Christmas 2017

This was our very first Christmas without visiting family. I was pretty sad going into it knowing that we would miss out on all of the festivities with family. I think it is always hard to be away from family on a special holiday. I think that having a new baby adds to that too. You want everyone to get to meet her and celebrate with you. It was fun for us to decorate our house and get a Christmas tree. Our girls are at such a fun age for Christmas. Violet is old enough to really start to understand the Christmas story. 

We spent a lot of time this Christmas trying to focus on the Savior. We participated in the church's light the world campaign. The girls loved watching the videos associated with it and trying to come up with ways to accomplish each of the goals for the day. We made cookies for our neighbors, videos for our great grandparents and sent texts to people for a few of the days. We watched the movies about Christ's life on mormon.org too. We tried to sing a lot more Christmas songs and talk less about Santa. 

Of course we did all the fun things like Lou Lou the elf. The girls get such a kick out of him and all the fun things Mike does with him. While my mom was here we went to see a Santa with Susie and Javi. Violet really wanted a Jasmin toy this year and Grace never had anything really good. A few times she said cookies and then she would always just tell us what Violet wanted. We drove one night to see a house that had Christmas lights timed to music. The girls really loved that. Mike put icicle lights on our house and that got the girls very excited too.  Our ward Christmas party got snowed out by the snow storm that hit Georgia. It was really fun for the girls. They got to play outside with Mike in makeshift snow clothes since all our stuff is in Utah. They had so much fun and built a big snowman and went sledding on garbage bags down our hill. We tried to watch all the classic Christmas movies with the girls. 

On Christmas eve we went to our church for sacrament and then our ward put on a Christmas eve program with musical numbers and video and speakers. The girls were not really on their best behavior but it was still a good program. They wore their Christmas dresses from grandma and it was Ginny's first time at church. We came home and I had a pretty quick dinner. We called my parents to chat for a bit. Kate read why Christmas trees aren't perfect to the girls over the phone. We watched the nativity on our TV and set out cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. We talked about Jesus and put everyone to bed. Luckily Mike and I had done most of the setting up and wrapping the night before so that all we had to do was arrange things. The next morning I made a big breakfast and we jingled the girls out of bed at 8:00. It was so fun to see them come down the stairs and get excited about everything. The dress ups were a hug hit this year. They also got a dollhouse and castle to play with. My mom and dad got vi a boogi board writing toy that she loves. The new princesses were also a pretty big hit. We opened stockings first and then ate our breakfast. We opened everything slow and let the girls play with things as they opened. It was so nice to take our time and just enjoy the morning. We got the game Guess Who and Violet has loved playing that with Mike. At noon we went over to our friends the Weir's house and had lunch and let the kids play. It was so nice to have someone to get together with. Then we went home and kept playing with toys and called family. I had big intentions of making a large dinner, but in the end I just didn't feel like it. So we had our Christmas dinner a couple days later. It was a really great day and I just love getting to see our girls so excited and using their imaginations and loving life. It was a great parent moment. Ginny was a champ and slept through most of the day. It is really special to have such a small, sweet baby at Christmas time. 

Meet Virginia

November, 22 2017

3:28 p.m.

8 pounds 4 oz

19.5 inches 

I have gotten so behind on blogging and one of these days I will play catch up from the summer. As we were getting closer to Virginia's due date we were trying to figure everything out for an induction. It just seemed like the best option living away from family. Virginia was due on November 25th but we were hoping to have her a few days earlier because Mike had the 22, 23 and 24 off for the Thanksgiving holiday. We knew everything would be so much easier if she came at the beginning of the break because Mike would be around and would be able to help with our girls since we obviously didn't have a lot of options for people to take care of them. Luckily Javi and Susie were able to come up the night I went in for my induction so that Mike could come to the hospital with me. After I was settled in my room and getting ready to start my medicine, Mike went home to sleep and be with the girls in the morning. I don't think I really slept much that night. Once those contractions start going it's almost impossible to really get a long enough stretch of sleep to feel rested. I went back and forth with watching shows on Netflix and trying to fall asleep for a few minutes. In the morning around 8 they checked me and things were progressing well enough to start me on pitocin. The doctor also went ahead and broke my water. I have never had my water broken before. It has always just happened on it's own in the hospital. I was actually nervous it was going to hurt, so I was relieved that it wasn't bad at all. Before they started me on the pitocin I was able to take shower and eat a snack, which was also really nice and I hadn't been able to do that with my other 2 deliveries. They were a bit more strict about eating as soon as I was at the hospital. At that point I gave Mike a heads up that I would be getting my epidural soon. That was pretty much the only thing that I was nervous about going into this labor. I felt very calm and relaxed about everything else. I wanted Mike to be there when I got the epidural because I am just a total wimp with needles and other than contractions it is the only real painful thing for me with labor ( as long as the epidural is working). With my past 2 deliveries my epidural did not go as planned and was the cause of a lot of pain and stress and tears. I was really hopeful that this time around things would go better. It did hurt a little to get it, but it was the best epidural I have had and it never wore off and it honestly went so perfectly. The anesthesiologist was so great. She walked us through it and gave me a heads up for any pain that would be coming. After I got the epidural I was able to nap a bit and catch up on some of the sleep I missed the night before. The doctor came in to check me after I had been able to sleep a bit and said things were progressing well. Mike had gone to get some food and I called him to tell him he probably better come back pretty fast because it looked like things were going quickly. Mike got back and they started to prep the room and get everything ready. It was so nice because I felt great and everything had gone so smoothly that I felt very reassured about it all and relaxed. The doctor then checked again and said I was ready to push. He said we should have her out in about 10 minutes, which was a bit of a surprise because with the other girls I had pushed longer than that( Grace got stuck and Vi was my first so it was just a bit longer). Our doctor was so wonderful and coached me through the whole thing so that I didn't tear. I pushed about 3 times and she was born in about 5 minutes, which was obviously even faster then I had thought. Ginny screamed for quite awhile and was not very quick to settle down. They had me do skin to skin with her for about the first hour before they gave her a bath. That was also different then it had been with my other 2. Both Vi and Grace got swept away pretty quickly to the pediatric team to get cleaned up. It was nice to just get to hold Ginny and not feel rushed at all. She weighed 8 pounds and 4 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. She looked like such a chunk when she came out. Everyone thought she was going to be over 9 pounds. So we were a little surprised to see she was only a little heavier than our other girls.

Overall it was the best delivery. Everything was so smooth and easy and it was such a relief to have no problems. I felt like I was able to recover so quickly because the labor went so smoothly and was so short. Ginny did have jaundice for about 3 weeks and had to get a few blood draws because of it. It eventually cleared up and she has just been such a great baby. 

The girls have both been amazing with her. I knew Vi was going to be a super star because she was so great when Grace was born, but she has gone above and beyond to just be the best helper. It makes such a big difference to have an older child who can really help you with things. Grace has surprised me and has been so gently with Ginny. I thought Grace might be a bit on the rough side, but she has honestly been great. Each day they want to come in and see her. They sing to her and kiss her all the time. If I have one complaint about their interaction with her it is that they kiss her too much. Lots of times I have to tell them to just let her sleep. 

We are so grateful for this sweet easy going baby. She looks just like her sisters. After what seemed like such a long and busy pregnancy I am just so happy to have her here and that i just get to snuggle and kiss her all day. I love the newborn stage so much. For me it is so much easier and better than being pregnant. I look forward to it so much. It makes all those months of being sick and all the other hard side affects worth it. We love our sweet Virginia Kate and are so happy she is here.