an adorable little girl

  

Avery Elizabeth Crawford was born on Monday, July 16th, at 3:11 p.m.  She weighed 7 pounds, 2 ounces and measured 21 inches long.  She has dark blue eyes and a little bit of brown hair.  She decided to come 8 days late.

I started having contractions in the middle of the night after feeling crappy on Sunday.  They weren't very consistent contractions, and after having fake ones so many times, I wasn't sure whether we should start driving to Reno just to be sent home.  Kade was very anxious.  He was getting pretty frustrated with me not wanting to go yet.  He let me time a few contractions and take a quick shower before we left.  Mom was sitting in the hallway when we came out of our room.  It seems like she knew it was going to happen that night!  We got to St. Mary's at 8:30 but I was only dilated to a 2 so the nurse told us to walk the halls.  After 2 laps and lots of painful contractions later, my water broke right in the hallway next to my room.  It was actually pretty funny.  Kade called the nurse and showed her what I did.  After my water broke the contractions got really hard and painful really quick.  After yelling and crying through very painful contractions that never seemed to go away, the nurse came in and said they would get me ready for an epidural.  After what seemed like forever, the anesthesiologist came in to give me the epidural.  I've never been more happy to see someone in my life!!  The epidural was awesome.  I don't know why anyone would ever turn one down.  After getting the epidural, I was still only dilated to a 3, so they gave me Pitocin.   After only a few hours, the nurse came in to check on me and I was all ready to go, dilated to a 10.  My doctor was at another hospital delivering, so we waited about a half hour before pushing.  After only a few pushes she was out!  It was absolutely amazing!  She was the cutest thing I'd ever seen in my life.  When they were cleaning her up, Kade kept looking from me to her.  He said he wanted to make sure I was ok but he wanted to look at her, too.  It was so cute. 

I'm so grateful everything went good.  We made it to Reno, and before my contractions became unbearable!  She's a perfect little angel.  She rarely cries, though she is getting fussier in the evenings. And I had Mom for 2 weeks to help and answer all my questions.  She is amazing!  

The first week was pretty brutal.  I couldn't fall asleep and by Sunday I was a mess.  This week has gone much better though.  We are all sleeping better.  

getting ready to go home

  

tiny little feet

sleeping on daddy, is that a smile? 

loves to sleep with her hands over her head

And here are some videos of Avery in all her cuteness :)

So we think Avery has her daddy's nose and mouth.  Here is a baby picture of Kade.  I need to find one of me....

my due date

I made it to my due date, yesterday, July 8th.  Still no baby!! I remembered to take some pictures after it had gotten dark.  It was such a nice night, Kade and I sat on the grass for a while watching Roxy run around.  Here's to hoping she will come any day now!!

belly update!

I'm 37 weeks this week!! Baby can come any day now.  Nuts!  I've already had some contractions, in my back, so I'm not looking forward to this.  I had to get some more pictures in, I've grown a ton!  Here I am at 37 weeks in front of our beautiful flowers.

my baby bump

Lots of people have been asking for baby bump pictures, so I finally decided to put some up.  I was planning on taking a picture every week to see my progression, but that didn't happen.  I started taking pictures at 21 weeks and right now I am 30 weeks.  

21 weeks

23 weeks

28 weeks

30 weeks

Looking at these line up next to each other, I am amazed at how much I've grown.  And I still have 10 more weeks!

starting the nursery

 I started working on the nursery for our little girl.  Only part of the room is done, so those are the pictures I took.  First, I made a blanket with the pretty black and white quilt fabric Mom bought me for my birthday last year.  All I did was cut it to size and sew black bias tape around the side.  Next, I made a crib skirt with the other pretty black and white fabric Mom bought me.  I used THIS great tutorial online to make the crib skirt.  I just added a pleat on the short sides and made 3 pleats on the long side.  The crib rails cover the pleats, so they are hard to see.  Last, I made a diaper stacker using THIS tutorial online.  I had barely enough of the black and white fabric left for the top and I happened to have black fabric for the bottom of the bag.  It's a lot bigger than I thought it would be, but I think it will work.  I made all my bedding except for the crib sheets.  I wanted a little pink in the room for our little girl, so I bought some pink crib sheets.  We don't have a mattress yet, so the sheets are just sitting there. 

 For the mirror, I repaired and spray painted black an old mirror given to us.  The changing table was the one I re-stained a couple years ago in THIS post and goes perfectly with our crib we bought! 

I got the cute butterfly frames from umbra.com. 

 Now once I get the treadmill and keyboard/sewing table out of the room, I can finish the other half.

so much has happened since september!

I'm definitely a slacker.. September, really?  Well since then we have visited the Blood's for Thanksgiving, had a wedding in December, and a baptism in January.  

Starting with Thanksgiving, we went to my parents in West Virginia for a week.  The whole family was there, but luckily Stephen and Claudia lived close by and allowed some of us to stay with them.  Kade and I were some of the lucky ones who were able to sleep in and have a warm shower in the morning.

While in West Virginia, we found a break in the rain to go visit the New River Gorge.  Considering I grew up in West Virginia and had yet to see it, I figured it was time.  It was a beautiful day, and we got some really good views, even without the green trees.  

While there, we took a hike to get a different view of the bridge.  It was so green and wet.  So different from Nevada.  We were loving it.   

notice the mushrooms growing on the side of this fallen tree

In December, my little brother Aaron married an awesome girl, Ashley.  We flew to D.C. for their wedding.  It was great to see my family again so soon.  I completely forgot my camera, so all photos are from Kade's iphone.  Lucky he had it, and it takes pretty good pictures. 

   

the wedding cake made by the talented Megan

On our way home from D.C. we had major airplane drama.  Getting stuck in the airport all day when you are exhausted is not fun.  But getting stuck in the airport all night and having to drive 2 hours home from the airport and then driving the next day for 12 hours to Washington is impossible.   So we didn't.  Instead we got the flights switched so we flew straight to Washington.  We were able to go to our nephew's baptism.  It was great to see the first kid in the family get baptized and see Carrie and Brian.

Sorry, no pictures were taken, but we did have fun hanging out and ice-skating.  

We also have some very exciting news!  We are expecting our first baby on July 8th!  And we just found out we are having a girl!      

our baby girl at 20 weeks

kade's home!

Could I be any happier? I think not. Kade left me for two whole weeks to hunt elk down in Pioche, Nevada. He was so lucky to get an elk tag in Nevada. He wasn't so lucky hunting. He came home empty handed, but he had the time of his life. As did Brandon and Brian, his hunting companions. He did find a bunch of elk sheds that are pretty cool and he was excited about. They are in the garage. They poke my butt while trying to load the car.

While Kade was gone I had to keep myself busy so I painted our bedroom, exercised Roxy and canned tomatoes, while working my three jobs. I watched like three girly movies and finished rereading the last Harry Potter book. It was pretty lonely and boring without Kade around, but I have to be honest, I didn't have to make dinner and had way less cleaning to do. But kade is definitely worth the work :)
I'm so glad he's back.
And did I mention my garden is doing wonderful? It's so delicious. :)