Ophelia is Seven!

Tonight I was watching a few of the older videos of the kids, when Ophelia was just a tiny four year old, talking so well, being such a sweet big sister, always dancing or moving, never shy of the camera...This past weekend my sweet little girl has turned seven! In her own words, she is a big girl now! Sigh. In everything that she does, she strives to be independent. I don't need to meet her at the school bus stop at the end of the school day any more, she officially can walk herself home (despite it being a tiny short walk, it brought a lot of pride for Ophelia to be able to do it on her own). I can easily delegate responsibilities to her and fully trust that she will do what I asked her to do. She loves to do lists (the apple didn't fall far from tree here), and loves to help me with anything, cooking is one of her faves! Ophelia is very polite, still loves to move and dance, and is an AMAZING big sister. Most of the time the last fact is not as appreciated by Emerson as it should be. I love my "big" girl! And here is how her birthday weekend went.

Ophelia has been waking up lately to her own alarm in the mornings. This was mainly set up because the first week of school she would be so anxious about waking up on time that she would be up waaay before she (or me!!) should've been. So, on her birthday she woke herself up and got dressed for school. PJ, Emerson, and I got Krispy Kreme donuts for her classmates (two dozen of O-shaped goodness), a Happy Birthday balloon, and lunch from Chick-fil-a and came to visit Ophelia during her lunchtime. She sure felt special and loved! This was right before school:

After school Grandma took Ophelia shopping at the mall, AND got her ears pierced! While that was happening PJ took Emerson to the bouncy house. All this was planned out by the birthday girl weeks in advance. She not only included Emerson in her plans, but also got him a toy at the Disney store while shopping with Grandma. So super sweet and thoughtful! After the mall we all ate at Olive Garden, which she says is her favorite restaurant.

Saturday was the big Birthday Party day. I never meant for it to be big, but it turned out that we had 12 kids in total coming over to our house! I stressed out about it, but in the end two hours really flew by and it wasn't so bad after all.

The theme of the party was all about hamsters. For the past few months Ophelia has been saving money in order to buy a pet hamster. A nice lady from Craigslist gave her a cage for free, when she learned that Ophelia was saving money for it. It was a special day to go to the pet store a pick out her new pet, hamster Flurry. This brings our total family count to seven "people": PJ and myself, Ophelia and Emerson, Freddy the betta fish, Melody the robot vacuum cleaner, and Flurry the hamster :)

This cake was huge and delicious! We still have a third of it in our freezer. Yumm! Ophelia came up with a few hamster-related activities for the party: solving mazes, stuffing cheeks with marshmallows, and learning some neat hamster facts.

She also wanted to have a dance party, which we set up in the office, equipped with disco lights, loud music and her favorite songs. The kids had a blast!

The traditional gift opening ceremony:

And my favorite, but most time consuming part was the favor gifts. I found lots of used Zhu zhu pets on Craigslist, cleaned them up, fixed them up, and we gave them to each of the guests. They had such a great time playing with those things the last little bit of the party. It was a huge hit! If you don't know what those toys are, they are a motorized hamster toy that squeaks and goes all over the place. Kids loved them when they first came out about five years ago, but these days none of the stores carry them any longer, so that's why I had to go with Craigslist.

My favorite part of Ophelia's birthday was this: Babushka and Dedushka gave her an Amazon gift card to buy whatever she wanted to. The first thing she wanted to buy with it was a remote control car, but not for herself (because she already has one), but for Emerson because he has none!! So so incredibly thoughtful and sweet. Now we are starting a new family tradition thanks to Ophelia: the birthday girl or boy has to get a gift for the other one for their own birthday. Emerson was so very excited about it:

Even though Ophelia strives to be independent and a big girl at everything, there are lots of moments when she is still my sweet little girl. She tells me she believes in fairies. She has a fairy home set up in her room and keeps waiting for a fairy to move in. She also does not want to be independent when it comes to tucking herself in at night. When one evening I sent her to bed on her own, she came back a few minutes later in tears, telling me how much she misses me and wants me to come tuck her in.... I hope she will continue to feel that way for many more years to come!

Why we missed church on Sunday...

All that talk about "no baby yet" apparently worked to make the baby feel bad and want to come out! I finished the last post at about 9 pm and at 1 am my contractions started! I waited for a couple of hours before waking PJ up to make sure it was the REAL deal. They were becoming stronger and stronger and about 5-7 minutes apart. At 3 am we called Mom and told her it was time! We stayed at home until PJ's parents arrived and left for the hospital at about 6:30am. Of course, as we are getting close to the hospital, the contractions slowed down...I was really hoping not to have to go home without a baby! I was admitted and checked out - still only 1 cm dilated - I was disappointed. But the nurse told me to walk the hallways for an hour and see if we can speed things up. So, PJ and I went up and down that hallway, he kept telling me to put "some spring" into my step :) I did and, lo and behold, my water bag broke! I knew I wouldn't be going home then :)

Things were progressing well until 11 am, when for about 3 hours I was stuck at 6 cm, despite laying in the bath, walking the hallways, bouncing on the birthing ball. The contractions were wearing me out and around 2 pm I asked for the epidural. However, the doctor on call wanted to get pitocin started as well. The epidural brought the much needed relief, but the pitocin made the baby's heart rate slow way down. That was a scary moment when 3 other nurses and the doctor rushed into the room, they put on the oxygen mask on me, and the doctor said to prepare the OR room. The nurse stopped pitocin and I switched to the side-laying position. Slowly the heart rate normalized and I asked the doctor to give me more time. I am grateful that she did! Seemed like many hours later, with multiple position changes (I was on all fours even with the epidural), the nurse said that I was at a 9. With the next contraction, she asked that I give it a push, and she felt the baby's head move into the right birthing position. Immediately, the doctor came in and several nurses, and I was ready to push! YAY! I felt so greatful that a c-section was avoided and that I was about to start pushing. It didn't take long. Three contrations later, our little baby boy emerged! Here is my first look at the baby:


It was 7:08 PM. PJ and I were in tears of joy to know it was all over and that I was able to push the baby out! It was such a blessing!




Grandma came as soon as she heard the news!



First family photo:




Right before going home from the hospital:



We stayed at the hospital until Tuesday, the 21st. So, I got to go home on my birthday! At home I was greeted with a birthday balloon, Ophelia's "happy birthday, mama!", a delicious birthday dinner made by Grandma, and my favorite cheesecake! But of course the biggest present of all is my newborn son. Here is Ophelia's reaction to her baby brother:




Ophelia left for Grandma and Grandpa's house on Tuesday and has been having the time of her life! It is nice to have a quiet house. PJ and I are not used to that at all any more. I took some time to take some pictures of Emerson. The owl hat was shared with us by auntie Cami.













I love the sweet little faces he makes when he sleeps!





I forget how much time newborns take! It is exhausting to get up every 1-2 hours at night. I am anxious about Ophelia coming back home and me trying to take care of her and a newborn...but I know people do it and are still alive :) Not sure when I will have time to post next though...

We have been so blessed with such wonderful family that help us so much! Also, our friends from church have been taking care of us with so many delicious meals. Even our neighbor mowed our yard on his riding lawnmower! I feel humbled by all the service we have received and it makes me want to serve more.

7 years and counting!

This November marked PJ and my 7th wedding anniversary. How exciting! We've definately done some learning and growing together, but we are so IN LOVE and very HAPPY to be together. We found each other at a dance at BYU. Got engaged 2 months after that and got married after 7 months of knowing each other :) Some may judge and say what they want to say... and if it was my child I would frankly be worried too ... BUT we are a perfect match and that was confirmed to us plenty of times, we simply figured that out quicker than normal couples do! We are way excited to continue our love through all eternity! Here are some flashback pictures. Enjoy!

Our engagement picture (August 2003) :



Our wedding day (November 25th, 2003):



Our special temple, the Salt Lake Temple:



PJ actually never kneeled down to propose to me (he did it while standing up, with shaking knees...maybe he should've kneeled), but this picture made up for it:

And here is why all of this had to happen:

This is actually Ophelia's passport picture in preparation for our summer vacation!

Ophelia on foot!!

Today was a big day for Ophelia. She finally started walking! It wasn't just a couple of steps that she takes on occasion. This was crossing the room on her own!!! It was really special for both PJ and me to be there for this moment. Out little girl is almost a toddler!