Emma Ray

Here are some pictures taken of Emma with us this first week of life.

My redheads, Peter and Emma

Carina, Emma, and Annie

Annie and Emma

Dad's favorite position with his babies!

James, Jared, and Emma

Mama, Emma, and James

Jared, Emma, and Peter

Emma and Peter

Kathleen and Emma

Carina and Emma

Emma

Emma

David and Emma

Emma!

It's been a fun first week!
When I came home from the hospital, Emma needed nursing, so I sat down and nursed her.
Jared after watching the procedure for a minute, announced
that I have a bottle attached to my tummy!

Emma is in a fair way of being loved too much! Her brothers and sisters all insist on having several turns each day with her.

Emma is a good baby, she nurses well. She just won't sleep in her crib. She wants to held all day and all night long. This is making life fun! It hasn't been a problem since the kids were out of school due to the big ice/snow storm we had, but they are back in school now and I am relearning how to do things without having hands available!

We love our little Emma!

A new arrival!

Our 8th child, Emma Ray Aldrich arrived on January 6, 2010 at 5:53 am.
She weighed in at 6 lbs. 6 oz. and was 18 1/4 inches long.
Emma has red hair and has already wrapped everyone around her tiny fingers!

Emma Ray Aldrich

Mama showing off Emma's red hair!

Mama and Emma

Emma's delivery was scary for us. We were being induced to help control the delivery, so we checked into the hospital on the night of January 5. The doctor started me on cervidil, and I started having contractions around 11 pm. I stayed dilated at 2 cm all night long having really strong contractions that did nothing. I couldn't get an epidural since "I wasn't making any progress!" By 5 am, I was shaking horribly and hurting so badly, I finally agreed to take a narcotic for the pain.

It helped for a little while, but made me feel like I was on an old fashioned record that had a scratch on it that kept playing on PAIN! The room was spinning and then we would hit the scratch again (another contraction) I started screaming around 5:30 and the nurse finally checked me a few minutes later and discovered that I was now at a 9! So she hurried and called the doctor and tried to keep me from delivering before the doctor arrived. It didn't work! I delivered Emma naturally without the epidural and the nurses directing the delivery of Emma. The cord was around her neck and they were hurrying to clamp it and cut it off of her. They kept telling me not to push and I really tried my best, but my body was working on its own and she was born in a few minutes! One nurse worked on me and the other one took Emma over to the side and worked on her for 10 minutes before she cried. She was having trouble breathing. Her apgar was 3 but after they worked on her she improved to a 8. My doctor finally arrived and they let me deliver the placenta. I was so relieved to have Emma here safely!

We stayed in the hospital till the 7th than came home. We are so grateful to be home. Carina did a great job watching the kids for us while we were in the hospital. The other kids all helped out with their best behavior. Everyone loves our little Emma and we are thrilled she is part of our family!

Christmas Vacation

Our Christmas Holidays were lots of fun! We had Grandma and Grandpa over for Christmas and enjoyed our time with them. We also had a chance to catch up on some projects--school and otherwise!

Mama (picture taken by David with his new camera!)

Annie on her Christmas bike!

Jared on his Christmas bike!

Kathleen bike riding!

Peter riding his Christmas scooter!

Carina downloading songs onto her new MP3 player

Dad and Grandad playing golf on the Wii!

David and Peter building their new legos

Grandma and Annie having a tea party!

Grandma and Granddad Aldrich!

James playing with his new airport!

Jared playing with his legos!

Some of the projects we did!

David and this year's science fair project.
He dropped eggs in different wrappings to see which one would not crack!
It was lots of fun!

We also set up a corner of my room for the baby!

December Summary!

Well December was such a busy month! We felt like we had no time to breathe! It was one activity after the other. So now that the kids are on holiday from school, I have time to update the blog!

Kids decorating the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving!

Kathleen performing in her Christmas Chorus play!Kathleen celebrating her 11th birthday with a birthday party at home!

Annie's birthday cupcakes. I melted chocolate chips and made the designs and sprinkled them with sugar. When they were cooled, we put them on the cupcakes. Annie wanted butterfly cupcakes!

Annie and Kathleen birthday girls!

David in his first performance, "A Christmas Wizard of Oz" He was Woody!

Annie's reading class put on a Christmas play also!

Carina had her Christmas concert for Chorus and a fun Christmas Ball she attended!

So there you have it! A busy month so far!

Water Colors!

James enjoying his watercolors!

Purple was his favorite shade

Jared is a good artist!

Happy painters!

gratitude cake

For home evening on Monday, I made a gratitude cake! It was fun to do. Our theme for home evening was gratitude and I made a gratitude jar and we all wrote down on slips of paper what we were thankful for. Than I served this cake for refreshments. Jared really liked it since I traced his clean hand on the cake for the turkey! The toughest part was getting him not to push down too hard! I didn't want a smushed gratitude cake!

Baby's new quilt!

I have been quilting a blanket for the new baby. All of my kids have kept one of their baby quilts as a snuggly, so I wanted to give this new little girls one too! I got it done this week and thought I would post it on the blog so everyone can see it.

Here is a closeup, it is a butterfly pattern Kathleen and Carina liked.
I quilted around the butterflies and backed it with a nice soft pale green flannel. I also did the binding in the same green flannel. It should be nice and snuggly to wrap our baby girl in!

Fall decorations

I thought everyone would like to see the pretty fall centerpiece that
Annie created for our kitchen table! I love it!

2 years old!!!

I'm sure that everyone is aware of what happens when a kids turns 2! Life gets extra fun! This morning, I asked James to carry to toilet paper to my bathroom so we could refill the toilet paper supply. Daddy was showering, so James left it outside the door (so I thought..)

In reality, he used the toilet paper as a stool to climb up and get my mascara. Doesn't he look great in his war paint?

Later on, I was baking some bread and working on the computer while it baked. The timer went off and I saw James running to the kitchen. Knowing that this was NOT good, I took off too! He was at the hotpad drawer, removing hotpads so that he could get the bread out of the oven. I of course, relieved him of that responsibility, reminded him that that the oven was hot and shooed him to the other side of the room! All this and it is only 9:02 am!!!

Don't you just love 2 year olds! I do!

Jared just informed me, that now James is in the markers! Well better run!

James is 2

Our main even for October is James' birthday! He turned two on October 29th!
He was a happy little boy as he opened his presents!

James with his new trucks!

James smiling at Daddy behind the couch instead of the camera!

James with his new tool set

Mama defending James' ability to play with his new tools from his siblings!

James enjoying his strawberry shortcake.
He chose to just eat 3 helpings of strawberries!

Candy Corn Cookies

It was that time of year. Time to make the candy corn cookies again! I made them for the first time last year and blogged about it, so go back to last years post to get the recipe. It just seemed like a good time to make them again. They are easy and fun! Kathleen was my big helper this year. A new tradition???

Cutting out the cookies!

Emma showing off a couple of cookies

I did it!

I am happy to say that yesterday I got all caught up on my scrapbooking. (In August I printed out 1200 pictures to catch up the last 4 years..) This is just the family scrapbooks, not the kids, so I still have a little work to do. Plus, one can never truly stay caught up, because I own a camera and happily use it! But my goal was to get the pictures done before the baby came because afterwards there isn't a lot of spare time! I'm so excited for our family albums to be up to date now!