Recent Pictures

Last week I took both kids to get their pictures taken at Portrait Innovations. Here are some of the pictures:

The photographer told Samuel that if he did a good job, he would take his picture as spiderman shooting a web:

And here are some pictures from around the house the past few days.

Samuel wearing his birthday present sunglasses from Aunt Erin, and "doing his work" as he likes to call playing with this old adding machine:

Becca with Aunt Meg:

Becca in the cute hat one of the nurses made her at the hospital:

First bath, which Becca seemed to like until it was time to get out and then she peed all over me and her towel:

Things are going pretty well so far. Samuel has been having some issues listening both at home and at school, but he seems to be doing a little bit better each day. He is really interested in Becca, and any time she makes a noise, he always asks "what's she saying?" We still have to stress being gentle, as he is apt to shove her pacifier in her mouth with a little more force than necessary, but I think he is liking being a big brother. It doesn't hurt that he has received tons if presents from people for becoming a big brother. Who wouldn't like that?

It's a Girl!

Around 3:00 am last Friday morning I woke up with contractions. They weren't very strong yet, but strong enough that I couldn't sleep. So I got up and walked around the house for a while, waiting to see if the contractions would come at regular intervals. After they were coming every 4-5 minutes for a while, I woke up Ernie and told him I thought we should head to the hospital in the next few hours. I didn't want to go right that second because I was worried they would check me out, say I wasn't far enough along, and send me back home.

We called Barbara and Bob to come over and take care of Samuel, and we left for the hospital around 5:45 am. Before we left, I woke up Samuel and told him where we were going. We had been prepping him for this for a long time. When I told him, though, he started crying and saying he didn't want us to go. That is, until I told him that he could go have a special breakfast of poptarts with his grandmother downstairs. Then he was all smiles since he very rarely gets those.

We got to the hospital at 6:00 and they took us to a labor and delivery room to get checked out. By this point my contractions were a lot stronger, and coming closer to every 2-3 minutes. They checked me and said I was already 6 cm dilated! I had a pretty quick labor with Samuel (he was born 4 hours after we got to the hospital) and with this being the second baby, the nurses said things would probably happen quicker. They were right. They put a call in to my doctor, who arrived just in time to deliver the baby. She seriously got there just as I was about to start pushing. At 8:26 am, we welcomed:

Rebecca (Becca) Elizabeth Norwood
October 9, 2009
7 pounds 13 ounces
20 inches

She was about 6 days early. I love that we waited to find out that she was a girl. It was such a nice surprise to hear the doctor say "It's a little girl!"

Here are some pictures of us in the hospital:







We came home Sunday afternoon, and everyone is doing fine. Samuel seems to really like being a big brother and loves to enthusiastically hug Becca. We have to stress being gentle a lot. For some odd reason he told everyone at school that we named her Olivia. The only reason I can think of for this is that sometimes he likes to watch this show on Noggin called Olivia about a family of pigs. One day last week he asked me if the baby would like to watch Olivia, too. I said probably. Who knew that to a 4-year-old, that meant we would be naming the new baby after a cartoon pig?

Yesterday when he came home from school he ran in and the first thing he said was "Is the baby here?"

This morning he said to me "I really like that cute little baby. Can we keep her?"

So, I think things are going as smoothly as possible in that area.

Here are a few pictures from the past few days at home:

Becca, so far, is a great sleeper. I hope that continues. It seems like Samuel never slept, not even as a newborn. Becca wakes up to eat, looks around a little bit, and goes right back to sleep. She seems very content and laid back. We are loving that!

Birthday Boy

Samuel is now 4 years old! We had his first real party this weekend - the kind where you invite friends and play games. The kids had a great time making crowns, playing beanbag toss games and pin the tail on the donkey (actually, the version we got from Oriental Trading Company was stick the tail on with a sticker), playing with toys, and eating cupcakes.

Samuel was super excited that people brought him presents. He got some really neat things, and is especially loving the spiderman stuff and the transformers. As I have mentioned before, he is all boy!

I'm not sure how the parents of the other kids feel about pictures of their kids online, so I am just going to post a few of Samuel at the party (and one of Lilly as I'm sure Meg won't mind.)

Pin the tail on the donkey:



Figuring out how a transformer works:



Lilly displaying the crown she made:



Hanging out after the party was done:



In pregnancy news, I am almost 39 weeks now, so just over a week to go! Here is my picture from last week:

At my past two doctor appointments they have checked me to see if I am dilated at all. So far only 1 cm, so not much to report. I know that can change at any moment though.

I am having a lot of trouble sleeping lately because I'm really uncomfortable. Every time I turn over in bed at night, I wake up. Sometimes I am able to go back to sleep, but some nights I end up lying awake in bed for hours, or getting up and doing things like folding all of the newborn clothes we have from Samuel (hello nesting, nice to see you again), or posting on our blog at 3:30 am. I suppose it's good preparation for getting up in the night when the baby arrives.

I have my next appointment at the doctor this Thursday, and I'll post an update after that.