All is Calm, All is Bright

That sums up our Christmas so well. We spent this Christmas at home with just the 5 of us and David and I both agree it was our favorite Christmas yet. We spent the whole day in our pajamas, eating yummy food, playing with the kids toys, and watching Christmas movies. It was beautiful.

Here are the kids carrying on one of my family's traditions of sleeping beneath the Christmas tree.

Here we are on Christmas Eve opening up our first present. Thank you Papa and Grammy for the super cute PJ's!

I love this picture each year. The kids waiting to come down and get their stockings. I remember being a little kid and waiting at the bottom or our stairs while my mom was at the top teasing us about what she could see. :-)

Kids opening presents. Thank you Mom and Blondie for the church clothes and all the church books! I think I was more excited for those presents than any of the others! I also loved the Scentsy Warmer, my house has never smelled better. And the picture of the kids was so beautiful, thank you for using one of the pictures that has a daisy in it.

This is what Maylee did all Christmas morning which was a nice present in itself.

And this is Emma with her brand new Zhu Zhu pet in her hair. I was skeptical about these but they actually are really cute and the kids love them. Thanks Granna!

David and I didn't do presents for each other this year because we both agreed we'd already been given the best present possible. The arrival of a healthy, beautiful daughter. By the way David is sporting my brand new Moby Wrap which Cheryl got for us. Thank you so much Cheryl I absolutely love it!

Oh Christmas Tree

The importance of Grandmas

So I'm all alone today and in total Grandma withdrawal! For the week after Maylee was born my mom came and stayed with us and the day she left my mother-in-law arrived to spend the weekend with us. Yesterday was my first day alone and it was a little traumatizing.

I mean, what are all these dirty dishes? Whose going to wash them now? And whose going to cook for my kids who still want 3 meals a day? Whose going to hold the crying baby so I can take a shower? Whose going to entertain the 6 & 4 year old while I sit in a nursing coma on the couch? Whose going to pick up after me and bring me lunch on the couch?

Yes, I admit it! I was extremely spoiled this last week and a half and I'm a Grandma addict now. I just don't think it's healthy to go cold turkey. So I'm going to post more pics of the adorable baby in hopes of luring them back to my house. No Grandma can resist a cute baby, right?

Picture Mania

Because who can resist a naked baby?  
 
 
 

Introducing

Maylee Joann Drorbaugh
Dec 2, 2009 3:18 am
7lbs 20 inches

My contractions started yesterday afternoon but stayed about 10 minutes apart all last night but didn't seem particularly strong so finally at 11 we told the midwife to go to bed because we wanted to try and get some sleep. We got into bed around midnight and I fell asleep pretty quickly.

I woke up at 245 with contractions I couldn't sleep through, mostly in my back. Not super painful but very uncomfortable. I woke David up and told him to call everybody to come over as soon as possible, then I got into the bathtub. David ran around our room setting everything up for the birth. I had 2 contractions in the tub and then my water broke, then the very next contraction I started to feel kind of pushy. I told David to call the midwife and tell her to hurry. In one more contraction she moved down and crowned and then her head was out. I had my eyes squeezed tightly shut trying to concentrate on not pushing her out too fast but I remember David saying, "She's beautiful, a full head of dark hair."

With the next contraction I pushed her body out and pulled her up out of the water and put her on my chest. Then David covered us with a towel to keep us warm. We called the midwife back to let her know the baby had been born and she gave David some instructions in case the placenta came out before she got there. Me and the baby just snuggled in the bathtub and stared at each other until the midwife got there. She was so awake and super calm, just looking around at everything.

When the midwife got there she helped me get out of the tub and over to the bed.
The time of birth was 3:18 am and I woke up at 2:45 so the total time was 33 minutes between getting up and Maylee being born. Best of all I didn't tear at all like I did with both of my other kids! The midwife showed up about 25 minutes after Maylee was born. She did the newborn screen and everything was perfect. She weighed 7 lbs even and 20 inches long. She is the calmest baby I have ever seen and she squeaks and grunts while she sleeps which is adorable.

We woke Emma up right after she was born and she was excited and stayed up with us for almost three hours before crashing again. When we woke Eli up he came and looked at Maylee, smiled, and then asked, "Can I go back to sleep now?" He was much more excited when he woke up at 8 am. :-)

I can't believe it's all over and I'm so happy with my homebirth. It was intense but here I am 9 hours later in my PJ's typing at my computer while my kids watch Christmas movies and my husband snuggles our little girl. :-)

A Stress-Free Thansgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving here in Maricopa doing absolutely nothing. By a lucky coincidence David had the holiday off from both jobs and we decided that instead of running around all day visiting family and doing a lot of driving that we would just stay home this year. To further simplify things we celebrated the day with frozen pizza and bagged salad and ended the feast with root beer floats. We played games as a family and basically just vegged out and enjoyed each others company. It was wonderful.

I was also 38 weeks on Thursday. Here's a new pic. Hopefully the next picture I post will be of Maylee. :-)

I'm Official!

So today I am officially 36 weeks which means I am cleared to have my homebirth! Yea! I am starting to feel uncomfortable and really big now and when my midwife checked me yesterday I was 2 cm dilated, very effaced and the baby was at a -1 station. What does that mean?

Nothing really. You can be dilated for weeks before you go into labor. But heck it's better than not being dilated at all! My midwife predicted that I would go all the way to my due date which I thought was a little mean. :-) All of my labor companions have been putting in their "requests" for when I should have the baby. But I had a good talk with Maylee and told her to come whenever she wanted to because, heck, I'm always here.

Last Saturday my friend Mandy threw me a baby shower and it went so well. I had a great time and got so many cute things for my little girl. Here's a couple of pics:

Halloween

One of my favorite parts of Halloween is going to the pumpkin patch and picking out pumpkins. Here's the kids at the patch and me showing off my 34 week belly.

Here's the results after the great carving adventure. Guess which one David carved?
Here's the kids in costume. We were so late getting ready that I didn't get any individual pictures of my little witch or Luigi. Oh well.
Successful Trick or Treating

Baby Shower

My sweet friend Mandy is throwing a baby shower for me on Saturday Nov 7th. I'm sending out invites but I know that I am missing emails and addresses for lots of people. So please if you'd like an invitation would you email me? Sorry, I am so disorganized! Pregnancy brain, what can I say?

Swine Flu

You think that your kids never listen right?

Wrong!

Today I walked past my 6 year old daughter who was tucking her favorite stuffed animal into bed. Apparently her stuffed wolf "Dulcie" has the swine flu and is highly contagious. She has to stay in bed until her fever has been gone for 24 hrs.

I've never talked about the swine flu with her so I guessed she picked it up from watching the news at night.

99% Sure

So we finally decided on a name. (Though as always I reserve the right to change my mind at any time). Anyway, we're 99% sure that her name is going to be:

Maylee Joann

Vacation

Thanks to the generosity of David's Mom, sisters, and my parents we were able to spend a weekend in San Diego this month. I can't even describe what a wonderful time we had, or how much we needed that break as a family. So I won't try....here's a bunch of pictures of our trip.

Here's the kids at the dolphin tank, that dolphin sat there for 5 minutes or so giving Eli kisses.

Me and Emma feeding the dolphins...so cool!

You would never know from the look on her face that this was one of Emma's favorite parts.

Me looking very pregnant at 28 weeks.

Eli at the Shamu show. We actually had to go to this show twice because even though we sat in the "soak zone" we didn't get wet at all. My kids were in tears because they wanted to get wet, so the second time we sat on the third row and we definitely got wet.

David and Eli on Elmo's flying fish.

Really wet after the river ride...luckily they were already wet from the Shamu show.

Eli's a little freaked out by the giant walrus behind him.

Showing off their new SeaWorld shirts...thank you Granna!

Eli asleep at the dinner table.

La Jolla Beach.

Eli in the sand.

Emma in the sand.