End of September / October

I forgot to post a few of these pictures in the September post, so I thought I would add them to this new post. At the end of September, we wanted to take a Sunday drive with the kids, so we drove to East Canyon Lake and let Ashley run around for a bit with her daddy. Since I was due to have our baby in four weeks, and not wanting to hike down the steep hill, I stayed in the car with Madison and let her roam around the front seat. She kept trying to push all of the buttons around the steering wheel and she honked the horn a few







On the 23rd or 24th of September I was having bad labor pains. I ignored them since my contractions were spaced pretty far apart. That night at 2 a.m. I started timing my contractions because they were painful and didn't seem that far apart. They say to go to the hospital when your contractions are three to five minutes apart, and mine were five minutes. Since I have my babies quickly, I decided we better not wait and head to the hospital. These pictures are what I look like 9 months pregnant, in pain, with no makeup, at 3 a.m.!! I wasn't going to post these pictures, but decided years from now I wanted to remember all that we went through to get baby Rylee here. I continued to have contractions in the hospital for the next two hours, but they said they were irregular and sent me home. I began to cry as we left the hospital, mixed with emotions from wanting the baby to get here, to feeling stupid for going to the hospital and not being in labor. Chris hugged me and told me many women probably go through this same thing and that the baby will come when she is ready. I love my husband!





Now to the month of October! We decided to carve pumpkins earlier in the month since we weren't sure when the baby would get here. We were worried we would be so busy with a new baby that we wouldn't take the time to carve them. We took Ashley and Madison to Albertson's to pick out their pumpkins. Yes, I know Albertson's, much more boring than going to a pumpkin patch, however, being 9 months pregnant I was just proud we carved them!

Chris picked out the largest pumpkin and then we went down in size from there and got everyone a pumpkin. Mine was next largest, then Ashley picked one for her, then Madison, and then a little tiny pumpkin for the new baby.

At first Ashley was excited to carve the pumpkins, but when she saw what she was going to have to touch inside the pumpkin, her excitement faded. She thought the "guts" of the pumpkin were so gross. She took a spoon and began to scrape them out, but wouldn't do it with her bare hands. She finally gave in once we showed her how we were putting our bare hands in our pumpkins.













Chris' pumpkin.


Melanie's pumpkin.


Our final masterpieces. The two in the middle are Ashley's and Madison's. Madison's says Boo, and Ashley's is a picture of Pac Man and ghost. With Ashley's pumpkin Chris tried carving the Pac Man and ghost without going all the way through the pumpkin. It didn't work very well because the flame from the small candle inside didn't light it up as well.



On October 14th I was scheduled to be induced. I was supposed to report to the hospital around 7:30 p.m. but when I called to see if I should head into the hospital, they said they had too many people currently in labor and that there wasn't a bed available yet. They told me to call back at 7:30 and they would then tell me if and when I was to report. After calling back, they told me to come in at 9:30 p.m. We knew if then, that it was going to be a long night. By the time we got to the hospital, checked in, changed into my gown, and got hooked up with my IV and petocin, it was almost 11:30 p.m. The rest of the night I tossed and turned trying to get comfortable enough to sleep, but between the nurses coming in to check on me, the blood pressure machine going off every few minutes, and the anxiety of labor, I only slept about 15 minutes.

Around 7 a.m. I knew it was time to go and Chris called in the nurse. I pushed twice, and beautiful Rylee Ann Brown entered the world.

We couldn't decide on a name and hadn't really talked much about what to name her before we got to the hospital. The night I was in labor Chris looked up a baby name website and we saw Riley. We liked it right away and Chris liked the middle name Ann. Since one of my best friends is named Ann, we wanted to spell it the same way. After a day or two of looking at the spelling of Riley, we decided to change it to Rylee as we were filling out the birth certificate paperwork.

The afternoon after Rylee was born, Chris went home to pick up his dad, and our girls. Boyd had driven up the afternoon before to be here to help take care of Ashley and Madison. Chris brought the girls to see me right before the hospital put a new rule into place that stated anyone under 14 was not allowed into the patients rooms. They were worried about the swine flu spreading. I was glad I got to see my girls because I missed them like crazy for the next two days.

Rylee was born at 7:14 a.m. weighing 8 lbs, and 19 1/4 inches long. She was hungry right away and started eating over two ounces out of the bottle a few hours after birth. She continued to eat and eat, and the nurses in the nursery told me she eats more than most of the babies they have seen.

She continues to eat more than my other two girls at that age. She can finish almost 5 ounces at each feeding and she is now only four weeks old.

Rylee is such a blessing and her sisters love her so much. Ashley loves to hold her and Madison likes to crawl over to Rylee when she is in her carseat on the floor and tap her face. She is really rough with her, but she is only trying to love her and she is too little to understand.

Chris taking a picture of me in the middle of a contraction!


He also took a picture of me while I slept for 15 minutes. The only sleep I got that night.
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5404489097687888994" />

Rylee right after she was born.






Grandpa and Rylee.


Aunt Camille trying to entertain Madison during their visit.


Daddy's turn to entertain Madison!




















Chris' dad had been up in Utah for a few days helping with the girls, however Jeanette wasn't able to come up until after work on Friday night. On Sunday we decided to get out of the house and go for a drive around the Alpine Loop. Within a few minutes, Madison had already fallen asleep.





We had packed a picnic lunch and stopped along the way at a nearby lake to have lunch at the lake picnic benches. It was really windy so we covered up Rylee so she wouldn't get sick. She was only four days old.



A few pictures from the lunch at the lake. We enjoyed the beautiful scenery, weather, and Ashley had fun running around and throwing rocks into the lake.













href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnztkmiyks_X0r4OtqVfnZ0Mk-6DrHRyp0iAmFxQpXrdyy7pdZ5ZG7HvqVPTdpCwRHCLFqujaecRTonUlx-CzhIepWRzqIBKi5HQGzHKXnMSWKkVmZ7KV9Ix_biQIZhSJTi2zOVRsC6f4p/s1600/Trip+10.JPG">





After lunch, we continued to drive until we found a lookout point on the loop. We stopped and took some family pictures.