Angelica Fielding Munk

Our sweet little daughter Angelica Fielding Munk was born on May 4 at 8:57 am. Despite a few tense moments during the night, labor and delivery went very well. We were blessed to have both sets of grandparents present, along with Laura and her own personal baby-sitter (thanks Julie). Angelica was 4 lbs 12 ozs and 17 inches long at birth.

After delivery, Angelica was placed directly on Candice's chest with minimal intervention from the hospital staff. The nurses and doctors were very sensitive to the fact that we might not have much time with the baby, and largely left us alone for the entire day. It was a special experience to spend the day with our new sweet baby. Candice said that it was the happiest day of her life. We didn't know if we would have minutes, hours, or days, so every moment was precious. We have since returned home, and are enjoying her here.

We have found out a few things about little Angelica (or as Laura calls her, Gicala): she is really cute; she looks like her big sister; someone is watching over her short little life; and she is quite the little fighter. To the last point, she has now been alive for over 48 hours, and is more alert and vigorous than any of the doctors expected. She drinks from a bottle, screams, makes messy diapers, and burps when she is done drinking. She is exceeding all expectations.

That being said, her grasp on life is tenuous. Yesterday before we left the hospital she turned dusky and stopped breathing for a few minutes. We thought that Angelica's time here was complete. However, Angelica surprised us all and revived herself. During her little episode, Angelica was peaceful, with no sign of struggle or pain.

Angelica has had two more episodes since we have been home, reminding us that every moment with her is special and shouldn't be taken for granted. The doctor said that she could go on like this for a week or more. Or it might not. We will enjoy every minute.

Thank you all for your concern and prayers. We are so grateful to our Heavenly Father for the many blessings we have enjoyed these last 48 hours. We will keep you all updated and provide more details as things develop.





For more pictures, see my friend Abbie Rufener's blog. She took some absolutely beautiful pictures for us. (abbierufener.com/blog)

Laura's Birthday

I feel like we have been celebrating Laura's birthday for the past 2 weeks. But I guess it all ended today since it is officially her birthday. She got to eat a cupcake for breakfast and open presents this morning. And then she got to open more presents (thanks to our good friends Paul and Nicole who spoil Laura) and eat cake and icecream this evening. It didn't take her long to get used to all this special treatment and by the end of the day she was running around saying, "I need more birthday."

I made her a farm cake with animal cupcakes. Laura loves animals right now so she thought it was pretty fun. She mostly just wanted to eat the candy off the top of each cupcake and would then put it back and reach for another one. Which was fine with me since I didn't want the candy on there spoiling my cupcake anyways.




I mentioned in my last post that I have been doing a lot of sewing. And I meant it. Lots of sewing. Laura's present for her birthday was a doll with lots of matching outfits. I'm not going to say how many because it is kind of embarrassing how much time I wasted on this project, but seriously how fun is it so sew something cute for your daughter, and then make a miniature version for her doll? Here she is in her matching giraffe jammies and knot dresses.




She also got a backpack with her name on it so she can store all the fun things that she constantly wants to bring with us when we leave the house (stuffed animals, snacks, balloons, blankets, Peter's football, etc...) She loves it. She calls it her "packpack" and insisted on wearing it to church today. She keeps putting it on and saying, "bye bye, mamma" and walking to the door. When I ask her where she is going she answers, "cools" (school). She knows the drill from watching her Daddy leave every morning.




Being Laura's mom brings me so much happiness. I love it! Even with everything we have been dealing with the last few months, it is hard to ever feel sad with such a beautiful and happy little daughter. I just wish she could stay this age forever because it is my favorite.

Sewing For Angelica

Our doctor told us Angelica will likely be a around 4 pounds when she is born. Laura was 6 1/2 pounds and we thought she was teeny tiny. We had to go buy preemie clothes for her to wear the first month of life because the newborn clothes were way too big for her. So I wanted to make some little outfits that would fit Angelica. I found a free pattern (http://projectsbyjess.blogspot.com/2011/02/tutorial-baby-sleep-sack.html) and shrunk it down to about preemie size and made some cute little baby gowns for her. I love this pattern because it has the little pockets that fold over the baby's hands to keep her warm.




My favorite part was making some matching outfits for Laura and Angelica. When I first found out I was pregnant, I was so excited to sew matching outfits for my 2 children. So, as silly as it is, I just had to sew them one matching outfit.

And of course, I had to make matching hair accessories.

I'm not sure that she will live long enough to enjoy these little outfits, but it feels good to know that if she does, she will have a cute wardrobe. And I enjoyed sewing them so much. There is not a whole lot that we can do to prepare for this baby, so it was nice to have something to do.
Best of all, my mother sewed the most beautiful blessing/burial gown for her. She made it out of her wedding dress and it turned out so perfect.


She sent me some of the left over fabric so I could make a matching bonnet.


We are down to 4 more days before we go in to be induced. And although I am getting scared and sad that we will have to say goodbye to her so soon, we are excited to be able to meet our daughter after waiting so long for her arrival. I think it is going to be a very special, sweet experience.

A few more birthday pics

Laura's Birthday Party

We decided to have Laura's birthday party a week and a half in advance since her birthday is 2 days before our scheduled induction date. We had a little chef party theme and it was so much fun. We sent out invitations telling everyone to come prepared to do some cooking and to bring their own rolling pin. We invited 8 children children thinking that we would probably only have 5 or 6 be able to come. All but one ended up coming so we had a house full of 2 year olds. I made them each an apron and chef hat and they all looked so cute. We had so much fun rolling out pizza dough and making pizzas and decorating Laura's birthday cake.








We played a game that I made up called "Fill the Fruit Bowl" which consisted of giving each of the children a piece of fruit that they could throw in the bowl. Peter said it sounded like a dumb game but I figured they were too young to do anything more complicated. It actually was so much fun. It took a little while for them to figure out what they were supposed to do and most of them were busy eating the fruit they were given, but once they got the hang of it, they were having so much throwing the fruit.


I look forward to more fun parties each year! I love planning parties for little kids!

My friend, Abbie, offered to take some maternity pictures for me. I admit I was hesitant at first because the last thing you want to do when you are nine months pregnant is take a bunch of pictures of yourself. But she did such a good job and I think they turned out so beautiful. I especially loved how she was able to capture Laura's little personality on camera. Laura is VERY diffucult to take pictures of and Abbie did a great job. I know I will treasure these pictures for the rest of my life and it will be a great memory of the precious time I got to spend with Angelica inside of me.
















If you want to see more of Abbie's work you can check out her website, Abbie Rufener Photography at http://abbierufener.com. She does an awesome job!

Time Flies

I can't believe how old Laura is! She turns 2 in less than 2 months. She is now stringing words together and saying the funniest things. One of my favorite things she does is for words starting with an "s," she switches the "s" sound from the beginning to the end of the word. So Daddy is gone all day at "cools"(school) and she likes to climb in bed with me and "nuggles" (snuggle) and she insists on always eating dinner with Laura's "poos" (spoon). She is also saying prayers now and says the funniest things. Last week her prayer went like this:
Father.
Thanks.
Pee pee.
Poo poos.
Amen.
She has yet to understand why we say prayers- she just thinks it is a good time to throw in some of her favorite words. "Puppy," "purse" and "baby" are other words that are often included in her prayer.
She loves to be outside and now that the weather has been so nice we have been spending lots of time going to parks and on walks. She hates to be in her stroller and insists on walking everywhere. Even in the grocery stores. If I put her in the shopping cart she will scream and yell "hug" which is code for pick me up. As soon as I pick her up she will scream "down" and take off running.


And Laura is not the only one getting bigger everyday. I am now down to 8 more weeks until the due date and am starting to feel quite large.

We have decided on a name for our sweet little girl, Angelica. Laura calls her "Gica" and loves to lift up my shirt and give her kisses and hugs. (She obviously doesn't understand the baby making process since she also tries to do this to Daddy sometimes). As the due date gets closer, it seems like I am so much more emotional about everything. I know that the closer that we get to her birth, the sooner I am going to have to say goodbye to her. I am really enjoying this pregnancy because I feel like I am keeping my fragile baby safe and protected. She is constantly reminding me how well she is doing with kicks and jabs in my stomach! We are just praying that we get to spend a little bit of time with her before Heavenly Father takes her home.