I hate that I have been so terrible at blogging.  I really want to get into the habit of posting a quick blog each night.  Maybe I can blog instead of wasting time on Facebook when I pump before bed.  I really want better documentation of our sweet life!

Here is a compilation of Cora Bleu's stats from the last 4 months

April 8th

Height: 20.25 inches 

Weight: 7 pounds 13 ounces

April 23rd

Height: 21.25 inches

Weight: 9 pounds 1 ounce

May 6th

Height: 22 inches

Weight: 9 pounds 14 ounces

June 5th

Height: 23 inches

Weight: 11 pounds

First smile: May 10th

First Roll Over from Back to Belly: July 6th--she has only done this once or twice since

First Roll Over from Belly to Back: July 30th--she does this quite often.  Sometimes she does it shortly after I put her in bed and then she can't get to sleep.  I have to go roll her back onto her belly. ha ha

First Laugh: July 24th

Cora is such a sweet baby.  She enjoys being held but also likes to sit in her chair and watch what is going on around her.  She really only cries when she is hungry or tired.  If we are on schedule for the day, she will take a 45 min-an hour nap around 9:30.  At 12 or so she will nap until 2.  Then at 4 she naps until 6.  She is in bed for the night around 7:30 or 8 and she sleeps all night.  I stopped getting up with her when she was 13 weeks old.  She slept all night for 2 nights in a row and I felt like she was ready to make it through the night every night.  It took her 3 weeks to consistently stop waking up once every night.  When she did wake up she would fuss or cry anywhere from a few seconds up to about 10 minutes.  

We love her so much and we are all so happy she joined our family.  

                                                                              1 week 

                                                                             1 Month

                                                                         2 Months

                                           4 Months (the first picture is courtesy of Brigham)

Cora-Bleu Annabelle

This whole pregnancy flew by. It was awesome! The pregnancy was easy (as long as I had a protein shake and nothing else for breakfast each day). I felt great once I got to about 15 weeks.  This is when I started drinking protein every morning.  Ha ha

My due date was April 20th. At our ultrasound in January our sweet girl was measuring 19 days ahead with a due date of April 1st. They moved my date up since she and I were both measuring so far ahead. My doctor was hesitant to really stick to the new date and wanted to wait as long as I could handle to see if/when I would go into labor on my own.  She really wanted to avoid inducing just because she felt that developmentally the baby wouldn't be 40 weeks until closer to the 20th.  I also agreed with this and was fine with waiting it out. My only concern was her size.  I didn't want a baby bigger than 9lbs.  That just seemed scary. Ha ha. On April 2nd I was dilated to a 4 and 70% effaced. We scheduled an ultrasound for the following Monday (the 7th) to check her size and possibly schedule an inducement for the end of that week. 

Around 4:15pm or so on Friday, April 4th I started having contractions.  They were mild but they continued to come.  By 6:30ish they were getting pretty intense and they were coming every 3-4 minutes. We got to the hospital at 7:30. We spent the next 5 hours in triage. It was awful and exhausting. There are new guidelines to cut down on inductions and cesarians. I think that is great and I agree with it 100% but not this night. Ha ha. To be admitted, you have to show you are in active labor. From 8:30-10:30 I walked the halls, did jumping jacks, lunges, jump squats, running, and yoga stretches to help me dilate past the 4 I was still at. At 10:30 there was still no change at all. My contractions were even slowing down. Awesome. The doctor and the nurse gave us the option of going home or staying and walking some more. We chose to stay. I did so many jump squats and crazy yoga stretches that I was sweating. My contractions pretty much stopped and I gave up. It just wasn't meant to be. At 12:30 the doctor came to check me and was stretching my cervix herself to see if there was any progress she could give me. Ha. She said that my bags of water were right there and poking out (or something like that) and that she just felt sorry for me and was going to admit me. I was soooo grateful. We really didn't want to leave without a baby since we had Nate and Scarlett sleeping at our house with our kids. By maybe 3am I was at a 7 and at 4am they broke my water. I could not believe it had dilated that far just while sitting in bed. I was shocked. Mark was asleep when they broke my water and he said he woke up to what sounded like we were being bombed by water balloons.  It really was crazy. Water was going everywhere.  The dr and nurse were shocked by the amount of fluid. We then proceeded to wait for hours for there to be a change. Nothing. Eventually they started the pitocin and kept gradually increasing it. Still nothing.finally around 10am I was at a 10. I started pushing at 10:20 and at 10:45 we got to meet our Cora-Bleu. I never felt the pressure that let's you know it is time to push.  The nurse just said to start pushing with the contractions. I didn't really like this.  I felt like we were not ready and that we were just being rushed into getting her out.  I also feel it may have contributed to me having a worse tear than I had with Aubree (that was a micro tear). The tear wasn't terrible but it did lead to a less than comfortable recovery. So lesson learned. Next time I will listen to my body. 

Cora-Bleu was 8lbs 6ozs and 19 1/2inches long. The pediatrician suggested that she looked like she was 37 maybe 38 weeks gestation because of her skin and how her nipples were developed. He was exactly right. She was 37 weeks and 6 days. I was amazed at how spot on he was since he knew absolutely nothing about her or the whole due date thing. Up until that point, we were all going with April 1st (while I had been at the hospital). 

Cora-Bleu was pretty much born on the 3 hour schedule just as Brigham was and she has been a mostly easy baby. She has been napping in her crib and now she is sleeping in her crib at night. For the first week I spent every night sleeping in the rocking chair in her room holding her. That is the only way she would sleep. Then I spent 2 nights sleeping in my bed with her and Mark slept in Brigham's bed. The last 2 nights she has slept in her crib all night (waking up 2 times for feedings). I think she doesn't like being in the dark. I have put on the projector light on the sound machine and she has been fine. So hopefully she keeps it up. This morning we actually ended up sleeping on the couch after her 5am feeding. She wasn't ok with being put back in her crib. Ha ha

When deciding on a name for Cora we never really had any other name that we agreed on. We barely even talked about it. Ha ha Mark suggested that we hyphenate it like we did with Aubree. In the end it came down to Cora-Bleu and Cora-Jane. Jane being the name of the ghost that stays with us. After Brigham got over naming her Delores, he started calling her baby Bleu. That sealed the deal for us. It is just too cute to hear him. We got the name Annabelle by combining all of our sisters' names. Ann is from Krystin Ann, Annie, and Melanie Ann. The ABE is from ElisABEth. The LLE is from Scarlett MicheLLE. All of our sisters get the claim 3 letters of our sweet girls name. Ha ha ha

Brigham and Aubree are completely in love with their little sister and they just can't get enough of her.  It is adorable most of the time and slightly annoying some of the time. They hug her and kiss her all the time. It is really really sweet. 

Today her umbilical cord came off so it looks like we will have our first real bath tomorrow. Hopefully she loves. It!

I really stink at blogging.  In the last 3 months we had Thanksgiving, went to Texas to buy a MINIVAN,  shattered the screen on my new phone,  sold the Jetta (how bittersweet), had Christmas, New Years, cleaned out the garage so both cars can fit,  2 birthdays,  built a wall in Brigham's room so we now have 4 bedrooms, painted both "new" rooms, finally went to the doctor and got to hear the heartbeat on the first visit (waiting so long to go was absolutely awesome), bought Brigham a full size bed that he loves more than life ha ha,  moved Aubree to the toddler bed (which has been an adventure.  She loves to put her space heater on 80 degrees and sleep on the floor in front of it.  This has resulted in some minor burns on her legs and arms and her no longer having a space heater during naptime.  At night she just goes to sleep and doesn't touch it),  our ward split, went 2 1/2 weeks without my phone while it was being fixed/replaced (I didn't miss it at all except having hobby lobby coupon whenever I need it.  Ha ha), Aubree says a LOT more words since being potty trained,  Mark moved to a new team at work (that he loves), my due date was moved from April 25th to April 1st, got 12 inches of snow in 2 days (We built a 6' snowman,  used a skimmer board as a sled on our small hill in the front yard,  had lots of snowball fights,  and a ton of fun.  Aubree hated every second of it.  Ha ha),  decided on a baby name, painted stripes in the 1/2 bath,  and had Valentine's Day (which consisted of Mark saying Happy Valentine's Day,  buying paint for the bathroom,  me painting the bathroom while Mark played video games.  It was pretty perfect). We did these things pretty much in this order.
Brigham has said some pretty cute things that I have now forgotten. Dang it. 

I am blogging from my phone so thesepictures are not in order.

       The bathroom before its paint makeover

This is how she slept one day

The after picture of the bathroom: bye bye ugly tan! I love it, Mark is getting used to it. Ha ha

Aubree and Potty Training

Last week I woke up on Wednesday and I was ready to potty train but I would have to wait to start until Monday.  I read a book and did some research online. I felt prepared and ready to do it a little differently than I did with Brigham.  I wanted to stay away from bribes and I read that loading a toddler under 2 years old up with more liquid than usual only hampers the process for some reason. 

Day 1 We had no pee in the potty until close to 4pm when Aubree walked up and said "pee pee" and pointed to the little potty.  She sat down and had a little dribble of pee. It was great! She then wanted to sit on the big potty every 5 minutes after that but most of her pee ended up on the kitchen floor. Bed time could not come soon enough. Ha ha

Day 2 (Nov. 12th) has been a little better. She is recognizing that she is starting to pee and we even made it to the potty a couple times.  She cries every time I put her on the potty today.  I decided to give her 2 smarties each time she pees since my cheers don't seem to be much motivation. Ha ha. Hopefully this afternoon will be better and have less crying.  

Day 3 (Nov. 13th) has been a good day. Aubree is beginning to recognize when she has to pee and is some times telling me. She gets really excited about peeing in the potty and the big reward is wiping, flushing, and washing her hands. Ha ha. Our break through moment was late this afternoon when she had a dribble of pee on the kitchen floor and I took her to potty. She dribbled a little more and then I asked if she could pee more. She said yes and then actually peed a good amount. I could see her belly contracting for the first time and her excitement was priceless. It was a great moment and has made the process worth it. We are getting there! What a great payoff. Oh, and she hates the little potty and refuses to use it. Awesome. Now I need a new plan for emergency bathroom breaks when in the car.

Day 4 (Nov. 14th) Another great day! We dropped Brigham off at Joy School and then went grocery shopping. This was our first outing other than dropping off and picking up Brigham from school this week. There were no accidents today and Aubree loves peeing in the potty. She is pooping during her nap each day so we haven't had to deal with that part of potty training yet. She is getting better at self initiating. She will hold her shirt up and walk to the bathroom when she has to go. She doesn't do this every time but she did it a couple times. This is awesome since it Norma,ky takes 2-3 weeks for kids to do this.

Day 5 (Nov. 15th) Today we went to visit Boppy and Gabby. Aubree did great and she told me when she needed to potty. I am just so proud of her. It is crazy to see this tiny little person doing so well at this.

Day 6 (Nov. 16th) Aubree and Brigham spent the morning with Scarlett and Carolina while I got my hair done and Mark had a meeting at school. Aubree held her pee for over 3 hours until I got back there. We were home the rest of the day and she continues to do great.

Day 7 (Nov. 17th) Today was rough but it was because of errors on my part. I forgot to put a diaper on her for her nap and she woke up soaking wet. She had a little leaking at church but nothing terrible. She made it through nursery with no potty breaks or accidents. She had an accident on the way home. She let me know she needed to potty shortly after we got home and she pooped in the potty! It was a great moment. It was our first non-nap time poop all week. Mark laid her down for a short nap before family dinner without a diaper and she soaked her bed, bumper pad, and the floor. She was so upset and I felt so bad for her. At family dinner she told me she needed to potty so that was a win to end the day on.

I am just so proud of our little Aubree.  She has made such great progress and she is doing so awesome.  I am so happy to have her potty trained and I hope I don't have to night time train her. Ha ha

Four!

The day started with a balloon avalanche falling on Brigham when he opened his bedroom door.

Brigham had his first friend birthday party this year. Mark and I decided that our kids will get a big friend party every 4 years. While preparing for this party I was so glad that we are not doing these more often. 

We rented a bounce house for the day and it came with a snow cone machine and cotton candy machine. 

There was a misty rain for the entire afternoon which made for very messy cotton candy. The kids had a blast and best of all Brigham thought it was the best day ever. 

Sweet Aubree

Back in September the sister missionaries had just gotten to our house for dinner. I ran upstairs to get Aubree up from her nap. She smiled when she saw me but continued sucking her thumb and she didn't get up from laying on her back. Then she heard Mark singing to her as he walked into her room. I have never seen that girl move so fast in her entire life. It was so cute to see her get so excited just hearing her daddy's voice. Me on the other hand am not worth the effort it takes to even stand up. Ha ha ha

Tonight as I was tucking Brigham into bed he was talking/stalling bed time as usual.  After prayers he gave me a big hug and then kept rubbing the side of my face.  He said he wanted to get me some flowers and then he thanked me for helping him with his third Article of Faith.  It was just so sweet.  I hope he always loves me this much. ha ha