The Hoglund Family Blog: Introducing Evelyn "Evie" Christine Hoglund....

I am sorry this took so long to get out here, but as you can imagine we've been a bit busy. Many of you might have been lucky enough to catch a few glimpses of Evie out on Facebook, but I just never got around to posting another blog entry until now. I will try keep it short as there are TONS of pictures of the boys and our beautiful little daughter that I want to share.... not to mention none of you read this stuff anyway, right? :) But there is quite a bit to share as lots has changed in our little world and with our brood.

I'll start with the day everything changed (for the better). We went into the hospital around 11am on Monday August 3rd (which just happens to my my dad's birthday as well as Evie's now) to get prepped and ready for the Csection. Chris did a fantastic job of keeping my eye on the prize and every time he saw me get nervous or start freaking out (about spinal) he would get me laughing again ... and it turned out I had nothing to worry about anyway. The WONDERFUL anesthesiologist I had (which happened to be the same one that MacKay had just about a year ago for his surgery) got the spinal in on the FIRST try (thank god). And the Csection and recovery went SO well this time around. I was up and moving around much more quickly and feeling REALLY good. So - with all of that, we welcomed Evelyn "Evie" Christine Hoglund into the world at 1:24pm weighing in at 7 lbs 3 oz (lil peanut) and measuring almost 20 inches. Evelyn is yet another family name (like MacKay and Oscar) and was Chris's great grandmother on his mom's side and from what I have heard was a pretty amazing and strong woman.

Grandma Chris was up and watching the boys while I was in the hospital so I knew they were in good hands, and she and Chris brought them up to the hospital twice to visit and spend time with their new little sister. They were pretty interested in her, but Oscar really showed an infatuation toward her and loved to be near her and stroke her hair from the get go. Got to bring her home 4 days later on Thursday August 6th..... and since then I feel like I have just been working on survival mode with the help of my mom (Gma Chris) and my wonderful husband. We've only had a couple bad nights where she wanted to stay up and was a bit finicky.... but we've corrected that now and for the past couple nights she's actually gone about 6+ hours between feedings which has been nice for me (sleep). She eats about 3 oz every 3 hours, and is mainly getting breast milk via bottle (she didn't latch very well in the hospital) but gets a couple bottles of formula during the night feedings. I feel pretty lucky that I am able to "produce" this time as we got a huge taste of how expensive formula can be last time with the boys... and I already have about 4 days worth frozen for later which feels good. Though, like most babies that get breast milk, she is poo'ing like crazy,... so it makes one wonder if it is more expensive to get your food/nutrition for free but yet spend twice as much on diapers.... or to pay for your food and only have to deal with maybe 1-2 poo's a day. :)

Immediately we thought she was just so beautiful and looked so much like MacKay. We still think she more resembles MacKay (especially when you compare baby pictures) but she shows a lot of similarities and facial features/looks of Oscar's as well. She has MacKay's hair, eyes and mouth/lips... but she has Oscar's chin/jawline and forehead (lines when frowning or crying). We're not quite sure about her nose yet as it looks a lot like MacKay's little button nose... yet the bridge looks more like Oscar's. So nice that she is a mix between the two... for the last 9 months we've wondered who she would look more like, or if she would be a mix of the two... or even just look completely different than both. But I love that she shows traits of both. I know I am biased, but I just love to look at her and think she is quite possibly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen (aside from my boys).

We only have one issue going on right now, and that is that her umbie cord has not yet fallen off and has begun to bleed. We took her into the doctor to have it looked at and we just need to do our best to help it dry out and get it aired out. The doctor said that it looks like she had a pretty thick and hefty umbilical cord, which is good en-utero.... just means it will take longer to heal and fall off which is a pain as I just want that thing gone so that I don't have to tip toe around it for the 20+ diaper changes we have to do on her daily.

Onto the boys. They really love her. They are constantly asking where she is ("Where baby?") when she isn't around.. and when she is are constantly pointing her out and calling her "baby", stroking her head and hair, playing with her fingers and toes etc. The other day we let them hold her while they were sitting on the couch with Grandma Chris and since then that is ALL they want to do now. They will crawl up next to you and grunt and groan until you finally let them hold her. They are so gentle with her too and love giving her kisses and hugs. On the flip side, I think this new addition has really thrown them for a loop as well. Lately they are a bit more ornery, cranky and whiny than normal and are very short fused. I feel bad as they haven't gotten a lot of "Mommy time" as Gma Chris sort of took to taking care of them during her stay here so that I could focus on Evie, so that was a pretty big change for them when they usually had my complete attention before. Not to mention we have had a TON of visitors in the past couple weeks and our house has been quite chaotic with people coming and going, which always seems to affect the boys (they hate when people leave). Now things will get even more interesting for us as Gma Chris left today after staying over 2 weeks to help out here..... I'm a bit nervous about how to handle this all on my own, but I think I've found a schedule that will work for everyone. Having Gma Chris around was a godsend, wish she could have stayed longer and I know the boys are going to miss her terribly (and she them as well).

With all the change for MacKay and Oscar they sure are learning a lot though. They are like little sponges and are saying SO many more words and understanding so much. They now LOVE to watch Sesame Street, Barney and Mr Rogers... and are saying Barney, Elmo, On (and know what it means.... like asking us to turn something on), close (like closing a door), kennel (Angus), bunny, ducky, kitty, shoes, "love you" and a ton of others that I just can't recall right now. They also are starting to catch onto 1..2..3 --- both the words, the order and holding fingers up. We will do it as a countdown for them to do things like jump, drop down etc and they try mimicking the fingers we are holding up. We've tried a lot of new foods too (thanks to Gma Chris) and they love rice (Rice-a-Roni etc) and pizza, and just plain bread with butter. They also like being read to now... something they couldn't sit through the first couple pages for just even a week or two ago. They are at such a fun stage right now and are impressing me and shocking me daily with all they learn and understand.

Well .... I know there is a ton more to write about... but I want to get onto the pictures that I am SO excited to share. So here they are, and I hope to get on here again soon with more news and pictures... but be patient as I think the first few weeks here on my own might be a bit of a struggle at first. :)

Monday August 3rd .... prior to Evie's arrival. One last picture of pregnant Jill, the family of four... and a cute picture of MacKay and Oscar giving goofy faces while tormenting Angus in his kennel.

A few of my favorite first pictures of Evie in the hospital with her adorable SusieKnits (susieknits.blogspot.com) hat that my friend Susie Commers made for her - everyone was commenting on how cute that hat was.

MacKay and Oscar (and Gma Chris) visiting us in the hospital and meeting baby Evie.... and a quickly snapped picture of proud Mommy and Daddy with Evie before leaving the hospital.

MacKay and Oscar loving up their new baby sister.

Evie's first bath and first trip to the doctor's office (wearing a cute hat that my friend Heidi Nygren knit for her)

Some more goofy pictures of Oscar and MacKay: Oscar walking around in Daddy's slippers (which he actually does pretty good walking around in - he loves wearing our shoes). And MacKay LOVES to steal people's hats from them and wear them. Here he is with Gpa Gary's hat. Lastly, the boys are SO enthralled with our vacuum and copying Daddy when he cleans - here they are helping Daddy vacuum the living room.