Easter Morning 2011

The Easter Bunny kindly hid our baskets in the playroom this year, allowing Mom and Dad more time to sleep without missing out on the kids finding their baskets since they don't go in there in the mornings.


Among other things, Jossy got the Rapunzel doll she had been wanting, and Matty got twistable crayons and a how to draw animals book. Both were thoroughly enjoyed before (and during) church.

Jossy is constantly brushing this doll's hair and singing "the Rapunzel song" as she calls it. She loves that the doll has long blond hair like her.


Matty's drawing book was the perfect fit for him. He absolutely loves drawing, especially animals. He's spent a lot of happy hours using his book and new crayons.


Lacey, being less than a week old, got this little bunny. By the look on her face, I don't think she cared for it.

Easter Eggs and Firemen

Last Saturday our city had an Easter egg hunt for the kids. I really wanted the kids to be able to go, and since it took two parents to be able to take them both to their age group locations, we bundled up 5-day-old Lacey really well and headed off.


Jossy did SO much better this year than previous years. She wasn't nearly as afraid of the crowds and actually left my side to get some eggs!! I was so proud of her.


I don't have any pictures of Matty hunting for eggs since I was with Jossy and Dan went with him. Matty didn't do so well. The crowd of kids running overwhelmed him, and he ended up tripping and all his eggs fell out of his bag. :( There were many tears over it, but a super nice older kid saw Matty crying and came over to offer several of his eggs. I hope my kids are that kind someday!

After the egg hunt, they announced that the new fire station was open for tours. We hadn't planned on that, but it was on our way home anyway and Matty really wanted to look at the firetrucks. My kids ended up spending the whole time on the rescue vehicles instead of the trucks. They had a great time. And bonus, the fireman were serving up a free lunch!



By the time we got home I was WIPED OUT and paid for it with pain for several days, but I'm still happy we went!

More Lacey Pictures

Of course I've taken a zillion and a half pictures this past week. Here are just a few random ones of our sweet little lady's first week at home.

Heading Home

Getting all packed up from the hospital stay and getting ready to take that new baby home is always an exciting (and scary) time! No more interruptions by nursing staff, no more noisy visitors outside your door as you try to rest . . . but on the flip side there's no more option of sending your baby to the nursery so you can sleep and no more customized meals delivered to your room. (Wish I could have those last two here at home!!)

Off we go into the scary world of parenting 3 kids!!!

More Visitors

We didn't have many visitors in the hospital (my choice since I prefer to rest when I can) but Jossy came back the next morning to visit Lacey and me while Matty was at school. She kept kissing her toes over and over. I can't say that I blame her. Baby toes are one of my favorite appetizers. :)

We also had Grandpa Martindale, Aunt Dawn, Aunt Ardice, and my friend Bethany come visit.

So much fun to watch everyone meet the newest member of our family!

Getting to Know You

One thing I looked forward to about my 2 days in the hospital was having that time to just get to know Lacey and focus on her without the other kids. Unfortunately being drugged up, not feeling well, and getting interrupted by nurses every 5 minutes makes all that a little difficult, but it was still nice to have alone time with just her and Dan.

She was a little stinker about never wanting to open her eyes, so any time she did we'd get really excited, even if it was just one eye halfway open. We still can't figure out if her eyes will be blue or brown.

Meeting Baby Sister

Matty and Jossy came to meet Lacey the morning after she was born. They came in so quietly and whispering, excited to finally meet the elusive Baby Sister. It was sweet to see their reactions to her. They were very gentle and happy to see her.


Matty got to hold her first. He was done in about 5 minutes and just wanted to play on Dan's phone.


Jossy was amazed by every little movement of Lacey's and wanted to know why she was moving her arm, or why her eyes were closed. So many questions! Jossy was quickly done but wanted to hold her again and again and again, so she kept stealing Lacey back from Grandma.

I might have a dozen pictures of Jossy kissing her.
She's so soft about it, I love it! Too bad she has a cold now and
is banned from any kisses.

The kids helped open presents to Lacey and each got a little something from her as well. When Grandma told Jossy it was time to go, she didn't take it so well.

Apparently she really didn't want to leave Mom and Baby Sister in the hospital. After a few minutes of distracting her and bribes for McDonald's, she left happily. (Her mom might have kept crying after she left though . . .)

First Bath in the Nursery

I'm going to skip over the birth story right now because it was traumatic for me and I'm not quite ready to write down all the details. So pardon that these posts will be out of order a bit.

I've never gotten to be there for the first bath of our kids, but this time I made sure to ask if I could tag along. I was obviously worn out and not feeling great, but I'm glad I got to be a part of it.

Still trying to call family as I watch her vitals get checked.

Ready to go to our room

Introducing . . .

Lacey Jane

She was born Monday April 18th at 6:57 PM. She weighed in at 7 lbs 3 oz and is 19 inches long.
Much, much more to come very soon including details of her birth and lots of pictures!

Hurry Up and Wait

Me, the walking time bomb.

The past few weeks have been a lot of running around trying to get things done before the baby comes. I had a huge list of things to get done, bought, or organized and worked hard to get at least something off the list everyday. Once the absolute necessities were done, I figured I'd have some time to sit back and just relax for a week or two before her arrival. Unfortunately once I finished "the necessary" list, I just kept adding things to the "I'd like to have this done, too" list. The good news is I've gotten a lot done. For example, I was able to catch up on editing and printing out the past 1 1/2 years of pictures and putting them in albums, I caught up on the older kids' baby books, and I even have Easter baskets in the basement ready to go! The bad news is I've given myself almost no time to rest. I ended up catching a horrible cold and feel absolutely rotten, but I keep running errands every day trying to get more done. I'm exhausted and not getting over this cold because I'm not resting. I keep hoping it will go away before she arrives, but I'm not sure that will happen in time.

At my 38 week appointment last week I was dilated to 3cm and still 70% effaced. The baby was still "floating," which is weird to me because my other kids were "well engaged" by now. I had my last appointment today and I didn't even have the midwife check me because I never went past 3 cm with my other kids until labor, so what's the point? I'm scheduled to be induced on Monday, another first since I've never been induced before. It's only a couple days before my due date and I had some good reasons for choosing to do that this time. I'm hoping it's the right decision. She still has a few days if she wants to come on her own and you never know. Jossy chose to arrive the day before I was going to be induced with her. The kids are getting really excited to meet their new sister. I'm anxious to see what color of hair she has since we never know in this family!

This whole week has been Matty's Spring break, and Dan's had the last 3 days of it off as well. I had all these grand plans of fun things we could do every day that wouldn't be too strenuous for me at 39 weeks pregnant, but alas this stupid cold has ruined most of those plans. I told Dan even with being sick I really want at least ONE DAY where we do something fun with the kids outside of this house. So after my appointment this morning, we stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few items and bought impromptu doughnuts to celebrate my last appointment being over. After that I was still hanging in there despite a bad cough, so we headed over to Kangaroo Zoo to play on the inflatables. Jossy has always been too scared to actually play on anything, but after 45 minutes of doing everything we could to help her she finally got over her fears and had a great time! We went home for lunch and naps. After that the 4 of us headed outside to enjoy the sun, but we ended up spending an hour and a half working together in our flower beds (another thing on my "I want this done, too" list.) It's amazing we have any tulips left at all (and we actually have quite a few) after the way the deer massacred our beds a few weeks ago. I guess some of the blooms weren't up yet, so those survived even though their leaves were chewed to the ground. We try to keep a repellent on them and we pray every night for the deer to be kept away so that we can enjoy these beautiful flowers.

The only bits of color in our beds right now

Around 6 we came inside, made personal pizzas and ate them while watching the rest of a movie the kids started this morning. Matty wasn't done eating when the movie was over so I stuck in a DVD I had made of pictures from 2 summers ago. It was only about 15 minutes but we all loved seeing it again. So even though I'm completely wiped out from today and my lungs and head are killing me, I'm so happy that we had at least one family fun day this week!


In the next couple of days I'll be able to post about the new baby! That seems so surreal to me. I'm so nervous about everything, but I'm also really excited to get to know this little soccer star I've been growing in my uterus the last nine months!