Lots of pictures of the kids with my Mom and Dad...my Dad flew in on Saturday and spent a few days here before they both flew back to Colorado on Tuesday.
My Mom is shopping for a new car, so we went to look at some with her on Sunday when the salesmen aren't around.
Evelyn started copying us and putting her hands up to her eyes to look into the window...it was cute!
Yep - she's ornery.
Yay - bubbles!
Because sometimes you just want to ride in your shopping cart...
Coloring with Grammie
My Dad had quite the time getting here. He realized, as he was walking through security in Denver, that he left his phone in the cup holder of his pickup at the airport. He called my Mom from a pay phone (those still exist?) to let us know. I checked on his flights as he should have been boarding in Dallas and saw that his flight from Denver was severely delayed. Like, he was going to have 5-10 minutes to deplane, change terminals in a major airport, and board, delayed. He borrowed the lady in the seat next to him's cell phone to call when they landed in Dallas, so we knew he had about 10 minutes to make his next flight (which was showing on time online). He said he did the airport run and made it (we figured when we hadn't heard from him 10 minutes after the flight left, he must have made it!).
Lillian meeting Grandad
My Mom brought a plant from my Grandma's funeral for us to have, but it was in a coffee can so we needed to re-pot it.
Evelyn thought the new pot made for a good hat
Chef Evelyn was in charge of dinner this night
Lillian had her days and nights mixed up for a couple nights, so Daddy and Grandad were on 'try to keep her awake for 15 minutes' duty
Grammie and Lillian
This is my Dad's attempt at being funny. He has nicknamed Lillian, Sid (it's a long story...one that I don't fully understand...but it has something to do with lillies of the field and Sidney Poitier, followed by some made up baseball player named Sidd Finch - look it up, Sports Illustrated on April 1, 1985).
He thought he needed to put her nickname on the wall in her nursery.
Grammie enjoyed her nightly snuggles with Lillian while watching Christmas movies on the Hallmark channel
Grammie with numbers 8 and 10
Grammie had to wrestle Evelyn down to get a picture with her (stinker!)
Hi Grandad!
There are few things more fun than a tunnel with your Grandad on the other side!
We are so thankful for the blessing of having them here! Being able to leave Evelyn at our house with my Mom so she could be in her normal environment was helpful for the beginning of this transition. We were only gone for Tuesday and part of Wednesday, but I think it made things easier on Evelyn. My Mom spent most of the week cooking tons of freezer meals and making sure we were fed. Dan took the first week off as well, so he was a tremendous help with Evelyn, leaving me to focus on Lillian and resting. My Dad made it through a trip without getting assigned a project...sort of. He did remove the curtain and grate from our fireplace, and clean it out. I didn't technically ask him to do it, I just asked if it could be done! :-) We have never used it in the 5 years we have lived here (and really, the coldest it's been in those 5 years is about 30 degrees - for 3 minutes overnight once), so I wanted to utilize the space to keep toys in. Our living room is not very big, and is being overrun with toys and baby gear, so that space is useful! I ended up lining the bottom of it with a rubber mat liner and the walls with black fabric to keep any remaining soot out of the toys (because the owners before us did use the fireplace). It's worked pretty well so far - we can actually see the floor when we put toys away at night!
We took Lillian in for her first chiropractic adjustment on Monday. We are pretty big believers in the benefit of regular chiropractic care. As a family, we started seeing Dr. Walker when I was pregnant, and could barely walk from sciatic pain, with Evelyn. Since then we have seen a pretty marked decrease in the number of colds/sicknesses we have had. Evelyn has been seeing him since she was born, and while she screamed her way through her first year of adjustments - now she's an old pro.
She usually hops up on the table and waits for him like this...
Lillian and Dr. Walker
First adjustment!
She barely acknowledged that anything was happening. So far, in her first week of life, we can definitely see a difference in temperment between the two girls. Lillian is pretty chill and laid back for the most part - she really only cries when she is hungry, and her cry is more of a cry out once or twice...wait...then try it again. Evelyn was an all-out wailer and it didn't take much to hack her off! It's funny to see their differences and similarities!
Our amazing photographer (Cat Herndon) came to the hospital on Wednesday morning to snap some pictures while we were there. We don't have the images from her yet, but here is a sneak peek she posted on Facebook...
We also had Lillian's newborn session with Cat on Sunday - here are the sneak peeks, and I'll post more when we get the disc!
After Evelyn woke up from her nap on Tuesday, my Mom brought her to the hospital to meet Lillian. She was pretty excited to meet her, and brought her a flower bouquet and a stuffed flower (that Evelyn now uses as her broom to sweep the floor...).
Dan caught the initial meeting on video
We had bought a couple gifts for Lillian to give to Evelyn at the hospital, so we let her unwrap those shortly after she got there.
This might be my favorite picture - Evelyn held out her arms and said, "hold it". She definitely loves Baby Sister (and loves to try and help).
Our first family picture of four...
Grammie with Lillian
Evelyn checking out Lillian
(one of her gifts was a doctor set - she's in a Doc McStuffins phase)
So far, so good...Evelyn was pretty taken with "baby sister" when she was in the hospital. Hopefully this will last once this baby comes home (and stays home) with her!
We made it through the night - there were several times that I thought we should probably go in, but I figured letting Dan get a good night's sleep in our own bed was a good idea. I wasn't sleeping much, but it was nice to be in my bed when I could fall asleep. We had everything packed and ready to go and headed to the hospital around 5:30am.
Last 'bump' picture (ever)...hours before she came!
The official Wisdom Family Pool...
Gavin thought the game was dumb...so he didn't guess...
When we got to the hospital, I was about 5 1/2 cm - which was a little depressing after contracting all night and being 5cm yesterday afternoon! They started pitocin around 8:15am. She waited to break my water because Lillian was still pretty high and hadn't dropped, but around 9:45 I was 6cm and she had moved down, so she broke my water. It was go time at that point - the contractions got much more intense and closer together...Dan had the nail marks in his hands to prove it. I asked for an epidural at 10:50am (and was 7cm then). :-) Around 11:30am, I was 9cm and could feel her starting to bear down (I asked the anesthesiologist to give me enough drugs to deaden it a little, but not so much that I couldn't feel anything). About 10 minutes later, I was officially 10cm and ready to go. Lillian was pushing down into the birth canal and her heart rate was dropping, so they had me on oxygen to be sure she was getting enough. The entire time we sat waiting, I kept telling Dan, "she's coming - I can feel her, they better hurry up!" The nurse wanted me to start pushing and said they would call Dr. Nowitzky when her head was visible. That took all of me getting into position and barely starting to push. About 2 seconds after she told me to push, she told me to stop (right...you stop, lady!). Dr. Nowitzky came shortly after, and Lillian was born at 12:17pm. I believe it took 2 big pushes, one for her head and one for her shoulders. I wanted to shout - I told you people I could do this! :-)
Welcome to our world, Lillian!
(pardon the plethora of pictures you are about to scroll through...)
Meeting Mommy...
9 pounds, 5 ounces
All clean!
I'm tired guys! (with Dr. Nowitzky)
Beaming Daddy!
Our second little princess!
I love you, baby girl...I'm so glad you are finally here!
Everything was great for both she and I. Her blood sugar was normal at birth (one of the potential effects of gestational diabetes is that the baby has very low blood sugar), and mine returned to normal shortly after delivery. Peace out, diabetes! I enjoyed a delicious cheeseburger and fries while waiting to be moved to our postpartum room. Lillian nursed for a good hour after birth - we've been praying that she would be a good eater after having so many troubles with Evelyn. So far, so good! We finally got into our room around 2:30pm and decided to sleep for a little while since Evelyn was napping at home. I didn't sleep much because I was so swollen from the IV that I was uncomfortable - but I did get to love on this sweet baby girl!
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ - to the glory and praise of God.
My Mom got in on Sunday afternoon, and Amber was watching Evelyn for one more day on Monday, so my Mom and I decided to have a mother-daughter date. We grabbed coffee, then headed to the spa for a morning of pampering.
It was fun to spend time with just her! Our appointment ran a little long, so instead of the yummy lunch I had planned at Corner Bakery (ours just opened last week!), we settled for drive through at McDonalds because I had my last OB appointment about 20 minutes after we left the spa.
My appointment went well. We mostly talked about what would happen tomorrow, then she checked me to see if I had started dilating and effacing yet. I figured I would be lucky to be at 1-2cm...glory, hallelujah I was already at 5cm!! Halfway! I had been having contractions for the last couple of weeks, but nothing consistent, so I didn't think much had been accomplished!
We had a low-key night at home, after my last supper of La Playa (my favorite Mexican restaurant here). Evelyn wanted her nails painted like Grammie and Mommy, so Grammie helped her out while I was timing contractions.
From pretty much when Dr. Nowitzky checked me at my appointment, I had been having steady contractions. Fortunately, I had some entertainment to distract me!
We are all set to go in early tomorrow to be induced, if we make it that far!
We had a pretty low-key 4th of July this year. Today was the first day in a week that Dan has felt halfway normal. He's past the contagious stage, but his throat is still pretty sore and he's not eating much more than liquid or really soft things. We had planned to go to our church's 4th of July party (which was going to be awesome, because not only was it a BBQ, it was out on someone's ranch where they were setting up a skeet shooting range - I had big plans to shoot my first real gun at 39 weeks pregnant!), but figured it would be better for Dan to have a low-key day to keep getting better so he could go to work tomorrow. (How's that for a new job...take 3 sick days, get a holiday, work a day, get a weekend, work a day, be home with your wife, 2 year old, and newborn baby for a week...I say that lightly, because I know it's bothering him to have missed the first 3 days of a new job!)
We decided to go to the dollar theater this morning. On Thursdays through the summer, they have kids movies for $1 (really? at the dollar theater...I'm tired). Dan had taken Evelyn when I was in New Orleans, and I had taken her a couple of weeks ago, but we figured it would be fun to all go. So we did that this morning.
This was actually taken yesterday, but it's one of her cute 4th of July outfits, so I had to post it!
After naps all around, we set up her pool in the back yard. Corpus Christi is under water restrictions, so we can only go all out with the sprinkler and everything one day a week. Fortunately, Thursdays are our days. So popcicles, pools, slides, and every kind of fun a 2 year old could ask for in a backyard was the plan.
Last year she had zero interest in popcicles...we seem to have turned that corner.
The best thing about popcicles outside in your swimsuit is you can rinse off in the pool!
Dan set up her slide so she could slide into the pool...instant fun!
And a little water basketball!
Some more slide fun...
I love this one!
She has figured out how to turn on the hose...watch out Daddy!
o.r.n.e.r.y.
She was laughing and chasing us both - I wish I could have gotten the first round on video, but I had the nice camera at the same time and was trying to keep it dry from the crazy water girl!
We watched some fireworks on TV, then were able to see several from our windows upstairs so Evelyn could watch. She kept saying, "Firecrackers, where are you?" and "I see those crackers!" It was cute. She's always liked fireworks when we have seen them at Hooks games - hopefully we can get to another one of those this year so she can see them again. All in all, a very relaxing 4th of July. Just what the doctor ordered!
