I love my family.

 Another random sideways photo. I don't understand how these decide to turn themselves. No matter what I do I can't make it upload properly. Anywho. This is Abby next to the doll that Grandma bought her from the hospital gift shop. Now all three girls have a doll from there. So cute!

 Chelsea got to be horsey.

 Whooooooaaaaa!

 Brie got in on the action as well.

 On Jennifer's birthday Jennifer took Chelsea out to the Art Fest. This is how she came home-as a fairy! For a change I got her to look AT ME while getting her picture taken. All it takes is a little face paint I guess. :)

 For Family Home Evening this last Monday we decided to do pumpkins. Sometimes we carve one or two and eat the seeds. At least Mommy eats the seeds. But this year we decided to paint, with the exception of Brie. She had markers. Now look at the tip of the marker and compare it to the color around her mouth. Yep, she was eating the markers while we weren't looking. Gross.

 A work in progress. I've yet to take a picture of the finished products because Daddy just barely finished his tonight. I want us all to pose next to our pumpkins and I was not feeling too picture-worthy this evening, hehe.

 I look awkward painting from this angle, but I had to post this anyway because I love Chelsea's face so much, hehe. She's imitating the Aflac duck. We have a couple stuffed Aflac ducks and of course they talk. "Aflac! Aflac! Aflaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaac!"

 Little Abby got a short turn helping with Daddy's pumpkin. She didn't have one of her own. Sorry little baby. Next year!

 This brings us to his evening. Brie unrolled the roll of scented diaper bags and called it her dress. "Dress! Dress!" I'm loving the fact that Brie still smiles for the camera. It makes taking pictures SO much easier!

 My little step ladder of children. Aren't they so cute? All I need to do is find some matching outfits and do this again. 

I thought this was kind of a cute open-eyed shot of Abby. She's still got those chubby cheeks! Brie likes this outfit of hers. "Bug!" she says. There are little lady bugs all over it. I guess Brie likes lady bugs. 

Brienna's Birthday Party!

 My TWO-YEAR-OLD getting ready to eat dinner.

 Here we have our guests: Daddy, Auntie Beth, and Auntie Jennifer.

 Brie can't get enough apple juice. Ever. And Chelsea was a little grumpy and refused to smile. I think she was a bit jealous, but didn't know what she was feeling. Just grumpiness.

 Grandma and Grandpa Kelly along with the newest one, Abby!

 And on this size we have the Heits: Randy, Grandma, and Grandpa. Yes,we were segregated. But it's all in love, hehe. We had a potato bar along with salad and apple crisp and a surprise addition: apple cobbler from Grandma Heit. It was all yummy!

 Time for presents! Chelsea was definitely overly helpful in this process. Brie loved all of her gifts and wanted to stop and play with each item as it was opened. A brief look through the book was sufficient to hold her till later though. 

 It's hard to tell what her favorite gift/gifts were. All gift givers were excellent selectors of gifts. Each one was meaningful to her in some special way.

And finally we have the treats! Cupcakes were the cake of choice this time around. Brie calls them muffins, but it's cute, so I didn't correct her. :) Ice cream and the apple desserts topped off a fun evening. After that we all watched the older girls play with all the new stuff and watched Grandma Heit style Abby's hair and try her hand at keeping her awake. All in all, it was a very fun time with the family. It wasn't elaborate, but Brie enjoyed it thoroughly (especially the pony decorations and balloons and of course the gifts) and that is what mattered most. Success! Happy Birthday, Brienna! She's getting so big!

Brienna's First Haircut

 These are pretty self explanatory. This is the "before" shot of the back.

 And here is the dramatic "after" shot of the back. This is the only hair style I can do. Luckily it works well for the little ones.

 It only took four packages of fruit snacks for her to munch on in order for her to sit nicely, but that's ok with me! I don't know how straight it is really, because though she was pretty good, she was still quite wiggly. It's an improvement, though! She smiles so cooperatively for the camera when she feels like it. "Cheeeeeese!" I love it! She knows she's pretty.

A distraction while showing off her hair to Grandpa. Yes, we keep the baby tub in the office. Not usually in the middle of the floor, but in the office nonetheless.

Rodeo and Bath Time

 Daddy took the girls, I mean the two big girls (I have to get used to differentiating maybe), to the Rodeo on Friday evening. Brie thought it was alright but the noisy lady behind them ruined it for Chelsea apparently. 

 Hi, Daddy!

 While the rest of the family was at the rodeo, Abby got her first bath!

 She was less than thrilled, as you can see. Now I realize that she's still got her belly button and it's not supposed to get wet. The main focus of the bath was to wash her face and hair and I covered her legs with rags in hopes of keeping them warmer. I did my best to keep belly dry. I kept the water very shallow. Only a couple dribbles made their way down her torso, but oh well. She'll live. She won't get another bath like this for awhile.

 Check out her hair! It looks thinner when it's wet, but look how long it is!

She zonked out with Grandma after bath. We shouldn't have let her sleep so late in the evening. This was the evening before the night of NO SLEEP. Night number one at home was great, night number two was the polar opposite. Night number three (which is our current count) was pretty good again, thanks to Daddy keeping Abby up for most of the evening. We'll try to keep going with nights like number one and number three.

Abigail's Arrival

 Here I am in labor. I think I played one game of Carcassonne before I was content to just sit and be in labor.

As you may or may not know, I was induced as soon as I hit 40 weeks. I spent a solid three weeks at three centimeters. When I headed in to the hospital around 5:00 on Monday, October 3rd, I finally made it to four centimeters.

 They didn't get around to breaking my water and giving me the pitocin until 6:45. I labored for two and a half hours. After just a couple minutes and a couple pushes, we have baby Abigail!

 Her skin was absolutely flawless! She was perfect in every way!

 Abigail Kinlee Heit

October 3rd, 2011

born 9:13 pm 

9 lbs. 2 oz, 20 3/4 in.

 Phantom sideways photo again. Mommy and baby get to take a good look at each other for the first time. So precious!

 Proof that she was so big! I thought Chelsea was big at 8 lbs. 5 oz, but Abby takes the cake for my biggest baby! (Brie was 6 lbs. 14 oz if you were curious-2 weeks early though)

 Check out those squishy cheeks! 

 Before she was even out I could hear one of the nurses exclaiming about all her hair. She has dark brown hair that is a good 1/2 inch long at least. And it's really thick, too! I hope she keeps it. I'm not holding my breath though, since Chelsea came out with dark brown hair also. And we all know she didn't stay brunette! But who knows, maybe I will get a mini-me yet. hehe

 At the hospital she didn't mind hanging out half naked, though I did keep her covered/wrapped most of the time. They didn't dress her in a little sleeper like they did with my other two. All Abby got was a long sleeved shirt-type thing to wear. It worked alright except it kept riding up her back.

 The girls got to come to the hospital to meet little sister. Chelsea LOVES babies and was excited to come meet her. She gave her kisses and adjusted her hat and was thrilled in general. 

 Brienna, on the other hand, was quite suspicious about this little person and didn't want to go anywhere near her. She wouldn't let Daddy put her down, and that tongue never left the position you see it in here. Of course we did bring her into an unfamiliar place with big crowds of people watching her, and shoved a little moving baby at her. I'm not surprised that she was less than thrilled with the situation.

 I took this while it was just me and baby hanging out at the hospital. We had lots of quiet time during the day since everybody else was working or watching big sisters. She slept soundly most of the day and night. It was really nice.

 All packed up and ready to go home! These little newborn clothes aren't going to last her very long, that's for sure! She also went straight to size one diapers in the hospital. Big girl!

 Here we see the new van we purchased last week. It works well for our family of FIVE.

 I realize I still look pregnant, especially from this angle. Bah. Oh well. Hopefully I will be able to shed most of this in the coming weeks/months. I was shopping alone at Walmart yesterday and someone commented on how I'm still carrying baby around. Uh, nope. Baby is at home with Grandma... 

Here in a more comfortable setting Brie was much warmer toward the baby. She excitedly jumped and exclaimed Baby! but she still wouldn't touch her or give her any kisses. But that's alright. At least Abby's been accepted by the whole family now.

This is our last post as parents of only two

Flood Journal complete for now. (I think.) Read it here!

 Chelsea is loving her second year of dance class. She's wanting to do ballet, which they do offer now at Brick Studio, but I didn't know she wanted to do ballet until after the first class was already done. So we are just going to continue with things as they are for this year and next year/next summer we will explore our options for a beginner ballet class. They have them for kids this little. I can only imagine how cute they would be in real tutus and toe shoes. :)

 She's into this crookedy-type smile recently. But it's so cute!

 Must be some tasty peanut butter cheese crackers and pudding. Mmmm....

 Chelsea wasn't too interested in going to the MSU Homecoming parade until I reminded her about the floats that drive by and throw out candy. Then she was pumped and almost hopped in the car immediately! 

 If you look close, you can spy Daddy at work. It was really nice to see him at the parade since I didn't expect to, being as he was on duty capturing the day's events for the university. After the parade we headed over to the tailgating party at the dome, where we met up with Daddy. He thankfully was able to take a little bit of a break and help me get the kids fed among all the hullabaloo. Then I had to go to work for a full shift. My body was so sore by the end of the day! This was last Saturday. I was fully expecting to go into labor the next day, but alas. That didn't happen. ;) 

Featured in this photo is also the Minot High marching band. These are the same uniforms that I used to march in back in high school--except the hats are better nowadays. Back in my day they were gold colored fuzz balls that looked like used Q-tips. That's what Mr. Jensen (who is still leading the band as you can see) called them. He hated them as much as we did, hehe.

 It was not comfy for me to sit on the curb in my current state, but I didn't think about taking a chair. Actually I don't have a chair to take anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered. That and I don't think I could have managed the stroller, two kids, AND a chair, hehe. :)

 She looks a little grumpy here, but actually she was having a great time. I let both girls go a little nuts with the candy eating and they didn't eat much during the tailgating party following the parade, but oh well. Sometimes I wonder how they are still LIVING with the small amount of food that gets into their mouths day after day.

And here we have Chelsea posing. This is a pose she learned at dance class. It's called the "Work it, Girl!" Maybe ballet would be a good way to go after all....
She is standing in Beth's basement work-in-progress. She had some sewer damage due to the flood and had to rip out a lot of her basement. Our focus here is the new flooring that has recently been laid. Isn't it pretty? There's also been a lot of work done on the foundation walls behind that new paneling you can see in the back. It's not finished yet, but we are liking the progress!

Here is Brienna playing with the Hex bugs that Beth got for her birthday. 

In other news of the week: This week we completed the sale of our flooded house. So we no longer own our own home. We will remain basement rats at my mom's house for an estimated 15 more months to save our pennies and get back to the same dollars of downpayment money we had four months ago when we bought the house. But we are not flood victims. We are flood survivors. We are certainly not complaining about our living accommodations. We feel very comfortable and very loved and welcome here. We are extremely grateful for our fortunate circumstances and close family who have taken us in. We can't complain about 15 more months until full financial recovery. There are SO many that have no financial security in sight-at all-due to the flood. It's an ongoing battle that we are fortunate enough to be able to walk away from with minimal losses and full recovery in sight. We are so blessed.

More other news of the week: We traded in my Chevy Cavalier for a Buick Terraza mini van. Yes, I now drive a mini van. I can't believe I haven't taken a picture of it yet, but I haven't. I will do that at some point and let you see it. But that may not happen for a bit now. Anywho. We got an amazing deal for the Cavalier. We were going to ask for $2500 and hope to actually get $2000. (The world wide web told us the trade-in value was $2400.) They didn't even ask us what our thoughts were on what it was worth. But that's actually a GOOD thing because they offered $3000! Did we take it? Um, yes. Yes we did.

My favorite features of the van are: automatic side doors, an engine block heater, remote car locks/starter, built in DVD player, optional XM satellite radio and/or Onstar capabilities (which we aren't going to activate either one of, but it's still a readily available option), removable middle seats, and it is a very smooth and quiet ride. The girls LOVED it. Brie refused to get OUT of it after checking it out the first time. Luckily we were planning on going for a drive out to the Bishop's for a ward party, so we didn't have to fight her out of the vehicle. :) Chelsea was sufficiently impressed and enjoyed the ride, but was indifferent about getting out.

Next piece of news for the moment: I saved the best for last! Baby news! So tomorrow (October 3rd) is my due date. We've been expecting baby to make an early arrival for a couple of weeks now. But she's too comfy in there. But that isn't going to last for little baby. Tomorrow she is being evicted! At 8 in the morning (as long as there aren't too many other moms already in active labor) I will head over to the hospital and they will break my water. Hopefully that will get the ball rolling and start labor/contractions. If not, they will add pitocin and really get things going. I'm hoping I won't need pitocin, but I had it with Chelsea and things turned out peachy in the end. I'm not worried about it. I'm not looking forward to the labor part, but I am very excited about the baby part. I'm a little nervous if I think too hard about it, but I'm not worried otherwise. So if things go according to plan, we will likely have our baby before any of you actually read this! (It's coming up on 10:30 pm the night before I'm getting induced.) I'm hoping things go speedy-quick for labor and delivery tomorrow. I know many of you have had us in your prayers and we appreciate every prayer on our behalf! Thank you! 

Look forward to baby pictures!