Playing in the Snow

Over the past week, we've gotten a few inches of snow, so we decided to take Abby out to play in it this morning. It started out like a scene from A Christmas Story - it turns out when she's in her snowsuit, Abby can't stand up when she falls down.



When we got out to the yard, Abby wasn't too sure what to do. She finally decided that it would be all right to walk around in the snow, kind of like she did with the leaves in the fall.



That worked out all right until the first faceplant. As it turns out, snow is a bit slippery. Abby's pretty good at falling and it doesn't usually bother her, but apparently dunking her face in the snow was a bit much, because for awhile after that all she wanted to do was swing. Not the most traditional way to play in the snow, but it made her feel a little better.



After awhile, we convinced her to come down from the swing and try playing in the snow again. She did all right while she watched Adam throw snowballs at the house, but pretty soon she faceplanted again, and decided that the snow was not for her. Eventually she decided that it would probably be all right to walk around on the driveway while Adam was shoveling, and that turned out to be her favorite part of playing in the snow. Well, other than coming back inside to have hot chocolate, of course!





Our other excitement recently has been getting Abby moved into her new room. She's been pretty excited about the new room and the new bed and the new bumpers on her crib. The room still needs some finishing - we have nothing on the walls yet, the bookshelves are empty, etc - but the transition has gone really well. Abby really likes living in there. She's especially a big fan of her little rocking chair. She had put it in the closet of the nursery and forgotten about it in there, so when it made the move to the new room she got really excited. She's not allowed to go upstairs to play by herself, so several times a day she asks me if we can go up and play with the rocking chair.





Yesterday we gave Nora her first tummy time that Abby was awake for, so they got to play together on the floor for a little bit. Abby had a great time laying down next to Nora, then getting up and running to the other side of her and laying down there, then getting up and running back. Most of the pictures we tried to take of them have Abby's face as a big blur because of that, but we did manage to get a couple of pictures of the girls together.

The Grand Old Duke of York

Abby's been doing a lot of singing lately. Mostly she'll only sing a song if she doesn't think that we're listening, but this afternoon we convinced her to sing The Grand Old Duke of York for us (with a little help).

Abigail and Eleanor

Abby's been doing well adjusting to Nora's arrival, though some moments are better than others. Provided she's reasonable well rested and fed I think it's safe to say Abby's excited to be a big sister.

Abby got to hold Nora for the first time today. Here are some pictures.

Abby also had an earl Christmas present from Grandma and Grandpa VanDuyne which she has really been enjoying lately.

A Few More Pictures of Eleanor

Sleeping with the blanket Mom made.






Sleeping last night (for a few minutes anyway).


Eleanor at 1 hour old.

Eleanor's Birth

When I thought about having Eleanor before she was born, I kind of imagined that it would be pretty similar to having Abby. Instead, she decided to let us know from the very beginning that she is her own person and would be doing things her own way. She started by coming early - two weeks before her due date! I've been saying for almost a month that the 21st would be a great day to be born, but that I was expecting her to be a few days late like Abby was. She decided to prove me wrong on both counts, and come even earlier. I'm so excited that she's here for Christmas! I already have grand plans to take her and Abby to see Santa next week and get a picture of their first Christmas together.

I also expected that going into labor would be the same as last time. The timing was almost the same - Abby's labor started around 10:00 PM and Eleanor's started around 10:30 PM - but that's about it. Adam and I had just gone to bed on Thursday when my water broke. We called my parents to come down and stay with Abby, and then started getting ready to head to the hospital. Since I really wasn't expecting her to come for another 3 weeks, I hadn't made any preparations at all. So I did a load of laundry to get the carseat and some baby clothes clean to take with us, packed the suitcase, and just tried to clean up the house a little bit in the few hours we had left. Another nice thing - since we weren't in a rush to get to the hospital this time, I got to take a LONG hot shower. Adam tried to sleep for awhile, but I was too excited about having Eleanor before Christmas. He kind of laughed at me, I was singing and dancing a little bit while I was getting things ready to go.

We got to the hospital at 3:26 (according to my wristband) and headed up to Labor and Delivery. We had decided to try a VBAC, but I was still considered a surgery risk because of having the c-section last time, so they hooked me up to a million monitors to make sure that everything was going well the whole time. By this point contractions had started, but weren't too bad, so we tried to get a little sleep. I know I didn't get any, and I don't think Adam got much either. Around 7 I got an epidural - which was a bit terrifying, but so great. What really pushed me to get it was that since I hadn't last time, I had to have general anesthesia and Adam couldn't be in the room when I had the c-section. I wanted to avoid that this time if we had to have another section. By that point I was in active labor, so the contractions were coming closer and more intense, so when the epidural kicked in and all I felt anymore was some pressure, but no pain, I was so happy that I had braved out the shot in the spine. Another bonus, without the pain I was able to get about an hour's worth of sleep.

It turns out that being in labor is kind of boring. I'm sure it's less boring if you're in intense pain the whole time, but with the epidural making me comfortable, there weren't too many distractions. I told Adam at one point that we should have brought a movie with us - The Muppet's Christmas Carol was sounding good. That lasted until about 1:00, when my epidural began to wear off. The anesthesiologist put something else into the epidural, which helped a little, but from then on I was feeling things again and suddenly labor didn't seem so boring.

Luckily, by about 2:00 I was ready to start pushing. My goodness, that hurt! At that point I was wishing that we had decided to go with another c-section instead of trying a VBAC, but it was a little late to make that switch. I really didn't think that I could do it, but as it turns out there's not really another option, so out she came. I only had to push for about half an hour, so I guess it wasn't really that bad, although at the time it felt like I'd been pushing for hours and that she was never going to come. The really great part about Eleanor's birth as compared to Abby's was that they gave her to me right away, and I got to hold her and see her right then, instead of it being 2 1/2 hours later. So for the next almost two hours, we just hung out in the delivery room as a family. They did all the measurements and everything, but mostly we just got to hold her and sing to her and all the fun stuff. We also got to eat, which was great since we hadn't eaten since 6:00 the night before. I don't think french toast ever tasted so good.

At 4:30 or so we moved up to the 11th floor and postpartum, and we've been here ever since. We're all pretty tired right now - Eleanor from being less than a day old, Adam and me from not really sleeping two nights in a row. I'd kind of forgotten that while you're in the hospital someone's stopping in every couple of hours to check you or the baby, and when you add in feeding the baby every 2 hours and then her not sleeping or crying for whatever reason, it makes for not a lot of sleep. But we're heading home this afternoon, so hopefully things will return to normal pretty soon.

Eleanor VanDuyne

Eleanor Joy VanDuyne was born on Friday, December 18th at 2:32pm. She weighs 6 pounds 7 ounces, is 20 inches long and has blond hair. Both mother and baby are doing great.

Getting ready for the Holidays

We haven't updated the blog in almost a month now so I thought I'd put something out there. We've been pretty busy getting ready for the holidays. We all put up the Christmas tree when we got back from Thanksgiving and Kristin's starting to decorate the house. Abby's not a big fan of the house decorations changing. It's been a week and she still asks about why the mantle is different every morning.

She's also learning to sing Jingle Bells.

We're toying with the idea of outside lights but we haven't gotten around to that yet. I feel like I'd be obligated to rake my leaves before that which is a definite con.

Some of Abby's new tricks include sliding down the stairs, 'on her bottom'. And helping mom organize the kitchen.

In other news, after almost 100 years of faithful service we finally lost our boiler to old age. It took a while, mostly just to pick the right contractor, but we have had a new one installed a few days ago. It turns out there are still quite a few contractors and manufacturers out there who work with steam. Once we gave someone the go-ahead they had the old one out and the new one in the next day, though it took them another day to get all the controls in.

It seems to be working pretty well now, though these things take some time to settle in.

The old boiler.

The new boiler.

Hopefully the new one will serve as well as the first.

We have the rooms painted now. We had a lot of trouble with the red and may need yet another coat. I'm not anticipating getting around to remaking the trim until next year.

The floors are mostly sanded as well. I've gotten the vinyl off of our bedroom and scraped most of the tar paper off as well. There's still a lot of glue but I'm hoping I can sand that off. If I can we'll probably stain and finish the floors this weekend.

Hopefully by next weekend we'll all be warm in our new rooms and preparing for Astronaut's arrival.

No one's going to freeze to death ... check
Everyone has a place to sleep ... check

That's a pretty good year I think.

Our Budding Percussionist

One of Abby's new favorite things is to turn something into a drum. It started the other day with a pie plate, and since then just about anything she can get her hands on gets turned upside down and banged on. It's such a classic toddler activity, but I think it's just adorable!

The 2nd Halloween

We had Abby's second Halloween this year. Kristin made Abby a bear costume several weeks ago and we've been working since before that to get Abby excited about Halloween. We have this little routine we go through:

Dad: Abby, what are you going to be for Halloween?

Abby: A BEAR!

Dad: What are you going to say?

Abby: ROAR!!

We had gone threw this little script everyday for maybe two months and we were feeling pretty good because Abby really gets excited and enjoys it. So this Saturday around 5:30 when it was time for Abby to get dressed and walk around to the neighbors I started the routine:

Dad: Abby, what are you going to be for Halloween?

Abby: NO!

Dad: What are you going to say?

Abby: No, No, NO!

Apparently, Abby did not want to be a bear for Halloween. Unfortunately for her, Kristin had already gone through a lot of trouble to make the costume so one way or another she was going to wear it. After much screaming and fit throwing while Mom and Dad put on her costume Abby was in fact a bear for Halloween.

After we put little pieces of a Hersey bar in her Elmo bucket she stopped throwing such a big fit, though she remained quite unhappy. (She's never learned a word as fast as she learned 'candy'.) You'll have to piece together several different shots to get a good idea what she looked like, as she was not all that cooperative.

Closest shot we have with the hood on.



Eating candy from Elmo.



Trying to save bear from the hood.

Hopefully she'll be more excited next year.

Other than that, Abby's been enjoying the leaves and the last days of warm weather.

Fall Update

With the seasons changing on us we've been up to all the fall activities as of late. We're spending some time trying to clean up the yard since the city will be taking leaf and stick pick ups over the next month or so. We also decided to get a home phone, let us know if you want the number.

It seems like one of our family traditions will be to visit the orchard and pumpkin patch every fall. We have a few pictures from that. This time, Abby really enjoyed pushing Gingham around in the wagon and running around outside. She walked the entire way to the pumpkin patch which was much farther than we ever thought she could walk.

Abby's really been enjoying the popper we bought her last year. She's getting pretty good with it, and Kristin says Astronaut likes hearing her run it too. Lucy, coward that she is, is terrified of Abby when she's using it.

Explosions!

Most of the family is exploding in one way or another lately. Adam spent the weekend working on the wiring in the two rooms that we're redoing, so his explosions weren't the best kind. Luckily no one got hurt and everything is still standing, so it wasn't too bad. It just took a couple of tries to get the power run up to the new subbox in the attic.

Abby's explosion has been in vocabulary. The latest BabyCenter email I got about her said that at her peak, she'd be picking up one new word every 90 minutes. I don't know if we're quite there yet, but she really is pulling out a lot of new words. Just in the last few days, she's started saying chair, keys, cheese, more, please, block, book, up, pillow, and mail, and probably a few others that I'm not thinking of right now. I took a little video of her saying pillow this morning, since she just kind of pulled it out of nowhere and I wanted to show Adam.



I feel like I'm exploding outwards, although it's really not that bad yet. I've just started to get to the mildly uncomfortable point as my stomach and lungs are getting compressed, and I also have a little bit of trouble making tight squeezes that I think I'll be able to make. Astronaut's not really exploding right now, though, so I'm not yet either. Friday marks the beginning of the third trimester for us! Then we'll see Astronaut start exploding, and probably me too since I'm supposed to gain about a pound a week for that time.

In Honor of Jenn, I'm Updating

It was pointed out to me this afternoon that we've been neglecting our updates lately. So while there hasn't been a whole lot going on lately, for Jenn we'll make a little post.

Two weekends ago my parents stopped by our house on their way home from vacation, and Meg came too since she didn't have a cross country meet. Dad and Adam spent most of the weekend working on the wiring in the rooms we're redoing, which involved a personal record of 5 trips to Home Depot in one day. I think every trip was for a different drill bit - apparently they were having some trouble drilling through the wall to run the wire up to the new subbox in the attic. We ended up losing one drill bit in the wall, and it's still in there, so in another 90 years when someone is redoing the rooms again they'll see the results of Adam and Dad's efforts.

This past weekend Adam's parents and Alex came to help put up drywall in the rooms. We have walls again!





It makes the rooms look a lot smaller, in my opinion, but I'm sure I'll get used to it soon. So there's still a little bit of drywall to put up in the closets, and then the taping and mudding and sanding and whatever all else you have to do to get the walls ready, but we're getting close to the part I've really been looking forward to - painting! We're thinking about a burgundy-ish red in our room, and we're not sure yet about Abby's new room. Part of me wants to wait until we know if Astronaut is a girl or a boy before we decide on a color, but we may just go ahead and pick something neutral before we know. There's still time - it'll be a few weeks before we're really ready to decide on paint colors.

Abby had a lot of fun playing with Grandma while the guys were working on the drywall. I think they had about 15 different dinner parties for all of her stuffed animals. I took advantage of the time to work on Abby's Halloween costume. She's going to be a bear this year - ROAR! The body is almost finished, and then I just need to make the hood. She may or may not wear it, but it'll be cute if she does. My goal is to finish it before I start working on October 19. I don't think that should be a problem - I still have a few Friday mornings when Kaylin's watching Abby to finish up.

Abby's been helping me rearrange all of the cabinets in the kitchen for a few weeks now, but this evening she figured out how to get the drawers opened up, too.

In Honor of Labor Day, He Labored

Adam has been very hard at work this weekend. He took off Thursday and Friday, so he's spent the last 5 days working on the two rooms upstairs, pretty much from 7 in the morning until 6 in the evening. It's made me feel a little bad for not really helping out, but in my defense I offered and was refused (he was afraid that I'd breathe in something that's bad for the baby or work too hard and hurt the baby or something along those lines). But he's made great progress! We're completely torn out now (he had ceilings, lath, and insulation to deal with) and he's also started on the rewiring.

Here he is, hard at work!


We didn't think that we had that much left to tear out, but clearly we were wrong. This is our second dumpster, filled to the brim:


It's not as big as the first one, but that's still a lot of stuff that had to be taken out. But now the rooms are looking great! Adam tells me there's still a lot of work to do before his dad and brother come in two weeks to help him put up the new drywall, but I'm impressed with how much he's gotten done.

Here's our room:


And here's Abby's room:


I've mostly spent the last few days trying to convince Abby that it's not as terrible as she thinks that Dad is upstairs working. She does a pretty good job, but she just doesn't understand why he's home and not playing with her. Frequent trips out of the house have helped a little! Today we went to the park, and she spent probably half an hour pushing her stroller around (Gingham was riding in the basket in the bottom) and bringing me rocks to look at.

I've also been able to start on a baby blanket for Astronaut. I had a little bit of drama getting the yarn - I ordered it online during an online only sale, and never got a confirmation email. When I called a few days later to see what was going on, they told me that my order hadn't been processed, but of course by then the sale was over. Not really that big of a deal, but I'm super emotional these days, so of course it felt like the end of the world. Luckily, I had called Adam crying earlier, so I didn't actually cry on the phone with the guy at Jo-Ann's, and he was very nice and very helpful and gave me the sale price and free shipping, so it all turned out all right. And even though they said it would take 5 - 10 business days to get my order, it actually came two days later, so I've been working on the first blanket in the evenings. I started with the girl blanket because the darker pink is my favorite of all the colors that I got, but the boy blanket will look the same, only with two shades of blue.



There isn't much to report on the Astronaut front. I'm pretty sure he's still breech, based on where I feel his kicks. According to Babycenter this week, he's about the size of a large mango, and my Your Pregnancy Week by Week book says he's the size of a small doll. So I'm really not sure how big that is. I guess those could be about the same size. But we go for the next prenatal appointment on Friday, so we should at least be able to hear his heartbeat and be reassured that everything's looking great!

Animal Sounds

The other day I captured an extended video of Abby's animal sounds. She really enjoys making animal sounds. As you can tell she also thinks tails are great.

Conquering Her Fears

It's been four months since Abby last climbed the stairs, and in the intervening time she had decided that stairs were terrifying. Then a couple of weeks ago, she decided they might not be too bad, but only if Mom or Dad was holding her up while she climbed them. But this morning, with a little moral support from Elmo, she conquered those stairs!

Stimulating the Economy

We're doing our part to get the economy back on track - this afternoon we bought a minivan! It's a 2009 Volkswagen Routan SE in Antigua Blue. I think they threw some more acronyms at us, but that's about all I remember. I have mixed feelings. Part of me is pretty excited about buying a new car, and it's a pretty nice one. But at the same time, that's one more giant step towards being a soccer mom, and I always swore I'd never get a minivan. But that ship has sailed, so I guess I'll have to just focus on being excited about all that we're getting. Although I am sad to have traded in D'Artagnan. He was a good little car.



The van is definitely a lot swankier than D'Artagnan was, though. We were excited about the basics that come standard on just about everything anymore - power windows and locks, cruise control, LATCH system, that kind of thing. But we got so much more than that too. Adam's particularly excited about the auto-dimming rearview mirror. His old car had that, and he's missed it since we've started doing all of our traveling at night. Another cool feature, although I don't know how much we'll actually use it, is that the third row of seats rotates 180 degrees to face out the back for tailgating or a drive-in or something like that.

Here's the auto-dimming rearview mirror that's made Adam so happy:


We ended up getting a few things that we didn't necessarily want since they were in the one that the dealer had. So we now have the ability to play not one, but two DVDs (can't expect the kids in the 2nd and 3rd rows to watch the same thing), a hard drive to store our music so that we don't have to bring CDs in and out of the car, a touchscreen radio, satellite radio, a sunroof, a power lift rear gate, remote start, automatic doors (can't expect the kids to close a door), an engine block heater (useful if we ever move to Minnesota), all sorts of swanky things.

The next trick was to make sure that it fit in the garage. Surprisingly, it's a tighter fit lengthwise than heightwise, but we were able to get it in this evening, even with all of the other stuff we have stored in there from our myriad on-going house projects. I think Adam's a little worried about me running it into the wall, though. He mentioned hanging up a string or something where we should stop the front of the car to make it fit in there.

It's a . . .

surprise!

We had our 20 week ultrasound yesterday, and our first chance to see Astronaut. The first thing we learned was that he's breech right now (but not a big deal because there's plenty of time for him to turn around). Unfortunately, breech is a bad position for gender determination, and we weren't able to tell whether we're having a boy or a girl. The ultrasound technician thought we'd come back in 3 weeks for another look, since he wasn't able to get all of the measurements and checks that they look for, but at the appointment following the sonogram the nurse told us that our doctor usually doesn't have people come back until 32 weeks. So it looks like it'll be the middle of November before we get a chance to find out whether he's a boy or a girl.

We also found out that the hospital has changed their policy, and they no longer let you get a video of the ultrasound like we had for Abby. That was a bit of a disappointment. We did get a few pictures though, so that was exciting. And everything is looking good so far. We were able to see all the important parts (heart, brain) and the fun parts (face, hands). And everything seems to be measuring at right around 20 weeks, which is where the original due date had us. I was hoping that they'd find out that we were actually due a week earlier and Astronaut would be here in time for Christmas, but it looks like we'll have more of a New Year's baby.

Here are the pictures we have from the ultrasound: