Abby's birthday party

My niece, Abby just turned 6. It's crazy. When I met her for the first time, she was only about 8 months older than Hannah is now. I can't believe it's been that long. It's been fun to watch her grow up into such a little lady. She is such a sweetheart and we sure love her!

Emily loves Clara already.

Ice cream!!!

Playing with Uncle Luke

Hannah commandeered this slap-on watch that was part of one of Abby's presents. She cried when we took it off.

Abby rocking her cool new necklace

Cowgirl. Yeehaw!!

Emily wanted to test out the new hula hoop

Chillin

All of the kids wanted in on the "new bike" thing, so we went back outside and found as many bikes as we could. They had a blast.

Hannah was hilarious pushing Emery around on the trike

Welcoming Clara

So a couple weeks after Clara was born, we had a bunch of family over to see her. My intention had NOT been to have everyone over at the same time, but somehow that's what happened anyway. It was a crazy afternoon, but still a lot of fun.

Emily and Trish

Playing soccer with Uncle Eric

First time in a swing. She loved it!

The other Emily getting in on the fun

Sisterly love

Hannah loves Clara... sometimes. Hannah does not like to share. She hates when people hold Clara. She thinks their attention should be on her. This is really hard for me, since Clara just wants to be held. ALL the time. She literally does nothing but scream if she's not being held. She is the complete opposite of Hannah. Even at one month old, no one would have accused Hannah of being a snuggle-bug. But Clara definitely is. So Hannah gets mad at me all the time now. But every once in a while she likes her sister. She loves to sit next to me and hold Clara and gets mad when I take her away. On the seldom occasions when Clara plays on the floor, Hannah loves to read to her and help shake the rattle. She also likes to help me give Clara baths.

HELP!!!!!

So pretty

I have such pretty little girls. I love getting Hannah dressed for church. She loves wearing her dresses and she always looks so adorable. However, she's impossible to take pictures of these days. She will smile and say cheese, but she does it while running full tilt towards the camera. Oh well. I also took some glamor shots of Clara, cuz she's so cute. Enjoy.

CHEESE!!!!

Twirl!

Clara!

She's finally here!!! Clara Jane Whitworth was born on April 9, 2013 at 2:36 am. She weighed 9 lbs and was 21 inches long. She was 9 days late. I thought I was going to die. Hannah was 5 days early, so for me, the wait was excruciating. I'm not actually sure how long I was really in labor. I had been having lots of pain for two days, and I had been having contractions, but they were sporadic, so I had pretty much started to ignore them. Around 6 or 7 the contractions started coming more frequently, but we didn't start timing them until around 9:00. We had been planning a home birth, but when we called our midwife, she already had a woman in labor at the birth center. She wanted us to go up there so that she could deliver both of us, but after a few minutes of considering it, I broke down and sobbed. There was no way I could face getting in the car while in labor again. With Hannah we only got there 15 minutes before she was born and it was an absolutely horrible experience for me and I had vowed to never do it ever again. So Donnellyn called another midwife and had her come to us. I am SO glad we stayed home. I am very sad that Donnellyn wasn't able to be there; she is amazing and we love her dearly, but the experience of staying home was so wonderful it totally makes up for it. My friend Hollie also came to our house for the birth. She is a Doula, basically a trained birth assistant. Doulas help with things like helping you find comfortable birth positions, helping dads know what to do to help, providing relaxation helps like essential oils and hot packs, that sort of thing. For me, Hollie pretty much spent the whole time applying heat to my back. I was having lots of back pain and the heat helped immensely. When I was at about 8 cm, I got into our bath tub to finish labor. When I was pregnant with Hannah, I wasn't sure about birthing in the water, but now I recommend it to everyone. It was an even better experience this time, since I was able to labor in the water for a while before I actually started pushing. In a nutshell, this birth was everything I had hoped for with Hannah but didn't get because we didn't get there in time. All of the things I wanted to do differently, I did, and as a result, my recovery has been a million times easier and the birth experience was wonderful. With Hannah I was left with so many what if's and "I wish's." This time, I don't have any, which is a wonderful feeling.

Easter

The week before Easter, we got together with my mom, my brother, and his family for an early celebration. Hannah was, of course, thrilled to see Emily. My mom got them matching dresses and my dad got them matching bunny ears, so a photo shoot was definitely in order. Too cute!

So pretty!

I'm not sure what they were staring at..

Here, let me help you with that...