no more oxygen!

we are so thrilled. she finally started breathing well without the oxygen yesterday and we took her tubes off in celebration. now you can see her whole face!

serious face.

raspberry face.

annoyed-to-be-taking-pictures face.

i know, i know, everyone does this - but i still think it's pretty cute!

grandma and grandpa larsen came to visit this weekend. debbie was amazing and helped out so much with cleaning, cooking, and graciously holding penny every available minute. :)

p.s. everyone go out and buy the new acid tongue album by jenny lewis. it will blow your mind with its awesomeness.

penny and max

my sister lana came up yesterday to visit with her baby max and he and penny finally got to meet. i love how max looks like such a giant next to penny - he grew quick! here's their hot dance moves.
my mom was awesome and spent about 10 days in utah helping me with penny. she looks like a pretty happy grandma here. :)

my favorite picture of the week.

introducing...penny suzanne larsen!

sorry it's taken me so long to post pictures of penny. it's been a crazy week but here's the quick summary. my water broke at 2 am last wednesday (which was interesting and weird) so we called the hospital and they told us to come in right away. sure enough i was 4 cm already and i got my epidural pretty quick (which wasn't as scary as i thought it was going to be). after 10 hours of contractions and over 2 hours of pushing, she was finally born on thursday september 11th at 1:30 pm. she weighed 7 lbs 9 oz and surprised us all by having a ton of dark, curly hair. she was doing great but breathing really fast and they found out she had a little bit of fluid left in her lungs. she ended up having to be in the intensive care unit for 4 days and that was a little rough. i cried the first time i saw her all hooked up to wires and tubes but the doctor said this was a pretty common problem. after a few days in the ICU the doctor decided she was doing great but still needed to be on oxygen at home. me and paul were a bit apprehensive to say the least but they set us up with a big tank of oxygen and she's hooked up to a monitor so we can see her oxygen saturation stats. we just had a follow-up appt today with her pediatrician and he said she should only need to be on oxygen for another week or so. hopefully she can get off it sooner rather than later! her nose tubes are connected to a 50-foot cord that goes around our whole appt - it's actually pretty funny to see. but other than that, her health is perfect - she's gained weight already and makes these cute squeaking sounds when she's eating.

so, that wasn't a very short explanation and i'm sure anyone who sees this posting has skipped right down to the pictures but paul and i are so in love with our little penny and i am so grateful for modern medicine and that the hospital took such great care of our little girl. below are some of my favorite pics.



proud papa.
first time holding my little penny.
in the ICU. :(
daddy's first diaper. as you can tell, penny's having a grand ol' time.
alison, me, and jessica. they were visting from california and i'm so glad they were able to come see penny.
grandma and grandpa larsen.
getting a sweet ultra violet tan for a bit of jaundice.
we're finally home!

tummy time.
i love this little girl. :)

no, she's not here yet

oh baby countdown, how you've tricked me. i thought magically once you went down to zero, that *poof* penny would arrive. sadly, this is not the case. as punishment, i've removed you from our blog. nothing's really changed but i do have a doctor appt tomorrow for my 40 week check-up. cross your fingers...

we finished watching the 4th season of the office and it was, needless to say, awesome. not as many special features as the other seasons but the blooper reel is really good. we were gonna save it to watch at the hospital but ended up watching it in 2 days. i keep absent-mindedly humming the theme song under my breath. i can't wait for the sept 25th premiere of the 5th season. i'll have penny by then, right?

penny's nursery

so we're renting a small apartment and couldn't do any fun stuff like paint the walls or change the curtains so we had to work with what we had. "we" - ha. as if paul had any part in this. :) i didn't have a specific theme in mind, just several random ideas which turned out to be roses, pennies, and wrought iron.

changing table and dresser - pretty self explanatory. i just wanted something simple and cherry. thank you to all those who made penny those super cute blankets on the bottom shelf!

i love this little lamp we got from wal-mart - it goes perfectly with the curly-cue wrought iron stuff. eventually a picture of penny will go in the frame, but for now i cut out some botanical rose drawings and stuck it in there with some pennies.

her crib (which together with the changing table and dresser we got off of craig's list for only $150!) and the sweet, sweet glider (which we got for $175 off craig's list as well). i LOVE this glider - it's only a year old and has a high, broad back and a little ottoman that glides with it and it is SO comfortable. i can imagine many sleepless nights in this chair.

close-up of the letter frames above her crib, which match the frame on her dresser. once we decided to name her penny, i was like "awesome! i can spell out her name in pennies and put them in frames above her crib!" (in those exact words). cheesey, i know, but i love these letter frames.

her clock, also from wal-mart - more of the wrought iron curly-cue theme.

her crib bedding. it took me forever to find bedding i liked - all the girl stuff was too overkill on the pink. i found this set at target and i loved the rose pattern with the balance of pale green and light pink.

the rose quilt i made for penny. this took me forever to make and once i started making it i kicked myself because i'll never want her to use it. i was having way too much fun adding ribbon and hand-quilting the stitches and if i let her use it that means she'll barf and poo all over it and that would be too sad. so, i figure i'm gonna hang it up in her room when she gets older and it can be like an heirloom-type thingy.


so once i realized how dumb i was for making her a quilt she'll never use, i made a little rose rag quilt which she can pee and poop on to her heart's delight because this quilt is actually machine-washable.


and last but not least, our sad little computer station that has to share the room with the nursery (small apartment = no space). special thanks to ikea for the midget-sized table.

sorry this post was so long. i'm just glad her little nursery is finished and i'm pretty happy with it. i'm sure it'll look much cuter with a baby in it. hopefully i'll be posting some baby pix in the next post or so!

check it out yo' - check it - check it out yo' (to be said outloud with rhythm)

so...i just wanted to point out that the baby countdown to the right is down to SINGLE DIGITS. that's all i wanted to say. and no, she's not here yet.

on another note, i am saddened by stephenie meyer's decision to postpone the publishing of "midnight sun" indefinitely. and her even more bizarre decision to post the leaked unfinished draft on her website - which i am almost done reading because really, how can you resist that? still very sad, though.

i felt like i needed to include a picture because this post was boring so here's a picture of me and paul on a camping trip right after we were married 3 long years ago...hence the blonde hair. ah young paul and young mel, there's so much i want to warn you about but sadly, i cannot.

almost there...

just for fun, here's my 14 week picture:and then BAM! here's me at 37 1/2 weeks: (the half week is very important at this point).

i know what you're thinking: "can she BE any more pregnant?" trust me, i am SOO ready to be done with this pregnancy business. i saw my doctor yesterday and she said the baby has "dropped" and that i could go into labor any day now - sounds good to me. i've washed all her clothes, her nursery is pretty much done (i just need to hang stuff on the walls), and i sleep 3 hours a night because no sleeping position is comfortable. also, lately everything looks dirty in our apartment and i keep readjusting, cleaning, and organizing things that don't need it. i think i peek in her dresser at leat once a day to make sure everything is folded neatly.

i really am so freaking excited for her to be here and i keep trying to picture what her little face will look like. guess there's nothing left to do but wait...