How cute is she? So cute....

So here are a few more pictures of Maggie.  As you can see she is growing a lot--gained a whole pound already!  Plus she is awake more now, which is good and bad.
It's good because it's fun to see her big eyes and play with her, but she is a little bit more fussy than before, but if I remember right the fussiness peaks at 6 weeks or so then tapers off.  She is still very good though.
Not sleeping through the night yet...unfortunately.  Jacob put his glasses on her.
As to not neglect my other kids, here is a pic of the boys.  Eric decided to give them mohawks.  Tyler's worked better than Jacob's but they both loved them.
And here is my first Sunday going to church!  I managed to get everything ready all by myself (Eric has meetings all Sunday morning) so was pretty proud (and proud that I hid the fact I didn't quite squeeze a shower in pretty well too  ;)  )  We all love Maggie so much.  We haven't ventured out anywhere interesting yet--just the store, school, park.  We have cabin fever pretty bad, but I think we will try to get out next weekend.  We'll see how it goes.

Maggie

Here are some pictures of Maggie.  She is so cute--and sweet!  Overall she is really good, of course compared to Jacob any baby is wonderful!  She loves to be held, but I don't mind!  We are all doing well and I feel good, albeit a little tired.  I will try to keep pictures coming!

Back in Time

Okay, here is a quick Halloween post just to show you all pics.  The boys had a blast and got tons of candy, most of which has been eaten by 2 unnamed grown-ups in the house.  After they got back they really loved handing out candy on the front porch.  It was so cute, Jacob would take a piece out of the bowl and put it in the kid's bag then say, "Yo wecom."  It made me laugh every time!

Here she is!

Maggie is here!  Here are some pictures--I will also sum up for those interested in how it all went down.  She was born on Friday night at 8:04 p.m.  It was crazy--I started having irregular contraction around 4:30 p.m..  Tyler had a school carnival which he was dying to go to so I figured I had a while and we went.  Well, after being there half an hour we left because the contractions were coming every 2 minutes and getting really strong.  I started timing them at home and it wasn't too long before we headed to the hospital.  I got checked in at 6:45 p.m. and asked immediately for my epidural.  I was dilated 5 cm and the nurses said the doctor was on her way, hooked me up to an iv, etc.  I kept insisting on getting my epidural but they kept telling me to just breathe and when the doctor arrives she will put in the order.  I was in serious pain, and finally told them I had to push.  I know they thought I was being a baby since I was only a 5 when I arrived and this was less than an hour later, but they checked me and lo and  behold I was 10 cm and my water was "bulging" as they called it.  They told me to push if I had to, even though the doctor wasn't there, but I could tell the nurse was a little worried.  Well, I pushed and my water literally exploded across the room about 5 feet--no exaggeration.  The doc walked in, I pushed, out came her head, one more push out she came.  The doctor didn't even have a gown on!  It was over quickly but let's just say I would much rather have an 8 hour labor with an epidural.  It was torture.  But I feel better now and have recovered faster than the other boys--probably a combination of the labor being so fast and not having drugs.  Plus, we have sweet, wonderful little Maggie.  She is healthy and the boys adore her.  Hopefully she will be a nice calm little girl.  Anyway, we miss you all and hope you enjoy the pictures!

She's Here!

Just a quick post for now, but Maggie has arrived!  She was born on Friday night at 8:04 p.m.  She weighed 7 lb 9 oz and was 19.5" long.  The birth was fast but painful as there was no time to give me any pain meds.  We got to the hospital at 6:45 p.m. and, like I said, she was born just over an hour later.  The doctor barely made it in time, she walked in about a minute before Maggie was born.  Anyway, I am glad it's over and now just trying to prepare myself for the next few weeks!  I will write a little more and put up some pics in a day or two.  

Okay, I'll start with a cute picture.  Instead of carving pumpkins (I haven't had good luck with knives lately) we decided to paint some.  Tyler picked the theme...Star Wars.  So for Family Home Evening on Monday we all sat down and painted--on the left is Eric's Yoda, mine is in the Darth Vader and Tyler's is the one on the right.  It is a storm trooper.  He did it totally by himself and was pretty proud as I think he should be.  Heck, I'd be scared if I saw something like that coming after me!
Now here's the gross pic of my hand.  Actually it doesn't look too bad in the picture because you can't see all the details.  Basically the incision is about 2" long but it goes (as you can see) across, down, across starting right in between my 2 middle fingers.  The purple is the marker they used to mark where they were going to cut.  Anyway, I'll just give a brief synopsis.  We got the hospital at 10 a.m. where my mom met up with us and took the kids to her house for the weekend.  They got me all prepped then I had to wait a couple of hours (my surgery time was not until noon but they told me to get there 2 hours early).  During that time, a bunch of nurses came and talked to me, Eric was with me of course, and finally the surgeon came in and it was time to get started.  They didn't put me to sleep but they gave me a mild sedative that just made me a little drowsy.  We went into the operating room (which was freezing) and they immediately put up a big blue sheet at my shoulder so I couldn't see what was going on.  They put a tourniquet around my upper arm and strapped my hand into something (remember I couldn't see what it was).  Then they gave me a local shot of anesthetic right into my palm--which hurt like the dickens by the way...   Then I was numb and they went to work.  I could hear them talking but actually had my ipod with me to help tune them out.  I still caught snippets of conversation but it wasn't too bad.  Then after only about 40 minutes they were done, maybe even less.  The prognosis is good--he said on both nerves there was actually still a small amount of the sheath around the nerve still attached so he didn't have to pull them together very much and he expects me to make a full recovery after about 3-4 months (the nerve has to grow back at the rate of 1 inch a month).  The worst part was the tourniquet--it hurt really bad, especially by the end.  It felt like my arm was on fire.  I even had to ask how much longer--but they were almost done by that point.  The nurse told me that most people have to be put to sleep because the tourniquet is so painful.  Luckily my surgery was quicker than most.  They glued the wound shut and put this thick plasticky coating on it to protect it.  I am generally supposed to keep it wrapped and not use it for a couple weeks, but I can move my finger a little bit and I don't have to wear a big splint because the nerves came together so easily.  So it was a success.  Thanks for everyone's support!

Stickers!

Jacob came running to me the other day saying, "Stickers!  Stickers!"  I tried to ignore him but he persisted so I followed him into the "office" and he showed me his handiwork...a brand new sheet of forever stamps, completely clumped all together.  And no, they aren't salvageable...I tried.  Well, at least Jake enjoyed them--pretty expensive for a sheet of "stickers"!