Baby Emilia

We are officially the proud owners of a brand new baby girl. Emilia Jean Rayl was born at 4:46pm Tuesday July 26, 2011. She is 6lbs, 14oz, with ten little fingers and ten little toes. She has a full head of dark hair and perfect skin. We love her already.

While we were in the hospital having little Emilia, our three other kids were at "cousin camp" at the Larson's house. Cousin camp is two days of cousin fun that included running through the sprinklers, playing games, swimming, and singing at the nursing home. I thought our kids would miss us more than they did. When we came to pick them up they were not quite done with the festivities. We gave Rachel and Lilly the option of coming home with the parents they had not seen in two days and a brand new baby sister, or to stay a little longer and have aunt Sarah bring them home. Neither child hesitated. Both chose to stay. My feelings were not at all hurt by this. I am just grateful for awesome family members who rallied together to make my kids feel loved while we had this baby.

Shelby brought the three kids to visit the hospital on Wednesday. All three kids were immediately enamored of little Emilia. Each one took a turn to hold her, and Rachel and Lilly had a tense argument about which one of them would change her diapers. They both seem confused about the gender of the baby. They keep calling Emilia "him". When we got to cousin camp to pick the girls up Rachel proudly gathered all the cousins together to "come see our new baby." She was a hit. Carson loves her too. He has been walking around the house saying "baby, baby, baby" ever since we got home last night. He has been very sweet with Emilia and even keeps a safe distance from her. He will look and touch, but he doesn't maul her and doesn't try to pick her up. This morning Emilia was crying while I changed her diaper and Carson even gave her his precious blanket. Rachel has been through adding babies to the family before and is adjusting fine. Lilly however has been in constant need of cuddling. I don't think she makes the connection that the reason she feels the need for extra attention is because of the baby. Within a couple of days she will be fine.

So far Emilia has been a piece of cake. Last night we headed to bed around 11pm. From 11 to almost 1am Emilia cried to be fed every few minutes. This was the first time she gave us any real trouble. Finally a little before 1, we gave her about an ounce of formula and she was out. I did not hear from her again until after 5am. I fed her again and she was out until 8am. We got some great sleep considering we have a newborn in the house!

I would like to take this time to recognize all the friends and family that have supported us over the past few days. Thanks to Summer who so willingly took all of my kids for two whole days. She can say what she wants, I know that was not easy. Thanks to Sarah for visiting me TWICE at the hospital and bringing me Blizzards. And for generally keeping an eye out for my kids at cousin camp. Thanks to everyone who called and checked up on me while I was in the hospital, and over the past few weeks as I have been getting ready to have this baby. Thanks to my boot camp friends who brought me food and checked up on me. And thanks to everyone I forgot to mention. I feel very loved.

A special thanks to my awesome husband who stayed by my side during the crazy moments of this pregnancy, and never left my side during the birth of Emilia. He has been at my side ever since. I have not had to lift a finger since Tuesday morning! There was never a husband who cared so well for his wife. I would not want to do this without him.

The "Only Child"

Last Monday Aunt Sarah called and asked if Rachel and Lilly wanted to come spend a couple of days with her and the cousins in Fruitland. I am sure her motivation was to give her very pregnant little sister a break. When she asked I thought "that is really nice of her, even though I am doing fine." We decided to plan the sleepover for Wednesday. By the time Wednesday rolled around I was thinking "I CAN'T WAIT!!!". So for two days it was just Carson and me. Boy did he eat it up. That boy has no memory of being one-on-one with a parent for more than an hour or two, and he was loving it! I loved it too, but one thing I have taken for granted up until now is how much my kids entertain each other. With no sisters, I was his sole source of entertainment. I have never had to spend so much time entertaining a two-year-old, and was not entirely sure how. I learned this. When in doubt, chase him around and wrestle him to the ground.

Rachel and Lilly had a great time with their cousins, but Rachel came home with a couple of interesting personality changes. As I have said before, Rachel looks up to her cousin Brady with a great deal of admiration. Prior to her trip to Fruitland she could eat both sour cream and ketchup by the spoonful. These are two condiments that Brady will have nothing to do with. We had nachos on Saturday and she refused the mountain of sour cream she usually eats on hers. Then on her corn dog yesterday she said "ketchup is too sour." This from the girl we usually have to monitor when it comes to ketchup consumption. Also, she is all of the sudden "too big for PBS kids" because Brady doesn't watch PBS kids. It all could be worse. If she is going to model her behavior after someone, Brady is a really good example.

Shelby was trying to get Rachel to cuddle with him on Sunday, but Rachel just wanted to tease him. Finally he gave up and went upstairs. When he left I explained to Rachel that even though dads are a lot of fun to play with, sometimes they need hugs just like moms. Lilly was listening intently and when I was finished she announced "I am going to go cuddle with daddy." I know Lilly, and I know she was worried about Shelby's feelings being hurt. So in an attempt to make him feel better, she was his best buddy the rest of the day. A couple of weeks ago, one of our baby-sitters mentioned to me in passing that they slaughtered one of their cows. The next time we had this particular baby-sitter (usually a big favorite at our house) I told Lilly "Guess what, Kayleen is coming over!" She seemed unusually serious when I told her this. After a few seconds she said "Can you tell her not to kill any more of her cows?" Lilly is just so tender-hearted.

Rachel and Lilly like to tell me things. If one starts on a story, all of the sudden the other one has something very urgent to share. It has caused many a fight at our house. Carson jumped in on this while we were eating breakfast this morning. The girls were fighting over telling me about Toy Story, when all of the sudden Carson shouted "Mom!" When I looked at him he paused for a moment trying to think of what to say, then held up his little fingers and shouted "Two!" Since he cannot really speak in sentences yet, this is the extent of his contribution to conversations.

The Substitute

Last week at church Rachel had a substitute teaching her Sunday School class. When I asked her who the substitute was, she told me "Sister Ugly." I seriously doubted her, but she insisted. "No mom, that is what she said!" Finally I let it go, but I asked someone about it the next week and they said it was Sister Dudly. I can surely see the confusion.

Speaking of Rachel, I have been taking the kids swimming quite a bit lately. They love it! We have done swimming lessons, and I really do not want them to lose what they have learned, so even though it completely wipes me out I take them as much as I can. Lilly is hesitant, and prefers to stay by the stairs where she can hold onto the edge. Rachel on the other hand is a fish. It took her a couple of times going to the pool but she is quite brave. We went with the cousins the other day, and she really kept up with the big boys. I was very proud of her.

Carson has started to use real words to try and communicate with us. This is a huge milestone, however some of his words sound exactly the same. For example "outside," "ice," and "eye" all sound like "I". "Truck" and "shoe" both sound like "chu". So it is hard to tell if he wants his "shoes" so he can go "outside", or if ran over his foot with his "truck" and needs some "ice". My very favorite thing he says is "tada!" He says it anytime he accomplishes any small task from clearing his bowl to throwing away a diaper.

One of my favorite things about Lilly is how funny she thinks everything is. She got the idea to hide under her covers when I come tuck her in. She thinks it is hilarious that I can never figure out where she is. Of course it doesn't take me long to "find" her. As soon as I say "where is Lilly?" she bursts out laughing. This has been going on every night for weeks, and she still thinks it is just hilarious. She amuses herself as well. One of her favorite things to say is "Silly me!"

Rachel can be the tiniest bit manipulative and Lilly can be a little too eager to please. This is a bad combination at times. It has come to my attention that when I send the two of them down to clean their room, Lilly cleans while Rachel tells her what to do. Rachel has convinced Lilly that this is a fair trade. I think Rachel may have even convinced herself. Yesterday I made Rachel clean the room alone and it just about killed them both. Rachel was beside herself because she did not want to do all the work, and Lilly was beside herself because she hated seeing Rachel beside herself. Lilly is generous to a fault at times. I love her for it.






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Lilly's Birthday Month

Lilly is officially four years old, and boy did we celebrate. A few weeks before her birthday we had a family birthday party with all the cousins. This birthday party set the tone for celebrating over the next few weeks. After the first party Lilly was telling anyone she could find to listen that she is now four. I would correct her and tell her she was not four yet, but she insisted. Finally her real birthday rolled around. Brock and Ian were staying at our house, and we spent the whole day doing "Lilly things". We played in the morning, then went to McDonald's for lunch. At home we ate hot dogs for dinner and roasted marshmallows outside. To make it more of a party Grandpa and Cody came over. We finished the evening off with way too many presents. But this was not the end of Lilly's birthday celebration. A few days later we had Lilly's first ever "friend" birthday party. Lilly chose a water party theme, so we just told everyone to wear their swimming suits and sent them out to play with the hose and sprinklers. Then we decorated cupcakes and did presents. All three parties were a success. Lilly deserved to have a big deal made over her. Now that Lilly is four there are two responsibilities that she must take on. The first is to stop sucking her thumb. The second is to cut her own pancakes. Anytime either of these subjects come up, Lilly goes into denial mode. She claims "But I'm not four yet!" After three birthday parties and a month of celebrating, I don't think there is a more legitimate four-year-old out there.

I woke Carson up from his nap the other day. He opened his eyes, looked up at me, and honked my nose. Carson in perpetually teasing people, and it is darn cute. One of his favorite "jokes" is to pretend to put his pants on his head. He also likes to pretend to be what I assume is a monster and chase the girls around the house while he roars. The girls love this as well. He has also started saying the blessing at meal times frequently. He mostly just repeats the last thing we say. The blessing is very important to Carson. We always say one at dinner, but frequently I forget at breakfast and lunch. Carson NEVER forgets. He always says "Mom!" until I pay attention, and then folds his arms to remind me. In fact when we have pancakes, he likes to say the blessing every time he gets a new one. I forgot how much I love a two-year-old. Everything he does cracks me up. Except when he tells me "no" which is of course his favorite new word.

Around midnight the other day, Carson woke up and decided to play. He went downstairs to enlist his sisters in his playtime. They brought him upstairs to us, and after about 20 minutes of fighting with him, we assumed he had given in and gone back to sleep. At about 2am he came into my room and took me downstairs so I could turn the TV on for him. Lilly was up as well. Apparently the two of them had been playing together for a couple of hours. Inside I thought it was cute, but I put an immediate stop to it. Both of them were a mess the next day for lack of sleep.

While I was cleaning out the office the other day, I found a rough looking framed picture of Jesus that had seen much better days. I was going to put it in the DI bag, but Rachel gave me a lecture about throwing out pictures of Jesus. She was shocked. "You can't throw away pictures of Jesus, Mom! He made this world for us and he saved the day!" This was not the end of her lecturing. Over the next few hours she kept telling me about the picture and what she was going to do with it, then she would end by saying "You can't throw away pictures of Jesus." Then when Shelby came home she told on me! "Mom was going to throw away a picture of Jesus!" I have learned my lesson, and Rachel is going to hold on to the picture for safe-keeping.