Lyla's birth story

Thanks to my sister Kelli for posting about the newest little Gardner while I was out! We're all home and slowly getting used to each other. We ended up naming her Lyla Grace. We couldn't decide on a middle name until the very last second. Eva is such a caring big sister and LOVES to help with everything. EVERYTHING. It's sweet....most of the time. :) And Lyla? She's been spoiling us rotten with her sweet disposition. In case you're interested in the birth story, here you go....

My water broke just before midnight on Friday just as I was checking on Eva before I went to bed. Thankfully I had a bag packed because I got so nervous I couldn't think straight. The only thing I could think was "oh crap. I just got ready for bed! I'd better do my make-up before we go...." Logical right? So while I did that very important step for child birth Jared loaded the car and we headed to the hospital. I didn't start having regular contractions on my own so they gave me pitocin at 5 am to help get them going. By 7 I said "YUP. i'm done" and hollered for and epidural. I'm tough I know....We slept and I woke up at 8:45 feeling TONS of pressure, which turned out to be because it was time to push! It took the doctor over an hour to get there, (she looked like she'd been in the middle of a game of golf) and after a couple of pushes...TA-DA! We had our little girl at 10:16 am. We haven't slept since. :)Brand new Lyla with her poor worn out dad

Megan took this awesome picture of Lyla holding my mom's hand. Doesn't she look like she's grinning?

I was worried sick about what to do with Eva when I went into labor. She and I have never been apart and I was afraid she would be SOOO traumatized by the whole experience of being without her mamma. Turns out I worried for no reason. When we left for the hospital we had Omi and Abba (my parents) Kelli, Emma, Tim, Megan and Shaun David all here to help. Just after I had Lyla I called home to see how Eva was holding up and was informed, "you guys need to do something about this kid...she doesn't even care that you guys are gone!" The poor little thing. A big group of some of her favorite people to replace her mom. She may never be the same.

p.s. Thanks Megan for snapping so many awesome photos for me!

She's Here...

Lyla Gardner. February 6,2010. 10:16am. 7lb 13oz. 22 1/2".

A Watched Pot.....

Do you know what today is? It's the 3rd of February, or in my house...the day AFTER my due date. This makes late baby number 2, lucky me. I went to the doctor on Monday and have made precisely zero progress since last week, which wasn't a whole lot of progress to begin with. (How am I managing to make less progress with this one that with Eva...the one they had to force out 8 days late?!?!) I think I'm defective in the whole labor department. My house is bursting at the seams with company (and more on the way!) which I am sooooo grateful for. It's definately helping to keep my mind off of the lack-of-baby, but I feel like a watched pot that just won't boil! The doctor wanted me to keep"waiting it out" but went ahead and scheduled an induction for this Sunday. I'm pretty sure it was just to keep me from bursting into tears, and she was careful to warn me that she doesn't think my body is ready for even that yet and that I'd better make some progress before then or that's a no-go. No pressure or anything right? So....to my little girl....we are SO anxious to meet you, puh-leez don't keep us waiting much longer! In the meantime I'm trying every trick in the book to hurry it up. (I'm still refusing castor oil, but even that is starting to sound not so bad) Here's hoping I don't have to wait till Sunday! Or at the very least not have to wait any longer than that.....

Oh Christmas Tree

We had our own version of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree this year thanks to yours truly and her cheap...errr...frugal self. We went on the hunt for a Christmas tree early in December, but I just couldn't bring myself to fork over $50-$60 bucks for something we were just going to roast mallows over in less than a month! So I decided that it would be so smart to go and get the tree on Christmas Eve, because hey, they're probably GIVING them away then, and besides, traditionally the tree wasn't set up until then anyways. So Christmas Eve rolls around and we finally venture out of the house to go get it at 4 p.m, completely oblivious to the fact that most places would be closing early. We got to Home Depot just as they were closing the tree lot and the salesman wouldn't let us grab one. There must have been 50 trees in there! After I got over being ticked off about that (and realizing that the poor man probably wanted to get home to his family and didn't care about my procrastination) we tried about a dozen other places that were also closed. At this point Eva was making it clear that she didn't care about getting a tree anymore. Thankfully we have a large pine tree in the back yard with lovely limbs. :) I personally was quite pleased with the way our little pine limb turned out.

Eva's first haircut

I am so ridiculously behind on blogging, but I guess the only way to ever catch up is to get going, so here we go....

Back in November, I gave Eva her very first haircut. It was pretty scraggly on the ends, but I could only bring myself to cut off an inch. She was a good girl and sat still the whole time, but I have to admit...I found myself being grateful for that curly hair to hide all my mistakes by the end of the process!Mesmerized by the tv...thank goodness

All done! That's jam all over her face in case you were wondering...

still alive

Yes, we're still alive, just computer-less since ours unexpectedly died. We'll (hopefully) be back online soon!

St. Louis

Right around...ohh...a month ago, we visited the folks in St. Louis. It was a blast, but let me tell ya....don't send a bunch of Arizona wimps to St. Louis in the fall! We froze our little butts off. We did check the weather before we left, but it's a little hard to register what high's in the 50's feel like when you haven't been below 90 in 6 months. I think we each brought one or two pairs of socks and one pair of long pants. Poor Mom, we whined like crazy and made her turn her heater on!
Besides going just for the sake of seeing everyone, we also were there to help rip out the carpet in the basement and put in some pretty laminate. I don't think we ever took a picture of the rooms completely finished! We also played in the rain (there was plenty of it) which Eva insisted was snow. I'm guessing because it did NOT feel like any rain she'd ever seen.

We also:

went to the zoo. The goat exhibit was by far her favorite part, go figure.

an awesome pumpkin patch

and did a practice run through of Eva's birthday. (Note the chocolate cake I made from scratch, which was possibly the most technical recipe I have ever attempted! Hopefully this makes up for the wacky hot pink Elmo cupcakes I made for her birthday)
We had so much fun and are missing you guys! Not so much the cold though. :)