Introducing Ivy Jane Larsen

Ivy Jane was born February 2, 2012 at 2:20pm. She weighed in at 8 lbs. 7 oz. (almost a full pound bigger than either Davis or Emery...I was so surprised she was that big!) and was 21 inches long. I guess she needed to be big to be able to defend herself against her very loving siblings!!

I was scheduled to be induced on my due date, the 3rd of February. On the 1st, however, Steve's Grandma Black passed away. We wanted him to be able to go to the funeral in Utah so we called Dr. Nett to see if we could move it up a day to give us one more day to be settled at home before he left for the funeral. She said that was fine...it was about 3:30pm at this point and I was planning on having another entire day to clean my house and pack the kids and myself for while we were at the hospital. Anyway, I kicked it into high gear and cleaned and packed like a crazy woman the rest of the day. It was super nice to come home from the hospital to a really clean house but my feet hurt so bad that night and were super swollen from my efforts!

If the birthing story is too much information for you just skip ahead...I just wanted to have this written down for me:)

The next morning we headed to the hospital and got started on pitosin (spelling?) around 9:30am. I wanted to make it to a 4 before I got an epidural-I didn't want to be on it for a super long time-by the time I was not okay the nurse checked me and I was only a 3 but I didn't care! By the time they finished giving me the epidural I was a 4 so I guess it worked out okay! So I got the epidural around 11:30am, took a nap and then the nurse came to check me about 1:30pm and I was a 10. I love those epidurals. Seriously...taking a nap while you are in labor?! Nothing better! Dr. Nett had another patient that was already pushing so we hung out for a few minutes while she delivered that baby then we got down to pushing. I had a hard time getting her out due to some scar tissue that did not want to stretch enough so I pushed for about 20 minutes. I had a really great nurse that was a pro pushing coach and had also told me that Dr. Nett would probably let me deliver her myself if I wanted so we asked her and she said sure (first she asked Steve is he wanted to but he didn't want anything to do with that:). So I finally was able to get her head out and Dr. Nett pulled her shoulders through then had me reach down and deliver her the rest of the way. I was able to pull her out and up onto my stomach. It was really the neatest thing. Such a great reward after all that pushing.

We were still unsure about her name. I can't believe what a hard time we had naming this little girl. I had brought up the name Ivy a while back but Steve had vetoed it (and pretty much everything else I suggested!) but towards the end he stopped vetoing-I think he was worried she would never have a name. He even said I could name her whatever I wanted! So I was looking at a baby name list again just a few days before she was born and saw Ivy again. Steve liked it okay but didn't love it I think. I really wanted to name her that but I was still hesitating because I knew he didn't love it...but in the end it was the only name I loved and I think it really fits her. I am happy that is what she ended up with!

Getting weighed and cleaned up




I am swallowing my pride posting these pictures-I think this pregnancy must have been the hardest on me because I look the worst in these of all my kids births!!
Dr. Nett...can I just say that I love her?! I am so grateful to have her as my Dr.

Nurse Jenny and Dr. Nett-we made a good team!

What a sweet new little girl!

Getting her first bath-she was not a fan!

Meeting her sister for the first time. Emery has been really cute about her, but hasn't figured out how to be 'soft' yet. Ivy has had a few wacks on the head among other things. It will get better...right?!
Davis has been so cute about the baby coming. It has been fun for him to be old enough to really understand what is happening and he was so so excited for her to be born. We did have some interesting conversations about how the baby gets out and he did ask me if my tummy was going to break because it was getting so big!



She is so pretty!!


Coming home..bracing ourselves for what is to come with 3 kids:)We are so glad this little girl has joined our family. It is just amazing to me that I can grow a baby and I am so grateful that she was born healthy. I can't wait to see what her personality is like and who she ends up looking like (I think she looks so different from our other kids so I am so curious what she will look like as she gets older). We are so grateful to have her!

Happy Birthday Emery Jae!

We had so much fun celebrating Emery's 2nd birthday today. She ate up every minute of the attention! I can't believe my little girl is 2 years old (I think I start every birthday post of my kids with that sentence, but seriously where has the time gone?) I was looking at pictures of her on her first birthday and it is amazing how much she has changed in this last year. She is definitely my little girl now instead of my baby and is running around like a crazy lady all the time and talking up a storm. She has so much energy and is anything but shy. She likes being the center of attention. She knows what she wants and she is going to get it! Emery brings so much life and joy to our home. I love every minute I get with her.

She humored me with a few cheesy birthday poses!


She kept licking the cake while we were getting everyone ready to sing to her. At least it was the same spot!
Blowing out her candles...
She was the last one eating..I think she enjoyed every bite!

She loved opening presents but had lots of 'helpers'...Dad had to intervene and make sure she got to open them herself!

Such as pretty two year old girl.

House Projects

So we have been doing some major projects on our house and I have had some requests to post pictures so here it goes...

The most recent and biggest project we have probably ever done...our kids had these crazily gigantic closets behind their bedrooms that were a total waste of space. We have wanted to do something with them since we bought the house. We found some attic space behind those (this is all space over our garage) and after throwing around a bunch of different ideas decided to make make the two closets and attic space into a big bonus room, to be used as a bedroom for now. We also had to build normal size closets in the kids rooms. I don't know if that makes any sense but it turned out amazing. We had someone drywall and mud/tape but besides that Steve did all of the work (and it was ALOT!!) and I did all of the painting once it was built-my specialty! I don't think we have ever been so glad to have a project done-living in the mess was making me CRAZY and our poor kids were sleeping in random places in the house while we stayed up all night many times working in their rooms.

Here is one of the closets before: (that square in the wall opens up to the attic space behind the closet).

Some 'during' pictures...I should have taken more later on, but this is when Steve started tearing down walls:

The finished product...it was hard to take a good picture of the room so these don't really even do it justice but it turned out so cute and is really big. We moved Emery in there and the baby will have her room. Steve did even put in that window-it was a little scary when he cut a hole in the roof to install it!

Also if you can see the molding on the wall next to the dresser, there is a little door on each side of the room that we can take off and there is a bunch of storage space in there.

To get to the new room you have to go through either one of the already existing bedrooms, hence the 2 doors!





The door on the right in this picture is the closet we added to Davis' room and the extension of his room for that.
This fall while Steve was working crazy hours I worked on re-doing our bedroom. I couldn't find a before picture, but here are some pictures of it now. The biggest project of course was hand stenciling the back wall. I LOVE how it turned out and it was worth the time to do it. I made the quilt and most of the pillows and painted the mirror (free from a neighbors yard sale) and the lamps (cheap from goodwill:). I am still on the hunt for the perfect (really cheap that I can re-do) bedside tables but have yet to find them!





Now I just have to finish the baby's room. I am currently drowning in fabric in my craft room and sewing every spare minute I can find! Hopefully I can get it done before she decides to show up!

Happy New Year!

We are looking forward to an amazing 2012...starting out this month with Emery turning 2 and welcoming a new baby girl to our family. Happy New Year!

Puzzle and Lego Crazy

I should have a picture of all the legos Davis has done since Christmas, too...but he has been on a puzzle and lego binge. He can't get enough. I am amazed at how long he will sit and work on these. He did a floor puzzle today that was 100 pieces-it is fun to watch his little brain figure out how to put them together. I guess that balances out all the Wii he has been playing since Christmas???

Letter to Santa

This was Davis' letter he wrote to Santa and I just thought it was so cute...had to document! I love that asked for some things for Emery since she couldn't write her own letter!

Christmas Morning

I have to say I just love Christmas more every year. It is so magical for kids and they make it so fun. I did have a hard time getting it together this year-maybe it has something to do with being 8 months pregnant-and I hope next year to be more on top of things and be able to enjoy the season with my family a little more...but it was worth every bit of it and I loved every second we had together. It was especially nice to have Steve home a little bit after such a busy time at work he has had this last fall.

Christmas morning did not disappoint. Davis was just so excited and I loved watching the kids open their presents-almost as much as they loved getting presents:) Santa was really good to us this year!!
I think these pillow pets have been my kids favorite gifts. They can't get enough of them. Davis saw them at Costco and immediately said that he wanted to get one for Emery for Christmas. So he did extra chores to earn money and used the money that he had been saving all year to buy it for her. It was the sweetest thing ever. He was so cute about it and was so excited when we went to the store to buy get it for her. She ended up getting him one too!







Not sure what this look was for, but I love it! Probably mad I was interrupting her to take a picture!