A blustery early spring day in S. Idaho

Helen's down for her evening nap and Emma's busy with supper... I've got about 2 1/2 minutes to get this posted.

She's our little raspberry. Amazingly enough, she manages to get the food down her throat in the midst of all of the vulgar noises.

 The youngsters in Ohio

 Another critter we met

 Arlen taking in the view from the hilltop he's coveting

Helen sitting up all by herself!

More pictures of the girls

Our goat. Doing a puzzle at mom and dad's on our winter trip.

A couple hair shots of Emma.

We need to get a good one of her morning bed-head...

Yes, it's naturally that curly. No, we don't perm it. (We really did get asked that once! Who perms a not-even-two-yet's hair?)

 It's all in the timing...

Deep in conversation? Or trying to pull Helen's pants off?

 Emma has rediscovered the bouncy chair. She can get in but extracting herself is a tad more complicated. "No worries, mom and dad always show up eventually if yell loud enough!"

Speaking of yelling...

Our towns rock

"A recent slew of cross-river rivalry antics escalated after the traditional spirit rocks of Minico High School and Burley High School were vandalized in a series of one-upmanship and retaliation.
According to school officials, the escalation began after a porcelain toilet was deposited near Minico’s spirit rock early last week. After the toilet incident, retaliatory actions were taken against Burley when an outhouse and livestock animal manure was scattered on and around the Bobcat spirit rock along with a dead cat. The vandalism came to a head on the morning of Wednesday, March 6, 2013 when the Spartan spirit rock was discovered to be littered with eight dead calves." The Voice, 13 March, 2013

Anyway, enough of that. I decided we really ought to post a few pictures of the girls. Actually, my aunt decided for us: she asked if she could see the blog and I thought she might enjoy reading more than a history book- we all know how boring that is!
So, a few random shots...

Emma has a fetish with Scout's pillow so we got her a pillow of her own. She loves to sit on it and read books, play with blocks... Mommy thinks it's a great pillow too!

 Las Vegas! Courtesy of the Pampered Chef!

 Chocolate fountain.

 Holland in the Bellagio.

A random high-heeled shoe in our hotel lobby... only in Vegas.

Gotta run. School is calling...

Hope to get more up soon- soon being a relative term!
ps: We changed the blog to public

The weather outside is frightful

And inside it isn't much better.

A tornado of sorts swept through here this afternoon. Not sure what kind of damage it may have caused but it missed us. Just a lot of rain on our heads.

 Our own personal tornado. Yes, I see it now. That's mini-me sitting betwixt the flower and the mixer. I've never really been able to see myself in my daughter but every so often I catch a glimpse of the mirror.
And our little tornado in training.

Helen's doing well. She is a little bit jaundiced but we're doing double duty feeding and it's perking her up. She's eating on a regimented schedule of every two hours, even if it means waking her up. Pump and feed with a syringe before the actual feeding. Two hours from the start of one feeding session to the start of the next. Which means that momma gets about two and a half minutes off between feeding processes. She's a trooper.

Sleep?

What sleep?

We'll get to that eventually.

Life is beginning to return to its new normal. (Can you return to something when it's new?) Momma came home today, with Nanna and Pappa in tow. They decided to come out for the long weekend. When I first saw the school schedule I figured that a three day weekend after only one week back was a bit ridiculous. I've changed my mind. I managed not to get dropped from any of my classes in spite of the rule about mandatory attendance the first week. I did have to make up a lab this afternoon though. Three hours on a metal stool after being at school all day. Oh happy day.

Helen is eating like a champ, absolutely beautiful, making her sister jealous. I've had to put the brakes on a few times when I look at Emma. All at once she's the big sister and I catch myself having these strange, spontaneous expectations of her that I didn't have 48 hours ago and that are way over her head. Knock it off Wilson. They don't need help growing up any faster than they already do!

Momma and company getting ready to head home. Not much of a picture of Helen. It does highlight her dark hair. We aren't sure who she's supposed to look like. Guess we'll just have to let her look like Helen. Sorry we don't have any more pictures right now. We'll try to rectify that...

A couple random shots of the storm we're having. I know, I know. Wasting film on lightening instead of Helen. She's feeding right now.....enough said.

Helen Rene Wilson

Hey, who put that one in there? That's just gross.

Actually, it was really really cool!

I got to catch her when she came out, cut the umbilical chord, weigh her... Well on my way to being a midwife! They were great. Momma pushed her out sans drugs. She's not sure she'll try that stunt again! It was a noisy affair, but little Helen hardly made a peep. "Hmmm, looks like someone's already taking care of the screaming and yelling- I'll head straight to the boob." And that's exactly what she did. Five minutes old a eating like a champion.

She was 8lb 5oz, 22 inches long.

Actually, the conversation went something like this:

"Eight pounds, six ounces. You want to come check?..."

"I guess- looks like eight four to me. Wait it bounces a little..."

"I'd say eight six..."

"Ok, split the difference, eight five."  

Note: momma was not on the phone just moments after birth. This was actually about an hour later.

The grim birther. Ok, that's not funny. She's just resting on the birthing ball, all bundled up because she was a titch chilly.

 The main attraction. Helen is both my dad's mom's name and the name of a really good friend of Shauna's in Australia. Rene is both my mother and Shauna's sister's middle name. Wilson was my dad's great-great-great-great-great grandfather's last name.

 The obligatory shot of delirium and squalling. Unfortunately, publishable pictures of baby's face require removing said baby from mom's lunch bag. Since that is her entire world at the moment, you can understand why she was a little upset.

 The Douala showed up Tuesday evening, Emma and I rolled in at about 11, we left Emma with the Vails, bless their hearts- really, and were at the birth center at 2 a.m. Shauna's body decided to do a repeat of her first birth and take its sweet time with labor. Her water finally broke at about 10:45 Wednesday morning and Helen made her way out at 11:46. We were back home by about 4.
The girls' picture in the upper right corner links to more pictures.
You know you want to see them.
Go ahead, click on it. I dare you.

K9 Kraziness

Jeanie McElroy had a PC booth at a function in the park so we retrieved Scout from her prison (kennel) and made our way to the festivities. Why make a point of picking up Scout? This fair/bazaar/whatchamacallit was sponsored by some sort of dog association and, since dog associations are generally dog friendly sort of things, this to-do was a dog friendly to-do. And all of the dogs were friendly too. -and i'll cut the rhyming business short right there- So, Scout had fun chasing the ball - AND ACTUALLY GOT IN THE WATER!! She may look like a chocolate lab but her rottweiler half shines brightly when it comes to water. No, thank you very much. Emma had fun chasing the dogs. Mommy had fun not chasing anything.

 "Hey, no running! You there, no horse play! Please don't dive in the shallow end. No peeing in the pool! No sniffing junk in the pool- and absolutely no fornicating in the pool- you there, knock it off! Hey- homo sapiens- get outta the pool!"

 Some of the braver dogs were chugging along in the deep end. Bummer that the slide was closed.  That would have scored high on the entertainment scale!
To answer your question: yes, they drain the pool and clean it after this. Apparently this is the last day it's open. Who knew that 80 degree weather was too cool to go swimming?

 Emma enjoying the off leash area.

She'll sleep good tonight.

Emma and Scout and I have to head home tomorrow. I start school on Monday and contractions make it difficult to take care of Emma. She'll stay in a day care in Twin while I'm in school. That will be a first for us. Here's a warning shot across the bow of Lillypad Daycare: overprotective parents are circling, hovering, looking for the least sign that their little one isn't being treated with utmost care and respect. I will try to keep the list of though shalt and shalt nots, and this is what she is used to, and this is how she likes to be rocked to sleep, and this is the brand of wet wipes you need to use, to a minimum. Parents are weird.
Mommy and the little one are staying here. It's really too bad that we now have two daughters who do things on their own time frame. Looks like I'll be making a flying trip back to Boise when Juniorette the second decides to climb out of her cocoon.