Life with Lindsay

Well we are still around but a little bit more busy. Lindsay is such a calm peaceful baby. She rarely cries and only really when she wants to go to sleep. She is a great addition to our family and we are loving our time with her. The girls are amazing with her. Mallory is a little nurturing mother, she carries her around all the time and is great with calming her down. Julianne is also a great help and loves to be with her and take care of her new sister. Nathan is sweet with all his hugs and kisses even if they may be a little tight.


Here she is sucking her thumb.

Her second toe is longer than her first.

We survived having our first floors re-sanded. D took the girls skiing and I stayed at my sisters house with Nathan and Lindsay. It was great that we had a place to stay and we were comfortable. However, there is nothing like being back at home. The floors took three days longer so when the D and the girls came back we stayed at D's mom's house until they were done. They look great and it was definitely worth it. We have moved our carpets in and started to hang pictures. So it slowly looking like our house and not just an addition.




The Sunday before spring break the kids were running outside and getting onto the dumpster outside our house and Nathan cut his nose between his two nostril holes. At first we thought he maybe cut it while running but about a week later we learned that he was actually climbing on the dumpster and cut it because he slipped. So anyway we went to the Urgent Care and he received some glue to hold the skin together. We also learned that he a sinus infection because he received a head X-ray. So it figures we found out something else when we went in for one procedure.


We also had a chipmunk friend in our basement. I have seen him several times go in and out of the house from this crack in the foundation. So we had traps set and we finally caught him. So far I think it was only one friend and I have not heard anymore noises coming from the basement ceiling.


We received a lot of flowers from Lindsay's birth and when they were no longer thriving in a vase inside I put them outside to compost with the ground. The kids decided to turn it into their garden. So I had to take a picture of their creativity.

The kids have been collecting/playing with these Chinese erasers. They are supper small but have a lot of detail. So it was cute that they had them all laid out on the carpet. So I had to snap a shot.



Here is Mallory and her mothering skills. She just takes Lindsay and walks her around, shushes her and tries different positions to make her happy. Julianne and Mallory will also change her diaper as long as it is not too messy.



Here is Tucker cleaning Lindsay just like he does to Mel. My questions is who cleans Tucker? Poor Tucker, always taking care of others.



Here are my hand and foot shots. I am going to retake these because first of all the I did not change the white balance so the picture color is off. I corrected it in Lightroom but I can still tell. Additionally I am going to get the foot angle from the other side. I think it will look better. So stay tuned.



Lindsay in Nathan's bean bag chair. She actually really liked it. I think because it surrounds her and makes her feel confined.


Nathan loves his pajamas. He wants to be in them all the time. I think he really likes them because he does not wear underware and he loves to touch himself. So when he is in his pajamas he has easy access. :) I love the pajamas with the rain boots. Too cute.


Here are some other pictures from the past month.





Mallory finally lost her first front top tooth. She was very excited.

I am grateful/thankful for:
-Lazy days with the kids and Lindsay
-Getting through the first 6 weeks with Lindsay without loosing it.
-My time off work with the kids and organizing the house
-My great supportive husband who will hold Lindsay in the front pack for hours on end so that I can get stuff done or just not be in charge of her for awhile.
-Sleeping 4 hours at a time, as apposed to three or even two.
-My kids for adjusting so well to their new sibling.

Pictures of Lindsay!!!

Well I don't have a lot of time to post so I will just post pictures for now. I will share her birth story as time allows me. Life has resumed to normal since with your fourth life goes on. Lindsay has been to the grocery store, to Mallory's open house and performance, and will go to a soccer game this weekend. So even though she is a newborn I still have to take my other kids to their activities.

She has been sleeping great at nighttime. She was doing about 4 hours but now she is doing 3 which is still doable so I feel pretty good on the sleeping side. If I can get one short nap in throughout the day I am set. So not too grouchy from a sleeping perspective.

Mallory cutting the cord










My photographer/friend/Nathan helper- she had a lot of jobs that night.






Mallory with my glasses on.

Still here

Well I have been in better spirits lately. My pelvic pain has decrease, I don't know if it was the chiropractic adjustments or just having the baby move down but it rarely bugs me now. My restless leg is still around but I actually had a few days where it did not occur. So that was a great relief. It is happening less later in the night and more around 8 to 10, which is doable. I have been sleeping better without having the late night restless leg or my pelvic pain and trying to find a comfortable position. So that has helped as well. I finally measured my girth and it is 41 inches. I never remembered to do that with my other pregnancies so it was fun to see how wide I actually measure.

I have finally gotten the baby's clothes washed and ready. I am waiting until tomorrow to get the pack-n-play out since we do not have anyway to put it right now. We are suppose to move the bed into our new room tomorrow. So once we get the bed in there we can set up the pack-n-play in the closet. The baby currently does not have a room so we are waiting for our old master bedroom to become Nathan's then Nathan' old room will become the baby's. So the pack-n-play will be fine for now. It will probably end up sleeping with me anyway, so I am not too concerned.


Here is a picture of my ripped sheets as a result of crazy restless leg. You knew I would take a picture.

House progress


Upstairs hall

Upstairs bedroom

Upstairs bedroom with paint

Bathroom tile


Mudroom

Big belly in new room

We visited our newest addition to our extended family on Presidents day-Banjo. He was too cute and so much fun. The kids loved playing with him. They wore him out.





Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-carrying all of my pregnancies past 37 weeks.
-cleaning old baby clothes-too cute how small they are
-Moving out of our old cramped room into our new master suite
-my last few days/weeks with the kids before the new one is born

Officially irritated

OK so I am officially irritated. It is currently 12:55 am. on Wednesday morning and my restless leg(s) are driving me nuts. I went to bed around 11 and it is still bugging me. I walked around about a half an hour ago and it is still with me. I am irritated and mad because I sat on the couch with D from about 8 to 10 and nothing happened. Even when I was reading my book before bed I thought that maybe it would not happen tonight but it did. I am going to work tomorrow and that is never fun because being tired at work and looking at a computer screen or going to a meeting is not a good mix. It is similar to my lack of long distance driving abiliities, doing something monotonous is not good and I have a tendency to get very sleepy. Not because I am not interested or lack motivation it is simply a trance that seems to overcome me and when I have to stay still, read or stare at something for a long time I get very sleepy. It has always been like that. So when I have lots of interrupted sleep over several nights before I have to go to work makes me mad because it becomes a struggle for me to stay focused and not get over sleepy at work. I actually had a few days last week where the restless leg did not bother me as much. I don't know why but it just did, I keep trying to find the perfect solution for when it does and does not occur but it is still a mystery.

The house addition is going along smoothly. The hardwood floors are in the upstairs and the tile person is working this week. I think that the goal is to get tile in this week and have the hardwood floors finished next week, and final painting details the next week. So that would put us in our new master bedroom the last week in February. Which would be great for the baby since we really don't have much room in our current reduced room now for even a pack-n-play. I think then they will move onto the downstairs and finish that space. So they are really working hard and I hope that the timeline stays on schedule.

I went to my first chiropractor visit last week. I made an appointment mostly because I my friend in Knoxville has somewhat fussy babies and she took her daughter to a chiropractor during her first few months and noticed that she was relaxed more after the visit. She still does not know if it helped or not but I thought it cannot hurt if our baby is the same way why not try it. So I made an appointment because I wanted to get to know the doctor first then see if I wanted to take our baby. So I don't really have any uncomfortable body complaints about this pregnancy, except for the restless leg, but the front of my pelvis constantly hurts. I just started hurting the last month and with my other pregnancy's during the end of the pregnancy. It just feels like the baby is sitting on my pelvic bone where the come together in the front. So it hurts when I lay down, sit, walk, etc. I don't know what arthritis feels like but this may be it. When you press on the bones it feels bruised. So anyway, it is tolerable but sometimes I end up taking Tylenol because it is so constant that it starts to annoy me as well. Anyway, so I went on Tuesday and he said one of my hips was higher the the other and he adjusted that. I went back on Thursday and he did the same thing and then cracked my entire spine. Well I did not really feel any better until Friday and especially on Saturday. I did not feel the constant pain at all. It was actually nice. Well it kind of came back Sunday and Monday and today I went swimming and it felt better but is back tonight. So I don't know if I will go back or not. I think it might have helped but how many times do I have to go? It is kind of a chaotic practice with a lot of people getting adjusted at once so I did not get a chance to talk to him so we will see. I would much rather "cure" my restless leg than my pelvic pain. Like I said it is constant but I can ignore it.

Well those are my gripes for today. I am going to try to go to sleep again.

Back from NYC

D and I had a great time in NYC. It was a mini vacation for us for our birthday's and we enjoyed every minute of it. Our first flight on Friday was canceled so we had to leave about 3 hours later. We got to our hotel about 4 and we relaxed and enjoyed our alone time. We finally set out for dinner. We walked around and found a great place to eat. It was neat because it kind of looked like a mobster place. The food was cooked downstairs, I guess to save space, but the basement looked like it might have secret doors and hideaways. But we had fun and enjoyed the different atmosphere. Saturday we slept in then got out and walked around. We went to St. Patricks Cathedral. It was simply amazing. I loved all the detail and craftsmanship put into that church. It would have been great to be alive when the church was constructed. I also would have loved to get an official tour to learn more about the history. We went to Rockefeller plaza and saw where the Today Show is and the skating rink. We then walked to Times Square. It was amazing to see all the people and all the TV screens. Very overwhelming and chaotic at the same time. It was neat to see but great to get away from all the action as well. We found a place to eat lunch and to warm up. It was really cold while we were there but it did not stop us. In the afternoon we walked in central park. It was amazing how quiet it was and it truly was very pretty with the snow and the carriage rides. It would have been great to run together through the park but we did not have that option since it was snowy and icy and I am very pregnant. It was great top walk through the park and that was my favorite part. That night we went to a great Italian restaurant and then saw Chicago. It was a great show and our seats were great. We were in the third row from the front and we were able to experience the show fully. We unfortunately had to leave early Sunday morning so we did not get to experience much more. We agreed that we need to go back a couple more times to enjoy more parts of NYC. I wish I brought my camera, but I did not want to take my large camera. So I do not have any pictures but we still have the memories.

It was great to get back to the kids. Julianne started basketball lessons with the local university. She had a great time and ended up being the other child so she basically got a one on one coaching lesson. So that was great.

The next day we celebrated D's birthday with a homemade cake and lots of singing.




Some sledding pictures.






Sledding ice burn.