Sisters

The girls constantly want to 'play' with Emerson....Precious, of course, and terrifying at the same time.  I try to oblige every now and then:)
Teaching her how to read along with Super Why (which, by the way, is hands down my favorite children's show....Reese amazes me with what she learns because of that program).
Ignore Reese's shiner under her eye....an altercation with her sister (Ryan) and a lunchbox....conflicting stories arose....the jury is still out on what actually occurred.
No play time would be complete without some sort of pouting...Reese's turn here.
Happy Monday all!  

Gettin' down with the Reesers

What does one do when they have their cousin over.....why you dance!   Duh.
*disregard the collision at the end, it's all part of the dancing art form - no small children were hurt in the making of this 'film'

Instagram

For those of you who follow me on Instagram, these are old news....but for the rest of you some pics of the girls on this quiet Saturday morning.
And because everyone is sleeping and I am enjoying a cup of coffee and the Today Show in peace and quiet, a few non-Instagram bonus photos of a couple of monkeys I know.
And guess who is in town this weekend to meet his newest cousin????  She looks thrilled, doesn't she?

Passing the time....

So I mentioned that with the cold weather comes a lot of indoor (stir-crazy) time for the girls.  Nothing a little Pinterest can't cure.....last time I was at the grocery store, I bought a bunch of dry beans for our healthy eating overhaul around here.  I kept out one bag for the girls and setup as much kitchen stuff as they wanted on the table.  Minus beans creeping up in all corners of my floors now, it has been an awesome activity for Ryan and Reese - they will sit at the table and play for hours (okay, fine, more like 30 minute stretches, but hell, I'll take it!).   Definitely worth the clean-up effort.
This is my view most of the day....it's a darn cute one, isn't it?
And girlfriend is starting to get some gifts all to herself....makes up for the fact that the outfit she is wearing in this picture has been handed down twice now:)

Life

We are alive and well.....crazy how the days run together and time gets away from you.   We're coming up on 3 weeks with little Emerson and settling into (somewhat) of a routine.  Life is getting somewhat easier, if 'easier' is the right word to describe our house these days.   Emerson is a great eater, nursing has been cake since day one (thank heavens); because of that, I think she's also a pretty good sleeper - usually she eats around 9pm or 10pm, sleeps till 1:30ish, eats and then back down until around 5:45am (just in time for a cup of coffee and Morning Joe on MSNBC).  During the day, she eats every 3 hours (I don't let her go beyond that) and basically sleeps or chills - she has gotten to know and love the Baby Bjorn as it is my only real means of getting anything done around the house during the day (she is strapped to me as I type), although naps in her crib are getting better and longer.   Ryan and Reese are doing pretty good as well - we've had a few moments of jealousy and attention-seeking-tantrums (surprisingly more from Ryan, not Reese) but as we (mainly 'me') figure out the time management and spending enough one-on-one time with each, it's getting better.  The main downfall of a winter baby is the confinement to home (which is probably adding to the frustration on Ryan and Reese's part) and coming up with fun activities to do while balancing limited sleep, a new baby and household stuff.
But back to the sweet little subject at hand:
She's a big fan of laying on her tummy....as all my girls have been.
Edible cheeks
Cuddling with superclose supervision...

Introducing the crazies....

Upon entering the world, we thought we'd just throw Emerson to the wolves right away.   And by 'wolves', I mean her sisters.   My folks brought the girls up that evening and we were all a little anxious to see how that might go. Major props to my husband for thinking to capture their first meeting. Major takeaways: no tears and more interest in my kick-a*s hospital water jug and graham crackers (which you miss out on in this video for sake of time).

Ryan had the 'big sister' role nailed....she was so interested in holding her new sister (whom, by the way, has since been renamed 'flashlight', 'audrey' and 'instrument' - the last of which is Reese's pronunciation of 'emerson').
PS - the 6 pack of Coke with a bow was a gift to my mom, whom upon hearing the news of our pregnancy (back in May) gave up her daily coke for the duration of the pregnancy in exchange for a healthy baby (apparently she and the big guy upstairs have some sort of arrangement going on) --- so needless to say, we thought the least we could do was thank her accordingly.
And then there was Reese....who in all seriousness was actually darn adorable. Once she got over the thrill of my water jug, crackers and the buttons on my hospital bed, she was eager to meet her competition sister.
And once the novelty of a living human wore off, she did what she does best.....dance
The first week has actually been pretty darn good.....we'll ignore my mini-meltdown the first night at home in which I wondered 'how the hell are we going to keep these three alive and healthy on limited sleep' after Reese came around the corner with a screw driver in her hand.  Since then we've been doing much better.  Emerson is a dream baby thus far (please continue!!!) and sleeping nice little stretches at night. The girls love their sister (perhaps a little too much sometimes....Ryan, I'm looking at you).  Overall, we survived our first week - thank you, thank you to my mom who has come over everyday this week to help out!!!!! She has been a godsend.  It's 5pm on a Friday night and 4 out of 5 of us are already in our pajamas.  Craziness in the Stiff household tonight!
Enjoy your weekend!

1.3.13

Otherwise now known as Emerson's birthday. And this is otherwise known as her birth story, so boys who don't like this stuff....skip this post. And ladies (like myself) who LOVE a fellow mom's recap of labor and delivery, this is for you.
I could barely sleep the Wednesday night before our planned induction, at 4am I went downstairs for a snack, played online and then climbed back into bed at 4:30am repeatedly telling myself not to get my hopes up for an early call from the hospital.   Not 15 minutes later they called.  So we had the best 4:45am wake up call.  Thankfully we had taken the girls out to my folks the night before so we were able to grab a quick bite, drink some coffee, freak out a bit and then hit the road.  By the time we got checked in, settled, gone through all the questions with the nurse, etc...it was about 7:30am.  They started me out on pitocin and Grant and I caught up on all our morning news shows.  I will spare you the long version but basically between 7:30am and 11:30am, not much was really happening.  As they increased the pitocin, my contractions would pick up but they were still pretty irregular and I found that once they started to get slightly painful and I switched to laying on my side, they would slow down again.   That was frustrating as it wasn't really true labor if this was the case.  My doctor came in around 12:00pm and decided to break my water.   Shortly after that the contractions started coming pretty strong and fast.  I was told I could get my epidural whenever I wanted but seeing as they had just broken my water I thought maybe it was a bit premature because I did not want to slow anything down.  No sooner had I told the nurse I would wait just a bit, I started getting insanely painful contractions every 2 minutes.  I rode out 4 of those in a row and then sent Grant to track down the nurse and 'get me some drugs!'.  We had to wait about 15 minutes (which is an ETERNITY in laboring minutes, kind of like dog years) when my sweet savior Dr. Something-or-other came in with his cart full of fun.   It took awhile to get all setup and he had to work around my 2 minute contractions but eventually I started feeling some relief.  I was basking in my pain-free glory and celebrated with a Popsicle for all of about 15 minutes....
I'd say it was probably 1:00/1:15pm by now and out of nowhere I felt that drop and crazy pressure (thankfully it didn't hurt but you knew something was happening and it was the same feeling I experienced with both girls). I had Grant find our nurse again and when she got in I asked her to check me (the only other time I had been checked was back before they broke my water when I was a 3cm-4cm). She gave me a look like she thought I was kind of nuts for wanting to be checked so fast but she obviously obliged and gave me a shocked look when she said 'well, you're at a 9 - let's call the doctor'. We had to wait a bit for my doctor to get there while all the nurses prepared the room for delivery, meanwhile the pressure was crazy and all I wanted to do was start pushing. My doctor arrived around 1:30pm and we got started.....about 20 minutes of pushing later out came our sweet little Emerson. She was the smoothest delivery of the three and came out nice and pink with that sweet little cry you so anxiously wait to hear.
I only started this post about 4 hours ago......101 distractions and interruptions later, we'll call it a day.   Next time I get a breather (sometime in 2015 I'm sure), I will post more pics of the girls meeting their sister for the first time and how the first few days have been going.