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.

Baby Cousin!

January 19 our family got one person bigger with the arrival of Winston Charles. We had to make a visit down to Oatmeal despite me being 9 months pregnant to see our adorable little nephew! Ophelia LOVED baby Winston! She kissed him whenever she got a chance, she brought him toys and pacis, and she kept wanting to hold him. It was a little sneak peak preview for us of what a big sister she will be when Emerson comes.



Love this picture of Auntie Cami and the kiddos. Baby Winston is not so sure about Ophelia holding him :) Well, it was kinda scary at times, since she is not familiar with needing to hold a baby's head...


Proud uncle! Yay!


Camille is such a good mommie and she looks amazing for having given birth 2 weeks ago on that picture!


Meanwhile, we are still waiting for our little treasure to come into our world. These last weeks of pregnancy are killing me! All this waiting and waiting...I thought yesterday would be the night of his birth with some steady contractions that were getting stronger, but I went to bed and woke up with no contractions at all...so disappointing. I know the due date is the 22nd, but it just seems that he should be coming earlier than that. The whole guessing and waiting is what's the hardest part for me. I just keep telling myself that I am not going to be pregnant for the rest of my life, that his birth is just days away, and he is giving me time to get ready :)


Here is the big sister and the big cousin is some BIG boots! Ophelia said "I'm a cowboy!"


Waiting for her baby brother's arrival, she has been really into her dolls. She sleeps with two dolls now. When she wakes up in the morning and comes over to our bedroom, in her arms she always carries this babydoll, and not her duckie-blanket any more.


We had a hard time capturing the moment of Ophelia kissing my belly, so you have to use your imagination. She likes to give "baby Emerson" hugs and kisses and sometimes she pretends that she is taking him out (out of my belly button) and is holding him in her hands :)


She also keeps saying daily for the past few weeks: "Baby Emerson is gonna come out today!", which makes me excited (I'm thinking, maybe she is getting a signal from the spirit world), but, alas, he is still inside of me. We had spinach the other night for dinner and we dipped it in veggie dip. Turns out Ophelia loves spinach! Note the lollipop that she gave back to me, so that she could eat her spinach! Yesterday for lunch she ate three carrot stick, but only a few bites of rice and enchiladas. What a funny girl we have :) Or maybe I'm just such a good mommy dietitian :)



A couple of Ophelia-isms that made us crack up lately:
* We ask her occasionally about her doll: "Is your baby a boy or a girl?"
Her answer: "He is a girl!"
Go figure :)
* I take Ophelia to the Central Fort Worth library once a week and to get there we have to park in a tall parking garage and have to take the elevators down to the street level. She loves taking the elevators and helps out by pushing buttons :) So, one of those days, we were going down and two ladies waked in to ride down with us. One of them had some pretty strong perfume on. I look at Ophelia and see her sniffing the smells...I start getting nervous, thinking "uh-o, what is she planning to say now??". She turns to me and says: "Mama, it smells liiiiike (pause, which seemed to go on forever) flowers!" Phew! It was a close one :) The ladies turned around to her and commented how cute she was. They were lucky that she liked the smell...it could have been worse :)

Video-overload

I am trying to capture the moments that I will miss the most when Ophelia is all grown up. I love to hear her sweet little voice talk and sing. So, here are some snapshots of that, so that I can always remember them:

Listen to Ophelia tell you a bedtime story. It's a short one, I promise :)



The coconut song.



And here is something from her Russian repertuar: Спи, моя радость, усни!

Ophelia-isms

I have been saving little gems coming out of Ophelia's mouth for a while now, so I better write them down before she moves on to the next stage of her development. I don't mean to brag...but our child is an amazing communicator! She learn words, phrases, expressions at the speed of light. Her speech is so clear and pronunciation is getting better without us ever correcting her (like saying beTTer instead of beLLer). Her grammar is so right on too. I just can't believe she is only 2 years and 5 months old as of today. Here is a collection of random things that we get to hear, laugh about, and enjoy on a daily basis:

*October 2011. For a while Ophelia liked to re-ask the things that we would say: "What did you say, mama?" One day we were driving home from the store. I was quiet at this point when all of the sudden Ophelia says: "What did you say, mama? Go to another park?" ... It was her sneaky little way to get me to go to the park, of course, but it was hilarious to me the way she went about asking :) I had to tell her: "No, dochka, I didn't say anything about a park, it is time to go home and make dinner..."

*It cracks us up that Ophelia says "HM?" when she wants us to repeat something. This is a typical conversation after time-out: "Do you know why you're in time-out?" "HM?" "Do you know why you're in time out?" "HM?" "Why are you in time-out?" "Because I didn't listen to papa/mama..." The "hms" come out of her mouth even before the question is finished, which has made PJ start laughing on a couple of occasions :) And then Ophelia asks "What did you say, papa?" And he laughs even more then :)

*October 2011. From dinner conversations: "Are you spicy, papa?" or "Are you tasty, mama?" or "Are you hot, papa?"(to see if whatever we were eating was spicy, tasty or hot).

*November 2011. Phrases she picks up from us: "That's cwayzee, mama!" or in response to me saying "that's crazy!", she says "It IS cwayzee, mama!"

*Novemember 2011. In the kitchen, while I was cooking something: Ophelia runs in, sniffs, and says: "It smells like horse, mama!" I guess the dinner-cooking smells were not very delicious that night :) But on other occasions, she comes up to me, smells my cheek and says "You smell like flowers, mama!" What can I say, she is a very observant and attentive to detail little girl. If you have something out of ordinary on your face - a speck of leftover food, a zit, a bandaid, she will for sure point it out.

*November 2011. Instead of "elevator", Ophelia says "alligator" :)

*December 2011. Little discoveries: "I have two feets, mama!" as she is looking down and pointing at her feet.

*December 2011. Breakfast conversations. Me: "Would you like a pear or an apple? What fruit do you want for dessert?" Ophelia: "Actually....candy!" :) :) :) Smart girl, what can I say!

*Christmastime 2011. Grandpa is the one on early morning duty when Ophelia wakes up before we are ready to get up, so they play together or watch something together, while everyone else is still sleeping. All the toys were kept in the living room corner opposite of the Christmas tree, to keep the mess more or less contained. One of those mornings, she wanted to play with a toy barn, so she asked Grandpa: "Grandpa, let's play with the farm!" Grandpa: "OK, let's do that." Ophelia: "Grandpa, where is the farm?" Grandpa's response: "It's in the corner." Ophelia runs off, but comes back seconds later: "Where is the corner?" :) :) :) The whole conversation makes perfect sense, it's just funny coming out of a 2-year old's mouth :)

*November-December 2011. Ophelia's favorite game to play with papa: "Let's wun awound the table, papa!". It's fun and all, but not when they decide to play it right before bedtime! She plays pretend play with her toys and makes them play that game too. Here is what I hear: "hey what's you name? my name is Baby, what's your name? My name is Coco. Let's wun awound the table together! OK! I'm gonna gech'ya!" As she rolls her arms around with toys in them :)

*January 2012. Ophelia often switches around words of compund nouns: "Snackfruits", "printfoots", "hopgrasser". For a while when talking about her favorite movie, instead of "Monsters Inc.", she would say "Pink Monsters." Just the other day, when PJ was taking Ophelia to school, they saw a school bus pass by. Ophelia said: "Papa, there is a bus school!" PJ: "You mean a schoolbus?" Ophelia: "It has a sign stop!" :)

*January 22,2012. It's been a dinosaur theme at school, plus we got a Sesame Street DVD on the topic from the library. Somewhere along the way, she learned one of the longest word I've ever heard her say. She said it randomly at the dinner table one night: "paleontologist!" I had her repeat it again, because I couldn't belevie my 2-year old was capable of saying that!

*Jan 29,2012. At church that day, during sacrament, Ophelia announced that she needed to go potty. So I took her out. As we are walking down the hallway, she made sure every single person knew what we were up to: "I'm going potty!" She is still not potty trained...and the whole thing was just so that she can have a little break, sit in the potty, and chat with mama. Mama needs lots of potty breaks these days anyways, so it worked out well :) When we returned to the pew though, she announced in her full voice: "I went poopoo in the potty!" Not true..but I guess she was looking for some reassurance from those sitting around us...and she got it :)

* Same day as we are coming back from church, Ophelia is in the carseat eating fruit snacks. She puts one fruit snack in her doll's eye, covering it, and exclaims: "AGRHH! I'm a pirate!" :)

*Ophelia is starting to try to reason with us these days, just like we reason with her: "Let's have snack first, then take a nap!" or "Let's watch something first, then read scriptures!" I am happy though that she can still be reasoned with the other way and goes along with whatever we have planned for her (generally) :)

*Jan 31,2012. A little fruit fly was flying aroung dinner table, so I tried to get it by clapping my hands together. Ophelia, with a surprised look on her face: "You clapped it, mama!"

January in Texas - perfect time to wear a t-shirt!

This winter has been especially warm, which I don't mind at all. 70s and sunshine are great and makes it easy to wear pregnancy clothes - I don't have to bundle up! My warm jacket is getting way too hard to zip up around the tummy area anyway... Speaking of big tummies, I guess I should mention that I am way bigger being pregnant with Emerson than I ever was with Ophelia. I only gained 35 lbs with her, and at this point I am already at 40 pounds and 3 weeks till due date to go! Emerson is much more into sweets than Ophelia was :)
We enjoyed one of those warm days by going to the zoo for a couple of hours. Ophelia is getting to the point where she appreciates things like that way more, so it made the trip that much more exciting!



She made some elephant ears at school:


Fun times in Fort Worth, TX!

Star-phelia

Jingle Bells on steroids...or what happens when you eat too much dessert for dinner




Self-invented microphone stand...where did she ever learn about that? Or is that in her blood?

Oatmeal full of Christmas

Traditionally, we spent our vacation in Oatmeal this year. We relaxed, enjoyed the beautiful Texas winter weather, got spoiled with good food, watched "The Lion King" at least twice a day...and most importantly spent time with our wonderful family! The weather this year is crazy when couple of freezing days suddenly turn into couple of t-shirt-weather days...keeps you on your toes, for sure. And you never know whether to keep those toes in sandals or tennis shoes :)

Ophelia got so spoiled with all the attention centered on her that she decided to revert back to a "baby stage" and occasionally has been using moans, groans, and pointing to tell us what she wants...it is getting much better now...She has learned the words to "the Lion King" songs and loves to belt out "oh, I just can't wait to be kinnnng" (the "n" being drawn out just like that). How fitting for this stage of her life :) She is the "king" for only several more weeks...she has no idea how things are going to change! "Hakuna Matata" is her other favorite. I love that she sings "....it's our problem freeeeeeeze, philosophieeeeeeze...." So stinking cute! Why does she never want to sing for me when I have my camera out?

Another bad thing that Ophelia discovered is that she can climb out of the port-a-crib. The battle of the wills continued even when we got home and she figured the crib wasn't a barrier any longer either. We tried for two weeks the "supernanny" method of zero interaction and putting her back in the crib every time she climbed out. The usual 5-minute bedtime routine became a half-hour to an hour ordeal. I decided now that not every parenting method works on every kid...Ophelia just thought of it as a game, even though it was a very none-interactive one. We resorted to time-outs if she climbed out, which worked for a couple of nights...but ultimately we just had to use the good old "cry-it-out" and ignore her. She hasn't figured out how to open the doornob in her room just yet, so when we would ignore her knocking, calling, and sratching at the door, eventually she climbed back in the crib and fell asleep. It took 2 times and now I am happy to say (and hopefully I am not jinxing it) we are back to our treasured 5-minute bedtime routine! She does not climb out any more!

So, here is the camera roll. Ophelia opened a couple of presents on Christmas Eve: She was excited about it! This is the Christmas when she learned what presents are and grew to love receiving and opening them :)

She got her own laptop from Grandma and Grandpa:

Camille and I belly to belly :) We termed our greeting each other "the A-hug" due to the two huge bellies lined up between us.

"The Dakota Boys" with a new, mandolin version of the North Dakota anthem:

Chillin' with auntie Cami:

Ophelia said that unkie Mark is a cowboy because he has "a cowboy hat." Here she is sporting the "cowboy hat" :

On Christmas day more presents were opened. Opelia had to wear right away the summer outfit that auntie and unkie got for her, despite it being freezing cold. She got a doctor's kit from babushka and dedushka, so everyone got thoroughly doctored for the remainder of the Christmas vacation. Here is nurse Nancy at work:

Unkie Mark's expression...priceless! Love that Ophelia doesn't even have the ear part in :) "Stethoscope" was actually one of Ophelia's newly learned words.

The new drill - Ophelia warming up the toy before the arrival of the boys.

Grandma's present to us was hanging out with Ophelia while we spent some quality couple-time. PJ and I went down to Austin and stayed for a day with Mark and Camille. I snuck out and got pampered at a pedicure place, while Mark and PJ played music and Camille was at work. We enjoyed two nights in a row of frozen yogurt at Berry Austin...love being pregnant!

After we got back, Ophelia's toes had to be pampered too with the new polishes that auntie Cami gave her. Here are three generations of pampered toes:

On one of our many walks out on the land that we took. Love this picture!

This activity kept Ophelia occupied for at least 20 minutes. She decorated Jim by putting all of the Noah's ark stickers on his hair. Doesn't he look so festive?

And yet another walk on the land. Throwing rocks into the pond:

PJ and I had our little getaway in San Antonio this year. We stayed at a luxurious hotel on the riverwalk and enjoyed it so much! Breakfast buffet, walks on the riverwalk, eating out Mexican food (green enchiladas was a surprisingly delicious discovery for me that has made me like Mexican food...we ate green enchiladas in least at three different Mexican restaurants!), happy hour snacking at the hotel, hot tub on the hotel roof, heated pool on the rooftop too, and a jacuzzi in our own room...it was heavenly!
We also did the San Antonio missions tour, which was very educational:

To conclude it all, we got to spend time with PJ's uncle Bert and his wife Cec (this was the first time I ever met Cec, Bert came down from Minnesota for our reception 8 years ago). When Ophelia met Bert and warmed up to him, she asked "But where is Ernie?" :)

What a fun vacaion it was!

Master's: Mission Completed!

Soooo excited to announce that PJ finally graduated with his Master's in Modern Languages! It's been a long and hard two years, but we made it! And he got straight As too! So proud of my smart, hard-working, handsome husband! YAY!

The camera has been busy capturing our day-to-day adventures and joys of our journey :) Here is Ophelia enjoying her favorite veg of late: broccoli:



One day we went to Olive Garden and we got a kid's meal for her, which consisted of alfredo pasta and a side of steamed broccoli. Well, the side of broccoli was this HUGE bowl, which in my mind I pictured having to pack in a to-go box when I first saw it. To my and PJ's astonishment, our little girl devoured ALL of it!!! Of course salad dressing was involved (she will eat anything she can with dressing, and sometimes that's how we get her to eat things is by smearing it in dressing), but still the whole bowl of broccoli down into that tiny stomach?! We were impressed...no pictures of the messy diaper that followed the next day, which I am sure you are grateful for :)

Ophelia has lately been a normal picky two-year old eater. One day she loves something, the next day she refuses to touch it (does not apply to broccoli). But we have been calling her eating style "a model's diet". She seems to like a lot of things that are low in calories (cucumbers, broccoli, pickles) and whenever she eats meats, like chicken nuggets, or ground beef, she will give it a bite and chew on it forever and then spit it out...It does get frustrating, but I am hoping she will grow out of it soon. I have to say though that she is at least always willing to try things. Even if she will spit it out if it's not to her liking, she still at least gives it a shot!

Here is papa and Ophelia chilling before church:



And here is my little exercising buddy:



She asks to do these videos with me, my pegnancy pilates videos! I don't know why she likes it so much, but it's cute to see her trying to repeat the moves of the girl on the screen.



Ophelia is incredible at navigating my iPod touch. In one of the latest General Conferences, Elder Bednar talked about the youth being wired to work with technology. He was saying that in refence to youth doing family history work, but it is so true! PJ and I are amazed to watch her turn the iPod on, find all the games and puzzles, play all of them, solve the puzzles, play music...and she really is just 2 years and 3 months old?!

We had our Ward Christmas Party at the beginning of this month. PJ played "O, Holy night" with brother Dewey. They did an awesome job! That song is definitely one of my top favorite Christmas songs of all times.

Ophelia "smiling" for the camera... I think she learned to do that at school...Whenever I ask her to smile for the picture, she does this:

I look and feel so big at this point of my pregnancy. Not sure if it's because it's a boy, or because it's my second baby, but I do look like I am about to give birth any day...but I still have 10 more stinkin' weeks to go...10 more weeks of people asking me "when are you due?" or "you haven't had that baby yet?" and "you are still pregnant?". Don't get me wrong, I enjoy being pregnant immensely and I still need lots of time to get ready for this baby, but it just is not helping that me and Emerson are growing so much!!! I am sure all the Christmas goodies will not help the situation...So, in conclusion, I am happy that PJ is done with his Master's, so I can have more little breaks, like today when he took Ophelia to ChickfilA while I cleaned the house and then played with her quietly while I took an afternoon nap :) Love my hubby :)