A Princess is Born

Wednesday, December 16, 2009, approximately 6:45 a.m. The final belly shot.

10:40 a.m.

Welcome Madelyn Katherine Bath!!

I think Daddy is a just a little bit proud...

Here are some pictures of her first couple of days:

Here she is, bright eyed and bushy tailed - I believe this was sometime around 1:00 a.m. on one of the nights...

Today is our last full day in the hospital. We're supposed to be going home tomorrow (actually, we have to because insurance won't cover us to stay any longer), but it has been snowing since yesterday evening. We're supposed to get nearly 2 feet!!! I'm just hoping it slows down overnight and Mitch will be able to dig out enough to come and get us!

This was the view out my window SEVERAL hours ago:

There is so much more snow now, but it is too dark to take a picture.

So Maddy and I are just chillin' together.

Needless to say, I'm totally in love.

Ok, well here I am actually doing another post. But I still hope you weren't holding your breath in case I didn't come through!

Just a quick recap of the weekend...

First of all, I FINALLY got the tree decorated. It had been set up in the living room for about two weeks, but I didn't have the energy to decorate it. But Saturday evening, after the kids went to sleep, I forced myself to get motivated. I think it came out pretty nice (although the pictures seem a bit blurry)!


And I think that's a fine spot in our new house for a Christmas tree.

As we've already established, I'll be in the hospital this coming Friday - December 18th, for Evan's 2nd birthday. So we had a little celebration on Sunday afternoon.

Presents!!

Some of the guests included Aunt Ashley, Uncle Richard, Nathan, and Charlotte:

Here's Tyler about to present his gift to Evan (and yes, that IS my ginormous belly behind him, and no, I'm not sure that is how you spell "ginormous".)

Yay!!! A Thomas cuddle pillow!!! Evan loves Thomas!

More Thomas - from Mimi!!!!

There were some great presents. A Thomas boat for the bathtub, an alphabet puzzle, an adorable sweater - all from Fammy and Grandad; a very cool tunnel thingy (I'll have to post pics later so you know what I'm talking about) from Aunt Ashley and crew....

And a bike!!!!!

From Aunties Mae-Beth and Leah!

Then it was time for cake...

Thank you, Super Target Bakery, for the yummy Thomas cake! (are you sensing a theme here???)

YUM!!

I think Evan enjoyed it...

Later, after everyone went home, Daddy helped Evan and Tyler play with the Thomas set from Mimi.

It was a great little party, and we were very glad everyone made the trek over on what was a pretty lousy day, weather-wise. Happy (early) Birthday my precious little boy!!!!

So, tomorrow is the big day. We have to be at the hospital by 8:00 a.m. I'm a little nervous, but I think it's more about being a mother of three than about the surgery itself.... That being said, I'm excited to meet my little girl and see what she looks like! I'm still in shock that it's a girl, and won't quite believe it until the doctor proclaims it when she is born!!

I'll post pictures as soon as I am able! Wish me luck.....

It's the Holiday Season!

At some point in the near future, I hope to start a post without having to apologize or make excuses for why I've been away so long. Though my exhaustion is sure to increase in the weeks/months to come, so we'll see!!

In any case, here we go!!

This morning we left the house bright and early to catch the "Dancer Express"! Every December, the Virginia Railway Express (VRE) - the commuter train we (well, not me anymore!!) take to work, runs "Santa Trains". The tickets sell out fast, and the train was definitely full! It's just a 50 minute ride, but Santa comes through, as do some carolers, and other VRE employees handing out candy canes and coloring/activity books and crayons. The activity books are geared toward rail safety lessons for the kids. Also, the trains are a drop off point for Toys 4 Tots donations. So the purpose of the ride is for fun, safety awareness, and charity - not a bad way to spend a morning.

Tyler had a great time watching out the window.

Evan spent the majority of the time playing with a cup holder...

but eventually he joined his brother at the window.

I have a couple of really cute videos from the train ride, but our sucky internet service makes it impossible to upload them. Fios can't come to Morris Farm fast enough!!!!!

Hey! Here comes Santa!!!!!

Of course, by the time Santa got to us, neither Tyler or Evan wanted to get near him.

Must have been the obviously fake beard!!!

They were far more interested in the candy canes!

After the ride, I tried to get a picture of Mitch walking with the boys alongside the train. For some reason, at that moment, the camera decided to start acting wonky and would not focus. But here's the shot anyway... perhaps we'll just say it's "artsy".....

When we got home, there was a bunch of playing, and cleaning (we're preparing to have Evan's birthday celebration tomorrow), and eventually, nap time for us all. I was upstairs in bed, Evan was downstairs in a chair, and these two passed out in the family room while watching Noggin.

And now a bit of a flashback, to Thanksgiving a couple of weeks ago.

Unable to travel to VT because of my, ahem, condition, we went to Fammy and Grandad's for dinner.

Here's Mitch spending some time with Charlotte:

I'd like to say "little" Charlotte, but my goodness! She is nearly as big as Evan!!

Busy in the kitchen!!

A beautiful table... and yummy food!



After dinner, the triptophan started to work it's magic.

Here's Tyler chillin' in a chair with Steffie, which is quite shocking. Ususally the cat doesn't let any of the kids get that close!

Even Nathan slowed down for a bit....

And Uncle Richard was down for the count!!

In other news, I am done working. This past Wednesday was my last day. It was bittersweet, as I was sad to leave a great job with great people, but I was definitely ready to stop working! I have officially reached the state of misery with this pregnancy.

My mom arrives tomorrow. We'll have a small family celebration for Evan's birthday, albeit early, but I will be in the hospital on his actual birthday. I'm thankful he is too young to know the difference. Hope to get in a mani/pedi, and some more Christmas preparations before Wednesday morning, December 16th, when we have to be at the hospital by 8:00 a.m. for a scheduled C-section at 10:00 a.m.

I'll try to post some birthday party pics before Wednesday, but I caution you against holding your breath. I will have my laptop with me a the hosital, and will get pictures of Baby Girl Bath up as soon as possible after I recover from my surgery fog!!

Until then!!

Yes, we're still alive.

Ok, I know, I know. I have been woefully remiss in my blogging duties lately. I actually started a couple of posts in the last month, but never finished them. Blame it on being busy, blame it on my new, long, tiring commute, blame it on writer's block, blame it on distraction, blame it on 3rd trimester exhaustion. Heck, I blame it on ALL of those things!!! But I am feeling really guilty, so I promise to see this post through to the finish today, Sunday, November 22nd, 2009!!!!

I guess I'll just recap the last month, which included Halloween! I apologize that a lot of these pictures will be familiar to my Facebook friends....

Unfortunately, our trip to Pumpkinville was thwarted this year by illness and weather.

We had a touch of H1N1 in the house mid-October. Mitch had it, Tyler did not, but he had some other virus that the pediatrician couldn't quite diagnose, so he was put on Tamiflu just in case. As was I because I'm pregnant. Tyler was fine in a couple of days, Mitch took at least a week to recover fully. Fortunately, and miraculously, Evan and I managed to escape it all.

And the day we were supposed to go to Pumpkinville with the Holmquists, Mitch and Tyler were just barely recovered, and the weather was terrible, so we couldn't go. It was unfortunate since we had such a fun time last year (http://karenandherboys.blogspot.com/2008/10/sunny-saturday.html).

But, we still needed pumpkins (the boys had been begging for them for WEEKS!), so the following day, though still rainy, we headed to a local nursery to make our selections.

Yes, he pulled that wagon, and it was HEAVY!!!

A few days before Halloween, there was some carving to be done!

I have some cute video of Tyler scooping out the pumpkin, but it's taking forever and a day to upload, so I'll have to try again later.

On Halloween, we were excited thinking we would have many trick-or-treaters, so we were prepared with LOTS of candy.

This is probably less than half of the candy we had at the ready. But alas, we maybe had 20 visitors. We're still working on the candy...

But it didn't stop us for having a good time with our boys. Here they are getting ready to go out:

Weren't they CUTE?!?!?!?!?

Here we are heading to our first house.

We went to the Jones's first. They were the first people to build on this street, and in fact were the only ones here for about a year before any more houses started going up. We met them during the building process and they are very nice. They brought us cookies as soon as we moved in. We thought it appropriate that theirs be the first house the boys went to on their very first trick-or-treating excursion.

Here they are waiting at the door:

We only went to about four houses, but we had a good time.

A big thanks to Mimi for buying the boys these AWESOME costumes!!!

The house is coming along sloooooooooowly, so no new pictures of that for now!!

Other events this month included Charlotte's first birthday!!!! I have some pictures, but they will have to go in a seperate post because for some reason I'm having a terrible time manipulating them. I can upload them, but then am unable to move them where they need to go. Very frustrating! Doesn't seem to make sense, but it may have something to do with the fact that the pictures are from my Blackberry (yes, I finally got a Blackberry and I LOVE IT!), because I was also having trouble with the pictures from my office farewell party.....

Yes, my farewell party. Baby girl is scheduled to arrive via C-section on December 16th, and my last day at work will be December 9th. Not just my last day before maternity leave, but my last day. We have decided that after the baby arrives, I will not go back to work. With three kids, it just doesn't make sense any more for me to work. Nearly my entire paycheck would go to paying the daycare/preschool costs, and what would be left over would barely cover my commuting costs. So why spend all my money for someone else to take care of my kids?? I don't plan to never work again, but for now, I will be a stay-at-home mom. I'm both excited and daunted!!! It will certainly be more difficult than any other job I have had, and I hope I'm up for the task!

Well, I guess that will be it for now. I've been at this for hours, and now it's time to tend to the boys and get them off to bed. Here's one last cute picture of the boys occupying themselves before dinner one evening:

I think it lasted about 5 minutes.....