Vivien Skye born February 4

Our family has been very happy to welcome Vivien Skye to our family. She was born on February 4 at 5:51 p.m. This was exactly a week after her due date. I don't know how long she would have taken to come on her own. I wonder if it EVER would have happened, although I am assured that no one has ever given birth to a 2 year old.

When I went to the Doctor on Friday morning I was 4 cm. dilated and had been having on again off again contractions for weeks. The Doctor gave me the option of heading right over to the hospital and having the baby, and I'm afraid we took him up on it.

They broke my water which got me a little further then they gave me a very small amount of Pitocin which got that baby right out. I went from 6 cm dilated to 10 cm dilated in about 20 minutes. I can't express how painful that was, but I'm really glad that I didn't have the epidural because I didn't have any of the negative side effects that I've had in the past (spinal headache or scary drastic drop in blood pressure). I also thought that the pushing was MUCH better when I could feel what I was doing.

Baby Vivien is doing great. She is beautiful and a really good baby. Here are some pictures of us loving on her.

p.s. The sign was Juliet's gorgeous work.

Fun in the Snow

Christmas morning

Juliet's Friend Party

Juliet had a princess party for her friends. I wasn't sure how many people would be able to come since December is a very busy month, so I invited lots of people and had periodic panic attacks that no one would be able to come (did I mention I'm a little neurotic about throwing parties).

Turn out was great with 7 little girls plus Juliet. We had quite a full house. We had a couple of crafts, played some princess themed games (Frog, frog, princess, pin the crown on the princess, etc...) and had fun playing.

One thing that made the party especially fun was Juliet's aunt did some gorgeous face painting for the little girls and set up a back drop for them to have their pictures taken in front of. I was thrilled that it went well and thrilled that it was over. We only do friend parties on special years, so it will be awhile before I have to do that again. Whew!

Playing with Juliet's new art easel

Both kids have been enjoying this awesome art easel that Juliet got for her birthday.