In Celebration Of Emmie's 2nd Birthday

1. How long had you been married at the time of the birth? 4 years, 1 month and 13 days.

2. What were your reactions when you found out that you were pregnant? Over the moon excited, elated, worried, happy, concerned and just surprised!

3. How old were you? I was 24 when I found out and 25 when she was born.

4. How did you find out that you were pregnant? I took a series of home pregnancy tests, followed by two tests at the Naval Hospital.

5. Who did you tell first? Since I was out running errands when I found out I called everyone I knew except for Paul. I wanted to surprise him! (Funny story, Mattie and I were out and she practically dared me to take a test so we bought one at Dollar Tree and I took it in the Tuesday Morning bathroom. The employees did look a bit concerned when she and I started jumping up and down like idiots and crying!) I ended up bringing him a chinese food takeout box purchased at a craft store. Inside was a teeny tiny t-shirt with the test wrapped in it. I told him I brought him some leftover lunch, and when he looked inside he was shocked!

6. Did you find out the sex? I had to! From the very beginning, I knew in my heart of hearts that this baby would be a girl. So, if the baby ended up being a boy I would need time to adjust. Plus, I had to shop! What else was I going to fill my days with!

7. Due date? January 20th, 2008

8. Did you deliver early or late? Quite early. My body decided it could no longer agree with being pregnant and decided to shut down. Emersen entered this world 3 weeks and 2 days early.

9. Did you have morning sickness? Not so bad, only for about a month but I quickly learned that eating small amounts of food before I got hungry to eat would stave off the sickness.

10. What did you crave? Sandwiches! Any kind of sandwich anytime! I most craved Quiznos but if I would eat it I would feel sick! So, I stuck to homemade sandwiches mostly!

11. Who irritated you most? I didn't spend a lot of time irritated, but one day I did throw a box of ziploc bags at Paul for being sassy!

12. What was your first child's sex? The most girly of all girls.

13. How many pounds did you gain throughout your first pregnancy? Not much at all. The first half of the pregnancy agreed with my body and I actually lost weight and grew a healthy baby at the same time!

14. Did you have any complications during your pregnancy? None during the pregnancy, unless you count the delivery!

15. Where did you give birth? At Madigan Army Medical Center, which was one harrowing fifty minute ride in the snow, in an ambulance with the lights on. Yikes.

16. How many hours were you in labor? I'd been having some major contraction/liver failure pain from the 21st through my hospital admittance. I remember spending Christmas on the floor with pillows everywhere and a heating pad on my belly. In hindsight, I should have seen the clues! The hospital paper work says total labor was 80 hours!

17. Who drove you to the hospital? Paul drove me to the Naval Hospital, and my fabulous ambulance driver Mitch and his sidekick Dave flew my chariot to MAMC.

18. Who watched? Um, pretty much everyone was an active participant. Nicole F. held my hand through the crazy contractions. My mom massaged my poor super swollen feet and hands, and provided chapstick....a vital part of labor! Paul was there for moral support but the poor thing looked like a lost dog!

19. Did you take medicine to ease the pain? Yes I did. Paul and I had planned for a drug and medical intervention free birth, but that plan went out the window when I was diagnosed with Pre-Eclampsia and HELLP syndrome. Having to be strapped down to a bed with countless monitors for me and the baby, it was quite painful. I resisted medication to ease the pain, thinking I could do it myself. However, when the contractions became to painful to breathe through and since breathing was all I could do (could not walk around, take a bath etc) I decided it was time to get an epidural.

20. How much did your baby weigh? She was just a little peanut at 5 pounds, 1 ounce. The doctor's had estimated seven pounds, but that was strictly by my weight gain, and I had gained an extra ten or so pounds in fluid alone those last couple of days.

21. What did you name your first born baby? Emersen Lynn S****. Her middle name is after my mom, as my middle name is after my mom's mom. I'm hoping she'll continue that tradition.

22. How old is your baby today? She is a bouncy 1 year, 11 months and 16 days.

Apparently, photographing babies is a lot of fun!

This last week, I've had the pleasure of photographing Logan, a sweet patient baby boy who has endured a lot in his few weeks on this planet. He was an awesome little trooper, he let me move him all over the place! A select few of my favorite can be seen here.

This is week four of Miss Makenna's portrait "study." She was much more alert and aware of things going on this week! My favorites are here.

Pee pee on the pott-ay! I know one day, she'll probably hate me for putting this picture in the blog-o-sphere but I couldn't help it! Reading on the potty, she's totally taking after daddy and papa!

Seattle Aquarium

I found Nemo!

He was here the whole time, at the Seattle Aquarium.

With a gorgeous day set before us, my little family and some close friends went on an adventure! We caught the 12:35 ferry at 12:33...just made it! Otherwise we would have had to wait until three o'clock and then it would have been pointless to try and go.

The ferry ride was uneventful, and I found myself wishing wishing WISHING that I had a telephoto lens for my camera. Ugh, photography is going to be an expensive hobby/career.

You can find more pictures from our day at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/thenavywife21

Pregnant bellies, newborn babies and adorable toddlers beware!

Armed with only my Canon Rebel and Picasa, I've set out to capture this moment. The elusive, beautiful, safe moment when a mother holds her baby before anyone else can for one of the last times.


And this moment. The one where the brand new mama lets her baby's father in on the secret she has shared with her son for nine months.

This is another one of my favorites. This little boy has no idea how much his new sister is going to change things. Although her existence will show him how much his parents loved him when he was born.


And this one, when splashing in the bath tub is second only to mommy and daddy kisses.

I love my camera!

Congratulations have been in order...

Congratulations to my sister, and her wonderful fiance David. They are officially engaged! I'm so happy for them, because they fit each other perfectly.

Along with their enormous brains, they share a home in Boston, MA where they have amassed many friendships, books and one big ol' kitty.

I got the chance to use my new camera (you'll soon be tired of photos, I swear) and took a photograph of her gorgeous ring.

Nicole and I also had the chance to do some wedding talk, which gets me all atwitter and excited about Brides magazine, colors, themes, venues, flowers, dresses, food, music...I could go on forever!

But I won't. For now, this is for Nicole and her amazing engagement ring and for David who is the second luckiest man on earth. He gets to marry one of my parents daughters! (My husband is the luckiest, because he's the father of my daughter!)

My Review of Princess Cozy Coupe® 30th Anniversary Edition

LIttle Tikes

Little girls will beam behind the wheel of this smiling new redesign! This cozy features colors and styling to please every little princess. 

Features include a removable floor for foot-to-floor powering or protected feet while an adult pushes the car with the cut-in handle.&#...

Princess Cozy Coupe® 30th Anniversary Edition

Adorably obnoxious!

seriouslymommy Silverdale, WA 8/11/2009

 

4 5

Pros: Fun, Durable

Cons: Difficult To Assemble

Best Uses: Toddler, Outdoors

Describe Yourself: Stay At Home Parent, First Time Parent

This is an awesome toy, and the fact that it is harder to put together than a scale version of the Eiffel Tower using silly putty and carpet fibers didn't matter once I let my 20 month old daughter loose on it.

The front posts are extremely difficult to put in. Following the advice of another reviewer, we heated the ends of the posts with our hairdryer for about thirty seconds. It worked, and went together quite easily after that.

()

Picture-Palooza!

So, instead of trying to remember all the things that have happened since I posted pictures on this thing, I'm going to pick random pictures from the batch I uploaded today and write about them. This should be good.


Oh yeah! We took a road trip to California, with our friend Kim and her daughter Annabelle. We pit stopped in Rogue River, OR to see Uncle Dave and Aunt Lisa and the kids. We also stopped at every.single.mall.playground from Portland to Chico because while Emersen did handle the drive beautifully, it was taxing on all of us.

While in Napa, we ventured out to PB&J's for some awesome playtime. Emersen LOVES this place so much. I thought it would be intimidating, because every bounce house in there is so enormous, but not so much for her! Even now when she sees an air mattress, she bounces on it for dear life if she is allowed! (Clearly, she's tortured here...)



Here, Emersen is getting ready for the Vallejo farmer's market. She always looks like a tiny celebrity with her sunglasses on. She even wears them in restaurants. When waiters/waitresses comment, I always say "Oh, you didn't know you were serving a celebrity today did you!"


They laugh, and she gets a kick out of it as well. She asks for her sunglasses in the car, at the mall and it's truly hilarious when I'm strolling her around the mall and she's talking to Nana on the phone with her sunglasses on.














Here we are on the fourth of July. This was before the barbeque we were invited too. I love this, because it shows how much she and I look alike! I believe those are my eyebrows, my nose and my cheeks!











In this picture on the right, Ben is riding in his kite buggy, while Emersen pushes him. It's only fair, I mean she gets to ride in it all the time! See!









We drive the twenty minutes it takes to get to Bainbridge Island all the time. They have a super clean park with a huge field for Paul and our friend Ben to fly kites while the kids play!

Eventually the sun hides behind the trees and we must gather the troops and head out, all of us starving because we've played so hard! Everyone sleeps so good on those nights!



Here we have Emersen and Jason, sitting down on the main road in Silverdale. No, they aren't being punished, we are waiting for the Whaling Days Parade to start! Emersen had such a good time watching everyone go by, and grabbing candy when it was thrown. Also, when the marching bands would go by, or anyone with music for that matter she would get up and start dancing! Shaking that cute booty all over the place! Completely, and totally adorable.

Well, that's about it for now. I have some other pictures as well, and they'll be on Picasa (and I'll post the link) if Paul lets me put the program on his laptop. SO much more comfortable to sit on the couch and write while watching Hell's Kitchen or what not.

A pirate says "ARRR"