My sweet, sweet baby!

Our sweet baby Ambria was welcomed into our family with joyful hearts on Sunday, November 21st at 3:35pm. She weighed 7 lbs 10 oz, was 20 inches long and has black hair! (That makes one of each for hair color...we hope it stays dark.)Everything went perfectfully. I had a very easy labor and delivery and the recovery is going well, although I am exhausted! We have greatly appreciated the help of family and are glad they are close by to enjoy our baby with us.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

Ready to turn in my parking pass

Dear pregnancy,

This letter is to thank you for the ride and inform you that I am ready for my journey to be through. Before I turn in my expectant mother parking pass, there are just a few things I feel I ought to say.
We got off to a bit of a rocky start in the first trimester. You should know that in my opinion, morning sickness (make that ALL DAY sickness) is a terrible way to get someone excited about having their fourth child. I clearly already had my hands full with three. A new baby sounds cute and exciting when you feel well, but when you are sick for three months, just the thought of all the work of a new baby could bring me to tears. The thought of about anything besides rainbow sherbet and mashed potatoes brought me to tears. I had a hard time getting excited for a baby when I was hardly excited about living. During that phase, the world around me was spinning all the time and I had zeal for nothing. I wanted only to stay curled up in a ball on my couch all day, every day. Thank heavens I had kids to take care of (including the two extra kindergarteners I was babysitting at the time)to get me out of bed and dressed each day. The break from cooking was a thoughtful gesture; too bad I couldn't feel well enough to enjoy it. I had started a few spring projects just before you came, the thought of which completing still makes me nautious to this day.


The sun started bursting through the clouds a couple weeks into the second trimester and aside from some very painful sciatica, it was a comfortable few months. I found the joy in life again and in decorating for holidays and cooking and eating and exsisting. I was grateful to feel like myself again; something I had once doubted would ever happen. We had surprisingly been able to keep you a secret until then and it was fun to finally start to get excited as I began feeling well and people began to discover the news. This was the trimester during which our family moved and it was a very busy time and days and weeks passed by quickly.
The third trimester has also moved along rather quickly. You have been kind to me these past couple months. I have been grateful to feel relatively comfortable overall and had very little swelling or other discomforts. While sleep during pregnancy is never easy, it has been better than in some previous pregnancies. Most of my greatest frustrations these past two trimesters have involved wardrobe issues and the challenge of picking the perfect name for the baby. That is until the past week or two. I am openly uncomfortable now. I feel (and I am)huge. I can barely get my socks on my own feet. Sleep is tough and I am tired all the time. My tummy hurts a lot not to mention whatever it is the baby is resting on! Braxton Hicks are quite painful the fourth time around and if this had been my first pregnancy and I had not known better, I'd have thought I was in labor a couple times already. Everything is in order at home; the baby's things are washed and set up, the name has been chosen (I think), and I am now feeling ready for the baby's arrival both physically and emotionally. I am rapidly becoming miserable and impatient, so please, accept this as my two weeks notice.
Please feel free to send the stork and release me from my pregnancy duties at an earlier time. I am ready to begin my new position as a mother of four.



Sincerely,

Yours truly

October

In October we enjoyed the first snowfall of the season; my grandma's 90th birthday (I had the privilege of making the cake); and a Happy Halloween. Alexis and Allie both dressed up as witches, Aubrey went trick or treating as a cowgirl and I decided to go dressed as "the old woman who swallowed a fly."