An Unexpected 4th of July Surprise

   During the last few weeks of June I spent most of my time trying to relax.  I finished up most of my work at school and sent Cooper to school 3 days a week.  My hospital bag was packed and I was ready to go, except for clothes for the baby that I still needed to wash.   I was anticipating that I would have 2 or 3 more weeks to finish getting ready for baby girl. On Monday July 2nd Paul was out fishing for work all day and out of cell coverage most of the day.  Cooper and I went to the library in the morning and then took a nap in the afternoon.  I was feeling a little more miserable and uncomfortable than usual.  I was also feeling more contractions than I had before, although nothing I thought was out of the norm.  Tuesday I took Cooper to school and again spent the day relaxing on the couch.
      Since Wednesday was a holiday I was fortunate enough that Paul was home for the day.  In the morning I started to show some signs of pre-labor.  Of course my doctor's office was closed because of the holiday so I thought I'd wait and see what happened throughout the day before I bothered my midwife at home.  Paul was so great all day entertaining Cooper while I took a nap.  My mom was scheduled to fly in on Sunday and I still had some cleaning to do around the house to get ready for her arrival.  I decided to start sorting out the baby's clothes and do some laundry so I could put the finishing touches on organizing her room.  As I was sitting on the floor in the baby's room I began to notice contractions becoming a little more painful.  They were still coming at random intervals about 1/2 hour apart.  As I was sorting through the baby clothes Cooper was trying to go down for a nap, which never ended up happening.  I decided that my contractions were painful enough that sitting wasn't the best position and I should lie down on the couch with my feet up.
   About 5, Paul made burgers and fries for dinner.  I tried to eat something but didn't eat much because I was feeling too much pain.  Paul convinced me to contact my midwife and let her know what was going on.  Kathy suggested I head over to the hospital to get examined just in case.  I was so hesitant because I'm not one to 'cry wolf'.  I was also worried because we didn't know what we were going to do with Cooper.  Would he come to the hospital with us?  What if I needed to stay, where would he go?  Luckily Paul was so calm through all of this and contacted our neighbor, Rebecca, who was staying at her dad's house for several months.  She said she would be happy to watch Cooper and he could stay next door for the night if needed.
   About 6:30 I decided it wouldn't hurt to go get examined at the hospital.  I know
I wouldn't be the only one who goes to the hospital and then sent home.  Paul thought it was better to be on the safe side.  So we packed Cooper's bag, just in case, and off to the hospital we went.  Looking back on all of this, I am really glad we live less than 2 minutes away from the hospital.  When we got there the nurse at the reception desk was checking me in and as I was standing waiting for a room my water broke.  Not as scary and dramatic as it seems in the movies.  Thank goodness!   Cooper noticed my situation and exclaimed "Mommy why are you dripping?"  Lol!  I never thought I'd hear those word from my son.  Paul explained to Cooper that the baby was going to come out of mommy's tummy very soon. He knew that meant he was going to sleep next door at Benecio's house, so he was excited.  So, if we lived any further away my water would have broken in the car.  I knew that baby girl would not wait until my due date, July 30th, but I didn't expect her to come this soon.  On my least favorite holiday, of all days.

Once I was finally in bed and all hooked up Paul took Cooper over to our neighbor's house to get settled in.  Cooper was excited to get to watch fireworks that night.  I'm glad Cooper was ok staying with Rebecca and Benecio and didn't cry when Paul left him.  This made me worry much less about Cooper and I was able to focus more on baby girl.  

 

  
     It was just after 7 when we checked in and within a few short hours Elana Marie was born with only 5 pushes at 10:55.  She was 5 lbs 2 oz and 18 inches long.  So much easier and faster than the first time.  Loving that!

 
   After she was all cleaned up, the nurses said that her temperature was a little low.  They ended up putting her under a heat lamp for about an hour.  I hated having to wait and hour to hold her.  This time I didn't end up throwing up as much afterward like I did with Cooper.

To me she looks so cold.  I'm not quite sure how a heat lamp is better than clothes and a blanket, but apparently it is.

  

So sweet!  She grabbed on to Paul's finger and wouldn't let go.    He said it was so hard not to reach down and pick her up.   

It was about 2 a.m by the time Paul ended up going home and we both tried to get some sleep.  But come on, how much sleep can you really get in those uncomfortable hospital beds.  And not to mention a little infant waking you up wanting to eat.  Oh and I can't forget those pesky nurses who come and wake you up to check your vitals at 6 a.m. when you just finally fell back a sleep at 5:30! I'm not sure I was expecting to get much sleep after having a baby but more than 30 minutes would have been nice. 

Around 9:30 Paul brought Cooper over to the hospital to visit.  Boy was he excited to meet his new sister.  He was so cute wanting to hold her.  What a good big brother he's going to be.  Hopefully he will still want to hold her once we bring her home.

After about an hour or so Cooper became bored being at the hospital.  Paul took Cooper home to play and wait for his mom to come.  We called her right before Elana was born to see if she would be able to come and help out with Cooper until Sunday when my mom arrived.

I didn't realize that my mom was able to change her flight and come Thursday night.  Yay!  What a huge help!

  

Cooper had stayed up the night before watching fireworks until about 10:30.  Then the next morning he was awake about 7:30.  Poor kid was so tired he fell asleep on the hospital room floor watching TV.   Later that evening Cooper went to the airport with Paul to pick up Grammy Rachel. 

Grammy Terry stayed with me and Elana at the hospital.  She had no problem holding her for the next few hours.

Grammy Rachel finally arrived and was excited to meet Elana.

So far she is very different from Cooper.  She sleeps well, 4-5 hours at a time and eats well.  She does not fall asleep while eating like Cooper did.  Man, was he hard to wake up.  I remember it took over an hour to feed him because he kept falling asleep and was hard to wake up.    I'm glad I don't have to go through that again.

Cooper wanted to hold Elana again.  So cute!

Our first picture as a family of four.

 

Cooper can't get enough of holding baby Elana.

Such a sweet boy.

Grammy Terry can't get enough of baby Elana either.

Daddy finally gets a turn to hold Elana.

Yay!  On Friday we were finally cleared to go home.

Cooper still wanted to hold Elana even when we got home.
 

 

What a sweet princess sleeping.

Sleeping girl trying out the swing.  I think she likes it.

What?! Finally awake for more than five minutes.

Cute princess posing for the camera.

A thumb, her new favorite thing to suck on.

Cooper trying to help wake her up.  It's not going too well while she's all wrapped up.

And more sleeping in her newly named "princess blanket".

Surprisingly, Elana enjoyed her first bath.  She only screamed for a few seconds while we put her in.  And no pee or poop anywhere.  She saved that for her second bath.

She's already started to figure out how to hold the pacifier with her hand.  I think it was a luck that her hand ended up in that position.  It didn't last very long, but long enough for dad to take the picture of her. 

Little Elana is such a joy to have in our family.  We love her so much!   I can't wait until she is awake more so we can play and get out of the house more.  It's been so hot outside we've had to stay in almost everyday.     It's been almost a week since the time I started this blog post and had time to finish it and in between this time Elana has already changed so much. I love all the cute faces she makes her little forehead wrinkles and she movers her lips around, cute and funny all at the same time.  She moves around and wiggles so much more, she is getting bigger all the time (now into newborn clothes and out of preemie) and her crying has become more frequent and LOUDER.  When she is unhappy she will let you know, especially when she is hungry.  Feed me NOW or I will continue to make your ears hurt by screaming at the top of my lungs.  Thankfully this doesn't happen all of the time. 
    My brother Craig was able to come and visit last weekend and my dad will be out to visit the middle of August.  Can't wait.  My mom is staying until Labor day so she can watch Elana when I have to work for a week and while Paul is gone on a trip.  It's still a few weeks away but I'm nervous for the day that I will have Cooper and Elana all to myself for a day.  But for now I will not worry about that.  I think I hear a little girl starting to wake up.   Did I mention how much we LOVE this little girl?!

Nampa Visit

Over Memorial Day we visited Nampa, ID to see family.  

 

Cooper loved playing with his cousin Amariah.  It's nice to have a playmate when we visit.

 

Cooper pretending to sleep on the floor.  He's never been one to fall asleep in random places.

 Grammy Terry and Grammpy Ed watching Elmo with the grandkids. 

 Cooper teaching Amariah how to play with cars and trucks.

                                    
Amariah is learning to share her food.

 

Cooper helping Grammy Terry make pizza dough.  He even made himself a little beard and mustache out of flour.

 

One of Cooper's favorite things to do at Grammy T's is to use her big vacuum.  It is loud and noisy and everything boys love. 

 

Cooper loves to play songs on the piano.  His favorite is to play a 'thunder' song on the low notes. 

                                          Cooper is quite the entertainer.

                                           
                Paul and I were able to go on a date night to a friends wedding.  It was fun to get dressed up and get out without Cooper.  It's not very often we get to do this.  Thanks Grammy and Grammpy for watching Cooper.

                              Cooper was excited to get dressed up in his tie and go to church with Grammy Terry and Grammpy Ed.  He had to test out their rake before we left.

 

Cooper loves playing with his "Auntin" Erin as he calls her.  Quite a silly pair.

We all had a fun weekend and can't wait to go back again soon.

Cooper and Baby Belly

Well, here we are beginning spring! I love the warmer weather, being able to play outside more and the longer sunlight in the evenings.
So far my pregnancy is going well.

I'm 24 weeks and finally over the sickness stage and into the tired stage. My mom has been here the past week and we have been shopping for cute girly fabric to decorate the nursery. I'm a little anxious, yet excited to start painting and decorating because that means the baby will be here before I know it. I've haven't had too many cravings lately just mostly citrus fruit. I can't seem to get enough of it. I think baby girl enjoys it too because she moves, kicks, and wiggles around much more than Cooper ever did! If she keeps this up we are going to have one wiggly child on our hands once she's born. I'm getting really exited to meet her!

But before we can actually get around to painting and decorating the baby room we need to find a place to put the office. In order to do this we are planning on clearing out our storage room, making it a guest room and then making the current guest room Paul's work office. This will leave space in our current down stairs office for all of the upstairs office furniture. But first we need to clear out the storage room and find a place to put all of our stuff, or junk as some of it may be. So Paul and Cooper have been busy making awesome benches and shelves.

This is the kitchen bench Paul built to store more kitchen appliances. Love it! My mom even made a bench cushion for us to sit on that is awesome! Thanks mom! Cooper actually likes to sit on the bench so now we can have family meals and all eat at the same table.


We decided to redo to the shelving in our hall closet to use the space more efficiently. Cooper loved to sit on the bottom shelf and tell us there was a problem he needed to fix. Gotta use the light to see all the little problems. And he's even being safe by wearing safety goggles. Too cute!


In our basement we had a bench that was covered by carpet. We thought it would be more effective if it had storage space underneath. I was a little nervous as to what we would find once we tore off the carpet. Thankfully it wasn't much other than dust and spiderwebs. Cooper loved using his tools to help bang on the wood.


He was so proud of the bench he helped daddy build. What a great job they did.

We also decided to build shelves around our TV to have better storage for our movies and books.

The shelves still need to be painted but at least they are done and ready to put stuff on.

And to think that each of these projects took Paul about a day to build! I'm so thankful he is so handy! And he has a cute little helper too!

Here are a few other things we've been up to the past few months.

Cooper enjoys posing with his belly after Paul took pictures of my belly.




What a cute smile! Love this kiddo!

Since the weather has started to get warmer we have been spending more time outside. Cooper loves playing with the neighbor girls. This jeep is one of his favorite things to drive. Looks like Evelyn enjoys driving it too. Cooper makes the funniest faces. He wouldn't be Cooper without at least one crazy face picture.





All three kids crammed into one car. How cute!


Even daddy wanted to get in on some of the outdoor fun!

Cooper wasn't too sure he wanted daddy riding his bike. I think Cooper was running after daddy to tell him he wasn't being safe, he forgot to put on his helmet.


We were also able to get out and get some of our garden planted, peas, lettuce, and carrots. Cooper even wanted to plan some sun flowers for mommy. How sweet!


Another cute cheesy smile by one cute little helper.


What a great little helper he was. I didn't see it all but according to Paul Cooper's technique was quite interesting, throwing the peas straight up into the air and letting them fall where they may and dumping a small bowl of carrot seeds in a pile, and then spreading from there.

Cooper also attended a birthday party at the Kangaroo Zoo. What a fun place to have a birthday party.






And on another side note I think that Cooper is almost potty trained! He's gone about 5 days being dry! Tuesday will be the first day at school in big boy underwear! I'm a little nervous about this but very proud of him. Hopefully this is just the beginning of the big boy Cooper!

I can't wait for warm weather everyday so we can spend more time outside! I love spring!