A New Baby

We welcomed Lydia Ann Burningham into our family on February 17, 2016 at 6:07am. She only weighed 5 lbs 1 oz and was 18 1/2 inches long.

We were a little surprised, but mostly ready for her early arrival. At my 37 week check up, the doctor told me I was already dilated to a 3. He said he would be surprised if I made it another week to my next checkup. Because of some other pre-labor symptoms I'd been having, that appointment got Jason and me all worried that Lydia would come that night. We got our hospital bags all packed and we spent a restless night waiting for me to go into labor.

After several more days with no progress, we figured the baby probably wouldn't come until my next checkup on Friday. So we were both surprised on Tuesday night when less than 30 minutes after we went to sleep, I woke up to my water breaking. That was a new experience for me! But it was an answer to prayer because I was hoping my water would just break for this labor so I would know when I could go to the hospital and they wouldn't turn me away because I hadn't dilated enough like last time.

We called our neighbor Karen from down the street who is the Primary President at church. She had volunteered to come sleep at our house if the baby came during the night so we wouldn't have to disturb Ethan. She came over shortly after midnight and we left for the hospital. My contractions were just starting at this point and weren't painful or regular.

Checking into the hospital and getting all the IVs etc. took more than an hour. I got an epidural around 3:30am when the contractions really started to be painful, coming about every 5 minutes. They finally left us alone around 5:00am to "rest." Within the next hour I dilated from a 6 to a 10. So when the nurses came to check me an hour later I was completely dilated and ready to start pushing. The doctor came a few minutes later. He had me do one "practice push" as he called it, and Lydia started coming. He had to hurry and finish putting on his gloves and gown etc. and then Lydia literally just popped out. We were all surprised by how quickly and easily Lydia came in comparison to Ethan's delivery. I think the doctor was only in our room for about 10 minutes and was finished with all the birth and afterbirth. Lydia was very small, but she is healthy and scored a 9 on the Apgar test. Because her weight was less than the first percentile for babies her age, she was monitored very closely for the next several hours. Fortunately, she was able to eat enough and slept well and we were able to keep her out of the NICU.

Ethan visited us at the hospital on Thursday. He stayed with another friend, Emily, from my church and her family for the two days we were in the hospital. It was so nice of her to take care of him, and he had a great time. Ethan loved visiting us at the hospital and meeting Lydia for the first time. He is such a great big brother!

Friday morning we checked out of the hospital to go home. The nurses were so great and we had a huge suite of a room at the hospital. It was a good experience overall and I was able to recover quickly from the delivery.

Leaving the hospital

Lydia barely fit into the smallest settings of the carseat

Going home from the hospital was a dose of reality again in balancing the demands of two children, but we're loving it! Lydia is such a blessing to our family. We're grateful to have her in our family forever!

Lydia lying on the quilt my mom made for her. You can see her head is only slightly larger than an orange.

1 week old

2 weeks old

January 2016

January has had a few surprises for us, some good and some not so good. Jason enjoyed a few days off at the beginning of the year for the New Years holiday. He was able to relax a little more and play some games with us. Jason also had a friend from work, Mark, and his family over for dinner that weekend and we had a fun time talking and getting to know them better.

At the beginning of the month we received our second water bill since moving in which confirmed a fear/suspicion that we had a water leak somewhere. Our water bills have been really high and our sump pump has been running constantly. We called a plumbing company to come locate the leak. They ended up digging down to the other side of the foundation where the water line enters our house and replaced that section of pipe. They said it was likely caused by the foundation settling and bending the existing pipe. It was expensive and unfortunate to have happened so soon after moving in, but fortunately it didn't cause any interior flooding. It's fixed now and we hope we won't have any more plumping problems!

Ethan liked watching the digger pull out our bush and dig about 4 ft into the ground

If you look closely, you can even see the worker down in the hole

Here's the new water valve on the inside of the house

Ethan spent a lot of time playing with his new Lego sets from Christmas. It's been fun watching him develop new ideas for his building creations. He was really excited when he learned how to connect the different car bases together.

Yes, I know his eyes are closed, but I didn't have any better ones :)

Jason won a drawing for free tickets to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. We had really great seats and listened to a symphony from Brahms that was pretty amazing. It was a fun date night.

 We set up a twin bed for Ethan in a "new" room so we could get the nursery ready for the baby. He was thrilled with his "new" bed, although it threw his sleeping schedule and nap schedule off for a week. I'm glad he's settled back into a routine that usually still includes an afternoon nap.

Ethan with his "best friend" Silly Monkey on his new bed

This month I also celebrated another birthday! I've been so involved with baby preparations that I didn't really think about it much. A friend/Relief Society President in our church, Emily McCombs, was kind enough to head up a fun baby shower. It happened to be on my birthday so I spent the evening with friends opening up adorable gifts. People were so kind and generous and I had a great time! Jason and I also went out to dinner the next night to celebrate and watched a movie together.

Birthday present time! Ethan was more excited than I was and kept asking to open the presents all day. He kept calling it my "party day"

Gifts from the baby shower. I am 35 weeks pregnant.

Another picture of all the cute clothes, gifts, and diapers I received from the baby shower.

December Activities

We had a busy December and a nice long family Christmas Break since Jason was able to get over a week off of work. Although we were all sick at various times throughout Christmas, we still managed to do a few fun activities.

We visited the Festival of Lights at the Cincinnati Zoo. It was hard to get good pictures in the dark, but we went on a warm evening and enjoyed seeing all the light displays. Ethan's favorite part was dancing to the musical light show on the pond.

We saw a fun children's theatre production of The Shoemaker and the Elves at the library. It was very well done with all the parts done by just four actors. We all enjoyed it!

Ethan enjoyed playing with his Fisher Price nativity set. He liked to set all the animals and people around baby Jesus and eventually started adding his own stuffed animals and toys to the mix.

I took a picture of me pregnant at 30 weeks. This baby girl will be here before we know it.

Right before Christmas we went to see a Holiday Train display at the Cincinnati Museum Center. Ethan liked seeing the trains and playing with a wooden toy train set. He also liked seeing the Reindeer puppets sing and talk to the boys and girls.

On Christmas Eve day we visited the Creation Museum. It's a museum dedicated to the creation of the world and showing how the word's view differs from God's view of the creation. It was well done. We were also able to see a planetarium show there about the Christmas Star that was very interesting as well. The museum also had a petting zoo outside with donkeys, a camel, cow, goats, wallabies, etc. Since it was over 60 degrees outside we didn't even have to wear jackets. Ethan loved petting them and feeding them and it was fun to see him get so excited about it.

These llamas were inside the museum, but we also fed live ones outside at the petting zoo.

They actually had lots of dinosaurs at the creation museum and Ethan really liked those too. 

First Christmas Eve at our new house

Christmas morning opening gifts

Christmas Day 2015

After Christmas we also did some fun activities. Jason and I got a babysitter so we could go see the new Star Wars movie in the theatre and went out to eat at the Olive Garden, one of my favorite restaurants. It was so much fun! I really enjoyed the movie, food, and time with Jason! We also took a day trip to Indianapolis to visit the new temple there. It's really beautiful inside and out! Jason and I took turns watching Ethan while the other one went inside to do ordinances.

Indianapolis, Indiana Temple

Other December activities including making and delivering Christmas cookies to neighbors, playing games with friends, eating good food, sleeping in when possible, and taking care of a few home improvement projects.

We bought a large area carpet rug to put downstairs in the unfinished basement to give us another play area in the house.

I also put together this wall cabinet for our master bathroom to give us a little more storage room in there.

Thanksgiving weekend

We had a fun Thanksgiving weekend. Andy and Kimra and their three boys drove from Illinois to stay with us for a few days. Of course we spent Thanksgiving cooking, baking, and eating yummy food. The boys went to the park, watched football, and had fun playing together. The weather was so nice that we went for a walk after the big meal to a nearby wooded area that had a rope swing, teeter totter, and nature walk. After pie and more playing we put all the boys to bed and we played a game of Settlers of Catan.

Our Thanksgiving Feast

Kimra and I showing our pregnant tummies. We're both having girls due about a week apart.

The Rope Swing

A pond and nature walk near our house

Game night!

Friday we ventured into Cincinnati and visited the Bengals stadium. We looked through their gift shop and were able to see through some windows into the stadium. The players were actually down on the field warming up for a game they had in a couple days. One of Grant’s favorite teams right now is the Bengals, so that really made his day. 

Players warming up at Bengals stadium

Ethan showing off his Bengal spirit

After the shop we played on the toys at Riverfront Park. The weather was so nice again and it was great to be outside before winter comes.

Drew and Mack were having fun pretending to "kick" Jason on the swing.

That evening after dinner we watched the movie Inside Out and ate popcorn until it was time to put the boys down for bed. We stayed up late talking and telling stories.

Saturday we were sad to say good-bye. We had a great time and are so glad they came to visit us. Ethan loved playing with his cousins and still talks about them 7lln by name. I’m so glad we live within driving distance of each other!