In Australia!!!!

This is me getting ready to go to Australia at Jeffs apartment. I was just a little surprised by the random photo taking. We had to wait a bit for our plane to board since we got to the airport 3 hours before our departure time. Sydney from above! It only took 14 hours to get there! Ahhhhhh, finally past customs and the passport agents. We walked to our hotel from the train station and Jeff stopped to catch the first picture of me in Sydney. The Pyrmont Bridge used to be the first electrical bridge but now its just for pedestrians and the monorail. The big building on the left is going to be our hotel after we check out of Rydges on Wednesday morning. The big glass ceiling below it is where we had breakfast....see below! This is me trying to plan our next activity and Jeff catching me and the view at the same time. This is where we had breakfast at Cafe B & C under that big glass ceiling. This little guy wasn't scared of us one bit. He walked right up and watched us finish our meal while hoping that we left or gave him some scraps. I was pointing to a snake....I think. I got to pet a baby shark and that is my hand doing so. They don't feel smooth at all like one would expect. They are more like touching a starfish or a gravely rock. Shark above us!!!!!! RUN!!!! hehehe We stopped to catch our breath after the Aquarium and decided to get a photo too! Nifty butterflies! Not a kangeroo. A rock climbing wallabee. Can't remember the right name. Did you know koala's have a brain the size of a walnut and sleep about 20 hours a day?

Easter Party

I dunno who thought of hiding Easter eggs in the flowers but it probably wasn't a good idea. Especially as I watched my child pick the pretty flowers up with hardly any effort at all. In the end I think the flowers survived, barely. One of the fathers' out of pure love for his daughter Avery and his wife Stephanie subjected himself to the heat of a bunny costume. I hope I didn't ruin that for anyone, NO the Easter Bunny is a fairy story!!! hahahahahha. Little did I know that the rest of the week was going to include this week and the phrase, "NO!!!! MINE!!!!!" along with her hitting me. Happy baby was in love with Enzo's slide. This is her waiting for me to watch her so she could slide down and recieve her obligatory applause.

Abby loves her fishy's.

The kiddo's eatch got gift bags with play dough (spelling?) and bubbles in it. It was such a cute little gesture and I have to say thank you to Erin for all the work she put in on this party.

I was in charge of carrying the easter basket as Abby ran around grabbing the eggs.

Zoo!

Abby went to see the goats and mostly ran away from them. It wasn't that she was scared, I think she was just overwhelmed by the number of them. This is her in the process of running away, yet again. From left to right, Chelsea, Me and Abby. We rode the carosel after a beautiful day at the zoo. If mommy looks sick, its cause eating and then going in circles is a BAD BAD idea. The lions were enjoying the shade and so were we. From Left to Right: Diana, Josh, Abby and Me. Lately my child feels the need to stare everyone down. This is one of her, "Ha, you can't make me" faces. Enjoy it as much as I have.

15 Months Photos

Abby had beautiful new 15 and a half months photos done by Olan Mills. It was impossible to keep her still and she is doing this tongue twister thing that is driving me insane lately. I picked out photos where her tongue doesn't look like a lizards. I don't have a lot of money and Olan Mills is EXPENSIVE so the actual photos are only being given out to grandparents and great grandparents. I will make copies of the originals but please don't be hurt if you only get a copy!!!

Welcome to the World Abby!

My beautiful baby girl seconds after being born. I wish that I had been paying attention at this moment but while family was snapping photos, I was screaming about the mirror and the horrors that I COULD see. Chris gets a chance to REALLY look at Abby. She was probably still screaming but then again she screamed for an hour and a half after being born. I was scared that she would never stop. I think my prayers were answered because my girl rarely screamed afterwards. In fact I had to rely on my nose to let me know when she had a dirty diaper because she just didn't care. After I got my stitches and the nurses took care of their business, I got a chance to take a good look at Miss Abbigail Kathryn. She looked an awful lot like me and I was proud to have such a cuddly (yet screamy) baby. Ellen takes a moment to look over my shoulder at Abby. Chris and I didn't want to let her out of our arms so she had to satisfy herself with that until later. Trust me, she won out in the end, my child cries more when Grandma leaves than when I do! More beautiful photos of Chris falling in love with his daughter. Whatever differences he and I may have, I know he loves his daughter and I know he is an amazing father. He would do anything for his little girl and I am proud of our creation.

Abby finally calmed down and it was an amazing thing getting to see the girl who had been a part of me for so long. I remember at three months pregnant I already felt so connected to her that I could pinpoint her exact spot in my belly. No matter how much fun it was to be kicked from the inside, I was VERY happy to no longer be pregnant.

I don't remember if this is before or after I was given drugs (not the epidural). I remember being seriously stoned like and feeling contracts as they grew more painful but not caring. I had to bring my Bunny to the hospital with me because it was given to me when I was two, and David was born. I wanted to pass on my stuffed animal that I had grown up with (despite the mass amounts of germs that must have been on it) on to my child.

Together we check out the little girl we created. We might have been young parents but that didn't mean we weren't immediately in love with our child. She was just so gorgeous and didn't have any of that "molding" many babies are born with. My pushing went so quickly that I don't think her head needed to do much "molding".

Now I am not quite sure because I don't remember a lot of the first moments, but I think this is not minutes but seconds after Abby was born. The logic behind this is that when the nurses took Abby away for a couple minutes they dressed and wrapped her for warmth. You will notice in this photo, my child is suspiciously NAKEY!!!!

Daddy took the screaming in good humor!

This is the only photo of the doctor who delivered Abby and who was my doctor through most of my pregnancy. Dr. Traynor was amazing and really easy to deal with. His first child was due only a few months after Abby so he commented about how he hoped his wife could push like I did! I managed something like five pushes per contraction only because I couldn't feel them.

I realize there are a lot of these Abby meets Daddy photos but they are just too precious!

I think this was the evening of my birthday. We had chinese and walked around the mall a bit showing Abby off and looking for ANYTHING Chris could convince me to buy for myself. I was a little obsessed with buying stuff for Abby so he MADE me buy a Hanson CD for myself.

I don't know why but this photo is one of my favorite of me and Abby. I love how tiny her legs look and how comfortable she looks laying on me. She is the love of my life and I am so happy to be her Mom. She could do anything at her life and as long as she stayed true to herself I would be proud of her. I love my girl and I hope you do too!

Before Abby Was Alive.....

Me, massive and days away from finally kicking Abby out of the belly. I was a cranky, angry person by this point in the pregnancy. I was huge, my feet were so swollen (see below) I couldn't walk, and generally I spent all day EATING! Did I mention that my labor was probably the silliest Kaiser has ever seen? Other than the two hours when I was a demon escaped from hell, I was one happy person. Jamie (Chris's sister) and Chris went a little crazy at some point (I am pretty sure it was about 2:30am). The nurses kept coming in and telling them to calm down because they were raising my blood pressure. It was funny how no matter what the nurses said they just kept up with the LOUD sillyness. I went through so many nurses and a couple doctors we felt the need to keep track (and rate) of them all. Overall, I hated them (the nurses with stars next to their names are the nurses we liked) because they treated me like an idiot and for some reason would never tell me where I was at in dilation. I was nine days late when Abby accidently kicked a little too hard and popped my water (thats what it felt like to me anyways!), so Ellen thought she was safe going a couple hours away on an errand. She finally arrived and Abby was still quite happy in the belly. Later she nearly missed everything again when Abby decided that she was done seven hours (give or take one or two) and Ellen was at home taking a nap. She made it as I was about to start pushing, making the final list of people given the honor of watching Abby be born: Chris, Ellen, Becky and Jamie.