two weeks ago

has it only been two weeks since hallie was born?! i guess those middle-of-the-night feeding parties with little miss priss are skewing my perception of time right now! i thought her two week birthday would be a perfect time to share some pictures of the day she was born...

aunt kristie snuck up during sunday school to say good morning! here's one last shot of my big ole' belly... (and the hideous green gown does not help things whatsoever!)


my sweet friend kim and my mom also came up that morning, but by the time they were there, i was on oxygen and on my side with my leg hiked up in the air (trying to get hallie's heart tones to chill)... so not exactly picture-taking material!

fast forward a couple of hours, and here is hallie marie at 3 minutes old!


i love this one of her wrinkly feet



measuring her big ole' head...


but the ironic thing is that hallie had the smallest head of all my babies. and ethan was a very close second. yes, you read that right. my 2 c-section babies had the smallest heads. go figure.

our first picture with hallie.



and quite a bad one at that! hallie looks like she is mad at brian, and i am a wreck... because of the anesthesia for the c-section, i felt like i could not swallow. it was truly a horrible feeling, and i was pretty panicked about it. the anesthesiologist continually assured me that i was fine as he wiped spit off my face (because I COULDN'T SWALLOWWWWWW IT!), and eventually they gave me some morphine to shut me up.

another one of hallie's first pictures... this sweet swollen baby doesn't look much like hallie to me! it's amazing how much babies change in the first few days.


while i was in recovery, hallie got some special time with gram.



hallie also had her first bath while i was recovering. i love mad bath pictures!



look at all that hair! she'd better have a head full of hair after all of my late-night heartburn!



the kids came up to the hospital with nana and pappy after church and lunch... and they waited and waited while i was in recovery... finally, after i'd fed hallie and we were settled in our room, the children got the green light to come meet their sister!

brian peeked out in the hallway to see this excited bunch coming our way!


i love these smiles... and they haven't stopped smiling at baby hallie since!


my four sweet kiddos! and doesn't amelia just look so old and gigantic now?


my girls...


and last but not least that day.... nana and pappy got their hands on baby hallie for the first time.


we got a little bit of sleep sunday night, and then we had the same cute visitors monday morning! :)

this is one of my favorite pictures from the hospital. caroline has been so joyful about her little sister's arrival, and i can see some special times with them together in the future.


me and my crew!


a little later, uncle jeff, aunt kristie, and cousin karina came for a visit! (and brought us lunch!) karina loved the special time she had holding hallie. and hallie is wrapped up in the sweet sweet blanket that aunt kristie made for her!


my dad and grandma came to visit monday afternoon, too. we are so thankful to live so close to family!


we almost forgot to get a picture of us with hallie at the hospital! can you tell i'm a wee bit sleepy??


in addition to family, we were blessed to have several sweet friends come to visit us at the hospital. i am ready to go to bed, so i'm not going to put all of their pictures in this post. when everybody came to visit, it was fun to compare the kids' baby pictures with hallie!


thanks to heather for snapping this shot of us! i saw a similar picture on pinterest and wanted to try it once hallie arrived... so heather got out her fancy shmancy camera and squeezed into the corner of our room to make this happen.


we stayed at the hospital until tuesday evening, and we were so ready to be home! be back soon with hallie's homecoming pictures.