Charlene Turns 3!

I cant believe my baby girl is 3 years old today! The picture above was taken on our Holland trip in May. I thought it was the cutest picture of her. 3 years ago...wow...I remember so clearly her as a baby. She is full swing toddler!

Here is her yearly birthday shots. 1 week old. At that time I remember cuddling close to her. As a new parent Joshua and I both were overly caution with her. Dressing her, bathing her, making sure she doesn't cry for very long...all what a new parent would do.
1 year. Wow...I remember hitting her 1 year birthday and thinking "wow...she survived Joshua and My parenting" LOL I remember being super excited when she learned how to crawl, her first word (Maggie) which was our dog and her best friend which we refer to as her Sister-pup. :) Her rocking and a rolling on her bright red piano. and for her first birthday we threw her a prince & princess party. I spent 2 days baking her cake for that party!
Age 2. She never hit the terrible 2's (Thank goodness after hearing all my friends stories) She loves to help cook, She is what I call our "wild" girl. People tell us she is overly polite (that is a good thing right?) She hated to go to nursery at church until about 2 months ago. She has a lot of little boyfriends, which in fact one of her favorite boyfriends Enlai protects her from the nursery bully at church. :) She loves to do puzzles, LOVES stuffed animals, will get into something and hide if she thinks it is wrong, LOL, She loves to fly, she loves to just get out and see the world. She LOVES craft time which we do daily. She loves books and loves learning and is very excited over the alphabet. Over all...she is a great big sister to her brother, and is defiantly a Daddy's girl.

I took this photo the other day of her. She was so "sassy" during this photo shoot. She just wouldn't hold still and had so many modeling poses. She LOVES her picture taken. :) Age 3. This year (hopefully the next 2 weeks) will bring full force potty training (Joshua looked up something that we think will just do the trick this time around...at least I hope) We are having her start homeschool pre-school with one of her boyfriends from church. And...who knows what else this year will bring, but we look forward to it.

Below is a couple of this years photos of her. Enjoy

Taken at the Portland, Oregon Temple this past April

Taken at Amococo exhibit on tour this past March

Taken at Boyce Thomas Garden's this past April. This picture describes her personality which is why I love it. Theodore had spit up on the trail, and Charlene decided she needed to point it out to others walking buy. She would point and yell "adore, spit up" when people didnt understand her she would say "see...RIGHT HERE" and point to it. LOL :) She cracks us up. :)

This was taken just down the street at our local hiking area San Tan Park. She LOVES to go hiking. She can hike get this...2 MILES! all by herself before asking to be carried. We found out in Amsterdam she can walk up to 5 miles before getting tired. She is defiantly our tough yet so girly little girl.

Below is a picture that was taken just about 1 hour before my labor started..

The Labor Story of Charlene
Sunday, July 13^th, 2008

Today I had one of my friend Alicia’s baby shower. Emily was there also, who is my other good friend that is due 4 days after me. She is being induced tomorrow and my doctors were thinking of inducing me that Tuesday. The place where Alicia’s baby shower was held at was sooo small and sooo hot that Emily and I kept on joking that the heat in the room was going to throw us into labor.

Sure enough, by the time I got home from the baby shower, I was having some pretty bad contractions which I mistook as the Braxton Hicks contractions. I kept on doing stuff around the house and helping Joshua put up blinds in the windows. By 9:45pm my contractions were getting pretty bad and I kept telling Joshua that I swore I just had one, but still didn’t think anything of it. Joshua asked how long I have been having them, and if I was keeping track of how far apart they were and I told him I wasn’t. (I believe I was in labor denial) I didn’t think anything of it since I felt Charlene wasn't going to come out on her own. Without telling me, Joshua kept timing them and then after more than a few he told me they were only 4-5 minutes apart and that she was coming tonight. I told him no that she might be stubborn and that these are just the Braxton Hicks contractions. I couldn't sleep a bit (still in labor denial). By 11pm the contractions were so bad I was throwing up.

By then I told Joshua to call the hospital and tell them we are on our way after we dropped off Maggie at Tim and Melynda's. We got to the hospital around midnight and they did some testing on me and gave me some pain pills which wouldn’t stay down. I was throwing up 5 times an hour. Since I didn’t dilate anymore since my appointment on Friday they told me to walk around the hospital for an hour. They gave me a shot in the bottom and told me if this was false labor it would stop the contractions and they sent us home at 4am.

We got home around 4:30am. I tried to sleep and sleep but the contractions were so bad by 5:30am we were on our way back to the hospital. We had to stop to get gas on the way back to the hospital and I was cursing whenever the contractions came. The gas tenant kept looking at me funny. But I think I would too if I saw a lady 9 months pregnant and cursing. LOL, By 6am we were back at the hospital and I was finally dilated to a 4 and fully effaced, so they told us we could stay. I requested my epidural ASAP. During the ten minute interview in order to get the epidural I was dozing off and Joshua had to wake me to answer the questions. One minute sleeping, one minute waking up and throwing up with each contraction. Worst thing EVER to wake up that way.

Before I got my epidural I remembered how the first 5 months were of her pregnancy with throwing up 4-5 times an hour. I remember thinking "who in the world would ever get pregnant again...on purpose" LOL The anesthesiologist came in and once I got my epidural, it worked so good I didn’t feel anything. I was so tired from being up all night I was sleeping through my contractions. The Next thing I woke up to was the Doctor saying “the head is right there!” and Joshua saying “Babe wake up, you have to push!” After an hour of pushing She had finally arrived. Our beautiful healthy little girl.