4 Weeks

Well - it's been a full month! Here's what we know so far about Miss Ally

• The girl loves to eat, although it seems as though it's starting to calm down a bit.  It seemed like her 2 week "growth spurt" lasted for weeks!
• So far she will sleep through Benjamins loud and rowdy shenanigans - hopefully that lasts because I don't know if Benjamin will ever understand the concept of being quiet!
• She LOVES the top of her little head rubbed
• Unfortunately she has not been a fan of the swing which is a huge bummer because it was a major life saver when Benjamin was a baby.  If he was having a hard time - we'd stick him in the swing and he'd be out within minutes, worked like a charm every time.  I'm not going to give up just yet, I'm determined that she'll like it eventually :)
• She's still in newborn clothes but I don't think it'll be much longer before they start getting too snug 
• She can make some serious dirty looks while she's sleeping.  David says she gets that from me but I don't believe it

I'm so anxious to see how her little personality evolves over the next few months!

Ally's Photo Shoot

Remember our maternity photo shoot that our friend Christina did?  Well she gratuitously came out to our house to take Ally's newborn pictures as well! And I LOVE LOVE LOVE them! It's hard to pick out favorites but if I had to I guess these would be my top picks...

 And these just make me laugh :)

Time to get Serious

I put my tennis shoes on last week and went for my first post pregnancy run and let me tell ya...it was the hardest 2 miles I've ever done. I guess that's what happens when you've been out of the exercise game for almost a year! I ran until I was almost 8 months along with Benjamin but you all know Ally's pregnancy was a lot different so that didn't happen the second time around :(

But I'm so very excited to get back into it and hopefully get in better shape than I was before Allys AND Benjamin's pregnancies! I'd like to incorporate more weight lifting this time around.  My arms could use some serious definition so I'll prob. alternate cardio and weights on my daily work outs.

David is taking me to Fleet Feet to get properly fitted for some running shoes - I'm extremely excited about it.  I think the right pair of shoes can make a huge difference and I'm hoping it will help with some of the hip pain I have after running. Dang, I just felt real old talking about hip pain :)

I updated my ipod workout playlist to keep me motivated in those moments when I just want to give up.  Some of the songs that I turn up to keep me going:
Push It - Salt n Pepa (oldie but definitely a goodie)
Dog Days Are Over- Florence and the Machine
Feel Again - One Republic
Sail - Awolnation
Sweet Nothing - Calvin Harris
Adorn - Miguel 
Beggin' - Madcon
Thunderstruck - ACDC

I'm always looking to add more though so if you have any suggestions - let me know :)

And since I'm going to track my progress on here - I want to be able to look back and SEE any sort of changes made so here is my starting point picture (maybe next time I'll remember to take the picture before I run/work out so I'm not looking like such a hot mess)

Paleo

I'm not sure if you've heard about the Paleo diet but it seems as though it's starting to become increasingly popular.  I have a few friends that have been doing it for a while now and it sounds like the benefits are amazing so I'm definitely interested in giving it a try.
If you haven't heard of it - it's also called the caveman diet because you're basically going off a diet consisting of plants (fruits/veggies) seeds and meat.  You have to eliminate grains and refined sugar.  And it's not really a diet - it's more a lifestyle.  I'm very curious to see the effects of removing all the processed food and grain from my diet - I've heard your overall health is improved dramatically.  Heck - just eliminating my headaches alone would be enough to sell me :)
We're still trying to get adjusted to having a newborn in the house again so I haven't committed to go 100% paleo yet because honestly I don't have the time to jump all in yet.  I know it's going to take a lot of time and preparation to do this so I need to wait until we're all back on a somewhat consistent schedule otherwise I feel like I'm just setting myself up for failure. But that doesn't mean I can't slowly start to incorporate some paleo recipes in which brings me to this chocolate chip cookie recipe -
I found it through a blog I read every once in a while and you can find the full recipe HERE

Weekly

Remember how I did weekly pictures of Benjamin?  I'm also doing it for Ally as well :)  I think it's so fun to go back at their year Birthday and see how much they change from week to week, plus maybe they'll think it's cool to see when they get older too. 

Ally will be 4 weeks next Wed (CRAZY!) so here are the last 3 weeks

She's seriously a bottomless pit so I'm sure we're going to start seeing some dramatic changes from week to week!

Ally's Birth Story

I should tell you this post was 2 weeks in the making! I'd start to write and then would get distracted and have to come back to it-I'm definitely on Ally's schedule right now! :)
Lets back track a little...
My actual due date was Monday 4/22/2013 - we all know how Benjamin came almost a month early so I was convinced Ally would be an early baby too.  So you can imagine my frustration when 4/22 was fast approaching and Ally was still nice and cozy in my belly.  I didn't experience the awful anticipation last time since we were caught off guard with Benjamin, and let me tell ya...the waiting game was NOT fun.  Every day I would wake up and think this is it-today will be the day and then I would go to bed disappointed.  I finally decided that I would schedule to be induced on Wed. 4/24 but still held out hope that things would happen naturally.  I've heard horror stories of long labors with inductions and I nervous and scared of the unknown.
I went to my last weekly prenatal appointment on Monday 4/22.  It was a quick in and out appt. because I hadn't made any progress from the week before - so I said goodbye to my Dr. and told her I'd see her on Wednesday 4/24 for my scheduled induction.  Later that night David and I had a close call and I almost thought we needed to head to the hospital.  I started having contractions that were about 5-7 min. apart but would only last 20-30 seconds, I stayed in bed for about 40 min and timed everything but when I decided to finally get up and finish the last minute hospital bag packing things just abruptly stopped.  I just thought Ally was up to her tricks again!
I went to work the next day and tried to wrap things up since I knew it was my last day.  I told myself that I wanted it to be a stress free day and that I would actually leave on time (I've been super busy lately) but didn't end up leaving until after 5pm. That night was pretty uneventful, I thought I'd be more nervous knowing that the next day I would be at the hospital but I was surprisingly calm.  We did last minute preparations and made sure the plans were in place for Benjamin.  I went to bed around 10pm and fell asleep pretty fast.  Now for the crazy stuff...
I woke up around 12:30am to go to the bathroom - when I got back in bed I noticed a couple of contractions but given the false alarm the night before I didn't really get too excited, after about 10 min. I rolled over to my other side and what do you know - my water broke! Things got really intense really quickly after that.  The contractions got super painful and were about 4min apart.  David called his Mom and she was here about 15 min. later.  David and I headed to the hospital which was the longest 20 min. car ride of my life!  Thankfully it was a little after 1am and we had NO traffic to battle.
Once we arrived at the hospital I was hoping checking in would be a piece of cake since I had dropped off my pre-registration paperwork weeks ago.  However, they had several pieces of information incorrect - they had my relationship status down as single! So as I was slumped over in pain I was also trying to give the receptionist the right info - not fun!
We finally got put in a labor room where they quickly started me on an IV - I was 5cm at that point and contractions were more like 3 min. apart so they called in the anesthesiologist b/c I NEEDED the drugs!  They made David sit on the other side of the room while they did my epidural which I thought was kind of odd but I didn't question it b/c I was just so excited to know that relief was soon on it's way. 
Life was good after the epidural kicked in and we decided we'd try to relax and even take a little nap while things progressed but it was only about an hour later that I started feeling pain again and I got nervous the drugs were wearing off already so I called the nurse back in.  I told her that I could feel the contractions again and they were becoming painful.  She said she'd check me to see if I made any progress, I was hoping I was dilated to at least an 8 by then - turns out Ally was right there and it was time to push.  They quickly got my Dr. on the phone and told her to hurry up.  Ally was born at 5:44am but probably could have come more around 5am but I was holding out for my Dr :)  Once she was there it was 2 pushes and Ally was out! So all in all it was a pretty easy labor.  I still can't believe how quickly it all went!

Here she is... all 7lbs 10oz / 21.5 inches of her!