The Zoo

We had a great time today. The weather was wonderful and the kids were all really good! We packed a lunch and ate when we got there around 11:30 a.m.

The first animals we saw when we arrived were the goats. The kids all got to feed them thanks to my sister Shelly having a ton of Quarters on her! 

Gabby has been talking about seeing penguins for the past few days. I am happy that they had them there for her to see.

We had a group of 8 kids and 4 adults total. Here are all the kids. My sister shelly and her two kids went and my cousin Bobbie Jo came with her 3 kids and her niece.

The Zoo is not huge but we still saw quite a few animals. It is a good size zoo to take young kids to so they can walk the whole thing without getting too tired.

 At the end there is a carousel which the kids all really loved riding (and a couple of the adults too). I was getting dizzy just watching them and trying to take pictures!

There is also a nice playground to play on and get some energy out before the 45 mile ride back home.

Don't think we could have asked for a better day!

16 week appointment!

I got to hear the heartbeat for the first time today! It was so exciting and it made this baby feel so much more real! The heart rate was 160 which the doctor said is perfect! I have gained 12 pounds so far (Yikes 8 pounds in one month!) They tested my Iron and said that it was good. Everything is going well. I have still been sick once in a while but I am feeling a lot better most of the time. I have my Ultrasound scheduled for July 21st! My next prenatal is the 22nd. So excited to see my baby on Ultrasound! Decided to take a belly pic. Here is me today at 16 weeks, not the best picture ever because I had to set the self timer on the point and shoot camera.

Easy Home made Dinner-Chicken & Biscuits

This is a great Recipe for using up leftover chicken!I found the recipe at Cooks.com

2 1/2 c. deboned chicken, cooked
□   2 cans cream of mushroom soup
□   1 tbsp. minced onion or 1 sm. diced onion
□   1 (8 oz.) can peas, drained (I used frozen)
□   1 (3 oz.) can mushrooms
□   1 pkg. refrigerator biscuits (I used Bisquick)

Mix chicken, soup and onion. Add a little milk or water (3/4 cup) to thin down soup. Add peas and mushrooms. Heat until hot, then put into casserole dish. Arrange biscuits on top of casserole. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes or until biscuits are done.

Here are some pictures of the chicken & Biscuits I made tonight for dinner.

                        Picture of soup/chicken/peas and mushroom mixture cooking on the stove.

                                                           All done!

Served with a salad.

Avalynn's First Year in pictures!

Avalynn's First Year in Pictures! I miss her Dark hair! I need to make an updated one with her second year!
Click on the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVKqH_2b1Ho

Small Pregnancy update

This pregnancy is going so much faster then the first two! I am feeling so much better. I am still occasionally getting sick but I feel a lot better right afterward so it is not too bad. Next week is my 16 week check up on the 24th. We should be scheduling an ultrasound then! I can't wait to see my baby!

Make a pregnancy ticker

Gabrielle's Birth Story!

   I couldn't find this on my computer but remembered I had posted it on Myspace! So here it is! 

  On March 23 at 2:30 a.m. I woke up having contractions 2 to 3 minutes apart. I wasnt in any pain but I knew that I was going in labor. I was so excited that I couldnt sleep. I got up and scrubbed the bath tub. At 4:00 I ate breakfast; eggs, vegetarian sausage links and toast. Then I washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. At around 4:30 a.m. I called my mom, she was getting ready for work. I told her I was pretty sure I was in labor. At 6:00 I got back into bed and woke Kevin up. I told him I was having really close contractions. At around 8:00 a.m. I started to have some pain in my pelvic area every time I had a contraction. Kevin took me to the hospital. They were so busy that we had to wait in the waiting room for two hours before they even got me into triage to check me!!! When I got in there they said I was only dilated 1cm and 70% effaced. They hooked me up to a machine that recorded my contractions for a while, then they had me walk the hallway for about an hour to see if I would dilate anymore. Finally around 2:00 p.m. they told me that I was either in early labor or false labor and that I could stay there a couple more hours to see if I progressed at all or I could go home. I decided to go home because I wanted to take a warm bath and lay down in my own memory foam bed. We stopped and got Burger King for lunch. I had a veggie burger and fries with an orange soda. When we got home I immediatly got into the bath tub because I was hurting a lot. I felt a little bit better. Then I got out and laid in my bed for a while. I took another bath and then laid down again. I was really starting to have a lot of pain in my pelvic area and stomach. All my pain was in the front. So around 8:00 P.M. Kevin took me back to the hospital. They hooked me up to the monitor and said that I was still having contractions around 2-3 minutes apart but they were not like real contractions because they were all over the place and just a bunch of peaks. They got my urine test back and said they thought I had a UTI and wasnt in labor but they wanted to keep me over night to see if I progressed at all. I was given a shot of Demerol and stadol to help me sleep, plus an anitbiotic and another pill to stop bladder spasms which they thought was causing the pain. I laid down and tried to sleep because the shot made me drowsy but it didnt even touch the pain. Then I ended up getting sick all over the bathroom which was No fun at all! Finally the nurse checked me again and said I was 3Cm and maybe I really was in labor and they didnt think I had a UTI anymore. I asked for an epidural then because I was having so much pain but they said I had to wait untill I was 4cm. I took a shower which made me feel a little bit better and my water broke, then I was 4 cm when I got back into bed and they came in and gave me an Epidural around 4 a.m. After that I fell asleep for about an hour. Before being in labor I had said I would never have an Epidural. The only real complication I had from it was that my blood pressure kept going really low, but they gave me lots of IV fluids to bring it back up. Around 6:30 A.M. they checked me again and I was 7CM. The doctor came in at 8:15 and checked me and told me I was ready to push and asked if I felt any pressure. I couldnt feel anything because I was so numb from the Epidural. I asked him if he could turn it off but He said he wanted me to try to push with it first. So the nurses had me push about 4 times and then the babys head was crowning so the doctor came back in, I pushed three times and Gabby was out at 8:46 a.m. on March 24. She weighs 7 pounds 14 ounces and is 19 1/2 inches. It was the most amazing thing when they put her on my stomach. I was in shock, I just couldnt believe she was really here! I fell in love immediatly. She is the most precious thing in the world. She has been a wonderful baby and sleeps 3-4 hours at a time at night. She nurses really well, I havnt had any trouble with it. The one thing I wasnt really prepared for is how sore I am after giving birth! Places hurt on my body I never imagined would! I felt like I was hit by a car! But it is worth it!

Here are some Pictures of Gabby at Birth.

Avalynn's Birth Story

I wrote this 5 days after Avalynn was born and had posted it on a Message board that has now been deleted. Luckily before it was deleted I had saved the page so I can still bring it up. 

Warning: Some Parts of this toward the end are kind of graphic talking about the placenta.


I started having contractions about 15 minutes apart on June 1st at 1:30 a.m. They were uncomfortable at that time but not painful. I was able to go back to sleep untill around 4:30 when I had the first painful contraction. I laid back down for a while and then got up with Gabby around 6. We ate breakfast and my contractions were starting to get stronger. I put Gabby down for a nap around 7:30 and then took a bath to relax. When I got out I was feeling a little better. Sometime around 11:00 the pain started to get bad again so I took a shower. Then my mom and I went for a walk and the contractions started  to get very painful, I hardly made it back up the driveway! Kevin called the midwife because my contractions were about 6 minutes apart then and she said we should go to the hospital.  We got there around 12:30 p.m. and I was only 2-3 cm dilated and 60% effaced. They hooked me up to the moniter but the contractions were not showing up at all on there. (They never really showed up when I was in labor for Gabby either). Then they asked me if I wanted to walk the halls, so I did that for a while. At around 2:30 I asked them if I could get into the Jacuzzi tub for a while. As soon as I got in and sat down it was immediate relief from the pain. For the first 1/2 hour I was in there I was so relaxed and hardly felt any pain at all. When I started to hurt again I was going to get out but when I tried the pain was so much worse. I ended up sitting in the tub eating ice chips for at least two hours total. When I started to feel a lot of pressure I had my husband help me get out. We called the nurse in and she checked me, I was 7cm and 100% effaced. She said the bag of water was coming down and causing all the pressure. My husband called my mom and sister's because they were coming to the hospital and told them they better hurry up, they were also bringing Gabby and my niece with them and my dad was going to watch them in the waiting room. The nurse called the midwife to come in and when she got there about 45 minutes later she broke my water which hurt really bad. She said that was odd because it doesn't usually hurt but that she thought it was the head moving down as she broke it may have caused the pain.My family arrived right before she broke the water.  The midwife told me I could start pushing but I didn't want to because I was in so much pain and knew it was going to hurt really bad! I was laying on my side and wanted to stay that way because it was the only small amout of relief I could get. She told me to try pushing like that but I just couldn't figure out how to push. I felt like I was doing it wrong. She had my mom and sister each grab one of my legs and then I tried pushing again. After about 5 good pushes and 15 minutes later her head came out. She was already trying to cry even before I pushed the rest of her out at 5:32 p.m.. They put her on my belly but her cord was really short. I could hardly reach her at first. They waited until the cord stopped pulsing and then had my husband cut it. It was neat because I actually got to watch him do it this time. Then I was able to pull her up closer to me and look at her. My first thought was "She has huge hands". Then the midwife told me I needed to push the placenta out. She held on to the cord and as I tried to push it out the cord broke and kind of splattered all over. It was gross! Then she told the nurse to give me some pitocin and she was still trying to hold onto the placenta. She ended up having to reach in there and hold onto it as I tried pushing it out. It seemed like it took forever to push it out and I was feeling so crampy. When it came out she said it was abnormal and had two lobes. It basically looked like jello and they usually look more like liver. The cord also was abnormal and vascular. She sent them to the lab to be tested but wanted to put me on an IV antibiotic for 24 hours just in case I had an infection. I ended up having only two small tears and she didn't even put any stitches in them.

When they weighed the baby  I was so shocked that she was 9 pounds 2.7 ounces and was 20 3/4 inches long! She really didn't look much bigger to me than Gabby did except that her hands look big and her legs are chunky! Her features are a lot like Gabby when she was born though. She has really dark brown hair and blue eyes. I think her eyes may change though because they look darker today.

Since Avalynn was the first baby born in June at that hospital and June is National Dairy month a "Dairy princess" came to visit her and gave us a gift basket full of cheese and other goodies! The photo may also be in the newspaper.

Avalynn's Birthday Party

We had Avalynn's party today. It started out looking like it would rain this morning but turned into a beautiful day! We had her party at my parent's pond on top of the hill behind their house. We didn't want to do a big party so we only invited my parents and my sister's and their families. Everything turned out really nice. We did a Wow Wow Wubzy theme. That is Avalynn's favorite cartoon character. We got her cake from Wegmans. Kevin tried to make a cake but it fell apart this morning. It still tasted great but we got the store bought one too.  She got some really nice gifts. Her "Big" present was her new Tinkerbell power quad. Here are a few pictures from the party.

Stats on the girls

The girls were both weighed and measured today. Gabby is now 35 pounds and 39 inches. She is in the 75% for both Height and Weight. Avalynn is 25 pounds and 34 inches. She is 25% for weight and 50% for Height. They are both growing really well! Avalynn also had to be checked for her Lead Level today through the Department of Health. The level was the lowest their machine reads so that is great! She will not have to be tested again.

Avalynn Turns Two

     Two years goes by so fast! Avalynn has always been so active that she seems older then her age is some ways. She started climbing at about 10 months old and has not stopped since. She can keep up with her older sister Gabby most of the time. They are 14 months apart and play really well together when they are alone.  When other kids are around Avalynn plays by herself and Gabby always seems to follow the other kids around.

     Avalynn's favorite foods and drink are Chocolate milk, Frosted Mini Wheat cereal, beef ravioli and Oranges, strawberries, blue berries and just about any other fruit. She also Loves Candy and it was one of her first words. We have to keep it up where she cannot get it. She does attempt to climb to where ever it happens to be. So far we are still have a lot of their Easter Candy so we did pretty good keeping it up!

    Avalynn's vocabulary has really picked up in the past two weeks. She talks a lot but some of the things she says are only understood by mommy. From being around her all the time I can pick up what she is trying to tell us most of the time. She can say some 2-3 word sentences. My favorite word she says is "Kito", but for some reason it always comes out sounding like "Dada" or "Dado".

   When Kevin gets home from work Avalynn always runs to him saying "Hi Da da". She has the sweetest dimples that could melt any heart! We always joke that God made Avalynn extra cute because she can be a little bit naughty and he Knew those dimples would keep her out of trouble!

Here is a picture of Avalynn this morning. After eating the bowl of cereal Kevin poured for her this morning she wanted more so she got the box out and poured herself some.