Brotherly Love

Miles is one good brother! I'm still breathing a sigh of relief about this I think. The only reason I have to worry about leaving them in a room alone together is if Miles decides to cuddle her too much and ends up lying on top of her tummy. :) He always wants cuddles and kisses from his baby Gwen. My favorite is when they're riding in the stroller and he reaches over to grab her hand! He helps by throwing away her diapers and bringing her some of his toys to share. Notice the yarn draped around the mobile that Gwen is laying under. Compliments of a very thoughtful Miles.

In the Raw

(After I published this post, I got to thinking that "in the raw" perhaps refers to naked-ness....I did not mean it that way. I meant it only to say that the state of our apartment as viewed in these pictures is without touch-up, without cleaning up before hand etc. I assure you, there is only partial baby nudity in this post :) Carry on.)
I've been waiting to post pictures of our apartment until I had everything where I wanted it and until it was clean enough to take pictures that I would feel comfortable posting, lest you all discover how messy our house usually is. But I thought today that if I waited until both of those requirements coincided, you may never see the apartment! So here it is, in all it's glory, our spacious 2 bedroom 1 bathroom apartment. Let me preface these by saying that I took these this morning after a night of throwing up, croupy coughs and regular middle-of-the night feedings, so I promise it's not actually always this messy. Well, maybe it is... And to be honest, the bedroom picture was taken on Saturday when the house was clean. If I was being totally truthful and had taken the picture this morning, you would see a very messy, un-made bed. Ok, there you go.







It's an old house and so it's full of all those fun quirks like built in shelves and drawers in odd places and creaky floors all over. For some reason the way it smells and the way the sink sounds reminds me of my grandma's house, so I liked it right off. :) The only downside to this apartment (aside from having to pay rent now) is that there is no laundry in our apartment. There's a little laundromat on-site that we share with a bunch of other apartments. I forgot what a pain it is. Yesterday I paid over $3 for one load of laundry because the drier wasn't working well enough! We love being closer to civilization, living across from the park and our ward seems good. They have some big shoes to fill, seeing as we loved our old ward so much, but it's what you make it right!? Oh, and just so the entire world knows, Richie got accepted to student teach this fall! We're not sure where yet, but it's somewhere close in the area. We're so excited/relieved!! We're one step closer! It also means we'll be here until at least January, so we won't have to move until then at least which is nice to know.

I couldn't help it...I fought it this entire post, but I must publish this picture, sorry sweetheart. :) I get to go to the gym most evenings and Richie watches the kiddos. What a guy right? A few times, I've come home and found this! It just cracks me up and makes me smile. Also, did you know they have soap paint for the bathtub?? It's made by crayola and I got some the other day. It's so fun!!

Saturday, in the Park...

I'll give you a high five if you finish the sentence in the title.
Well, we are in our new apartment, but not everything is where it should be, so I'm waiting to post pictures until I'm satisfied. Suffice it to say for now that we really like our new place and we are settling in nicely. More to come on that later.

But for now, mostly just some cute new pictures of Gwen! She is about 5 weeks old now. She's sleeping fairly well, about 4 hour stretches at night, which is better than Miles did at this point, but I'm still tired. I feel like I'm running on half speed these days. Luckily, Richie is there to compensate for my lack of ____ (fill in the blank). She started smiling on purpose at 3 weeks, so we've been enjoying some VERY cute smiles and faces over here.





The weather finally decided to be nice to us and we've had 2 beautiful days here. About 50 and no wind!! Can you believe it?? It's hard not to spend every spare second outside, but it's still a little chilly and I get worried about the little miss who still has a stuffy nose on some days. But on Saturday with Richie home, we spent plenty of time at the park. Miles was in heaven and threw a major fit when we had to come inside. We got a double stroller and I'm SO excited to use the heck out of it! Anyway, I'll have some more themed posts coming up, but for now, that's what's goin on. Hope this post finds you all well.

A Bunch of Sick-os

This past Sunday, I noticed Miles had a runny nose. No biggy right? 2 year olds always have snot coming out of their nose. But later that night, when Gwen got stuffy and my throat got itchy, I realized it was more than just a runny nose. Richie has since 'caught the fever', so we're all just...sick. Bleh. Not tremendously sick, just enough to interrupt sleep and such. Miles' cough turned croupy last night, so here's to hoping a full blown croup session doesn't start. It's the worst on Gwen in my opinion. Her poor little nose is so stuffed up. However, she's adjusted quite well to the snot sucker! The worst part is that she was such an awesome little sleeper (some nights going for 6 hours in a row!! At 3 weeks old!!) And now it's back to every 2 hours and then staying up endlessly after a feeding and rarely sleeping any way but with someone. Needless to say we're a little tired over here.





We've been in the moving process all week, so the house is a complete disaster area. We'll be all moved out and sleeping in our new apartment by Friday night. It will probably take some time for me to post pictures though since we won't have internet right off. Just FYI. And just for fun, here's some pictures of Miles with his super cool spikey hair! :)

Adjusting

Everyone's been asking how things are going around here, and all I can think of to say is that we're adjusting. :) Things are going as well as can be expected. Gwen eats and poops like a champ. We're working on the whole sleeping thing, but for being a little over a week old she does pretty darn well. I thinks she changes every day! Just when I think I've got her looks all figured out, she changes. Miles LOVES his baby sister. He always wants to hold her, cuddle her, kiss her, tells her she's ok when she cries etc. He's a good big brother. I'm not gonna lie, he's been more difficult these days, but that's part of adjusting right? Richie's on cloud nine and I feel very blessed. Although...today is the first day without any moms here and I'm a little intimidated. Of course it will be nice to get into a routine, but they were more help than they'll ever know and they will be sorely missed!! They did all sorts of wonderful and magical things like...clean the dishes after each meal, fold loads of laundry, shined shoes, mopped the floor, made sure we had delicious food to eat at every meal not just dinner, gave Gwen and Miles lots of one-on-one attention and lovin, cleaned up poop after Miles decided to stick his hands down his pants, let Richie and I run errands without 2 children or let me go to play dates with just Miles. I could go on and on. Needless to say I'm nervous to be "on my own". Here's some picture of us... adjusting. (hope you don't mind moms if I steal some of the pictures you took while you were here!)

Richie doesn't look happy at all does he?


Gwen and Grandma Garner


We've brought out all the old baby gear and Miles would like to think it's all for him. Isn't he HUGE?? Holy cow, I never realized what a big boy he was until we got baby Gwen! The bigger thing goes for his diapers too, which tempts me to potty train him sooner than later! YUCK!


First Brother/Sister Bath! Miles, being the wise, all-knowing big brother passed on the first of many choice pieces of advice to Gwen that night. "No Poopy Tub!" (He thought her umbilical cord was poop. :)


Richie's all-time favorite thing in the world. He didn't have to adjust too much to love this.


Gwen seems to be adjusting just fine! Mom caught a smile on camera!


Sweet baby girl


Gwen and Grandma Crosby


Miles in his new "Big Brother Miles" shirt! Gwen has one that says "Little Sister Gwen"


Brother Sister Cuddle Time

Garner Family, Party of 4

I don't know if I'm mentally capable at this point to process what's really going on! :) I can't believe we are a family of four now and that there is one more sweet little spirit laying on the bed right now that we get to take care of. It's incredible.

I had an appointment on Monday, right after Richie's mom and brother got here Sunday night, and she told me I was dilated to a 4 and 80% effaced. Since I was 1 day overdue, she would let me decide if I wanted to go the induction route at that point. We decided to wait and see if she'd come on her own. Luckily for the sake of our patience, I started having regular contractions that night at about 7. I labored at home while we watched "You've Got Mail" till about midnight. By that point my contractions were more regular and difficult. They continued to get worse at the hospital, but I wanted to try and go without medication if possible, so I tried the whole walking, jacuzzi thing, but wimped out after about 5 or so hours. Oh blessed drugs. Next kid, I'm just calling the hospital in advance and telling them to get the drugs ready. While I had labored without drugs I only progressed maybe from a 4 to a 6, maybe 7. After I got the epidural, it took about 1 hour for me to get to a 10! Richie had to run into work to drop off the keys, so we were glad Gwen waited for me to push till he got back, cause she was ready! I pushed for about 15 minutes and she was here! Full head of dark hair and everything! The official stats being: March 22, 2011, 9 lbs 3 oz, 20.25 inches long, 14.75 head circumference, 8:41 A.M. Full name, Gwendalyn Louise Garner. Gwen, just because we liked it, Louise after both my mom and Richie's mom!

Not that this process was easy or void of throwing up etc, but I'm AMAZED at how much easier child #2 was! Especially the recovery process so far. Let's hope this keeps up! We are so grateful that Richie's mom and brother were here when I went into labor so that Miles was in good hands. He is Tanner's shadow, I think and I'm nervous for when he leaves! Miles seems to be handling the situation fabulously so far, although I still don't think he understands that this baby is a permanent thing. :) Enough talk, here's some pictures!

New Addition!

Betcha you were thinking there would be picture of a cute little baby on this post! I WISH! The new addition I'm referring to is our new mode of transportation.
TA-DA!



Say hello to the 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan in a stunning shade of red. I can't believe we own a mini-van. I didn't think this day would come so quickly. We thought we'd squish in our Corolla until #3 came along, but after we put the baby car seat in the car, and we all had our knees up to our chests, we started to reconsider. Sure we could have squished, but with a cross country trip this summer, we were beginning to feel it was more of a necessity. We got a great deal on it from people we know and so far, so good. I don't feel like it's really ours yet. Maybe after I clean it myself, get the "other people smell" out of it, and know what all the buttons do, then I'll feel like it's ours. It's the first car Richie or I have ever purchased and by far the biggest check we've EVER written. So, all in all, it was a red-letter day for the Garners. Now all I need to make the transition complete is a pair of these. :)

Ticking Time Bomb

Has anyone noticed that little pregnancy timer in the corner of the blog? How it has a "1" in front?? Well I sure have. A lady in my ward was sympathizing with me the other day and said that you're really pregnant for 8 months and 1 year. SO TRUE! This last month has really been dragging. I no longer have that major nesting instinct and find myself wanting to do nothing but lay on the couch. I think this is making me more impatient. Here's to hoping that these are the last belly shots you will see. Richie wanted to take them on Sunday and I obliged since I actually felt decent. However, this Sunday was the beginning of the worst swelling I've had thus far in the pregnancy and you can tell if you check out those cankles in one of the pictures. However, I'm trying to count my blessings. I was significantly more swollen with Miles starting at 2 months or more before I delivered, so I guess I should be glad it's not worse at this point. Some other positives of being pregnant:
*My belly button is SO easy to clean!
*I hardly ever have to shave my legs. I swear scientists should study me when I'm pregnant because I have almost no hair growth the entire 9 months. I think I may have shaved my legs 5 times since I got pregnant, which is great considering they are hard to get to these days.
* I get to rock both of my babies at the same time relatively easily still. I love snuggling with Miles and feeling Gwen move at the same time.

ok...that's all I got. Besides those things...I'm done. I had an appointment yesterday and found I tested positive for group B strep, or whatever that virus is called, so I'll have to be on special antibiotics when I go into labor. I was also dilated to a 2, but she said that doesn't really mean anything at this point. Dang it!


As for the housing update...I should probably just keep my mouth shut until something is final, because plans keep changing on a daily basis. The house next to Porter Park is now our second choice because we found an apartment that's in the ward and is super cheap, but would work great for us...That's all I'm going to say because it will probably be something different tomorrow.

Can't get ahead...

We try to be nice and pay back people we owe from favors and things, and just when we think we've caught up and we're even with everyone, someone has to go and do something incredibly nice for us! It seems it's usually that way, and we'll always be indebted to those around us for their kindness.
This weekend some friends of mine threw me a "sprinkle" for upcoming baby Gwen! We didn't want a full on shower, so they just sprinkled me with a party. :) It was fun to get together with ladies in the ward and socialize. We had great food, a fun little game or two, and once again, everyone was far too generous to us with gifts and things. Here's a picture of the delicious spread. I should have taken more pictures, but it's a struggle these days for some reason!



Something new I've been trying with Miles is "school". He seems to be soaking in everything and learning quickly these days which is so fun. He was acting really interested in letters, so I thought I should probably try and foster that. I don't feel the need to get him 'ahead' or push him, but I thought it would be fun for him and make me feel like if I didn't get anything else productive done during the day, at least we did 'school'. There's a link on the side called "Brightly Beaming Resources" and it's curriculum a lady has compiled over the years for all ages. Pretty cool, yes!? So Miles and I are working on the preparatory curriculum to the "Letter of the Week" program. This week we learned about cows, A, 1, and squares. Pretty exciting stuff! This next week we learn about jungles, B, 2, and green. To be honest, I don't think any of it really sunk in...:) But I think he had fun and it is good time together.




In other news, we are no longer staying in the ward. We are disappointed, but simply couldn't afford what the apartment turned out to cost. We have however found a sweet deal in Rexburg to live in a house (converted into 2 apartments, we would have the top floor) that's right across the street from Porter Park! So that's looking good.