Makenzie Moreno

Well it happened.  Baby Makenzie Moreno has arrived!  Her due date was always December 22nd, and that's the day she came.  And I must say, it was impeccable timing.  Luis was out of town a few weeks before, so I was glad she didn't come then.  My mom didn't get here until the 15th, so I was glad she didn't come before that either.  Luis's parents didn't come until the 17th, so once again, I was glad she waited until she did so that everyone could be here for her debut.

Here are the basics of her story.  I had been feeling pretty good (as good as you can feel being 9 months pregnant) all week long.  And then came Saturday and my body hit a wall.  I felt drained of all my energy.  It was the day we were making our "Christmas Tamales," so I was very glad to have a lot of experts here to help out.  That night, I began feeling contractions and finally went to the hospital around 3:00 Sunday morning.  It was such a blessing having my Mom and Luis's parents here to watch Raquel for us while we were gone.  They were wonderful with her!  

Once we arrived at the hospital, I learned I was dilated to a 5, so they immediately started searching for a room for me.  While we were waiting, I heard them telling the pregnant woman a few curtains over, that since she was already dilated to a 7, it was unlikely she would get an epidural in time.  I didn't think too much of it at the time, but after waiting an hour for a room and a few more hours IN my room, I began thinking I might end up in the same boat as her.  Finally, the anesthesiologist took pity on me and ran up to give me an epidural in between C-sections (apparently there were an unusual amount of C-sections that night).  Like I've said before, epidurals are pure gold.

After that, I pretty much hung around looking gorgeous until they told me I was at a 10 and the baby was ready to come.  Dr. Dhaliwal (my doctor's partner) came in, broke my water, and we commenced pushing at 9:50 am.  At 9:52, Makenzie arrived!  That's right, I had a 2 minute labor.  It was glorious.  Makenzie is already on my good side:)

Right out of the shoot, Makenzie was looking for her first meal, so they tossed her over to me and had me start feeding her before they even took her weight.  Thankfully, she was one of those pro eaters who knew how to eat from the get-go.  When they finally measured her, she was 8 lbs 1 oz and 19 3/4 inches.  The nurse kept chuckling because her belly ended up with a bigger circumference than her head.  The sweetest moment was when she stopped crying and started cuddling with me the moment they handed her to me.  She knew her Mommy!

It was such a beautiful moment to be able to hold her and look at her, knowing where she had just come from.  It was very spiritual.  It was very different from Raquel's birth, since Raquel was whisked away to the NICU right away and I was left all by my lonesome wondering if she would live.  

My delivery nurse, Patricia, kept saying we should be the poster family for birthing experiences.  There were no complications, the labor was fast, and our baby was amazingly calm from the start.  It was a perfect labor and delivery, according to her.  Below is a picture of me with my nurse.  She was a sweetheart!

Later in the day, Makenzie received her first visitors.

Raquel wasn't sure what a Makenzie was, so she kept pushing her away.

What she DIDN'T push away, were her special "big sister treats" the hospital gave her.

Makenzie's other visitors included Abuelo y Abuela Moreno and Grandma Ferguson.

We love our sweet critter Makenzie very much!

I'm Back and I'm starting with October

What?  I'm blogging???  Why yes, yes I am.  I know you missed me, but its been hard to want to sit down and blog for some reason.  But, here I am and I'll try to get caught up.

It's too overwhelming to start where I left off, so I'm going to go ahead and skip to October.

First up, my birthday.  Luis didn't want to leave everything to the last minute, so he got everything while we were in Utah.  I LOVE that he was thinking about it that far in advance.  I felt very loved by all my family and friends who sent me cards, left me messages, called me, and dropped by gifts.

To celebrate, we headed to our favorite pumpkin patch.  Unfortunately, it was a bit of a let-down this year.  I like the good old fashion, feels like you're in the country type of pumpkin patches.  That's what this one has felt like every year.  This year though, it felt more like a carnival, with booths set up selling all sorts of junk and tons of bounce houses and other money-making attractions.  They did have a tractor ride included with the admission (which we've also never had to pay before).  As you can see, Raquel was delighted.

 

We ended up being suckers and paying the $6 fee for Raquel to ride a pony.  She wanted nothing to do with it at first, but once it got going, she loved it.

We ended the celebrations with pizza and a cake made by Luis.  Nothing says "happy birthday" like pizza and cake, in my book.

This year for Halloween, we went country and became cowgirls and a cowboy.  I found Luis's awesome jacket at DI.  When I first showed it to him he refused to wear it.  However, after trying it on and seeing how completely incredible it looked, he changed his mind.  We celebrated Halloween all month long with our ward Halloween party, Bass Pro Shop's fun Halloween festivities, and an all day Halloween party with Raquel and me since Luis had to work from 8am - 11pm.

Ward Party

(Luis and Raquel are in the back of the costume parade.  He said she kept yelling "yee-haw" the whole time they were up there.)

 Bass Pro Shops Festivities

The all-day party for Raquel and me

Texas - Volume 4

On Monday, we drove down to Laredo, Texas, a border town about 3 1/2 hours away from Seguin.  Luis's cousin, Martha, lives there, and let us stay at her house overnight.  We weren't able to cross the border, but we did get to visit with Lu's Tia Mague, who lives with Martha, as well as Tia Chavela and cousin Alejandra, who crossed from Mexico to see us.  I got a lot of Spanish practice at Martha's house.  They all only speak Spanish, including Martha's two little girls.  I don't think those two ever did understand why I only said "si" to them.  A couple of times I tried the old "no habla espanol," but they just only grew more puzzled and continued asking me questions.

Raquel LOVED having kids around, and Martha's two daughters equally loved having a baby around.  They shared their toys with her...

(From left to right: Mariana, Carla (cousin to the two girls), Adriana, and Raquel)

...and Raquel shared her books with them.

 (From left to right: Mom, Alejandra (Lu's cousin), Tia Chavela, Luis, Raquel, Adriana, Mariana)

(From left to right: Luis, Adriana, Martha (Lu's cousin), Tia Mague, Raquel, Mom)

 

On Tuesday morning, we drove back to Seguin and celebrated Mom's birthday!  Happy 52 madre!

My Baby is One!

I have been so excited for my baby to turn one!  What an accomplishment for her to now be a "year-er" instead of a "month-er."  (Though, I guess she is still a little bit of a "month-er" until she is outgrows 12 month, 18 month, and then 24 month clothes.)

A few days before her birthday, she received a package in the mail.  Almost nothing makes us more excited than packages in the mail!  I guess that's one perk of living far far away.  Inside the package we found a chunky puzzle and an outrageously cute petti-skirt.  Thanks Grandma & Grandpa!

Normally, we would have to wait to open birthday packages, but I had a feeling there would be some fun outfit inside that Raquelita would want to wear on her birthday.  (We did check with Daddy to make sure he didn't think the skirt was too wild for church, but luckily he gave his consent.)

Two days later, it was birthday time and Mommy & Daddy's turn to give gifts.  We have been hanging on to some of these toys since pre-birth, so I was super excited to get them out of our hiding spots (not like she's even mobile enough to go looking) and present them to our chulinda.

Not surprisingly, the wrapping paper was a pretty big hit.

Her birthday dinner request was homemade pizza, which she devoured.  Afterwards, cake time!  I put so much thought and effort into her cake last week, that I let Luis come up with her birthday cake this time.  He suggested a piggy face, to keep the farm theme going.  I unofficially put him in charge, which meant I was to bake the cake and he to create the masterpiece.  Unfortunately, life got busy and I ended up throwing it together last minute.  Thank goodness it was a simple idea!  I only wish I would've been smarter about the candle placement.  Tragically, Raquel's sweet and innocent piggy looks like he's smoking a joint.  I'm going to go ahead and blame that on Luis.

 After cake and ice cream, our little woman went off to bed.  I guess we should've let her stay up because Mother Nature suddenly decided to surprise us with one final present for Raquel...
California Snow!


Thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone!  Raquel had a super duper day!

Pre-Birthday Party

With SOMEONE's birthday just around the corner, the celebrations have officially begun!  Luis and I decided not to throw a big party for Raquel, but instead, chose to invite a few friends over for some cake and ice cream a week before her birthday.

 

Since Raquel will be getting several farm animal toys for her birthday (not planned), we decided to go with a farm theme.  It wasn't a PARTY, so we didn't go all out with decorations, but we did try to make it a little fun.

 

As you can see, Raquel was INCREDIBLY interested in her first cupcake.

 She thought the cupcake was mediocre, but what she really went for, was 

ICE CREAM!

It was so fun to have some of our friends over.  Even though bedtime was really late for some of us, the sugar rush set in and we all had a good time (though we did miss our McGarys and Ranes).

Raquel even scored some new duckies from the Mohlmans.

Happy almost birthday Raquel!