Holly Eliza Burtis

Well, SHE IS HERE!  Just a brief summary and then I will write the birth story later.  She was born on Tues Nov. 20, 2012.  She weighed 7lbs 8.6 oz  and 191/2 inches long.  She has lots of dark dark hair, and has very chubby cheeks.  I was only in labor with her for about 5 hours.  She is an angel and we love her very much.  She smells like candy, like the sweetest flower you can think of.  She is very strong like her sister, and unlike her sister will actually breastfeed which makes my life a heck of a lot easier.  Anyways, here are some pictures.

36 Weeks!

Ok, so on request from my dear sister Paige, I am posting this belly picture.  The magnitude of this belly is over powering.  I don't think my skin can stretch anymore!  I don't have a single stretch mark:), but I feel like I am ready to be done.  I remember being so jolly being pregnant with Penny and that is so not the case this time around.  Let me just vent for a few seconds.  I HURT!!!  Ok there, that felt good.  I have the worst pelvic pain.  I went to the doctor today and found out why.  My Dr. tried to check my cervix but couldn't because she said that the baby's head was extremely low that she couldn't get to it.  She said that her head is literally sitting on my pubic bone and pushing on it.  So I have no idea if I am at all dilated.  That doesn't give me much to go off of.  I think I have to be at least a one but I will not know unless I go into labor between now and Monday, which is my next appointment.  So, for Paige here are some really bad pictures:)  I hope you like them because I took them myself.  I wanted to update this while Penny was taking a nap and unfortunately Chuck is at work so, you get timer photos:)!  haha!

Right now, nothing fits me.  So my belly is always hanging out the bottom of my pants.  I have gained 40 lbs, which is actually better than I was with Penny.  The doctor thinks about 20 of that is simply baby and fluid.  Did I mention that I am ready to be done, because I am!  Come whenever you want little girl!

Halloween 2012: Oh well, there is always next year!

Man was I a crappy mom for Halloween!  I felt very unmotivated to do much this year.  We did go to the ward Halloween party, and we did go trick or treating, but I felt like there was something missing.  I didn't feel like I was totally in the Halloween spirit.  Oh well, I guess there is always next year.  I really wanted Penny to be a cat this year.  Don't ask why, I just did.  I thought I could find her some cute black leggings, black shirt, and ears and tail.  I went to 5 stores looking for those simple items and got stuck when I could not find a black shirt!  I find a black turtle neck but the likelyhood of Penny wearing a turtleneck is very very slim.  So, I went to Old Navy and got her a cupcake costume.  I knew there would be more kids wearing this costume, and that is why I didn't want to cop out and get something already made at a popular store.  Oh well, there is always next year.  So, Penny was a pretty darn cute cupcake but she did not want to wear the cupcake!!  She spent 15 minutes in her room crying before the ward party because she didn't want to wear it, and I said she had to, to get the treats.  Finally she wore it, but  I didn't get very good pictures. 

 This is Penny's friend, Ellie.  She asks to go to her house everyday!  They are good little friends:)

 There were many activities to choose from.  There was coloring...

 Eating a doughnut on a string...

 And a cake walk, complete with a cupcake a the end.

What I didn't get a picture of was her actually trick or treating or doing the fishing for a prize.  She was really great at trick or treating.  She would say twick or tweat, and would sometimes say thank you, but most of the time pick out a treat and put it in her bag.  Later in the week we decided to carve pumpkins.  I wanted to get it done before stupid hurricane Sandy came, because I didn't want to lose power and not be able to cook my pumpkin seeds. Penny thought it was absolutely disgusting, she wouldn't even touch the pumpkin after I was finished.  I got all my seeds out and baked them and then we never carved our pumpkins! AHH! Oh well, there is always next year:)  Like I was talking about hurricane Sandy, we ended up getting some pretty good wind and rain.  The worst thing was the rain.  It had already been raining for a couple of days straight and then Sandy came and I was just super tired of rain.  When it came time for the real trick or treating on Halloween, guess who was still around?  Sandy!  So, it was a very wet trick or treat outside. Here is Penny, who by now, knew what I was talking about when I said lets go trick or treat, could hardly contain herself. 

Like I said, there is always next year to really bang out Halloween but, being pretty pregnant with a 2 year old and Chuck was working both party and Halloween, I think it will still be memorable:) 

Hocking Hills

This week was one of Chuck's vacation weeks.  We took full advantage of the time together and did a lot of things around.  I wanted to see some fall foliage and googled good places here in Ohio and came across Hocking Hills.  It was so beautiful!  It is one of those places that you see on cool car commercials where they are driving through the woods.  We decided to hike to a place called Ash Cave.  I have never see anything like it.  I was a dunce and left my camera in the car...so you will have to deal with pictures from the internet. 

 
 

So you can see there is a little waterfall and it doesn't look like a typical cave that you would think of.  It was almost like a huge overhang but it was HUGE!  It was so cool.  I just am so mad I left my camera in the car.  You have to hike down to the bottom.  In the pictures you can see some stairs behind the waterfall.  I just about died going back up them!  Pregnancy and stairs are not a good combo...  It was a lot of fun though!  We went and ate at a Amish style restaurant called Olde Dutch Restaurant and had some potatoes and gravy and fried chicken.  It was delicious!  The rest if the week consisted of going to the zoo, shopping, and lounging.  It was relaxing:)  One day when we went to the zoo, we were literally one of 10 people there.  I guess when school gets back in session that the crowds die down a lot.  Penny finally got brave enough to touch the stingrays!  It was so funny!  We did her favorites and visited the goats to brush, and ride the carousel.  When we left we were all just quiet and walking and she turned up and looked at me and said, " I like the zoo."  Chuck and I just looked at each other and were like, did she just say that:)  It totally made our day.  We asked her why she liked the zoo and she said, " I ride the horsey's".  She has been making so much improvement on her speech.  She sometimes sings ring around the rosey and then tells me that she is going round and round in a circle.  She also has been very self entertaining with reading her books.  She LOVES to read and make up stories for the pictures. Pregnancy update is that this baby I think is super crunched.  I can't breath sometimes because I have enormous amount of pressure on my diaphragm.  She moves a lot even with limited room, so sometimes I can literally hear little tiny poppings when she really stretches.  I can't wait to see her, and also to sleep on my stomach again:)  Chuck starts back up work again tomorrow and we are all sad to see him go back.  I think Chuck most of all:)  Penny won't know what to do when she wakes up and Dad is at work instead of home, but oh well.  Vacations can't last forever.. 

Feeling Crafty!

Lately, I have been in the crafty mood.  I had made Penny another owl hat because I wasn't entirely satisfied with the first one.  I also made a felt Halloween wreath and a complete crocheted outfit for baby sister.  I am feeling a little burned out for now.  My hands have started to cramp from all the crochet and cutting, but I felt like it was all worth it.  I was pretty proud of my projects. 

Here is the outfit I made for our new little girl. The hat was fairly simple but, I had to do the dress over 5 times because I didn't understand the pattern.  It wasn't written very well and eventually I just figured it out.  I hope this little girls feet are little and dainty because the little booties are quite small.  These were the second pair I made and I think they turned out really cute.  The dress is mostly done in shell stitches, which I think makes it look quite delicate.  All of these were done with a much heavier thread than what I was supposed to use. But I wanted it to be deep red and even though the pictures look more tomato red, it is much more cranberry dark red. 

 Front

 Back

 Here is my Halloween felt wreath.  I like it ok...  It still doesn't look quite like I imagined.  I got the pattern from tatertotsandjello.com  She has some super cute wreaths on there.  She used grey felt but I wanted to make it more Halloween with the black and orange, but I am afraid it made it look much more elementary craft.  I should have stuck with the grey because it looks a lot cleaner but overall Halloween is a fun holiday and I think this wreath was fun too.

 Of course Penny has to be in the post!  She has really been such a character lately.  She has been calling Chuck and I, Honey.  Whenever we walk down the stairs she says, "careful honey!"  It is so funny.  When she goes to bed she tells me, "Bye Bye Honey!"  I don't even think Chuck or I call her honey very often!  Every morning she tells me when she wants to get into the tub by stripping from the waist down.  She can't get her shirt off so she stopped trying. This morning I slapped her little bum.  This is what she said.

Penny: "HEY! My bum bum!" 

Me:  "But it is just so CUTE! 

Penny: "Oh... Thank you."

Haha oh Penny you are just the cutest, (most times:)  She has been having some serious tantrums which hopefully simmer a little before Dec.  She gets really mad when she can't find her makeup (her lip gloss).  It is like the end of the world, along when she can't find her stupid binky.  I hate binkies!  So tired of looking for them. 

Chuck started his OB rotation this month.  I think it will give him some good practice before this baby comes.  He has yet to deliver a baby, but has to deliver 10 sometime in the next 3 weeks!  Hopefully that will happen:) As for myself,  I am getting bigger.... The END!  haha

Hello Third Trimester!

Today I am officially 28 weeks!  Yay!  This post is going to be pretty uneventful.  I have been really bad at documenting this pregnancy, but I was really bad with Penny too:(  Oh well...such is life.   Here is my belly in all its glory.  I feel like I look bigger at 28 weeks than I did at 36 weeks with Penny.  Lets compare...

This was taken today:

This was 36 weeks with Penny:


Ok, so maybe not quite as big but seriously getting there.  In case you are wondering this was a week and couple of days before giving birth.  The good thing about this pregnancy is I don't feel I look like I exploded as much.  I only gained 5 lbs last month, which for me was a huge surprise and I gave myself a good pat on the back.  The 'bummers' about this pregnancy is HEARTBURN!  I feel like my throat is a volcano.  It is always hot and I am always burping... not pleasant.  Other than that, pregnancy is pregnancy.  You become immobile, get out of breath walking to the bathroom (if you can make it before you sneeze:)), and wadling like you are a duck.  All in all I am feeling pretty good most days!
       Lately, I have been trying to get Penny to say sister and for some reason she keeps thinking I am saying Stacey, which she does know Stacey's name, but refuses to say and instead says, "funny".  So I guess to her Stacey and her little sister are both Funny...  Silly girl.  Chuck has been working hard.  I hear a lot of complaints of other residents wives saying they never get to see their husbands.  I think I must have prepared myself fairly well because I still feel like I get in OK time with him.  Notice, it is just OK because yes I still don't seem him as much as I would like.  I think I had a very over glorified schedule of the ER in my mind that he would be gone all hours of the night.  But the most wondorous thing about ER is you have a schedule and then you get to come home.  Leave work at work:)  Chuck got some new glasses that I really like on him.  He will be mad I posted this picture but I thought it was funny because he and Penny both are terrible posers for the camera when I want to take a picture.  This is the face of someone who really doesn't want to go to work.

And when I try to get a picture of Penny I get this:

A chin and nostrils... Penny would rather be the one taking pictures. 
Speaking of Penny, she is a runt.  I took her to her new pediatrician and she weighed
25lbs and was 34 in tall,  10% for both. I didn't get the head measurement but I am sure it is somewhere in the 90%.   We sometimes call Penny little lady, and she really is a little lady.  She is shaped like a lollipop but she is much sweeter than one:) 

Penny's First Haircut

Today I was feeling quite adventurous!  Which is in most cases is when I have really bad ideas.  Like today, when I decided I would 'trim' Penny's hair.  The day started out really crappy.  I woke up to Penny moaning from her bedroom.  I went and got her and she moaned all morning long.  It was so frustrating.  I kept asking her what she needed and to tell me what she wanted and all she wanted to do was moan.  So, I put her in the tub and that is when the terrible idea came into my mind.  After she was done bathing I sat her down and started to cut.  I tried to get it even but one side of her head was dramatically shorter than the other side.  Instead of continuing to cut, I decided I would just take her to a hair place and get it done.  It was this place called Cookie Cutters, and they did a great job.  Side note: being new to somewhere can really suck sometimes.  I don't know where anything is.  It is like having your house just how you like it and then someone coming in and rearranging everything.  It can be very frustrating.  Well, on the way to the hair place I rear ended someone.  I was so focused on the GPS and it telling me to turn into a strip mall where I could not see Cookie Cutters.  I had been stopped a the light before so it wasn't anything significant, but I looked up and all could see was the guy in the car hold up his hands and get mad.  I thought, "oh great, a jackass!"  ('scuse the language)...  I got out and he was on his phone.  I looked at my car and his car and there was nothing on either, a little bit of paint transfer on my car but hardly noticeable.  He got off the phone and was like my 'master mechanic' son is going to come over and look at the undercarriage.  I was just ready to say goodbye because I literally could not see anything, not to mention I couldn't have hit him at more than 10mphs since we were just starting to go from the light.  So, we waited about 20 minutes for his son to get there, he was trying to get me to just give him my information and I was like no I will just wait:)  I was not going to give him anything!!  His son comes, takes 20 seconds and is like, there is nothing wrong here.  I felt like yelling, YA I KNOW!! Anyways, we went and got Penny's haircut.  She was pretty excited when we walked in.  She got to sit in an airplane chair and watch Elmo at the same time!  She loved it and cried when we left.  Here is her new do!  I actually want to get my haircut like hers:)

Isn't it just so cute!  I mean talk about body!  She has great hair.  She also refused to get her picture taken without her binkie so just ignore the blatant mouth piece.  We get going home and I am at a light to turn Left and my light turns green and someone tries to hit me!  He got so pissed and sped around me, I am thinking YOUR LIGHT WAS RED!  Needless to say, I needed to get off the road.  There was a lot of crazies out today, including myself.  I went home and was so drained I decided I didn't want to do anything else today.  Talk about a stressful day!  It all started when I had the idea of cutting Penny's hair, never ever again will I be doing that!