2011 in Review

I like to go through and highlight my year in a blog post. This should be fun considering I barely blogged in 2011!

A big highlight through the Spring was the many youth events. We started a Small Group on Sunday nights, went Skiing with the youth, went to a Dare 2 Share Conference, had an Amazing Disciple Now and a fun packed Easter.

 

 

   
 I found out I was pregnant the beginning of March and had my first doctor's appointment April 6! That was one of the best days seeing that little baby and hearing her heart.

In April, the house we were renting that was for sale ended up selling so we moved in with friends in the basement with our animals and my pregnant self. It actually ended up being a great solution for us because we only needed short term housing. We are so grateful for great friends!

At the beginning of May we sold our lovely Indiana house. It was a great first house for us and really fun to make our own.

In May Joe and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary early and spent some time in Washington DC. We visited Georgetown Cupcakes where the film DC cupcakes, all the monuments,

In May we also took our Seniors to New York City. I had only been in New York City more in passing so we had a blast sight seeing. We saw a Mets Baseball game, saw Mary Poppins on Broadway and of course the Statue of Liberty!

In June we bought our house in Virginia! We went out looking one time and found this great deal on a foreclosure and knew it was for us. Hopefully I will be posting more pictures of what we have done with it so far.

I also started showing in June and had fun taking pictures of the progress. (17 and 19 weeks)

We found out we were having a girl on June 22! I had a feeling all along that she was girl.

Then in June, Joe went on a mission trip to India with our church. He was an awesome time and saw many people come to the Lord and churches started. I love the Kurta he brought back for me! I am about 21 weeks here.

 In July I started to get bigger ( here is 24 weeks)

 

In August, Joe's family came to visit us in our new home. I was very thankful that we had room to accommodate 7 more people in our house. We did all kinds of fun things like baseball games, riding horses, visiting Virginia beach.

At the end of the month, we survived our first Hurricane, Hurricane Irene. We were without power for 6 days, count em! Except after the first day I demanded a generator so after fighting crowds, waiting for hours, we came home with a generator, praise the Lord! We were lucky in that we had no damage to our house.

In September, we traveled back to Indiana to have a baby shower at our home church. Let's just say that traveling 7 months pregnant is not the funnest thing I have done! But we came back with a huge car load of blessings for Amelia

We also started getting Amelia's Nursery ready in September complete with painting and new carpet. The downstairs got whole new laminate hardwood flooring after we ripped up all of the carpet. Whew!

In October my parents came over for my baby shower at church. We put them to work getting ready for the baby. We got all the furniture put together, the baby clothes washed and organized, and the nursery started looking like a nursery!

  Also the Birthplace through a sweet baby shower for me and this was the cute cake!

The beginning of November was spent in anxious anticipation for our Baby Girl. I felt huge! Thanksfully I had a week off of work before she actually came. It was nice trying to relax some before. Here is me at 39 weeks.

 Of course the highlight of the year was the birth of Amelia Grace. You can read all about that here!

Both sets of Grandparents spent the week here visiting and loving on Amelia Grace

We also had our first major holiday just with the three of us on Thanksgiving complete with a Cracker Barrel meal.




Our lives became baby baby baby! We love it!

In December, Joe remodeled the youth room to become the Student Center. It involved knocking down several walls to create one huge room!

And Finally we traveled home for Christmas.

There we go the officially longest post ever but this is what happens when you don't blog :)

________________________________________

Subscribe to my blog here Twitter me here Pin It Now!

Christmas 2011

Get Ready For Picture Overload!

We celebrated Amelia's First Christmas in Indiana! We traveled throught the night the Sunday night before Christmas. We left after a Christmas party and decided to go as far as Amelia would let us. She actually did really great in the car. She woke up twice to feed. She was fussy when we put her back in the carseat but stopped crying after 10 minutes or so. The next week was spent showing off our Amelia Grace. She met her Great Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins.

Everything was an opportunity for a photo shoot!

Highlights of the week:
Amelia took her first bottle to start getting ready for me going back to work. She took it like a champ!

She also slept through the night Decemeber 23! She slept from 8:30 to 5:30. I was so proud! However I woke up at 3:00 and never could go back to sleep. I guess my body had gotten used to being woken up all night.

Amelia also met Santa! My Grandmother's Assisted Living Home had Santa and Friends visit so Amelia came to meet Santa. I enjoyed getting a free picture with Santa without waiting in lines at the mall! Amelia wore her Santa outfit for Santa but she was so excited she fell asleep before he got there! :)

  

Amelia met her Cousins Mikah, Hudson, and Camden

 

Funny Story My parents dog Bailey loved Amelia. I was actually nervous how he would be all week with her but wherever Amelia was, Bailey wanted to be too. I know he misses her now!

 

She had her first Hupp Family Christmas which is Joe's large family. It was nice to add Amelia to our annual staircase photos.

 

  

Amelia was very blessed this Christmas with clothes, toys, books, her window seat cover! We had to use Joe's parents luggage rack to be able to get everything home! We traveled through the day on Tuesday and Amelia still did really good. But I could tell that she was over her car seat! Poor baby!

 

Did you have a good Christmas?

 

 

 

  ________________________________________
Subscribe to my blog here Twitter me here Pin It Now!

Amelia: 1 Month

It's hard to believe that my baby girl is One Month! It's been the fastest and also the longest month I can remember. You would think that after carrying this child for 9 months that I would know all about her but we still had to get to know each other, her personality, likes, and dislikes.

We haven't gone to the doctor so I do not have any updated stats on her. She is now eating every 2 1/2-4 hours during the day and going 3-4 hours at night. She has always been a great nurser for me. I think we both picked up it like champs! She was 8 pounds 2 oz at birth and dropped to 7 pounds 11 ounces. Four days later she was 8 pounds 4 ounces. Her Pediatrician was impressed!

She sleeps right next to me at night. We did have quite a few rough nights there for a couple of weeks but she now will wake up, I'll change her diaper, feed her. She usually falls asleep laying on my chest and then I'll put her in her sleeper.

She is definitely a mommy's girl, and likes to be held. She will now go in her swing and be content awake but that usually lasts 20 minutes. She can be pretty fussy at times but I think we are starting to outgrow it.

We were worried how to dogs would react to the new princess in the house but they have been great with her. Cooper gets a little jealous but he just tries harder to get me to pet him. They love to greet her whenever we get home.

Amelia has changed our lives for the better. We couldn't imagine our family without her, and she is of course worth the wait! We love you baby girl!



________________________________________

Subscribe to my blog here Twitter me here Pin It Now!

Months to Catch Up

I obviously have months of catching up to do on this blog. Somehow, blogging wasn't as fun. I was still reading blogs almost daily but never found the interest to update my own!
Now as we are a family of three with a little one, I realize that blogging is beneficial. I started this blog to keep our family who was away on our lives and to be able to chronicle our adventures. It's entertaining at least to me to be able to look back at what was happening in our lives at a certain time. Now I realize that I don't want to forget these early days so look forward to more updating in the future and hopefully some back logging over what's been going on while I was gone!
________________________________________
Subscribe to my blog here Twitter me here Pin It Now!

Amelia Grace's Birth Story

(Warning: this post is extremely long and detailed! I wrote this more for me so I could remember this :) 
Amelia Grace was due November 8. I had stopped working the week prior to give myself a break and prepare for this little one to arrive so needless to say we were anxiously awaiting her arrival. Joe and I had been taking regular walks on the walking trail in our neighborhood trying to get this baby moving in the right direction. The day before my due date, I even tried some Wii Just Dance but that only produced laughing fits from me instead of contractions. That night we went out for some Chinese food, just in case the Old Wive's Tale was true. I went to bed crampy.
The morning of my due date, I woke up having noticeable contractions every 15ish minutes. During the morning, they would wake me up from sleeping. I had my 40 week appointment right before lunch. I am not sure but I was really nervous about this appointment to begin with. My doctor was out of the office for the week so I was seeing someone completely new and I knew that I was going to have an ultrasound, which I had not had one since 20 weeks. My Blood Pressure was elevated when I got there, like 150's/90's. We had our ultrasound which confirmed she was head down and still definitely a girl. It also confirmed that she had no room and her face was smooshed. 
Then we go to the room where they hook me up to do a NST, which confirmed my contractions having every 5ish minutes, but still not more painful. But being a L&D nurse, I loved looking at the strip and seeing a happy healthy strip! :) We saw the doctor who checked me; I had made no change since last week.  He looked at my strip but made no mention of my contractions and was about to leave when he saw my BP. He tracked down a cuff and he got the same reading. He had me sit tight then rechecked it a few minutes later and decided to send me to L&D to get checked out. I snacked on some saltines on the way over and got to the hospital.
I was admitted and hooked up to the monitors. I was still having contractions that were getting more painful. After a couple of hour my BP had calmed down. The nurse checked me and I was still 1-2 cm. They decided to go ahead and keep me and induce me in the morning. Now previously I was against getting induced but at that point I was ready to meet my little girl. They let me eat dinner which I scarfed down, but continued to contract. My nurse gave me an Ambien to help me sleep. I have never taken anything like that before. It gave me crazy dreams. I woke up around 2:30 with pretty painful contractions. My nurse checked me and finally I was 3-4, finally in labor making change. The Ambien still made me a little loopy but I agreed to IV pain medicine and to go ahead and get my epidural. The IV med helped and I fell back asleep. 
I got my epidural around 5a. They made Joe leave, which I thought was really strange. I was really wondering how it felt to get an epidural. Being a L&D nurse, I see patient's getting epidurals or spinals almost every shift. Some patients act like its completely fine and some act like its the worst thing ever. I personally didn't think it was that bad at all. The nurse checked me afterwards and said I was 4-5. The epidural was great because I could still move my legs but completely numb. 
The doctor, Dr Hyde came and broke my water around 7ish and called me 5-6 cm. He said I should have my baby before lunch. The Ambien still made me pretty sleepy so I slept off and on all morning. Around 10:30a, I started feeling my contractions more and soon they became very painful. I was 8-9 cm. My nurse offered me to get redosed for my epidural. I got redosed twice and finally started getting relief. Around 12:15, I started feeling more and more pressure. I tried to hold off calling the nurse, but finally did and the charge nurse check me and said I was 10 cm and the baby was very low. Dr Hyde was called and we started pushing. Even though she was low, I heard him say that I was going to have some pushing to do. He told me that I may even need a vacuum to help since I was small.

With getting redosed, I could feel my contractions but now really feel pushing, the complete opposite of what I needed. I pushed for about 15 minutes before the doctoHr came back to check on me. We decided to go ahead with the vacuum. As I was about to deliver, Joe announced that he needed to sit down. The nurses quickly sat him down and got him a wet wash cloth. Joe told me later that he was trying to suck it up but started to get dizzy since he hadn't eaten anything. Finally at 1:19 pm on Novemeber 9, Amelia Grace was born crying. I got to hold her for a minute before they took her to clean her off. They announced she was 8 pounds and 2 ounces and 21 1/4". Interestingly, my whole pregnancy everyone thought I was small and would have a small baby. Ha!

 

The yucky part of delivery was I was a really bad tear. The doctor said it was a big baby through a small space. And interestingly, redheads tend to bleed more. It took almost an hour to get me all put back to together again. My epidural bag ran out while I was pushing and had to get numbing shots to get through   the repair. At this hospital, they try to give you an hour with your baby and then take her to the nursery for her assessment and first bath. Since my repair was taking so long, I said it was okay to go ahead and send her to the nursery. After the doctor was done, I was still out of it from the Ambien (I have no plans on taking that anytime soon!) The nurse finally got my bleeding under control after a few different medications and Joe and I slept.
My parents arrived around 4:30 and Amelia still was in the nursery. Finally around 5pm she came back to us and I really got to hold my little girl who I waited on. She was perfect and beautiful!

Thank you God for this precious gift of Amelia Grace!
________________________________________
Subscribe to my blog here Twitter me here Pin It Now!