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.

Picture Catch Up

Blogger seems to be having some issues with their picture upload feature. I have been trying to put these pictures on for a while, but seem to get error messages each time. Hopefully this time it works, and you can actually see the pictures. Please let me know if you just see empty boxes where the pictures are supposed to be.

Here are the past few weeks of pregnancy pictures:

34 weeks:



35 weeks:



36 weeks:



37 weeks:



As you can see, the baby is growing and growing and growing. I'm going to the doctor later on today. I have to go weekly now, and today they start checking if I am dilated. Only 3 weeks to go. Aughhh!

Here's the new crib that I wrote about in the last post. It's neat because it can turn into a toddler bed and then be used as a headboard and footboard for a full sized bed when the baby is big enough:



And here is the picture of our office closet with my new, super cool pegboard for organizing my craft/scrapbook supplies:




(all of those white boxes on the top shelf are pieces for countdown boxes.) I love the pegboard. It's so nice to be able to use that wall space and get to things like ribbon and tape without digging through a box. And do I ever really use a hammer when I'm scrapbooking? No. But that's a tiny little hammer that would get beat up by the real hammers if I put it on Ernie's pegboard in the garage.

How many Norwoods does it take to put a crib together?

Step 1. Notice in the weekly Target ad that cribs are on sale. Discuss getting a new one for the upcoming baby.

Step 2. Do absolutely nothing about this.

Step 3. Bring Samuel's old crib up from the basement.

Step 4. Contemplate why you kept this crib since:
a) it was bought used off craigslist in Denver 4 years ago.
b) the function to raise and lower the side rails has never worked.
c) actual pieces of crib are being held on with zip ties.

Step 5. Figure everything in Step 4 really isn't all that bad and proceed to put the crib together anyway.

Step 6. Get 7 out of 8 screws to work, do their job, and actually hold pieces of the crib together.

Step 7. Attempt to get screw #8 to work.

Step 8. Repeat Step 7 until you are ready to tear your hair out.

Step 9. Decide old crib is going in the trash.

Step 10. Go to Target to buy new crib. Make sure this is one day after the crib sale is over. Because, you know, it's fun to pay more money for the exact same crib that was on sale until the DAY BEFORE.

Step 11. Decline offer from Grandpa Bob to take his truck because surely the crib will fit in the Jeep.

Step 12. Wrong.

Step 13. As helpful Target employees try to fit enormous crib box in Jeep, realize there is no way to fit yourself, your mother-in-law, your child who has not napped all day, and a super huge crib box all into 1 car.

Step 14. Call Grandpa Bob and ask him to bring his truck to Target.

Step 15. Entertain non-napping child for 15 minutes in the Target parking lot. Decide it would be a good idea to get him some popcorn from the Target snack area and let him eat it in the Jeep.

Step 16. Wonder how 1 bag of popcorn can make such a huge mess.

Step 17. See Grandpa Bob arrive. Have Target employees load crib into the back of his truck.

Step 18. Drive home and unload super huge crib box. Ignore the fact that somehow the popcorn has multiplied and now there is more popcorn on the floor of the Jeep than there was originally in the bag you purchased.

Step 19. Rejoice that screws on this crib actually work and that there are no zip ties in the hardware packet.

Step 20. Take picture of new crib for blog (coming soon.)

Step 21. Fill with baby (also coming soon.)

Zucchini

This summer we planted watermelon, zucchini, and radish seeds out back. The only thing that has grown so far is the zucchini. Here are some pictures of the 3 of us displaying some of the zucchini that our plants have produced:







And here's Samuel wearing Ernie's hat:



And here I am at 32 and 33 weeks pregnant ( I forgot to flip the pictures in photoshop, so the numbers are backwards in the mirror) :





Those pictures are from a few weeks ago. I still need to take weeks 34 and 35 and get those posted. I had a doctor's appointment this morning, where my stomach measured 35 cm, so I am right on track. The baby's heartbeat was at 150 again, which is right in the middle. I now start going to the doctor every week for a checkup. I'm not having any contractions or anything yet, so I'm not worried about the baby coming early. Of course, I know that can change at any second, but so far everything feels just fine. The baby moves a ton (mostly at night) and gets the hiccups now, which I remember Samuel did all the time too.

Everyone asks me if I think the baby is a boy or a girl. I honestly have no idea. With Samuel, even before we got the ultrasound, I always felt like he was a boy. With this baby, I really have no clue. It will be a total surprise, which I am excited about.

In general, I feel a lot more relaxed about this pregnancy than I did with the first one. I'm sure it's because things are not as new as they were last time. Examples:

1. Last time, I remember waiting eagerly for the weekly email from babycenter where it told you what size the baby was (a sweet potato! a melon! etc...) This time around, I still get those emails, but sometimes I don't even have the time to read them. I figure that I can feel the baby move, and I can see that the baby is growing, so everything else will just fall into place.

2. I'm not making some complicated birth plan (I didn't have one last time either).

3. I packed my bag for the hospital and put hardly anything in there since last time all I used from home was a pair of socks.

4. I have yet to enter a Babies R Us since we have just about everything we need left over from Samuel.

5. We're not taking birthing classes this time around. We're not even going on a tour of the hospital in Fort Wayne. I imagine someone will just direct us to the right floor when I am in labor (either that or people in the cafeteria will get more than they bargained for with their meal).

I have heard that people are more laid back with their second kids. Hopefully that attitude will stick around once the baby is actually here!

Pregnancy Update

Here are some pictures of me the past few weeks at 28, 29, and 30 weeks:







At my doctor's appointment a month ago, the baby's heartbeat was around 140, which the nurse said was on the slow side, possibly indicating a boy. However, at my appointment last week, the heartbeat was 150, which she said might mean a girl. So, who knows. We will find out soon enough, as I only have 2 months left to go!

Samuel definitely wants a brother. One of his teachers told me she was asking him if he wanted the baby to be a boy or a girl, and he said boy because "then mommy can be our special girl." So sweet. Totally makes up for him throwing some spaghetti at me the other night when he looked like this: