Piper Jane Little

After much anticipation and waiting...Miss Piper Jane has made it successfully into this world! I think it also took lots of threatening to get her out by induction. So...when I went for my 39 week check-up (Tues., the 17th) my doctor and I thought it might be a good idea to get a scheduled date on the books to induce because she thought I really didn't need to go past 40 weeks. So I was a little bummed because yet again, I wouldn't know the "surprise" of labor. With Emaline, I thought my water broke, but that wasn't the case and they just induced me when I was at the hospital. Funny though, after telling my mom, my ideal day for her to come would be on Friday the 20th because Josh was off, my dad was coming home from a business trip and Josh's dad was coming home (so we thought :-)). Sure enough, at 5am on Friday morning I got up to go to the bathroom and stood up and felt a mini gush of water. I immediately thought I peed my pants (known for that) but didn't like it when it happened a second time. I called my doctor's office, just to make sure they would want me to go in and they did, so I was at Mo Bap by 6am with my mom--Josh was coming off the night shift. After being evaluated for an hour and a half, the on-call doctor determined that I didn't completely break my water, but I was 3-4cm dilated so she recommended to my doctor that I stick around and get some help. Finally at 9:30am, they admitted me to a labor and delivery room and started a Pitocin drip. I hadn't felt any major contractions and just stuck around 3cm until my doctor showed up at around 1pm to make sure my water was broken (cause I had another "spill" all over the floor, nice, huh?). She then proceeded to completely rupture the bag (they think I had a slow leak) and then contractions actually started to come on. After that it didn't take long to move to 5-6cm, when they gave me the epidural ( I think it was around 5pm??). Then I was at a 7cm at 7pm and she was born at 7:55pm. She was a little stubborn coming out though and had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck twice, tightly as I understand and I had to stop in the middle of my last push so the doctor could cut the cord before she came out. Thankfully, there wasn't any lasting impression of this on her and she "pinked" right up with a little O2 to help her out. It was a fantastic day. I loved every minute of it...well maybe not the epidural part, that freaks me out a little. :-) She weighed 7lbs 10oz and 21.5 inches long. She was only 2oz. off Emaline's weigh in, it's funny--Piper is like Emaline's twin 2.5yrs later (almost)! Well...here are some pics from the delivery day. Enjoy! I'm sure there will be more to come.

Dylan's Birthday!

Our friend Dylan had his 2nd birthday party this past Sunday on the 8th and we fortunately, all got to go as a family! Emaline was super excited to go to another party, she is a party animal! As per usual though, I was lazy yet again and didn't get out the 'ol camera to take some much needed pictures.  I really have been a serious slacker. So these are a couple that I took from Jacki's collection.  She did a great job hosting and it was fun to see all our friends and have Emaline get to play with all the kids.  The plan was to go to Bounce U in Chesterfield afterwards, but Em had such an exciting time at The Haarmann's she fell asleep on the way home and I was feeling a little uncomfortable.  (p.s., sorry to Ryan and Suzanne for freaking them out a little at Target ;-))!  

Thanks for everything Jacki and Scott! Hope Dylan enjoyed all his goodies and his fun day! 

Meg, Suzanne and Me hanging out on the couch.

Diaper Keg: Baby 2.0

We decided to keep the tradition alive of extorting lots of diapers for our unborn child from all our friends with Baby 2.0. It was something that we kind of just threw together considering we weren't going to have any type of shower/party for the second child. We really don't need anything new since it is another girl. So we are already prepared, right? Well, we hope so. It was great just to have an excuse to get all our friends together and we appreciate every single one them that came to celebrate and drink some beer, in exchange for diapers ;-) This year though, wasn't as crazy as was the one for Emaline. Obviously, we are a little older and a little wiser this time around. We ended up getting a smaller (pony) keg and it was exactly the right amount of beer to go round. I yet again, was running around gabbing and trying to talk with everyone instead of taking pictures, so needless to say, there aren't many shots of the fun that was had. I really have been lazy these past few weeks. I think it might have something to do with this child in utero...

Thanks to my family for putting together everything and taking care of all the incidentals. You guys are the greatest!


Here are pictures of our loot:

Super Bowl 2009

We had a low key Super Bowl this year and went to my sister's house in the 'ville. She graciously hosted a kid/family friendly shindig, complete with dogs running a-muck. I unfortunately was too lazy (yet again) to take pictures with my own camera, so I stole some from my sister's gallery. Thankfully, Josh didn't have to work, so we all got to spend some quality time together. Obviously you can tell that I wasn't that into the game, although we were rooting for Arizona. I love the underdog! Too bad they couldn't hold onto it in the end :-(, but we had some good eats and a White Castle fix too. Good times.

Dancin' at The CEC.

Last Friday, we took Emaline and Kaya to Chuck E. Cheese for a fun lunch. We hadn't been since Emaline's birthday last September, so Nana figured it was about time we treat her to some giant mouse fun. Here is the little video I took of her gettin' her groove on:

The Work in Progress...

My excellent friend, Robyn came over and did a great job painting the baby's room for us. She really has the magic touch! The color turned out really well and I think when all the furniture and bedding come together it should look really cute. The colors for this time around are black, white, green and bright pink. Also, Josh has really been working his butt off to try and fit all this into his schedule and he already put up baseboards and is working on painting the door frame and remaining trim.

In the meantime, I have purchased many new things for our arriving bundle including a leaning bookshelf (black), some wall shelves (black), a personalized chair (just like Em's), some bedding accessories and tomorrow probably going to get a new window rod. Exciting stuff!

Party Weekend!

Last weekend Emaline and I were invited to two birthday parties and I was invited to my good friend Sarah's baby shower. So needless to say, it was a very busy weekend!

We started the parties off with our friends Maddie and Wes Wood's Carnival themed birthdays and it was so fun, even though we didn't get to stay as long as I would have liked. Mel and Steve did a great job setting up and decorating with games and prizes in each room of the house and then rotating. The food was complete with corn dogs, popcorn, cotton candy and lemonade. I really think Emaline enjoyed herself playing with the other kids. She got her face painted and played a game called Elefun with a couple other kids. This is really just the start of my social butterfly's career. Thanks to Jacki for capturing these moments:


Later that night I got to go to my friend, Sarah's baby shower hosted by our friend Carrie. It was a very nice, laid back and intimate gathering which was great for catching up. I could sit and talk with these girls for hours and hours at a time, but unfortunately the babysitting fairy couldn't wait that long :-) As for pictures, I could shoot myself in the leg for not remembering to bring a camera, but there will be plenty of pics of the new little St. Cin when the time comes.

On Sunday, we went to Emaline's cousin, Kaitlin's 10th birthday party. Grandma Audrey came with us and we got to visit with Aunt Angie and cousin Maddie. Emaline had a great time running around with all the older girls--I think she was the youngest one there! (besides her other cousin Morgan who is 4 mos.) She had a great time helping hand out the gifts to Kaitlin and dancing around in front of everyone. Gotta love the attention getter...she also helped herself to heaps of chips and dip and chocolate cake. That's the breakfast of champions my friends. It was a busy weekend, but very fun and can't wait for our next party!!

Finally, a Word on The Baby's Room

Okay, so we definitely have finally got all the wallpaper down in the baby's room. Josh has been doing a great job at fitting this stuff into his 5-day work weeks :-) I'm really excited that the walls aren't going to look as bad as I thought they would after I gouged the heck out of them scraping away. Josh has primed the finished walls and painted the ceiling, so now just have to get ready to paint with color! We went with green this time around and hope it turns out looking okay, the name is "evergreen glen"....so we'll see. Here are the first pics of all the paper being off. I'll post more as we get our bums in gear.

This is what the paper used to look like:

New Year's 2009

Emaline and I spent a very low key New Year's with my family at my sister Stephani's 2nd annual party. This year it was mainly just us, but Craig, Adham's friend, decided to join us as well. It was exactly what I was looking for in the way of a New Year's celebration because it took the least amount of energy from me! We played games, ate lots of yummy sliders (thanks to Adham and his new grill pan), watched countless episodes of The Twilight Zone and chased Emaline around the house. Obviously, the only one that didn't make it to midnight was Kaya and we all had champagne and sparkling cider (me and Em) while watching the fireworks go off in Stephani's neighborhood. Needless to say it was super cold that night and we didn't last long outside!

We called Daddy at midnight to wish him a happy new year and give kisses through the phone and luckily he wasn't too busy to answer. Thankfully, it was a pretty easy night for him too :-) Maybe one of these days he won't have to work that night. We got home roughly about 1:30am and Emaline was a real trooper. This girl loves to party...as a matter of fact she asked me when she woke up this morning when we were going to another party! She won't have to wait either since her and I are going to visit friends for a post-NY shindig tonight. We again were glad to spend time with family and friends and hope that everyone had a great start to 2009!

Christmas 2008

This Christmas was very different than last, seeing that Emaline is a pro at opening presents now and realizes what is under that shiny happy paper. We started the morning off pretty late, Em slept until almost 10am! Then we got right down to business, but that didn't take long considering we really don't do a big blow out of gifts at our house...yet. I made eggs and bacon and we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and then off to get ready for Nana and Pepere's house. Now their place is a little different.

When we got there, the living room was piles of presents already separated out for each of us. Emaline's favorite though would have to be her Little Einsteins Pat-Pat Rocket (she wants to take it everywhere), thanks Aunt Stephy! My parents always go a little overboard with Christmas and I can't even imagine how next year is going to be when we add another kid to the mix. It took us roughly 2 hours just to get through the gifts--and that was hurrying up! We had a great afternoon meal of turkey (and I got ham, hee hee) and all the dressings. We then loaded up the car with all our treasures and headed over to the Little household to start all over again.

Emaline didn't have a nap, but surprisingly she did awesome for the day! We showed up at Grandma and Papa's about 3:30pm and went straight into gifts before all the extended family started to arrive for dinner. Emaline really made out like a bandit this year, especially with some really cute clothes and fun learning toys. She especially like the Leapfrog Globe she got from Grandma & Papa, now she knows where everything is on what she calls her "talking planet". Dinner was great and we got to see a lot of Audrey's family that we don't usually see during the year. Emaline and I were done at right before 8pm when my parents came over to exchange gifts with The Littles. She passed out right on the couch in the middle of everything! So her and I went home and Josh got to visit with his family for a little longer. It was a very long day, but always a good time. We hope that everyone had a safe and happy holiday and got to spend such wonderful time with their family and friends. Merry Christmas!