Christmas Cards Anyone?

Have you ordered your Chirstmas Cards yet? We have had great success with Shutterfly in years past, so after browsing through countless great designs on their website, I think I have finally came to a decision :) There are so many options out there this year!! Here are some of my runner-up favorites:
Also, they have great new options for photo books and have a 20% off photo book promotion going on right now...great Christmas gift idea.

And are you a blogger? If so, if you write up a blog post on why you love Shutterfly, you will receive 50 free Christmas Cards...so yep, those who get Christmas Cards from us this year, you can thank Shutterfly for their generous offer so that our beautiful faces can go on your fridge! If you want more info, click here

But in all honesty, they really do have some great Christmas photo card options, and good prices and deals...right now there is also a deal for free shipping with any $30 purchase...go for it! We want your faces on our fridge too :)

July/August Highlights

Here are some highlights of what we've been up to lately:

Lucy has really been enjoying being a big sister!

Justin and Lucy went on a little overnight camping trip...he is very brave :)

Lucy has successfully moved into a "big girl bed" and Claire is now in the crib (in the same room). So far, so good.

We have spent a lot of time hanging in the kiddie pool in the backyard during the hot summer days here.

We had a great 4th of July weekend vacation to SLO to visit our friends Sara & Wes, enjoy some nice time together as a family, and of course EAT, EAT, EAT!! (thanks again Whit's for letting us use your amazing house!)

And of course we've been enjoying our little 3 month old Claire Bear :) She is smiling, giggling, and growing up so quickly!

We went to Chico to visit our friends the Payne's and meet their new little girl Leona (left). Here's the girls in their matching outfits. Leona is about a month older than Claire, and their son Tobin is a day younger than Lucy (below).

Hope you all are having a great summer!

June Fun

June was a busy month for us with lots of family fun, including Nicole & Caleb's Wedding!!

Here's some pics:

Lucy & Claire are pals already...as much as they can be anyways at this point! (Claire just turned 2 months on July 1st)

Claire is such a joyous little girl, a real sweetie!

Jen, Mark & Conner (and baby girl in the tummy :), came out for a week around Nicole's wedding. Lucy had so much fun being "just like Conner"...seriously, the girl wanted to do EVERYTHING Conner did - which actually worked great to get her to go down the aisle with him and the other kids in the wedding! Here they are playing light sabers.

We've also been enjoying having Max, Renee, Karis, & Kaden (and another baby girl in the tummy!) here visiting from Guatemala. Lucy LOVES hanging out with these kids!

And here are a few pictures from Nicole & Caleb's BEAUTIFUL wedding!

3 weeks

Our little Claire is already 3 1/2 weeks old...and time is going by way too fast! She is such a great baby, eating and sleeping really well. She seems very easy going so far, doesn't mind being in the bouncer, swing, or on the playmat for extended periods of time, which is nice because it allows me to give Lucy the attention she needs.

Here are some (ok, a lot) of pictures from the last few weeks:

A friend at work gave Lucy these cool sunglasses and she LOVES them! She really has raked in the gifts as a big sister :)

We've had many friends visit to meet Claire, most of which I forgot to take pictures of, but here are Rachel and Rees who came from Palo Alto. So fun to get to hang out with Rachel (and the other Rachel too who I forgot to get pics with) and Rees!

Here we decided to put Claire in Lucy's little play changing station...she's showing her the baby mobile.

Lucy has been a GREAT helper! Her favorite things are to throw away Claire's diaper (she always grabs them after I change her and says "thank you mommy" for the diaper...ha!) and to help give her a bath.

And here's Lucy making hair for her animals out of Play Dough. We had another rainy day today and have been doing all the inside activities we can...we are ready for summer and to get outside!

Goodnight!

Claire's Birth Day!

Claire Helen Pfaffinger

Born May 1, 2010. 6lbs 14oz.

Disclaimer for the Guys: Birth story follows, if you don't want details, skip to the pictures :)

After some complications (same as Lucy), our doctor and us decided to induce me this past Saturday morning. After being induced with Lucy, this was not an easy decision...quick recap of Lucy's birth: 18hrs on cervidil and pitocin to induce labor, water broke naturally at that point, contractions instantly went thru the roof, requested epidural at 20 hrs, epidural didn't work until 21 hrs (when I was at 10cm and ready to push), they had me rest 2 hrs (during which epidural wore off), then pushed for 2 hrs...total 25 hrs!

Claire's birth = amazing!

Here's the scoop:

We arrived at the hospital at 8 am, checked in and got in that gorgeous hospital gown. At 8:30, the nurse had called my doctor and said we were starting off with Pitocin...at which point I about had a heart attack. Now I know I went there to get induced, but was thinking they would start with some sort of cervical ripener to get things ready for the Pitocin (I was 2-3 cm to start). After the nurse talked me down of the ledge, she put in the IV and got the Pitocin starting. It was like sitting there playing with a jack in the box...knowing the contractions were going to hit hard, but not knowing when. After about an hour or so, I could feel the contractions and was breathing through them, but they weren't that bad. At 10:50 my doctor showed up and said she was going to break my water (I was 4cm). Now after what happened with Lucy, again I was really hesitant to do this...I knew once my water broke things would get hard. By 11:15 my contractions were coming every 2 minutes and lasting 60-90 seconds each. I was gripping the bed rail trying to breath through them, but they were so hard and fast that I then requested the epidural. At 11:45 I got the epidural and at noon was still 4 cm and 80% effaced. Life was better again, for a few minutes...Since I was comfortable and still pretty early, I told Justin to head to the cafeteria to get something to eat for lunch. A few minutes after he left I got really light headed and started to black out. It happened so fast that I couldn't call the nurse, so called her afterwards and she checked my blood pressure and said I was normal. I had her get me some juice because I thought maybe my blood sugar had dropped or something, chugged the juice and felt ok. Then a few minutes later, it happened again. This time I quickly hit the nurse's page button and she and another nurse ran in, my blood pressure had dropped to 47/25 (I'm usually about 105/70...which is low to start with). They pump my IV full of Ephedrine, which made my heart race out of control, and put the oxygen on me...at which point Justin walks in...poor guy thought I was dying or something :) This happened two more times, and they kept giving me the Ephedrine, which made me feel temporarily better. The nurse saw that my contractions were coming every minute and lasting a full minute. She turned down the Pitocin at that point and said the contractions needed to slow down, that my body and the baby couldn't take it. At 2pm she checked me and I was 8cm. Then at 2:30 I started feeling pressure and the urge to push. Now with Lucy, my epidural was so strong that I never felt this, which led to a very ineffective pushing time. I had Justin look because I felt like the head was right there and sure enough, he thought he saw some hair. So he paged the nurse and yep, I was fully dilated and ready to go. They called the doctor (who was gardening) and at 2:45 she was there and started to get things ready. She had me do one "test push" to see if things were ready and told me that the baby would be out in just a few pushes...which of course I didn't believe since Lucy took so long. The second push the head came out! Then the third push she was out (at 2:58)! Since we didn't know what she was, the doctor held her up and said "call it dad". Well both of us are looking at her and since she was so swollen and her umbilical cord was in the way, we had no clue! The doctor finally said, "it's a girl"!! I think both Justin and I didn't realize how much we thought we were having a boy and how much we really wanted it to be a girl, until that moment. We are really excited for Lucy to have a little sister and to have another sweet little girl. All in all, Claire's birth was night and day from Lucy's...for the better :)

Here are a bunch of pictures...

Before picture...

Lucy has been great with Claire. She loves to lie down next to her on her blankets and to give her kisses. She has been really helpful to me too, bringing me burp cloths, paci's, and blankets.

We had lots of visitors at the hospital. Here's Justin's sister Marla and her kids, Jane and Alex. (Uncle Rick was there too, but somehow escaped a picture :)

My sister, Nicole, and her fiance Caleb (who will be married in just a few weeks - wahoo!!)

My dad and Sue (Opa & Oma), along with Sue's parents (Grandma and Papa to Claire), and Sue's niece Ashley.

Justin's parents, Nana & Papa

Looking at baby pictures of Lucy, Claire reminds us SO much of her!! Some pictures even I get confused on whose who.

The differences we've noticed so far:

Claire is a lot smaller than Lucy - she is fitting in preemie/newborn clothes that Lucy never did.

Claire's head is a lot smaller, she fits in a beanie I had made for Lucy that Lucy never fit.

Claire's hair is a lot lighter and thinner than Lucy's was.

Claire's head is not as round as Lucy's was.

It will be fun to see what they look like as they grow up and see their similarities and differences.

We are so happy that Claire is finally here and thank you all for your support and prayers during this pregnancy and delivery!!

-The Pfaffs