Violet's Tutu

My mom made this tutu onesie for Violet. It is adorable! We had a lot of fun posing her and taking pictures.... Thanks Mom!

Violet Jacquelyn Anderson

After having backaches and cramps and thinking the baby was coming any minute for five days, by Sunday night I was about to give up thinking she would come on her own. I woke up surprised to contractions 5 minutes apart Monday morning at 3:45 am. I took a shower and packed my bag just to take time to make sure they were for real, we arranged for a neighbor to come over and stay with Cora, and then we headed to the hospital... in the snow! No, not a lot, but icy roads and a bit of snow on the grass. Good thing we weren't going all the way to Salt Lake. It would have been a lot more stressful. We got to the hospital at about 5:00am.

We checked in and got settled, everyone was taking their time because the nurse thought it was still going to take a long a while. She sent us walking around the hospital and said not to be gone longer than an hour. An hour! I thought my contractions were coming closer and closer and more painful. We were gone 15 minutes before I said we had to go back.

We had to hurry quick to catch a picture before the birth!

Nice for us, there was a shift change, and when I told the next nurse the contractions were bad and I felt like I needed to push, she checked and said the baby was close to coming! They hurried and called the midwife and anesthesiologist. There wasn't enough time for an epidural, but the spinal block worked great and was a relief. Violet Jacquelyn Anderson was born at 6:44 am.

She came out loud! And she is healthy and cute and has lots of dark hair. She was 7 lbs, 12 oz; 20 inches long.

Proud daddy

She's been giving us this look a lot the last few days.

Later Monday morning.

Cora came to visit Monday afternoon and was delighted to see the baby. Cora is doing a great job of being gentle with her and not touching her face (too much!). She loves to sit by Violet, talk to her, and always tells us when the baby is crying. Cora will also sit down by me, pat her lap, and tell me she's ready to hold the baby. What a great start! Cora has needed a bit more of my attention than normal (she usually is more centered on Kevin when he's home), but she's doing a great job adjusting to being a big sister!

New Baby

....Nope, not OUR new baby. My cousin Katrina had her baby Monday morning (her due date is a few weeks after mine! go figure...). Cora and I took Anna and Addy into Salt Lake so they could see their new baby sister! The baby is so cute, with lots of dark hair, and her face looks so much like Anna and Addy's when they were born.
Cora loved seeing a baby and wanted to be right by her saying 'baby, baby' almost the whole time. She did pretty well with not touching her and being gentle, so that was reassuring for Kevin and I! Hopefully seeing her cousin in the hospital will get her all ready to go see her new little sister in the hospital this week or next. This morning I was telling her about how a new baby is going to come live at our house and be her little sister. Who knows how much she really understands, but she was pretty excited!

Easter

Easter morning we did a little basket and egg hunt for Cora. Here she is with her little foam cut-out book on the creation. I hope it helps keep her occupied during Sacrament meeting!

Before she could be made interested in the eggs, she had to check out everything in the basket and all the grass....

We finally got her to look for some eggs. Here she is finding one in the baby swing.

She REALLY got interested in looking for eggs after she figured out there was candy inside... but then she wanted to stop and eat the candy after each egg find!

All dressed up for church. Look at those cute shoes! Still a little too big, so I guess they'll be perfect for summer.

After church we went to my Aunt Zeann's house for Easter dinner with her family. They are so kind to include us in all their holiday celebrations! We had a yummy dinner and an Easter egg hunt in the backyard. Here's Addy and Cora getting all ready to do first finds-- youngest goes first! They are just 2 months apart in age.

All of the kids with their fun loot. (These are Cora's second cousins)

Row, Row, Row

We spent the afternoon at the Children's Museum with Amber and Jaxon yesterday. Cora and Jaxon were pretty cute trying to figure these oars out! I was afraid they might whack each other in the head with them, but they got lucky and avoided each other--and themselves.


Other Cora cuteness:

- Cora likes to give big (wet) kisses! If she's tired, we have to remind her to give us a 'kiss with noises', and then we get a big 'mmmmmmaaa!' along with the kiss. If she's in a rambunctious mood, her kisses are sometimes accompanied with growls.

-Cora still loves belly buttons and will look at ours, her, and her dolls' belly buttons whenever she can. She's been puzzled the last week or so as to why my belly button is flat and she can't poke it as well as she used to! It hasn't popped yet, but it might soon if the baby stays in much longer!

- Cora tells us when she thinks she needs a diaper change. Usually she is right, so it's nice to know she's beginning to clue in on some pre-potty-training skills. Sometimes she's wrong, so we just have to pretend to change her diaper so she can start thinking about something else!

- Cora is talking more and more, and even more fun, she is singing along with a lot of our songs. I think "The Wheels on the Bus" is her favorite, she'll sing along to most all of it. Her favorite verses are about the baby and the mommy, and she always chimes in with ''ALL though the TOWN" at the end.

A couple more Boise trip pics

These were on my sister-in-law's camera and I just couldn't resist posting them. So cute! The girls had so much fun together!

French toast time at the kiddie breakfast table.

All the kiddos with Kevin and the Thomas the Train book Sunday morning. Just think, in a week or two there will be 4 cousins in the family.

There's also a video I'm trying to figure out how to get, I just need to get Kevin for a second to work his technological magic. Soon! (He did it tonight. Thankyou Kevin!)

I had my doctor's appointment yesterday-- still no progress. It looks like we'll set a date to induce for April 2nd or so if nothing has happened by then.

Busy Week!

Well, we've definitely had a busy week here at our house. My dad came in town from last Friday to yesterday (Saturday) morning to help Kevin work on the basement. They got so much done! Now all the electrical is wired, the recessed lighting and bath fan in, the doors are all put in, the bathroom is plumbed, and a huge load of junk got taken to the dump. We also got our sheetrock bids, which were less than we expected-- one good thing I guess about the housing market downturn. Besides the basement work, it was also the week for visiting teaching, home teaching, a RS activity, doctor's appointment, practising for an Easter musical number, and Kevin was in charge of a dinner for youth leaders and spouses for a combined YM/YW activity. So it was busy! We also enjoyed having Shad and Jen come over for dinner one evening, we hadn't seen them since Christmas, so it was nice to visit all together.

To hit our next major basement milestone of having the basement all sheetrocked, we just have to wire for internet, a couple of phone jacks, and cable, put up insulation, and try to clear out and clean up for the sheetrockers. Once it's all sheetrocked, we'll finish the two bedrooms completely, and save the family room and bathroom for later. Dad and Kevin put in a lot of long days, learned a lot about plumbing, and we made many, many, many trips to Home Depot-- on the day of crash course plumbing, it was 7 times between the 3 of us!

The most crucial trip to Home Depot was the one we needed to take Friday night at 9:30pm-- AFTER they closed. When all the plumbing was almost done one of the connections cracked, and we had to keep our water off all night long to wait to buy a replacement piece Saturday morning. Luckily we didn't need our water much that night, it was a relatively easy fix the next morning, and Dad still made it home (through a snowstorm) to Boise in time for his stake conference meetings! We did have our 5 gallon container of water from storage that we used, and the dishes and showers were just put off a little.

During the week Cora and I ran errands for miscellaneous items (bring home 4 half inch pex connectors and steel epoxy!), picked out stair lighting, bathroom lighting, a vanity and top, shower fixtures, and sconces, and made sure Dad and Kevin were well fed. We also brought the newborn girl clothes out of storage and assembled the cradle! Cora didn't think it was very fair that Kevin was home so much and not spending the time with her, so most of my days were spent making sure she didn't sneak down into the basement to play with the tools and be underfoot. But she did take her naps and slept pretty well at night, despite the banging noises, which was a blessing.

All the excitement must have taken a bit of a toll on her though-- we went to town to see Kevin's grandmother on Saturday, and even though Cora doesn't sleep much in the car anymore, she fell sound asleep like this on the way there.

We thought she was playing an extended version of peek-a-boo for a while until it was just too quiet. Cora even stayed asleep when we parked and turned off the car, which I don't think has happened since she was a baby! So I stayed in the car with her for a bit until she woke up.

I think she did have a great week too though, we went to the Children's Museum, storytime, and played outside quite a bit, thanks to the warmer weather. And Cora loved spending extra time with Pata, especially reading books and running around after balls and Elmo bubbles outside. And, we were extra grateful he was here to watch her while Kevin and I went to the youth activity Wednesday night.

Bow Mania

The latest task I got to cross off my list of "things to do before the baby comes" was finishing up these bows. They were fun to make, and they will be great additions to Cora's hair-wardrobe. She loves bows and clippies and makes sure to remind me about doing her hair if I forget. I actually made twice as many as in the pictures, so I could give some away (and I have lots more ribbon to make bows, but I decided the rest could wait!).

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday, and just to let you all know, the baby is not coming anytime soon! I guess there are some signs my body is getting ready to have the baby, but nothing immediate. I think we'll be waiting 2-3 more weeks!

Trip to Boise

We spent a weekend in Boise visiting my parents and seeing this cute family:

(my brother's family) who was visiting from Maryland. What a fun time! The only sad part was that Shad and Jen couldn't be there with us too. We ate yummy food, played lots of games, swam at the YMCA, and of course, Cora spent a lot of time jumping on the new indoor trampoline and playing with cousins.

Emeline and Cora reading books with Pata.

The trampoline was a BIG HIT! The little girls loved jumping and running, especially in their matching princess nighties. Cora was a wild woman, and almost went off the edge a few times, but managed to keep on. I was out of the room for her scariest near-fall, but I heard she made an incredible save.

Pata and Kissie with all the grandkids, Jarom, Cora, and Emeline.

We love the Boise YMCA! It is even more kid friendly and fun than our local swimming pool. Cora must have gone down this slide 20 times, she loved it. She made Kevin take her down the big slide quite a few times too!

Cora does prefer going belly down though! I was worried she'd hit her chin, but she always came up smiling. When we went to our neighborhood park last Sunday afternoon, she was a belly-rider there too. She just loves slides! She slid down the big slide at our park over and over and over.

Cora, Emeline, and Kevin.

Jarom and I. Look at his cute church outfit!

Too bad we won't see these cuties for quite a while longer-- At least we had a great weekend! Thanks for the fun times, and for hosting us all, Mom and Dad!

Cora and Sophie

We had a great morning at the Children's Museum yesterday! My college friend, Becky, and I got to visit, and Sophie and Cora enjoyed themselves with the water toys, balls, grocery store, and in this play kitchen. We didn't get a lot of pictures since we were chasing them down a lot of the time! Cora was beat by the end, but loving it still.

If anyone would like to join us, email me! My pass gets 4 in for free, and I love the company.

Family Pictures

Cora and Kevin before church.

We decided that Cora's head is finally big enough to balance out these huge bows. So cute! I wonder how long we'll have to wait to use the next size up of bows???

Our little family.

Belly shot! Less than 3 weeks to go!