First Bath

Here are a few pics of Claranna's first bath. As you can tell, she wasn't a fan. She was much happier once she was all swaddled up again.

Labor & Delivery Details...

Claranna Rose was born at 38 weeks and 6 days. We were all expecting the baby to arrive a little earlier than that as was the case with Ella and James, but Claranna took her own sweet time. After about two weeks of on and off contractions and one false alarm, an induction was scheduled for Monday, April 27th at 7:30 a.m. The primary reason for the induction was because of the concern that I would have a rapid labor since James arrived so quickly.

On Sunday morning, our family went to church, went out for donuts, and took Ella to Toys R Us so she could spend some birthday money. After the kids had their naps, we were considering heading to Sam's Club, but that never happened. I had a few periodic contractions in the morning, but nothing different than what had been happening for much of the past two weeks. By late afternoon, I realized that the mild contractions I was having were starting to come at a regular pattern. I told Mark and we decided I should think about getting ready to go to the hospital. Grandma came and picked up Ella and James and we were off to the hospital. My contractions were about four minutes apart and starting to hurt more. I had to tell Mark to slow down a few times during our drive as he started to see that I was reacting to the contractions.

We arrived at the hospital at about 5:15 pm. By 5:40 I was settled in and when they checked me and I was already dialated to 6 cm, so they told me I would be staying. I was thankful that I had enough time for a spinal block. Once I had pain relief, labor went smoothly and continued quickly. We did have a little scare during delivery as Claranna arrived with the cord around her neck, but it was quickly removed and her color was great. This labor did progress as expected and was even faster than when I had James. Within two hours and 45 minutes of our arrival at the hospital, we welcomed our beautiful baby girl. I guess it was a good thing that we went to the hospital when we did!!


Here are a few pics from Sunday night:

At the hospital--ready to pop! (And, obviously between contractions...)

After getting some great drugs!

Daddy cuts the cord.

Weighing our baby girl.

Daddy meeting his sweet girl.

Claranna checked Daddy out too! Love this pic!

We had great delivery nurses...they took most of these pictures for us! Thank you!

We are now settled at home and I will attempt to get a few more pictures blogged. Claranna is doing really well, but she is suffering from infant jaundice and is pretty yellow. We will be going back in to have her levels checked tomorrow. Her renal ultrasound was normal twelve hours after birth. That's good news so far. When Peds Urology checked Claranna out, we were told it could be a false normal since she was more than likely dehydrated. They will follow up with us after her test for kidney reflux. For now, we are concentrating on eating, sleeping, and changing diapers. : )

First Moments with Claranna Rose

Here are a few pics of our sweet new baby girl as she met Mommy, Daddy, Ella, James and during her first hour. We were able to get my parents to bring the kids to the hospital before they went to bed last night. We didn't tell the kids (or Grandma & Grandpa) any baby details before they arrived. It was really fun to see the kids' excitement as they learned that they had a brand new baby sister!! Enjoy the just born pictures!


Mommy and Claranna


Being told, "It's a girl!!!"

Checking out their new sister...

James takes a closer look.

So does Ella...

Ella gives her baby sister her first hug.

A family of five...

Claranna with her Mommy and Daddy

Of course there are many more pictures...but they will have to wait for another time...we're tired. Thank you to all who have sent us your congratulations or stopped by to meet our new blessing!

It's a...

GIRL!!!
Claranna Rose Ostman
April 26, 2009 @ 7:59pm
6 lbs. 1 oz. 18.5 inches

All is well.... more news to come!!!

M&M Seeds...

I told James we were going to go out shopping to buy seeds for Daddy's garden this morning. He got really excited and said, "We need to buy some M&M seeds and gumball seeds because I will plant those and I like to eat them!" It's true, James would love to eat that kind of produce from the garden. Sometimes he is just too funny!!!

More Birthday Fun!!!

We finished celebrating Ella's 6th birthday with an extended family birthday party on Sunday night. Here are the excited kiddos before the party started.

Grandma and Grandpa O. were able to come down and spend some extra time with us before the party started.

James showed them how to play and win Hungry, Hungry Hippo.

Another birthday cake... Isabella still loves princesses, so we had another princess party!

The birthday girl!

We served sundaes at our Sunday birthday party, so ice-cream came before the cake at this celebration.

James and his Great-Grandma Ruth.

Isabella with Great-Grandma Ruth --there is a difference of almost nine decades between these two. My Grandma Ruth will be 96 in a couple of weeks and I feel so blessed that she

is able to celebrate with us and be part of the memories my kids will have!

James and Grandma Judy

Opening more presents....what a lucky girl!!!

Being sung to....again!

Blowing out the candles

Getting ready for some cake...

The kiddos with my parents...

Isabella's "Friend" Party

This is the first year that we have had a separate party for Ella's friends. Since our family includes so many little cousins, our family parties have always been full of kid energy. But, the time had come to include Ella's many school friends in our birthday celebration as well.

Since I knew I would either be really PG or have a new baby, we decided to have her party at our local Gymnastics Gym. Isabella attends gymnastics and loves it, so it was a natural fit. Plus, the staff at the gym takes care of everything from invitations to cake, so it was an easy party for us to plan! My pictures didn't turn out the best as it was a little dark in the gym, but hopefully you will get the idea of what the kids did. There were many kindergarten friends at the party, big and little cousins and church friends. All in all, we had a group of about twenty kids and they all had a blast. After an hour of jumping into the foam pit, doing an obstacle course, and playing with a parachute, the kids were wore out. They sang happy birthday and relaxed while watching a delighted Ella open her presents. The party ended with cake, ice-cream, balloons, treat bags, and lots of smiles. Best of all, Mark and I weren't too worn out afterwards!!!


Doing parachute games...



All the kids are inside this giant "birthday balloon"!

A happy girl ready to celebrate!

Being sung to by her friends...

Blowing out the candles!

Opening the gifts from her friends. We were all so amazed at how nicely all the friends sat and watched Ella....maybe they were just too tired! Isabella really enjoyed the gift opening and the gifts. She took her time and all her friends made the appropriate "oohs and aahs" over all the fun presents. It was really quite cute!!

A (kind of dark) glimpse of the birthday table and friends!

Thank you to all the friends and family who helped celebrate Ella's 6th birthday!!!

It's Twins!!!

We were introduced to a beautiful baby boy and a baby girl tonight!


Emaleigh Sue and Derek Thomas were born yesterday...





...to my cousin Sara and her husband Kory! Congratulations!!!!

The babies are adorable and we enjoyed meeting them. The kids loved seeing the tiny babies too! Although, James was quick to point out that there was "just one" in mommy's tummy. Here are the kids admiring Emaleigh Sue.



No baby for us yet...guess this baby was only kidding about wanting to come out last week... so we will wait a bit longer. It still was a big night at our house, though, as our big six year old got her ears pierced. I'll post more on her ear piercing adventure soon. For those wondering, she didn't cry and she is pretty happy tonight.

Our First Baby is Growing Up Too Fast!!!

Today we celebrated Isabella's 6th birthday. It seems so hard to believe that six years have passed so quickly. Isabella is growing up so fast and we are so proud of the sweet little girl she has become. Right now our darling girl is sound asleep in her bed and as we were cuddling with her tonight, she told us she had a wonderful birthday. Here is her big day in pictures:

The birthday girl sound asleep... It was easier than normal to get her out of bed this morning.

Mark, James and I joined Ella at school for her birthday celebration. Her friends sang to her and they all enjoyed eating cupcakes.

Here is Ella with a favorite classmate enjoying a pink (of course!) cupcake.

Mark took the afternoon off and we had a quick lunch at the McDonald's Playland before heading home for a relaxing afternoon.

For dinner we went to Applebee's, a birthday tradition for Ella. This is the face she made this year when she was being serenaded with their birthday song.

After dinner, we were off to the park to enjoy some more play time. James had a blast...

Isabella enjoyed herself as well. We had gorgeous weather today!

After the park it was time for presents and Ella could hardly wait!

Ella made a deal with James. He could open two of her presents if he lets her open two of his presents on his birthday. Here is Ella waiting for James to open up her new jewelry box.

James gave Ella a very soft pig with two piglets and she loved it.

More gift opening fun...

A self-timer family photo around the cake... Isabella is wearing her new Jasmine costume that she really, really wanted for her birthday.

Isabella smiles as she listens to "Happy Birthday" being sung to her.

Blowing out her candles...

Letting James help blow out the candles a second time.

One last present... Isabella opened up a necklace and earrings and we told her that we will take her to get her ears pierced when she feels ready. She was very excited about this and was all set to have them pierced tomorrow. At bedtime, though, she had already changed her mind and thinks we should wait until at least Monday so she won't have sore ears at her birthday party this weekend. We'll see if she changes her mind again...

Eating the birthday cake that Ella helped to bake and decorate.

Our beautiful SIX YEAR OLD!!! Happy Birthday Isabella Mae!!!

BABY UPDATE: We are still waiting and to be honest we are a little surprised that we made it through Ella's birthday without a new little bundle. I was told last Wednesday that my body was gearing up and that it could be any day... So, we have been anxiously waiting. While there have been many bouts of contractions over the past several days, things haven't progressed any further....yet!!! Stay tuned!