Who has a diaper bag they love?

Me!! And I made it myself! I'm pretty ridiculously proud of it, sorry. :)


The exterior is corduroy, for two reasons. One, I love corduroy, and two, it's so durable! You're supposed to use a home decor weight fabric of some sort, but most of those are dry clean only, which just doesn't scream diaper bag, to me. So thus, the washer and dryer friendly corduroy. :)

It has an outside pocket for papers and such,



an inside pocket divided into three sections, meant to carry three sippy cups or bottles, or other snacks,



and an inside pocket for my keys, phone, wallet, and whatever else.


I've been wanting a bigger and nicer diaper bag for a while now, but just couldn't find anything I loved, and everything was so expensive! So, I finally got up the nerve to make one myself. I got inspiration from this tutorial, and this tutorial, but ended up making it how I wanted it. I still need to sew on another piece of velcro, but because I broke my sewing machine needle (first time for everything, right?), it will have to wait. But I am excited, and I love it. And, it cost me less than $20! (and one sewing machine needle...) Pretty great. :)

Janey's Two-Year-Old Stats

Name: Janey Renae

Age: Two

Height: 32 inches

Weight: 22 lbs

--Favorites--

These are all answers she gave me.

Color: Red/Pink (every time I ask, she says one of those two, but goes back and forth on them).

Animal: Dog (JoJo especially)

Food: Pancakes

Movies: Boots... Dora!

Books: Alella baby books (the princess board books--alella is like the latter half of Cinderella...)

Song: Patty Cake

Past time: Babies! (She LOVES to play with her baby dolls, especially her new ones).

Favorite Birthday Present: Babies!

Best Friend: Breanne

A few I'd like to answer--

Best Feature: Her ability to brush things off--if she gets hurt, she just wants me to acknowledge it most of the time, and then she's fine. If someone takes her toy, she's usually happy as long as they give her something else. If she takes someone else's toy, she's really good about giving it back, if I ask her to.

Funniest things said by Janey lately: She says "Yep" and "Nope!" instead of yes and no, which I think is hilarious. She's also starting to put words together into pretty decent sentences. Last night, after her cousin Claire dumped an entire deck of Uno cards on the floor, she looked at the cards, and said "Claire... cards... mess!"--I love it.

Biggest accomplishments in the last year: Lots of motor development, and her speech development. She is a crazy climbing/running/almost jumping child, and loves to wrestle, go for rides on your back, and just play in general. That being said, she also insists on holding my hand to go down our front stairs, and for much of the time we spend while walking outside. Also in the last few months, her speech has really taken off. She's gone from just a few words to more than I can count, and her speech is much more understandable than Breanne's was at her age. I love that she is able to communicate her needs, wants, concerns and issues to me. When she cries, she can tell me why. However, she isn't always reliable--if she doesn't understand your question, she'll still usually answer, whether it's true or not.

Despite how crazy Janey can be, and her lack of desire to listen to me sometimes, I seriously love this little girl. She has so much energy and spirit for life, and is pretty much fearless (the one exception being the monsters she and Breanne were pretending to run away from the other day--so funny!). It's been so fun to watch her grow into her own little being over the last year, and I love that she can hold her own against Breanne. Over the last few weeks, they've become such wonderful playmates, and are willing to spend most of their time together. Recently they've been playing vacation... they pack their bags, take a trip to my bedroom, hang up their clothes (play dresses), put their shoes away (in my shoebox), and pretend to watch tv in my bed (there is no tv in my bedroom, but there was one in their bedroom in the hotel in NH). It cracks me up every time I hear them talking about what they want to do on their trip. And don't even fight that much--it's been so nice to have them getting along so well as we've all been adjusting to being back at home again, with a new baby besides. Janey is such an amiable little girl, I love having her around. Two years ago I was terrified about making the transition from one child to two. Now I can't imagine a life without my sweet girl Janey.

A Note:

So I just posted about a million new things below, so don't miss them. I've had a ton of pictures just waiting to be blogged, and today I finally found the time and energy to doing it (single bonus to Cory being sick--he's home, and available to hold the baby so I can do stuff). I hope you enjoy them, and sorry for the bombardment today. But not really, because now I'm mostly caught up, at least photo-post wise. I still need to write a bunch of stories and things down too, though, so be watching for those. Thanks for reading (and for commenting, we all know how much comments are loved, right?).

My Best Idea Ever

So we currently only have one trike, and two kids who like to ride it (though neither of them are particularly great at it). Solution?

Taking turns riding and pushing. Janey likes pushing probably more than riding (but they did still take turns doing each thing... Janey just needed help steering, too, so I couldn't snap a picture).

The Many Faces of Cailin

Wrestling

So sometimes the girls like to show me their "moves." Janey's mostly consist of somersaults... kind of. Breanne's used to be the same way, but thanks to her gymnastics class, she now knows about tabletops, pikes, and rolls. I was taking pictures of both girls doing their moves, but suddenly it all went wrong:



I love that they're learning to really play together and enjoy one another, and sometimes that they even have fun wrestling. And yes, Janey is definitely the instigator. Most of the time. :)

Goofs

Sometimes (all the time?) the girls just want me to take their pictures. And sometimes (all the time?) I'm pretty happy to oblige them. I love living in the digital age.






PS. Sorry about Janey's boogers. I would love for her not to have them anymore.

Janey's Second Birthday!

So this last Sunday, Janey turned the big ol' 2! A post of favorite things about her and what she's doing is coming, but for right now, I just wanted to share a few more photos.

What present opening looks like at our house:

This does NOT even do her justice for how cute she was that day, but I didn't get a better picture, sadly:


The cake I made for her (also forgot to take a before picture... sheesh):


And again, just an attempt to show how cute she looked... but still doesn't do her justice:



Oh how I love this little girl.

Snowman Craft Day

So every now and then we do some sort of new craft. Both the girls really love art time, but now that Janey's participating, I have to be more careful about what they do (I like low-supervision, low-mess crafts). I finally decided to let her do something with glue the other day, and she did great! We made snowmen out of cotton balls on paper--I drew one for Janey and let her put on the cotton balls, Breanne did hers completely by herself.






I think if I do this again, I might do it on paper plates, and use chocolate syrup as the glue and use marshmallows for the snowmen... yummy! And if it's going to be messy, it might as well be yummy.

Stretching Out

I love how frog-legged babies are when they're little--I noticed this last week that Cailin is starting to stretch out. :(


Umm, just kidding:


No, really:



She's growing up so fast.

Carseat Cover

So after the whole RSV thing, I've been a little bit protective of Cailin... I really, really don't want her to get sick again. So, everytime we go anywhere, I want her covered up. I was using a blanket for a while there, but finally decided to just make a carseat cover--and I LOVE it. It's been so nice to not have to worry about it falling off/blowing away/becoming a baby doll blanket and getting more germy... I love that it's stuck to the carseat. So nice. I used a tutorial from A Wednesday Afternoon, though I saw tons more when I was researching it, and may have tweaked it some to fit my needs. I still need to add some details to the handle thing to make the ribbon prettier, but for now, it's wonderful and functional, and just what I needed.

Spring is... here?

On a beautiful, rather warm sunny morning (I told Cory that he wouldn't even need his jacket):



Later that same afternoon (I called Cory to apologize):


Yep, that's snow. We played in it the next day, snowballs, snowangels, the whole bit (but no pics to prove it). Gotta love March in Utah.

PS. Breanne took the snow picture--she's getting better, but still isn't totally steady. Pretty good for a 3 year old, though, right?

Sleeping Janey

So as I have said before, Janey has been refusing to let me put her down for a nap in her bed. This doesn't mean that she doesn't *need* a nap, just that she screams when I put her into her room, sometimes to the point that she pukes. Not a fan of that. I've discovered, however, that if I put a movie on around naptime and let Janey sit next to me, she'll usually fall asleep, at which point I can move her to her own bed (if I haven't fallen asleep as well). As you can imagine, this occasionally leads to funny sleep positions, which I always enjoy taking pictures of. Here are a few of my favorites:

Having a new sister is so hard:


Playing is sometimes really hard too:


And this one is particularly funny--if you can't tell, she is sprawled across my knees (I'm laying on the couch with my feet up on the arm of it). I was laying here, she crawled up on the couch (going under my legs), looked at me pitifully with her arm outstretched, said "Mom, I'n dirsty..." which trailed off into nothing as she zonked out on my knees. So funny, and a little sad. I promise I give my children drinks every day, she couldn't have been that thirsty--you can even see her cup! She was just so tired:

Favorite Newborn Outfit

Which baby is which? I love this outfit, and will use as many times as I have girls:





(And in case you weren't sure, the pics are of Cailin, Janey, and Breanne, respectively. Sometimes I forget how much they look alike).

Hopscotch

Since Cailin was on the pediatrics floor at the hospital, there were several things for older kids and patients to do around our room. I didn't allow the girls to come up at all (we didn't need more cross contamination, or the noise), except for one time, when Breanne had an accident (right next to the toilet on the first floor of the hospital, mind you) and needed some clean clothes, which I had in my purse with me. When I was taking her back down to the car, she saw this little hopscotch on the floor of the hospital, and just had to do it. It was all I could do not to start bawling at that point, because I just wanted to leave with her, and go play. Instead I took a few photos of just how big she's getting. And lest you think I'm just some crazy emotional sap, just keep in mind that at this point we'd been in the hospital 5 days, Cory was leaving for Atlanta in a matter of minutes, and my big girls were headed up to my parents' home. My pediatrician had originally hoped we'd go home that day, and had just given me the news that it probably wouldn't be for at least 2 more days. Rough morning.

Last Playdate Before Cailin

So we have a pretty great, fairly new McDonald's not far from our house that the girls and I have been known to frequent occasionally. Knowing that I was going to have a baby soon, we stopped by the thursday before I had Cailin, and I snapped these photos. For the record, I think this is most likely where Breanne picked up the cold she had when Cailin was born, which she passed on to Janey, who gave it to Cailin, when we realized it was RSV. We won't be visiting there until Cailin's a little older, most likely. :/

Both girls love to have their picture taken with Ronald; unfortunately, so did this other little girl, who didn't want to get out of his lap...


And here again is Janey's demon child face--



And a big ol' cheese (Breanne is still worried about the other girl)--



Breanne's favorite place to play:


And Janey's favorite:


It was so nice to give them some room to run!

Don't Mess with Janey

My sister-in-law Becca snapped this charming photo of Janey while we were playing games one night. It was the first time I'd seen her make such a face, now she does it on command (it's her angry face, if you're wondering), and just randomly when I'm taking pictures. She really isn't a demon child, but she sure can look like one if she wants to!

Cailin: A Birth Story

*I'm sorry this has taken me so long, I've been working on it off and on for the last month. With everything going on, I just didn't have time to finish it until now. I hope you enjoy it. It's pretty detailed, because I think a lot of the process is very interesting, so read on at your own risk. :) It's really not that bad, I just talk a bit about water breaking and whatnot. Your choice.*

So on Saturday, January 30, I was not planning on having a baby. The baby wasn't due for another 2 1/2 weeks, and honestly, I figured I'd go into labor the following Monday when they stripped my membranes at my 38 week appointment. I'd spent the morning at a warehouse sale with my sisters-in-law and hanging out at one of their houses, where I'd left my phone on accident. I figured I'd just get it the next day at Cory's parent's house, so I wasn't too worried about it.

When we got home from the morning's play, Cory decided to go to his office to get some work done. I pointed out that I didn't have my phone, so I wouldn't be able to call him if anything happened, but he was quick to reassure me that as soon as he got to his office, he'd get online, so I could chat with him if I needed to. At this point, I was planning on im-ing him as soon as he got online, saying my water had broken and he'd need to come home.. as a joke. Fortunately for Cory, I got distracted by the girls, and forgot. :)

Around 4:00ish pm, the baby was pretty active, kicking and moving really hard. As she kicked me especially hard repeatedly in one spot, I wondered, as I had many times throughout the pregnancy, if a baby could kick or punch their way out of the amniotic sack. I pushed the thought out of my mind and continued what I was doing (probably browsing the internet for more baby project ideas...). Around 4:30 it hit me that I needed to use the bathroom, so I got up and headed that direction, when Breanne stopped me to get her a drink. At that point, I felt my body leak a little bit. Embarrassed, I hurried to the bathroom, went to the bathroom, and headed into my room to change my clothes. And then I leaked again. I thought it was weird, went to the bathroom again, and then leaked again. At this point, I im-ed Cory, telling him that I thought my water may have broken, but I really wasn't sure. (I now know that the majority of water breaks are similar to my experience--just a little leak in the bag that lets out a little water at a time). We chatted for a few minutes, at which point Cory became convinced my water had broken, but I still wasn't sure (and who wants to get sent home for not being able to control their bladder, honestly?). Cory spent the next hour and a half trying to convince me to go to the hospital, and we finally did around 6:00 (after finally chatting with the doctor about what was going on and him suggesting that I most likely needed to be at the hospital at that point).

When we got to the hospital, they put a contraction monitor and a baby-heart-beat monitor on me, and then needed to test my leaking fluid to make sure it was actually my water leaking. They have two tests for this--the first is pretty instantaneous, and involves using a pH strip to check the acidity of the fluid. If it turns blue, it's amniotic fluid. Mine was pretty much immediately a dark dark purpley blue. To double check, they did a second test, which involves taking a swab of the fluid, putting it on a slide, letting it dry, and looking at it under a microscope. If it's amniotic fluid, when it dries, it looks like ferns. This process is called ferning... very creative, right? So they did this test, and of course, it came back positive too--since I was over 37 weeks, I was definitely having a baby.

So I cried. Just a little. About the excitement of being at that point, about having a new baby, about not being quite ready, about worrying how delivery was going to go... all of it. Once I got that out of my system, I was ok, and ready-ish for what was ahead. :)

So at this point it was around 7:30pm, I think. I'm a strep B carrier, so they started my antibiotics immediately, in hopes of getting two bags of them in me, which takes just over 4 hours. I was concerned about this, as when I had Janey, I was in labor less than 4 hours, but since the nurses were aware of that this time, they tried harder to make me progress slower. Once the first bag was pretty much in (I think?) they started me on a small dose of pitocin, to get my contractions moving. I'd been contracting fairly consistently the entire time I'd been in the hospital, but not enough to get much done. They were able to get all the antibiotics in, and by 11:30, they had upped my pitocin several times, and it was at the maximum dose. My contractions were starting to get seriously painful, so at this point I got my epidural. I was still stuck somewhere around a 3, but with the increased contractions, I was hopeful for progress.

At about 1:15, my body was starting to hurt more, so after my nurse came in and checked me (only at a 3 1/2), I tried to go to sleep. At 1:45, I woke up feeling more pressure, so I asked a nurse to come in and check me. The girl that came in wasn't my nurse, but she checked me anyway, still only at a 4. At this point Cory asked if he had time to go get something to eat (it'd been several hours since we'd eaten at this point, and we were both hungry, though I couldn't eat anything but ice chips. The nurse told him he had plenty of time, we joked about how he almost missed Janey's birth because he was at the cafeteria, and he and my dad left to go downstairs to get something to eat. My mom and I both tried again to sleep, but about 20 minutes later I started to feel a LOT of pressure. My nurse just happened to pop her head in the door at that point, and I asked her to check me again. She started to say something about how I'd just been checked and she'd check me again in a while. This was not flying with me--I felt like I was pushing out a baby at that point, even though I had my epidural. So I told her I needed to be checked again, period. So she did. And I was at a 10, 100% effaced.

At this point it was about 2:15 in the morning, and my doctor was at home. So I called Cory (conversation went like this: (ringing, then answering) Him: hey, so you at a 10? me: yep. him: ok, see you in a minute! (click)), the nurses got ahold of the doctor, and then started prepping. The entire time they were prepping, I had to keep asking to make sure I hadn't pushed the baby out already, it felt so much like she was coming. Finally, 20 minutes later, Cory was back, the doctor was there, and everything was ready. It was 2:35 in the morning at this point.

Once the doctor was in position, we waited for the beginning of my next contraction. When it hit, he had me push through about a half a contraction. He (I guess) wanted to readjust at that point, though, and said "Ok, stop... no, stop! What is your hurry baby?" and with that, Cailin was out!!! That's right, 1/2 a push, and I had a baby. No wonder I thought she was coming out on her own--my body was ready, and so was she.


And she was beautiful, just like her sisters. Probably my most vernix-y baby, but that makes sense, as she was 2 1/2 weeks early. She was born at 2:37 am. The nurses and Cory were chatting about how much they thought she weighed, and how long she was. Cory guessed that she was 8 lbs and 18 inches, but the nurses seemed to think she was longer than that, so Cory changed his guess to 18.5 inches. When they weighed her, she was 7 lbs 15.4 ounces (so really just .1 ounce off being considered 8 lbs), and 18.5 inches. As a reminder, Breanne and Janey were each 8 lbs, Breanne was 18.5 inches, Janey 18. What can I say, I'm consistent. :) The nurses joked that they just shouldn't have wiped her off so well, so she'd have been the full 8 lbs.



The nurses couldn't seem to get over how fast she came, and joked that I was "born to birth" and should have millions of babies. I don't know about millions, but I'm certainly glad I've had my 3. I feel so incredibly blessed to have such great pregnancies, and now deliveries as well. Even more than that, though, I'm so grateful to be trusted with my three girls--I know that I am far from a perfect mother, but I am so lucky to have the chance to raise my girls. I can't imagine trusting someone else enough to raise my kids--my Heavenly Father must have a lot of faith in me to give me His children. I just hope I can raise them in a manner pleasing to Him, that they will come out ok despite my shortcomings. And I know they will.

Waiting...

The english graduate in me is pretty sure this is the funniest video I've seen in a long time... Gotta love post-modernism. Especially on Sesame Street.

One Month

I can't believe Cailin is already a month old. I know all moms say things like that, but seriously--with all of the craziness of normal life, plus the week and a day hospital stay (and February being the shorter month that it is, I guess), this last month has gone by SO quickly. I remember thinking that 6 weeks would never pass with Breanne (she was a fussier and more difficult baby, and recovery was harder, so I was looking forward to it more), but with Cailin, I feel like it is passing all too quickly. She is such a sweet, cuddly baby, which I love (even though she wants to be held all the time, and will only sleep for a few minutes in her bassinet, especially at night). At her make-up 2 week appointment Friday, she was weighing in at 9 lbs 8 oz, and measured about 21 inches--she's getting so big so quickly, and she's already starting to stretch out, which just makes me sad. I feel like so much of her newborn-ness is gone already, and I haven't even had a chance to get her a baby book, let alone fill it out. On the positive side, though, she's getting so close to smiling--I haven't seen it in her mouth yet, but her whole face lights up sometimes, and I can just tell she's smiling and happy. I just love this little girl, and though I'm a little sad at how quickly she's growing up, I can't wait to see the sweet person she becomes.

(I was burping her before I took these pics, I promise I'm not strangling her or anything, just supporting her head):


This is one of my most favorite photos of her (love the peeking out to see what the noise is, and what I'm doing):



I love this sweet baby girl.