4 months of Edith.

This blog has been neglected, while life has rolled on. In so many wonderful ways, Edith has been such a huge baby blessing to us. Since she joined our family 4 months ago, I have loved her every first: smiling, cooing, laughing, watching her bond with Audrey, sleeping 8, then 10, and now 12 hours at night. Having two kids makes life a little more crazy, but she has been the baby that has taught me so much. She has taught me to stop, to soak in every precious moment, and to cherish the blessing that children are. 


When Audrey was born I remember telling Seth that he married the wrong person because I didn't think I would ever want to have children again (the 0-1 transition was a major shock to the system), Edith has had the opposite effect. She is absolutely the baby that changed my mind and made me want many. As a mother there are countless moments throughout the day when you get to sit and be witness to moments that just make you marvel at the blessing of children. Today while laying in bed kissing Edith's cheeks and listening to her giggle, I just couldn't believe that God has been so kind to give her to us, to raise her and invest into her little life is my job. 


The days may be long, but the years are short. Too, too short for this Mommy. They are passing quickly and its hard to believe that she has been here 4 months already. We love her so. 

Because we made you

My darlin

With the love in each of our hearts

We were a family, my darlin

Right from the start

Grow up now

My darlin

Please don't you grow up too fast

And be sure, darlin

To make all the good times last

(my darling-wilco)

our easter.

Easter this year looked a lot different than years past, a low key celebration at home, with a yummy lunch made by my Mom, a simple egg hunt in the front yard, and our big accomplishment was getting all four of us dressed for family pictures. Edith, at one week, celebrated by letting me sleep 5 consecutive hours. And as any Mom of little ones can attest, that was no small gift.

Life since Easter has been full, to say the least. My Mom went home, we bought a brand new minivan (and I love it-gasp) and I had my first full week alone with the girls. Amazingly I even left the house with both of them a few times.

Edith continues to bring so much joy to our lives. She looks like Daddy and has a special bond with Mommy. She's still figuring out the whole sleep thing, but has had a few repeat long stretches of sleep at night since Easter. She's a peaceful, mostly contented baby when she's awake and is really such a little sweet thing.

Audrey is adjusting well to her new role as big sister and continues to want to shower Edith with love and affection, often asking throughout the day "hold her" or "Mommy take picture" when she gets a turn with her baby sister.

edith grace.

(photo credit: I'mKristen)

After many long weeks of waiting, wondering, and praying, our little Edith Grace entered the world on March 31st, 2012 weighing in at 7lbs, 6oz. and 20inches. She is a little bundle who has yet again filled our hearts with overwhelming joy.

For all the girls who like a good birth story, her arrival was memorable and to a certain extent puts fear in our hearts at the prospect of what our future babies births will be like. Early stages of labor dragged on for two plus weeks and it seemed like my body was never going to kick in to active labor. Even on the day she was born I had doubts if we would actually have a baby in our arms that night. We had some play time with friends that morning and although I was showing tell tale signs of my body going into labor, contractions weren't that intense and were generally sporadic. After walking the neighborhood, doing the stairs, and trying everything I could think to get things going I gave in and went to bed around 9pm at the advice of my midwife. I am SO glad I did. Contractions woke me up around 11:45pm but I tried to ignore them until 12:15am when I realized it didn't seem like they were going away. I told Seth and called the midwife back and she suggested that I just give it an hour and track them so I don't just head in to the hospital for nothing. Shortly after we hung up I had two contractions back to back, not even that painful, but closer together and Seth decided he didn't care what she said and we were going. He left to put bags in the car, two more contractions came and then my water broke. This was pretty much our worst case scenario because when I had Audrey, she was born within 30 min of my water breaking and we knew this baby would probably come faster. I called down to Seth and told him and this sent him running and me following. A great sense of relief came over both of us when we made it to the hospital. Phew. No baby born at home or in the car. They checked me in, got me in a room, and on the monitors around 1am. The midwife let me know I was 5cm and in my mind I was preparing for several more hours of labor. At 1:35am I was free to get off the monitors and move about which was such a relief and all the while answering the nurses intake questions, letting her take my blood, and trying to breathe through increasingly intensifying contractions. 15 min later I was pretty certain things had changed and already felt the urge to push. The midwife checked me and I was ready to go and within 10 minutes, Edith was in my arms at 2:09am. Whew. Just over an hour after getting there we were a family of four.

It took me 24 hours almost to realize wow, did that really just happen? It was surreal. Being in active labor for only two hours and not having that much pain accompany the contractions until the very end was a mixture of peaceful and confusing. All that to say, I was not complaining that it was over and we were so glad to finally see her face and kiss her cheeks.

Edith, so far, has been a totally different baby from her big sister. She has been a dream and completely made me fall in love with the newborn stage. Having my Mom here to help has been huge and has made Audrey's transition into her role as big sister so much easier. It has been one of the happiest times as a family and we are incredibly grateful for how God has blessed our family in such specific ways.

Little Edith, we love you, and we are so glad that God has given you to us. You are a delight to your Daddy, Mommy, and Big Sister. You have been the perfect addition to our family and we can't wait to see all you do in your days ahead.

To see more of our girl, head over to Kristen's blog to get the pictures of Audrey and Edith meeting for the first time.

(Her name is really a separate post in and of itself, so more to come on that later.)

a baby girl update.

This week wasn't one you can really plan for. Anticipation of Valentine's and a low key night at home we what we hoped for in terms of celebrating that holiday and the daily routines of our week were expected to roll along. On Monday night (while Seth was out) I started having some strong and consistent contractions that continued into the evening. Thinking I had overdone it, I woke up on Tuesday morning, with more of the same. After a few calls to the midwives office and finally getting an answer, they sent me to L&D to make sure everything was ok and to try and get the contractions under control. Drinking water and staying off my feet didn't seem to be enough.

Becca was seriously the hero of Tuesday. Picking me up, taking care of A and Behr that morning (I feel like I made her an overnight mother of two), and waiting in the waiting room for the results. The good news is everything is good with baby sister, there are no signs of infection,  and it seems my body just doesn't like the end of the third trimester.

Two bags of fluids, one shot of terbeutaline, and 8 hours later we were finally home. And it felt so good. Just to be in my own bed, to not have to stay in a hospital, and to have our family together. Albeit, our life has been significantly modified. I was optimistic when they got the contractions to stop I would be free as a bird to go on my way, but I've spent the last week on total bed rest and will be into the next few weeks.

It's been a change to our somewhat "busy" life. I feel like someone literally just hit the brakes, but I'm sitting in the car wanting it to move. Quiet, simple, and slow are not words I would use to describe our life, but for the good of this little one, I'll take it. A has been so well cared for and we have received help from many sides. She has spent many mornings with Becca, "Dre Dre", Behr and "Titi." And I am so glad she has come to love their house as a home away from home and Mommy. Seth's Aunt Cindy and cousins came Friday and she saved the day changing the sheets on my bed, getting us caught up on laundry, running errands and watching A. We have been very blessed.

Seth and A have been my heroes. Doing laundry, changing diapers, dishes, trash, vacuuming, feeding, and the list could go on. I don't know what I would do without him. A has had to adjust to a lot in a short amount of time and all things considered, she has been a gem. She survived hospital day with no nap, being shuffled from house to house, and has embraced this time with amazing grace for a 2 year old. She keeps telling me "doctor make Mommy alllllll better." She has been a very bright spot in this time.

Target trip with Titi. She has been asking me to ride in the infant seat every time she sees it, but I kept telling her it was for baby sister. She knew that this trip was special and how can a Titi say no to that?

Waiting room fun with her favorite little buddy, Behr. These two are really the sweetest together and they are both def my favorites. Things like this cheer me up so much. 

Finally getting to come visit Mommy with Daddy. She was very interested in all the wires and wanted to drink all my juice.  

Waiting for Dre Dre in the morning. On this particular morning it was very important to her that she have her backpack loaded with everything a little 2 year old could possibly want.

Here we are at 33w 4 d and we wait, knowing the God who made this sweet girl knows her birthdate and planned it before he laid the foundations of the earth. Truly, we can't wait to meet her and we pray she wants to hang out for a little while longer before she makes her appearance.

Many thanks to all who have prayed for us, texted, emailed, called, brought us meals, and cared for our girl. We cannot thank you enough.

a new love is found.

Over the Christmas holiday, Seth always takes off for a week and we get to enjoy a little family staycation. This year, by far, was the best one yet. We had so much fun being together as a family and having little adventures planned for each day.

One of the mornings, we set aside for going thrifting as a family (inspired by the massive amounts of stuff we needed to drop off), but it seemed like an easy way to kill two birds with one stone. We've been working on our bedroom and basement and were in search of several different pieces. We had somewhat of a vision and an idea where we were going, but in the thrifting world you can't always plan that what you are looking for will actually be in the store and for the price you want to spend. Thankfully on this occasion we scored big on our first stop at Salvation Army. Two beautiful matching side tables for $44 total (the best part was we hit it on a day they were offering an additional 25% off all furniture).

And thus began the transformation. We started off sanding and then used Behr premium plus primer + paint in one to finish the job with two coats. Amazingly, we were even able to salvage the hardware. 

The finished product came together exactly as we wanted it to:

You might have noticed a little green chair in the "during" pictures above, Audrey had her first thrift store find too and she came home with a $3 old schoolhouse chair. It was in need of a lot of work, but nothing a little sanding and paint can't fix. 

Here is a little thing Seth and I learned in the process, even after being married for 5 years, we are still learning new things about each other. We both are pretty different in our interests, but I think we finally found something that we truly love doing together. And the timing couldn't have been more perfect in light of where we are in making progress on some huge projects in our house. It was as if all the right events finally came together and a light came on, I almost felt a little bit like John + Sherry from Young House Love, minus half of their skills, but we're learning. 

I'm working on all the final details of our bedroom, but thanks to a lot of hard work that room is so close to being done. I can't wait to share. 

This post has been brought to you courtesy of 3rd trimester nesting. 

hey baby.

On July 28th, I got this. One test, thats all it took and I was pretty convinced. 

Then on September 7th at my midwife appointment, we are hearing the heartbeat and Seth couldn't contain his joy and decided it was a good time to announce it to the world, via twitter.

To our delight and to our friend Brian's (probable) disappointment, there was just one little baby bean. 

And Audrey is more than overjoyed to be a big sister and we are too to welcome another little baby into our family sometime on or around March 30th. 

More on this baby later, because lets just say it has rocked my world and there are far too many people to thank for helping me get through the first trimester. 

there and back.

life has been full. wonderfully full. the other day as we were leaving the house, rushing out to the car for the 10th time that day I had the thought...I should be grateful for these moments in life when there aren't enough minutes in the day and I forgot a sippy cup and I have to rush to a dinner to celebrate a birthday because these moments are life happening. of life being lived, not wasted. I can shun the busy and crave the quiet, the solitary and although those are moments I cherish, I am so grateful to God for the people (and child) he put in our lives to celebrate, to spend time with, to talk to, to teach, to love, to learn from, to embrace. I want to be grateful for these times, to love them and be content where God has me, whatever he brings my way.

in the past week we have celebrated two birthdays, visited the farm to bring a pig home (dead that is), got a nasty cold, dined with friends on the deck for dinner, packed our bags and unpacked from our beach trip to cape may with friends, and welcomed a plastic duck into our family. its been truly a blessed month and the beach was heaven. with that busyness, the camera has been left at home and the camera phone has taken over.

and in other news, bon iver has their new album streaming on NPR this week for free. score. go check it out. its awesome.