A White Nursery

Charlie's nursery became baby Set's nursery a few months ago. Charlie might be sad about that, except that he LOVES sleeping in a big boy bed in a room with Annette. I was all worried about how those two would do sharing a room, but they have actually been easier to put to bed. For nap/rest time, Charlie sleeps in their room and Annette watches a show or plays in my room. It works for us.

Here was Charlie's room. I loved (still love) that red crib I painted myself, but, I didn't like much else about the room : / I blame some of my quick choices on the fact that I was plain pooped most of the time when I was pregnant with him. Annette was still so young... and a strong willed handful at that. Love her to pieces, but she is full of ideas and personality. 

When we found out we were having a boy, I started pinning lots of stuff for a shared bedroom for my older two kids and stuff for our new little man. 

Thought I'd keep the crib red. Yet, after using chalk paint on several other pieces around the house, I just had to paint the crib with it too. Glad I did. 

Here is what I came up with using mostly things we already had.

I had our pal, Darrell, paint the walls white. Was nervous to do this since I usually think of white as too stark or something, but when I looked at all my favorite pins.... almost all of them had white walls. I really like their brightness. 

I made a little slipcover with a ticking striped apron. Don't look too closely or you'll see signs of my amateur sewing skills, but for the big price of 5$ I turned an old stool into something more cottagey.

These two antler deals were collecting dust in our carport. Isaac seemed proud I used some of his hunting treasures in the room. I did paint the wooden pieces white, but that was a quick fix. 

 I found the two frames in a pile of items that said "take me, i'm free" at Harding's professional center one weekend. I obliged. And then had some vintage book pages matted at Hobby Lobby to fit the frames. 

That ladder I had from Charlie's nursery. Got it from Sweet Home over by Haus Werk in Hillcrest. 

Love both those stores.

The lamp was from Target on clearance. Probably because it was purple. 

An easy fix with white spray paint. :)

The chair is upholstered in a striped fabric. I wanted white. (More white in a nursery, am I crazy? :)

I found a slipcover that had very similar dimensions as my chair on Ballard Design's website. On sale of course. I really should tailor it to fit it just right, but it fits well enough for now. 

Linen crib skirt off eBay, and the bumper pad was a Saver's steal at a whopping $3.99. It's Serena and Lily, too! I was thrilled to find it just sitting on the shelf waiting for me to walk by:))

Bookshelf we had in Annette's room

The curtains were a gift from my sweet mom. (from JC Penney) Thank you!

We will see how long I can keep the white things looking white. 

Excited to have little Set here now to make it complete. 

Happy Weekend.

~morgan

Christmas 2012

We had Christmas Eve over at my mom's, Christmas morning at our house (trampoline, 'real' glass slippers, scooter, lawn mower toy and a 'teacher' set were the most loved Christmas surprises). We had brunch and lunch at my mom's with her side of family, and then headed to Isaac's parents for Christmas evening. Ended up staying two nights due to road conditions and the nice fact that they had power while most of our neighborhood didn't. Baby Set was a trooper through it all. He is so easy right now it's a bit alarming. I'll be ready to go to his first doc visit tomorrow to see if he's gaining weight and all that stuff. I need reassurance that its normal to have such a non-needy infant.

We've enjoyed the snow, yummy food, seeing family from out of town, pallets on the floor at Nonnie's, quality time with siblings/parents/cousins/ and lots of fun giving and gift getting.

We did have a pretty scary moment when a large pine limb came crashing down on top of my car and on my dad carrying Annette. Lets just say it scared us have to death, but left us feeling very grateful that we all walked away unharmed. Which is more than I can say for my car.

Other than that, it was a delightful holiday. Still no family picture of the 5 of us, but I'm determined to get one before the new year.

Meet Set... and our new family of five

We got to meet Set last week. What a joy to have this new sweet baby in our family. Three is much different than 2, but so far Set has made it relatively easy on us.

Below the photos you'll see the story of the week long adventure that brought him here... just in time for Christmas :)

 Charlie was instantly interested in holding Set, while Annette was much more unsure :) Now, at home, she is holding him, kissing him all the time. She for sure has a maternal, big sister type instinct that kicked in quickly.

And there should be a picture here with all 5 of us, but that just didn't happen. Maybe we will get one of those soon.

With my first two, I only had to push 5-15 minutes. This little guy took a full hour. I was pretty tired by this point. Especially since I hadn't had more than 3 hours of sleep in the last 3 days.

 And then came the NICU.

 While I would never want to have to visit the NICU again, I do have to say how impressed I was with this floor at UAMS. They went way out of their way to make our stay comfortable. We had amazing nurses and doctors all over the place watching our new baby's every move and vital sign. AND they let us stay right there in his private room the whole time. They loved on us so well with gifts.... framed pic with Santa, a precious hand knit hat, handmade knit booties, a bag full of goodies... and with their expertise and hospitality.

He didn't make a peep the whole 6 minute drive home. Our other two cried from the second they were strapped in until they got out. This baby is very laid back... so far :))

Very fun watching our two kids become siblings all over again. WE. ARE. SO. BLESSED.

So for those of you who care to hear the whole story, here it is below:)

The birth story....

Around 5:30 am on Tuesday morning, Isaac and I went into hospital. Was having moderate contractions according to the hospital monitors and was at 3 cm dilated. They had me stay for a few hours to see if labor would progress. I really thought they would keep me and Set would be here on Tuesday. That was the plan. Yet, since I wasn't 39 weeks, the docs were nervous to induce unless I showed real progression over the next couple hours. SOOO, for the next hour or so I got up and all but ran around the hospital. Went up and down the stairs, jumped around, did all types of yoga positions, everything I could think of to and try to bring on more contractions. I just got to about a 3 1/2, maybe 4 cm. They sent me home. I wasn't happy. I knew it was probably for the best, but I was not happy. Luckily, my sweet doc told me to come back early the next morning if I thought I'd made more progress. I told myself I could make some progress happen over the next 24 hrs.

My mom had the kids and Isaac and I spent  the day putting together a trampoline for the kids for Christmas, going to Wal-Mart, we wrapped presents, cleaned out and cleaned up.... we walked up and down the neighborhood, ran errands, and even went for hopefully our last dinner date as parents of 2. Isaac put up with my foul mood amazingly well. I had lots more contractions throughout day, so I was very hopeful that Wednesday would be D day.

Went to the hospital around 3:00am on Tuesday morning. I was feeling terrible. Achy and contracting, and very ready to get the show on the road. I was at a 4 when we arrived. Hallelujah. I noticed my baby's heart rate was hovering in the 200s. Google told me that was high. I mentioned it to nurse, but they didn't seem alarmed. As I waited rather impatiently in triage, my aches grew and I started to feel chilled and then feverish. My temp was 100.4. This meant baby boy would need to come out today. I got nervous that they would have to do an emergency section or that he would be very sick when he arrived. My impatience turned to worry. And I felt pretty darn sick.

They admitted me, got my epidural started, and started pitocin. Epidural worked well for the first couple hours, then they broke my water and that sent my pain over the top.  Epidural was providing no relief. They offered to redo it, and I'm glad I decided to take them up on that offer. I felt a thousand times better with the second epidural. Basically no pain. It was wonderful. Then, when I was about 8 or 9 cm at around 3:00pm, the baby's heart rate started acting up. I've never wanted to get my baby out so much. They said it was time to push him out. I knew that ideally, I'd wait longer and let him get further down into my pelvis, so pushing wouldn't take so long, but at this point I was willing to push and push and push until I saw him in my arms and out of harms way.

They had me laying on different sides, sitting in different positions when his rate would drop so low. I was terrrrrified. Terrible moments. As the doctor told me to to push, the baby's heart would go up and down. After an hour, I finally pushed him out. The cord had been around his neck and I'm oh-so grateful the doctor got him out safely.

HAPPY, elated, THRILLED to hear his sweet cry when he finally belted it out. Weighing 7.7.7 and 21 3/4  inches long he was our biggest baby. Annette was 6.9, Charlie 7.4.
Yet, he had a temp of 100.4. And mine was 101.4. They said they might need to take him to NICU because of our fevers. They'd observe him for a bit more and get some blood work and then decide.

In a couple of hours they decided he needed to get antibiotics and that his glucose counts were too low to stay in the room with me. Sad, sad moment for me. One  of my favorite things about UAMS is that they don't put babies in a nursery unless they are sick. They just stay in your room with you, which I truly love.

But, he had to spend his first 3 nights in the UAMS nicu. And let me tell you, it wasn't very fun. BUT, that place is amazing. Each baby gets their own private room. Each room has a little couch/bed for the parents to sleep on overnight. I was very very grateful that I got to be with him, hold him, and still nurse him while we were down there. And the last night I had been discharged as a patient myself, and could just stay with him the whole day and night. MANY of the babies around us were very sick, and I spent lots of the quiet time in prayer for our new baby and the ones around us.

Thankfully, his counts and cultures kept coming back with good results and we got to come home Saturday morning! Praising God all the time for this precious gift.

It took us up until the last few hours at the hospital to decide on a name. We picked quite an unusual one, but it is very meaningful to us. Wilson Setzler Smith, or "Set", was named after several people on Isaac's side of the family (Isaac's dad and brother's middle names are Wilson, Isaac's grandmother's maiden name was Wilson) and Setzler is of course in honor of my side of the family.Although unusual, I think he can pull it off quite well : )

WE LOVE YOU little Set. You make our family feel so much more full and your sweet, gentle personality makes this transition so much easier.

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Merry Christmas Eve, y'all :)

LOVE, 

the Smiths.... Family of Five.