Getting bigger

Well our little sister is TEN days old!  We can hardly believe it.  Her little stump from her umbilical cord fell off and it made Mommy a little bit sad.  She loves to watch her change, but apparently we also get big too fast.  The only bummer thing about little Miss Iva is that she has had an AWFUL diaper rash that has left Mommy feeling sorry for her.  It appears to be getting better so we will keep our fingers crossed.  Iva also really woke up yesterday.  She's spending more time with her eyes open, but it also means she has been wanting to EAT almost every hour.  Funny girl.

Iva's first bath!  Cara and I are great helpers!

I much prefer clothes apparently....

Open eyes!

First trip to a park.  It was windy.  She did like it, I promise!

Second bath went better!

Girl pile on our Daddy.  He gets lots of those.

Big Sisters!!!!!!!

Oh man!!  It was so great! On Monday night, we went to sleep knowing that in the morning our little sister would be here!!  We enjoyed hanging out with Grandpa.  I even read him my books so that I could get my reading minutes in.  We Facetimed Mommy in the morning because we could BARELY wait for Daddy to come get us.  WE LOVE HER!!!  We had to set a timer for whose turn it was to hold her!

Daddy and his three princesses!

Mommy left the hospital that night so that we only had to sleep at Grandma's for one night.  We wanted our family to be complete at our house!  Look at how tiny she is in her car seat!!!!

We ran out into the garage when Mom and Dad finally pulled in!

I love to snuggle her.

Happenings BEFORE baby...

Mom neglected to do much posting about what we were doing the week BEFORE Miss Iva made her grand entrance.

Aunt Angie went out of town and left Lexi with Grandma.  We played a lot with them, plus helped baby sit the twins.  This is what happens when so many babies attack Grandma!

We did a lot of playing outside so that Mom could try and walk the baby out!

Lexi loves slides!

Like I said, A LOT OF WALKING.

We love reading with our Daddy!

Iva Matilda Romney

Guest post by Mommy:

The Labor Story because everyone loves the gory details right?

Monday morning (11/11) I decided to keep a doctor's appt that wasn't really necessary because I had seen him four days earlier.  Pete and I had long discussed how AWESOME it would be to have our babe born on 11/12/13.  It wasn't really looking that was going to happen.  My body didn't seem interested in going into labor so I was scheduled for an induction on Wednesday, 11/13.

Dr. Clark checked me and I was dilated to 3 cm and was very soft and stretchy.  (I am so sorry.  That seems like a strong over share...you should probably not read any further if that's true for you.)  He "swept my membranes" in a valiant effort, but we both figured he would see me Wednesday morning as scheduled.

I went about my day just doing the usual things.  The occasional contraction, but that was really par for the course for me.  Our little girl's head was nice and high so she really wasn't engaging.  I ended up over at my mom's house as she had the twins over and always likes the company.  My contractions started coming more regularly once I actually paid attention to them.  Starting at about 3:30 pm, I was getting them every 3 minutes and they were lasting 40 seconds or so.  They didn't hurt, but some were pretty uncomfortable.  My sister, Angie, had a meeting over at the hospital and told me that she was going to make me come in because she was pretty sure they would keep me.  I had my mom go get Pete because I didn't really feel like driving and at about 6:45 pm we headed to the hospital.  The girls were so excited.  When I kissed Siena good bye and told her that I was going to have daddy take me to the hospital to see if we could have our baby, she grinned huge and asked "for real life?" I was pretty nervous that they were going to send me home though.  I just had that feeling that she was still high and I wasn't really changing.

Angie met Pete and I in the labor triage area and I got all strapped up for my 1 hour observation.  The screen showed that I was having very regular contractions and so I got my hopes up a little bit.  At the end of the hour though, I hadn't really changed.  I texted Dr. Clark and asked him to keep me anyway.  (I might have begged.)  I was in luck.  He was on call anyway and decided to keep me as long as I was willing to go on pitocin to push that little girl down.  DONE.  It looked like I was going to have my 11/12/13 baby after all.  It was already 8 pm and it took them until 9 pm to actually start my pitocin.    I was thrilled to find out that they weren't going to break my water until I was farther along.  I had a fabulous nurse named Christine.  I said I wanted to go unmedicated and she said that she would do absolutely everything to help me with that and she would not ask me again if I wanted pain control via epidural or medication unless I specifically asked for it.  Side note, you should know that my motivation for going unmedicated is always about not wanting to pay for it.  So funny but it's true.  Plus I was cringing at the thought of sitting still long enough to have them put a needle in my back!

Angie and my mom showed up to "hang out" with us for part of the labor.  Little did they know how scarring that was going to be!! I found that I enjoyed sitting on a labor ball and bouncing thru my contractions.  Because damn.  They got nice and intense once that pitocin kicked in.  They down right sucked.  I get loud during this part.  I groan and growl.  In fact, I made my mom cry.  Each contraction was a bit hard for her to watch.  Pete sat at the end of the bed with me and held my hands.  My amazing nurse rubbed my back.  I felt so attended to.  The best part was that my contraction would end and I would snap back into the real world and laugh and tease and apologize for losing my mind.  I kept putting off getting into the tub because I was pretty sure it would get worse and I didn't want to use that method too soon.  It came time to see if we should break my water at about 10 pm...I had changed to almost 6 cm dilated and she had dropped down enough.  Just checking me took the labor up another notch.  The contractions became FIERCE.  I was REALLY loud now.  So loud that the other nurses started to come in and set up the delivery trays.  I was laughing and they said "Oh honey, we know those sounds.  Your baby is close."  In fact, Dr. Clark walked in and said "well that doesn't sound like 6 cm at all."  He checked me and I was almost at an 8 but she was still fairly high.  He broke me water and she barely dropped. This was at 10:30 pm.  Talk about discouraging.  This is where I TRULY LOST MY MIND during contractions.  Christine did her best to get Pete at my knees pushing counter pressure while I focused on his face.  She and Tonya the labor tech stood by my sides and I'm pretty sure my mom and Angie were wishing they could die.  It seemed like I was so close so they felt like they couldn't leave!  In fact, we realized pretty quickly that unless I got an epidural this baby was coming on 11/11.   They had me flip over on to all fours which I preferred but I started crying for the epidural because I could tell my progression was slowing because she hadn't dropped.  Christine and Dr. Clark were great.  He checked me during a contraction (and I told him not very politely to STOP IT) and asked me try and push her down past my cervix.  He was excited and said "Oh yeah, you can do it.  We're having this baby now. Flip over let's deliver her!"  I could barely flip myself over.  I was shaking and afraid of each contraction.  But oh.  I had forgotten how good it feels to push.  Kind of.  The pain in your uterus goes away.  It just concentrates itself in a very different place!  This part gets very hazy for me.  It was hard for me to focus.  Best I can tell from everyone else's descriptions, I essentially pushed for maybe 10 min.  Three contractions.  I was even able to pause and let her stretch me out (again GROSS OVER SHARE) but I didn't do that really calmly.  And then at 23:23 my baby girl came into this world.  I was SO HAPPY THAT IT WAS OVER.  I mean it.  I knew I would love my baby, but I was so happy that labor was over.  Not quite two and a half hours from when pitocin was hung, I brought a third princess to the family.

My doctor gives credit to my continued teaching of classes as the reason I could do what I had done.  I was strong.  I had the ab muscles and the leg muscles and apparently the arm muscles (since they were also sore) to push that baby out when she didn't want to.  My mom said that she was holding on to the umbilical cord as she came out.  Apparently she REALLY didn't want to leave!

Iva Matilda Romney (took us until the next morning to pick that) was 6 lbs 12 oz and 19.25 inches long.  Oh and we love her.  The girls are smitten. But more on that later!

And November is here...

Well we are not so patiently waiting for the arrival of our little sister.  Every day we keep asking Mom if she can feel the baby coming out and she says no darn it.  That's okay.  We do keep busy.

I love kindergarten!  I get to walk to school every day with Mom and I'm learning so much!  I was the second person in my class to pass off all my letters (capital and small), the letter sounds, AND all 31 sight words.  Mom was pretty proud!

The day after Halloween we ran over to our dentist and turned in most of our candy for money!  We got $3 to put towards Disneyland AND got to play in a big bounce house.  Fun stuff!

And then Grandma and Grandpa had us run out to the lake one final Saturday!  It was very impromptu and we weren't there for very long, but we still had fun!

Dad was the only one of us to get in!  He actually managed to go wake boarding TWICE this year!

We love being a little family!

The low point of the lake trip was probably when Mom and Dad sunk our Mozzy in the sand!  We had to find someone with a tow rope and they felt pretty silly.

We also went hiking to the White Rocks on Sunday. This is Carter.  He is so dang cute.  The twins are getting so fun to play with.  They army crawl and laugh and cry and puke.  All the time.  It's exhausting!

Oh I have also started taking piano lessons from Mommy!  We had one really bad day where I cried, but since then we've both been a lot more tolerant of each other!

Halloween 2013

We had a great Halloween!  Cara had her party the day before and I got to come.  We enjoyed watching Miss Tracy put on a mad scientist show!

We managed to carve pumpkins the NIGHT before Halloween.  And one of our pumpkins was already mushy so we only carved one!

The next day I got to have my Halloween parade and party!  I look particularly awesome because of all the princesses around me and my vampireness.

Our finished pumpkins!

The ward trunk or treat with the chili cook off was fun as usual!