Sweet Norelle Renee

Finally--4 months later, the baby post!! :) So, this post I will give a quick recap of birth-4 months :) Ready, Set, GO!

So, Thursday, April 12, we (the Larsens and us) arrive at a burger joint (Noah's Ark) for dinner. We were taking them to dinner to "thank" them for watching Makaela for us a few weeks prior while we went to Sequim for a weekend. We walk into the place, 6:15, check out the Menu board for about 30 seconds, and I had a brief feeling of incontinence :) This, however, was not the case as the feeling continued and I knew I was still capable of controlling my bladder. Yes, indeed, my water had broken. Naturally, I said, "guys, either my water just broke, or I lost complete control of my bladder" So, out the door we went--with NO dinner...WHAT was I thinking?!?!?!?!? I knew I was going into an unknown period of time where I wouldn't be able to eat. Of Course I should have gotten dinner, but the craziness and stress of the moment overwhelmed me and eating was not what was at the forefront of my mind :) Back home we went to get our bag (which thankfully was packed) and transfer Makaela to the Larsen's car to be delivered to the wonderful Fergusons :) Nathan and I headed up to the hospital, about 25 minutes, and we arrived shortly after 7pm. I spend the majority of the ride home as well as the ride to the hospital laughing, which, did not help the case of the broken bag of waters--to say the least :)

After checking in at the hospital, we were taken to triage room #1. A nurse kindly said, "Alright, what do we have going on." Mind you, triage is where you are usually sent if you come in having some contractions, but aren't sure if you're in labor. In these rooms, they typically monitor you for a little while before either admitting you to a delivery room, or sending you home to continue laboring at home. Anyway, back to the question "what do we have going on". As I looked down at my pants, I said something to the likes of "well, I'm pretty sure my water broke..." and before I could finish, the surprised and somewhat shocked nurse promptly took us to a delivery room to get set :) By the time I got into the bed, and all hooked up to monitors and such, it was probably close to 8. I was starting to get hungry, but thinking about dinner wasn't an option as the contractions started coming, and coming quickly!! Al and Sue Ferguson paid Nathan a visit with some dinner, and I chatted with Sue for a little bit. This was probably around 9:30 or so and through the course of our conversation, it got harder and harder for me to talk through contractions. Around 10, I tried laboring in the tub for about 25 minutes. When that was up, between getting from the tub back to my bed I had to stop 3-4 times to breathe through contractions. I got back into the bed probably around 10:45 or so, and by this point had contractions coming about every minute and a half. Nathan coached me through the contractions as they intensified. I don't have really have any clue what point I asked Nathan to have the nurse come in to check me, but I'd imagine it was somewhere around 11:30. I was feeling a 'new' pain and I didn't know if it was intensified contractions or if it was time to start pushing. The nurse came in, checked me real fast during the seemingly 30 second break between contractions and said I could start pushing and they would page the doctor. I pushed once and then heard "Ok, there's the head so if you could try to 'slow down'... (I actually didn't hear the rest because that was such a ridiculous thing to say ;))". All I know is that the rest went really fast because at 11:36 Nathan had texted our family saying I was pushing, and at 11:38, we had our sweet 7 pound 8 ounce Norelle. By the way, the doctor didn't make it in time :)

So, things went pretty quickly and "textbook" and now we have a 4 1/2 month old baby!! Time is flying!! She's moved out of newborn clothes faster than Makaela did, and weighed in a whole 2 pounds 4 ounces heavier at her 4 month appointment than Makaela did. She's still hanging out around the 25th percentile, but she is a "chunker" and we love it!! She lights up when she sees us walk into a room, and she's already trying to keep up with Makaela. She's rocking on all 4's so she may be crawling soon. She's all smiles and LOVES to watch Makaela's every move :) I'm looking forward to the friendship they will develop as they grow up together :)

We have been far less diligent about taking pictures of Norelle, but here are some of what we do have. I will try to be better about capturing her fun moments to share :)

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Easter 2012

Easter was a fun time...I was 1 day shy of 39 weeks pregnant. Everyone at church was "concerned" that I would have the baby Easter weekend, or even worse, have the baby Easter morning!! But, as always, God's timing is perfect and our sweet girl held out until we got through all of that. We spent Sunday after church with the Fergusons, again :) Before we headed to their house, we did a little egg hunt with Makaela. Her first one since last Easter she wasn't walking :) There are a few really funny pictures where I'm not in them, but my big ol' prego belly is! Enjoy the laughs :)

January Snow

Back in January Makaela LOVED playing in the snow. She didn't care how cold she was!! We sorta got stuck at our house as the hill we live on was pretty slippery :) We did walk to the Pattersons one day and played with them. Here's a few pictures :)

Christmas 2011

As promised, I'm continuing with the updates :) I should post about Christmas from last year before it comes around this year--which it will before we know it!! Christmas was SUPER fun for us :) A little crazy, but we loved it! After all of the business of Majesty and Splendor, we had a few "slower" weeks before Christmas. Earlier in the fall, my mom had found a great deal on tickets for us to come down. Flying down Christmas day, and returning home the following Saturday (so 6 days total). It was going to be a "whirlwind" trip, but we decided to make it a surprise to all our family so it was well worth it!

Christmas morning, we got up at our normal Sunday time and opened stockings and presents with Makaela! It was so much more fun with her this year as she was older and understood how opening presents worked. Granted, it was around 7 in the morning as we had church later in the morning, so she wasn't completely "with it". :) But we had fun anyway! Church was so much fun Christmas morning!! It was our church's very first Christmas Day service as any of the previous year when Christmas had fallen on Sunday something always prevented church from meeting (IE. no power, too much snow to safely get to church etc). We had a great turn out and enjoyed seeing so many "family" and friends on Christmas!! After church, we headed home, got our car loaded up, and headed to the Fergusons for lunch. I need to take a moment here and talk about the Fergusons. Papa Al and Grandma Sue both work at the church on staff with Nathan. Their son, Tom, and his wife, Gwyn, are good friends of ours with 2 little girls who Makaela LOVES to play with!! Tom is involved in music ministry. Papa Al and Grandma Sue's daughter, Kim, and her husband, Jeff are also good friends of ours! Kim co-leads the bible study I have been a part of and are our neighbors just up the street!! This entire family has become our "surrogate" family up here. We find ourselves fitting right in with them and spending holidays with them. Their family gets together almost every Friday night just to hang out, and we have joined them often--to the point that when they have other people over, we are part of the "family" who is served after the guests :) We love and are so thankful for this whole family and the way they have extended their love and friendship to us and taken us in under their wings while we are away from our family. I know that our families greatly appreciate them as well knowing that their kiddos are in good hands, especially during times of the year when families are together :) Anyway, we love the Fergusons!!

So, we headed to their house for lunch and to hang out before our flight left. They were gracious enough to take us to the airport Christmas day!! We chatted with some of our family and as the asked what we were doing, we were able to tell them that we were hanging out with the Fergusons!! They didn't need to know that we were only there for a short while :) So, we got to the airport, got on our flight, and landed in Sacramento around 8:30. From there, we hooked up with a rental car my dad had provided for us and drove down to my parents (about 3 1/2 hours). One stop for dinner at one of the few places open on Christmas day--Carls Junior :) Yummy Western Bacon Cheeseburger :)

We arrived at my parents just around midnight right after my brother and sister had gotten ready for bed. My sister "knew" (because she's sneaky like that) that we were coming but my brother had no idea!! So, we woke him from having just fallen asleep to surprise him and move his bed to a different room. haha!!

The next day, we hung out and then made ourselves scarce when my brother and sister in law showed up at my parents. Seems like it took them FOR-EVER to come back to the bedroom, only to find us in "their" room :) So all things considered, the surprise came off well!!

We did the same with Nathan's family. His sister's family and his Mom knew we were coming as a friend at church had mentioned that we were staying with them--not knowing it was a surprise. This actually worked in our favor as we had Nathan's sister, Alicia, orchestrate a dinner gathering at Red Robin. She wouldn't tell anyone why she needed them to be there, just that it was really important. So once everyone was gathered, we showed up and they were all SHOCKED!!! We had so much fun surprising our family and hanging out!! Here are some pictures from our time down there :) I'm always horrible about taking the camera out when we are with Nathan's family--I seriously need to get better about doing that!! Merry Christmas! :)

Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving 2011 was our first Thanksgiving "on our own". I cooked a Turkey, and we did the whole she-bang with some good friends of ours, the Larsens. We had so much fun!!  I tried doing a makeshift "deep pit" cooking the turkey in the oven for about 24 hours. That worked out great, except the oven turned off sometime in the middle of the night. But all turned out fine, and the turkey was done in plenty of time for dinner--actually a little on the dry side, but definitely not bad for my first one!! While there were only 4 of us (5 if we include Makaela, but her "portions" don't really count toward the meal) we did turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato souffle (a Board, and now Fogde family favorite), ambrosia, croissants, gravy...I mean we really did it up!! As expected, we had TONS of leftovers, but we had great fun prepping the meal and hanging out! After dinner, we headed to the Larsen's Parents for dessert--and thank goodness for another chocolate lover there, there was some chocolate dessert :) I've gotta say, Thanksgiving is my least favorite holiday FOR DESSERTS...pumpkin or pecan pie doesn't really tickle my fancy. I am a daughter after my mother's own heart and will take a chocolate dessert over those without even thinking about it!! So I had some delicious brownies, and some kind of chocolate peanut butter pie. Those are the kinds of thanksgiving desserts I'm talkin' about! :) Anyway, here are a few pictures. Ironically enough, there aren't any pictures with the 5 of us, but I'm sure you'll get the idea anyway :) Happy Thanksgiving (just 9 months late, or 3 months early for the next one!!)

Update--The Understatement of the Century!!

Well, after a long hiatus, and after many reminders that "it's been a LONG time since you've blogged", I decided to return to the blogging world. To call this an update would certainly be the understatement of the year, decade, century...maybe even millennium! So, in an effort to do a little "updating" I will do a few posts with pictures from various events in the last 9 months, and then I will make an effort to keep things up to date a little more. I'm sure our family and friends who are far away would appreciate a few more updates on the girly girls. Sorry for my lack in that!!
So, I will start back at Thanksgiving 2011, then Christmas 2011, some snow fun in January 2012, Easter 2012, BABY NORELLE 2012, and then a few recent summer outings we've taken (once I find the camera to download the pictures :)).

Project whirlwind update--commence!!