Life with Leah

I meant to create this post before Corbin was born, but since he came early, this post is coming later. I just wanted to make sure I wrote down some of the fun/interesting things Leah is doing these days. This girl definitely keeps us on our toes. Life with Leah is anything but boring.

Leah loved going with me to my doctor appointments. Her favorite was when we had appointments at the hospital (or as she calls it "the place with the turning-round door"). She is fascinated with their big revolving door and would cry when it was out of order and she couldn't go in or out it. Here's a picture of her playing in the waiting room after one of my ultrasounds. She was totally fascinated by this bead board and played with it for a half hour or more. She loves puzzle-type toys like this where she can try to figure things out.

Leah loves her daddy and gets to do a lot more with him now that Corbin is here. They often go outside just to play. And she also loves when she gets to go to mutual with him. Ross really likes it when she will settle down with him and let him read to her. I enjoy watching them interact together. I just wish they could learn to get along better at bedtime though. That's when Leah and Daddy butt heads the most!

This poor kid is cursed with such fine hair. It looks so cute when I style it with all it's natural curl. But it gets so snarled, nappy and full of static so easily, especially after she has been asleep.

Her favorite activities currently include: singing, dancing (mostly spinning in circles), jumping/climbing on furniture and beds (despite getting in trouble for it every day), playing computer games, playing outside/at the park, and helping me with cooking and laundry whenever I will let her.

She has definitely developed a personality of her own. She is strong willed, likes to do things by herself and has no problem telling Ross and I exactly how she feels about something.

Our little "space cowgirl." She found this cowboy hat and light saber at Ross's cousin's house and played with them for quite a while.

We've also discovered that she has a unique sense of fashion. When she decides to dress herself, she can come up with some interesting combinations! If we're staying home, I will usually just let her wear what she wants. But if we are going somewhere, I make her change her shirt or pants so that she actually matches.

Leah loves all things Mickey. He is by far her favorite character (although she still does really like Kermit and the Muppets). Here are some more of Leah's current favorites...
Color: Red
Songs: "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," "Jesus Once Was a Little Child" (She requested this for her bedtime song for nearly a month straight or more. We have finally convinced her to pick other Jesus songs, but this is still the one she chooses the most.)
TV Shows: "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse," and "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood"
Foods: Shells and Cheese, Spaghetti, Cottage Cheese and she loves to put Lemon Pepper on her foods like her dad does
Movie: "Sleeping Beauty" (I'm guessing that is it because more often than not she'll choose that to watch at bedtime if she has behaved well enough at bedtime to get to watch a movie.)
Books: Little Critter books and Berenstain Bears books

The poor girl shopped 'til she dropped!

Leah loves to play games or watch videos on the computer. She's pretty computer savvy for a 2-year-old. Her favorite websites are Disney Junior and PBS Kids. She can maneuver both of these very well to find whatever game she wants to play or video she wants to watch. On this particular day she was so tired when she was playing that she fell asleep waiting for the game to load.

She recently requested that I get out her Halloween costume so she could dress up like Abby Cadabby again. She dressed up in it several days in a row and even wanted the purple freckles on her checks. I only put her hair up in the pony tails once though. She even went to mutual with Ross dressed up as Abby (we tried to get her to take it off, but it turned into too much of a battle.)

Bedtime is still a battle most nights with Leah. She hates going to sleep at night. One of us has to be with her when she falls asleep. If we threaten to make her go to sleep alone, she'll say, "But I can't go to sleep without a girlfriend or a boyfriend." I don't know where she got that from, but I always think it's funny when she says it. We've made a bedtime chart for her and she can earn a sticker for it if she goes to bed without fighting, getting a time out or if she sleeps all night in her own bed. If she fills up the chart, we told her she could go to the store and pick out a special prize. There's only 25 squares in her chart and we started the it over a month ago. However, I doubt we'll be going to the store any time soon.

Despite the struggles of living with a head-strong 2-year-old, we still lover her very much and wouldn't trade our little Leah for the world.

1 Month Old

Our "Corbin Boy" is one month old already. His favorite activities are still eating and sleeping. He especially loves to curl up in a ball on my chest and sleep. He hates burping, so he often gets belly aches. And he also hates getting his clothes changed. I don't know how much he weighs now, but I can tell that he is getting bigger because his newborn clothes are fitting just about right now. He's already gaining pretty good head and neck control. 

His alert times are getting longer and we all enjoy it when he's awake and looking around. Leah especially gets excited when she sees him awake. She likes to get up close to his face and then wants me to tell Corbin all about her.

Here are some pictures of other people that have met Corbin during his first month: Cousins, William and Sierra.

Great Grandma Tucker and Walt

Great Grandma and Grandpa Putnam

In just one month, we've learned one thing for certain...we love this little guy!

Easter 2013

With Corbin still being so small, we kept Easter weekend fairly simple this year. But we still managed to do some fun things. On Friday we colored eggs. Leah was so excited for this. After I wrote on the eggs, I let her do all the coloring with some help getting the eggs in and out of the cups. She did manage to crack a few of them when she was dropping them in or pulling them out by herself. But the important thing is that she had a lot of fun. By the end, her hand was turning black from all the egg dye.

Saturday morning Ross and Leah went to our niece, Alex's, baptism and then to a little luncheon at Stuart and Cristina's house. They had a good time and Leah loved the white helium balloon that they let her bring home.

After that, they went to the Miller's house for a little Easter egg hunt. Leah came home with plenty of candy and even a few dollars and coins.

Sunday morning we got up and went to church. This was the first time that the kids and I had gone since Corbin was born. I was a little worried about trying to have all three of us ready by 9:00 am. But fortunately Ross had less meetings that morning and was able to come home and help. It was so nice to get to go back to church especially since it was Easter. The spirit I felt from the message of the music that day was especially strong!

After church, Ross had to stay to take care of bishopric stuff. So I took some pictures of the kids with their Easter stuff and then took them outside to enjoy the beautiful weather. When Ross got home, we packed up some stuff and drove to my parents' house for Easter dinner and then stayed a couple days for spring break. This was Corbin's first long car ride and over-night stay. I was a little worried about how he would do. But overall, I'd say things went pretty well.

It seems like I didn't do a lot of the traditional Easter stuff that I enjoy doing with family each year. But one of my favorite things about Easter this year was teaching Leah about the true meaning of Easter. We had many discussions about Jesus Christ's death and resurrection. She loved talking about it and wanted to hear the story over and over. We even enjoyed looking at pictures and watching some videos on lds.org together. When we would ask Leah what Easter was about, she could tell us it was about Jesus. I love being able to teach such important gospel truths to my children. My hope and prayer is that my children will grow up to have strong testimonies of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Surprise! Happy Birth Day!

***WARNING: This is going to be a long post with lots of pictures. I have included a lot of details so that we would have them as part of our family history. If you don't want to read about Corbin's birth story, you can just scroll down and look at the pictures.***

A little after 2:00 am on Monday, March 4th I woke up (yet again) to go to the bathroom. But as I rolled my belly over to get out of bed I felt a gush of fluid and immediately thought, "Oh no. That didn't feel right." And when I got to the bathroom, my fear was confirmed...my water had broke 4 weeks early! So I went back to our bed and woke up Ross. I can still picture his eyes popping wide open when I told him my water broke.

He jumped out of bed and started gathering things into a bag while we discussed what to do next. Before things got crazy, I asked Ross for a blessing. That definitely helped me to stay calm through the whole event. Next I knew we needed to go to the hospital but the big question was what to do with Leah. After calling my mom to give her a heads up, we called Ross's aunt, Mary Ann, who was kind enough to come to our house and stay with Leah while she slept. So around 3:30 am we left for the hospital.

By this time I had started having some contractions, but nothing too strong or consistent. When we got to the hospital, the nurse confirmed that my water had broke and that I had dilated to about 3 1/2. So they officially admitted me to the hospital and called my doctor. My doctor suggested waiting until 6:30 am to see if my body would regulate contractions and fully dilate on its own before checking me again. So the nurse made sure we were comfortable and left us to rest and wait. Ross laid on the couch and slept a little while I sat in the hospital bed watching TV. At that time of the morning the only thing I could find to watch was old black-and-white episodes of "I Love Lucy." I remember sitting there with a surreal feeling thinking "What am I doing here? Is this really happening now? This wasn't supposed to happen for at least a couple weeks still."

At 6:30 am when the nurses came to check on me again, I had only reached about 4 1/2 cms and the contractions had gotten stronger, but still hadn't gotten where they needed to be. So the doctor asked them to give me pitocin to get things going better. It definitely worked. A little after 7:00 am I had three hard contractions only a couple minutes apart and asked for an epidural before things got too much more painful.

After the epidural was in place, the nurse said she would give it a half hour to take effect then come back and check on me. She helped me lay on my side then left to admit another woman in the next room. As I laid there on my side all I could really see was the computer monitoring my contractions and the baby's heartbeat. But this made me worried because the monitors were having a hard time picking those things up. So my contractions seemed to have slowed down and sometimes his heartbeat wouldn't appear on the chart. However, when I did have contractions, they felt different. They were very low and definitely made me feel like something needed to be pushed out.

I told the nurse about how my contractions felt when she got back. She seemed a little concerned about it and after checking my progress, her concern was confirmed. His little head was right there and was ready to come out NOW! She hurried and called the doctor who (thinking she had more time) had gone across the street for a meeting and then started prepping for delivery. However she said she wouldn't put my legs up in the stir-ups because as she said it "she didn't want to play with fire."

It wasn't long before the doctor returned and we started pushing on the contractions. By now it was about 8:45 am. I remember because they had given me some antibiotics that morning and said that for the baby to get the full protection he would need to stay in until 8:45 am. I had looked at the clock and commented that we had just barely made it for the antibiotics to be effective.

He would have come out even sooner. But his little head kept getting stuck on a small piece of tissue that wouldn't stretch far enough. Then when his heart rate was dropping with the contractions, the doctor decided to make a little incision and at 9:00 am he popped right out.

Because he was so early, they had the NICU team on alert. But when he came out, he was doing so well that they weren't needed. He scored an 8 then a 9 on the APGAR tests. He weighed in at 6.0 lbs and was 18 inches long. I remember that when they were getting him cleaned up he had a cute little cry that sounded just like a little kitten.

His first sponge bath. He obviously wasn't a fan!

By this time, my mom had come to Provo and had picked up Leah from the Miller's house. When they got to the hospital, Leah was really excited to see her little brother. And when we told her that his name was Corbin, she promptly said "No. His name is Kermit."

People have asked where we got the name Corbin. I'm not exactly sure how I came up with it. It was a name I suggested to Ross back when we found out we were having a boy. It was the first name I suggested that Ross didn't shoot down. After that, it just stuck in my head. Whenever I tried to think of other names, my mind went blank and I couldn't come up with any other name that I liked better. We did discuss a few other names, but Corbin was always at the top of my list. The Saturday before he was born, we happened to have a name discussion (something we rarely did) and had pretty much decided on Corbin but hadn't told anyone yet since we figured we still had a few more weeks to decide for sure. It wasn't until the nurse was ready to write his name on the "Welcome" sign in our hospital room that we said for sure that the name would be Corbin.

The evening he was born, we got several visitors at the hospital. I tried to get pictures with him and each of his birth day guests.

Our first picture with our family of four!

Leah loves her baby brother so much!

He gets lots of kisses from his big sister!

Since he came so early, we were far from being ready for Corbin's arrival. What clothes and blankets we did have, weren't clean. His room still wasn't ready. And we still needed to get out the car seat and pack n' play. We had planned on getting more things bought and done. Our goal was to be ready by March 18. So much for that. 

Fortunately we have great family and friends who came to our rescue! My mom went to our house and washed our newborn clothes and blankets. Surprised at how little we had, she called my sister-in-law, Melissa, who promptly went to the store to get more things. My sister, Melyssa, also went out and got a bunch of clothes for him and Leah too. Since then other family members and friends have given us clothes and other items we've needed! And poor Ross went to the store many times that first week after he was born to get all the little odds and ends that we forgot we would need.

Corbin did really well at the hospital. His only major concern was that his blood sugar levels were staying too low. He was often too sleepy to eat well and my milk hadn't come in yet. So we supplemented with formula for several days to help get his sugar level up. By Tuesday night/Wednesday morning his sugar level was high enough that they were no longer worried about it. So bright and early Wednesday morning, we packed up and took our little guy home.

For the first few days after he was home, we tried catch up on our sleep as much as possible. I snapped this picture of Corbin getting in a little snooze with his daddy.

I can't believe I have two children now!

Every once in a while Leah will tell us that she still wants his name to be "Kermit." I just tell her that she can call him Kermit if she wants to. The color on this picture is not very good, but I took it because his jammies are green with a little frog on them.

Leah can not get enough of Corbin sometimes. When she sees him awake, she wants to be right there where he can see her.

One of the blessings that came with Corbin's early arrival was that his Grandma Leslie got to see him before she left for New York. He was born the morning that she reported to the MTC. Several commented that he decided to come early so that he could see his Grandma before she left. After she finished her training on Friday, she stopped by for a quick visit. While she was holding him, he gave her the biggest smile. It was so sweet to see.

Leah was of course very happy to see Grandma too, even if it was only for a little bit.

Sister Leslie and Sister Laycock...stuffed full of information from the MTC and almost ready to drive across the country to New York.

The rest of these pictures are some that I took when he was 1 week old. 

Corbin is such a good baby so far. He sleeps a lot (especially when he's cuddled up to someone). He is good at eating and wants to do it every 3 hours (sometimes sooner), but he's not too good about burping yet. He smiles a lot. Some might say they are not real smiles, but that's ok, I'll enjoy how sweet they are anyway. I've even seen him "laugh" a couple of times. We love his alert times. It is so fun to watch him look all around. We tell people that having a new born is easy. It's having a 2-year-old that's hard.

So far, Corbin will take a binky sometimes, but overall doesn't like it. He will tighten his mouth and turn his head away if you try to give it to him when he doesn't want it. This seems so funny after having Leah who LOVED the binky from day she first tried it.

At his 2 week appointment, he was up to 6 lbs. 6 oz. and 18 3/4 inches long. He's growing already! This sweet little boy has won our hearts and we are so happy to have him as part of our family, even if he did take us by surprise!