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...

"Gramma house!"

Hannah loves to go to "Gramma house." She doesn't care which Grandma's house, just as long as it's a Grandma's house. And she asks to go to Grandma's house constantly. And she loves it even more when there are cousins there to see. Especially my brother's little girl Emily. Hannah asks for "Trish, Emily, Eric" at least 5 times every day. So when you put both of her favorite things together, it makes for one happy Hannah. A couple of weeks ago, they made their first trip to Fort Worth since Emily was born and we had dinner at my Mom's house. Hannah was in hog heaven.

Look, Uncle Eric! I'm holding Emily!

Emily's not too sure about this arrangement.

"MINE!"

Kisses!

zoo adventure with the cousins

While the Irish family was in town, we went to the zoo and met up with my sister-in-law, Natalie, and her three girls. It was a fun, long, crazy day. Hannah had a blast being carried around by Stacey, which was good because at first she and her cousins had a bit of a fight over who got Grandma. Poor Cheri. She needs a clone. We did some things we've never done before, like go to the amphibian house which was a lot of fun.

I was the only one brave enough to touch the snake. What a bunch of woosies.

Flamingos!

The white tiger likes to pace back and forth in front of the viewing window, which is totally awesome. It's so pretty!

watching the white tiger

Monkeys!!!!

Hahahahaha. Don't ask.

family visit

A few weeks ago, Dan's sister Christy and her family came for a visit from Ireland. They were here for two weeks, and so we got to spend a lot of time with them. Hannah loves her Irish cousins and the feeling is definitely mutual. They spent lots of time playing and singing with her. Leah, who's 8, spent a LOT of time playing with Hannah and even taught her "Ring around the rosie" and now it's her favorite game. She gets really confused and frustrated with other little kids when they don't know it or aren't as interested in playing it as she is. She can't understand why anyone wouldn't want to walk around in circles 50 million times. She definitely misses Leah a lot. She misses the older girls too, and asks for them every day now. She doesn't quite get the concept that they live thousands of miles away. She still expects them to be at Grandma's house all the time. My oldest niece, Stacey, is extremely talented. She has a beautiful singing voice and is very good at the guitar. One night we were able to get her to serenade us for a while. Hannah wasn't sure what to make of the guitar at first, but eventually we were able to get her to strum it. It was funny watching her watch Stacey, though. As you'll see in the video, she was pretty mesmerized and wanted to figure out how she was playing the guitar, but then she'd get scared and back away.

Swinging like a big girl with Leah

Getting pestered by Becky