Leah Pictures

So many pictures and so many precious memories. I don't want to forget a single moment.

Leah Grace

Our sweet and beautiful third baby was born at 11:04 on February 8th, 2012. It was an amazing experience and we are all so in love! Thank you Jesus for our beautiful girl!!

Here is the story of her birth:
Leah's birth was fast and furious, she certainly made a grand entrance into the world. Wednesday morning I had an apt. with the midwife and she swept my membranes to attempt to get things going, since I was a week past my due date at that point. I started feeling crampy pretty soon after that and was keeping my fingers crossed that it was the start of something. I started having timeable contractions at about 3 in the afternoon, and they were about 8-9 minutes apart. By 5 ish they were 3-4 min apart and I told Nick we might want to think about going to the hospital. We called my mom and sister who were going to keep an eye on the kids, and then started up to the hospital. On the way there, contractions slowed down to 6-7 minutes apart, so I told DH lets go home because I didn't want to go to the hospital and then be told to go home. We hung out at home until about 7 and contractions picked back up so we headed back to the hospital. We got there around 7:45 and they took us up to L&D. They were pretty busy, so it was almost 9 until someone came in and checked me. I was still at 2.5-3cm and even though contractions were 3 min apart and pretty intense, they told me to go home and wait until I had contractions every 2 min for an hour and then to come back. We live 45 min from the hospital and I told Nick I was really afraid to go home and that if we did we might not make it back in time. Instead we went to a friends house who lives about 15 min from the hospital to see how things progressed. We were there for about an hour and at 10:30 I told DH that we needed to go back to the hospital. We got there at 10:45 and at that point contractions were really intense and I was starting to vocalize through them. Made it up to L&D at 10:50 and my water broke in triage. I was 8cm at that point. The nurses kept yelling at me not to push but my body took over and I couldn't help but push. They were literally running down the hallway with me on the gurney to try and make it into the room before she was born. We got into the room and they told me I had to get in the bed and I told that that I couldn't move, because I was in the middle of a contraction. Once it let up a bit I got in the bed and about 30 seconds after that she was born. Nick said I yelled, "It's coming!!!" and she just popped out onto the bed. No Dr was there and the nurse didn't even see her be born. It was so crazy fast, but now that I can look back on it, I am so glad that I was able to have a quick labor. I really wanted to experience natural labor, and I think that having it go so fast helped me not to have a chance to change my mind. She was up on my chest right away and nursed like a champ. We are home now and everyone is doing great. We are so in love with her and Hannah is especially proud and excited to be a big sister. Gabe is also really warming up to his new role as a big brother, he is doing great!! I am so incredibly blessed!

Bathtub Paint!

Looking for a fun indoor activity to do when it is cold and gross outside? Look no farther than bathtub paint! All it is is shaving cream with food coloring mixed in. Hannah and Gabe played for over an hour and had a blast "painting" the tub. The best part was that the mess was fairly contained and that it was super easy to clean up when I gave the kids a bath when they were done. Score one for mommy!

Before:



After:

Now this is good snow!

Oh yes, I did manage to zip up my coat, lol :)
Hannah, Gabe, Mama and the ever so awesome Auntie Krissy.
Sledding! Love the looks on their faces!!
Fun!!
452 tries later...we are all at least aimed towards the camera, lol :)

Snow...sort of..

It had been an unusually warm winter this year, which unfortunately means that snow has been lacking around here. We finally got a little bit of something and you can bet your booty that Nick and the kids were out in it first thing! A snow man was built and they had a blast! Yay for snow!

Soooo much to catch up on!!

Oh my goodness have I been a bad blogger lately! Shame on me :) We have been really busy with the holidays and then the birth of our sweet baby #3. She will get a post all her own, and this post is going to be a bit of a catch all for the past two months. First up, Christmas 2012 :)

Christmas is a major holiday around our home, and we are BUSY!! We do Christmas with Nick's family, Christmas with my family, and Christmas the 4 of us :) It is a wonderfully busy but fun filled time of year.


This year Hannah got a Kaya American girl doll from my parents. She thought it was sooooooo cool!

My niece Sera :) She is so stinking cute!

Gabey got a ride on horse from my parents...he named it Maximus and he loves to ride his "hee-hee." (Gabes word for horse :))

My sweety niece Bella :) Or as Gabe and Hannah call her, Bell-jel :)

Grandma and Grandpa Hollingsworth :)

Hannah's big gift this year was a sewing machine. She LOVED it! her little face was so precious when she opened it up. (Unfortunately it didn't work and we had to send it back :( )

Gabey got a toy gun. It is soo cool! It makes lots of good noises and even ejects the play bullets when you shoot. Him and his daddy had a good time playing with it on Christmas morning :)

Daddy and his monkeys :) They picked out those Mario PJ's for him and were so proud of their choice. One of the things that Nick and the kids do together is play Mario on the Wii, so this was the perfect choice :)

Matching Christmas PJ's and ornaments :) Yep, I am nerdy like that! :)

Very pregnant mama on Christmas...oy vey!

Hannah loved her Rapunzel!

Gabe loved his Cars chair from Mike and Melissa.

Stockings time at Grandma and Grandpa Hershbergers!

I think that they liked their Keurig :)

Daddy got a knife...watch out!

Decorating cutouts...such a fun time!

Well I think that is enough catching up for now, more pictures and updates coming soon :)

Nursery Pics :)

So since we didn't find out the sex of the baby this time, I was pretty stumped for awhile about how I wanted to decorate the nursery. Everything I saw in stores that was neutral was ducks, frogs or tan colored teddy bears. Not that there is anything at all wrong with those themes, but I like color and shapes and I just couldn't find anything I liked all that well. That is where I came up with the idea to make the nursery stuff myself :) I decided to do a Dr. Seuss theme, and I really like how it came out. In my opinion it is pretty gender neutral, and I was able to do it for about $50.00 :)

The crib with a super soft cat in the hat flannel crib sheet. The framed pictures above the crib are just frames that I put some extra bits of the material that I used in :)
I made the curtains and basket liners too :) The baskets have our cloth diapers and wipes in them, although I plan to use disposables until the babies cord falls off.
View of the whole room :)

Gingerbread Houses :)

Oy vey, I am so far behind in blogging. A few weeks ago we did gingerbread houses with the kids, which is a tradition at our house. Hannah had a blast, and Gave even participated quite a bit. I love having fun family traditions!! :)

Hannah's completed masterpiece.
Hard at work!!
Gabes completed masterpiece! :)
She had so much fun!
Gabey hard at work :)
Cheeser!!

Trimming the Tree

As per Christmas time tradition, we put our tree up the day after Thanksgiving. The kids absolutely love doing this, and each year as they are a little bit older, it gets to be more and more fun :) Here are some pictures of our tree trimming festivities :)

The four (and a half :)) of us :)

Hannah helping put up ornaments :)Gabey hanging up Thomas. :)
Our nativity :) I love that this year we actually have space to set it out and not have to squish all the figures together :)

For Auntie Krissy :)

Hey sees :) I finally got around to taking a belly shot for you :) This is me at the beginning of the 29th week. Love you!

Words on a Page

As most who read my blog know, we are homeschooling Hannah for kindergarden this year. She amazes me at times with her requests for homework, so when she asked me for something to do yesterday I told her to pick any six words that she wanted, and write them down and let me know when she was finished. This is what she did :) Girlfriend definitely got her daddy's smarts :)

Trick or Trunk!

Last night we had trick or trunk at our church and the kids had so much fun! Gabe thought that it was so cool that he got so much candy (he has a major sweet tooth) and Hannah loved getting to dress up like Rapunzel! I loved that they have a safe place to trick or treat with friend and family :)

Lightening McQueen and Rapunzel ")

Family picture :) We have one from each year at trick or trunk, so we had to keep up the tradition.

She was completely freezing at this point, but didn't want to put her coat on and cover her costume up :)

Also freezing :)

Love this picture! I am so blessed to have these two little monkeys! Love their rotten little butts to pieces!