A Birth Story

I have a wonderful birth story to tell!  It was really the most perfect delivery in every way.  Friday afternoon I had my 39 week appointment.  You know you're a spectacle when even the OB nurses gather around to see your belly every week.  I'd been begging for an induction for weeks and told my doctor if I didn't have a baby by the time my mom got here on the 5th, she'd break my water for me.   I went home pretty optimistic as contractions were getting a little rough.  Me and Link almost missed getting off at our subway station because I was in the middle of a contraction at our stop.  As soon as Jason got home we started timing them at 6 minutes apart.  As they got more intense and closer together, I figured this was it!  We put Lincoln to bed and called over some friends to babysit (thank you Jenn & Devin!).  We checked in the hospital at 8pm and I was measuring 7 cm!  I was insistent about getting my epidural, which leads you to this MUCH happier version of laboring Camille:

 We chilled until around 12:15am when the doctor broke my water.  When the nurse came back an hour later, I told her it felt like his head was right there.  She looked and exclaimed that she could see a head!  I laughed for Jason to come over and his entire head came out!  With a few more laughs, the baby fell right into the nurse's arms at 1:17am!

 

 And Parley Dean Millar was born with hardly a wimper.  He instantly cuddled up and calmed down on my belly.  ("Dean" is for my Dad, Robert Dean)

 I kept thinking, "What just happened?!"

 8 lbs. 1 oz. and 21 inches.  I can already sense some brother rivalry, seeing as they both wanted to be here 6 days early.  If Parley couldn't be heavier than his brother at birth (8lbs. 10 oz. and 20 inches), he'd atleast be an inch taller.

 This baby is just a sweetheart.  We haven't heard him cry more than 10 minutes in the last 3 days combined.  I figured he'd be a much calmer baby by how he behaved in the womb.

 Proud Daddy!  You're my steady!

 Thoroughly enjoying his first visit to the spa.

 We have CHILDREN!

 Lincoln is understanding whats going on a little more every day and I think he'll be just fine.  

He looooves to push Parley in his baby swing.  We'll keep an eye on that one :)

 Jason thinks he looks just like my baby picture!  Could it be!?  

I was sure all our children would be mini-Jasons.  I'd love one of my own!

I feel so blessed and SO HAPPY to mother a newborn again.  I love the opportunity I have to be a mother and I'm so excited to have this new little person join our family!

Fire Station Visitation

 We visited the Cambridge Fire Station for play group this week!  The firemen were so great to let all the toddlers climb in and out and all over their truck.  They must have laughed at our group of roughly 10 moms and half of us hugely pregnant.

Tales of a Seamstress

I continue to get a lot of sewing jobs that occupy my evenings, and I'd post pictures and tell stories, but they're just so ordinary: replacing trouser zippers, shortening sleeves, taking in temple dresses, etc. Though this week I got to replicate a bridesmaids dress into a different color and sew up 14 tunic/cover-ups for a girl in NYC who wants to start her own business! Small and simple these jobs may be, but I've raked in over $1,500 in the last six months!

But once a year, PROM rolls around and I get to make something lovely! This was for Nancy, and we designed this one together. I was secretly thrilled when she chose purple because the last 5 prom dresses I've made have been shades of blue. Plus, this color totally reminded me of making my own deep purple Junior Prom dress.  I think I even pulled out the same spool of thread from 9 years ago.

 Here are the Mormon girls with my adorably polka-dotted sister Janae, + friends

(I also made the navy blue dress two years ago--its fun to see the modest dresses being passed around each year)

I'm trying to turn down jobs for the next few weeks, just to give myself time to adjust to mothering two, (and in June I have another Capt. Hook enthusiast wanting a costume!) so until baby comes, I get to do some "selfish sewing" :) I've sewed up Jason's and Lincoln's Halloween outfits, made another nursing cover, another vinyl changing table mat, and will try to make a little romper for #2 tonight for our family pictures sometime this summer!

37 Weeks

My Manly 18-Monther

 18 Months Old!  What a little man!

Oh Hoppy Day

 Happy Easter!  We loved dying eggs this year with kool-aid (some turned out less spectacular than others), making an Easter egg banner out of paint samples, and went to the Primary Easter egg hunt!  Guess who's old enough for nursery!? 

 I just can't get enough of these gorgeous flowers right outside our windows! 

The lovely pink ones fill our kitchen windows, and the green buds fill our living room windows.  

Oh how I love Boston in the Spring!

Lincoln Lately

 Oh how I love this boy!  We love our daytime adventures together, and we're loving the nicer weather that lets us explore the playgrounds around here!  Its a whole different world this Spring, being able to run around!  He'll stay all day if I let him, and will run around making the sign for "more, more more".

  Linkers used to keep getting stuck in our desk chair and would push himself around and bump into things like this.  Pretty funny.   He's VERY attached to this blanket, and won't sleep without it.  

Nevermind the mismatched clothes.  When we don't go out, we kind of just wear whats clean around here.

 L loves to climb and crawl over and under everything!  I made him a little playhouse to throw over our kitchen table, and he loves it!  Its quite possibly the ugliest thing I've ever put together, but I figured I'd spend an hour of time and just use the scraps I had lying around then see if he actually likes it.  One day I'll make a super cute one.

 Look at those eyebrows!  They're crazy!  They're not mine or Jason's.  They actually look a lot like his Uncle Travis's :)

Sometimes he gets in a fit and doesn't want anything to eat except for, say, ketchup.  Or this raw potato.  Whatever, crazy kid.  Well Dude, lets make the most of this last month of exclusive one-on-one time together!

I Swallowed the Basketball

Boston Celtics vs. Utah Jazz game last night!  

We figured we'd try to fit in one last date (boo hoo hoo) in what will surely be a very long time.

I figured I couldn't go to a basketball game looking THIS pregnant, and not have a little fun with it!  I got SO many comments from fans, as if this was some crazy thing never been done before!  

Showered

 Thank you Emily & Emily for a fabulous baby shower!  I was blown away by the craftiness of these sisters in putting everything together.  Beginning with this announcement:

 The little baby owl hat?  Oh my word!  I felt so loved today, by so many friends.  The cherry on top was coming home to Jason scrubbing the high chair clean.  Just a wonderful day!  Thanks everyone!

A Little Purple

 My darling friends Emily W and Emily M are throwing me and friend Rebeckah a joint baby shower tomorrow!  Those little dears.
 

And here's the little baby skirt and matching headband (which I may or may not have tried on Lincoln) that I made for Rebeckah's baby!  (Rebeckah, if you follow this blog, stop reading now.)  I used some scraps from the Prom dress you'll see in a few weeks.  I ran the skirt downstairs to show Jason and squeal about it a little, and realized: I know exactly why God doesn't give me any girls.  I would spend WAY too much money on fabric and WAY too much time making frilly things.  Good thing I have friends who keep having girls!

Happy Patty

Happy green day!  Everything we did that was St. Patty's-related was centered around food, though I did go down to Haymarket yesterday morning (which I guess is also food-related), and even at 10:30am, the city was preeeetty crazy with drinkers.  We thought we'd stay indoors.

A. Green waffles & banana coins

B. Shamrock Shakes

C. Normal deviled eggs (I got a little too excited about using my new shamrock plate, that I totally forgot to dye the filling green)

D. Jason brought me home a gorgeous St. Patrick's green bouquet of flowers on Monday to enjoy all week!  How perfectly seasonally thoughtful to a girl who loves the holidays so much!

E. Zucchini muffins (which look green when you bite into them)

F. Key lime yogurt pie

Can You Find the Baby?

I found a place even more trashy and more fun than a thrift store!  The Garment District in Cambridge opens a bale of clothes every day, dumps it in a big room, and you get to climb and swim in the mounds of junk and pay only $1-a-pound for what you find.  Seriously.

Lincoln seems to think its the greatest place in the world!  I usually leave with a big bag of things I rip apart for the fabric, trim, and buttons for under $2.  And for the entertainment of watching a rolling, tumbling toddler playing in a room of laundry?  Priceless.

Hockey Mom

This commercial came up during one of our latest guilty pleasure Castle episodes.  I kept thinking "That's going to be me!  Oh my gosh, that's going to be me!"

 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xfwk5y_subaru-trailer-hockey-mom_auto