Four Month Checkup

My baby is already four months old! So weird. Time goes by so fast! We had her checkup last Friday and things are going well with her. Besides her weight...she's developing perfectly. She's in the 50th percentile for her height and her head circumference, but she's not even on the charts for her weight. She's only 9 lbs 9 oz. I totally thought she was at least 10 lbs, but apparently not. We're going to start feeding her rice cereal now though, and hopefully she'll gain more weight. Isn't she adorable though? She rolled over for the first time yesterday!! I was so excited about it. She's growing up too fast! Here she is in her beautiful dress her Grandma Green gave her as an early Christmas present.

Never Be The Same Again

Okay, so I've been promising Charlotte for months that I would contribute to the family blog. Unfortunately, my mind set takes the thing that I feel has the most priority and helps me focus on that first. I find it sad to say that, at times, well... I guess all the time up until now, entertainment has taken a slightly higher priority than blogging. Finally my school work has turned into larger, slower, developed projects and I can do other smaller projects on the side like writing here.

I know that Charlotte likes to talk about our darling girl, Daphne, all the time and I intend to let her announce every sweet little giggle, sigh, and mumble amongst other things that our precious does. However, I need to talk about her just this once so you know that the way that I see things may differ slightly from Charlotte's view.

It is important when dealing with small children to keep in mind that they don't fully control every action they take. In fact their actions become all the more amusing when you remember that they don't really have control. I absolutely love to play with Daphne: and although I may feel MY personal bubble is shattered when people get too close to me, I get the feeling that she enjoys how close we get to her. Regardless of the way she may really feel about the invasion of her privacy, caution must be taken when approaching her. Just yesterday she had been sitting in her car seat and as I came in close to her face she kicked me in my Adams Apple. Surprised and a little amused I coughed, then laughed, and moved in close again. Once again her foot met my neck, and so it did the third time as well. On my fourth decent, I grabbed her foot and moved it aside, and I thought that I noticed a hint of frustration in Daphne's eyes.

Daphne's strange reflexes don't stop with just me. Last night Charlotte and I held Daphne between us, and as I was playing with her she reached out and honked my nose. Charlotte loved that and laughed for a good two minutes over it. Then, still laughing, she reached over to give Daphne a kiss on the head, only to have a tiny fist backhand her in the face. It made a lovely "thock" noise which I then laughed at. So apparently they are teaching self defense in the pre-existence now. Either that or my martial arts training has been passed on genetically. Expecting parents be on your guard.

Alright, I really set out in this post to talk about the way things are the first time that we see them, how others change them and in turn change our perceptions, and how we will see the same event, dialogue or image in the future. I have three experiences to explain what I mean.

The first two being almost the same experience. I've had the pleasure of watching the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and poured meticulously over its cinematic beauty. It is a masterpiece. All of it has been turned into one big joke after another. When I was dating Charlotte, I had the opportunity to meet one of her friends, Tom. Tom has done some film and editing on a personal level and I like most of what he has made. One of his productions showed the mirror scene in the Fellowship movie where Galadriel tells Frodo to look into the mirror, and as he looks in he sees clips from past seasons of American Idol. Still afraid of what he sees Frodo falls back to get away from these terrible images. I loved it.

The second experience is mostly from the Two Towers movie and can be found on YouTube as "taking the Hobbits to Isengard" where lines from the movie are arranged to a bad rendition of the movie's main musical theme. Its an addicting clip, I don't recommend watching it with sharp objects laying around. I'm trying to get it out of my head right now.

The third comes from an assignment I had in my storyboarding class. We were asked to watch some lectures online @ Ted.com. Ted is full of great lectures and inspirational talks by people who have made breakthroughs in their field of expertise. If you like TV I recommend listening to the one by JJ Abrams. The one I need to talk about comes from Sir Ken Robinson, who is British and an expert on creativity. He says a lot of interesting things about how most education systems squander the creativity of the children in school. In most cases, children will say what they think is right until they start to fear being wrong. Specifically, he talks about a Nativity play that his son was in where the wise men spoke out of the order we all think is most common when retelling the Nativity story. The first wise man stepped forward with his gift and said, "I bring you gold." The second did the same and said "I bring you myrrh." The third then came forward and said, "Frank sent this!"

Well Charlotte and I are still laughing over that one, and we agree in all three cases that we will never see the Lord of the Rings Trilogy or hear a Nativity play where we won't think of it the new way that we've heard it and roll over laughing. Its a curse that we may never take anything seriously again, but a blessing that we are able to laugh more.

I think that this is more than a good sized post, considering I haven't written anything up to this point. So I'll leave you with these nuggets and hope you all find new and interesting ways to see things without losing the original meaning and emotion. Bye.

Just Chillin

I love how chill Daphne always is! I take her to work with me when I go in for a few hours three days a week, and she's usually so good while we're there at work!

Chilling on Daddy's lap while he's working

She woke up from her nap and was just hanging out in her bed. I love how she entertains herself while she's laying there! She really is just the best baby!

She is cute while she's sleeping too, so I wanted to take this picture. She has started this past week sleeping through the night! She's done it four times this week, and I am loving getting more than 2 or 3 hours of sleep at a time!

First Laugh

Okay, yes...I have turned into one of those moms who only blogs about my baby. I can't help it! Besides the fact that I spend all my time with her, she's just so dang cute! She just laughed for the first time Sunday night. She's actually laughed in her sleep before, but this was the first time while she's been awake. I missed her first really cute laugh in this video, but this is what she was doing after that first laugh. Still very cute! (Sorry it's so dark. It wasn't that dark on my camera or on the computer before...not sure why it is so dark here...)

Halloween

For Halloween this year Daphne had a couple different outfits. At work on Friday, we decided to dress her up in the little ghost onesie we got from her Aunt Jordan. She got to be dressed up alongside her daddy, Mr. Incredible.

On Halloween, it's my sister, Kristen's birthday, so we went and had dinner at my parent's and hung out there watching a movie. Happy Birthday Kristen! We started Daphne out wearing a little pumpkin-type Halloween outfit Andrew's mom got for us a few months ago. It says "Baby's First Trick-or-Treat" on it.

Doesn't she have the cutest dimples ever?!

A fun family picture

After that outfit, we changed her again into a Minnie Mouse outfit that my sister, Rosie, gave us.

Dressed up again with daddy, this time he's Stitch.

It was a fun night, and we had fun dressing up our darling little girl, although next year I think we'll be a little more adventurous with her costume.

Dancing Daddy

Daphne just loves her daddy. She'll just watch him and smile at him all the time. I have to work for the smiles and attention, but she just gives them to Andrew freely. I just thought it was so cute how she was just watching him, I had to take a video of it. There was another night when Andrew was dancing around with her, it was so cute!! Just makes me fall in love with him all over again seeing how cute he is with her. So here is the video. Enjoy!

First Snow

Well Daphne had her first snow today. She just looked so cute dressed up in her jacket and mittens and shoes that I had to take a picture. Yay for firsts!

Two Months

Well here October is already almost over and I still haven't written a blog post this month. I'm horrible at this multi-tasking thing with a baby! I love to just hold Daphne all day long though. Even the days when I go to work, I'm holding her in the sling that my fabulous sister, Rosie, made for me most of the time. So here I am, now that Daphne is just over two months old, finally writing some more. I really don't have too much to write here, except about my adorable baby girl. She really is my life now, as I'm sure most of you moms can relate to. We had her two-month wellness check at the doctor's last Friday. She is 22 inches long, but she only weighs 8 lbs. 14 oz. now, so she really hasn't gained a whole lot. The doctor is not so happy with me about that one. I just don't get it though, cause she seems to be satisfied when I feed her. She doesn't seem to be super hungry all the time. She just isn't gaining a whole lot of weight either. Anyone out there have any advice for me on how to build up more milk or anything though? Cause the doctor wanted me to pump to see how much I've been getting..and that hasn't really worked out so well for me. Apparently I'm really not producing enough, but she still seems to be satisfied with what I am producing. It's just turning out to be super frustrating to me...so any advice any of you have about that would be helpful. Here are some updated pictures of my little princess. She is just the cutest baby in the world! How could you not want to spend all your time with this cutie?!

She has dimples and everything. And she is still such a good baby. She makes being a parent easy! I love how she will interact with Andrew and me now. She coos and reacts to peek-a-boo, and likes to be read and sung to, and just has the cutest smile ever! (Sorry, I couldn't decide which picture I thought was cutest, so I just had to post a bunch. :) ) We are so in love with her!

She knows and loves her Daddy. These were all taken while he was getting her to smile....

Daphne Helen Green

Well for all those that have been waiting to see pictures of my beautiful baby girl, I'm really sorry for how long it's taken me to finally post some on here. I'll start out with the picture of her that they took at the hospital the day she was born. Isn't she adorable? She's already lost some of the chubbiness of her cheeks, and I can't believe she's already four weeks old today!

I'll briefly tell of my birthing experience with her...mostly just for me so I have recorded what happened. I was due on the 6th of August, but at my doctor's visit that day I hadn't made any progress really from the previous week's visit. As you can tell from my post that day, I was very frustrated and depressed about this. Partly because I had lots of people tell me either that they thought I would come early, or they were telling me about how they or their spouse came early. I just wanted that to be me too. I was so done being pregnant! Mostly I was upset though because Andrew's parents and sister were going out of town two days after I was due and they were going to be gone for a week. I was sad that they were not going to be able to see their grandchild/niece for a week after she was born...from when I was hoping that she'd be born anyway. Then four days after I was due, my sister, Robyn, and her family who had been in town from Ohio left and went home. I was sad that they too were going to miss the birth of my baby. She just didn't want to come yet. Well I had a doctor's appointment a week after my due date, and the doctor decided that I would be induced the next morning. He sent me into the hospital that night for them to apply some gel on me to make me more effaced. I had to go in twice that night for them to give me the gel, and both times I had to lay flat on my back for about an hour so that my body had time to absorb the gel. The next morning when I went into the hospital to be induced, they checked me to see how far I was dilated. The nurse stretched me to be dilated to a 3...and after 8 hours of pitocin and two doses of this other stuff they gave me after the pitocin wasn't working and having contractions with all of that stuff, I was still only dilated to a 3. We had gone into the hospital at 6:30 Friday morning, and by the time we were done with all of that it was about 3am on Saturday. I was exhausted, having only slept about half an hour all day, being allowed to eat only a few clear liquid things, and having contractions all day long. The doctor was going to have the nurse administer another dose of the second medicine they were trying to get me to progress, when I told her that I just couldn't take any more. She went and got the doctor and we discussed all of my options. I told him that even if they would be able to finally get me dilated to a 10, I didn't think I would even have the strength to push out the baby, so after talking it over with Andrew, we decided that the best thing to do at that point would be for me to get a c-section. After that was decided, everything happened really quickly. They got me all prepped, then took me into the operating room where they gave me an epidural, then they brought Andrew in and our baby girl was born at 5:48am Saturday morning, August 15th.

I've been really blessed to be able to heal really quickly from having the c-section. I've never done it the other way, so I don't know how quickly I would heal from that, but after just about a week, I barely even noticed my incision. And Daphne is such a good baby she makes it easy to be a parent. She just has us wrapped around her long, perfect little fingers. She's so fun, and Andrew and I feel so blessed to have her in our lives.

Now that I'm finally caught up with posting about this, maybe I'll catch up on the other things that happened just before she was born. Until then, here are just a few of the many pictures that have been taken of our little Daphne. Enjoy! :)

Sorry this one is a bit blurry...I took it with my phone, but I love this picture of Andrew and Daphne

After her baby blessing in the beautiful dress Andrew's mom made for her

I love her face in this one

With her namesake, Grandma Hill

Our cute little family

Her cute little shoes and socks under her blessing dress

Sleeping on her grandma's shoulder at the luncheon after her blessing. Such a hard day for her!

She was smiling a lot right before I took this picture, but I just missed it. I know she's really too young to be smiling at us, but she totally does already. It just melts my heart. So cute!

One of her favorite sleeping positions

40 Weeks and No Baby :(

Well I had my 40 week checkup today--on my due date. Apparently this baby is really just loving where she's at and doesn't want to be born yet. I'm still only dilated to a 1 (where I've been for 3 weeks already.) I'm more effaced than I was before, but baby is still floating up too high. She's a little lower than she was last week, but still not low enough. I'm so depressed about it all, especially since most people I've talked to lately have either been telling me that I'll have the baby early, or they've talked about their babies that they've had early. How come everyone gets to have their babies early but me?! I just don't love that. I'm so ready to be done being pregnant! I just burst into tears at the doctor's office when he said that I'm still just dilated to a 1. I really thought I'd be a little further along than that. Also he won't induce me until I'm 10 days past my due date...so I could be pregnant for 10 more days still. I'm really not happy about that. I had a couple of contractions yesterday that were about 20 minutes apart, but then they just stopped. :( I think it's starting to feel pretty official...this baby is never going to come!

Pampering Time

Well it's getting to be crunch time for getting things done before the baby gets here! I made a list of everything I want to get done before she comes. Most of the list is filled with the normal things you would expect--build the crib, install the car seat, pack the hospital bag....stuff like that. But I decided to include some other things on this to-do list that are purely for my own enjoyment as well. I realize that my life is going to be drastically different after I have this baby, so I want to enjoy my last few weeks (well...days now...) of not having a baby to take with me everywhere I go, or worrying about getting a baby-sitter. So I also added getting a pedicure and going to see the new Harry Potter movie--two things I wanted to do sometime before the baby was born. Well last Saturday I was able to cross both of those things off my list. I went with my sister, Kristen, and friend, Karen, to get a pedicure. It was so nice to just relax and have someone take care of my toes that I can no longer reach. And they're so cute now! :) Then Kristen, Andrew and I got food at Five Guys Burgers and Fries--a semi-new burger joint in Orem that we've all wanted to try out since it opened. (Very good, by the way.) Following that, the three of us went to see the new Harry Potter movie. I enjoyed it thoroughly, even though it was really hard to sit through the whole thing in the theater. Good thing no one can tell that you're fidgeting a lot in the dark theater. It was a nice relaxing day, after which Andrew set up the crib and we got things mostly organized for the "nursery" we'll have. So it was a fun day AND we got something accomplished as well. I was so happy to be able to cross so many things off of our to-do list. I totally recommend everyone taking a day off (or at least half of a day) and doing something just for you! It's very rejuvenating and makes it easier to deal with the stresses of life. Andrew and I pretty much have things set up for the arrival of our newest family member now, and are getting very anxious for her arrival. Me especially as I can't sleep very well anymore and am mostly uncomfortable a good majority of the time. Pregnancy is so much fun. :)

Fourth of July

I realize that I'm about two weeks late in posting this, but I hope everyone had a happy Fourth of July! Andrew and I were able to celebrate it two days in a row with both of our families. Friday night my mom's family got together for dinner. My uncle Kent just finished with his three years being a mission president for the Tulsa, OK mission, so we were able to see him and my aunt Joyce again! It was so nice to catch up with them, and Andrew got to meet uncle Kent for the first time! (We started dating after they left on their mission.) It was a nice, relaxing evening with the family. Saturday, the 4th, we had a nice dinner with Andrew's family and some family friends, the Jacksons, at the park. We had lots of yummy food and it was fun watching the kids play around there, especially our niece, Eliana. Our baby will be born almost exactly one year after she was, and I love being able to see where our baby will be one year from now. I love how my baby reacts to sound already too. Eliana dropped some keys onto the park bench a couple of times and it was pretty loud. My baby jumped every time. I guess she doesn't like loud noises. :) I love feeling her move around though. It's very comforting. Sorry, tangent. :) Anyway, that night we went with Andrew's parents to Pleasant Grove to watch the fireworks show they do there. We met up with his aunt and uncle and some cousins there, and we loved watching the fireworks! I don't know what it is about colored bits of fire up in the air that are so mezmerizing, but I sure love them!

The family entertaining themselves before the fireworks

Andrew and me dressed in out red, white and blue. That's his cousin peeking up behind us. :)

Happy (very late) Fourth of July!! I guess by now this can count for Happy Pioneer Day too, right? :)

Baby Showers

Well it's been forever since I've written anything here. Mostly it's cause I'm lazy, but also because I don't have a lot to say. Not a whole lot has been going on with me besides getting ready for the baby lately. I'm due in just under 3 weeks now and it's coming fast! I can't wait till she gets here, but we still have plenty to get done before she comes, so it's good that we still have a little bit of time.

I've had two baby showers so far, and I have one more on August 1st. As long as the baby hasn't come by then. :) Both showers were lots of fun though, and I'm amazed at the generosity of everyone! I have the best family and friends! I actually forgot to take any pictures at my shower my friend threw me, but I do have some from my Hill family shower, so I'll share those.

Some cute bibs my cousin made for me

Present my cute sister-in-law sent for me even though she couldn't make it. Thanks Jordan!

Present from Rosie and Julia.

Julia and Mierae

Robyn and Jolie--I was glad that Robyn was able to make it. They got to Utah just in time to come to the shower. And I love Jolie's little half smile here. :)

Thank you so much to everyone who came to one or both of these showers! I'm excited for the Hendriksen family shower I have coming up too. I just want to say an early thank you to all of you who are throwing it and will be coming! Andrew and I truly appreciate all the love and support shown to us by everyone. We love you!

Choir Goes Down a Storm

Andrew found this video online and shared it with me. I thought it was cool so I'm sharing it with all of you too. :) No idea who this choir is, but they're pretty good. We do the storm thing they do in nursery with the kids and they love it. And I love the song they sing. So enjoy!

A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

You know those days when everything just seems to go wrong? Yesterday was just one of those days for me. I know I should be so extremely excited at this point in time....just 8 weeks left till my baby's due!!! And I am so excited about that. Work was pretty normal, but I was not in a good mood, so all the normal little annoyances that happen at work I took pretty hard yesterday. I started crying at least twice at work. All this hormone stuff is so much fun! :) I had a terrible headache, and just my luck, all the Tylenol we had at work was gone. I haven't yet stocked any in my purse just in case I need it, so I just had to live with it until I went home after 6. I had a doctor's appointment which should have been just a really quick check-up. Well, it was a quick check-up when we finally made it into the back...but we had to wait in the waiting room for almost 45 minutes! Then my normal nurse had called in sick for the day. Not really a problem, but it was just another thing that threw me off yesterday. And the doctor said I'm starting to get carpel tunnel. Apparently it's something some pregnant women get....and hopefully it'll go away after the baby is born. My hands have just been bugging me for a little while now. My fingers will go numb, and I can't grip things very well with my right thumb anymore. It hasn't become a huge problem yet, just an annoyance so far. Hopefully it doesn't get any worse! And I've decided that, at least for me, headaches cause me to be totally irrational and over-sensitive about everything. The really bad ones at least. Hooray for Tylenol! I took two as soon as I got home, and the world seemed to be a better place. After that and a bowl of ice cream of course. :) Here's hoping for less days like this for everyone!

Andrew's Birthday Celebration Weekend

Andrew's actual birthday was on Friday, the 22nd. He was lucky and only had a three hour work day on Friday, then we had a nice long weekend to celebrate! Friday night we had dinner at his parent's which was a lot of fun. Good food, good company, and little Eliana, our niece, there for good entertainment. :) I love how the kids end up being the entertainment for everyone. After staying a while and talking with his parents, we stopped by my parent's house to see my sister and brother-in-law who are in town for the week. Eric was already asleep by the time we got there, but we got to visit with Robyn for a bit along with Kristen, Melodie, and my parents. Then we went home and watched Paul Blart: Mall Cop that we got from redbox. It was actually pretty funny; we both enjoyed it. The next day we got to sleep in really late, then we got up, got ready and went to get tickets for Star Trek. We had a little time to do some shopping before the movie started, then we went and enjoyed this new movie. I don't want to ruin anything for anyone who hasn't seen it...but can I just tell you that the opening scene is not good for a pregnant lady to watch. There is a lady having a baby on this ship that is getting attacked, so everyone aborts ship except her husband who is the captain. He stays to make sure everyone can get away, and then he ends up dying on the ship right after he hears his son cry for the first time. I was totally bawling!! Never thought a Star Trek movie would make me bawl. :) So after that emotional roller coaster...(really good movie, even for me after that first scene...fyi) we went back to my parents so we could say hi to Robyn, Eric, Mierae and Jolie since we only got to see Robyn the night before. We stayed there for a little bit, then we ended up going to Goodwood for dinner. It was yummy. Afterwards we went home, and Andrew finally put together the new dresser we bought for him at Ikea a few weeks ago. The whole process took a lot longer than either of us thought it would, but it was worth it in the end for all the extra drawer space he now has. Sunday, after nursery was over, was nice and relaxing. We took an extra long nap, and had dinner at his parent's, then spent a little bit more time at my parent's again with everyone. Monday we got to sleep in, then we actually got some stuff accomplished--some laundry, reorganized the pantry which I've wanted to get done for a long time, and I swept and mopped the whole kitchen area. Then we went to the store to get some things we were out of, and then off to Rosie's and Derek's for our annual Memorial Day bbq. We also were celebrating Andrew's birthday. Yay for family bbqs! It was a lot of fun and such a beautiful day! Then back at home we got to eat lots of watermelon we bought that day! I just love watermelon!! And we watched X-Men. Lots of movies, lots of food, and lots of time with family. What a great weekend. :) Happy Birthday Andrew! I love you tons!!

Andrew with his cake

Right after he blew out the candles. He was too fast for me!

Opening presents

The two of us. First real belly shot I've taken...almost 30 weeks here. Just 10 weeks left!!

Popsicles

Aren't popsicles the best things ever invented? Now that the days are getting warmer, I just love to lay on my bed with the fan blowing on me while eating a popsicle. It doesn't get much better than that. Unless I'm sitting in my nice air-conditioned car with the ac turned all the way up blowing all around me....mmmm....so nice. I'm just wishing for cold weather again and vowing that I'll never have another summer baby. :)

At least popsicles give us nicely colored tongues and teeth...