our day

we mailed off eleanor's birth announcements

and hit up a few garage sales

 took some pictures of michael in his cap and gown

he graduates next saturday!!

 we went to the science center for reptile day

noah was so stoked to be there

 he's way in to reptiles lately

 i, on the other hand, am not fond of reptiles

especially snakes

so i kept my distance

 hazel doesn't like snakes either

but she's ok with turtles

 then we came home to work on these dressers 

we bought at the wsu surplus for $20 each

 the kids enjoyed the spring weather outside

 and even played a game of thomas uno with their friend 

 then after the kids went to bed michael and i watched the latest psych

between working on the dressers

and now he's working on his very last paper

for his undergrad

yay!

yikes

laundry for a family of six is no joke!

three weeks

isn't it funny with newborns

how it feels like time flies super fast

but at the same time really slow?

 our darling eleanor is three weeks old today

she woke up this morning with the brightest eyes

i think she's going to be our first blue eyed child

she doesn't really look like anyone else yet

except maybe her dad

which isn't such a bad thing

if you ask me

we're going to miss this place

today we went out to the playground

and all the kids thought it would be extra fun 

to play in the garden plots that are full of mud

they played for quite some time

and then we came back to our house to hose them off

literally

it was a fun little preview of summer

and it's getting a little sad to realize we'll be leaving pullman soon

i love our little backyard

and all of the memories we've made here

(these girls preferred being dry)

success

our super scaredy cat kids finally like rides

so we took them to spokane to have a fun filled day yesterday

we also shopped and went out to lunch

noah loved being sung to for his birthday at red robin

eleanor was a dream the whole day

and we only lost olive once for a brief time at target

all in all a pretty successful day out with four kids

this is my life now

i am tired
husband is gone all day

toys and pillows are everywhere

olive is eating popcorn in eleanor's carseat

eleanor refuses naps anywhere other than near us
and sleeps best on me

hazel is begging to hold eleanor

but i'm not letting her because it will wake her

noah is watching tv, eating popcorn

and while it's a little crazy

it's pretty great

two weeks

 some things to record about our two week old eleanor

first of all

we think she's swell-eanor

the kids still ask to hold her

every chance they get

eleanor has slept in bed with us since we got home from the hospital

we've never had a baby in our bed before

but it's definitely her preference

we'll see how long it lasts

she also prefers napping in the living room

in either her car seat or swing

i think she likes the noise

she is really easy going

noah has called her ella since she was just a couple days old

michael and i decided if we nicknamed her, it would be ella

but we aren't really nickname sorts of people

so we've stuck with eleanor

and noah calls her ella himself

which i think is pretty darling

hazel noticed, "that baby sure likes breast milk"

and is happy to be my helper holding her, getting a diaper, etc.

olive is kind of a maniac lately

which is attributed to the fact that she's nearly two

and also she just doesn't get 

the whole soft, gentle, quiet thing around eleanor

but luckily she's not jealous so that's good

now that noah is six we no longer have 4 kids 5 and under

we currently have kids ages 6, 3, 1, and 2 weeks

michael and i agree we feel like we have one extra ball

in our juggling act as parents

i feel a little overwhelmed unless 

olive is napping or noah is at school

three i can handle, four is a little much 

our sweet friends and family have taken care of dinner so far

today's my first day of making our dinner

and it's already in the crockpot

slowly but surely i'll get the hang of this thing

called motherhood

of four

look who turned six yesterday...

noah did!!!

 michael had to take one last picture of noah as a five year old (sleeping)

 happily opening presents 

ninjago related gifts were definitely his favorite

hartly, olive, bailey, hazel and noah

at the vet school open house

 noah about to blow out the trick candles on his angry birds cake

 olive chewing on an angry birds ring

 lots of blowing

 noah and hazel took turns

hitting the angry birds pig pinata

 grandma and grandpa kelly were here for the weekend

seeing eleanor

and helping celebrate noah's birthday

hazel fell asleep on grandpa

grandma reading to olive

happy birthday, noah!

newborn pictures

eleanor got her newborn pictures taken yesterday

at a week old

i wanted to make sure she didn't get any bigger before

they were taken

here are a few of the sneak peaks

eleanor's birth story

8 days past my due date

my water broke at 12:20am when i got up to go to the bathroom

i was so excited because water breaking means i'll have my baby

within the next day

and it had never happened to me before

plus my doctor told me it's all that it would take for the baby to engage

michael and i chatted for an hour or so

then he went back to bed

and i went and read a book in the living room for a few hours

i figured if labor wasn't going too strong

i could be at home until the morning

when we could get the kids up, dressed

and over to our neighbor charlene's without waking everyone up in the night

so i fell back asleep until just before 7:00am

and we got the kids ready

and took them over

then went to the hospital

 the nurses were not very happy that i'd waited at home so long

but it was fine and they got me all hooked up and monitored

including an iv in each arm, per v-bac regulations

and told me i was at a 1.5 and then eventually a 2.5

(side note: after this month our hospital won't be offering v-bacs 

so i felt extra lucky that i was getting to try)

i spent all day having contractions about 5-6 minutes apart

that grew in strength

my doctor was out of town but would be around by the evening

so i spent hours before i got checked again

and around 7:30pm (12 hours after i got to the hospital)

i finally saw my doctor and she told me i was dilated to a 4

which was good news

but although my water broke at home

it mended itself and was still a full bag of waters

so she decided she'd break my water in an hour

 by this point i was hooked up to fluid and antibiotics to help to decrease

the chance of infection since my water broke so long ago

when she re-broke my water there was a RIVER inside of me still

it soaked everything, and surprised all of us how much fluid there was

no wonder i was measuring so big

(well that and my giant baby)

so we assumed labor would just hurry right along

but instead my contractions kept getting stronger

and i didn't ever dilate more than 4.5

i was in terrible pain and by 12:30-1 i was pretty sure she wasn't coming

they figured she was sunny side up

so they had be get in different positions to try to move her

but it didn't help
(this picture was definitely from earlier in the day, i wasn't so happy at this point)

 finally i wanted to be put out of my misery

so they put some morphine in my iv

and i immediately fell asleep

out of exhaustion, it took the edge off but i could still feel the pain of the contractions

after that i felt like i wanted to die

when i woke up the doctor and i decided that i needed a c-section

so the OR team got me all prepped

 i could hardly keep my eyes open and felt like i needed to vomit

i was surprised they never gave me a drug to stop my contractions

 i had painful contractions all the way until my spinal was given to me on the operating table

so after 26 hours of labor

nine days overdue

i finally had my eleanor mae

via c-section

i feel like i gave it my absolute all

her head was apparently not sunny side up

but just plain sideways

and cock-eyed

so she was not coming out vaginally, ever

not to mention she was 9 lbs 5 oz

which is possibly just a little too big for my 

barely 5'1" body to handle

the birth was absolutely not what i was planning

at the end, before and during my c-section

i felt like i was having the worst experience of my life

my body was so tired, no progress was being made

my eyes wanted to shut, i started vomiting...

i just assumed it would've been different

i thought it would be quick and the result would be a successful v-bac

but that was not how it was supposed to be

and i don't have any regrets

i now know that i will have c-sections from now on

my doctor told me my uterus is super strong

and i hardly have any scar tissue

so i'm not worried about our family size being stunted by

the amount of c-sections i can or cannot have

 eleanor was of course worth every second of my labor

all 41+ weeks of pregnancy

and the c-section recovery i was hoping to avoid

 michael and i love being parents

there is no greater joy in life

i love how close it makes me feel to michael

every time we have another child

and how i feel the love in our family grow

 eleanor is so loved

everyone is adjusting well to her

and her siblings are just as in love with her

as we are

just a day at the park

it finally feels like spring around here

so we decided to take our first family-of-six outing to the park

for a picnic lunch

 if it looks like everyone is looking at my stomach, they are

a ladybug landed on me

 then it hopped on to noah's hand

 i think eleanor liked the park

 mmmm

 silly girl

 olive was eating potato salad two spoonfuls at a time

 olive kept calling the dinosaur an animal

hey look, i'm not pregnant anymore!

sadly we left the park pretty quickly after our picnic because some numb-nut

thought it was a good idea to let their unleashed dog attack hazel

they're just lucky it's hard for me to get up

or my hormones may have got the best of me

this mama bear was mad