Welcome Home Sabrina!

Such precious little feet! We are adjusting to our new life as a family of four instead of a family of three. It is definately different trying to get two kids out the door instead of just one.

Here are some pictures of Sabrina Kennedy for the non facebook people in our lives. She is 4 days old in these pictures and currently has blue eyes. I hope that they stay that way :) She weighed 7 lbs 8 oz at the doctor that morning and is only 20.25 inches long now instead of the 21.5 inches they measured her at the hospital. Emilia shunk too when we went to the doctor but I don't think quite as much and Emilia had more a cone head than Sabrina since she was in the birth canal longer. So I can't explain why she is shorter.

I know babies aren't suppose to smile this early but I don't think you can deny this one. Sabrina is a pretty happy baby and I have gotten quite a few smiles out of her so I don't think they are facial expressions responding to gas.

Its not all about Sabrina so here's a picture of Miss Emilia. This was after we have given sister a sponge bath. Emilia wanted to take a bath in the blue tub but we convinced her to give Ariel a bath instead. Emilia is adjusting fairly well. There are times that she says that she is a baby but for the most part is doing good. She wanted to be swaddled the other night when I was trying to figure out how to swaddle again. I gave away my "moms on call" book which had the best instructions on how to swaddle and Emilia never broke free until she was bigger so I am back to trying to remember since I don't want to go buy the book for just a few pages.

Our Newest Princess

May 20th, 2011 at 7:56 am our newest little Princess made her way into the world. Sabrina Kennedy Siegel wanted to have her own exciting deliverly story as she arrived quickly unlike her Big Sister that had labor for 40 + hours. We definately did not think she would be arriving on Friday morning if you would have asked me the night before as I was feeling very pregnant still and at my doctor appointment on Monday there was nothing going on down there that we were told it might be awhile still.

However Sabrina had other plans. I went to bed around 1:30 am and contractions woke me up at 3:45 am. They were definately weird contractions as they were coming 5-7 minutes apart but were only lasting maybe 30 seconds so we hung out at home for awhile. My water broke at 6:40 am which we weren't 100% sure if it was my water or something else as Emilia was kind enough to pass on this horrible cough. So we called the doctor and he told us to go to the hospital. We left our house shortly after 7:00 am to head downtown to St. Marys. At this time the contractions were coming every 3 to 4 minutes and definately in a lot of pain. We arrived at the hospital shortly after 7:30 am due to everyone on 131 traveling at 72 mph that Herm couldn't speed and my contractions were every 1 to 2 minutes lasting about a minute in length. Herm wheeled me up to the ninth floor of the hospital where the nurses were like we need your insurance card and id until I screamed and then wheeled me off to a delivery room skipping the triage room this time around. There were about 4 nurses in the room and the first one checked me and said I was fully dilated and I can't have an epidural. Sabrina quickly crowned after that and thank goodness there were some resident doctors since my OB didn't make it up there in time. I did get to see 2 of my 5 OB doctors since Sabrina basically came right at on call shift change.

Sabrina Kennedy weighed 7 lbs 12.5 oz and was 21.5 inches long. Emilia was excited to come see her new little sister. She is pretty protective of her deciding who got to hold her and where in the hospital room. She even got mad the other night at Meijer and threw herself on the floor because Daddy took the baby to run to Walmart to get my prescription. Emilia likes to help out as much as she can and as soon as baby is awake she wants her out of her chair or bed. She likes to ask Sabrina "Whats the Matter?" when she starts crying or says "Baby's okay."

Here we are leaving the hospital on Sunday Morning. We were definately ready to get out of there as we were pretty bored on Saturday. Emilia shorted us time in the hospital since she was born just before midnight and this one gave us extra time. Since Sabrina was born so early in the day all of our visitors came on Friday at the same time so that left my aunt and uncle to come see the baby on Saturday and of course Mema and Emilia.

This is how we found Sabrina when we got home. We knew she was mad about something on the way home but fell asleep so we kind of laughed when we saw this.

Welcome to the world Sabrina Kennedy! And luckily the world didn't end on Saturday May 21st like that person said it was suppose to as that would have been a very short life.

And Now We Wait....

This coming Thursday May 19th is our official due date for Baby girl #2. The past 40 weeks have been long espcially the last 12 weeks when I was developed gestational diabetes. I was lucky enough to be able to control it with diet and exercise and didn't need insulin. Thank goodness because poking my finger 4 times a day was hard enough that I can't imagine if I had to give myself shots.

So here we are 2 days away from our due date. Will the baby come on time? Probably not espcially after my doctor appointment yesterday. I have barely started dilating so the doctor thinks its still going to be awhile. She also said that it might be another slow, long labor like I had with Emilia once I finally start having contractions. I was in labor with Emilia for about 43 hours so it will be interesting to see if this one follows the same route. I really hope not!

It is likely that I am going to go overdue with this kid and even with gestational diabetes the doctors are going to let me. My original due date was May 26th but they moved it forward a week after I had an early ultrasound at 12 weeks since I was measuring bigger and I was still measuring a week ahead at my 22 week ultrasound so I was trying to be hopeful that she would come around the May 19th date. So now its just a wait and see when she wants to make her appearance into the world.

We have been working hard on our house for the past month and a half or so. It took us awhile to determine where we were going to put the new baby. We could have either let the girls share a room, move Emilia downstairs, move both of them downstairs, or give up our master bedroom and we move downstairs. After some long thinking we decided to move downstairs and keep the girls upstairs. So Herm and I are living in a tiny room downstairs where both girls have bigger rooms then us, but our basement is only partially finished with no bathroom. So it seemed to be the most logical for us to move.

We bought a full size mattress for Emilia's bed and finally converted it from the toddler bed to the full size option with the bed rails that Grandma and Grandpa Siegel bought her for 2nd birthday. She loves her big girl bed and picked out Tinker Bell bedding. All of the baby Mickey and Friends came down off the walls in their place went Tink and her fairy friends. We moved the rocking chair, changing table and dresser across the hall to Sister's room which freed up a lot of space in Emilia's room to play. Does she play in there not really but maybe someday.

It took me awhile to decide on a theme for sister's room. Originally I was trying to find crib bedding to match our old ocean blue walls so I didn't have to paint again but I never did find anything that I liked so I went with the girly princess decor. It was nice finding out the sex of the baby this time so I could go girly with the nursery instead of netural like I had to with Emilia's room. We bought a brand new convertible crib since we converted Emilia's bed for her. We priced both options on buying a new crib vs. buying Emilia a new bed and it came out to be about the same. We decided to go the crib route so at least sister could have something new instead of getting everything used.
Here is a shot of the rest of the nursery with the changing table and dresser and better look at the princess border. So we are ready for sister to come. The room is finally complete after Herm hung the window blinds last night, the car seat is installed in both of our cars and the girls bags are packed for when she does make her appearance. I am hoping to finally get around to packing my hospital bag today.
Here is our brand new double stroller! A Baby Jogger City Mini! I debated for months on if I needed a double. First I bought stroller links to hook together 2 graco umbrella style strollers but realized that is going to be a pain when I am by myself to hook and unhook the strollers when I am done. I was limited on options as the stroller had to fit in the trunk of my G6. This stroller fits in my trunk with a lot of room to spare. The only bad thing about it is there is not much storage space. I like a stroller with lots of space for things which is probably why my Graco Quattro Travel System was my favorite stroller with Emilia even though it was heavy and took up all of my trunk. I looked at the double version of this stroller but there was no way it would fit in my trunk. So I think I made a good choice with my City Mini. It is lightweight at 26 lbs, folds easy, and is the number one stroller from the offsite rental companies at Disney World. Plus I got a steal of a deal on it by buying the 2010 model for 25% off then buying a 2011 model. This stroller is always excluded from discounts at Babies R Us so when I saw it clearanced out on AlbeeBaby.com I had to jump on it.

Well that is where we are at here in the Siegel House. Emilia is growing like a weed and will be 3 in less than a month. It is amazing how time flies. We are hoping that Emilia will show some more interest in potty training after her birthday so she can go to preschool this fall and we don't lose our deposit but we'll see. She hasn't fully grasped the concept yet. She knows sometimes after she goes but never tells us before she goes. We have one sticker on the potty chart and hope to get down to business and start adding to it after she turns 3 and sister has been here for a little bit.

Well I have rambled on long enough for now. Here's to hoping that I can update this again soon when sister makes her appearance in the world!

Walt Disney World - Day 7

September 22nd, 2010

Late start on our morning since we stayed out so late last night. I don't think that Emilia went to bed until well after 1 am. We arrived at Epcot around 11:00 or so. Herm went and grabbed us some fast passes for Test Track and then we made our way to the World Showcase with a stop at the Baby Center along the way. We first went to the Mexico Pavilion to ride Gran Fiesta as we have never done that before. We got Emilia her mask here to color for Kidcot. Next we went to Norway to ride Malestrom again another ride that we have never done. We are not big Epcot fans so we haven't fully explored this park besides the main attractions. After this we decided to get some lunch and we wanted to get our free photopass session at Innoventions since I have a Disney Visa Card so back over to Future World.

Here is Miss Emilia coloring her mask. I really wished that this wasn't sponsered by Sharpie because she doesn't color with markers very often let alone permanent markers. After lunch we headed over to Innoventions for the free picture and to play there for a little while. Then we went to the Universe of Energy and rode that ride as we have never done it since it is so long. Emilia fell asleep on that ride not sure how she did that with how loud it is in there but she did.

Since Emilia was sleeping in her stroller we decided it was a good time to use our fast passes for Test Track. After test track we made our way over the United Kingdom so Herm could get something to eat. After this we made our way to the Imagination Pavilion. Again another thing that we haven't done. Can you tell that don't we spend a lot of time in this park?? After Figment we got a snack and sat down to figure out what we wanted to do the rest of the evening. Did we want to park hop over to Magic to catch the Main Street Electrical Parade again or just go back to the hotel and pack? We decided to take a ride on the Monorail since we hadn't done that yet and then head back to the resort.

We got back to the resort and ordered Papa John's. We went swimming one last time and packed up all of our stuff since we had to leave in the morning. Magical Express would be there at 9:30 to pick us up and take us back to Orlando International Airport.

Our mousekeeper decorated our window for us when we got back that evening to say goodbye. We finally had a good mousekeeper on this trip that did different things for Emilia. One day she had Julie hanging from the curtains. Not that we got mousekeeping everyday since she liked to come during nap time. It was a great trip and couldn't ask for better weather. I was worried about going in September since it was still going to be hot, hurricane season and it normally rains a little bit everyday. We didn't have a drop of rain luckily.

When we will get back there is still up in the air as when we got home we found out that we were expecting another little Mouseketeer. This kid will either be terrified of everything as I rode all of the big rides since I didn't know I was pregnant or love thrill rides. Lets hope for the later. I am sure that the second one won't get three trips to Disney under three like Emilia did espcially since we have to start paying for Emilia to get in now. Plus it wasn't fun seeing the Magic Kingdom under all of that construction and that won't be done until 2013-2014. Maybe we'll have to head West and go to Disneyland with the munchkins in 2012 after Cars land opens and a lot of the construction at Disney's California Adventure is done.

In the words of Mickey Mouse - See ya Real Soon!

Walt Disney World - Day 6

September 21st, 2010

We started our day at Blizzard Beach Waterpark. It was a nice short bus ride from our resort at All Star Music. We arrived about 30 minutes before the park opened. They opened the gates about 15 minutes before opening and let us in to the lockers/changing area. Herm got Emilia's swim diaper on and then I changed into my suit. We then waited for official park opening which features a family of the day that goes down Summit Plummit first. They had to count down two times because the person didn't go on the first countdown. We made our way to the kiddie area and staked out our spot for the day. Emilia had a lot of fun going down all of the slides and playing in the kiddie area. We had a thief on our hands as she came back to our chairs with a boat. Never did figure out who that belonged too. We just let her play with it and figured some little kid would come up and take it from her which never happened. Herm and I took turns going to the different areas of the park. I did a loop on the lazy river and then we went down the family raft slide which Emilia had a blast on. I am not sure what Herm did but I didn't go down any of the other slides as I was being a chicken and didn't want to go by myself. Maybe next time we'll have someone else with us. We went to the wave pool as a family and then grabbed some lunch. Emilia played some more in the Kiddie area before we decided it was time to get back to the resort since it was 2 pm.

All of that playing in the waterpark wore our little girl out. She took a nice long nap. After she got up we made our way to the Magic Kingdom to attend Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party again. This time we were mostly going for the rides since our Magic Kingdom day ended up being very busy. We ate dinner in Frontierland and caught a little bit of the parade. Emilia loved dancing to the music. The only thing that we missed at the Halloween Party was the Villians Show and we ended up missing it again tonight and the parade. Emilia talked her Daddy into buying her a Minnie Light up/Spin toy finally when I was on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I guess she even took Julie out of the stroller and bought her over to the cart to show it to her that Daddy couldn't resist anymore.Here is Emilia in the Halloween outfit that I ordered for her on etsy. She spilled chocolate milk all over it by the middle of the night that we had to buy her a new shirt and the skirt came off. Oh well...at least it held up the first night at the Halloween Party. We stayed until closing and took our time going out to the busses as we knew that they would be full. We ended up getting on the All Star Sports bus and then walking to Music as the music line was very long. Tomorrow is our last day full day at Disney and we'll be heading to Epcot whenever we get up.

Walt Disney World Day 5

00September 20th, 2010

Today we used our "Free" Disney day since I volunteered earlier in the year and made blankets for Project Linus as part of Disney Give a Day Get a Day Promotion. We decided to spend the entire day at Disney's Hollywood Studios. We are so use to having park hopper passes so staying in one park for an entire day was a new experience for us. Not sure if we would do it again except during the busy season where we can collect fast passes all day and there is evening entertainment. But since we travel during the slow season makes having park hoppers necessary in order to go to a non busy park during the day and hop to the park with evening entertainment and more busy park. First up on our day is the Toy Story Midway Mania Dash. To ride this ride you need to be a rope drop to reduce your wait time otherwise you will wait over an hour to 90 minutes and that is during slow times. Herm went ahead to grab fast passes while I pushed Emilia in the stroller to the stroller parking and the standby entrance to be able to ride twice. We went to visit Lightning McQueen and Mater after riding and then went to visit Buzz and Woody. Emilia was so excited to meet Buzz and Woody as you can tell in her face as she came around the corner and it was her turn.

Voyage of the Little Mermaid was up next on our list as we have never seen it. Herm and I took a spin on Rock n Rollar Coaster using Parent Swap passes after watching Mermaid and then we used our Toy Story Fast Passes. Emilia was starting to get cranky so we grabbed a slushie and made our way out to the bus stop. Emilia is sharing the slushie with Julie!
After lunch and a nap we made our way back to Hollywood Studios. I went ahead of Herm and Emilia to grab a fast pass for Rock n Rollar coaster and to ride Tower of Terror since I didn't take a nap with them. After I got of off of Tower of Terror Emilia and Herm were in the park and waiting to meet Mike and Sully from Monsters Inc. We decided to do the Backlot Tour as Herm has never experienced it and I haven't been on it since 1997.
It was an evening extra magic hour so that gave us 3 more hours in the park after park closing. We went to the Playhouse Disney Stage and did a dance party with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto. Emilia had fun dancing with the characaters. She was a little shy about getting to the front so the characters noticed her but eventually got to dance with Minnie for a few seconds. After this Emilia and I settled down and ate dinner while Herm used fast passes to ride rock n rollar coaster and Tower of Terror. We decided to call it a night after this and head back to the hotel as the park was a lot busier now than it was during the day.
We took Emilia swimming and then spent some quiet time watching tv and eating popcorn in the room.

Walt Disney World - Day 4

September 19th, 2010

Since we got in late the night before due to Mickey's Halloween Party we had a late start to our day. Today Emilia received her very first haircut at the Harmony Barber shop on Main Street USA. While there wasn't a lot to cut off Emilia did well since they gave her lots of different light up toys to play with and that she got to sit on Daddy's lap. This started the asking for a light up toy the rest of our trip. They gave Emilia a nice certificate for her first hair cut and a set of Mickey Ears with First Haircut embroided on the back of the hat. All for $18 which to me is a steal in Disney!

After her haircut we made our way back to Toontown and took a few rides on Goofy's Barnstormer. Emilia was tall enough to ride and now is hooked on rollar coasters. She had the cutest little scream and kept asking to go again. I think we rode 3 or 4 times in a row before we moved on to Fantasyland.

It was packed in Fantasyland today so after taking a spin on the carousel and watching Mickey's PhilharMagic we decided to go to a different park. We caught the Castle Stage show on our way out and went back to the resort for lunch and figure out what would be a good park to go to according to Tour Guide Mike. Definately worth the money subscribing to that site as he tells you what parks are the best to go to each day.

We decided to head to Epcot to ride a couple of quick rides before we head over to Hollywood Studios for the evening to see Fantasmic! We rode The Seas with Nemo and Friends, caught a showing of Turtle Talk with Crush where we educated him on what a weekend was, and Herm and I each caught a ride on Soarin. Emilia had fun in the Seas Pavilion showing Julie all of the fish. Soon it was time to head over to the International Gateway to walk to Hollywood Studios. Now we have never walked there before and it was dark so we got a little lost. We should have taken the boat but didn't feel like waiting for it. Somehow we missed a turn and ended up at the Mini Golf Fantasia Gardens. We backtracked and soon found the correct path to Hollywood Studios.

This is the first time that we have seen Fantasmic as it is only shown twice a week since we always travel in the slow season. The show is extremely popular so you are always fighting the crowds no matter when you go. It was worth the wait and battling the crowds to see at least once. Emilia loved the show so we may do it again sometime!