Maddie & Daddy

What a smiler!

Maddie is such a happy baby. Her favorite tricks are smiling and cooing!

Happy Girl!

Madison has started smiling up a storm lately! It's so unbelievably precious to see her showing emotion and reacting to what you're doing (usually being goofy with her). She's also starting to coo a lot more too. (She's 5 weeks old now.)

Every time I see her the last couple weeks she looks more and more like Ashley. When she was first born I thought she looked more like Justin, but now I see my sister in her cute little face so much more! She looks exactly like Ash did as a baby.

Last week Auntie Jayma and Uncle Chris had the pleasure of babysitting while Mommy and Daddy were at a wedding. (Congrats Erin!!) She was such a little "sweet pea." She was a little fussy at first, but most of the night she just slept. The first hour she slept was in her carseat, and Holly was very interested in her. Then she was awake for maybe half an hour, during which I just took these pictures, fed, and changed her. Then she went right back to sleep in my arms until mom and dad got back around 11 (she loves to be held...she wouldn't have slept as long if it wasn't in my arms!). It was so nice to be able to watch her so they could go out and have fun! (And they did!)

Here are some recent pictures...

Maddie helped Auntie Jayma make coffee when I was at Ash and Justin's helping out.

She loves to LOOK at everything!

Watching TV with Daddy

Watching Daddy fall asleep watching TV

Maddie loves bath time. And she loves her new towel from Missy!

Sweet Freedom

Let us not forget how important today is. Chris and I have been watching "John Adams," the series that was on HBO a while back. It has given me a new appreciation for our fabulous country and all that our founding fathers had to go through to get us to where we are today. Happy Independence Day!

So Cute

Maddie's first pacifier :)

Chris and I were watching Amber for the past week and a couple days...since Madison was born. Yesterday Ash and Justin came and picked her up. Life is good for the Evans family :)

I'm One Week Old!

Hi all...this is Maddie. I'm so excited to meet everyone. I've met so many people already. My mommy told me it's mostly family. My Great Aunt Pooh and Great Uncle Steve surprised everyone and visited us from Florida. That was great fun! I fell asleep on Aunt Pooh for a couple hours...I think she loved that as much as I did.

I hope to meet Mom and Dad's friends soon! Apparently I'm kind of a handful right now though, so Mommy and Daddy have wanted us to lay low for a while.

Yesterday was my one-week birthday! From the reactions I've seen, I'm getting pretty big and strong already. I'm 20.5" long and have already gained back my birth weight. I love it when people hold me. I sleep much better when I'm in someone's arms. And when I'm awake I'm very alert. I love to look around and soak up all of my new surroundings. Sometimes I even lift my head on my own...but I can't hold it up for very long.

Look how precious I am when I'm sleeping. I sleep a lot, but sometimes not for very long at a time. I love to eat...and I love to wake Mommy and Daddy every hour or two so I can. But the doctor said I'm very healthy and eating very well...next week I'm going to learn how to eat from a bottle!

To all of you who are reading this...I hope to meet you soon. If you want to call my mommy or daddy to come see us, we'd love to see you! Hopefully one of these days I'll let them get some sleep so they're up for calling you. XOXO Maddie

Welcome to the world, Madison!

Madison Grace Evans was born on June 17, 2008 at 6:03pm. She weighed 8 lbs, 11 oz, and was 18.5 inches long. After a short, and what started off to be grueling labor, Madison's delivery was what most moms could only dream of!

Ashley and Justin arrived at Scripps Encinitas yesterday at 7am. She started getting induced at 9:30. For several hours she had steady but weak contractions (on a scale of 1-10 she said they were a 4). We thought it was still a waiting game.

At 2:30, just as her doctor arrived, her water broke on its own. That's when it hit her like a ton of bricks. She now says, "Those contractions before weren't a 4. They were a 0...then they became a 12." She immediately asked for Epidural. The anesthesiologist arrived right away, and we all (myself, my parents, and Justin's parents) left the room thinking we'd be right back in. Over an hour later we still had no news of what was going on. Apparently the anesthesiologist had a hard time getting the epidural into her back, and the FIFTH time was a charm. Meanwhile, between tries to get the needle in, she was having extremely painful contractions. She was pretty much ready to go without the medication. But finally, it worked, she became numbed, and as she told me later, "Remember... Epidural = GOOD!" Once she was numb it was the extreme opposite. The contractions got stronger, but she couldn't even feel them!

After only 3 hours she was already dilated to 9 cm. She was off the inducing drug, too (Pitocin). Around 5:30 the nurse asked us to leave and was going to check her again to see if she was close to fully dilated yet. We went to the waiting room, and after a half hour we thought we'd check in to see what was going on. The nurse walked down the hall and said, "It's all done." "Good, all done checking." we thought. "The baby is beautiful." the nurse said. "WHAT?! She's had the baby? It's only been half an hour!"

As Ashley and Justin later explained it, when the nurse was checking the last time how dilated she was, she told Ash, "Wow, her head is RIGHT here. Why don't you try pushing for practice." So she did. "WAIT...STOP...let's wait for the doctor. She's coming!" Doc arrived within 5 minutes, she gave a few good pushes, and the doctor was able to pull her out the rest of the way. And voila, you have the most beautiful baby EVER! (Sorry to those of you who have babies, but seriously, look at her!)

And that, my friends, is the greatest baby delivery of all time. Total ACTUAL delivery time was about 15 minutes. Actual labor since her water broke: 3-1/2 hours. Mom, Dad, and Maddie are doing great!

Tidbits of info from Auntie Jayma:
* Maddie will be growing fast...wow can that girl eat! Her first feeding was over an hour. She took to breastfeeding very easily.
* Her feet are already huge! She's definitely her mother's child :)
* She definitely knows her daddy's voice. When she starts crying, Justin sings to her and she calms down. He sang to her in the womb every night.
* She likes to stick her knuckle of her index finger in her mouth. She started doing it right away. She must have been doing it in the womb.
* She liked the warm water from her first bath on her head, but she didn't like the rest of her body being cleaned.
* She's already very curious and opens her eyes and looks around a lot. She likes being swaddled, but she also enjoys it when she's free...she moves her arms and everything all around!
* She's the most amazing, beautiful, gorgeous, perfect little person I've ever seen! I can't wait to spoil her!!!!
* You thought I talked about Oslo a lot...just wait...you haven't seen anything yet! ;)

Maddie's coming!

Ash and Justin got to the hospital at 7am this morning. Apparently there was some confusion about whether the doctor was coming to induce her or if the nurse would...in which case the doc would come later. I think it all got figured out by 9:30 or 10, and she should have started getting the hormones around then. As far as I know she's in labor or well on her way. I haven't gotten an update for a couple hours. I'm waiting for my mom to call me from the hospital, which is when I'll find out when I should get my booty up there, too! Aw, June 17...I like that date.