October

We had such a fun October! We loved having little Sydney around with her sweet personality. She is the most peaceful baby and gives big gummy smiles that we can't get enough ot. We started out the month going to a local farm here to get pumpkins and  doughnuts. They have cider doughnuts here!!! We were so excited and I made Josh buy a whole bag just for us. I'm a little obsessed...but apple and pumpkin! They had both kinds!! It was rainy and muddy but we still had a lot of fun. It was also our first official outing as a family of 4 so that made it pretty special:) Sydney was snuggled into the moby-wrap and slept the whole time.

Then we had our friend Yuri come visit us from Utah for a week. We had a ton of fun while Josh was at work. We went to the Pittock Mansion in Portland which has the most amazing view. The view of Mount Hood, wow. We went on walks around our favorite parks and enjoyed all the beautiful colors here!  We also went to Blue Star doughnuts, rated the best doughnuts in the country. I have to agree, they were amazing!!! So gourmet. And it was fun to go hang out around downtown. 

We went to Josh's Halloween work party on Halloween and went trick or treating there. Everyone was so sweet to Emma. She would take candy and run off as she said "thank you!" Emma and Sydney were both dressed as owls and won the work costume constest! Woot woot! I have to say they were pretty adorable but I thought I was just biased. That just proved it:)

We took Yuri down to Lincoln city and spent an amazing Saturday there. It was the end of October but warm and sunny! People had swimming suits on! It's always hit or miss when you go but it's always, always gorgeous.

Oregon is treating us pretty great so far:)

Sydney's Birth Story and first few weeks!

Sydney is coming up on 7 weeks already! When did that happen? She's such a doll and we can't imagine life without her. She's almost outgrown her newborn clothes and just about past the newborn acne phase. Today she gave me a real smile which made me melt. We love being a family of 4 and Emma loves being a big sister...for the most part. I do think she misses all the attention sometimes. Whenever Josh hugs me or kisses me, Emma runs up to us and wants to join in. She grabs our legs and says "Hug?" Then giggles like crazy when we have a group hug with her. She's pretty adorable. Anyway, back to Sydney.  We were so worried all summer about having someone to watch Emma while I was in labor. Moving to a new place is tough when you're 5 or 6 months pregnant. But we lucked out with an amazing church ward here and good friends. So many people were willing to help watch Emma if we needed or bring us dinner.

I ended up getting induced anyways, so my mom was able to have a day to fly out here from Idaho to be here when I went to the hospital. I had my 39 week appointment and the doctor was concerned because Sydney hadn't grown for a few weeks. They ordered an ultrasound for the next morning to see what was going on. Josh and Emma came with me to the ultrasound. Afterwards, the doctor said "Well, looks like we're going to induce you today or tomorrow!" We were pretty shocked. She said everything looked good but the baby wasn't growing so there was no reason to wait and she needed to come out. They predicted she was around 5 lbs. 13 oz. I was pretty excited, but not mentally prepared. I'd readied myself for a week late because that's what happened with Emma. I had a really good experience being induced though for the most part. It was nice to have my mom taking care of Emma before going to the hospital.

I went in to the hospital Saturday September 17th at 7 a.m. They got me all hooked up and I.V's all set up. Before the pitocin they wanted to check the baby's position. Every appointment since 34 weeks the baby was always head down. Even the day before. But when they checked, Sydney was breech! Bah! She was so small and just floating around in there. They decided to do some massaging of my belly to push the baby down. It works about 50 % of the time and it wasn't a guarantee but I'd have to have a C- section otherwise. The doctor oiled up my belly and started turning the baby. Sydney went head down so quick it was shocking! The doctor said " That's the easiest one I've ever done!" BUT, little Sydney liked floating around and as soon as she was head down she started floating up again. The doctor and the nurse had to literally hold her head down with their fingers around her neck until they gave me something to get her to stay there and drop. Stressful but kind of funny. I guess I just had a lot of fluid for a tiny baby.

Well it was just normal from there. They gave me pitocin around 11 AM and Josh and I watched a lot of "Reba" , waiting till I needed my epidural. About 7 PM, I felt like I needed to push and called to the nurses. Sure enough, little Syndey was ready! A couple pushes and she was here! It was such an amazing experience, I still cry a little thinking about it. I was able to help pull her out( which was incredible) and then lay her straight on my chest. With Emma, they whisked her away to the NICU right away, but Sydney Lynne was with me from the get-go. She nursed easily and slept easily on my chest.  She was born at 7:47 PM 9/17/16, 6 lbs. 2 oz. and 19 inches.

My mom and Emma came to meet her the next morning. Emma didn't really know how to react and was more interested in jumping on the couches and playing around the hospital room.

Our first family picture

The day I got discharged from the hospital, I was throwing up and felt really sore in my back and my shoulders. It kept getting worse and worse but I thought it was just from leaning over to nurse Sydney and bad posture and maybe something I ate. On my way home I threw up 3 times and went straight to bed. All I could do was lay there in pain. Every time I got up to stand, I was good for a few minutes but then felt nauseous and like I would fall over. I had to lay down to nurse Syndey and everything bright gave me a headache even when I was laying down. Turns out I had a spinal headache. Sometimes, but rarely, the epidural needle punctures the dural sac around the spinal cord. My spinal fluid was leaking and it gave me the worst headache and body soreness I've had in my life. The pain was even worse than child birth and kept getting worse and worse. It might not sound that bad but it really was.  It was so bad I almost made Josh go to the E.R in the middle of the night. But we waited till the next morning and went back to the hospital. They did a blood patch which is where they take some of my own blood and insert it into where the epidural was and patch the hole with my own blood. In 15 minutes I was already feeling better. It was amazing! I hope I never have to go through that again. It makes me think twice about having an epidural, whereas before I always said " Of course I want one! Why wouldn't I?!" But I'm so glad to be feeling fully recovered and able to enjoy my girls:)

Here's some pictures of our two weeks home:

She's such a cutie and we love her!

Portland Adventures!

I haven't written one blog post all summer! We've done a lot of fun things during the last few months and there's sadly no way I can document it all. But since Baby Girl #2 should be joining us any day now, I really need to step up my game so we can remember a little of our first summer in Portland. It really has been fantastic!

I'm amazed by how much there is to do here. There are so many beautiful parks and trails to explore and fun stuff going on.

We went to the Portland Rose Festival back in May. It was gorgeous and the best part was that it was free! Emma loved smelling all the flowers and running around. She stayed in her stroller about 5 minutes. Sometimes I'm not sure why we even have that thing.

We've also had some fun food making adventures. We've been trying out hand at cooking together once in a while and have had some pretty good successes. A list of things we've made:

• Massaman curry
• Homemade Pizza
• Cafe Rio Pork Quesadilla ( we really miss Cafe Rio)
• Cheesecake
• Blueberry Jam

4th of July was fun but more quiet than normal. We went to a ward breakfast, a BBQ and went to fireworks with some friends at the local high school. The firework show was actually pretty good, but it was weirdly cold that night so that was a shocker for me. During the day we just napped and hung out. We tried to take some cute festive pictures but we're not the best at capturing those;)

A family selfie

An attempted family photo. Not our best...

Emma is getting to be quite the character these days. She has been exploding with words and shocks us by what she says. Josh and I look at each other and say " Did you teach her that?" Yeah we have to watch what we say ;) She is still obsessed with her binky, or "bee-bee" as she lovingly calls it. I don't have the heart to take it away until we're good and settled with the new baby. But she bites through one every few days, so not too thrilled about that!

I think half the words she knows deals with food...she's definitely my girl! And she really likes ice cream, another sign she's mine. When we put her down to bed, Josh and I sometimes pull out some ice cream and watch a show. But we've realized she can hear our spoons and bowls. She'll cry and when we go in to check on her she looks at us and says " ice cream?" We're such suckers for that little girl so sometimes we let her come out and share with us. Also, she's obsessed with Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches and could it for breakfast and lunch everyday. When she wakes up every morning she says " Milk?" and "Jelly?".  She's really sweet though and says "tank you" and "peas" alot. 

One of her favorite things is getting our scriptures for family scripture study. Josh and I have always been really bad at getting out our scriptures to read, but Emma just grabbed them one night and brought them to us. She's been doing it ever since. Motivates us to read from the real thing and not our phones. She HAS to carry them to us herself and put them away when we're done. Adorable. 

Also, we taught her to do a duck face. Now she loves to get our cameras on our phone and say "cheese" and do duck face taking selfies. Whoops! What have we taught her? She's also kind of a diva and loves wearing her sunglasses, my necklaces and carrying a purse. Josh will have fun being outnumbered by girls 3:1 soon:)

Also, these two are so cute together

We went swimming a ton this summer and bought these little floaties for Emma. They were a game changer. She used to kick me in the belly and freak out when we'd go swimming without these. But after we bought them we went almost every day in August at our apartment pool. It was a blast! Too bad we didn't get any pictures of her swimming.

Also, here's a couple of Prego pictures just to throw in, one of my belly randomly ( can't remember when) and one at 35 weeks. We're getting so close, ahh! My due date is one week away!

Also here's a pic from the coast last weekend. We went a few times over the summer and have had amazing weather. We love being so close! Excuse mine and Emma's attractive hair. It was just a bit windy! Josh looks perfect sporting his Portland scruff of course. I actually really like it:)

Well, sorry for the picture explosion. We are loving our adventures here in Oregon and are excited for this new adventure with another little one coming very soon!