sweet

Eleanor is such a sweet baby! It amazes me how my heart expands with each baby and I fall head over heels in love all over again. Her cuteness is ridiculous.....seriously, SO cute!

Bringing home baby

We were able to leave the hospital and take Eleanor home on Saturday. There was worry that her bilirubin levels were too high and that she was going to need some treatment for jaundice, but Eleanor proved to be an excellent nurser and there were no problems. Both Dan and I were SO ready to leave the hospital and get back to the comfort of home and to our big girls. There is nothing relaxing or calm about the hospital when someone is sticking their head in your room every hour to make sure mama and baby are ok. The only thing that made me sad about leaving the hospital was saying goodbye to their awesome ice! I chomped on their ice the entire time I was there and it was really good ice.

The girls were really excited to have baby Eleanor home and Charlotte was super stoked to meet the baby for the first time......she was sick while we were in the hospital and not able to visit us. So far Maddie has been semi interested in the baby, she wants to hold her, but only for about 2 minutes before she is finished and ready to move on to something else. Charlotte on the other hand is pretty obsessed. She wants to hold Eleanor all the time and we are in the midst of dealing with teaching her what the boundaries are. She tends to be a bit too rough and overly enthusiastic which typically makes the baby cry and makes me really nervous. I'm so incredibly happy though that both my girls love Eleanor and are interested in her.....I'd rather that than them ignoring her or being mean to her. It's all a learning process and I'm sure in no time everything will be running smoothly.

So far Eleanor is a dream baby! She hardly ever cries, she has been sleeping a lot, nursing beautifully and pooping like a champ. I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop and for her to start crying non stop, but I'm praying that she just has a mellow personality. She is such a sweet baby and I'm so happy to finally have her here!!

Eleanor Irene

I'm sure that this is old news for most people since I was pretty good with Facebook updates, but Eleanor Irene Schultz was born on Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 4:48 pm. She weighed 8 pounds 6 ounces and was 21 inches long. Dan and I checked into the hospital on Wednesday afternoon and that evening my doctor did a procedure called a Foley bulb to help open my cervix. We spent the night at the hospital (although I did not get much sleep) and Thursday morning at 8:00 am I was hooked up to pitocin and labor began......I was already 3-4 cm thanks to the Foley bulb. My contractions were pretty mild until around 1:00 when my doctor showed up and broke my water. That sent me into some serious labor and by 3:30 I was in transition. By 4:30 I was hurtin' big time and kept asking the nurse if she had called my doctor because this baby was coming! I ended up pushing Eleanor out in 2 pushes....literally 3 minutes and she entered the world before my doctor even arrived.

We chose the name Eleanor because we both think it's a beautiful and classic name, we also like the nickname possibilities. Her middle name Irene is in honor of my grandma who passed away this past January. My grandma was a very special woman and I wish she was here to meet her newest great grand daughter. Baby Eleanor is a very sweet and mellow baby and we are very very happy to finally have her here!!

Family of 4

We had our last outing together as a family of four. I am really excited to meet this baby and bring him/her into our family, but at the same time I will miss these times with my husband and 2 little girls. Life is about to change in a really big way and although I don't know how it's going to affect each one of us individually I know there will be growing pains along with immense joy. I pray that Maddie and Charlotte handle the changes well and that they'll love their new sibling as much as they love each other. I'm not really looking forward to going through labor tomorrow, but I'm anxious to meet this baby and really excited about becoming a family of five!!

Charlotte's fashion photo shoot: wool

Charlotte has always been exceptionally easy to photograph. She likes to get her picture taken, she likes to make funny faces and pose and wear costumes. She also takes direction really well. I've been making wool pants out of sweaters that I bought at thrift stores. These are used as natural fiber, breathable and waterproof diaper covers over cloth diapers. These pants have been in the works for some time now which means that I've had bits and pieces of dismembered sweaters lying around the house for some time now. Charlotte being my fashion girl, pieced together a lovely and might I say fashion forward outfit from sweater pieces. And then of course she needed her picture taken. What really surprises me in this set of pictures is how grown up Charlotte looks. Is it just me? Cause she's seriously looking like a big girl in these shots. I'm also blown away by how beautiful she is. We are seriously going to have our hands full with these girls of ours!!

Maddie's photo shoot with Mr. rat

Maddie has always been difficult to take pictures of. She is so incredibly beautiful (I might be a tad bit biased) and I love to photographer her, but the girl does not like a camera pointed at her. She really hasn't liked getting her picture taken since she was around 18 months old. When I set my viewfinder on her she turns around, runs away, or makes a weird face. Kinda reminds me of me! lol I've been lucky enough throughout the years to capture some really lovely shots of miss Maddie, but most of my pics of her are funny rather than artistic or beautiful. The other day my oldest daughter asked for me to do a photo shoot of her.......and her stuffed pet rat. If you know Maddie at all, this is totally her. So, here are a few of the pictures that I got during our "photo shoot" with Mr. rat. Oh, and the reason there are only a few.....she does not sit still when in front of a camera. I think she is under the impression that spastically moving around is what models do. lol

This is such a classic Maddie face!