Allison's blessing

Pink shirts

Kylie's comment reminded me of something...

We were at JC Penney last week spending one of those nifty $10 mailers. Michael loves pouring over the clearance shirts because he always finds great deals since he has such "freaky long" arms. He picked up a pink (yes male) dress shirt, and decided to try it on. Kaitlin runs into his dressing room and declares "Why are you wearing mommy's shirt, daddy?" We both just had to laugh. Despite the endless teasing from both Kaitlin and me, he went ahead and bought the shirt. Waita put up with us girls, Michael! It actually looks quite dashing on him.

One month in...

So we're still not sleeping, but otherwise so far so good. Allison turned a month old yesterday, and I thought I should post some new pictures. She is such a wonderful little baby. Ok, well she is getting into that fussy evening thing, and she doesn't sleep for more than three hours ever, and she wants to be held constantly-- so I guess by definition that makes her not a "wonderful baby", but we are just so in love with her. Everyone is slowly but surely adjusting to being a family of four, and even outings to Wal-mart don't seem nearly as daunting anymore:)
Playing pretty pretty princess. We truly have a "pink" house at this point. Good thing Michael is masculine enough to handle all of these women! Even the dog is a girl.

Okay, side mother's note. As much as I am looking forward to getting a good nights' sleep hopefully in the next little while (hee hee), I have so enjoyed having the time with her at night. My biggest frustration about having two kids is the lack of just me time with each of the kids. During the day, I always have a more than helpful three year old there to smother both me and the baby. I love being able to snuggle with little Allison at night when no one else is there to take my attention or hers. I know I will never get that time again with her again, and I'm grateful to have it now.

Allison Dianne Bailey

The baby nursery.

Mom and big sister Kaitlin.

Our sweet little baby Allison was born on Wednesday, February 25th. She weighed in at 8 lb 10 oz, was 21 1/4 inches long, and is (in our opinion of course) absolutely perfect! We are so excited to have her here!!

Here is the story...on Tuesday I was feeling more than done being pregnant and decided in the morning (about 4:00 am) to do something a bit drastic and succomb to the castor oil challenge. I did get sick, but after convincing myself I was having contractions all day, I went to bed that night just feeling silly. About 4:00 am on Wednesday, I woke up with yucky stomach cramps and after wobbling around the house for 30 minutes or so, I decided that just in case we should go get checked out. We dropped Kaitlin off at Melanie Jensen's house about 5 am, and headed for the hospital (all the while praying that I didn't get sent away). As it turns out, I was already dilated to almost a 5 and my contractions were 2 minutes apart. They admitted us:)

I laid around watching movies for most of the day with Mike and our moms. By 2 that afternoon I was dilated to a 7, and they decided to break my water. Up to this point I was still contracting but they were small and I was in very little pain. They decided to speed things up a bit...They did the epidural, broke my water about 3:00, and just like with Kaitlin it was really fast from there. I dilated to a 10 right away, and as soon as they gave me the okay to push she was out within a few minutes (4 exactly as Mike has been telling me:). I was so tired by the end of this pregnancy, and I'm so incredibly thankful that this delivery was easier than my first one was.

We got home from the hospital on Friday, and we're just amazed at how happy and content this little girl is. After having one colicky baby, we just keep thinking..."oh, this is why people have more kids." We had my mom here until Monday, and Mike's mom is here for the next week or so. Kaitlin is just loving all of this grandma attention. Thanks everyone who has called or stopped by to visit. We'll keep the pictures coming.