has it been this long????

I can't believe it has taken me this long to post... life has been a bit crazy this past month!

After Florida we put an offer in on a house and we had to close by Oct. 1 to get the financing we were hoping for. It was a race to say the least!! We did get the house and are slowly putting the finishing touches on it. It is open and spacious, and there are 11 kids on the block, with on;y half of the houses built!!! And we have lovely friendly neighbors!

Sept. 23 Emma had surgery to correct her submucous cleft palate - she came through with flying colors, up running around with her IV cart the following morning. We did not have the relaxing snuggly weekend we were looking forward to:)

A week later with much thanks to my mom and dad for packing help, we moved in to our new house!

Sweet Olive Grace arrived 13 days later... the story below.... And then we spent the weekend in childrens hospital with her, 9 days following that. SO, life has been good, but certainly crazy and stressful.

Forgive me, the pictures below are in no order what so ever!!!

The back of Emma's costume - Bolt, the dog from the Disney ,movie. Much thanks to my mom for helping sew it!!!!

How dang cute is she??? She informed that that she would have to wear pants, not a skirt, because she would be crawling around like a dog. She told me last week, that I would need to be a Kangaroo, because they have pouches where they carry their babies!!! I tried, but she was not impressed with me costume:) We all went out last night, and had such a blast, but Emma ran the WHOLE time, and wore herself out! Besides, her bag was about 10 lbs!!! She is a riot, had to ask about every one's pet, if she could hold or pet it, where was the dad at, how did their gate work, on and on...

Carving pumpkins Sunday evening when Grandma Patterson got here... This is never as much fun as we imagine, and Emma literally GAGGED when trying to take the guts out!!!!!! So, that was the end of her involvement:)

Grandma Patterson and Olive - 2 1/2 weeks old

Papa Denny and Olive, 2 weeks

Olive, Emma, and Mommy - 1 day old (tired mommy!!!)

Emma, Olive and Grandma Loerch - Olive 1 week old

Olive and Mommy - a few minutes old..... And the story goes...

I woke up Thursday morning, Oct. 13, with a few contractions, a good 45 minutes apart. I had a feeling that might be it, so I took my time getting Emma to Carol's because I thought it might be her last morning as an only child:( We took a bath and played with big foam letters, and it was almost and hour later than usual when I dropped her off. Then I headed to Target to get Elliott an anniversary card (our 11 year anniversary was on the 14ht), and while there the contractions got a bit more intense, a good 15 minutes apart, but I thought, "I better go home"! When I got home about 11am I told Elliott I thought he better get up and get any thing packed that he might want to take to the hospital! I don't think he believed me because he slept for another 45 minutes:) I called my midwife to describe what was happening, and at that time I could still talk through the contractions and they were about 10 minutes apart. That was about 11:30. She suggested we might wait until they were about 5 minutes apart, however we could come in whenever we wanted to and she would check me. Mind you, with Emma, my water broke, so I went through ALL of labor in the hospital, I knew what was going on. Basically, I am an idiot:) By 12 I called my mom to ask if she could go pick up Emma from Carol's, and bring her here, and then we would decided if I needed to go in and if it was indeed labor (again, DENIAL!). By the time she got to our house about 1pm, the contractions were about 7-10 minutes apart, but I had to breath through them and could not talk. Finally, at 2:15 pm I said, "Let's go", like I just knew it was time when I was starting to feel quite a bit of pressure! We packed Emma up and took her to my mom's, and I told Elliott he better drive fast. Once we got on the freeway they started coming fast and it was not fun:) We decided on a girls name on the way to the hospital (I was CERTAIN it was going to be a boy!!!) just in case. By the time we got downtown the contractions were coming every few minutes. we got in the parking ramp (after driving around three times because we couldn't find the entrance!!!) and I called Megan, my midwife and dancer friend, saying "the baby is coming I cannot walk I am going to need a wheel chair..." I got out of the truck and had another contraction, and I desperately wanted to lay down on the cement!!!! I honestly thought I was going to have the baby in the parking garage. We got in to the sky way, and I DID sit on the floor!!! Eyes closed, Elliott found some lady who got me a wheel chair - it was like a movie - I heard he walking fast fast saying "coming through we have a lady in labor here", she had a special key for a special elevator that got me to the midwife unit faster (my eyes were closed the whole time!). We got to the room at 3:15, I stood up, stripped, got on the bed, Megan said you are at a 9 1/2!!! I had the urge to push and Olive was born 20 minutes later!!!!! Elliott was so supportive the whole time and literally pulled Olive out!!! I asked What is it! He and Megan told me to look... Elliott said the look on my face was priceless - I was shocked as could be that it was a girl!!!!

Least to say, labor was fast and I was not prepared and it was not fun:) I have two beautiful healthy girls and an amazing husband - and I don't ever want to have a baby again:)

Emma meeting her little sister Olive for the first time. I cannot tell you how amazing Emma has been! She loves her little sister SO much (thank God it was a girl, for her sake!). I really thought we were going to have a tough transition but she has been a real trooper, and an amazing help. It is sweet to watch. She did ask me this morning if I would always make her breakfast first:)

Olive Grace, couple of days old

Big Sister and little sister (Emma has taken to calling Olive "sister", so we pretty much all call her that!)

Emma's boots for Halloween...

On her way to Carol's to celebrate Halloween... goodness I love her so!

I guess that is it for now. I am sure there are a million other things I could write, but there are a million things I should get done now!! I will work hard to post more regularly... Love to all...