The First Month August 14, 2009

    

 A visit to Grandma and Papa’s house.  Time to get spoiled (she will soon find out- She just needs to ask Amara)!!!

 Happy One Week Birthday!!!  She is still so tiny.

    

Sister time- Maya was in her crib and Amara wanted to get in and “play” with her.  I love seeing my girls together.  Big sister is already such a big helper always wanting to hold and kiss her sister!!

 We took a trip down to see my Dad and Grandparents.  Maya got some snuggle time with Grandpa Steve.  

    

 And more snuggles with Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Tabler.  We had a wonderful time there and a great lunch!! 

 As you can see Maya was really celebrating Abbie’s birthday.  She slept through most of it in a little basket that Aana had.  It was her favorite place to sleep!!!

 More sister time!!

    

 How she is growing.  She startles easily though when asleep.  Hands and feet both fly into the air anytime you make a noise when she is sleeping

    

Hands in the air when asleep just like her big sister.

Wow, one month old already.  How time flies and how fast they grow.  What a cutie!!!

2 Days Old and Going Home August 14, 2009

Another night came and went and here we are on day two, ready to go home.  Ammie Debbie stayed the night with Maya and Me in the hospital so that Derek could take Amara home, Amara wanted nothing more but to sleep in her own bed.  I think Ammie was more afraid of Maya than I was, every little peep that baby made Ammie came running to check on her.  We had a very long night, it felt like every time we got the baby to sleep and we fell asleep, the nurses were coming in wanting to wake Maya up for one test or another, they even gave her a hearing test around 2am, now why could that not wait until morning

    

Bright and early though Amara and Daddy showed up to check on all of us.  I was finally able to convince Amara to come hang out with me in the hospital bed, she thought it was pretty cool that the bed could move up and down. 

    

Here is Big Sister making sure baby Maya’s car seat was ready for her to ride in.  I forgot how little babies are until you see them in the car seat.  She was so tiny and scrunched up in her seat!!

A proud Daddy rocking Maya!!!  I’m sure there will be many more hours of rocking ahead of us. 

One Day Old August 14, 2009

    

 We made it through the night and now Maya is officially one day old!!!!  Many more visitors came by to meet Maya and see how we were doing.  Here is Daddy’s first official picture with both his daughters

 Maya was lucky enough to have some of her Great Grandparents come to see her.  Nana and Granddad drove up for a few hours.  We could not convince Granddad to hold her though.  He said she was still to little.

    

 Her Great Grandpa Clarence and Great Grandma Thelma also came over for a visit.  What a lucky little girl to have so many people who already love her!!

    

Her wonderful cousins also could not wait to hold her.  James was so proud he got to hold baby Maya.  Uncle Josh finally got his turn also once her got her away from Aunt Stacie!!

Our first family photo.  Wow what a tired looking Mama!!!

Welcome Maya Elizabeth Harris!!! July 25, 2009

May 15, 2009- Contractions started around 3:30 am, but I still woke up feeling good, and I knew I had some work to finish up, so I headed downtown Portland to the office.  I worked most of the day then headed home, still fully planning on going out to dinner at El Gaucho with Stacie and Josh.  After all this was going to be the last peaceful dinner we were going to have before Maya was born. 

     

 I got home and realized we had not set up the bassinet, so I had Derek get it out and we went to work getting it ready.  As the afternoon progressed, I realized a big fancy dinner out was not the best idea, but still thought we should try and go to Beaches for dinner.  My contractions were still about 15 minutes apart, and I figured I had hours until delivery.  Wow was I wrong.  Thank goodness Derek stepped in and said we were not going to dinner, he thought we should go and get Chinese take out instead.  When contractions were 10 minutes apart we left the house and went to get our food, by this time I new things were a little different from my first labor with Amara, I decided we should stop by the hospital and have them check us out.  Derek ran into the restaurant and grabbed our food, when he got back into the car I was yelling at him to hurry up.  We stopped by his parents to drop off Amara.  He decided to sit down and eat, my contractions by then were 5 minutes apart.  Karen stepped in and told him to take me right then to the hospital and to HURRY!!!!!

    

    

    

    

 

About 30 minutes after we walked through the hospital doors, Maya was born.  Our original plan of having our family there for the birth did not happen.  There was no time and no one made it to the hospital.  They put me on the stretcher and ran me down the hall to the room where I delivered minutes later.  It was a little chaotic, but once we saw Maya it was all worth it.  She is such a beautiful little girl!!!!

She weighed 6lbs 15oz and was 20 inches long.

    

Of course after she was born there was no shortage of visitors.  Everyone was shocked to walk into the room and see a baby already there!!!!  We had tons of visitors there that night, but in the chaos of it all we forgot to take pictures of everyone who came, oops sorry!!!!!  :)

    

    

Out On Blog Retirement July 25, 2009

It has been many weeks since I have posted anything on my blog, I temporarily retired, now if I could only figure out how to permanently retire from work, that would be great!!!  When I last posted, I looked like this.  Life was a lot simpler with Maya still growing in my belly, although I did not know this at the time.  How I would love to go back to those days, just for a few hours and relax!!!  Just joking, I would not change this for the world!!!

    

I have heard enough of the nagging (mainly from Stacie) so I thought it was time to finally post some pictures of our newest member of the family, Maya, and keep updated with our day to day happenings.  So now I try to catch up.  Thanks for the patience

Happy 3rd Birthday Amara!! May 22, 2009

    

 This year we celebrated Amara’s birthday with a Princess themed party!!!  I even attempted to make a castle cake, it turned out kind of short, but Amara thought it was “wonderful” and that was all that mattered

    

 One very excited birthday girl!!  She could hardly wait for everyone to show up.  She wanted to see what was inside her presents

    

 We had a beautiful day, so all the kids went outside to play with bubbles, go in the jump house and through the tunnel.  They all had lots of fun!!!

    

 Present time!!!  Amara started opening her presents, then mommy had to finish them up.  She got distracted by all the fun toys.

    

 The favorite among Amara and the kids was the Lightening McQueen Cars and Mack Truck she got from Grandma Karen, I was not sure if we were going to be able to open any more after that one.  Amara got a special snugly Tinkerbell blanket from her Great Grandma Thelma, she wanted one so bad!!  She sleeps with it every night now and has to be wrapped up in it in the morning!!

    

Happy Birthday to Amara!!!  We had a wonderful party!!!

Hippity Hop It’s Easter!!! May 2, 2009

    

 Amara woke up Easter morning and found her basket.  She went around and found Mommy and Daddy’s baskets also.  She then lined them up on the table, Mommies, hers and Daddies.  Look at all the goodies!!

    

 Her Easter basket had tons of goodies.  The best item was the Cars movie!!  We have watched it tons of times already.  Such a welcome change from all the princess movies she normally wants to watch   She also got some Little Pet Shops, a Tinkerbell doll and 3 eggs filled with candy. 

    

After finding the baskets we got ready for church.  Look how pretty she looked in her dress.  She just loves wearing them now!!!  I am so excited, she has never liked them before. 

    

After church we came home and found all of our eggs the Easter Bunny hid.  (We ran out of time before church).  It was fun to see her run all over the house finding hidden eggs!!  I am surprised we haven’t had to do this over and over

We then made our way up to Grandma and Papa’s house for dinner and more egg hunting!!  Papa and Amara got caught sneaking into the living room trying to spy on where all the eggs were hidden before it was time

    

Ready, Set, Go!!!!  Somehow Amara found ALL the eggs, with a little help from Papa reaching the high ones!!

    

She was able to reach the ones on the stairs though.  I think she is the only one who can fit back there behind the chair.  After the egg hunt was done, Papa helped her count her eggs and see what goodies were inside.  She had money, M&M’s and cashews (her favorites).  If we would have left them alone, I think Papa would have let her eat all the candy, somehow she convinced him to give her more   What a spoiled little girl

The Fun of Easter Eggs May 2, 2009

The night before Easter we all headed up to Stacie’s for dinner and coloring eggs.  Ammie Debbie brought the kids wonderful Easter baskets which they loved!!!  There was a special treat in each of their baskets just for each kiddo- Amara got a princess and some yummy candy!!

    

Easter egg coloring fun!!  This is the first time Amara colored eggs so she had to watch what everyone was doing to get the hang of it.  Abbie was the pro and helped everyone out!!

    

Once Ammie helped her figure out what was going on, Amara had a blast.  She loved to stir the eggs in the color, I hope we didn’t break to many

Once all the eggs were colored, Waffles the Johnson Easter Bunny hopped on the table to check out the work.  He seemed to approve, I wonder if he got them all hidden for Easter morning

Captain Hook April 16, 2009

    

I always swore I would never buy my kids swords or guns, but here I am buying matching foam swords for Derek and Amara so that they can play Captain Hook and Peter Pan.  It is their favorite game to play, and she actually is pretty tough.  She has backed Daddy into the corner a few times  

A Wonderful Baby Shower for Maya!!! April 16, 2009

    

 April 4, 2009-  Maya’s baby shower!!! 

Amara decided the night before that she needed a dress to wear to Maya’s party.  So around 7 pm, we headed to the store to find a cute dress, I did not want to let that opportunity slip by as she never wants to wear a dress.  She was so proud when she put it on and loved to show it off to everyone

    

 Lots of family and friends traveled far to make the journey to help celebrate Maya’s party.   I had a wonderful time and we got so many great gifts!!!  It was finally my chance to turn the camera on everyone else and take a few pictures!!!

    

 

 Thanks to all who made the trip. 

    

 A table (and floor) full of gifts.  Who knew a tiny little baby needed so much   The thank you cards are going to take me forever to finish

    

My present helper got sidetracked with all the gifts she received.  At least she wasn’t jealous of Maya’s presents   When we got home she was excited to help put them all away.

A special thanks for all the hard work put into the shower.  Stacie, Abbie and Karen did a wonderful job and I had such a nice time!! 

    

My awesome new diaper bag!!!  YEA!!!