funny

Last week we were at my parents house. Addie and Kimball LOVE my parents dog Shelby. She is 15 years old and is totally deaf now. Addie started using her sign language with her. She was rubbing her belly and then Addie signed (in ASL) "no more, all done" and Shelby got up, so Addie is absolutely convinced that Shelby understands ASL now.....this would be great if Shelby weren't pretty much blind too.
I guess she will have to start signing into her paw like Helen Keller, and I don't put that past Addie. I'm sure she will do it

Avonleas birth part 3

If any of you have seen Ammon as a dad, you know how much he loves his kids. If you want to hold our babies, you have to take turns with Daddy. He always is wanting to hold her and change her diaper...in fact I never even saw any meconium because Ammon changed every diaper in the hospital. Last night, I had a meeting and decided to leave Avonlea home since she still is sleeping ALL the time. Ammon had a ton of homework to do but do you think he did it? Nope, he just sang songs to Avonlea and held her the whole time. This baby will never be able to say she is not loved.
Here is Daddy and Avonleas first photo together.


The kids couldn't come in the room because of hospital restrictions but they got to come to the hospital with Grandma and Grandpa and look at her through the window. I think Kimball was a little confused at why he was there looking at a baby and why I was behind the glass. Addie was pretty excited however.

Here is another example of how Ammon cannot get enough of her. Here she is zonked but he still can't put her down but just snuggles her while he does his O-chem.

We came home from the hospital Tuesday night and the kids came home from grandmas Wednesday morning and were so excited to hold and snuggle their new sister. We all can't get enough of her. We feel so blessed to have her in our family. She adds the sweetest spirit to our home.

Avonleas birth part 2

This may be boring for some of you....if so, just don't read it :-)
Monday March 15th I had an appointment at 7:45am to have my membranes stripped (doesn't that sound pleasant). I had been trying to go into labor on my own and really thought it would happen since I was having contractions and I could tell she was far down. My amazing friend Sarah, who had been my nurse with Addie and has since moved to Coalville, drove down (4 and1/2 hours) Saturday morning hoping to be here for my labor. She had to go home Monday and nothing happened Saturday or Sunday. Monday morning came and the stripping didn't go so well but since Sarah was here.....and I was ready to be done being prego, my midwife called down to labor and delivery and said she was going to send me down to be induced. I'm pretty sure I would have gone into labor that day since I was feeling the contractions but we decided to hurry it along a little so Sarah could be here. I had been planning on going home to finish getting ready and get our bags and stuff after the appt. but that didn't happen. I walked down the hall to go have a baby and Ammon went to get our bags at home....however, we had left the lights on in the car and the battery was dead when Ammon went to start it. He was gone for about the first hour and a half trying to get the car started and get home. Luckily, I wasn't having any hard contractions.....yet. I had awesome nurses and of course Sarah was there. My midwife Laurie came and broke my water and about 45 min. later they started me on petocin. The contractions started getting pretty regular and pretty hard. Luckily Ammon was back by this point and when I felt a contraction coming on, I would just say "Ammon" and he would begin to massage my head and neck while I closed my eyes and focused on his touch. Once the contraction was done, we all started talking and laughing again. It was actually really fun. We were laughing a lot and I loved having Sarah and my other nurse Hillary there. I never imagined labor being so pleasant...except for the contractions part :-)
Well they were getting pretty bad so I was ready for my epidural. I was a little afraid to get it put in because when I had one with Addie, it felt like the left side of my body was electrocuted. Luckily, everything went really well with this one going in and it was AMAZING to actually not feel the contractions. With Addie, the epidural only worked on my left side. With Kimball I went natural, so this was a whole new experience. It was really weird when they started getting the room ready for the delivery because I didn't feel like it was going to be soon because I wasn't in pain. THEN...the pain started coming. I started feeling a lot of pressure and the need to push. That is a good thing, except that for some reason, the epidural hadn't quite numbed all the areas needing to be numb. I couldn't feel the contractions in my belly but I could feel everything when I started to push but I wasn't pushing very well because of the epidural. Does that make sense? I can honestly say that if my pain was a 10 when pushing Kimball out, it was a 9 pushing Avonlea out. I felt hopeless because it felt like no matter how hard I pushed, nothing was happening and I just wanted to give up....not an option. Dang!
Well, after about 1/2 hour of pushing, she finally came out and they laid her on me. There is no way to describe that feeling so I am not even going to try. I couldn't believe how big she was. She had the biggest cheeks and several chins and was just so darn cute. I just kept saying "I'm so glad your here, I'm so glad your out, I'm so glad that is over" She has such an amazing spirit about her.

Here she is seconds after they laid her on me....thank you Sarah for taking this picture. It is priceless

check out those chins and her cheeks. I love her folded hands

My amazing friend Sarah. If any of you have ever had her as your nurse, you know how lucky you were. She was, and is the BEST!!!

Avonlea Elise Mitchell. born at 2pm. 8 lbs, 4 oz. 20 inches long. Very healthy and we are so happy to have her here.