Mendendhall Glacier

Our first stop after arriving in Juneau was visiting Mendenhall Glacier...my dad is slightly obsessed with this glacier and visits it numerous times on each of our visits up north. Just a reminder that we had all been up since 3 am and we were tired and the kids were starting to get a little cranky.

Blog Catch Up - Alaska in August

On August 4, we headed up to Juneau, AK for Andrew and Tara's wedding. Here are the kiddos on the flight up, nothing too exciting, other than it was the crack of dawn and we had the early morning flight. Everyone did great!

Leaf Rubbing

The other night we went on a nice little walk and Brigitta collected every leaf possible on our walk. When we got home, I showed her how to do a leaf rubbing and this was her working on her own. She actually did a very good job and loved the new art project.

Toy Story Obsession

Brigitta is slightly obsessed with everything related to the Toy Story movies. She has all the characters and loves to renact the movie scenes and can even quite some of the lines. Here she is playing with Woody the Cowboy on our stairs one evening. Pretty adorable, don't you think?!

Berit Lynn Sutton

Berit Lynn was born Wednesday, September 28th at 2:33 p.m. She was 7 lbs. 5 oz. and 20 inches long. Berit's due date was 9/21 and I was induced one week later on the 28th. We arrived at the hospital at 5:30 a.m. and was hooked up to pitocin by 6:30. I was already contracting some when we arrived at the hospital and was dilated to a 2.5 and was 75% effaced, so things were already slowly moving along.

The doctor came in a little after 7 and said that once I got some antibiotics going in my system, we would get an epidural and break my water. He didn't expect me to be pregnant much longer. I was over the moon at that news. I had to get antibiotics because I tested positive for the Group B Strep and they give laboring moms medicine just as a precaution to the babies during delivery.

My parents arrived a little after 8 and we all just basically hung out; I watched t.v., everyone was reading and chatting with our wonderful nurse Eileen. As the morning moved on, the contractions were coming quicker and were getting more painful and I hate to write this, but weren't really that bad. I was still talking through them and functioning pretty normally. After 10, they were coming 1-2 minutes apart, so they called for my epidural and at 10:30, I was feeling much better. The doctor came in around 10:45 and broke my water and that is when we noticed that Berit had pooped in utero and there was a slight amount of merconium in the fluid. That means, that at delivery, the NICU and resperatory (sp?) specialists had to be there to check her out just a precaution. We weren't too worried at that point. The doctor also checked me for the first time I was dilated to a 4 and was 80% effaced, so again, moving along steadily.

After that, our nurse turned up the pitocin and we definitely got the show on the road and my body started to feel the effects and I started getting the 'baby shakes.' I shook from about 10:30 well into the early evening as a result of everything my body was going through. I tried to nap, but just couldn't relax because of the shakes. At around 1, I was starting to feel my contractions again, so I started pushing my epidural button to take the edge off. My nurse checked me at 1:30 and I was dilated to a 5.5 and was 90% effaced. I have to admit, we were all a little disappointed that I wasn't further along. We all thought the process would go much quicker this time around.

At around 1:45ish, I started pushing my epidural button more and the baby shakes started up again, much stronger this time. Something was up with my body. My nurse came in and we called for my drugs to be topped off, so at 2, I got some more drugs to deal with the pressure and pain. Also at this time, I spiked and was running a fever of 100.5, Berit's heart rate was dropping with contractions and we weren't sure if her cord was just being pinched or if the cord was around her neck. Emotions started to hit and I was getting concerned not knowing what was next. I give huge kudos to our nurse, though, who kept it calm and collected in our room. She decided to check me at 2:15, just on a hunch, and I was fully dilated and Berit had dropped....we were having a baby.

The nurse had me push and Berit's head was right there. I had to wait for the doctors and specialists to arrive before I could push anymore and once they arrived, I pushed for about 5 more minutes and Berit arrived at 2:33 p.m. As they whisked her over to her heated crib, she cried and that was definitely a good sign. They did suck some of the merconium out of her lungs, but after a thorough check was just fine. Thank goodness! The cord was not around her neck and we still don't know why I spiked a fever, but it came back down shortly after labor.

And that is the sweet story of our little Berit came into this world. We are currently at home and everyone is in heaven, especially big sister. :)

Apple Pie

Brigitta has been talking Scott's ear off about making an apple pie, so the good daddy that he is, got out the cookbook one night and they made one from scratch. I hear it turned out quite delicious!

First movie at the theater

These pictures are before we took Brigitta to her very first movie at the theater. She was very excited! We took her to see Winnie The Pooh and then out to lunch at Red Robin. It was a perfect day for this sweet 3 1/2 year old!

More Children's Museum

Driving the CT bus, on stage performing and with Haylie in the firehouse exhibit

Children's Museum

Back in July, we spent a morning at the Imagine Children's Museum in Everett with Julie and Haylie. It turned out to be a perfect day to spend indoors, since it rained and rained. B was there once before when she was younger and loved it even more now.

4th of July

This 4th, we spent over at my parent's house with a lovely bbq and fireworks with the kiddos. These pictures are of them enjoying some smoke bombs in my parent's front yard. The top picture is B after her bath, getting cozy and ready to watch more fireworks as the night progressed.

Summer Fun!

Here are B and Daisy enjoying one of our rare sunny days this summer.

Rainforest Cafe

For Father's Day this year, we all headed down to the Rainforest Cafe at Southcenter Mall. The kids loved it!

Reading

As many of you know, Brigitta has already started reading and loves to read anytime, anywhere. Here she was one afternoon, quietly reading in her room with her pillow pet and sucker.

Best Friends

Brigitta and Daisy playing in the backyard one day. Obviously, B had Daisy's stick and she was just trying to figure out how to get it back from her. :)