christmas!

hazel and i came home from the hospital on Christmas eve afternoon...we were almost able to leave on tuesday (the day after she was born) but my platelets were still too low. elijah welcomed me home with his best mess yet...he's just lucky Santa still came!

While orum was at the hospital picking us up, elijah decided to take advantage of his sweet little aunt marion...he moved a chair to the counter, climbed onto the counter, and found a new bottle of vegetable oil on the top shelf. i'm not sure why this looked more fun than the huge bag of chocolate that was sitting beside it!? he then decided to open the oil and pour it all over the kitchen tile, but that wasn't messy enough! he then tracked it through to the hardwood floor through the rest of the house! i wonder if he was just trying to test Santa? it certainly wasn't what i expected to come home to...

Renee on the other hand was VERY sweet! one of the first things on her agenda was write Santa a letter for Hazel. She wanted to be sure that she had something too, but wasn't quite sure what Hazel should get. She decided to just write

Dear Santa,
Please bring our
sweet new baby girl
some fun new baby things.
Love, Renee

Renee had also decided that Santa really liked candy canes...so that's what we left and the random york patty that i found in the Halloween candy. and that was fine with me because we didn't have any cookies!
Look closely at the purple bunny on top of Hazel's things...Santa was able to find the same little bunny with a rattle inside that my mom gave Renee when she was born and that she still sleeps with. I would have thought that Renee would have been so excited...instead she was SO sad! she was the first to wake up and inspect the loot...she came in my room with tears in her eyes...she wanted Hazel's new bunny because it was softer than hers! after she got over the bunny issue she went for her stocking...
who knew a cheap-o princess notepad could be so exciting?!? she was only slightly more excited about her "baby ariel that crawls"
elijah was just pumped that he got a ball and a guitar! he has a thing for soccer balls...everytime we go to the park it seems some older boys are playing with one...and he runs to join in their game. now he can start his own!
Renee got a pink guitar for Christmas when she was two, and he's been obsessed with guitars ever since! the pink one bit the dust sometime last year...let's hope this one will last longer! what's funny is no one in this house even plays the guitar, but from the moment he picked one up he's held it the right way. he spent most of the day asking, "what song should i sing?" we'd name a song and then he'd sing and play away!
more excitement from renee...anything princess=major excitement! this time it was pajamas!
renee was very pleased with the present that she had picked out for elijah and wanted to make sure she could get him excited about it ...
elijah and orum reading about handy manny and his tools! handy manny is currently his tv obsession...elijah's not orum's.more christmas joy...i'm serious renee got excited about every single thing she opened! even blue hair on a headband from "little aunt marion!" orum's little sister spent Christmas with us and it was so fun! this kids LOVED having her here...sorry you didn't make any pictures Marion, but hey, neither did i! i'll do better next year!

since Hazel came so close to Christmas we missed spending Christmas eve with my family as usual, but it was nice to be able to wake up to Christmas morning at our own house! only 2 more Christmases and then we can have it all again!

all about hazel...

i obviously have a lot to post, but we will start from where we left off...with the sweet little one!
Hazel has been such a sweet baby...especially considering her VERY busy first 3 weeks of life, but she seems to prefer a fast pace life!

she was due on the 24th, but scheduled for an induction on the 23rd so i could be home with the other 2 for christmas, but she decided that the 22nd would be her birthday! i was so happy! i DID NOT want to be induced! i thought that she would have come a lot earlier since i had been having contractions since the day after thanksgiving...almost literally all day everyday! the Monday she was born they were finally painful! i don't think i had ever been more excited to feel a little pain! I woke up sometime around 5am when they started, but went back to sleep. i didn't want to get too excited...i had a regular ob appointment that day at 11:30 am.

I got up a few hours later and headed out to finish some last minute Christmas shopping and eat a BIG lunch, but brought my bag just in case! (i was starving when i was in labor with Elijah and was not going to have that again!)

when i got to the clinic (which is also inside the hospital) my doctor was in a c-section, so i saw the nurse practitioner. i told her that the contractions had been 3-7 minutes apart since they started around 5am, and she basically told me that i was not in labor and that i would have the baby tomorrow when i got induced. i had been a 2 for the 3 weeks prior, but since i was a 3 then she sent me to maternal-fetal monitoring--i think just to humor me. she said that usually when someone is having true labor contractions that they have shortness of breath...and that i just seemed to happy/smiley! she just didn't understand how happy i was that i was thinking i didn't have to be induced! anyway...get hooked up to the monitor for 20 minutes...just as i said every 6 minutes apart. they called down and she told me to go walk around for an hour and that my doctor should be back by then.

so i went walking...and climbing stairs! which then sent my contractions coming every 2 minutes! went back upstairs to see the doctor around 1:30ish...i was a 5! the doctor whips out her cell phone and calls down to labor and delivery and says she's sending me down...they didn't have any open rooms then! they had lots of inductions that day because no one wanted to be in the hospital for Christmas. The new labor and delivery floor was supposed to be open that week, but wasn't so they said they had been over scheduled.

I ended up waiting in the labor and delivery waiting room for over an hour! The doctor had warned them that they had better be quick about finding me a room, and that she was willing to deliver the baby in the waiting room, but that they might not want to clean it up...finally got a room at about 3. Doctor broke my water around 3:30 and i was a 6. She said she had another c-section and then another surgery and asked me to give her about 4 hours! right...Elijah came within the hour of my water breaking, but i said that i would try...

then between all the needle sticks for iv's and blood work i made good use of my time and transfered phone numbers from my old phone to my new phone...at 5:10 i was an 8. orum decided to run downstairs and grab some food and the nurse had just brought me some water and left. a few seconds later...i had a REALLY long REALLY painful contraction...and started to rethink my decision to not have an epidural...TOO LATE! baby was crowning and i was alone!

i had been calling orum when i was having the big contraction and he was in a dead spot.i started pressing the button to call the nurse, and it wasn't working! i started to freak out a little and then decided to just start yelling for help! my room was the one right by the desk...so luckily my nurse heard me and people started running in like crazy! luckily, Orum was one of them...he got the text just as he was paying and sprinted upstairs...a few seconds later and he would have missed it all! my doctor ran in right after she came out, but luckily there was some resident in the hall who ran in for the delivery. hazel didn't even wait to be pushed out...she just made her own way out! (all of that happened in 10 minutes...she was born at 5:20pm!)
I was SO happy that it was a girl! i was really wanting another little girl, but didn't have a feeling either way like i did with Renee and Elijah. as happy as i was, Renee may have been MORE excited! i was very relieved that i didn't have to call Renee and tell her that it was a brother!

we came home on Christmas eve, and then the real adventure began...

in case you are wondering...her middle name is a-lo-sha. it was orum's mother's middle name too. Renee loves that she and her sister both have a French name. she has French twice and week at school and it's currently all the rage!

it's a girl!

Hazel Aloysia Young
22 December 2008
5:20 pm
7 lbs 10 oz
20 1/4 inches

She has a VERY proud brother and sister! They LOVE her and have been very sweet to her! I know the pictures aren't great--due to some camera issues...as in dead camera at the hospital(guess i should have checked that) more pictures coming soon...

today is the day...

serious spectator...

we decided Saturday night to go see the WM rebels play (my high school--they were there for the high school football playoffs) at the Superdome. Since the kids are always asking to go there, we decided that this was something they might enjoy...and it was definitely much shorter than a Saints game! We found some friends from home and sat on the 4th row...Elijah was serious about watching especially after he got his own football during the 3rd quarter from the cheerleaders...

Renee liked it too, but I think she was more into the spirit groups. she told me she wanted to be one of the "blue people" (the flag girls--i guess the flags looked fun) but i told her she could be either a cheerleader or a dancer...once she saw them perform she aggreed they looked more fun...especially when the cheerleaders started stunting. she then started trying to do her own stunts in the chairs, which didn't workout too well since they fold on your feet!

so our team didn't win...they threw an interception in the last few minutes, but the kids had fun and are already asking to go back! we may have created a larger issue with the dome...