The Murray Family: 2009

Mom! I can't move my arms

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So I thought I would post this Pic of Magali since I've read a lot of posts recently about the crazy weather in Texas and how people have been bundling themselves up.

This brought on a conversation between Joel and I about how living in cold weather make you look at life differently. Magali's outfit is a daily ordeal with the snow suit, boots, hats, blankets and everything else....

Cant wait for summer!

Magali's 4th Month

I am so far behind on everything. Including updating this post and putting pictures on Shutterfly. Thanks everyone for being so patient.

Here are the 4 month's stats:
Weight: 10 lb 10 oz
Height: 23 in
Head: 15 in

So Magali is in the 10% percentile and doing great according to the Dr. Developmentally, she's a little ahead but not much. On an interesting note, since so many people are "concerned" about Magali being in the 10% ile and her parents are probably in the 135% on weight, our Dr. told us that he has had French patients in the past and they were all in the 10%. When one of the other mommy's brought in a French growth chart, all the French babies were in the 50%....that may explain everything.

It's been such a busy month. Joel has been out of time for most of the time and our one day blizzard, well, just made be a little more lazy then I was before. Were getting ready for the Christening, Halloween and all other holiday's coming up.

On to more important things...what's Magali been up to this month? Well, we've learned to scream. Yes scream. She will spend an hour each morning just smiling and screaming at her toys. It's like she's telling them, "come on, get over hear so i can chew on you, sucka!" She's also been screaming during Broncos games but that she learned from her daddy. She can sit up for BREIF periods of time but…she can’t roll over. It don’t think that’s in her ‘things to do’ list. She’s starting to get interested in the things we eat so we will be getting her into the high chair pretty soon to get her used to sitting at the table with us. For all those out there interested, she still wearing 0-3 months. One day we’ll be able to grow into more interesting outfits.

Hello all, in my Grandma made blue dress!

Hello world!

I love Phoebe.

Happy 3 months Miss Magali

Three months have gone by so fast...well, not really. Magali has finally grown into her clothes, which makes mommy very proud. Unfortunately, all the clothes are for summer time, and, well, it's getting pretty chilly in Longmont. We are now moving into the fleece pajama phase of Magali's life. Grandma and Nanny have generously provided clothing to help in the ever growing phases of Magali. Grandma has been sewing and knitting sweater and hats. Unfortunately, Magali is not too fond of hats. Hopefully she will soon be since it is soo cold and they are so gosh darn cute!

What have we been up too. Well, we have been going to our mommy's group and learning about all the things other mommy's are dealing with. We are a little left out of the group's "norm" since I'm not breastfeeding but bottle feeding breast milk, I don't use cloth diapers, and I do buy her new clothes and don't go to the thrift store to stay "green" on baby wear. As some of you may have already guessed...this mom's group is in Boulder.

We have been going to a French mom's group and that's been going great. She is the youngest one there but that doesn't put a damper on things. We spend about two hours a week just speaking French and hopefully this will help her soak up the language. It's fun to see all the little kiddo's speaking French together. One day, hopefully, that will be Magali. Joel and I have already started talking about schools for Magali and where we would like her to learn French in school. The good part is that Joel's work can take him anywhere and that means that we can be picky about the school we put her into...who knows if that means Colorado or somewhere else.

I have joined a couple of other mom's group but they all seem to have some kind-of drinking event associated with their get together or play dates. Not something I want to participate in or be anywhere near!

Well, what has Miss Magali been up to this month? Well here is the run down.

She went on her first official vacation to Avon and did very well. She got to ride the gondola up to the top of the Vail mountain and see the views from about 11,000 feet. Not too bad.
Here hair is growing in and pretty soon, we'll be able to put a little barrette in it. Daddy can't wait!
She's putting her hands together grabbing at toys. Her favorite is her singe (monkey).
She's been great at eye contact and moving her head when you call her name. If someone else holds her other than mommy or daddy, she looks around to see where we're at.
She talks back! Yes, already. When we make cooing sounds to her she will mimic them back.
She's holding her head up and sitting up assisted. She loves to be sitting during our mommy's group so that she can see the other kids playing.
She has a boyfriend...Yes, she had met a little boy in our mommy' s group and they will sit in front of each other and smile back and forth.
She has started sleeping for 6-8 hours in one stretch at night. That scares mommy a little but hey, whatever she wants.

I'm probably missing a lot of other milestones for her but I can say that she's on track!

Vail

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First Family Trip

We're off to the mountains for a long weekend. The first of many family trips. We'll see how prepared we are. We're not ruffing it, staying at the Westin. See you when we come back...I hope.

What have we been up to in Month 2

Well, we've been doing a lot but mostly exploring the outdoors would be our new thing. We just went up to Rocky Mountain National Park and had a great time. A bit chilly but beautiful. We had no problems with altitude sickness. Other things we've done this month is get ready for football season. Between fantasy football and the Broncos new team, there's bee a lot of chatter going on in the basement, where Joel "works". I've also joined a French club for moms so Magali and I are speaking french every Monday mornings.

We'll be going to the Dr. in about a week to due our 2 month's check-up and will be talking to him about our little breathing problem. For those of you who already know and those that do not, Magali has Tracheomalacia. It makes her sound as if she is struggling to breath but she really isn't'. It's scarier on us than on her. Even though he has reassured us numerous times that she is fine and will grow out of it, we really want more information. Plus, I WANT IT TO STOP. Having people stair at you in horror isn't fun when you're trying to shop for fabric.

Any who, everything has been going great and I'll be trying to post more often as we are now starting to have a more formal schedule....plus she's sometimes sleeping through the entire night, yes, more than 6 hours.

NO MORE WORK!

It's official. I have given my notice and will not be going back to work...for now. So you all know what that means, donations to the, "it takes a village to raise Magali," fund will gladly be accepted.

Also, I've started a Shutterfly website for pics and video's so I don't have to upload them all the time. You can go to http://magalivioletmurray.shutterfly.com/

See y'all later

The belly sleep

Yes, I know, back is best. But what would happen if Magali slept on her stomach? She would resemble Joel when he was her age. I couldn't get the picture of Joel out of the photo album but I guess that was the preferred sleeping position of daddy.

Magali's first month

With all the excitement, I haven't posted in forever. What have we been up too, well everything. Most of you have gotten our emails and know that we've been busy with new adventures with Magali. I've also been trying to get myself into a routine so that we can get ourselves out and about and try new things. Posting to this blog is one of them.

Today's new adventure was trying out our crib for the first time. In transitioning from the bassinet to the crib, I though we would take it slow and do afternoon naps in the crib. Magali loves it and these last two naps have been the longest sleep she's ever taken during the day. Mommy has found the answer!

Magali is here.

Well, it's been three weeks since writing any posts on this blog but most of you already know that baby Magali has arrived. Here is my rendition of how she came into this world.

So here's the labor story. I went in on Sunday to have my cervix "ripened" at 8 pm. I started out at 2 cm dilated. So all they do is give you this pill. At 1:30 am my water broke with was not a result of the pill they gave me, according to the nurse. Has light labor all night and slept through most of them. At 6 am, was dilated to 4 cm with still light labor and then they gave me the Pitocin to get me into labor. At 7 am, started having some not so nice contractions and didn't think this was any fun anymore. At 7:30, screamed for an epidural, thinking I'm a wimp for getting one at 4 cm dilated. At 8:15, got my epidural and wanted to take a nap before labor would start. At 8:45, started feeling contractions and didn't think that was normal. Baby's heartbeat had disappeared and the nurses, couldn't find it (thought she was incompetent at the time). At 9:00 made a comment to the nurse that every time I has having a contraction, it felt like "his head is coming out". Nurse laughs at me and actually writes this in the charts to never be able to deleted...ever again. Nurse checks Cheryl's stupid comment about "his head is coming out". Nurse screams at Cheryl that whatever she does, she doesn't push because the baby's head is almost OUT and they don't have a Dr. on the floor at that time. At 9:14, Dr. arrives and Cheryl and Dr. have a conversation about her cute shoes. Cheryl pushes twice thinking this isn't really labor because I'm in no pain and I now have a baby girl looking at me.

So pretty much I went from 6 cm dilated to 10 cm in about 45 minutes. Thank God for epidural and how quick they work.

35 Weeks Ultrasound Pics

Everything is still going good. Baby is on the heavy side at approximately 6.9lbs. The Dr. said I'm ready to do at any time!

New Ultrasound Pics

We just came back from the Dr.'s and everything seems to be going well. The baby is no longer breached and is now in the right position. We got some great 3D ultrasound pics to share. Hope you enjoy them.

April Dr.'s Visit

We had a doctors visit that went fine and now we will be starting to go to see the doctor every week. The baby is breached so i've been sent home with exercises to do to see if it will turn around for us. It's not a pretty sight to see, but hopefully laying with my butt up in the air will work. Who knows, i've read in one post that this woman did handstands in her pool and that turned her baby around. I'm not sure I'll get to that point! We got an ultrasound but the best picture was of the foot and some kind of swirly thing at the end of it. Who knows what that is!

Some of you may be wondering what I look like now. Joel told me the other day that I can no longer go into Dick's Sporting goods store because they might think I stole a basketball. I guess thats a good way of describing what I look like.

I do have to say that Joel has been a great help. I've gotten to the point where bending over and reaching high is no longer an option. He's been there to help me roll out of bed and pull me up when I decide that I want to sit on the ground.

The beginning of the end! The Third Trimester

I am please to announce to the world that as of today, I have only 82 days to go...and I can safely say, a maximum of 89 days as insured by my wonderful doctor. How am I feeling you ask, well I feel large and, just like people describe it, a beached whale. No longer are the days were I can lay on the floor to watch TV and have my legs contorted to unthinkable positions. Now a days, I just lay straight and dream of the day where I can sleep on my stomach and turn my torso around.

On another note, the baby has been very active and may have punctured my stomach, spleen, bladder and several other organs. There is no rhyme or reason to any of the movement. It just happens every 10 seconds. Joel was please to participate in another, "hey fell my belly the baby is moving" session the other night where the baby had the hiccups. Though he thought it was funny and cute, I was a walking spasm.

Anyway, wanted to update you in the excitement of pregnancy in our house. Nothing to announce but random thoughts is always good!

The Crib

The first piece of baby furniture has entered our home, thanks to Grandma in France. Like Joel said when we picked up the crib, there's no turning back now, this really means the baby is coming. I had that same feeling when the Doctor told me I was pregnant. It just took him a little longer to figure it out. Anyway, Joel put it all together in about 30 minutes with a little help from Phoebe. As you can tell, that's as far as we have gotten in getting the nursery put together, but at least, Phoebe got her bed ready too.

Week 24 Dr.'s Visit

Sorry this has taken me so long to get up and running but we've been crazy at work for both of us. Our Dr.'s visit went just fine but we didn't get a good picture this time. Baby was turned, looking inward and WOULD NOT turn around. No matter what we did, turn to the left, turn to the right, NOTHING worked. The Ultrasound lady said she could see everything was fine and the heart has four parts and looks great. My blood pressure went down again! Which usually, around this time it's supposed to go up! I only gained three more pounds! Hope you enjoy the blurry picture we got.

Dr.'s Visit at 20 Weeks

We had our BIG ultrasound visit on the 18th of Feb. and everything looks good. The brain is there, the intestines are in, there's a diaphragm, all the arms and legs are good. Baby weights almost a pound and is just the right size. We saw the nose and Joel says it looks just like mine! We also saw Baby sucking and that was amusing. Even the Ultrasound Tech was laughing. Let's hope Baby has his brains! I've gained a pound which brings me up to two hole pounds. Wow, I may walk out of the hospital weighing less then when I started with this pregnancy. Our next apt. is in March and we will get another ultrasound because we couldn't see the heart valves very well and the bottom of the spinal cord. For now, we hope you enjoy the new pics.

For those keeping tabs...

We got the test results of all that blood draw and all the levels are good. Things are never 100% with the tests, but like Joel says, lets B+.

January Dr.'s visit

We had one more visit yesterday and everything went great. I got my blood drawn once again, and once again, it took them 1/2 an hour and now I'm left with a big bruise. We should get a call back in the next two weeks to see if the "level" of something or other say that I'm at risk for Down Syndrome, Spina Bifida and other chromosonal things. We heard the heart beat and LOTS of kicks as well. I have gain 1 whole pound! I'm so proud of myself, but no worries there. Other then that, everything is great! Our next visit is in four weeks and that the big ultra sound visit...I don't know what that means since we've gotten ultrasounds at almost all the visits.

On another note, I think last night was the first time I felt the baby move. It could have been gas but I'm going with "the baby was kicking".