Have a great 4th of July!!

She's Here!!

Lydia Grace
born on 12/27/07 @ 9:20 am, 8lbs 7oz, 19 1/4 in.

We're all doing well here. Big sister is so proud of her baby! You can see more pictures on our family blog: www.redmanfamilyblog.blogspot.com.

It's been an interesting adjustment here at our house. Cassidy seems to be really moody and seems cranky and we think that it was because of Christmas last week and the fact that she was with grandma & grandpa (who don't know how to say "no"). My husband calls this time "deprogramming" because she has to get used to being at home again. Hopefully this phase only lasts a short time :)

Lydia has been a super baby! The last 2 nights she has only been up twice and sleeps very well in her crib. So now we're finally catching up on our sleep!

Have a Happy New Year! Thanks for stopping by!

Getting closer...

Hey everyone!
I'm so sorry it's been a while since I've posted anything. I will promise you I've got some projects that I've been working on that I'll post later today.

We woke up to snow this morning and it's so pretty! Now I'm in the Christmas mood!!

I wanted to show you some pictures that my SIL took last weekend. There are so many good ones it is hard to choose. This family picture of all 3 of us makes my neck look really fat, and I've tried to smooth it out in my PSE3 program, but it ends up looking really bad. Would any of you have any spare time to fix it for me???

I'm at 37 weeks now, officially full term. YAY! She can come anytime now :) Everyone has been telling me I look small for being 3 weeks away from my due date, but I really feel like I'm as big as a house!

I'll be back later with some stuff!

The Great Pumpkin Search

Every year my parents grow a few pumpkins in the field and then in October they have all of the grandkids come over. We have a hayride, pick pumpkins, eat, play, and have so much fun!

This year there was a threat of rain (but didn't, thankfully) so we were still able to have the hayride, but they had already picked the pumpkins.

At the last minute my husband decided to hide the pumpkins in the hayfield and then we drove around with the hay wagon for the kids to find them. It was a lot of fun!

Thanks!

You guys are awesome! I had a great day yesterday! I had a nice lunch with my family, then came home to relax and soon Nate got home from work.

He surprised me with some $$ for a new camera and here's where he was so thoughtful-he scheduled a 1 hour pregnancy massage at City Looks! It was so amazing (I've never had a massage before) If you haven't had a massage before-I recommend you go out and get one soon! I'm going back to get another one before I have this baby!

I was also surprised by the awesome b-day cards I received in the mail by a lot of stampers: my mom, SIL, swap group friends...you guys have amazing talents! I'm going to post my mom's later...I'm so proud of her :)

BTW-this picture is me & my daughter with the cake that she helped her daddy make! It was so good!

Some recent pictures

My daughter turned 3 a couple weeks ago. I finally got around to taking some pictures this week. I usually have them done at Target, but kept putting it off, and now it's too late. Here's some favorites:

Cute stuff from a 2 year old's mouth

One morning out of the blue my daughter said to me: "Mommy, I've been a really good girl, I think I need a treat!"
ME: "Not right now, you need to finish your breakfast"
Cassidy: "Please, Mommy! Pretty please!" Imagine this in a 2 year old's voice, very serious!

That's hard to resist!


The other day we went to the Library and as I was buckling her into her car seat, she said to me: "Mommy, I was a good girl at the library!"
ME: "Yes, You were!"
Cassidy: "You were a good girl too, Mommy!"

That just cracked me up!


As we were driving one day, we drove past a fairground and I saw one of those bulls (where you can pay to have whatever you want written on it) And said "Hey look at the big bull!" Cassidy then replied "he's on skates!" Nate & I looked at each other and just started laughing, but trying to hold back because she was right, he was on a trailer, and it probably looked like skates to her! Too cute!

Ultrasound Results

We had the big ultrasound last week and found out we're having a girl! I'm so excited that Cassidy will have a sister. I don't think she totally gets the whole fact that a baby is coming and she'll have to share mommy & daddy, but I'm sure it will be fine and we'll survive.

I have a feeling that this baby is going to give us a lot of gray hair. She's kicking and waking me up in the morning and very active when I go to bed too. (sigh) I know I probably shouldn't think about that already, but I can already tell she's got her own personality!

I'm also glad that I don't have to spend gobs of $$ for new clothes, new bedding, new everything, because we pretty much have everything to last us through another girl. Although I'll probably get a new diaper bag to hold enough stuff for 2 kids now and I heard good things about that baby papasan chair thing. I don't know what else is new out there for babies, anyone have any suggestions?

A good weekend

We spent our weekend up in "the cities" for some special time with our daughter. See, we haven't done a lot of kids stuff this summer with her.
On Saturday we went to Stillwater to have a day out with Thomas the Train. Seriously-I've never seen my daughter so happy. She had a smile that I've never seen before! After walking around and looking at all of the activities and the Thomas store, we heard the train come back to the station, and we ran over to see the REAL Thomas up close. We stood in line to have her picture taken with him and when it was our turn, I set her up on the step and stood back, and that's when it happened...the scared kid just cried and cried and I immediately came back to her but she wouldn't stop, we couldn't get a good picture, so I guess this is what we'll have to remember this moment by.

There was tons of stuff to do there-tattoo's, meeting Tophem hat, coloring, stamping (which Cassidy is totally familiar with, and almost couldn't believe she was touching stamps without being told "be careful!!"), playing with the train sets, games, etc.
The whole day was pretty fun and we even talked about going next year.
Later that day we went to MOA and shopped and ate and walked around Camp Snoopy (I know it's not called that anymore, but I don't know the new name & I'll always refer to "camp snoopy") and hit Ikea for some organizational things for when I move my stamp room upstairs. Can you believe I spent less than $15 at Ikea? I also was with my husband, so I usually try not to spend any $$ when he's with. ALTHOUGH he did tell me I could get my CRICUT EXPRESSION for my birthday next month!! I am totally psyched!




On Sunday we got up early and went to Minneapolis to see the I-35 bridge. We went to the Gold Medal Park Hill and there was a very nice memorial for the victims and families. Lots of people were there and seemed to come from every direction. An observation I made right away was with so many people around, there was almost silence while viewing the bridge. It was hard to see the bridge entirely, but I tried to get a picture showing what we saw, you can click to enlarge it. (I think this one was taken from the riverside.) Click on picture to enlarge, you'll get a better idea of how close we could get.



After seeing the bridge, we went to Como Zoo. Cassidy's favorite were the Seals. We went to the seal show, so that may be why she liked the seals so much. When we went to see other animals like zebra, giraffe, or lions, she would stop and look for about 3 seconds and say "okay I'm done"! It was pretty funny. That kid sure knows what she likes!

Positive Thoughts & Prayer

Its been an interesting couple of weeks as far as the health of family goes. First, we hear that my dad has to have a biopsy done, then the same week my husband's grandmother had to go to the ER for chest pains. She's feeling fine now, just has to go in for more appointments to see what the cause of the pain was. Back to my dad...His biopsy came back negative last Friday and we found ourselves praising God for the great news! But something happened yesterday that is a bit of a mystery. He had to go by ambulance to the ER. And let me tell you, I HATE those kinds of surprise phone calls early in the morning. He spent the night and today he's having a colonoscopy done. I have no idea what they'll find, hoping its something minor. See, my dad had a major heart attack 2 years ago-almost to date, and miraculously recovered and has been following doctors orders and eating healthier than many people I know. It just seems like it shouldn't be happening to him, almost surreal. But I know I need to keep thinking positive and trust God on this one. If you're reading this, please say a little prayer for him. Its amazing the power of prayer!

Please also say a prayer for Kat's Sister, Karen who was diagnosed with Breast Cancer last week. Kat is a demonstrator friend of mine and has answered many questions and supported me on my blog work. She is also asking for people to send her sister homemade cards to lift her spirits in this trying time. You can find that information on Kat's Blog

Have a great day, thanks for stopping by~Sara

Expecting Something??

Yes, I am! Well, most of our family knows now and I guess its okay to tell the world now that I am pregnant with baby #2! Due right around Christmas, too. (about 13-14 weeks) Just wanted to make the holiday season a little more interesting, (or chaotic, stressful, tiresome, exciting) plug in your own adjective. Either way, (as somebody from my husband's family said yesterday) it will be the best Christmas present we'll ever have.
I'm pretty excited about being pregnant this time. With Cassie, I was scared to death with anything, especially delivery. And I ended up having a c-section anyway, (unplanned) so I missed out on being able to deliver her myself. Which, in a way was a relief, but I was scared to have the c-section when I wasn't expecting it. The 2 1/2 months following the surgery were very painful and that's something I would rather not go through again. If possible and if everything goes well, I'll try vbac.
As far as finding out, I would like to, Nate thinks otherwise. He wants a surprise, but I feel I need to be prepared this time, even though it really doesn't matter what we have. I ask Cassidy if she wants a baby brother or sister, she always answers "SISTER!" She'll be a little over 3 and I think she will be a good helper and a great sister.
That's my baby in the ultrasound picture above. Normally, the hospital I go to does not do any ultrasounds other than the 20 week, but when I went to my first appointment at about 10 weeks, the doctor said that I feel (uterus) like I should be about 12-15 weeks. Huh. I was sure my dates were right and everything was like normal, what the heck? Anyway, she said we'll schedule an ultrasound to measure the baby and see what they find out. She also said that we can't rule out the possibility of twins. Twins??? Ha! I laughed at her right then! She said its really not that uncommon-about 1 in 100. Needless to say I was a little nervous until the ultrasound only showed 1 baby. THANK GOD.
So until Christmas, I'll be Happy Nesting!

Memorial Day

Our Memorial weekend was pretty busy. We did lots around our house (worked on swing set, painted playhouse, built fire pit). We also went camping, which was pretty fun. We went with some people from Nate's kickball team. Cassidy was so excited to sleep in a tent. I was actually dreading it. How did we sleep? Well, let me put it this way...between the dogs barking, a frog right by our tent, the train that went by about 3am, and my feet freezing off...I did not get much sleep. But the other two in the tent seemed to sleep like logs. Today it was breezy outside and we promised to show Cassidy how to fly a kite. She really enjoyed that. Then soon got sidetracked by her kitty (Sherbet). It turned out to be a pretty nice weekend....besides being a little sleep deprived :)