Pictures of Josie

A week or two ago, I decided to get some pictures taken of Josie.

 Isn't she just the cutest thing you've ever seen in your life?

 I adore her.

 And I'm able to just enjoy her so much more because I've done it all before. I'm so much less stressed and much more relaxed than last time around.

 She's a very good baby. Almost as sweet as she looks in these pictures.

Me with both of my precious girls. Amazingly, both of them cooperated wonderfully with the photo shoot and it couldn't have gone any better. Holly continues to be an awesome big sister. I feel so lucky to be a mom to these two sweet little girls!

Just One of the Many Reasons...

I'm in love with my little girl.

Halloween

This year, we celebrated Halloween on Saturday by going to our ward Halloween party. I made Holly a fairy costume before Josie was born, so I was eager for her to wear it. She loved wearing the tutu, and I thought she was too cute! She had a great time running around and eating candy and cookies. I was exhausted, but glad we went so Holly could have fun.

My mom came to the party for awhile, which was awesome because she helped me take Holly around to the different booths. A few of the Young Women did a balloon animal booth, which was really cool! Holly got a flower and was pretty excited about it for about 30 seconds.

Andrew's sisters Julie and Sherry were in town visiting with their families, so Andrew's parents made it a family affair and came to the Halloween party too. 12 of their 13 grandchildren were there, which was pretty fun! Josie got to spend some quality time with her Grandpa King while we ran around with Holly, which was really nice.

Next year, I'm looking forward to having two kids who will be old enough to trick-or-treat! And will be young enough to go along with a theme costume for the two of them...

Life As We Know It

Here's what has been going on lately at the King house: lots of lounging and napping! Andrew has had the past two weeks off of work, so the four of us have been hanging out. I have loved every minute of it and am so sad for him to go back to work tomorrow! We are loving our sweet Josie and Holly is doing so great with her little sister. After the first three days or so, Josie has been a wonderful baby who doesn't fuss very much. She is a great sleeper and not-so-great eater. She's so cuddly and we're adjusting pretty well to having her around.

Holly is gaining more interest in Josie. At first, she ignored Josie completely; now she approaches her sometimes and tries to share pretty much everything with her. If Josie is crying, Holly finds a pacifier to give her or rocks her in the swing. Holly covers her with extra blankets and likes to help change her diapers and clean her umbilical cord.

Here Holly is arranging Josie in her swing. Josie coughed once or twice and sneezed a few times, and whenever she made noise Holly would look at me and crack up. A few minutes after I took this picture, Holly arranged her favorite blankie over Josie and put the tray to the swing down. She is already a good big sister! It warms my heart to see the two of them like this. I have high hopes that they will be the best of friends.

The Story

So, for those of you who want to know how it all went down, here it is. For those of you who don't, kindly ignore this post. I will get on to more exciting, less disturbing details soon enough.

I was scheduled to be induced on October 21, about a week before my due date. Andrew and I went to the hospital that morning at about 5:00 so we could be ready for the induction to start around 6:30. They started pitocin at that time, and we had a great time watching TV and checking our e-mail until around 9:30 or so, when things started getting really painful. I was able to get an epidural around 10:15, which was wonderful and made me a much happier person.

When my doctor broke my water earlier that morning, I was dilated to 4 cm. When my nurse checked me at 12:50 p.m., I was only 6 cm dilated and very frustrated! I was starving and wanted lunch very badly, so my goal was to have Josie by then. Things progressed very quickly after that, and by 1:50 I was fully dilated and ready to go. My nurse, who wasn't expecting me to progress that quickly, got the room ready and called my doctor. Josie was born at 2:15! The umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck twice, which was scary, but everything turned out great.

We were sent home the next day, and I am feeling so much better this time around than I did last time. I am able to enjoy little Josie so much more because I feel much more relaxed about things! She is such a little sweetie.