Picture fun with Baby Callie @ 1 Week Old

I took these pictures when Callie was a week old.  Mom and I figured out that she'd calm down and let me move her or whatever as long as the blow dryer was on.  Haha.  Good white noise.  Warm air on her little body every once in a while helped, too. 
This baby girl has slept with her right hand up on the side of her face or on her ear from day one.  She was probably squished in my belly with her hand like that.  Cutie.

Can't decide if I like these best in b & w or color.

 

I just can't get enough of this little face.

Cutie feet.

 

 

Grandma Fran sent us this white blanket and I've loved swaddling my babies in it.  I like that Callie's eyes are open in this one.  They are a really dark blue/grey.  Much darker than her siblings.  Pretty sure they'll be dark brown like Jakes!

Jake was nice and agreed to be part of a picture session.  For about three minutes.  He was a little worried he'd get peed on.  What's a little baby pee though?  ;)

I have a picture of me holding Ella like this.  Thought it would be fun to have Jake holding Callie this time around.  She looks so little in her daddy's arms.

  I took some more with Luke and Ella the next day.  Can never have TOO many baby pictures :)

 

First few days with #3

First bath at home.  Well, first sponge bath I should say.

Her mad crying face looks just like Luke's mad face as a baby.

 Callie got to hang out for a couple of days with Grandpa Paul.  Mom and dad helped out so much while here. Entertaining the older kiddos, babysitting, cleaning, cooking, helping with baby, and everything else. They probably needed a vacation after their England vacation!  Thanks again for coming!

 Ella is a cutie big sister.  She loves to carry around her lamb that sings Mary Had a Little Lamb. She sings along at the top of her lungs.  Anyway, she was excited to show it to Callie.  Here she is giving lamb a piggy back ride.

and showing it to Callie...

 

And of course Luke and Ella did a little reverting.  Ella took over Callie's car seat as her movie watching chair.

 They both wanted to be made into 'baby burritos' too.

 

  Mom with Callie... 

 

 

It was a fun and exhausting first few days.  Great having a tiny baby to snuggle again and a challenge trying to figure her out.

Baby Callie. Home from the Hospital :)

  Callie and I stayed one night at the hospital before heading home the next afternoon.  Here she was all ready to go home in her car seat :)

 

Home!  Ella had been wanting to shove a binky in her mouth from the time we bought a few at the store weeks earlier.  Too bad my babies have all hated them.  Callie spits them out after not even two seconds.   

In love with this new baby sister...  :)

♥♥♥ Baby Callie's Arrival! ♥♥♥

On July 6 at 12:23 pm, we welcomed Callie Olivia Smith to the world! 
She weighed 7 lbs 15 oz, and was 19.5 inches long.  It was love at first sight.  Such a sweet and beautiful little cutie!  I would love to relive those first few hours with my babies over and over and over again.  After all the waiting and anticipating and day dreaming about what baby will be like, finally being able to snuggle her/him and look into her/his little eyes is incredible.    Every time.
Here are some of Callie's first pictures  :)

 

 

 

I was surprised at how dark and how much hair she had!  She liked getting her hair washed :)

 Luke and Ella were soo excited to meet her.  I guess they were looking out the windows and asking when Jake would be there to bring them all to the hospital.  Ella was excited to see her little feet for some reason.  Cutie. 

 

Cute big brother.  Outnumbered by girls now!

And the big sister! 

Cute dad.

 

Meet Grandma Pam!

And Grandpa Paul!  I was so glad she came before he had to go back to Arizona.  He left super early the following Tuesday morning, so they got to hang out for a couple of days together.

First family picture :)

Callie's birth story.

After walking so many miles sightseeing for over a week with mom and dad, I thought I'd go into labor on my own. Not the case! Despite having a lot of contractions, this little girl just wasn't coming. Needless to say, I was anxious to get her here!! On the 5th I had a Dr. appt and after a sob story she agreed to put us on the books to be induced the next morning. They don't do that often around here. I was so excited that I'd get to hold my baby the next day (if she didn't decide to come on her own before then of course!).

Later that evening (the 5th) we got a phone call from another doctor telling us NOT to come in the next morning for the induction, but that they would call us if a bed opened up. Seriously!? So annoying. Supposedly it was looking like a busy day and with so many beds "full" they didn't want to deal with my induction. I was so bummed!! Determined to go into labor on my own, I walked and walked and walked around the neighborhood that night trying to keep the contractions going. They'd come and were coming pretty strong but would stop shortly after I'd stop moving. I couldn't sleep at all that night. At around 5 in the morning, we decided to call Labor and Delivery like the doc at my appointment told us to do. The nurse Jake talked to over the phone told us to come on in! (Great thing and sometimes not-so-great thing about military medicine... nurses often outrank docs and are the ones in charge) I threw some stuff in my bag and we drove the whopping five minutes to RAF Lakenheath hospital. Mom and dad stayed at home with Luke and Ella. I was nervous that the hospital would be sending us back home shortly after arriving... we didn't really mention that phone call from the other doctor telling us not to come in. Luckily that doc wouldn't be showing up for work for a while. (Hehe...)  We never saw her although she was working on the floor that day.  

They put us in a room and gave me a gown around 6:00, hooked me up to a monitor around 6:30, and then we sat around for a while during shift change, etc. Around 7:30 they came in to set up my IV and to draw blood for labs. The girl who started my IV was either having a bad day or needed some serious pointers. I was afraid to watch since she seemed so nervous and I could see blood squirting out of my arm out the corner of my eye. What the ?? I thought IVs were supposed to be a cinch. Finally around 8:30, a lady came in and introduced herself as the one who would be delivering baby and they started the pitocin. Dr. Mcdonnel. (Apparently she's the wife of one of the commanders on base and just volunteers at the hospital to keep up her doctor credentials while living here. I'd never seen her before.)

They had asked me if I wanted my epidural as soon as I could get it or if I wanted to wait a while. Why would I want to wait?? Pain? No thank you. I wanted it as soon as I could have it! Dr Mcdonnel came in at 10:30 to break my water and they called the nurse anaesthetist for my epidural. Epidural lady came in at 11:15. While she was doing her thing she kept saying things like "oh no, this hasn't happened to me before..." and was asking the nurse for more bandages and scissors, etc. Guess it wasn't in right and instead of redoing it, she tried to 'fix' whatever went wrong. To make the story short, the epidural didn't work. At all.  For some reason it made my arms all tingly though. Weird!   I guess the nurse anaesthetist gave up on the situation and was nowhere to be found when the contractions started to get bad and I knew it wasn't working. Dr. Mcdonnel seemed really old school and pretty much told me to suck it up and have the baby. Why some women choose to go au naturel when birth can be such a different experience is beyond me. Ugh!! Jake was more annoyed with the pain control situation than I was though.  Cutie.  Luckily baby came pretty fast! At 12:23 she was here!   

 

Part 3 of Mom & Dad's Visit: A lovely 4th of July in London :)

I had been hoping that baby would give us some time before her arrival to go with mom and dad to London.  Luckily we were able to fit it in on the 4th of July.  We started the day with a bus tour since it seems to be the easiest way to show visitors the city.  We lucked out that it didn't rain.  Sitting on the open top is best for pictures!

 

 

 

Dad took a lot of the pictures on here.. he got some good ones!  thanks dad! 

 

Mom and I both paid attention to where the hospitals were when we passed them.  haha... just in case.  One of the things I learned on the tour this time was that this is where Florence Nightengale set up her nursing school.  St Thomas' Hospital.   Part of it is a museum now.

First visit where 'the shard' has been finished!   Pretty boss looking.

 

 

Thought these guys were cool.

 

Another new fact learned this trip:  this statue of Churchill is the only one in London that has an electric current going through it.   To keep birds, (poop) off of it.  Ha.

 

More pics of the city. 

 

This guy looked like a statue in front of the National Gallery.  Luke walked over and touched him.  He was SOOo surprised when it moved!  haha.

 

We walked from Trafalger Square down to Buckingham Palace.  Had to go a roundabout way since they were setting up the Olympic beach volleyball venue.

 

 

 Cute mom and dad in front of Buckingham..

 

 

 

 After that we walked across the street to St. James Park.  We love hanging out here.  Had to show the squirrels and the park to grandma and grandpa.  We took peanuts but the squirrels are overfed and uninterested on warm summer days..  it was hard to find takers this time!  There was a lady with a big garbage bag of nuts just chilling on the park bench.  Pretty sure she ruins everyones chances of feeding the squirrels.  haha.

 

 

Found one little fatty one that wanted more!

 I was watching 101 Dalmatians with the kids the other day and it was fun to see that a huge chunk of the movie is filmed in this park.  Kind of fun :)

 After the park excursion we headed over for the river tour.  I love the pictures you can get from the river, too. 

 

Fun to see the rings up!

This huge pic was put up over a building for the Jubilee celebration. I like it. 

  getting off the boat...

 

We stopped at Olympic Village on the way home.  It was fun to see!  A really short stop though.  I was getting anxious thinking that this baby would make an appearance at any time.  I had a few little contractions that day and was starting to get a little paranoid.  Probably just crazy hormones because nothing happened that night. Or the day after.  Here's Luke and Ella with an Olympic mascot.  I think it's supposed to be a flame.  I never really did figure out what exactly these guys were supposed to be.

 

 

Olympic Stadium.  I had to take this picture from super far away because they weren't letting people go anywhere near it for security reasons.   I'd like to go back to check it out now that the Olympics are over.

Cute lovebirds on the tube!

 

 I wish we could have had a couple more days in the big city with mom and dad, but I'm glad we got some time in London before Callie came!  Next time they come we'll have to do a few more things.  It was a fun 4th :)
Also, we found out later that night that Daniel and Lauren had their baby girl, Camry, earlier that day in Utah!  So fun that our little girlies are so close in age!