No, we haven't had the baby yet. There are still 9 days until the official due date, so we'll keep you posted. I have been wanting to blog for weeks, but haven't found the time to go down to the visitor's center to use the wi-fi, and when we thought we could blog at the computer center down here we found out we were wrong. Apparently, you can't use a USB drive on certain government computers, and we were blocked. We finally figured out a tricky way to do it, so here's our catch up of April: Kaiya's birthday, Patrick's new job, and Easter. The pictures are in backwards order, but it would take far too long to switch them, so use your imagination.
Kaiya turned 2 on the 18th of April!! I can't believe my baby is 2! It seems not that long ago when she was just learning to sit up and all that other baby stuff. She had a pretty good birthday, although plans had to be shifted many times and things didn't work out quite likeIhad planned. But she didn't really seem to notice. This giant giraffe was a gift from her Grandma Ginger. Kaiya has a love for Giraffes and has quite a few of them. The funny thing is, they all have names, well, labels really. We already had a "big raffie" (they are all called something raffie), so this one was deemed "big daddy raffie". She also got a baby raffie and a tiny raffie for her birthday.
Kaiya enjoying cake
She really wasn't sure about the candles. At first she didn't want anything to do with them, but then she wanted to touch the flame, so Patrick ended up blowing them out for her.
Remembering her love of balloons
The cake. We went with a jungle animal theme for the birthday, so I attempted a character cake. It's a lion in case you couldn't tell.
She really got into opening gifts this year. At Christmas, she still was not even interested in trying to tear open the paper. What a difference 4 months makes. And yes, that is the Elmo Live she is opening. If you were thinking about purchasing this toy for your child, please reconsider! Not kidding, it's not a very good toy. At least we got it for half off.
The birthday girl:)
Patrick had to work on Kai's birthday, so we decided to drive out to Scotty's Castle and go on his tour. It's really amazing and Patrick is a great tour guide! He was embarrassed because I took pictures of him, but of course I had to do it! The following are some of what I got.
Ginger came down for the birthday and met us at the castle for the tour.
Just starting out at the front of the house. He's in costume, by the way. He wears his regular ranger uniform when he's not giving tours.
Here's Easter, in random order. The first one is, obviously, the cake. I wanted to put Easter eggs on the top but, not thinking ahead, I colored all the frosting green.
She really is having fun hunting eggs. Classic Kaiya face.
Kaiya in her Easter dress
Examining the contents of the basket.
And the Easter morning shot. After waking up to an Easter basket, she was convinced that every morning she should be getting a present, and would ask where her present was upon waking each day. Having her Birthday the same week reinforced this idea with her, and it has taken a few weeks for her to realize that not every day is a present day.
Well, that's what we've been up to in the last few weeks. Other than that, we finally (at 36 weeks) found a doctor that we liked and are now driving to Las Vegas (a 5 hour roundtrip drive... with a 2 year old) every week for appointments. Needless to say, we are all anxiously awaiting this baby's birth!
She's here!! Our little Leah Rachel was born Monday morning at 5:48am. I started having contractions Sunday afternoon, and by dinner time I knew it was the real thing. I wanted to stay home as long as I could, so after washing dishes, sweeping the floor, picking up toys, and putting Kaiya to bed, we tried to relax a little and watch a DVD. I still didn't feel like I was ready to go to the hospital, so after a while we tried to go to sleep. I couldn't sleep at all, and at about midnight I decided we were definitely going to have to go to the hospital before morning. So I got up and started fixing Kaiya's food for the next day, since we were going to leave her with our neighbor, and we finished packing up and got ready to go. After our neighbor Nathalie came to stay with Kaiya, we started our 2 hour drive to the hospital. after a few bathroom stops and one very curious gas station attendant, we made it to the hospital around 3am. When we got there, I was only dilated to 3, but the contractions were coming really close together, so we were admitted. I didn't want to be hooked up to anything, but the nurse insisted I wear the fetal monitor and come back to the machine every 20 minutes to check it, so I wasn't able to walk around as freely as I had hoped. Patrick was so amazing during the whole labor. He rubbed my back during every contraction and helped me stay focused. After about 2 and a half hours the nurse came to check our progress, and said I was at about an 8. I was so relieved. I never thought during the labor that I couldn't do it anymore, but there were a few times I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it anymore. But once I heard how far along I already was I knew I could make it without any drugs. It was only a few minutes later that my water broke, and right away I needed to push. I told Patrick to go get the nurse, and when she came in she started yelling at me to stop pushing and wait for the doctor. I told her I couldn't help it and when another nurse came in to help she said "it's too late, she's crowning". So they flipped me over and the nurse delivered the baby as I lay sideways on the bed. It all happened really fast, but everything worked out great and the baby and I were totally fine. The doctor showed up about 15 minutes later, a little surprised that everything was overwith already. It was an amazing birth and this recovery has been so much better than it was the first time around. We're all home now and getting used to having a family of 4. Kaiya loves her little sister and wants to help out all the time. I realized when we were putting these pictures up that we don't even have a decent picture of the child yet, so more to come. But that's the good news for now!!
Kaiya turned 2 on the 18th of April!! I can't believe my baby is 2! It seems not that long ago when she was just learning to sit up and all that other baby stuff. She had a pretty good birthday, although plans had to be shifted many times and things didn't work out quite likeIhad planned. But she didn't really seem to notice. This giant giraffe was a gift from her Grandma Ginger. Kaiya has a love for Giraffes and has quite a few of them. The funny thing is, they all have names, well, labels really. We already had a "big raffie" (they are all called something raffie), so this one was deemed "big daddy raffie". She also got a baby raffie and a tiny raffie for her birthday.
Kaiya enjoying cake
She really wasn't sure about the candles. At first she didn't want anything to do with them, but then she wanted to touch the flame, so Patrick ended up blowing them out for her.
Remembering her love of balloons
She really got into opening gifts this year. At Christmas, she still was not even interested in trying to tear open the paper. What a difference 4 months makes. And yes, that is the Elmo Live she is opening. If you were thinking about purchasing this toy for your child, please reconsider! Not kidding, it's not a very good toy. At least we got it for half off.
Patrick had to work on Kai's birthday, so we decided to drive out to Scotty's Castle and go on his tour. It's really amazing and Patrick is a great tour guide! He was embarrassed because I took pictures of him, but of course I had to do it! The following are some of what I got.
Ginger came down for the birthday and met us at the castle for the tour.
Just starting out at the front of the house. He's in costume, by the way. He wears his regular ranger uniform when he's not giving tours.
Here's Easter, in random order. The first one is, obviously, the cake. I wanted to put Easter eggs on the top but, not thinking ahead, I colored all the frosting green.
She really is having fun hunting eggs. Classic Kaiya face.
Examining the contents of the basket.
And the Easter morning shot. After waking up to an Easter basket, she was convinced that every morning she should be getting a present, and would ask where her present was upon waking each day. Having her Birthday the same week reinforced this idea with her, and it has taken a few weeks for her to realize that not every day is a present day. 