Monster Post!

Hi-dee ho everyone! I canNOT believe it has been a month since I last posted. How time flies when you have a newborn! I have sat down several times to post, I always get a little bit done, and then something always calls me away. (Imagine!) Somehow, today I have been able to complete my task. So here are a BUNCH of pictures of the last month's happenings.

To update you on Emma - she is doing just great! I think she is up to about 8.5 or 9 pounds now - kind of hard to tell when you use the "get on the scale holding her and then subtract my weight" method. She is "sleeping through the night" which means she wakes up twice for me to feed her and then goes right back to sleep - I am happy with that at this point! Mommy is getting sleep - that is a good thing!

OK, so on with the pictures!

My mom and dad have been here since 3 weeks before Emma was born. They have been a God-send. It really helps to have four extra loving hands! Thanks Mom and Dad! I love you!

This is my doula Loree. For those of you who don't know, a doula is a person who attends births as a support person - they are trained in ways to help comfort the laboring mom and techniques to progress labor - a big help when trying to go natural. Loree is a licenced massage therapist so that was a FABULOUS plus during labor!

One proud Papa!

At the end of February Bryan's sister Suzanne (Aunt Reeree to Alex and Rebekah) came for a visit. She is an awesome aunt - and Rebekah absolutely fell in love with her!

Rebekah's makeover with Aunt Reeree.

Rebekah "singing" with her preschool class at Vail Pride Day

We had a surprise quick visit from "Uncle Scott" (Bryan's cousin Tara's husband) Tara and Scott moved away from Tucson in October and they are greatly missed. Rebekah and Alex were especially excited to see him.

Of course I HAD to get a picture of him holding Emma!

This was Rebekah's expression from the minute Scott walked in the door.

My uncle Dale and cousin James came to Tucson from Denver to see the Rockies play the Cubs in spring training. They stopped by after the game and had dinner and a nice visit. Dale is my mom's brother so it was nice that my parents were still here to see them too.

Rebekah latched onto James right away.

Mom and Uncle Dale



EASTER!

We did Easter baskets and the egg hunt on Saturday as you will see the kids had a blast!

CANDY!!! From Grandma Melissa.

Rebekah shows off the bunny from Grandma Melissa.

Two years ago, when we lived in Ecuador, we had several friends over for a big Easter egg hunt in our backyard (we had a nice big backyard, a novel thing in Ecuador) there were about 10 kids, so we had to get plenty of plastic eggs so each kid got a decent number of eggs. Well, we kept the eggs and I decided to use them for our hunt. I had one bag of candy and figured I would put one peice of candy in each egg until I ran out of candy - I ended up with 73 eggs filled with candy and one left over. Needless to say, Alex and Rebekah had a blast!

Rebekah was running around grabbing eggs so fast I couldn't get a good picture of her face! Notice her basket overflowing with eggs - she had to give some to Alex so she could go get more eggs!

Grandma Melissa sent Emma this cute little bunny that says "My First Easter" on it. So cute! I know it's a fluke, but I love this picture because it looks like Emma is snuggling the bunny.

EASTER MORNING PHOTO SHOOT

Emma Elizabeth 5 weeks old

OK that's it! See you all next month! (hee hee)

Emma's first week

Well, it has been tough getting a minute to do this, but here are some pics of Emma's first week!

Day 3 (Monday) Home with my family!

Day 5 (Wednesday) Me and my big sister.

Day 6 (Thursday)

My first bath! I didn't make a peep!

1 week old!

Day 8 (Sunday)

Welcome Emma Elizabeth Shumway!

Emma Elizabeth Shumway was born February 16th at 3:20 pm. She weighed 7 lbs. 12 oz. and is 20 1/4 inches long.

I went into the hospital on Friday for a non stress test on the baby, since my blood pressure has been high. The baby looked great but my blood pressure was higher than it had been on previous visits, so after consulting with the doctor on duty decided it would be best to induce that night. I was already feeling light contractions, so they gave me something to nudge me along. By 2:00 am I was in active labor. By 7:00 am (or around then) I was dilated to 8cm and 5 hours later I had made little progress. I decided I had endured enough and to get things going a little faster I opted for a epidural and pitocin to get this baby on her way! We waited another hour or so for me to fully dilate and then after 50 minutes of pushing (not my strong point!) Emma was here!

Alex and Rebekah were SO excited to see thier baby sister. They passed up Mommy and went straight to her. They are still quite enamored with her and love to hold her. Rebekah really does a great job - Alex gives her about 20 kisses and hugs every time he holds her.

So the following pictures are of the "birth day" and the morning after when Alex and Rebekah brought "birthday presents" for Emma. I have a few more on the camera that I will hopefully download soon. Also some precious video - that takes a bit longer to get ready to put on the blog, so it may be a few days before you see that.

Weight

Length

Hi Daddy!
(too cute! the nurse took this one!)

head circumference

Birthday presents for Emma

Lisa, this blog's for you!

Thanks to my friend Lisa's heckling I have finally been motivated to post! Let's all say thanks Lisa!


Really, things have been quite ho hum here in the Shumway house. Mostly baby preparation has been going on. I am a week away from my due date. My blood pressure has gotten a bit high as of last week and has become a concern for my midwife. So far, according to all tests it is still just chronic hypertension and not pregnancy induced hypertension that is the scary kind. They did put me on modified bed rest (thankfully my mom and dad are here and have helped tremendously with the kids!) I have gone in for two non-stress tests on the baby, both of which were normal. I have an appointment with my midwife tomorrow and we will see if she thinks I can go another week or possibly induce early. So that is the update as far as the baby is concerened!

My other two munchkins are keeping us busy. Bryan was gone for a week last month and I was telling him all of the cute things the kids had been doing. One of which was Alex running out dressed in Rebekah's dress up ballerina outfit saying "Look Mommy! I'm a ballerina!" He twirled in the middle of the floor and exclaimed "I love it!" Bryan came home with the pirate outfit seen below and the day after he got home we went out and got the cowboy outfit. They were both a hit!

Well this is probably it until the baby comes - rest assured there will be plenty of "new baby" posts!