Announcing Our Newest Addition!

Ambrie Solei McNeel was born Tuesday, June 23 at 3:34 PM!

She weighed 6 lbs, 2 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long

She came a little earlier than we expected. I was scheduled to be induced on Thursday, but when I went to my doctor's appointment Tuesday I had a lot of protein in my urine and high blood pressure, plus I've been SUPER swollen for the past few months. The doctor told me "I think we need to get this baby out soon". I said "soon, as in, Thursday?" and he said "no, soon as in now. I want you to go down to maternity." So Brian and Sadie (who were there with me) ran home to get some things and Brian took Sadie to daycare for the day. I was kind of freaked out, because I wasn't expecting everything to happen so fast, but obviously it all turned out ok :)

I will say, the one really hard thing that happened was once I got the epidural, I dilated from a 5+ to a 10 in about half and hour- and the epidural hadn't kicked in all the way! I was in a ton of pain, and I thought it was from the catheter the nurse had just put in, and she told me, "no, the baby's coming NOW". I was like "NO!" because I could feel everything, I swear and I was so scared. And it really did hurt- I totally look up to women that do it completely natural because I at least had a little relief. But I didn't have to push long before our beautiful new little girl came, and she was worth all of it! I mean, the bedrest, the difficult pregnancy, and the labor pain that I really didn't want to experience but had to anyway ;) We're so happy though and excited to have her here :)

This picture makes me smile :)

Sadie's first look at her new sister! She's doing better than I thought she would. She was really excited when she got to the hospital and was so cute with Ambrie! She kept kissing her and talking to her :) Since we've been home, she still wants to hold her sometimes, but not as often and she gets bored with it fast. She's been a little jealous, asking me to hold her if she notices I'm feeding Ambrie, but I really think she's doing great with the whole thing :)

Brian and his "mini-me"

Happy to be a big sister!

Just Four Days Left!

And I'm running emotions between "yes, finally!" and being nervous about having another baby. Mostly though, I'm just excited.

I am a little worried too though because today it looks like Sadie is coming down with a cold :( Mostly she's just been really congested and hasn't wanted to eat much- she hasn't had a fever or cough yet, so I'm hoping its just a little thing that goes away soon. I'm going to take her to the doctor tomorrow anyway though because

1) if she's sick, I want her to feel better before I have to leave and can't take care of her. I'd feel HORRIBLE if she got really miserable and I wasn't there

2) I REALLY don't want to get sick right before I give birth (who wants to go through childbirth AND be sick while doing it?)

3) I don't want to risk having the new baby get sick from any of us who might catch it!

Hopefully she just has a really mild cold, but this close to my due date, I don't want to take any chances. I'm kind of a hypochondriac that way. If she is sick, I think I'll hold off on getting induced, but I'm still due in six days, so I still just want all of us to be healthy. I'll keep everyone posted, and OF COURSE as soon as the baby comes, I'll see if I can get Brian to post some pics :)

I Moved My Due Date Up a Couple of Days

I realized the other day that our insurance deductible for the year is almost met (yay!), but it starts over July 1st (boo!).  Which got Brian and I talking about how we need to have the baby and get out of the hospital before July 1st or we'd probably have to pay twice as much.  Who wants to do that, right?

So at my doctor's appointment this morning, I talked to him about it and we decided to induce me on the 25th (yay, three whole days early!) if I haven't gone into labor by then.  I'm excited to know I'll have the baby a few days sooner, but I'm also kind of nervous about being induced.  Who knows though, maybe the baby will come on her own.

I was also excited this morning to find out I'm dilated to a one!  Yippee!  I know its not much, but at least its something :)  I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high yet though, because I was dilated to a two with Sadie for a couple of weeks.  Still though, the end is in site!!!!  And I think we've got everything ready (clothes, itty-bitty diapers, blankets...), so this baby can come any time she wants!!!  I'm so excited!

37 Weeks Today!

And I think we've got everything ready other than buying some itty-bitty diapers!

Tessa is 36 Weeks Today....

Just four weeks to go!!!!!

Our New Set of Wheels!

We're now the proud owners of a family-sized car!  I will miss my cute, sporty little Civic (which is now "Brian's  car") but I'm LOVING our new one so far!

(this is from my cell phone and really doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea)

Since our family will be expanding soon, and our family car has been my itsy-bitsy 2002 Civic, we've been car shopping for the past few weeks for a car that would fit a 4-person family comfortably.  I'll be honest, its been kind of stressful because our budget wasn't very big and most of the cars we'd been finding in our price range were either too small or weren't what we'd call "quality cars", and we'd been looking all over the place for weeks- KSL.com, Craigslist, different dealerships.  It was pretty discouraging.  

Then on Monday, Brian saw a little Kia SUV at a small dealership here in Cedar City.  Its was priced at $6,000 (the lower end of our car budget), but looked brand new, so he asked me to call and see why it was priced so low.  So I did, and the woman on the phone told me that it didn't have any airconditioning- definitely NOT the car for us!  But she was so nice on the phone, I told Brian we should go there after work and see what other cars they had.  

So Monday night around 7:30 (we had dinner first) we headed over there just expecting to browse a little since we thought they'd be closed. Well, the owner, who is an older gentleman came out and asked if we'd like to see any cars.  Luckily, I had our infant car seat with me since I'd been trying it out at other dealerships in other cars to see how much room it would leave (in our Civic, you have to push the front seat ALL the way forward to fit it), so we tried it out in a few small SUV's they had and it didn't leave me much leg room in any of them :(  I was so discouraged!  Then the owner said, "why don't you come look at this car" and took us over to a big ol' beast, a 2007 Ford 500.  It was like a cave inside!  The infant seat fits in the back with the front seat pushed almost all the way back, which leaves me a TON of leg room!  So we took it for a test drive, and it was sooooooooo smooth and comfy, and the engine sounded great!  I hadn't even heard of a Ford 500 though, so I told Brian we ought to go home and do some research on it before deciding to buy it.  So that night, we looked up a bunch of reviews, the safety ratings, carfaxed the vin, etc. and decided it was the car for us!  

The owner and his wife are the only people that work at the dealership, and he was gone Tuesday to an auto auction in Salt Lake, so asked us to come first thing Wednesday morning.  We went in yesterday, and there was some paperwork we had to run over to our credit union since we were doing our own financing in order to get the loan.  While we were with our loan officer, he priced the value of the car, and was amazed that we were getting it for $3,500 less than they valued it :)  Yay!  He asked where we were buying it from, and we told him Cedar City Truck Sales, and he said "oh yeah, we do alot of auto loans for them".  So I asked (just in case) if he'd ever heard anything bad about them or their cars (since our price was so good) and he said he'd never heard a bad thing about them, and that in general their prices were always really good.  So that was great to know too :)  

After the bank, we went back to the dealership, finalized everything and came away with a car that was MUCH better than we'd thought we'd get in our price range, which will fit all of us without me having to ride with my knees up to my chin, and which doesn't look too bad either :)  So I'm pretty excited!  

Here are some pictures, not of my car, but of the same model and year.  Like I said before, my Civic was probably alot "cooler" and definitely alot sportier, but this will be great for us I think!

Some Prego and Mountain Pics

I'm pretty sure most, if not all, of the people who read my blog are women, and most of them have kids.  I don't know if most of you are like me, but I love seeing other women's pregnancy photos!  I just think they're cute!!!  I haven't really had any of me yet, but today we went up on Cedar Mountain for a bit and took the camera, and I asked Brian to get some photos of me and my big ol' belly :)  

Compare this first one, which is me today, six weeks from my due date, to the one right under, which was taken four days before I had Sadie.  I guess its true you get alot bigger with your second :)

I feel pretty good overall, but a big difference I've noticed this time, and I think its because I'm pregnant in summer instead of winter, is I'm retaining so much water!  My feet look like elephant feet and I have cankles!  And I can't fit my wedding ring onto my finger  at all :(  So thats been kind of hard, but its worth it.  Of course, if this one decides to come a few days early, I won't complain...... ;)

Here's a cute one I took of Brian and Sadie up there.  She's so much like Brian, in that she LOVES the outdoors and keeps saying she wants to go fishing.  I'm not sure if she really knows what that is or not, but I have a feeling Brian might try and get her going on that this summer :)

This is what Sadie does now when you ask her to smile- so funny!

Cedar Mountain is kind of our "getaway" area.  This is the first time we've been up since fall, so it was really nice to get up there.  I'm sure I'll have plenty more posts from the mountain as the summer goes on :)

Fun in the Sun!

Saturday it was supposed to be really nice in St. George and since it was still kind of cold in Cedar we headed south to play. They have this really cute, fun little water park in the center of town that we love, so we took Sadie's swimsuit and went there. She had soooooooo much fun, it was really hard to get her to leave when it was finally time to go, but we have all summer to go back and play some more.

While we were there, she gave a little impromptu dance on one of the rocks. We thought it was pretty funny. The last part where she's shaking her little bum is from Horton Hears a Who :)

Sadie's Little Water Dance


Here are a couple of pictures we took as well.

I thought this first one was just really cute.


Having fun! You can't really tell in this pic, but from the side, I pretty much look like a whale right now. :p


This park is seriously so awesome! They've got that the little river thing with big rocks to climb on, little waterfalls, and a patio fountain where the kids can run around in the water. If you're in St. George at all this summer, I really recommend checking it out!



By the end she was pretty wet, and pretty happy! :)

Easter!

We had such a fun Easter weekend! I loved it because we did so many things together as a family and really had a blast being together and doing things we don't get to do every day.

On thursday we dyed Easter eggs. This was Sadie's first time, and she had a lot of fun. Mostly, she just kept sticking eggs in the green dye. We tried to get her to use other colors, but she kept going back to green. Maybe that's her favorite color?


As you can see, she used her hands to do all her dying ;) She kept showing us her hands afterwards saying "Ahh, Shrek hands!" LOL




Our finished products


And showing off our eggs. I know it looks like Sadie's egg says "DIE", but I promise, it really says "SADIE"


I had Friday off (WOOHOO!) so Sadie and I spent the day together playing at the park and having lunch with Brian at his work. I have so much fun with her, and I love when we get to have whole days together like that.

On friday night we all decided to go bowling, which was alot of fun. Sadie is so funny, she INSISTS that she carry her own ball to the ramp. What a stud! I didn't take any pictures, but I thought I'd write about it since it was another fun thing we did.

On saturday morning, we got up bright and early and went to the main street park for Cedar City's annual Easter Egg hunt. Usually we go out to Panaca for Easter weekend, but my aunt and uncle's family were in Vegas because Eric had a tournament (lame, huh? I think its dumb when sports leagues schedule tournaments over family-orientated holidays) and my grandma didn't feel up to doing anything special, so we decided to stay in Cedar City this year and do our own thing. So our "own thing" included checking out the Easter Egg hunt. It was soooooooo cold, and actually started snowing a little while we were there, but we toughed it out!


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When they were about to start, the Easter Bunny came riding in on a fire engine. Sadie is STILL talking about the "Bunny rabbit was waving. He said hello" :)


There were a TON of people there, and apparently in total there were 21,000 eggs! Isn't that insane? They said it was the largest Easter Egg hunt in the state of Utah. They had three age groups, and Sadie's was 0-3. I thought she'd have alot of fun picking up the eggs since this year she was old enough to kind of know what was going on. I've gotta say though, I was totally dissapointed in the actual hunt. The fire engine turned on its siren as the signal to start, and all these parents PICKED UP THEIR KIDS, started running eachother over, and THROWING EGGS IN THEIR KIDS BASKETS!!! The kids weren't doing anything, and it was like a mad house! This one lady was actually holding onto her kid and a huge Great Dane. What the heck is she bringing her Great Dane to a 0-3 easter egg hunt for? So it can run over the kids? I was so peeved! Anyway, we tried getting Sadie to an area more in the middle where there weren't as many people yet so she could pick up some eggs on her own. She only ended up with four before we were swarmed and it was really freaking her out, so I picked her up and we left. Once we got out of the crowd she was pretty excited about her eggs though :) We tried to get a picture with the Easter Bunny before we left, but Sadie wouldn't have any of that, LOL!


After we were done, we were pretty much freezing, so we decided to go to Denny's for some hot chocolate and breakfast. :)


On Sunday, I got Sadie all dressed up in her Easter dress and decided to try out my new flat iron by curling her hair (the girl that cuts my hair showed me how to do it). I think it turned out SOOOO cute! Here are some pictures from right after



Around 1:00 my Aunt Rie called and said they were back in Panaca and were going to do a BBQ and Easter egg hunt, so we headed over there. It was such a gorgeous day and the kids had a lot of fun. This time, Sadie actually got to pick up a good amount of eggs. We have three two-year-olds in the family, and fortunately, none of them have parents that are going to go ballistic trying to get their kids as many eggs as possible! Call me crazy, but isn't the purpose of the Easter Egg hunt to let kids find Easter eggs? Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox now ;)





I took Monday off work so I could stay an extra day in Panaca just hanging with the family and letting Sadie and her cousin Curtis spend some fun time together. So all in all, we had a GREAT, long weekend with lots of fun and family!

Big Girl Bed!

Sadie's been sleeping in her toddler bed since we moved into our townhome in October (her crib converted into one).  Since we're going to need the crib again soon, and since we had some extra money from our tax return (gotta love those!) we decided to go ahead and get her a "Big Girl" bed.

Sadie's been pretty excited about it.  She still only sleeps in it for about half the night before coming to our room, but its a start ;)  We put her crib mattress under it and pull it out at night just in case she rolls out, even though she only rolled out of her toddler bed once in the 5 months she was in it.  I'm paranoid though, so I'm sure the crib mattress will stay there until we need it for the baby. :)

The bed makes her room seem kind of small...or maybe its the combo of the bed, her playhouse, dresser, bean bag chair, etc.....yeah, its easy to spoil your kid when you only have one :)  Her room isn't huge, but really, how much space does a little girl need?  I think she's got a pretty cute room though, and its fun to have her in a big bed :)

A woman that I work with made the big quilt for Sadie a while ago.  Isn't it adorable?!  Its such a precious gift and we'll always cherish it.  It fits Sadie too- all over it are princesses in pink dresses and Sadie is such a little princess- in a good way, not in a rotten way ;)  She's just such a girl, and asks me all the time to wear "a princess dress".  Which is why in these pictures, she has a dress over her regular clothes.  Its just not warm enough for ONLY dresses yet, but she's still happy, lol!

Sadie likes her bed :)

Room enough for two!  Well,  as long as one of those two is really tiny, lol!

The reading corner.  One of these days, we'll actually get a little bookshelf or something so the books aren't just in a pile on the floor....

Since we're having another girl, I also thought it would be cute to decorate the dresser with some girly stuff (since we'll be using it for both of them)- hence the butterflies and dragonflies.  I liked it so much, I decided to add dragonflies to the walls too.  I think it turned out pretty cute :)  Sadie used to call them "dragon butterflies" which was super cute, but now she just calls them dragonflies.