Family Pictures

We had our Porter Party on Saturday at my parents and took a couple pictures of our little family while we were there :)

TAG!

For my Collettie! These things are always fun...

4 Shows I Watch:

* Glee

* Greys (yep I still watch it...)

* Desperate Housewives (with my mother but if Tom cheats on Lynette we're DONE)

* Anything on HGTV

4 Things I am Passionate about:

* The Gospel and trying to live it more fully

* Morgan

* My Girls

* My Family

(collette i think you had it right friend!)

4 Phrases I say a lot:

* "Hiiiii baby!"

(Emery says this aaaalll day so of course I do too..or maybe I say it all day long and so she does too?)

* "What doing Eme?"

* "Mere!" (Emery talk for "come here")

* "What the heck?"

4 Things I have learned from the past:

* There's a time and a season for everything

* Babies do sleep...eventually

* The laundry can wait

* When Emery says she has to go peeps its best not to say "just a second"

4 Things I did Yesterday:

* Went to Courtneys (happy bday yesterday sister!)

* Got the car washed

* Held a tiny baby all day

* Made dinner (which is a big deal these days)

4 Places I would love to visit:

* Europe

* The East Coast

* Hawaii

* Chile

4 Things I am looking forward to:

* Nap time

* Girls Night Thursday

* Morgans Birthday Friday

* Christmas!

4 Things I love about Winter:

* Sweaters

* Actually needing a blanket

* Furries (on Emery of course)

* Going to see the Snow

4 People to Tag:

* Annie

* Courtney

* Janie

* Maren

The Same But Different

I'm pretty sure these two are related :)

Emery at 1 month old

Paige at 1 month old

I love that Paige has only been with us for a month and yet we can't imagine our family without her...I still can't believe we have "daughterS" haha We have two kids!! Ahh!! My heart hurts...Goodness these girls so sweet and we're totally in love with them...

For Me This Is Heaven

I can't count how many times I've thought that over the past week...then every time I do I have to start singing the Jimmy Eat World song....good thing its a great song

My sweet girlies...

Paiges Story

So in the interest of time I'll try and make this quick and easy to read!

For those who don't know...we decided to have this baby at our home with midwives. I have to admit the initial reason we even considered it was because we don't have maternity coverage on our insurance but the more we educated ourselves the more we were sure that this was something we wanted and felt confident about doing! Honestly, even if an actual home birth is something you would never do yourself, there are three things that I did during this pregnancy that I wish I would have done with Emery and that I think every pregnant woman should do during her own pregnancy

1. Prenatal Yoga

2. Read Ina May's Guide to Childbirth

(it gets pretty granola but still very informative and empowering)

3. Watch The Business of Being Born

now onto the story...

Friday November 12

10:00 am had an appointment with the midwives to have my membranes stripped. When we got there I was dilated to a 4 and 90% effaced but still needed a little help telling my body to release that oxytocin to get things going so she stripped me and said to get walking.

12:00 pm Morgan and I met my mom, Annie (who had Emery with her while we were at the appointment) and Courtney at Sams Club so I could walk while my mom did her shopping. Started having some contractions but I figured they were just cramps from having been stripped

2:00 pm came home to put emery down for a nap, we laid down for a little bit too but I couldn't really get comfortable so we got up and did some stuff around the house...dishes, laundry, watered the flowers etc...

4:30 pm my mom, Annie and her two kiddos come over to hang some china plates i'd been wanting to hang. We worked on a puzzle Annie brought with her and timed contractions. 3ish minutes apart by now but not quite lasting a minute

5:00 pm contractions were getting harder...I decided to give the midwives a call to keep them updated. They said to get to bed early and call when they get more intense

5:30 pm I decided it was time for Annie to take the kids and go to my parents for the evening...we sent Emery with her pj's thinking she'd either sleep there or have Annie sneak her into bed sometime in the late evening

6:10 pm by now the contractions started to change...and when I say change I mean hurt...oh wow, they hurt (come to find out I was in transition) so Morgan called the midwives and let them know

6:45 pm midwives got to our house (thank the heavens) I was complete and ready to push!! My water hadn't broken yet so she broke it and I started pushing

7:14 pm out she came!! And we became a family of four. Words cannot describe the feeling...

8:00 pm Emery got to meet her baby sister

We are totally in love with our new little girl...and so grateful to our amazing midwives who got her here safely :)

She's Here!

Our sweet Paige Ella Pew was born Friday November 12, 2010.

Weighing in at 8lb 2oz and 20 inches long...

Her birth story coming soon!

Well my due date has come and gone....I'm trying not to be impatient or disappointed even though its really hard... I'm definitely eating my words when I tell other moms who get to that "done" stage to just try and enjoy it! I just can't wait to see her little face and smell her sweet baby skin...oh gosh...I can't even talk about it or I just want to scream! But at the same time...I feel a tinge of guilt because I have a baby...these are precious moments that I get to have with just Emery and I want to eat them up...So I'm going to! Number two can come whenever she wants...:) Well i'm glad I got that off my chest...now, I saw this video on Facebook today and wanted to rememeber that I watched it the few days before #2 made her debut...

So I know the video its slightly cut off on here so if it bugs you enough look it up on YouTube :) But do watch it!

Halloweeeeen & One Big Belly

Oh Halloween...I'm not going to lie, not my favorite holiday...I guess I'm just not that into all the "scary" stuff...maybe as our kiddos get older it'll be more fun to get all into it and get everyone dressed up :) Because honestly, I don't think Emery really got what was going on...or maybe I didn't prepare her enough for it? Either way, this year we decided to go ahead and partake in the festivities! The Wednesday before Halloween our ward had its Trunk or Treat and Emery went as a princess sporting the dress my mom and I (mostly my mom but I learned a lot!) whipped up for her...I think it turned out pretty cute...but not nearly as cute as the little girl wearing it :)

By the way, this is her getting into "dads truck" which I have to document that she love, love, loves...especially going over the "whoas" :)

Emery got her face painted...(thanks Aunt Chris) and even got to pet a "little bits pony" with dad...we thought for sure she'd be afraid of the pony but she surprised us both and had no problem petting it yay!

Now Friday night we got a babysitter

(not really, Morgans mom watched her which doesn't really count as a "babysitter" cuz Emery has some semi-serious separation anxiety so we're afraid to try a "real" babysitter cuz she'd probably flip out like she does in nursery....its so sad...)

Anyways! Morgan and I went to our friend Halloween party and had a BLAST! (thanks to the Sisters Banks and Mallory) Morgan and I dresed up as a "Basketball Player and the Ball" which I may or may not have stolen from the internet...we wanted to take advantage of the fact that my belly is huge without being too cheezy like going as "Mother Earth" or whatever...OR offending anyone by going as a Nun and a Priest (which we considered) Plus the whole costume cost us like $10 dollars by the time we bought the paint for my belly and the sweat bands...win win!

And as if there hasn't been enough belly already for one post....here's the official 39 week Photobooth belly pic

Honestly if it wasn't for Photobooth we would have pretty much NO documentation of this pregnancy...which is one of those things that I know I'll want to look back on every now and again...:) Hopefully there wont be a 40 week photo but I guess its not really up to me! If this little girl still feels like she needs to cook a little longer then so be it (just as long as she doesn't get any bigger) :)

Oh My, Oh My...

I remember begging my mom to put sponge curlers in my hair as a little girl (or if you're Annie, last week :))...so the other day I saw some at Target and thought I'd give them a try on Em! I wasn't sure how it was going to go as far as her attention span but she did soooooo well! She didn't budge the whole time...(the ipod may have helped a little bit but still!) doesn't she look adorable??

(Morgan walked in the door from school as this picture was taken...she loooooooves her dad)

So they only lasted about on hour or so, (which is longer than I thought they would) mostly because of the tickle fight/wrestling match she and Morgan had...

2 Years Ago...

2 years ago on the 10th, Morgan and I became parents for the first time and fell head over heals for this little girl...

To read Emerys life story, read every post from October 10th 2008 until now :)

Now onto the festivities! Since Emerys birthday was on a Sunday and I'm quite large with child and not really up for a lot of hullabaloo, we decided to keep this birthday to family. Which is still PLENTY of hullabaloo :)

The Lewis boys came down the mountain to spend the weekend with us and the rest of the cousins (minus the Clarkson girls) came over on Sunday for dinner and some cake and ice cream! It worked out really well because my parents always have Sunday dinner so all I was in charge of was the cake! (even though Annie really ended up making it while I held Bridger boy...thanks sister! :))

(a lot of candles for a two year old i know...all the little candles spell "EM!" but you can't really tell....)

Thanks to Savannah and her mad bargain shopping skills, Emery got her very first TRIKE this year!! Emery LOVES it...and so did every little kid at my parents house...you know you picked a good gift when there's at least three other children in the room crying because THEY want it...haha

Unfortunately, Morgans family was in Rocky Point with the other grandkids for Ems actually birthday (again, me being large with child, decided to sit that Mexico trip out)so we had a second little party for Emery as well as Ayson (whose birthday was on the 5th) on Tuesday...

The Christensens got Emery little "clickity-clack" shoes which Emery LOVED and Grandma and Grandpa Pew got her a new baby with all the accessories...

(isn't Morgan handsome?? seriously...just thought I'd throw it out there)

Emery has been obsessed with babies honestly as long as I can remember... if there is a baby in the room she'll drop everything to hold it or feed it or just look at it and say "aww...baby" she has to have one or two of her babies with her all the time and really does a good job taking care of them! They get fed and changed and taken for walks and cuddled and put to go "night night" at least 10 times a day...

I can't even say how grateful we are for our sweet Emery...she really is the sweetest, most sensitive, affectionate, kind-hearted little girl I know...she has taught us more about love and patience and what really matters in this life in the short two years that she has been here, than we ever could have imagined...we joke that we're going to get it with this next baby cuz there's no way the Lord would give us another one like Emery...no one is that lucky :)

Oregon Quick Trip!

So Courtney, Annie, my mom and I got the wild hair to book a trip to the great Northwest and take advantage of the fact that Courtneys parents have a house up there that pretty much sits vacant most of the time...we convinced our husbands (well two of them at least) and Thos that it would probably be the only time that would ever be able to go and stay for free cuz Courts parents are thinking about selling...so away we went!

Thank you Allegiant Air for getting us there safe

The house we stayed in is right across the street from the Deschutes River...and let me tell you, it is beautiful...honestly the whole scenery reminded us a lot of our own White Mountains just with more water...which is nice :)

get a load of that belly... 30 weeks today!

The next day we went on a little hike to a place called...hmm...well i don't remember what it was called but the whole hike was along side the Deschutes River...again beautiful (but with lots and lots of mosquitos....yuck)

we're working on Emerys "pretty smile" haha and yes, that little dot on her forehead is a mosquito that I squashed right after this picture was taken. I feel itchy just talking about it...

That is a big cliff with Matt at the top looking very "king of the mountain"

hmm....

Sunday we took a drive up to Washington! Just to be able to say we've been there :)

On the way back we drove by Mount Hood which was AMAZING....probably my favorite part of the trip was the drive around this mountain...someday I will hike it...someday

We pulled off the highway to eat our lunch at this random little veggie stand which happen to have the cutest little vacation rental with the perfect view of the mountain...If it wasn't so dang windy i'd totally live there :)

And then we headed back to the house and goodbye to Mount Hood...for now :)

These cute girls were the biggest stars ever...and very cute :) (Bridger too but he wasn't wearing Tinkerbell so he had to sit this one out...)

Big thanks to the Wilkes for letting us commandeer their house for the weekend! And to Mom, Annie, Bridger, Thos, Matt, Court, and Kenz for being great travel buddies :) We love you guys! aaaaand to Lissa for keeping our rabbit alive while we were gone :)