Paige is Home!

We brought Paige home on Monday afternoon, much to the delight of the other kids.

Poor Lexi and Luke weren't allowed in the hospital so this was their first real chance to meet her.

We can already see that Miles' "affection" might be problematic.

Lex finally getting to hold her.

Luke holding her. He kept calling her a "cutie pie".

All the grandkids.

The girls. That's a whole lot of drama in about 10 years.

Since Monday, we've had a lot of fun just hanging around and getting to know our new little girl. She's been pretty chill her first week. We'll see what the future holds.

I actually think that at this stage, Miles is more into holding her than Brooke is. Brooke likes to talk about the things they'll do when Paige is bigger. She asked me if they could share a room. We'll see what she's saying about that a few years from now. Brooke is also really into the idea of "babysitting" her. She's offered to have Miles and Paige in her room to babysit. The other night, Paige was crying downstairs and Brooke called down, "Can I tell you something? If she's crying, it's probably because she's hungry or she needs her diaper changed. That's usually why she's crying." I thanked her for her input (and she was actually right - she was hungry).

Here she is with her possum toy from our Australian friend, Andrew.

She's only awake for a few hours a day, but when she is, it's pretty obvious that she belongs with our other two.

That's all I've got for now. I'm going to try to get a little sleep while the house is quiet. Have a great weekend!

It's a Girl!

I'm not saying that our little outing at the Arboretum is what threw me into full-fledged labor last Saturday, but I'm also not saying that it's not. I had more intense and time-able contractions start around 3 that afternoon. We were in the hospital by 8:30 and at 11:45 pm on April 19, 2014, Paige Audrey Alley made her entrance into the world. She weighed 7 lb, 4 oz, and was 20 inches long. She's perfect.

I'll save the gory details for her birth story on her one-year birthday, but it was a pretty uneventful labor and delivery, which is good, because we'd heard some horror stories about third children almost being delivered in the car. Here we are on the ride up to our room. It was about 2 in the morning. For the record, morning and afternoon deliveries are much more preferable than late night deliveries.

Here she is first thing the next morning. She kind of looks like she's been through a lot, doesn't she? There's no deep reason why we chose the name Paige. It's just one that we both really liked and thought that it fit well with Brooke and Miles (we like our single-syllable noun names around here). Her middle name, Audrey, is for Matt's grandma, who is an amazing, strong and loving woman that we both respect, love and admire.

The next morning was Easter, and Paige's birth was a great reminder of the new life that Christ's death and resurrection makes available to us. As I look back on it, it was also really special and touching to have almost all of both of our families there together to meet Paige that next morning. At one point, I think we counted 14 people in the room. My dad actually drove up and down in one day for the chance to meet her. She's a very lucky and loved little lady.

Because we were only in the hospital for about 36 hours and it was a holiday weekend (and let's be honest, she's the third child), we didn't have many visitors after that, but our great friends Michelle and Kristina came by Easter night to meet her.

And this. This is what I'd been waiting for. Matt was actually so excited to tell Brooke that she had a sister (she said the night before that she'd cry if I had a boy) that he went home first thing in the morning to tell her. The video is too long to post on here, but it's very sweet and touching. Miles was also really enamored with her.

The girls. It's still weird to reference my daughterS. I honestly kind of thought all along that she was a girl, but thinking it and the reality are two different things. It took me a day or two to get my head around.

Maybe it's the hormones, but I cannot get enough of B and M loving on her. These pictures get me choked up every time.

Miles was also excited to see that I still had some food left from breakfast. Classic.

Matt resting after everyone left. He'd had a really hard day.

In her "going home" outfit from Aunt Krissi and Uncle Tim. The one we brought was too big. Surprise, surprise.

Paige, we are so thrilled to finally meet you and are blessed that God entrusted you to us to be your parents. We already love you more than you could know and are so happy to have you in our family. Welcome!

Last Day as a Family of Four

We spent a fun and pretty busy day as a family last Saturday. Of course, we went to the park a couple of doors down. I never thought I'd say it, but I missed that park this winter. 

I had visions of getting this really artistic and touching shot of the kids with my belly before the baby was born, but this is about the best we got.

That morning, after Brooke and Matt made pancakes, we dyed Easter eggs. Brooke's done this with Lexi in the past, but I don't think we've ever done it with just our family. She was really excited about it and had a good time.

She (and Matt, for that matter) was much more into the "drop an egg into every color" technique and didn't appreciate all my artistic suggestions. Miles actually did much better than I expected him to. We had to stop him from spilling/trying to drink the water a couple of times, but we avoided disaster.

Then Miles got mad about something and I had to take a picture. I know it just encourages him, but when he gets mad, it's pretty amusing.

Annnnd we have the Terrible Twos, ladies and gentlemen.

 

Luckily, they usually balance each other out and when he's acting like that, she's doing something cute, like this.

 

It was a nice day out, so after that, we headed to the Arboretum. I thought the activity might kick start some labor. I pushed the stroller, carried Miles, climbed, you name it. I was ready to have that baby OUT of me.

Miles has been really brave on playground equipment so far this spring. He's still careful, but doesn't seem to have the fear of some of the higher stuff that Brooke does. It's fun to watch.

Miles, leading the way.

We also met Aunt Jane at the playground the day before.

It's obviously blurry, but I love anytime I can capture them interacting/being affectionate.

I think I've mentioned that Brooke has to "get dressed" for rest time each day. This is the ensemble she came down with the other day. I'm kind of enjoying her being a girly-girl.