Christmas and Blair's Baptism

It's been a while since i posted anything so i thought now was as good a time as any to do so. the house is quiet now that the girls are asleep. we had a busy week last week. i took megan to see the 8th floor at Macy's on tuesday of last week. we went with Grandma Donna, Aunt Cindi, and cousins Jordan, Stephanie, Madison and Ryan. We had a good time and then went to the Olive Garden for lunch. Wednesday was Christmas Eve at Donna's with all the Roehl family. Megan had a blast and Blair just watched and got held by everyone. I think it was more fun for me since i got to open most of the girls presents. thursday we had my sister and her family over for breakfast and present opening and that evening we went to her house for dinner. Friday we met up with everyone for Jordan's 16th birthday dinner. Saturday my cousin Ellen got married and then on Sunday we had Blair's baptism and then went to go and see Nick's grandma for the afternoon.
One of the biggest thing that happened was that Megan started to walk. She is still a bit unsteady on her feet but is starting to get more daring and taking more steps. Blair is super cute. she is 3 months old now and likes to be tickled. she has the cutest laugh. she smiles at everything and is a really happy baby. I go back to work on January 5th. i have mixed feelings about it. it will be nice to talk to grown-ups again but at the same time Blair is at that fun age and i will miss watching her learn new things.

Blair's 2 month appointment

Yesterday we took Blair to the doctor for her 2 month well visit. she weighs 11 lbs 7.2 oz (75th percentile) , her head is small (5-10th percentile) and her height is in the 60th percentile. she is doing all the things she should be doing at this point (cooing, drinking a lot, figuring out her hands, etc...). she has amazing head/neck control from what i have seen. we are lucky because Megan had the same trait. Blair also got a bunch of shots. not too fun but she is tough and took them like a pro. she barely cried and was easy to settle down. today she is a bit crabby and every time i try to put her to sleep in her bed, she wakes up and starts to cry. It's very frustrating but we are slowly working on transitioning her from the bassinett to her crib before i go back to work on January 5th.

9 years ago today...

We said goodbye to our mother. I remember so much of her last months with us. Mostly i remember her strength in the face of a battle she would eventually lose. She taught me how to be strong and for that I am eternally grateful to her for. The day she told me that she had liver cancer, she said that she would always be with me. I have never doubted it for a minute. She was with me on my wedding day, the day my father died and when Megan was sick in the PICU.

I am so lucky to have such wonderful guardian angels.

I miss and love you mom!!

Megan's first steps!!

This evening as i was making sure that Megan didn't do any permanent damage to Blair who was sitting in the baby papasan, the most wonderful thing happened...Megan took her first steps!! i can't believe i was actually there to see it either. She was standing by the papasan and all of a sudden she was no longer holding on and then she shuffled her feet (2 little steps) and was moving. As soon as it happened, it was over with and she was back to crawling. i immediately called nick to tell him, it was that exciting. later on in the evening she stood again on her own. i don't think it will be too long and she will be walking on her own. I can't wait for the day to come, yet i am nervous because then my baby will no longer be my baby. she will be a full fledged toddler ready to take on the world.

I thought...

that your brain cells were supposed to "regenerate" after you had a baby. I am obviously still waiting for that to happen. Case in point - About a week or so after i had Blair, a friend and I went to Target to go shopping. The lady who was checking us out asked me what the name of my baby was and how old. I totally spaced and for the life of me i could not remember her name. Thank God for Lin who was kind enough to tell the lady Blair's name. Another example - I ordered announcements for Blair's arrival. I thought we bought enough. Not the case at all. I went online and ordered another set of 24 pictures thinking that was going to be enough. WRONG!!! I had to go back online again and order ANOTHER set of 24. I hope for the sake of everyone out there that i get my brain cells back before something terrible happens like I forget my own name.

Going on Week 5

Blair is almost 5 weeks old (as of this coming Monday). the sleep we are getting is still iffy. Pathetic actually. Blair sleeps well at the beginning of the night and then it is downhill from there. she makes the most noises of any baby i have ever met. she gruts, groans, stirs, high pitch cries, etc... Needless to say, between the hours of 4 and 8am, nick and i are tossing and turning. Actually, at that point i am exhausted and able to fall asleep till she needs to be fed again. nick on the other hand is up most of that time and getting frustrated by the minute. Right now Blair is sleeping. i wonder why i am not doing the same and i figure it is because the only thing i have had for dinner has been Halloween candy, 4 slices of cinnamon bread and pretzels. not the healthiest meal on the planet but one of these weeks i will be able to work out again and hopefully get back to my weight when i first met nick (11 years ago). we all can have dreams and aspirations, right?

My first kiss

Before Blair was born, I had been trying to get Megan to give me a kiss. Last night she finally gave me one. It was not the conventional type of kiss with mouth closed and lips together. Megan's version was to open her mouth as wide as possible and kiss me that way. Not saying I minded at all, it was the cutest thing she had done with/for me in a while. I still have suspicions that she is mad at me for bringing Blair home (i.e. her face lights up when she sees Nick and it doesn't seem to do that for me anymore) but this made me hopeful that she is starting to forgive me. I guess there is hope after all.

Blair Francis

Nick, Megan and I welcomed a new addition to our family on the morning of Monday September 29, 2008. Her name is Blair Francis. she was born via c-section at 2:46am, weighed in at 7lbs 6oz and is 21 inches long. She was born with a full head of dark hair and is a really good baby so far. There was a bit of jealousy when we brought her home but luckily it was short lived. it has been a bit hard to get used to a new baby in the house and having to feed every 3 hours but we are adjusting well. We go into the pediatrician on Tuesday for a post hospital check up. I have to say that i think Blair was born so early because i danced at Pat and Kristin's wedding on that Saturday!! Either way, we are glad that she is healthy and adjusting to life outside the womb well.

Megan's 1st Birthday Party

We had Megan's first birthday party last Saturday the 20th at our house. We had quite the crew show up to watch her open presents and dig into her cake. Megan had caught a cold from the back up daycare i took her to on Thursday (her actual birthday) so she was a bit crabby at times and quite the mama's girl. I was not one to complain about her being the mama's girl because i love to hold her when i get the chance (which is next to impossible since she is always on the go). Megan received a ton of really nice gifts. Some of her favorites are the Tickle Me Elmo (batteries are almost dead on it already), the blue ball and the Dora Mobile (as I like to call it).





After presents we moved on to cake and ice cream. We sang Happy Birthday to her and then i blew out the candles. We gave Megan her own 7 inch cake and stood back to see what she was going to do. After waiting for a minute, Nick took her hand and put it in the icing. After a little bit of prodding, she started to get into the spirit of things and pretty much destroyed all the icing on the cake. The cake was a disaster, Megan was covered in blue icing, the floor was a mess and so was the highchair. The birthday party was a success and so was the bath that she got that evening.

My baby is 1!!!

Megan turned 1 yesterday. it was quite a momentus occasion considering how her little life started out (www.caringbridge.org/visit/meganroehl).







She had quite a big day yesterday. i decided to take her to the back up daycare that my work provides so i could bring her to lunch with my co-workers who were giving me a baby shower. i dropped her off at 7:30 with no issues. i picked her up at 11:30 to take her back to work. Megan was a HIT with my co-workers. she had some graham crackers and pizza and then just wanted to get out of her stroller and crawl. we shut the doors to the conference room and let her do just that. she also got a chance to play ball with Brian who i work with. she was having a blast. we left to go back to daycare just before 1pm and then i walked back to work for another 3 hours till i had to go and pick her up again (just so you know, the walk from work to the daycare is approximately 6 blocks, i am 36 weeks pregnant and i did the walk 6 times). We arrived at home around 5:30 and had dinner. she was so tired from her eventful day that she ended up going to bed at 8:30.

Tomorrow is her big birthday party with the family. i think i am more excited than she is about it.

The Ultrasound

Friday i had an ultrasound to check to make sure the baby is growing properly. we found out that i still have a HUGE amount of sugar in my urine and because of that, the baby's abdomen is a bit bigger than it should be. i am now on a strict meat and fat diet which means NO CARBS!!! i am so missing my carbs right now because of course you miss something you can't have. hopefully this kid will arrive within the next 2-3 weeks and i can go back to life as i know it. i now have to have ultrasounds every week to make sure things are alright. good for me because i get to see the kid, bad because i don't get any pictures of her. we will just have to be surprised when she arrives.
nick installed a new light switch and outlets in the baby's room today while i put more clothes away. i have also slowly started to pack my hospital bag. for some reason i am not in a hurry to do it when i think i should be. oh well. i am sure i have plenty of time to do it.
i am so excited for megan's first birthday next Thursday. i am so excited to have the family over for her first birthday party on Saturday.

The Baby's Room

What do you do when your husband goes out of town, you are 34 weeks pregnant and the baby's room needs to be painted? you call in the troops for help is what you do. I am VERY fortunate to have such a great family and friend to be able to help me paint the baby's room last weekend.

Before picture:



my troops consisted of my mother in law Donna, sister in law Amy, friend Katie and sister Nina. Megan was our entertainment for the afternoon. my thought on the whole color scheme was to go with pink. a nice pastel pink and after looking over samples with my friend from work and then going to Target to pick out the bedding, we were able to come up with a color that was going to match nicely. so saturday morning arrives and i get up at 8 to shower, get megan up at 8:30 to make our trek to Lowe's to get paint and then to Rainbow to get snacks. luckily we were able to get it all taken care of by the time everyone showed up at 10. i had prepped the room as well as i could considering that i had been banned by nick from climbing on ladders. nina continued putting the painters tape up where i could not reach and then we got to work. we had 3 people edging and 2 people rolling. it worked out really nicely the rountine we got in. after the first coat, i went and got another can of paint and some pizzas so we could take a break and refuel.

Amy



Donna




amy was on a mission and continued to start edging the last coat while the rest of us ate. donna had a couple of pieces of pizza and then joined amy on the second coat. in the mean time i was feeding megan and getting her ready to take a nap. not too easy to do when there is a lot to watch but i was able to get her to go to sleep anyway. by the time i got back in the room it was pretty much done. Amy and Donna were nice enough to clean the brushes and peel the tape off from around the room for me when all was said and done.

Here is the finished room:


Next task is to have another ultrasound on Friday to make sure the baby is growing properly and she has enough amniotic fluid around her. this is all because sugar keeps showing up in my urine even though the 3 hour glucose test showed i don't have gestational diabetes. i will be sure to share the ultrasound pictures with you as soon as i can.

Here's to not having to worry about the new baby's room anymore and having such WONDERFUL friends and family. i could not have done it without you!!

The State Fair

Thursday we took a family trip to the State Fair. It was fun. I don't think Megan was too impressed but it might have to do with the fact that she is almost 1. we took her to see the horses, sheep, pigs, and goats. Luckily we were able to get there before they closed the barns for the change over. We ran into Grandpa Terry and some of his friends when we were sitting outside the food building. it was nice to see him and Megan flirted as usual. she is such a ham when it comes to meeting new people. Luckily amid the whole fair atmosphere, Megan found time to take a nap.

What a week!!

I was told by a co-worker that i should find a picture of me when i was a baby to compare it to a picture of Megan to see if there are any similarities. I think i found one around the same age (maybe younger) than she is right now (see picture below).



Either way, i think she still has more of Nick's looks than she does mine.

I have been told this week that it looks like i am carrying twins and not just one baby. I decided to take a picture of my size and let you all know that i am measuring right where i should be at 32 weeks (8 months). We are hoping that the baby is going to arrive sometime between October 1st and 10th (my c-section date). I am hoping for early for obvious reasons.



Megan is finally getting the hang of feeding herself her bottle. it comes in quite handy when you put her to bed or need to run out of the room to get something done.

Another busy weekend

We are busy (kind of) getting ready for baby #2. we have started to work on the basement and getting a place set up for the office downstairs so the baby can move into what is now the office upstairs (my old room). At the same time we are getting ready for Megan's first birthday party. I can't believe she is going to be 1 already. Seems like only yesterday she was born. Her newest thing is to crawl into everything she can.


I hope the next baby we have looks a little bit like me. Megan has an uncanny resemblance to her daddy when he was a baby (l to r: Matt, Nick, Cindi)



Nick and Megan