Sophia's First Christmas

So this post is WAY overdue, but hey, I've been taking care of a newborn so give me a break! :) Anyway, here are some pictures of Sophia's first Christmas, and because I'm too lazy to move them around they actually go backwards, so the most recent pictures are first and the oldest are at the bottom, so you can see how much she changed between 1 week and 3 weeks. :) Enjoy!

The best present EVER! :)

All packed up and ready to go! (You like her giant fuzzy boots from her Grandma Daugherty? I love them!)

This was her favorite present from her Grandpa Daugherty - a pink fishing pole that lights up when you turn the reel! ;)

My mom is a CHAMP at making Sophia smile! I know that Sophia looks like she's made out of wax in this picture, and I'm not sure why, but it's still fun that she's smilng so big! :)

Another smile for Grandma

All bundled up and ready for a nap

This is her on Christmas Eve - we spent Christmas Eve at the Hunter's house and Christmas Day at my parents. (Oh, and if you're wondering why she only ever wears one outfit, it's because it's one of 2 that fit her, everything else is too big)

Sophia loves presents! (It was some way cute PJ's, but my camera died so I couldn't take a picture of her in them)

Aunth Ruth working on her ginger-bread house for our awesome competition

Jon working on ours (do you like the giant man out front? I thought it was a nice touch)

Mary and Ty working on their house (they did a replica of the trailer they owned in Wyoming, it was awesome!)

Everyone fighting for materials

Josh and Amber working on their house

Okay and the last few are from the beginning of December (the first Saturday) when we took Sophia to my family's Christmas party - it was really fun, even if technically she was way too young to be taken out of the house. And I forgot my camera, but luckily my wonderful aunt Jen took pictures for me and emailed them to me. Thanks Jen! :)

Grandpa Daugherty and Sophia (he's holding a tiny bottle that only holds 2 oz - it's so cute and was the perfect size at that age!)

Sophia on Santa's lap - she's so surprised can you tell? ;)

She had so much fun that she didn't want to go home. Don't worry, there's always next year! :)

Anyway, that was our Christmas - Sophia got a lot of cute presents (mostly clothes which is good!) and we even got a pack and play from my parents! Overall it was a great Christmas!

Sophia's 2 Week Appointment

So I totally forgot to post Sophia's 2 week old stuff. Not that it's really that interesting to any of you, but again for keepsake purposes and for being able to look back on it someday, I'm posting it anyway. She's doing great, so here's her stats:

Date: 12/11/2009 (technically 3 days before said 2 week mark)
Height: 19.7 inches
Weight: 6lb 3 oz
Head: 13.3 inches

And as a further update, Jon and I weighed her today and she was right around 8 lbs! Man she's growing fast! I couldn't get her to stay stretched out long enough to get her length, so I'll have to try that again when Jon is home, but she's definitely bigger. Her newborn clothes are still either way too big on her or just right, so I'm excited for when she can start wearing some of her bigger clothes. :)

Anyway, that's the update. Her next appointment is in February, so I'll update again later. Happy Holidays!

Sophia's 1 week Pictures

So I'm a little behind in blogging (I've been super busy!), but here are Sophia's 1 week old pictures. My friend Brittney (who also did my pregnancy photos) did an amazing job and I just love them! Minus the fact that I was still very swollen (so much that I couldn't get my fat boots on that are now enormous on me) and still looked 8 months pregnant, I think that they all turned out amazingly! We just did them at my house in my kitchen and living room. Without further ado, here is Sophia Kate at 1 week old!

I was thinking of possibly using this as an announcement picture and putting the information above - what do you think? There's another one I'm considering as well, so make sure you look at both!

Sweet little angel!

4-Generation shot - Great-Grandma Margaret Nielsen, Sophia, me, and Grandma Angela Daugherty. (Again, try to look past my swollen-ness)

Sophia with Grandma Daugherty (she's so young! Not even 50 and a Grandma!)

Sophia with Great Grandma and Grandpa Nielsen (Steven and Margaret)

I think this is my favorite one of Jon and Sophia - so sweet!

Daddy and Sophia

Mommy and Sophia

Family picture

Yeah her hair just sticks out like that after a bath - it's pretty crazy!

My cute little Christmas present!

I felt bad for stuffing her in my stocking since it seemed pretty itchy, but as you can see she didn't really mind. :) (Had I done Christmas Cards, then this would have been it)

Brittney was even good enough to catch one of Sophia's beautiful smiles!

Cute girl with cute toes! (I think I like the black and white better on this one...)

Ha ha, droopy mouth. (She was really relaxed right here, lol)

I love this one - just so peaceful

These were actually the first ones we did. She had just had a bath and was cold so we had a little heater pointing at her and it took a bit to get one without her crying but it was worth the wait!

Another one of my favorites (I loved that pink fuzzy blanket)

And this is the other one that I was considering for the announcement picture, and just have the words on the side. Which one do you prefer?

Anyway, that's my sweet little girl. I had some more pictures done by my neighbor when Sophia was 2 1/2 weeks old, so when I get those I'll post them as well. I'm excited and so grateful for all of the people who are wanting to practice their photography skills on my daughter. If anyone else wants to please feel free, because I don't mind getting some cute pictures! :) Just remember to post some comments! (Sophia will appreciate them!) :)

Sophia, Sophia, My Sweet Baby Sophia

So it's now been 2 weeks since my sweet baby Sophia joined our family - it's a strange feeling. On the one hand, I feel like she's been with us forever and can barely remember not having her with us, and on the other I am so amazed to have this little person in our lives! But even more amazing is how naturally being a mother has been for me. It's just so easy to love her and take care of her, and I'm still waiting for that feeling of being completely overwhelmed to come and get me. Hopefully it won't, but before it seemed like such a daunting task and now it just seems so effortless. Could also be the hormones balancing out. :)

The only sad thing so far was that Jon had to go back to work today. It's been so fun having the three of us together every day and seeing Jon interact with Sophia, and I've loved every second of it. But now he's back to work to earn our food and I need to get my butt moving on my homework so I can finish my class and hopefully start working from home. With Sophia being so darned cute and with Christmas right around the corner it's been hard getting back into school mode, but the thought of going back to Convergys and away from my baby will hopefully keep me motivated long enough to finish. :)

Anyway, here are some cute pictures I've taken of her, enjoy!

This is our first night back from the hospital - Jon's parents were nice enough to let us stay there for a few days to help with meals and stuff.

This is how big my feet got - it's about the biggest here that it ever was and this was about 5 days after I gave birth! See how it looks like I stuffed marshmallows under my skin? Ridiculous! (Don't worry, about 8 or 9 days after I woke up with them normal sized and they stayed that way!) :)

Sophia's cute Christmas pj's. (I bought these when I thought she would be born the week of Christmas - oh well!) :)

This is the cute bathrobe we got from one of my neighbors - it's a little big so we had to roll up the sleeves, but still so cute!

Her in her car seat with her adorable little shoes! (These shoes looked so tiny when I got them, and when they're on her feet they look huge!)

This was just cute. :)

Daddy and Sophie cuddling

The cute snow suit my mom got her (her feet don't quite reach the leg holes yet even though it's a 0-3 month, so she can't wear it out of the house because she doesn't fit in her car seat while wearing it, but oh well, it's still cute and I can't wait until it does fit!)

Unfortunately she's been cursed with my hair - my hair did this as a baby, where it would be curly right after getting it wet, and then dry very straight. Then it was straight until about 13 years old and that's when the fro took over. Poor girl, but at least she has a few years before it sticks like this! (Mom I put this one on here for you!) :)

And this is her crazy hair after it's had time to dry - sticks straight up everywhere!

Sophia's cute little toes. :)

Well that's all I have uploaded for now, I need to download the rest of the pictures I've taken since then. Plus, my friend Brittney Miller - the one who took my maternity pictures, came over last Monday when Sophia was one week old and did some newborn shots! I'm so excited to see them! There's a sneak peek of one of the pictures on her photography blog at http://stolenmomentsphotography-brittney.blogspot.com/ so if you want to see one cute baby, then she's there. :) I'll post the rest of them as soon as I get the disk. I can't wait to see how they turned out! :)

Early Christmas!

So we got a couple of early Christmas presents this year. Seeing as how we had a very busy holiday season planned, my in-laws were nice enough to give us our first present (money to buy stuff we need - best present!) and we went to Costco on Saturday and got a new camera! Those of you who have heard me complain about my old camera know that this is a very very very good thing. :)



The other present we got on Monday - Little Baby Sophia was born at 11AM Monday 11/30 after 19 hours of labor! Just so you know, because I use this as my journal I will be going into detail on this which may be completely boring for you but is important for me, so if you skip down you can see all of the pictures. :)



All through the weekend I was having really bad braxton hicks (or so I thought), and on Friday I got the whole nesting instinct and scrubbed my bathtub for 4 hours! (Jon will have to redo some grout that I dug out because I was convinced it had mildew behind it). That was the first big hint. Anyway, on Sunday we went to church and I was hurting the whole time and kept contracting, so after church I started timing them out and saw that most of them were about 2-5 minutes apart, and then there would be a 10 minute break after about 4 of them. So I called my aunt (because my mom was at work - boo) and explained how the contractions were and she recommended I go in. Since I was three weeks away from my due date I figured that they would probably just check me and send me home, but in the hopes that I would get some pain meds or something to make it more bearable we went into the hospital.



When we got there around 4pm I was only dilated to a 2, but since the contractions were so constant they had me walk around for an hour and then I was up to a three and the contractions were a lot harder, so they decided to keep me! From then on it was a full night of me with my epidural and hooked to a hundred different tubes and machines and what-not and was really very relaxing. I ate my ice chips while Jon kept our families updated on the status of everything. We had my Mom sister and brother Jeffrey visit for the night, and Jon's parents were there for most of the night as well.



The labor part wasn't too bad because of that wonderful, wonderful epidural, until about 2:45 when I started to feel a lot of the contractions. For the next 2 hours they kept getting worse, and even after hitting the boost button every 15 minutes and having the anethesiologist come in twice for concentrated boosts, they were still getting worse and I was not a happy person. I had really bad back labor on top of all of it that was shooting all the way up to my shoulder blades on some contractions. Finally the guy came back and was confused as to why I was still hurting until he checked my back and saw that the catherter for the epidural had slipped almost all the way out! It was still in the skin, but not in the spinal area or whatever. So with that mystery solved they reinserted the epidural and about 20 minutes later I was in my numb blissful happy place and was able to sleep for a bit.



So that was annoying - the other thing is even numb those contractions were exhausting me! Around 2 they had started me on pitocin because I was still only at a 6, and after 4 more hours I was still at a 6! They kept upping the dosage of pitocin to help me move along, and around 8:15am my doctor came in and I was to a 7 (woot.) So he broke my water and they upped the pitocin a little more. By the time 11:00am was rolling around, a couple of things happened. 1) I had gotten a tiny bit more sleep - not totalling more than 3 1/2 hours the entire time though 2) I started feeling my contractions again in my stomach, but thankfully not my back and I was still completely numb from the waste down. I asked for them to refill it or replace it or whatever, only to find out that I was dilated to a 10 and ready to go! So they gave me some concentrated stuff that would kick in fast, the doctor rushed in and about 4 pushes later she was here! Oh, and as a side note Jon was great through the whole thing - first teasing me that he could eat real food while I had flavored ice chips, and then holding my hand through my 2 hours of "real labor", and then holding one of my legs while my mom held the other so I could push (my legs were completely numb and I couldn't lift them, so they had to help). He got to watch Sophie being born, and he got to cut the ambilical cord! I'm so happy to have such a great husband! And after when they were weighing her and stuff, I had my mom taking pictures and even though I know that Jon wanted to go over and see her right away, he stayed there holding my hand while the doctor stitched me up and made sure that I was okay before going to see our daughter. He is so great and I love him so much, just for the record. :)



Anyway, that is the epic tale of how my sweet little Sophia came into the world - it was a long labor, and I could barely focus on her face I was so tired, but so worth it and I am so happy that she's here now. Thanks to everyone who helped at the hospital, sent congrats, visited, or just thought about us - I know that some people were concerned because she's three weeks early (to the day, just like I was!) and I appreciate everyone for their concern and I'm so happy that she is here and that she is healthy. And I must say, me and Jon made one good looking baby! Enjoy! :)