Taking on two

Yesterday was my 6 week postpartum appointment. I can't believe my wee pete is that old already. He has grown so much and we are enjoying having him in our home.
I have a whole new respect for my own mum now though...how did she manage eight children! I am in complete awe of anyone with more than one! I've had a lot of people tell me that the initial transition from one to two was hard, but that having the third and so forth was pretty easy in comparison...I'm hoping that is the case. Because as of right now I would probably say I'm done having kids. Of course that's not the case. I want more, but I am definitely feeling slightly overwhelmed from time to time with the two. Jack is a good big brother for the most part. He likes to give lovely hugs and kisses to his brother, but unfortunately he tends to follow it up with a head-butt or a swift kick. I pretty much have to watch him like a hawk when he is anywhere near Pete, but I'm sure it'll get better...or worse.

My sister,Isabel, came to spend 5 weeks with us this summer. Jack had a lot of fun with her and it was very nice having another set of hands to help me when we left the house. Now that she has left reality is starting to sink in. I have a whole new way of thinking now... Right, so it's just me and the boys...do I really need to leave the house today? Or, can my errands wait till Ryan comes home and then I maybe only need to take one child, if any.

Peter wasn't the best sleeper for the first few weeks we had him home, but thankfully his schedule is starting to sort itself out. On the whole I would have to say that Pete is a way more relaxed and mellow baby than Jack was. He pretty much never cries unless there is a real reason. He's time consuming simply because of nursing and never-ending nappy changing, but he's very easy. I love how he seems to smile when he hears my voice after he has been held by someone else for a while. He's a very sweet wee baby. Anyway, I'm slowly getting the hang of things, but it sure takes some patience.



Here is my sister, Isabel, and I after watching the fireworks on the 4th July

Peter at 2 weeks old

My sister and Jack spending some time together

Jack in his new shirt

Daddy and Pete

Brothers

Wilsonville Murase plaza


Jack in his very cute dungarees!

Peter at 5 weeks old...getting chunkier!

Welcome Welcome Little Peter

We have our newest little family member! On June 15th 2009 at 9:25am we welcomed Peter Chris Harris into the world. He weighed a rather large (at least in comparison to Jack) 8 pounds 11 ounces and was 21 inches long.
Originally, I was supposed to be induced at 7:30am that very morning. I had been dilated to 2/3cm for a few weeks and had been suffering for a fair amount of pain in that last month. I asked my doctor if we could hurry things along at all, so he went ahead and stripped my membranes the Friday before the birth. He seemed fairly confident that I would then go into labor naturally over the weekend. However, if for some reason I didn't he scheduled an induction for Monday morning. I did, of course, think about the fact that this would be on Jack's birthday, but to be honest I was kinda beyond caring if they had the same birthday. I was very ready to have my baby. I had numerous contractions over the weekend, but every morning there I was STILL PREGNANT.

We celebrated Jack's 2nd birthday on Sunday evening as we weren't sure we'd get the chance to do much of anything on Monday. He had a brilliant time and loved all of his gifts.
That night I went to be feeling very nervous. With Jack, my water broke in the middle of the night and I was only dilated to 1 cm, so I had to be induced. Child birth isn't exactly fun any way you do it, but I suddenly started thinking about how painful being induced actually was and was having major second thoughts about doing it. At 3am on Monday I woke up to strong contractions that were about 15 mins apart. I waited for a short while before waking Ryan up with a screech of pain! Ha. We realized pretty quickly that this was it when my contractions were 5 mins apart within the next half an hour.

We arrived at the hospital in Newberg, which is thankfully very close to our house, about 5:30am. Since I had been in labor for 12 hours with Jack, I told Ryan to go get breakfast and some food to bring back to the hospital for lunch, etc.
Well, in the short half an hour he was gone I had already dilated to 5/6 cm, had my water broken by the doctor, and been given the epidural. Ryan walked back into a busy room and was wondering what in the world was going on. I was starting to think he might miss the birth as everything was happening so fast. Because I was dilating so quickly the epidural didn't have time to catch up with me during any of the contractions. Thankfully right when I was about to start pushing the epidural kicked in. Within 3 contractions of pushing the wee guy was out. It was a very painful, but wonderfully quick experience.

I loved my Doctor and all of the nurses were wonderful. I am so glad I changed over to that hospital. It was great for Jack and Ryan too, as they were able to spend most of every day that I was in the hospital with me and then only had a short drive home.

Jack and Grandma Liz (Ryan's mum) came to visit at about 10:30am after the birth. I was interested to see how Jack would react. When he first saw me in the bed he got a really sad look on his face and didn't want to come to me. But within seconds he had changed his mind and kept saying "Baby" over and over again. It was very sweet. He is very gentle and loving towards his new baby brother, but is still adjusting to the fact that he now needs to share his mummy. There have been a few instances when I think he wished Peter would go back to the hospital, but on the whole Jack is a wonderful big brother.

I was able to come home with Peter on Wednesday and we are enjoying him immensely. Although, I had definitely forgotten just how little sleep you actually get with a newborn, but it's so worth it.

Here are a few pictures...there are more on facebook:



My pregnant belly at 9 months







Jack's birthday


New big brother Jack


Our wee family...Jack isn't real happy in this one



Jack, Mummy, and Peter



Daddy and wee Pete



Our wee Pete



A proud Mum



Peter



Jack getting some help from Daddy as he learns to ride his new bike

Nearing the end

We are starting to feel really settled in our new house. I love it. I couldn't be happier with the nice quiet neighborhood, the great wee parks that are so close by, and I really love our new ward too. I can't believe how friendly everyone has been to us. We've made some friends that have young kids too and spent memorial day with them enjoying a BBQ. Followed by another BBQ at Ryan's parents house in Salem. It was a very busy, but enjoyable day.
We bought some new furniture that should be arriving tomorrow morning. We bought a bedroom set and a sofa, love seat, ottoman set. I'll post some pics soon.

On Tuesday I had an appointment with my new OBGYN. I liked him even better than my previous doctor. He is such an easy going guy and made me feel very comfortable. Turns out that he has delivered tons of girls babies from my new ward. The hospital here in Newberg is only 3 years old and every room has a jacuzzi ... nice. Ryan seemed really excited when I told him, but who said anything about him using it!
The one downer is that they don't have a nursery. I loved that about Utah Valley Hospital. I could press a wee button when I wanted Jack taken away so I could sleep and then buzz it again when I wanted him back for a cuddle and feeding. This time the new wee guy will be right there all the time..hopefully he sleeps really well so we can both get some rest before heading home.
At my appointment I had dilated to a 2. I was surprised to have dilated at all, but I don't want to get my hopes up and think that that means he's coming early as my friend, Karen, was stuck at a 3 for like 3 weeks or something! So, I might have a while to go yet. I did finally pack a bag last night though and wash all of Jack's old newborn clothes. I can't believe how tiny they are. I am sure Jack is going to look massive next to the new wee guy.

We're in Newberg

We were able to close on our new home as scheduled; May 4th. It has been incredibly stressful and tiring on my pregnant self, but all in all totally worth it. I can't say how happy I am to be in the house prior to having this baby. I had been going to an OBGYN in Tualatin (about 10 mins from our apartment), but now the drive is about half an hour from the new house. It's still not bad, but we have a hospital literally 5 mins from our house here in Newberg. I went ahead and switched everything over to their Newberg clinic. People keep telling me that I'm brave changing my doctor this late in the game. But when I had Jack my doctor wasn't even on call, so Jack ended up being delivered by someone I had never met. I SO didn't care though...I was was just happy to have someone experienced deliver my child. And that's kind of how I feel about this delivery too.
I have my next appointment on the 26th of this month and then it's weekly till the due date. I am praying that I will have progressed somewhat by the next visit. I mean honestly, after all the chaos of the move I think I am entitled to another early baby! Plus I'm turning into one of those pregnant women who walk funny because I ache all over and it's just not attractive..ha.

As far as the house goes, we are loving it. Jack runs around like a wee nutter non-stop and loves his new room. We got a toddler bed for him, but haven't actually put it into his room yet... we need to get him out of his cot and into that this weekend. I hope he stays in it!

We painted the kitchen and one of the bathrooms the very night we got the keys to the house. It was a lot of work. The following day I had all the carpets cleaned....it looks great! And then by Wednesday the 6th we were totally moved in. It was fast. I only wanted to put up some pictures of the outside and the colour we painted the kitchen for now as the house is so bare and pathetic looking at this point. We don't have nearly enough furniture yet and the walls are very empty and sad looking. We are going furniture shopping this weekend. I'm sure it will take some time to get the house looking the way we want it though, especially with a new baby coming that will take up a lot of my time. So I'll put some pics of the inside up once it starts taking shape.

I really like our new ward, everyone is so friendly and it's half the size of our last ward. Hopefully we will get to know a lot more people here.

Catch up

Jack enjoying some nice weather...we went to three parks that day.Jack and my GrandparentsJack enjoying some fruit in his p.j's

Jack and Mummy decorating eggs

Jack and Haylee playing with her fun toy car.

I haven’t blogged in forever! So, we have been looking at houses for about a month and a half now. We made an offer on one that we really liked in a town called Newberg and they counter-offered with a price that we were not at all willing to pay. I was a tad disappointed. I must mention at this point that we have looked at 3 houses on this particular street in Newberg….it almost felt like we were destined to live there. Then the very next week our realtor takes us to another house on this same street….in fact is actually faces the house we made an offer on! Crazy. We loved the house as it pretty much has the exact same floor plan, but this one has a bonus living room up just a few stairs. The rest of the house is one level. We were really excited at the thought of getting a bigger house at a much cheaper price. It was a short sale. We prepared ourselves for basically not hearing back from the bank for months on end. Then three days after making an offer we had heard back from both the seller and the bank that our offer had been accepted! We had the house inspection on Tuesday and it went pretty well. We have a couple of things to take care of, but on the whole we were really pleased with how it turned out. Our closing date is set for May 4^th. Hopefully everything else plays out smoothly from this point on. I am really excited at the thought of getting into a house before the baby is born. Jack ran around like a headless chicken each time we visited the house….so I’m pretty sure he likes it too.

I have 10 weeks left in my pregnancy now. I feel extremely uncomfortable at night and have been having Braxton hicks contractions, which I do not remember having with Jack. Anyway, Jack keeps me busy enough that I don’t focus too much on this pregnancy and the time has just flown in. I’m looking forward to seeing this new little one soon though. I can not believe how active he is.

My Grandparents were able to come and spend four days with us recently. It was a quick pit-stop before heading to Salt Lake City for General Conference and then onto Kansas City to start the church history tour. It was so nice for Jack to get to know his Great Grandparents a bit better. My gran’pa started playing football (soccer) with Jack the morning after they arrived and of course that won Jack over immediately. He loved all the attention and cried when they left…so did I. We are so glad they came to visit and hope they are enjoying the rest of their holiday.

With Easter this coming Sunday we went over to our friend’s house and painted some eggs. Jack and their little girl, Haylee, weren’t very interested in decorating the eggs as much as eating the Easter sweets and playing in Haylee’s toy car. Jack did have a lot of fun throwing the eggs on the floor though…wee devil!

Over too soon

Some pics of my growing belly.
I love this one!!! Poor Euan was freezing in his kilt when we were taking these pics at the Temple.

We've been home since the 9Th of this month and the whole trip to Scotland seems like a dream. The first week flew in so fast with all the chaos of the wedding. It was such a wonderful day. They had the civil ceremony at my home ward in East Kilbride in the morning and then some of the family travelled the 3 hours to the Preston Temple for the Sealing ceremony. I was able to leave Jack with some of my siblings while I attended the sealing. It was so emotional for me. I haven't been able to attend any of my other siblings weddings and finally getting to see one of them 'all grown up' and so in love made me beyond happy.
Alisa is such a lovely girl and I am grateful my brother found her. They absolutely adore each other!

I was pretty homesick for that first week after I got back...don't get me wrong, I loved being with Ryan again, but it was a hard transition going from seeing my family every day to not at all again. Hopefully lots of family members will be able to come visit for a wee while when the baby comes in June though.

As far as the baby goes, things are going fairly well. Although, unfortunately I failed my glucose test again! Bummer. Now I have to go back to the clinic and sit for 3 hours. They told me I couldn't bring Jack with me as I am not allowed to be moving around while I'm there and I can't leave the building at all. In Utah they let me leave and just return each hour on the hour for the blood drawing.
The baby is very active, which is a good sign and a little worrying too....haha...we have another Jack on our hands for sure! I feel massive and probably look it too...you definitely get bigger faster with the second that's for sure.

Ryan and I have started the house hunt and look almost daily online for houses in the area. We meet with our Realtor on Saturday, so I am hoping he will help us find something we can afford and really like. It's our first house though and unfortunately the houses in this area are pretty expensive still, so I'm not holding my breath for my dream house.

Back home

My wee brother, Euan and his fiance Alisa are getting married on the 31st of this month. Originally, they were going to get married in the states, as she is from Utah, but they changed their minds and are now getting married in Scotland.  I had my heart set on going to the wedding prior to the change in location and I was lucky enough to find a great deal to Scotland for 2 weeks.  We arrived at the crack of dawn on Monday morning and have been feeling rather jet-lagged so far.  Wee Jack was amazing!  I can't believe how lucky I have been to have such a great traveller.  Maybe it's just in his blood.  He didn't cry at all on either of the long flights, but also never sat still for a minute.  He was energetic and enthusiastic about the whole ordeal.  I on the other hand was exhausted and could not have been happier to arrive at our destination.  Let me tell you.....it is not fun flying pregnant...and I will never do it again at the conclusion of this trip!  I was most uncomfortable and very nauseous.  

Anyway, we made it safe and sound and have been most enjoying that last few days spending time with my family.  My sister and her husband arrived from Wales yesterday, so all the siblings, except my wee brother on a mission, are together again.  Four married, four to go!

Jack and I miss you Ryan!  x