Changes...

First of all, our little dolly turned one. Oh my...are we really parents to a one year old??

We had a small party for her on her birthday...just grandparents, my siblings, and Paul and Elise. She pretty much glowed getting to be in the spotlight for the evening. :)

She was pretty thrilled with her cupcake. At first she looked at us like "really, this is for me?" Then she dug in, and as she finished the last bite, rubbed her hands through her hair. And then it was off to the bathtub. She loved her gifts, esp a doll from Grandpa and Grandma Knapp. She hauls it around and pats it's back. :) So cute!

(thanks to Wendi for the pics...I took mostly video)

And then...

Bridget became a big sister!

Carter Lucas arrived on Oct 17 at 10:18pm. I had gotten up about 7 that morning, and noticed some blood...just like when I was in labor with Bridget, but this time I had no contractions. So we went ahead with our plans for the day: going to Rader Farms with our Bible study girls. (super fun place by the way..highly recommend it!) Bridget and I spent the morning there, and while eating lunch, I started having hard contractions, just a couple minutes apart. I hurried Bridget through her hot dog and took off for home. Only by the time I got on the interstate, the contractions had stopped. We went home, took naps, and proceeded through the rest of the afternoon and early evening with maybe 2 or 3 contractions.

Earlier that afternoon Elise had called and wondered if we wanted to come for supper that night. Since nothing was happening, I agreed, and we got to their house about 5:30, just as contractions started up again, only they were about every 10 min or so. By the time we got around to eating at a little after 6, I was having them every 2 min or less, and at one point, as I gripped the kitchen table breathing through a contraction, Paul asked if I was going to deliver the baby in their kitchen. :) At that point we decided we'd better head home and call Luke's mom, who was going to stay with Bridget. We got home and got our stuff ready to go, all the while stopping every 2 min or less to breath through a contraction. I had Luke call his mom wanting to know how soon she was going get to our house...I was starting to get nervous.

His mom showed up about 7:30....and contractions slowed WAY down. So we sat around and chilled for about an hour. Finally at 8:30, my contractions were slowed down, but when I had one it was very painful, so we headed for the hospital.

We got there, got put in a triage room, I changed into my gown and went to the bathroom. 2 steps out of the bathroom and my water broke all over the floor. I was dilated to a 5, so they put me in a labor room, started an IV, drew blood and got everything going. My mom and Wendi showed up soon after, and I was already feeling nauseous and asked for some iv pain medication. The nurse checked me, and I think I was at like 7 or something. She said she was going to call the Dr. Since I was pretty much having one 45 min long contraction I didn't say anything but in my head I was thinking "why are you calling the Dr already? Bridget wasn't born for hours after I was dilated to a 7."

The nurse came back with the pain medication, and was just getting it ready to go in when the Dr got there. She checked me and told me she thought I could push if I wanted to. One push dilated me all the way, a 2nd got his head out, and he was born on the 3rd. :)

It was so great to be able to hold him right away and see him be pink and crying. Since Bridget had meconium stained fluid, she was taken to the nursery right away for oxygen. And, there was also an emergency c-section going on at the same time he was born, so there were no med students or residents in the room. Just my nurse, a nurse for Carter, a tech and my Dr. A nice change from the almost 10 "medical people" in the room when Bridget was born!

So...things have been going wonderfully since we came home...Carter is a great baby...pretty much sleeps and eats. I'll post some more recent pictures later, but he is def Luke's look-a -like!

House pics...before

Someday I'll get around to taking "after" pictures, but for right now the before ones will have to do. :)

This is the upstairs bathroom....very small.

Pretty much the same picture :)

Upstairs bedroom #1. There aren't any pictures on them, but off to the left of this picture, the right of the next, and in the upstairs hallway are HUGE closets. 2 in each room and one in the hall. I joked that if we have more kids than we plan, we can always make the hall closet into an extra bedroom. :)

Bridget's room...with lovely mauve trim and LOTS of wallpaper.

Stairs. :) Can't tell by the pictures, but they're pretty dinged up from animal claws.

Our bedroom

Carter's room

Main floor bathroom.

Living room

Kitchen

One thing the pictures just don't show is the massive amount of dirt, grime, and pet hair found on EVERY surface...yep, even in the freezer that came with the house. Seriously....we should have taken close ups, but it just didn't cross my mind to take pictures of it. :)

We're getting there...

There are still boxes everywhere, and I feel like I still need to re-scrub every inch of the house, but we're getting there. No pics yet, but I thought you'd all enjoy knowing about Bridget's new tricks/words. :)

So far she says daddy, hi (her favorite word), ackk, eyeye (how do you spell that?), and best of all: Heidi. Yes, she calls me by my first name.

She also knows how the dog and cow go, where your nose is, and where her feet are.

We think she's pretty talented. :)

Our new house!

We closed on Tuesday afternoon, and now we're homeowners! Or bank slaves, whichever term you prefer.

If you enjoy ripping up carpet, stripping wallpaper, or painting, feel free to give us a call! We'd love to have you join us! :)

Oh, and some stats, for those interested: 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, living room, full unfinished basement, and TONS of storage space.

I'll post more pics of the inside as we start working.

Busy Busy

Our daily activities lately include: giving kisses (LOVE this one!)

Watching Praise Baby; keeps me occupied for at least 20 min while mom tries to accomplish something

Going swimming. I love the water and dad taught me how to jump (ie: fall) into someone's arms

cleaning out all the toys and books

Eating solid foods at all meals (that's pancake on her face, in case you were wondering)

Un-rolling (or at least attempting to get into the bathroom in order to un-roll) the toilet paper,

Cleaning out the Tupperware cabinet

And now packing is a daily activity too, cause we're moving! Details to follow...

Did you know?

If you leave a bowl of rice chex sitting in milk all morning, that they will literally disintegrate and you can just dump the whole thing down the drain?

Just a nice random fact for your Friday morning. :)

Summer lovin'

Our first time to the pool was last week. The water was FREEZING and Bridget didn't appreciate having her feet stuck in it, much less her whole body. She was thrilled, however, to sit on her towel, eat snacks, and have my full attention.

When we celebrated my dad and Luke's birthdays (they're 3 days apart) Bridget got to try her first sweet corn. She thought it was pretty great, and did a surprisingly good job of cleaning it off!

For Luke's 30th birthday, his sister gave him a bag of 30 things...16 of them were little bags of Cheeto's. They may have gotten slightly crunched when Bridget got ahold of the bag and sat on it. :s

Bridget now know's what ice cream is, and will shamelessly beg...actually, she shamelessly begs for your food no matter what you may be eating. I promise we really do feed her.

Father's Day morning she was pretty excited to help Luke open his gift. :)

Happenings

Since I put all the blogs I check on google reader, it's saved me lots of time, since I'm not jumping from one blog to the next. However, it means I rarely look at my own blog and therefore I don't notice that's it's been a while.

We have been busy though. There are walks to take, the garden to weed, friends to see, and water to play in! Bridget was less impressed with her little pool than I thought she'd be. Not that she didn't like it, she just acted like it was a bigger bathtub. She's just as thrilled with a bucket of water, and since it's much easier for me, well...the pool is just sitting in the garage.

In other news, although I'm sure pretty much all readers know this already, but we're having a little BOY! I'm super excited about it, but I just can't picture myself with a boy. It's a little weird. People have told me that girls clothes are so much more fun to buy than boy's. I totally disagree. I have just as hard of a time resisting buying all the little boy clothes as I did with girls.

The beginning of this month we celebrated my mom and dad's 25th anniversary by going to Biaggi's with all their siblings, and then to my aunt and uncles for dessert. We also celebrated my brother's 20th birthday (sorry, no pics), and between those two and Father's Day, Bridget has learned that grandpa will feed her ice cream. :)

Almost 8 months

*Sigh*

Our little pumpkin will be 8 months on Tuesday. She's growing up too fast. Time, please stop for a while.

She's made great strides in the past month.

-crawling. Anywhere and everywhere

-pulling herself up on everything. Nothing under 2 feet is safe anymore.

-trying to stand up in the middle of the room. Def hasn't gotten anywhere near standing, but she attempts it anyway.

-is a CHUNK. Seriously. I'm guessing she weighs close to 20 pounds.

-has shown a recent fascination with babies. Hopefully this liking them continues.

-LOVES to be outside and instantly heads towards any open door

-trying all sorts of new foods: cookies, cereal, popcorn, and lots of other stuff she finds on the floor (no wonder she loves to be under the kitchen table)

-went jeeping for the first time. Fell sound asleep after about 5 min. How she stayed asleep I have no idea.

-Discovered her voice...for real. And now we hear her chattering loudly at all time of the day (or night). Makes for interesting times in church.

-Got her 2 top teeth and a bottom tooth in the same week. Thankfully it only took a couple days or I might have given away for a while. :)

4 years ago...

Happy Anniversary babe! I'm so thankful for the past 4 years!

Love you!

she's just so entertaining!

I've watched this so many times, and I still think it's hilarious!

A post from Bridget

Hi guys! Sorry for the lack of posts. Mom has been very tired so she lays around a lot, and I've been busy getting into things. I'm mobile now, and I can get around pretty fast with my crawl/scoot/worm like moves!

Mom and dad forget I can move real fast now and leave lots of stuff on the floor. I've had lots of fun getting into wrapping paper, plastic bags, folded laundry, food, magazines, and all sorts of no-no's.

I love it when mom takes me shopping in my stroller. I sit and happily scream and anyone who looks my way. :)

I started piano lessons from Aunt Wendi, and they're lots of fun!

I think Uncle Luke is hilarious, and love it when he gives me attention. Somehow whatever he does is WAY more funny that when other people do the same thing...

I like to snuggle with daddy the best. Sometimes I'll let mom rock me, but mostly I like to snuggle dad.

Mom and dad drug me all the way to Princeville one night to see Mark and Kate. I had to go to bed in my car seat while they all had fun decorating Easter eggs.

There's a new baby calf in our back yard and I love to go outside and see them. Dad repeats over and over. "Cow, moo, cow, moo"

Sometimes I hang out with my friends. Judah is lots bigger than me, but I like to watch everything he does so I can learn :)

Daddy teaches me words when he gets home from work. We've been working on: mommy, daddy, Bridget, baby, grandma, grandpa, and my numbers.

I can almost sit up by myself. But who would want to sit still when there's so many things and places to explore?!

In other news, mommy and I had been growing lots. I'm 7 months now, and already wearing the clothes mom bought me for this fall. I guess we'll have to go shopping some more! Yay! My little sibling is growing too, and the Dr says it is measuring 3 weeks bigger than it should be. I'm not too worried though. I eat LOTS of food so I'll be a huge chunk before it's born!