Fun with the relatives

Jason and Angie's son Josiah turned one year old this week and they threw a party to celebrate it. Here are some pictures of the party










Gloria could not get enough of Chloe.
Everytime someone else would be holding her, she would talk them into letting her hold Chloe on the couch. I think that she held her the most out of everybody there.




Blowing out the candles. This actually took the three of them 4 tries to get the ONE candle to blow out.






You have to love cousins playing together! I remember his dad chasing Amanda, Tracy an I around with a slug in his hand. Josiah had a more "hands on" approach.



Amazingly she wasn't the least bit startled by this. She must know that she has 3 boy cousins to put up with.

one month come and gone

WOW what an amazing and challenging month this has been for Brett and myself! So as you all know, we brought Chloe home to live with us (we got along pretty well so we decided to keep her) and it has been a wonderful adventure.

Week one: A note to all new mothers: have somebody stay with you that can truly help out with EVERYTHING! I am so fortunate to be staying with my parents. They truly are lifesavers.

The first week was filled with visitors, lack of sleep, a first bath, first doctors appointment, and many wonderful moments where we all just sat and stared at her in love and amazement.

Week two: She is tracking people's voices at this point, and even smiling at mommy, grandma, grandpa, but unfortunately not at daddy yet. She has lost her unbilical cord, took a real bath in the sink, and has been starting to lift her head up when she is on her belly. Chloe is back up to her birth weight and she has grown one inch at her 2 week doctor appointment.

So Chloe decided to go 11 days without a bowel movement, which really bothered me. However she did make it known that her bowels were indeed working. The sweet little baby that we have can give some of the most potent farts that you have ever smelled! But now everything has been fixed and is running smoothly. Brett made a comment the other day "I wish she went back to the whole no pooping stage, it was a lot nicer and easier then." Oh how cute he is!

Week three and four: These weeks were filled with a lot of excitement for the whole family. Brett was moving to California and we had to pack everything! So with the wonderful help of Brett's parents and brothers, we got everything packed and loaded onto the largest Penske moving truck and my dad, Brett, and Eric headed down to Vallejo, CA. It took them about 15 hours to get there with Brett and my dad trading off with the driving. While down there the first weekend, Brett's parents joined them and helped unload the truck and start to make our new home feel like a home. My mom and I with Chloe in arms, flew down to join the team. Chloe did amazing on her first flight ever. She was awake the whole time, but never once made a peep. She just sat in my arms and looked around at everything.

(Trick to traveling with infants:

1- have another person there to help with everything (security check point, restroom breaks, feeding time, boarding and de boarding the plane, and taking the baby so you can sleep on the flight.)

2- keep a bottle on hand ready to go for take off and landing (ear popping)

3- be able to change a baby anywhere...the airports don't always have restrooms with changing tables.

4- bring a stroller, even though it might seem like a big hastle, it truly is a blessing to have. )

The flight home was even better, she slept the entire way! I am an awful mother, I did not get a single picture of her first flight. So you just have to imaging a cute little baby on the plane.

So in California, the weather was wonderful! it was in the upper 80's and low 90's the entire time. Made you really not want to go back to Washington weather. The only thing that was miserable about the heat is that our place does not have air conditioning, we do have a fan and a bunch of windows to open up, but that only cools the place so much. So Chloe was living in a diaper pretty much the whole time. The heat also made sleep a little more difficult for everyone.

Brett started his first week of school when we were there. He had 3 days of orientation and a white coat ceremony. I was glad that we were able to be there for it. He is now an official Doctor Student as they call themselves at Touro. He got his official medical student white coat. It is shorter than a doctor's coat, but it is still a doctor's coat. We met some really nice people that he will be going to school with. One in particular, Marie, had a baby girl 7 weeks ago and is starting medical school , AND just got the ok from her doctor that she can start training for a triathalon! I will deffinetly have to keep you updated on her status. She is such a sweet and apparently amazing person. She kind of makes me feel like I am slacking a bit, but then I also think that she is partially insane!

So with the help of Brett's parents, his brother, and my parents (especially my mother) our home is complete and ready for Chloe and myself to move in. I think that will be around the first week of October. I will post pictures of our place soon.

Welcome Home little one!

Sice my sister's blog has turned out so well for her and the rest of us with keeping ourselves updated in her life, I decided it was time to start one of my own. With the arrival of our daughter Chloe, I figured this would be an excellent time to start it.

We welcomed Chloe into the world in the best of moods. My labor was unbelievably easy. I have been told not to talk about it, but I can't help it. Labor lasted 7 hours start to finish. I went to the hospital at 9:00 pm already 6-7 cm dialated and 85% efaced and with lower back "discomfort" (not really pain, but an achey feeling every few minutes). Sure enough I was in labor. When I got to my room an hour later, I still wasn't in any real pain, but I asked for an epidural because I knew from the begining that I did not want to feel the pain of childbirth. 1/2 an hour later they gave me an epidural (still not really in pain. Pain level was about a 1.5). Since my water had not yet broken, my doctor broke it for me so my labor could progress even more.

This event caused me to have heavier contractions which I kept calling cramps, because that is exactly what they felt like. Still my pain was about a level 3 at most. So here it is at 1:00 am and half of the spectators (Brett's parents and sister in law) decided that they were going to go home, I mean my labor could go on for a while. So we said our goodbyes and they left for the night. within 30 minutes I was complete and ready to push.

(side note: at this point in time I thought that labor was nothing, so far very little pain, and I was progressing so fast. I knew that all I had ahead of me was to push....figuring this shouldn't take long. I had it in my head that I was going to have my daughter out by 2:30. a 30 minute goal for me, but I had to have something to shoot for.)

So I started pushing at 2:00 am and by 2:40 she was born. Within this time frame I had mentioned to my doctor what my goal was (having her out by 2:30) and he politely told me that most first time moms usually push for 2-3 hours before they deliver. I took that with a grain of salt and decided to stay on my target. I probably could have pushed her out by 2:30 but someone made a comment that made all of us laugh and that totally threw off my concentration and I lost the use of a valuable contraction. I did not let that stand in the way of my goal and I made up for it in the end. I was able to push her out without the help of a contraction, just wanting to get it over with gave me enough energy and strength to get her out.

At 2:41 am we welcomed Chloe Elizabeth Schweizer into the world. She was perfect! 8 lb 2 oz and 20 inches long. Like I said before, labor and delivery was pretty darn easy.

The rest of the day and the following day were somewhat of a blurr for me with the lack of sleep.

The nurses actually let me rest with very little room visits, which was very nice to have. I enjoyed seeing all of the visitors, but really wish that I could have slept more. But that was something I could to at home. (yes yes go ahead and chuckle at this comment).