Welcome home Claire

Claire Nicole Gleue

January 19, 2011

Born at 11:19am

7lbs 7oz, 21 inches

Busy catching up on sleep, recovering from surgery, and enjoying being a family of four. We're so happy to welcome her home.

Christmas gone by as fast as a wink

It seemed like every picture we took of Emmett over the holidays included his now trademark wink and smile (although sometimes there is no smile). Where he came up with this, we have no idea. But everytime he sees a camera he does it. Here's a few pics of our Christmas vacation with Emmett's funny eye.

cousin Lillie and E

might have to zoom in to see this one

cousin Pixton and E

Yes, even behind the safety goggles is a wink

And here's a few regular pictures too...

We did soooo much cooking and ate such good food. I think my pregnancy weight doubled over the holidays, and maybe the baby gained a 1/2 a pound or so too.

Nate demonstrating the use of the Shake-it Weight he and Krista got for my parents

Emmett got a rocking horse from grandma and grandpa

We did the traditional Nativity story play. I can't wait until there's enough grandkids to play ALL the parts. I was "great with child" Mary, on my husband-turned donkey. I couldn't help but think I don't know how the real Mary did it. I'm not even comfortable riding in a car anymore!

And since I couldn't bear my child within a matter of minutes, Carrie took over as post-partum Mary with baby Henry, who's 6 months old, as baby Jesus. Little Lillie was also a good stand-in as Mary too.

Mom did get a break from the kitchen and grandkids to enjoy herself a pedicure.

We played X-box's Dance Central with the Parry's and had to crown Mike as the worst dancer of them all. We all got a good laugh out of his hip-hop hoe-down. I love how you can see my dad mimicking the dance behind him.

Side pregnancy update: I'm dilated to a 2, and hoping I go into labor on my own sometime in the next 2 weeks. I am measuring a teeny bit small and Mike swears I'm not as big as I was with Emmett. So if my lucky-stars align just right, maybe I can go into labor and deliver a more petite child on my own. (If you don't know, I had to have a C-section with Emmett because he was too big and I couldn't push him out. He was 8lb 10oz). I do not want to go a day over my due date and my doctor will not induce a woman who's had a previous c-section, so if she's not born by the 19th a c-section it will be. We're thinking lots of "labor" thoughts around here!

Getting Settled

We are moved in, and slowly getting settled. We got moved last week with the wonderful help of Mike's family all chipping in. Now that we're here I'm not much good for unpacking, because some of it requires heavy lifting, and lets admit....energy I don't have at week 34 in my pregnancy. So alot of unpacking has to wait until Mike gets home from work at night. So little by little our new place is looking like a home.

I wish I could post some nice pictures of a Christmas tree, or decorations. But none are out. I have no desire to pull out Christmas decorations this year. I know, pretty sad. My whole family, except for Kacey, will be at this house for the holidays so I'm leaving it up to them when they arrive if they want to have a Christmas tree. :)

We are still in the process of renting out our Bountiful home. We've had a little of everything: people that are ready to sign and move in, but bail at the last minute. Or lots of casual lookers too. So, we're hoping its just a matter of time and maybe just getting past the busy holiday season.

I haven't talked about my pregnancy much on this blog. Things have been going well. I carry her really low so a lot of people think I've already dropped and expecting the baby to come next week. Nope. I still have 6 weeks left. I haven't had any complications or much to complain about during this pregnancy other than about a month ago I got a blood clot in my upper thigh. Just imagine the worst charlie horse in your life and times it by 100 and thats what if felt like. The pain lasted about 6-8 hours until the clot dissolved. I didn't even realize what it was until the pain was gone. It kindof freaked me out. The doctor seemed unconcerned though, and I've been fine ever since. Although it did make me quite paranoid about sitting for too long of time periods. I have a scheduled C-section for probably the 19th of January. I've gone back and forth on going for a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) my doctor is totally open to the idea. However I figure if I don't go into labor on my own by the 19th, then this baby will be probably just be born via c-section.

Can't wait!

Deux

Emmett turned 2 on November 3. When you ask him how old he is, it sounds like he's saying the French word of "deux!" for the number two. We like to think he's just that smart. ;)

I decided to make his party Elmo themed because as I've said before, he loves Elmo.

I made this cute little Elmo shirt with fabric paint. It was the easiest thing ever and you can do pretty much any picture you want. I got the tutorial on how to make it from MADE. Mike tucked his pants into his socks so you can see the Elmo socks he's wearing (I got at Target for $1.)

For my second attempt at making a birthday cake (his first birthday was a bomb) I was happier with the way it turned out, however the writing is really ghetto so don't look too close. I also got these Sesame Street figurines at Target for $1.

Baked potatoes and chili for dinner

Emmett got some great presents from his aunts/uncles, and grandma/grandpa and great-grandma. Even though my family lives so far away, we're grateful Mike has family so close that can still come to this kindof stuff.

He had a lot of fun that night and literally bawled his little eyes out when it was time to go to bed because he wanted to stay up and play with his new toys. He was so hysterical about the idea he ended up throwing up. Now if you know Emmett, throwing up isn't a big surprise, but thats how sad he was. If mom and dad weren't so tired we probably would've just let him play to his hearts content.

2 year Portraits

I've been wanting to take some 2 year portraits of Emmett but couldn't decide where to go, or if I should pay someone ect. In the end though, we decided to take them ourselves just to see how they would turn out and we thought they turned out great! We took these up Mueller Park Canyon in Bountiful. The leaves were beautiful that day and there were tons of families taking pictures.

It was hard to get him to smile for us, but the photos where you see him almost "winking" is Emmett's version of a camera smile.

Some fun things about Emmett at 2 years old:

-He loves accessories. Hats, hoods, mittens, sunglasses, ties, watches, shoes. I've always thought that kids hated wearing this kindof stuff, but he looooves to wear them. Every Sunday for church when I get him up the first thing he says is "Tie!" Or if he's wearing his sunglasses he won't let me take them off for a long time, even when they're not needed. Or when wearing his coat, he has to have his hood on too. I love this fun trait about him.

-He's starting to put sentences together. At night if I say "Emmett its time for jammies" he'll turn to me and say "Mama! Jammies no, no!" Or one time I swatted his bum when he was getting into something naughty and he walked away saying "Mama! No bum bum" (As in, don't swat my bum, mom).

-As of this week (the day after his birthday) we took his binky away. We snipped the end off when he wasn't looking and gave it to him, and you should've seen the look of devastation on his face and in his voice when he saw that it was snipped. He was soooo sad. It was as if his best friend and biggest comfort in the world to him completely disabled and no longer working. It about broke my heart when he looked at us crying "Brooooken. Broooken". And maybe also because I realized my baby isn't a baby anymore...

-He loves Elmo. Sesame Street is the only show on TV I let him watch on a regular basis because he loves it so much. And surprisingly he's actually getting the hang of his ABC's better by watching it too.

-He's a brave little boy. He's had to have some pretty rough testing done this week on his stomach issues. (He throws up a lot on a regular basis thats been going on for about a year). One of them was getting some blood drawn. He sat on his dad's lap and when they poked him with the needle, he got a sad frown, but he never shed a tear or made a peep as they did it. And when they were done, he happily said "all done!" The nurse was like "he was better then even some adults!"

He also had to have an upper GI x-ray done, which entails him drinking 4-6 oz of barium while laying on the x-ray table and continuously drinking it as they took the pictures. The doctors warned me before they started that a lot of times they have to use a feeding tube through their nose's because kids refuse to drink enough for the x-ray. I said ok. But turns out, he was a champ and while he did cry during this procedure, he drank enough through the sippy cup that they didn't have to put a line through his nose. The doctors were surprised and we were proud. :)

We sure love this little guy and he makes our home so happy.