's the last one we had scheduled. It's going to be very annoying to make the next one before we leave!

We've had a ton of rain around here- 7 inches this weekend in our neck of the woods. Thank goodness we didn't get any water in our basement. My parents spent the weekend bailing out 6 inches of water from their basement in Madison. We ventured out to Target last night and had to run to the car when we were done- the sky was all dark and scary and it was pouring!

Jack is enjoying our summer vacation. He keeps saying "no school mama, no school jack!" He's been very busy playing with sidewalk chalk, his new diego big wheel thing, and of course his one true love- the cozy coupe car.

Pictures as soon as I take some good ones! And I suppose we should do a 39 week belly shot too!

Trapped

Trapped in the house by bad thunderstorms all afternoon. More braxton-hicks contractions. Pancakes for dinner!

Blasted Internet!!!

Our internet has been down for the past 2 days. Somebody is coming tomorrow to take a look.

STILL pregnant!!!

I'm having a thousand of those Braxton-Hicks contractions, but nothing more. We go to the doctor again on Monday. Maybe this weekend something will happen???

Summer Vacation!!!

My summer officially started today! I thought I'd have to go in tomorrow and Friday, but since my report cards are done and my classroom is all organized and cleaned up, I don't have to!!

Appt.

4 cm dilated
50% effaced

She stripped my membranes again (holy ouch!). She was shocked to see me- thought for sure I'd have the baby over the weekend. We'll just keep on waiting!

I was able to go to school today and get a ton of stuff done though. The kids were a huge help as we cleaned and organized the whole classroom. Tomorrow they go to the zoo all day while I hang back and teach 1st grade for fun. Somehow an entire day of walking around the zoo just didn't sound appealing! Wednesday is the last day for the kids- it's a half day. Then we have meetings on Thursday and Friday.

We saw a neighbor we haven't seen for awhile while we were out for a walk tonight. She was surprised to hear I only have 2 weeks left- she said I looked amazing. Nothing like a compliment like that to make your night! :)

On the other hand, while getting a MUCH NEEDED pedicure at the mall tonight- the guy doing my toes asked if I was having twins. Ouch!

Helping out Daddy-O

With Uncle Timmy at the Memorial Day Parade

Ready for the parade to begin

Safety First!



Proud member of the Brewers Kids Club

Great Weekend

It was a great weekend despite the fact that baby girl decided not to make her grand entrance. It was nice and warm all weekend and we enjoyed a ton of time outside.

I'll be posting pictures later or tomorrow....