Baby is 1 month

A view of my room in the middle of the night. My room is pretty small so it made it kind of hard to make my way to the bathroom. At least they are both asleep. 

Louise at one month old. 

She got tired of me taking pictures. 

At one month she is a fairly happy baby. She will smile at us, especially the kids. She is fussy in the evenings and sleeps at night but wakes up to eat 2,3, or even sometimes 4 times a night. I try not to think about that.

Joseph the photo bomber. He is always doing this when I try and take pictures of her. 

I love her smiles and her rolls on her thighs. I love how soft her head is and how she curls into my chest. Her smell is divine unless she is poopy, then she stinks:). She loves it when we take her diaper off and will just lay there happy kicking around. 

Louise's Birth Video

My wonderful friend Kate Lines offered to video the birth and put together this beautiful video. I love it and wish I had all my births video taped. Such a sacred day to me.

Fall soup feast

Back in November we had our annual soup dinner. It was raining outside which kind of stunk cause we were planning to do it outside and had to relocate but it was the perfect night for soup and bread bowls. 

And pie!! Jessica made everyone their own mini (but not that mini) pie. 

I had tons of pomegranates on our tree this year so we used them as place cards. 

It was such a lovely evening and so easily thrown together because there were four of is involved. I love having friends that enjoy throwing a nice looking dinner party as much as I do.

And maybe sometime I will remember to take some pictures of the people cause the guest are what made it such an enjoyable evening. I was too busy enjoying myself. 

A week of Louise

On October 24th Louise LaVoice was born. Her birth story will have to wait for another time because I am still waiting for  pictures and video from the birth. 

Here we are seconds after her birth.

She was very calm and chill. This is her and I laying down skin to skin. 

This is her at my feet getting checked out  by Stephanie and Crystal. I love that she is covered in purple gloves. 

Chubby little sweetheart. 

She was (and is) a good eater. 

While I was getting checked out she was out in the living room getting to know  grandmas and grandpas and siblings. Above is a picture of her lifting her head off of pirate grandpas chest. 

Awhile after the kids went home with Russ' parents and apparently William was very restless. He couldn't wait to get back home to his new sister. 

Joseph has had a constant runny nose so he hasn't been able to hold her very much. It has been hard for him and any time he has got to hold her, he is so happy. 

Gracie sure loves having her sister here. 

Getting to know her "nother mother". The first night she was born my mom stayed the night and slept with her and would bring her to me when she needed to eat. The next night Connie did the same thing. I am so blessed. 

Cheeks! And nose! 

A few days after she was born the kids had their primary program. I didn't want to miss it so Connie and I came in late and left before the closing song and prayer. The kids did so good on their parts and singing the songs. I am glad I went. Louise did good too, she slept in Russ' arms the whole time. 

Later that day we went to my parents so that we could take a nap and have someone to hold Louise and the kids could play. Connie drove and Russ sat in the back and fell asleep with the rest of the kids. William was the only one awake bak there. 

I am just in love with this chubby little girl. 

One night Russ and the kids were out doing 4H stuff and me and Lou went out and sat on the porch swing in the perfect weather and watched the sunset. 

Look at this sweet position she is in. She just wants to melt our hearts. 

This is her milk drunk smile while I burped her. 

At her one week appointment (one day early). Stephanie had had a hard day that morning and needed baby snuggles. Good thing Louise was in a good mood and just snuggled and cuddled her. The first week of her life was busy (I didn't post about Joseph's birthday or Halloween) but it has also been peaceful and magical. 

Before the baby came

When Louise's due date came and went I was pretty bummed. I wasn't expecting her early but I was having stronger Braxton hicks then ever before so I thought maybe she would be "on time" or at least not 11 days late like Joe. 

This is a pumpkin muffin that I got for stopping by to visit with my friend Jenny. It was so delicious I ate at least 2 on the drive home. The day before I had a really bad day and talking with Jenny lifted my spirits so much.

One Saturday morning I was all alone cause Russ was working and Connie had the kids over to spend the night. I needed to close our irrigation and went out in my flip flops and slipped and totally bruised my tail bone in a bad way. It hurt so bad I cried. I also cried at the thought of how it might make birth so much worse.

Here I  holding my new niece Kasey and hoping it would somehow motivate my baby to come out. I hope these girls are always close.

My friend Angela stopped by to give me due date flowers and some yummy treat. The flowers smelled great for days and made me grateful for good friends.

Russ and I got these Kettcar things for the kids to ride around in the yard. They are fine but work best on concrete. I thought they would be able to ride them around the yard easier.

We went out as a family to Ah-So. Charity swears it puts you into labor. I thought it couldn't hurt and the kids loved it, but no labor.

I had to put this picture In there to document the dress that I wore around the house this whole pregnancy. It was just too comfortable.

One day Russ was out mowing the lawn and I decided to help to make things go faster (he was weed eating) and hoping I could encourage the baby out. Didn't work. But I did have a good time, I love being out in the yard.

Joseph helping at the midwifes. Stephanie gave me a pep talk that made me feel better and told me to come to a bellies meeting that night. She said being around all the pregnant women can start labor. So I went and had a really nice evening.

The baby didn't come that night but she did come the next night, the night of the same day that I gave up hopin that she would come before Joseph did. I stopped caring and that night woke up to some really painful contractions.

buy buy bunny

Awhile back, shortly after Louise was born someone called because they saw our "found bunny" signs and it was indeed their bunny. Russ took it back but let the kids hold him one last time. As you can see in the pictures they weren't too happy about this. 

It was kind of fun having a bunny. Maybe someday we will have to get another one. 

Loula's first bath

I actually didn't really want to bathe her because she was so soft and smelled so good that I was afraid it would ruin it. Russ loves giving babies baths so one day (Williams birthday actually) when she was fussy he decided to try it. 

 She didn't smile, but she didn't cry. She sat there looking like she was concentrating so hard.

Oh how I loved Russ being home for the first few weeks. We were both is baby heaven and loved all the time we were getting together as a family.