Home Again

Well, it's good to be home. We came home Wednesday around noon and we've all been adjusting quite well. Nights are long, but we are all getting better at them. Here are some pictures from our first couple of days at home...

Meeting Aunt Jesika

Taking a snooze

Apparently, having a new baby is hard work for everybody. Brooke and Bill passed out on the couch together AFTER, they had both already had a nap.

Summer's Birth Day

It's taken me a little longer to get this posted than I had hoped, but I guess that goes with the territory.

Summer's arrival was quite a whirlwind compared to her big-sister's. For one thing, she had a stubborn mind of her own to come completely on her own terms and nobody elses'. After my 41 week appointment on Monday with Ann, where we scheduled an induction for Wednesday, she decided it was time to come. Early labor started about 7:00 pm on Monday and by 10:00 I was pretty sure it was the real deal and we would be going to the hospital that night. I had no idea just how soon it would all happen. After another hour of monitoring contractions I felt like we needed to get going so we called my Mom to come stay with Brooke. It was about mid-night when we left home for Children's Hospital.

Once there, we had to register (I can't believe they don't have pre-registration), which took about twenty minutes, and then they moved us into a triage room where they checked me. After that things went really, really quickly. When I was first checked I was at 4cm and within a little more than an hour I was 9cm and ready to push. The on-call mid-wife made it just in time to help coach us through the pushing. Bill was great through the whole thing and was a great support and encouragement to me. I couldn't have done it without him! or the mid-wife!

We were genuinely shocked at how small Summer was. We thought she would be so much bigger than Brooke, but only 1lb and 1/2 in bigger.

Here are some pictures from her very first day of life.....

Just born:)

Up late (or early) with Mommy

Sister's meeting for the first time. Brooke gave Summer a ribbon blankie and Summer gave Brooke a Tinkerbell sheet set for her bed.

Saying good-bye for the afternoon. Brooke was immediately attached to Summer and believes that she is "in charge."

Trying to get her to wake up, she was not at all interested in that idea.

Meeting grand-parents...

Gigi

Mema (Dunn)..she was especially glad that I was born on Tuesday since it was her only day off until Sunday:)

Papa (Dunn)

Grammy (Wood)...Papa was out of town on business:( I met him several days later.

Will post more from home soon!!

Funny Videos

In my insomnia last night, I came across these old video clips of Brooke and was cracking up so I decided to share them here.



This first one is of Brooke eating peaches for the first time...this was homemade baby food and the peaches were on the tart side.

This second one is just a clip of Brooke playing with a toy she enjoyed as a baby, and still does. I just love her excitment every time one of the characters pops up.

Just a Swingin

Brooke loves to swing these days and especially loves to go high. She'll ask to for a big push and then giggle and say, "Make my tummy hurt." It always cracks me up how she says it and then asks for another big push. This morning, Bill was really getting her going high and she was loving it. I was hoping to get her on video talking about her tummy hurting, but she never said that. She just laughed and asked for more. Here's a quick video of her and Daddy swinging.

A fun week

I'm a little late in posting this, but we finished up our week with Hannah having a good time. Wednesday we went to another splash park where we met my sister, Suzanne, and her two kids. This time we took our own water balloons and Brooke and Hannah, both, had a fantastic time. Hannah was excited that she could show Brooke's older cousin Shianne, how to tie a water balloon. And Brooke, who normally won't play in the water more than 20 minutes before declaring she's cold and parking her wet bum in my lap, played the entire 45 min-1hour that we were there. Not once did she complain that she was cold, although it was quite obvious watching her shiver and shake that she was.



On Thursday,Bill and I both took the girls to Earlywine pool for about an hour and we had a good time there. There aren't a lot of pictures, but both Brooke and Hannah got to ride down one of the slides while we were there. The last 10 minutes or so, we played in the splash area of the pool. Here are pictures of that.

Brooke and Hannah spent a lot of time at home playing Hannah's "SuperGirl" game. They would tie blankets around their shoulders and swing around screaming "super girl", or in Brooke's case, "suker girl." Brooke thought this was all great fun and I got a little video of them. I've been trying to upload the video, but it doesn't seem to be working...so sorry.

Fun with Hannah

Hannah is staying with us during the days this week, and today, we met our friends at the splash park. Brooke and Hannah had a good time. Hannah was thrilled to find some un-popped balloons that she could fill with the sprayers and Brooke was thrilled as well, since she can't fill up a balloon on her own. I'm sure we will go back another day this week and take our own balloons instead of using someone else's trash;)

Busy, busy, busy

Well, we had a long weekend of getting things done around the house and checking things off the to-do list. Bill got the cradle put together earlier last week, and we think we got everything out of storage that we need. Friday night we spent a couple of hours organizing the girls' bedroom and getting everything put away. Summer's bed had been full of random stuff that we hadn't found a home for, so it was good to get all of that done. All of Summer's clothes and bedding have been washed and put away. I got all of our bottles and pump parts sterilized, and I've started packing some things for the hospital. That's a hard thing to cross off, since some of the things we need to pack are also things we will use between now and going to the hospital. I guess we can't be totally packed until we're ready to go:)
I also finished the letters for both girls' names and we got them hung up on the wall....

I REALLY like how they turned out, and so far, Brooke hasn't messed with the letters. I told her that if she couldn't leave them alone, we would have to take her name down and she wouldn't get to have her name on the wall like Summer. Hopefully that's enough reason for her to leave them alone!
My mom finished putting the bed-skirt together and brought that over on Saturday, so now Summer's bed is totally ready...silly thing is she won't be sleeping in it for a while, and the cradle, which she will sleep in right away, now has several things in it that don't belong there.
So it seems like most everything on my original to-do list is complete. We haven't installed the car seat yet, but I need the extra seat for Natalie. Plus, this week Hannah is staying with me during the day, so I need it for her. Like I told Bill though, even if it's not installed before we go to the hospital, there will be time to install it before we take her home, so I'm not totally concerned about it. I did do some designing of an announcement, but of course, that has to be a surprise to everybody. And, we do still need to wrap both gifts for the girls. I don't want to have Brooke wrap Summer's gift too early since I want her to remember and understand that it's from her, to Summer. I may even wait until I'm pretty sure we're going to the hospital to have her wrap it.
Well, I'm sure there are other things we need to do and I'll think of them as the time comes!