Cute Little Neck

There is something about Quinn's neck that I just find absolutely, stinkin' adorable. Maybe it's because her neck is so little in comparison to her head?  I don't know what it is.  I just know LOVE it. 

Quinn is Hiding

I was doing dishes in the kitchen while Paige was playing and Quinn was lying in the room next to me.  I heard Paige giggle and say "Is Quinn hiding?!"  When I looked over I found that Paige had covered Quinn with the pile of clean laundry.  After unearthing her face, I snapped this picture., 

Christmas

Christmas was really fun this year because Paige was old enough to understand what was going on.  She loved putting up the Christmas tree, playing with the ornaments, singing Christmas songs, reading Christmas books, etc. 

She also REALLY looked forward to Santa coming.  She talked for weeks ahead of Christmas about how Santa was going to come and leave presents.  Specifically, Santa was going to bring her a Mickey bike, Mickey scooter, Mickey pants (basically everything that she could think of with Mickey in front of it).  

On Christmas Eve we left cookies, milk, and a note for Santa.  Paige and I made the cookies (and by made I mean we broke apart the pre-made cookie dough from the store).  I wrote the note, but Paige told me what she wanted to say: 

We also made Christmas cards for the Grandmas and Grandpas.  On this one Paige wrote her name (basically just drew a few "P"s) and put a smiley face in one of them.

On Christmas morning, Santa didn't disappoint.  There was a big pile of presents,  most of which were for Paige.  She even claimed the presents that were for Quinn. She said "these are Quinn's, but I'll borrow them and share them with her."

The girls on Christmas morning:

Paige opening her presents:

Merry Christmas!

Sisters

Paige likes being a big sister.  She loves Quinn, and often likes doing whatever Quinn is doing.  Mostly, she just gets in Quinn's face and says "HI QUINN!!"  It's really cute unless I'm trying to get Quinn to sleep.  Then it's less cute. 

Paige joining her sister for tummy time. 

Lying on a blanket together

Giggling at Quinn.

It's great having two little girls. 

Grandma and Grandpa Brison Visit

My parents came out to visit and to help out when Quinn was born.  They did what grandparents do best. 

Held the baby: 

Played with Paige:

Visited a park with the kids: 

Held the baby some more:

Played with Paige some more:

Gave a horsey ride:

Made us delicious food:

And held the baby some more:

Thanks for visiting us Grandma and Grandpa Brison! 

Thanksgiving

This year Quinn was 6 days old on Thanksgiving.  So needless to say, I pretty much ignored the holiday.  Fortunately, my parents were in town and Holly volunteered to host Thanksgiving dinner. We had a lovely meal and snapped a picture of all of us afterward.  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Susannah Quinn Kartchner

The following is Quinn's Birth Story.  If you don't want to read birth details, don't read it.  =) 

I was due on November 17.  On November 14, Jake had to attended a CLE in Fredericksburg and I REALLY didn't want to go into labor with him so far away.  But, of course, on that day I started showing signs of labor (I lost the mucus plug, starting having bloody show) so I spent that day laying on the couch.  The next morning (the 15th) I woke up with some contractions that were fairly close together, so I spent the morning cleaning the house in anticipation of potentially going to the hospital that day.  Around noon my contractions were about 5 minutes apart, but not painful at all.  I called my doctor and she told me to go on in so they could check and see how far along I was.  

I called Jake at work to tell him to come home.  I couldn't reach him on his cell phone, so I called the office line to talk to the secretary.  I found out that Jake was in court (which is why he wasn't answering), but was due back within the hour.  I told the secretary something along the lines of "it's not urgent, but I might be in labor, so have Jake call me when he gets in."  Apparently, that started a bit of a commotion in the office.  As soon as Jake got back to the office he headed home.  While I was waiting, I called Holly to come babysit Paige (little sister to the rescue!) and I ate lunch since the worst part about the delivery with Paige was being hungry. 

When Jake got home we snapped a picture of me at my biggest and headed off to the hospital.

By the time we got to the hospital, my contractions had pretty much stopped. I was really worried they were going to send me home, but my doctor said I only needed to be dilated to 4 cm to be admitted so I figured I could at least get checked out.  I got checked in, sent to triage, hooked up to the monitors and then was basically forgotten.  We hung out in triage for about 2 hours until finally Jake went to find out how much longer it would be. The nurse he talked to came right in to check me.  The first nurse to check me said I was only at a 2 or a 3 (SO disappointing!!) but she said she wanted a different nurse to check to make sure.  The next nurse came, checked me, and then left without saying anything.  After a suspenseful 5 minutes or so, a different nurse came and said they were keeping me!  I answered all the questions and they sent me up to Labor and Delivery.

I got into my delivery room around 7:30 pm.  My nurse's name was Julie and she was the best.  She was really nice and made the labor experience great.  Dr. Whyte came in and checked me and we decided to speed up labor.  She broke my water (which was the strangest feeling ever and I couldn't stop laughing.  It felt like I was peeing myself, and every time I moved it felt like that all over again.) and then I got the lovely epidural and they started me on pitocin.  I had forgotten how amazing an epidural is. Since my contractions were fairly infrequent (and weren't painful to begin with) I didn't need it for that, but it took away ALL the discomfort from being pregnant. All the aches in my stretched out, overworked belly were GONE.  I was able, for the first time in months, just relax and watch TV with Jake.  It was AMAZING.  After awhile (after checking with the nurse to see if it was ok) we turned out the lights in the room and tried to get some sleep. Dr. Whyte stopped in and said that it seemed like we were there on vacation instead of there having a baby.  

Around 11:00 pm or so Quinn's heartbeat dropped a lot.  They turned off the pitocin and put an oxygen mask on me (which was awful).  Around midnight, I started feeling some pain (the pain of my body bearing down) so I had them come in and increase the epidural.  We waited a bit longer and then around 1:00 am the doctor decided it was time to push.  On the first push Quinn was already crowning.  After just a couple pushes Julie called Dr. Whyte back in and shortly after (at 1:23 am) Quinn was born! I only pushed through 5 or so contractions (which was a relief, having pushed for 1.5 hours with Paige).

Jake cut the umbilical cord while they put her up on my chest.  Since she didn't spend much time in the birth canal, Quinn still had a bunch of gunk in her lungs.  She started to turn a little purple, so the nurse took her and cleaned her out.  She was fine after that, although it did take a few days to get that all worked out.  She kind of sounded like a rhinoceros breathing.    

All I needed was a couple stitches and I was good to go.

Quinn was the sweetest little newborn.  She had a fantastic latch and was nursing away.  She kept rooting, so I kept feeding her. After a little bit, the nurse told me to stop feeding her because she was still blocked up and was choking.  Apparently newborns aren't supposed to eat so much.

One night in the hospital, the nurses brought a crying Quinn in from the nursery, saying that they thought she was hungry (even though it had only been an hour or so since she last ate) since she wasn't calming down.  I picked her up and as soon as she touched my skin she cuddled up and instantly stopped crying.  It was the sweetest thing.  She just wanted her mommy!

We're so happy to have our little Quinn here.  She's the perfect addition to our family.

Susannah Quinn Kartchner

Born 1:23 am

16 November 2012

8 lbs. 2 oz. 

20 3/4 inches

False Alarm

I had a check up at 37.5 weeks, and the amniotic fluid measured a bit low and Quinn wasn't moving much (which is actually typical in the mornings).  So my doctor sent me to the hospital the next day for a further test, telling me that if the fluid was still low they'd deliver the baby. 

So I went to the hospital the next day, a little bit excited to be potentially be having a baby!  But nope.  Everything was fine (which is a good thing despite the fact that I'm STILL pregnant) so Quinn has to stay in there a little while longer.  If she's not here by November 19, I'll be induced that day. 

While Jake and I were at the hospital, Paige went to hang out with Holly and gang.  Here is a picture of all of them together in Holly's car: 

Here is a picture of me at around 36 weeks:

It doesn't seem physically possible, but now 2.5 weeks later I'm EVEN BIGGER.

Halloween

Halloween is so much more fun when you have a kid old enough to get into it.  Paige loved dressing up this year.  For the ward party she dressed as Minnie Mouse: 

She loved wearing the dress and the ears (and wears them around the house frequently).   My costume was a totem pole (I was one face, Quinn was the other face):

 Jake dressed up like PSY and had Gangnam Style playing from his phone the whole time.

It took Paige a couple of trunks to figure out what trunk-or-treating was all about, but she soon got the hang of it and LOVED it.

And of course since she loved trunk-or-treating she was super excited to go trick-or-treating on Halloween. Holly and her kids came with us.

Paige and Heidi dressed up like two little ladybugs:

Peter the mouse:

Paige would walk up to a house and say "trick-or-treat!" before even knocking on the door.

After just a few houses the two little bugs got a bit worn out, so Jake carried both of them home.  During the walk home they just looked at each other and kept giggling.

For days Paige has been begging to go trick-or-treating again.  She keeps saying: "when it's dark Heidi will come over, we'll both be ladybugs, and we'll go trick-or-trick again."   She's been struggling to grasp the fact that we just go trick-or-treating once a year.

Swearing In Ceremony

The last step in becoming a licensed attorney was for Jake to be sworn in to the Supreme Court in Virginia.  He went down to Richmond and participated in the ceremony. 

The ceremony itself was scheduled to take place on the day that Hurricane Sandy hit our area.  Absolutely everything was canceled that day EXCEPT the ceremony.  The federal government was all shut down, the government offices in Richmond were shut down, and even the Virginia Bar Association (the people hosting the ceremony) was shut down. But they didn't reschedule the swearing in.  I really wanted to go to the ceremony, but I didn't want to risk going into labor in a hurricane in Richmond so I stayed home. 

Richmond Trip

 Jake attended a CLE class in Richmond to get a certification he needed and Paige and I decided to go with him.  It ended up being pretty fun.  We left early Friday morning, pulling Paige out of bed and taking her in her pjs.  We dropped Jake off at the class and then Paige and I set out to entertain ourselves.  I decided last minute that I was going to go along so I had no plans and no idea of what to do while we were there.

We started off with breakfast at McDonalds:

And then spent the entire day at the Children's Museum of Richmond.  Paige was in heaven!  This museum was pretty awesome.  There was a TON for Paige to run around and play with and all I had to do was follow her.  The museum wasn't very busy, which made it even better.

Here are just a few of the things she did:

Digging for dinosaur bones (which later she described as "digging for dinosaur bums"):

 Sitting on a dinosaur (she looks terrified, but she was actually enjoying it):

Playing with one of these things (what are those called??):

You can make the hen "lay an egg" and it drops down (she did this approximately 800 times):

Posing in an apple tree (she's saying "cheeeese!"):

Painting in the craft room (again: "cheeeese!"):

Shopping in the little grocery store (my favorite part, mostly because I remember doing this when I was younger):

Planting and picking vegetables:

 It was a really awesome museum. Paige really loved it and begs me constantly to go back.

We stayed that night in a hotel, which was kind of disastrous.  Jake and I expected (for some reason) that Paige would fall asleep quickly around 7:00 (like she did every night we were in New York) and then we could read/watch TV/get caught up on work.  But that didn't happen.  She took hours to fall asleep, so we had to have the room dark and quiet until she was asleep.  Then around 3:00am she woke up SCREAMING and took another hour to fall back asleep (sorry, neighbors...).   Not quite the relaxing night we were picturing. 

The next day, Jake went to class again while Paige and I explored the public library.  Like most libraries they had an awesome kid's section, so we hung out there reading books and playing with the toys until it was time to go home.

Then Paige cried/whined pretty much the entire drive back.  Ugh. 

But other than the whining parts, it was actually pretty fun to get out of the house and see some place new.

Pass!!

After over two months of waiting for the results, we FINALLY found out... 

JAKE PASSED THE VIRGINIA BAR!!

We couldn't be happier or more grateful that he passed.  

Running Errands

Little Heidi spent the morning running errands with us.  It was great to have her along because she and Paige just giggled with each other and I could focus on the shopping.

Sharing the cart at Target:

The oh-so-loved car cart at Giant (bulky and hard to steer, but total worth it):

Holly's Here!

In a surprise turn of events, Bryan and Holly and kids moved out here!  They live approximately 1.5 miles from us.  We're so happy to have family SO close to us.  Paige and Heidi LOVE playing together, and are way cute when they get together.  They mostly just run around and giggle.  We wish more family lived close!

Bug at Breakfast

Paige LOVES to dress up and be a ladybug.  Often one of the first things she asks for in the morning is to be a ladybug.

Frying Pan Farm

We went to Frying Pan Farm with our playgroup.  Out of the whole farm, Paige's favorite thing was riding the kid's sized tractors.  She had trouble sharing with other kids and cried when it was time to move on to see the animals. 

First we stopped in to see the pigs.  Paige looked for a second, and then reacted like this:

"Pick me up, Mommy!!"

She was a bit freaked out for the rest of the visit, but did like looking at the animals. 

New York, New York

We took a semi-spontaneous trip to New York City, taking advantage of Jake's time off between finishing the bar and starting work.  My company had a project at the Bronx Zoo and so I came up to do some data collection.  Jake and Paige came along.  We stayed with Caren and Carl Oberg (Caren is my boss) in Irvington, NY which is just a train ride out of the city.  We stayed on the FEE compound where Caren and Carl live (Carl is the CEO of FEE) in this amazing Victorian House. The house is the main building for FEE where their offices/dorm rooms are.  It's an old, kind of creepy, and all around really neat building. 

Paige enjoyed the outdoor space.  She got to kick around a basketball.

Learn to throw a frisbee

Play with Caren and Shisha (the cat)

And of course play with Jake.

We drove up to New York on a Tuesday morning.  That afternoon/evening we took the train into the city. 

Waiting for the train. 

We went to Grand Central Station (since that's where the train dropped us off) and then had some New York Pizza.

We ate right outside of the New York Public Library.  This was a "must see" for our trip because of it's starring roll in Ghostbusters.

We walked through Times Square, saw the New Year's ball and then saw Mickey.  Paige was so excited!  We were less excited when the Mickey posed with Paige and then held out his bag so we'd pay him.  But I guess he has to make his living somehow.  

We finished up the evening by visiting the M&M factory (where Jake bought me a bag of blue and turquoise M&Ms), then buying some Cheesecake.  

The next couple of days I spent working at the zoo.  We had parking spaces reserved for us at the zoo, and were pleased to see our names on the spot when we got there. 

Jake and Paige spent the days sight seeing.  One of the days they went into the city and went up the Empire State Building and walked around a little bit.  They spent the next day at the zoo (because if there's one thing Jake and Paige both love, it's a zoo).

We headed home the next day (on a thoroughly congested Jersey Turnpike). It was just a short trip, but we were really glad to be able to go on this trip.