Adjusting to Life as Four

Life has been pretty crazy the past few weeks, but the good news is we are adjusting well to being a family of four. Cameron is a great big sister. She is so sweet to Sydney and loves to show people "our bebe". Sydney is growing like crazy. I think she has gained over a pound since she was born. You can totally tell too. She already looks different from when we brought her home a few weeks ago.

Ryan is a great daddy. You can just tell he loves his girls. As for me, I'm feeling good. I had a great recovery from Sydney's birth and only had one minor bump in the road a long the way (I got a breast infection about a week ago...not fun). The nights are still pretty long, Sydney is up about every three hours, but I actually feel fairly well rested considering.   

Yes, our lives have been a little hectic, but every time I get the chance to stare into the face of our sweet baby while she sleeps, or hear the laughter of our our big girl as I tickle her on the floor, I am reminded of how blessed we are. I'm so thankful that God had entrusted us with the lives of these two precious little girls. What an honor. I can't even imagine what our life would be like without them. We are so incredibly lucky!

Here are the highlights from the past few weeks:

 What a sweet little girl

Proud daddy admiring his little girl

The big sister...just saying hi

Sporting the "Big Sister In Charge" shirt

First bath...she didn't love it. :( 

Playing with play dough

 Helping to rock Sydney in her swing

 Cameron and her friend Ian thought it was pretty cool to play in the leaves in our front yard

 Annie and Finley came to visit for a couple days

 Cameron playing with Miss Finley

Zonked out!

 I can't get enough of these pictures of Ryan with the girls, it's just so sweet

 Finley showing off a new hat

I think every parent has a gazillion pictures of their baby sleeping, but sleeping babies are so sweet, how can you not have a ton of pictures of this?  

 Lil Sis!

I can't believe Cameron used to be that little! Look at her now. :)

  Sweet baby sister smooches!

The Nursery

I am so completely excited about Sydney's new room! It's super cute, but I'm not taking any of the credit for the cuteness. A friend of mine (Annie, another Annie...not the Annie's you guys already know) has a background in design, and she offered to help me decorate the nursery a few weeks ago. At that point, I only had a purple blanket that my sister made and a bed skirt for the room, so I took her up on her offer to help without thinking twice.

I really wanted Sydney's room to be different than Cameron's was. I don't want her to get stuck with hand me downs all the time, so I decided to do something very different than what we did with Cameron's room. And if you ask me, the room turned out great! Annie is so talented and has such a great eye for putting things together. She took some of the most basic things and pulled them together into these great combinations. I wish I had more of an eye for those sorts of things.

It's kind of funny, when Ryan started painting the room the color purple we had picked out we were both questioning our decision. It seemed so bright, too bright and I was a little worried. We thought about starting over with a different color, but eventually decided to go with what we had. I'm glad we did because it ended up looking great. The white and brown accents we added really helped to tone down the brightness and it ended up being the perfect, girly, but not too girly color.

Welcome Sydney!

We are so excited to introduce you to the newest addition to our family...

Sydney Kate Volk

Born October 11, 2011 at 3:40pm

7 pounds 7 ounces, 19 3/4 inches

She came in a hurry. I went into labor around 11:00 am on Tuesday morning with a faint ache in my back. I wasn't completely convinced I was actually in labor until about 1:30 pm when I decided I should start tracking my contractions. Ryan got home about 2:30 or 2:45 pm. We started making our way to the hospital a little bit after 3:00 pm, and Sydney was born at 3:40 pm, just 10 minutes after we walked (well I actually was wheeled in a wheelchair) into the doors of Labor & Delivery at the hospital. The doctor barely made it in time, to be honest, I don't even think he had time to get his gloves on before she was out.

The whole ordeal was VERY different than when I had Cameron, but it definitely makes for a good story to tell. I felt like we were in a movie!

Our "adventure" didn't stop after Sydney was born either. When the pediatrician came to check Sydney, she discovered a little problem with her bottom. We ended up transferring her down to Children's Hospital by ambulance at about 10:00 pm Tuesday night so that we could have her looked at by some specialists.

It turned out to be a really good thing that Sydney came so quickly and I didn't have time to have an epidural or any other pain meds when she was born (although I wouldn't have ever said that in the middle of it all!). I think that the fact that I didn't have any drugs or anything enabled me to be discharged right away so I could go with her to Children's that night.

Long story short. She is fine, but she is going to need to have surgery in a couple months to get everything aligned properly in her bottom region.

We are just so thankful that our little girl is healthy and that what had the potential to be a really big problem ended up being relatively small in the big scheme of things. All I have to say is God is good! 

We were in such a rush heading into the hospital that we didn't think to bring the camera in, so sadly we don't really have that many pictures. But we did manage to get a few...enjoy!  

And now we wait...

Pre-Baby Check List

Get the house in order - CHECK

Wash and put away baby clothes - CHECK

Get hair cut - CHECK

Locate infant car seat - CHECK

Get a mani and pedi - CHECK

Get baby's stuff ready for the hospital - CHECK

Stock nursery with newborn diapers - CHECK

Decide on, and get, big sister present for Cameron - CHECK

Agree on baby's name - CHECK

I think we're ready...come on baby, let's GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD!


A couple other random things...

A few girlfriends put this diaper cake together for us. Isn't it awesome! I think it's the cutest thing ever. I don't want to take it apart because it's so pretty!

Even though the weather was pretty crappy yesterday, I convinced Ryan that we needed to go on a walk...walking is supposed to help induce labor, right? So we bundled Cameron up and headed outside for awhile. Unfortunately, the walking didn't help entice baby to come out, but we did enjoy the time outside. I was cracking up as we were walking out the door though. Cameron looked like such a scrub! I had to grab the camera and snap a few pictures.

38 Weeks

Pregnancy Highlights

How far along: 38 weeks, 1 day

Size of baby: 6.8 lbs, 19.5 inches (like a leek)

Total weight gain: 36 or 37 lbs

Maternity clothes: I've been raiding Ryan's t-shirt drawer on a daily basis trying to find shirts that fit.

Gender: Girl

Movements: Still moving around like a crazy woman. Seems like between dinner and bedtime is her most active time of the day.

Sleep: I've stared waking up at about 4 or 5 a.m. every morning and can't go back to sleep. Maybe it's my body's way of preparing me for what's coming! Or maybe I just need to learn how to control my crazy mind.

What I miss: My bellybutton (the turkey popper has popped!), comfortably cuddling with Cameron on my lap, running, moving around easily, my energy level, my normal clothes, bending over and not looking completely awkward...can you tell I'm kind of ready to be D-O-N-E? :)

Cravings: No

Symptoms: Feeling pretty good, although I can feel my body "getting ready" i.e. pains in my hip joints, etc. A couple of weeks ago I had a day where I felt horrible. I was having contractions and was just not feeling quite right. I thought for sure that I was going into labor. Luckily it passed and I'm back to my normal preggo self now.

Best moment of the week: Changing the calendar to OCTOBER!

Our Home

We are so blessed to finally be settled in our new house and we wanted to do something to share it with all our friends and family, so Sunday afternoon we hosted an open house. The afternoon was perfect! The weather was beautiful and we had the opportunity to see and catch up with a whole bunch of people we haven't seen in awhile. It's times like these that really remind us just how lucky we are to be surround with so many wonderful people in our life.

We planned the party at just the right time too...there's nothing like inviting a whole bunch of people over to see your house to give you some incentive to finish up those last few lingering projects. And let me tell you, this nesting momma feels a huge sense of relief now that pretty much everything is "done". I finally feel like we can sit back and relax while we're waiting for Baby Volk #2 to make her debut.

I know I've been promising to post pictures of our house for awhile now, so I sent Ryan around to take a few pictures as were were getting ready for the party. They'll give you an idea of how everything looks, but to get the full effect, you really need to stop by and get the official tour!

Entryway

Dining Room

Family Room

Family Room from the other direction

Kitchen

 Loft

Family Room from above

Family Room and Kitchen

 Our Room

Baby's Room (this is just a teaser, I'm going to take some more pictures and talk a little more about how awesome this room is in a later post!)

Cameron's Room (she was still napping, so all you get is the door!)

Well, that's just about it. Thank you to everyone who was able to come and join us. We feel so lucky that God has given us the opportunity to live in such a wonderful home and we pray that we can use this space to glorify Him on a daily basis.