Merry Christmas from the Knapp's!

2 months!

It's hard to believe our little pumpkin is already 2 months old! Currently she:
-weighs 8lb 5oz and is 22 inches long. 5th percentile for weight, and 50th for height.
-loves to lay and kick, usually getting her socks off in the process
-wakes up once at night to eat
-HATES being burped...the way she hollers you'd think she was getting pinched or something
-loves to smile and be social, especially with the shelf above her changing table and the bug hanging from her play mat
-fits into her first article of 0-3 month clothing! I'm so ready to stop wearing the same 6 newborn outfits over and over!

Just cause she's so cute :)

After a rough several weeks, we discovered that Bridget was losing weight. So now she nurses and then gets a bottle after every feeding, and she's like a totally different baby. We get lots of fun smiles and cute expressions.

For some reason, I can't get these pictures turned...oh well.

Now that she's getting her belly full, she is not only happy, but she sleeps good too, only getting up once at night to eat!

We're teaching her to do her civic duty early. :)

Oops

With Bridget sleeping (in her bed, nonetheless!!), I thought I 'd take a few moments to catch up on some blogs before diving into those dreaded thank you notes.

And one of those blogs happened to be Nancy's post about their trip to Iowa.

And as I'm reading along, I'm thinking "aww...look at those sweet pictures!"

Until I got to the last picture.

Much to my dismay, it reminded me that when we went to Chicago for the day several weeks ago, that we didn't have the change for a toll, so we went through it with the intention of paying the 50 cents online later.

But we never did.

Sigh.

I guess we'll be getting a ticket in the mail soon.

Our first few days

We were worn out from our trip home from the hospital!
(and you can see my lovely broken blood vessels from pushing her out.)

So tiny in her crib! I had a hard time leaving her alone in her crib the first night, but we didn't have anywhere else to put her, so we didn't have a choice.

The second day home from the hospital, I woke up from a nap to find my daughter watching football. :)

Aunt Wendi comes over every few days just to snuggle.

My mom came over to help give Bridget her first bath. Despite how she looks in the picture, she really does like her bath. She just lays there and looks around. She also pees in the bath every time I stick her in there.

Chatting with daddy

Whenever we do tummy time, she gets her thumb in her mouth. And it's about the only time she gets it in there.

Her favorite place in sleep is on your chest. She'll sleep forever there, but HATES her crib.

Bridget's arrival

For some reason, blogger won't let me type at the top of this post, so I'll just start here. :)
Wednesday night I commented to a friend about how I'd actually gotten all my laundry done (washed, dried, ironed, and put away) in one day! Her comment back was "awesome! Now you can go into labor tonight!" To which I replied "no I really need to clean my house tomorrow, so labor needs to wait until tomorrow night."
Well, labor didn't wait until Thursday night. Thursday morning about 3 I woke up to a semi-painful contraction, which I would randomly have 1 or 2 of at a time. I got up to go the bathroom, and went back to bed. Just about a minute later, I had another contraction, and then another one, and my underwear was feeling a little damp, so I went back to the bathroom to investigate. Sure enough, there was some blood and other stuff, and I thought well, I guess this is labor.
After finally locating my watch with a second hand, I started timing my contractions. Right from the get-go they were 2-3 minutes apart, lasting 30-60 seconds. This kinda confused me...my Dr had told me that when contractions were 5-7 minutes apart to go to the hospital. Mine were a lot close than that, but not all that painful. I also couldn't tell if my water had broke or not. I'd feel something run out every once in a while, but couldn't tell if it was watery, or just some of the "other stuff" that comes out when you're in labor.
So I bounced on my exercise ball, took a shower, finished packing our bag, did some dishes, and wandered around the house.
Luke's alarm was set to go off at 6, so a few minutes before I went in and woke him up with "good morning! Want to have a baby today?" After staring at me for a minute and responding with a "oh my word!" he got up and got in the shower.
I wanted to wait until 8:30 when my Dr's office opened, and go there to have them check me. I really didn't want to go to the hospital only to have them send me home. So Luke got us some breakfast, and my contractions got painful enough that I couldn't talk through them. By 7 we were pretty sure I was in "real" labor, so we called my mom, and headed to the hospital.
When we got there, they did an exam to see if my water had broke, but the resident told me she didn't think it had but she tested the fluid anyway. And I was only dilated to a 2cm (I had been 1-2 cm on Monday). It was kind of sad to have been in labor for 5 hours at this point and only have made it 1/2 cm!
About 20 min later the nurse came in to say that it was my water that had broke. So they started an IV and moved me to a labor room. And I continued my contractions every 2-3minutes, lasting 30-60 sec.

Bridget was "sunny side up", meaning her face was facing my belly button. Made for LOTS of back labor. I walked the halls for a while, and spent a lot of time on my hands and knees, and in every imaginable position trying to get her to turn over.
I felt like I progressed slowly, although it was really wasn't that slow. :)
I had such a great team. :) Luke was my back rub-er (and I'd snap at him if he stopped during a contraction:)), my mom let me squeeze her hand and held the puke basin for my when I got nauseous, and Wendi (my sister) fed me water and ice chips and fanned me with the food menu. :)
The pain was bad, but the worst part was once I was dilated to a 7, I started feeling like I had to push, but they wouldn't let me until I was a 10. And then I hung out between 9-10 cm for what felt like FOREVER. The nurse kept telling me not to push, and I just told her too bad, I couldn't help it. And then I finally got to push! And about 40 minutes later, out she came!

Getting everything set up

Our first glimpse..the first thing I did was make sure she really did come out a girl. :)

She had meconium stained fluid (meaning she had a bowel movement while still inside) so she got taken right over to the warmer and suctioned out. Then I got to hold her for about 30 seconds before they took her to the nursery to get oxygen.

Daddy gets to hold her for the first time! She got to come out to our room to nurse when she was about 2 hours old. Then she went back for some more monitoring, and then came out for good about an hour and a half later.

First family picture!

She made it!

Bridget Ann arrived Thursday, Oct 7, at 4:10pm,
weighing 6lbs 10oz, and was 19 inches long.

I'll update with more pictures and details later. :)

39 weeks

It's so hard to believe that it's almost time for our little girl to be born! And at the same time, I feel like I've been pregnant forever!

I've been doing things to help things along, like walking and bouncing on an exercise ball, but so far none of it seems to really be helping.

Actually, I'm bouncing on my ball as I type. And I bounce while I read, and watch movies, and talk on the phone. I take my ball to other people's house so I can bounce while we hang out.

And the sweet thing still hasn't dropped into my pelvis.

I may as well get prepared...at my sonogram last week that I had for decreased movement, the Dr commented that "that is one stubborn baby!" They tried everything to wake her up and get her to move, but she apparently didn't want to. And when she did wake up, she'd just blink and yawn (so cute, by the way), but wouldn't move her arms or legs.

We have lots of contractions. Nothing painful, nothing regular, just tight with pressure. And even those don't appear to be doing anything.

So we're semi-patiently waiting. Or maybe it's just a tiny bit patiently waiting.

Storing it up!

We had our last sonogram yesterday, and our little peanut certainly is...little.
She's about 5lb 5oz, which puts her in the 3rd percentile.
However, I think her cheeks may be in like the 50th percentile.
She must be storing her fat there.
I think they're adorable, and I can't wait to squeeze them. :)


In other news, we went to the Morton Pumpkin festival last week.
We went a lot.
I got a wonderful, HUGE funnel cake, which was good for about the first 10 bites.
And then the grease really starts to get to you.

I had to give it away to someone else because I couldn't finish eating it.
That and I was slightly self-conscious about being quite pregnant and carrying a huge funnel cake around.

My Independence

First off, I'd like to say that this post is not aimed at any of my friends/acquaintances that read this blog, it's simply my observations of my attitude in the past few weeks.

Now that I've scared everyone.... :)

I love my friends kids. I really do. I love to babysit them, and play with them when we're together. However, in the past few weeks I've noticed that I become more annoyed with them than I have in the past.

They come over, and they make a mess with toys, they touch my mirror (why this annoys me, I have no idea), they get in the way, they fuss and cry.

Just last night we were babysitting and just as I had dished up supper, "J" (he shall remain nameless) was getting into all the cupboards, had a dirty diaper, and was getting increasingly fussy. And I had to leave my plate of fresh hot food and change his diaper, give him some tylenol (I did have permission from his mother do so. I promise I don't just give out tylenol to fussy children), and distract him with some toys.

And when I finished, my plate of food was no longer hot.

And I was annoyed.

And while I normally would love holding my friends children, lately I've just let them take care of their own kids.

Cause having to deal with kids is annoying.

As I contemplated this new "attitude" last night (while lying in bed awake for what seemed like the ump-teenth hour) it occurred to me (again) that soon, I'll be one of those people that has to deal with a kid.

And I'll have to deal with a kid when I'm tired and don't feel good, and when I want a break from her, and when I just want to eat a fresh plate of food, and when I want to watch a movie in silence with interruptions.

And it occurred to me that maybe one reason why I've been getting annoyed by other people's kids is because I want to keep my independence for as long as I possibly can.

I think the unselfishness of having a child is going to be harder for me than I ever thought.

And while having to be unselfish isn't exactly fun, it'll certainly be VERY good for me!

Oh, and as a disclaimer, this does NOT mean you shouldn't call me to babysit or hang out with us anymore. :) I promise I do still love your children!

Our little girl

Only 42 more days (and hopefully less) till we get to meet her!
Two weeks from tomorrow and she can come out any time.
The consensus is that she looks like Luke, but I can't tell from a sonogram.
I do think she's cute though. And check out those cheeks!

I suppose it's time

It's been quite a while since I posted anything. Not much is new.

We're still growing. Not as rapidly as before though, thankfully. I had a sonogram last week and when I actually remember to send my pics with Luke to scan them, I'll post them. They're pretty cute. She's got a little pug nose and chubby cheeks. And she has HAIR!! (Coming from someone who was bald for the first few years of her life, and hasn't been able to grow much hair since, hair on my baby is kind of a novelty.) As of last Friday, she weighed 3lb 13oz.

Only 49 days left!

I've been sewing a lot. The crib bedding is finally finished, the ties for the curtains sewn, and now I'm about 1/2 through recovering the glider chair. I'll be very excited when that is done.

I also sleep/rest a lot. Energy and motivation are seriously lacking. When I sit down, typically my only motivation to get up is because my back starts hurting. Going up (or down) the stairs makes me short of breath. In short, I feel pregnant. :)

Nesting

I think it's begun.

On the way home from Michigan last weekend, I started to panic a little bit.
"Honey, we only have 11 weeks till Bridget is born! I had all these things I wanted to get done!"

And 5 minutes later:
"Honey, we don't even have any baby things! No crib mattress or bedding, a diaper bag, clothes, toys, diapers, a bouncy seat or a swing!"

So I made a list right then and there of all those things I wanted/need to get done. And that list includes cleaning out nearly every closet, drawer, and cabinet in the whole house.

Yes, this is me...the person who has no problem with shoving everything into a closet as long as I can shut the door and the house looks clean.

It's a little weird to have this overwhelming urge to clean out and organize, but I'll be making the most of it!

A battle cry call to fasting and prayer

This is copied from Jordan and Katelyn Schroeder's blog. Please be in prayer for them!

http://jkschroeder.blogspot.com/


Atten​tion! All Christian Soldiers and Prayer Warriors of Jesus Christ

The time has come the time is now!

Jordan & Katelyn have considered their medical treatment options with no hope of improvement or a cure against this enemy and agent of death, this ever growing cancer; and they have decided to move Jordan home and cry out to God, the only source of Miraculous Hope.

As you read on their last post, they have laid all their hopes and dreams on God’s altar. They also know that the only one who can stay the knife has already died so they can live forever in Him.
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also along with him also freely give us all things. Romans 8:32

They are begging all God’s people to fast and pray to God for them beginning Monday July 19, 2010. Please pray that God would be merciful to Jordan and Katelyn as he was merciful to nearly dead Epaphroditu​s and Paul in Phillipians 2:27.

In preparation​, please consider what God did in the Bible and his amazing responses to fasting and prayer when his people were facing enemy, danger or death like Jehoshaphat in 2Chronicles
20:1-30, Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:1-11), Ezra (ch. 8:21-23), & Esther (ch.4:14-17​); and even his response to some wicked men who fasted and prayed like the King of Ninevah (Jonah:3:5​-10), & Ahab (1 Kings 21:20-29). See Isaiah 58 & Matthew 6:6-18 for further instruction​s.

Lastly remember the importance of fasting and prayer in healing the boy in Matthew 17:14-21 and don’t forget the words of Jesus,
This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting Mark 9:29

David therefore besought God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the earth. . . And he said, . . . I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether GOD will be gracious to me, that the child may live? 2 Samuel 12:16,22

Tha​nking you in advance for your prayers!
Jor ​dan and Katelyn’s Family & Friends

a post with pictures!

These are in backwards order...oh well.

Bridget and I at 26 weeks. Only 98 days left!!

Friday night we put up the crib and changing table. We're using the crib that I used when I was a baby. It all went together quite well, considering we had no directions!

Oh, and I just had a picture of Luke working hard to put things together, but I accidentally back-spaced too far and erased it. Blogger really needs to have an undo button.

Paul and Elise came over one night last week so Paul could help Luke move the office furniture into our basement. Judah though the basket was clean sheets was lots of fun. :)

Thanks to my amazing husband, we have carpet in our basement. It's not exactly the color I would have chosen, but hey, when you get free carpet, you can't complain about it too much. Anyway, Luke got it all done, and it looks fabulous!

Currently...

I'm trying to decide if getting winded from carrying 4 chairs into the living room means

a: I'm so out of shape-totally pathetic!
b: our chairs are really that heavy and we should probably get new ones
c: I really am getting that hugely pregnant

The Perfect French Fry

I know it's unhealthy, but in my opinion, it doesn't get much better than fresh, hot McDonald's fries. (and a small fry is only $1, just to let you know)

Well, Kenji Lopez-Alt has created the perfect french fry that can be made at home! (or so he claims.) Granted, it looks like it'd take a little work, but sometime I'm going to give these a try!

He also has written an article about the science behind the recipe, which I found to be an interesting read.

just a little Tues morning humor

some extra things to pray for

Nic Rassi is scheduled to have his kidney transplant today, with his brother donating one of his kidneys.

I know the family would appreciate your prayers!

To find out more, head to their blog: http://normalrassis.blogspot.com/

Also, please take a moment to pray for Jordan and Katelyn Schroeder, Jaycee and Arawen. It appears his cancer has returned in two places near his spine, and they plan to fly down to Mexico this Monday.

You can check out his Caring Bridge site at: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/jordanschroeder

3 years ago today...

Happy Anniversary to my wonderful husband!
I am so thankful to have you in my life!
I love your Godly attributes and your passion for growing in Christ;
I love (most of the time) how you like to accomplish things and don't like to be lazy;
I'm so thankful that you're willing to help around the house when I ask, and that you eat pretty much whatever I put in front of you. :)
I love that you remain calm when I get all worked up;
I love that you fully support my many endeavors and ideas, and continue encouraging me in them when I want to give them up.

I love you so much! It's been an awesome three years!

Sugar & Spice & Everything Nice

Bridget Ann is healthy, active, and in the 59th percentile for her weight at 20 weeks.
So we're looking at about an 8 pound baby, a little big for my taste, but as long as she's healthy.
She weighs 12 oz, almost 3/4 of a pound, and apparently LOVES her thumb, since it's in her mouth 3 out of the 6 pictures.
We're so thankful to God for blessing us with this healthy baby girl!

My favorite

I'd like to dedicate this post to one of my favorite websites ever.

Now from the most likely sad amount of time I spend on it, you may think it would Facebook, but you'd be wrong

Tasteofhome.com

Seriously, I find it SO incredibly helpful when looking for recipes.

Got some random ingredients in your freezer you want to use up? Type them into the search box and hundreds of recipes containing that ingredient will pop up.

About 2 years ago we got half of a cow from our nephew. Most of that meat is gone, except for a few remaining pieces that I have no idea what to do with. Take round steak, for example. I had 2 packages in the freezer, so I entered "beef round steak" into search, and got hundreds of recipes for everything from grilling, to Swiss steak, beef stronganoff, round steak with dumplings, and crock pot recipes. Tonight we going to try BBQ round steak.

You get an additional plus from the website if you get any of their magazines (Quick Cooking, Taste of Home, Country Women, etc). You can enter a code on the back of one of your magazines and instantly have access to all the recipes from ALL of the magazines for like the past 10 years. Totally worth the subscription cost of the magazine, in my mind.

lazy rainy days

While all the plants outside are growing, Baby Knapp has been making itself known by growing as well. For your comparing pleasure, I'm 16 weeks above, and 18 weeks below.
Right at about 18 weeks (and the day before Mother's Day) I had the wonderful pleasure of feeling baby move for the first time. It's still kind of sporadic, and I have to be paying some attention, but I've been feeling it move every day since.
Only 10 more days till Baby Knapp gets assigned a gender!! Yay!!

I babysat one of my favorite little boys, and during his whole 2 hour nap, he was holding onto the side of the car seat. I thought it was just so cute.

Luke (my brother) turned 13 this past Monday. So weird...he just still seems like the little Lukey we were always hauling around and doting on just a few years ago.

And last but certainly not least, I'd like to show off the desserts I make for Knapp Mother's Day. They turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. From left to right are: chocolate fudge trifle, strawberry lemon trifle, and raspberry cheesecake trifle.

the dance

So maybe some of you out there have heard of pregnant people becoming less than graceful when they get pregnant.

Something about a change in their center of gravity...or something like that.

It's the #1 reason why bike riding during pregnancy is discouraged.

(insert sarcastic voice here) Now I've always been proud of my graceful movements. I'm an amazing dancer, and I never fall up the stairs (yes, up is the correct term). And last night, at Bible study, my dear husband affirmed my gracefulness.

As I sat on the couch with a plate full of food balancing on my lap, my glass of tea in one hand, and my napkin and chocolate chip cookie in the other, I noticed him eying me carefully.

"Careful with all that," he commented. To which I sort of annoyedly responded "I will."

"Well, you haven't been the most graceful lately.

Ok, so maybe I drop things on a regular basis, and maybe I spend a good portion of the day picking up things that I knocked over. And maybe I can hardly get out of the shower without killing myself.

But the other day, when the shade fell down, I did not try to re-roll it 4 times because I kept dropping it and finally gave up.

I think I'd better stay off of bikes.

The story (and a picture)

Just to make this a little easier (for myself) I'll just copy the note I wrote on facebook when announced we were pregnant.


As some of you know, I've been treated for infertility for the past year. We've received several diagnoses, gone to 3 different doctors, and tried lots of medications, supplements, and diet changes-all with no success. Right after Christmas, my doctor did lots and lots of tests, and basically told us that we would never conceive naturally. Her recommendation was to move forward with doing In-vitro fertilization, and we decided that we would go ahead with it. (I won't go into a lot of details about ivf- if you want to know more, google it). We put down our deposit to begin the process the end of March, and I was instructed to call when I started my period the next month so I could start on the MANY medications I'd have take. During the next couple weeks, I prayed off and on that if it was God's will, I'd sure love it if we didn't have to go through with IVF, although I admit I didn't expect that God would answer my prayer. I was pretty sure He wanted us to go through with IVF. Why else would He have brought us to this point? 6 weeks later, I still hadn't started. While this isn't always abnormal for me, it's getting to be longer than usual. So while at Walmart, I picked up a cheap brand of pregnancy test, not the kind I usually buy, and I only got one, instead of the package with 5 of them. :) 6 weeks to the day, I took the pregnancy test, and then went out to the kitchen and started making myself some breakfast. About 5 min later I realized I should go check on it. When I saw a positive sign on that test, I seriously about fell over. Luke wasn't home, so I scrambled for my cell phone to call him, and during that time, I pretty much emotionally lost it. When he answered the phone my first (heavily sobbed) words were "it's positive!" To which he responded "no way!" I sobbed for a while longer, called my mom and sobbed some more, called the doctor's office (and barely made it through talking to the nurse), and continued this throughout the day. :)

We are just praising God for His sovereignty! The month after we were told we'd never conceive naturally, it happens! It really just goes to show how it's all in God's timing and His control!

As a side note, we found out we were pregnant exactly one week after I got fired. Talk about even more amazing timing by God!

Oh, and the picture above is from last week, at 14 weeks.

So it's been a while...

So as I'm sure you've (all like 2 of my reader's) have already heard the news, but we're going to have a baby! It's seriously just been amazing to see God at work in our lives over the past few months. I'll post the story sometime, but it's kind of a long story, so I'll wait for another time.

Anyway, this picture is from our 12 week appointment. Can you tell what part(s) you're looking at? No? Well, you wouldn't be the only one. :) The baby is looking right at you. Check out the right side of it...see the two "empty spots?" Those are the eyes. And yes, it does look a lot like an alien, but we love it anyway.

We are now almost to the 14 week mark, entering the 2nd trimester, feeling much better, starting to gain weight (praying for no stretch marks), and growing quickly.

You know you have a lot of dishes when...

You have to do them in shifts throughout the day!

Ugg! I thought about taking a picture to post,
but the thought of it depressed me too much.
Just take my word for it, there's a lot of them!

Consider it all Joy!

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,
knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let
endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect
and complete, lacking in nothing.
James 1:2-4

Our church is going through small group Bible studies on the book of James. I was very excited about going through the book, and being in the small groups. We finished the first 3 Bible studies, covering the whole first chapter. I felt like I had some great opportunities to count it all joy, and rejoice in the fact that God was working to bring me closer to him through those "hard" times.

Then God decided to really give me a test in thanking Him for my trials.

It's a long story, but I got terminated from my job. While specifics aren't necessary, I will say that I did make a mistake, but that it was also a fairly common and easily corrected mistake. And for some reason, God allowed me the one who got reported, and the one who got fired.

This post isn't to try to make you feel bad for me, or tell me how hard it must be for me, but rather to inform you all about how great my God is!

I had wanted to learn about James, and God gave a me great opportunity to really understand better the first chapter.

James 1:12 says that "...a man who perseveres under trail...he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him."

God desires me to be close to Him, but as the human I am, I'm usually not seeking Him if things are going really well. Sometimes it takes things like getting fired to make me fall on my face and ask for His wonderful grace.

James 1:17 says that "Every good gift is from above coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow."

Something I had pray that God would help me remember is that every good gift comes from Him - and those gifts are necessarily things that I consider good, but they are good for God's glory. And God does everything for His glory.

I am still working on being thankful for being fired, but am so thankful that God is working to bring me closer to Him through it!

Love it

I just love this song. It's such a great reminder to rely on God, trusting him through everything.

One year ago today...

I posted that this little guy had been born.

And today, Max Jeffery turns one!

Happy Birthday Max!

Last Years Resulution

You may remember this post from last January.
The where I announced that my New Years Resolution was not throw so much stuff away.
To recycle
To wash ziploc bags.
To use cloth shopping bags
To find some use for all the leftovers.

And how did I do, you may ask.

I failed really miserably.

I have washed more plastic bags than before, but over 50% of the time, I throw them out.
I did buy cloth shopping bags, and I even used them several times.
But most of the time, I just forgot to use them, even if I stuff them in my purse.
I did recycle, mostly because that costs money.
And as far as leftovers...well...
the whole cooking thing as kind of gone down hill since I started working nights.

Anyway, that's my report.
As far as a resolution for 2010, maybe I should just keep working on the one from 2009!