Christmas

Here are a few pictures of our first Christmas as a family of 3 (4 if you count Dakota!)

Adalyn's outfit to meet Santa!!

All ready to meet Santa:) (Can you tell how excited she was?)

Adalyn's Christmas outfit for the Christmas Eve service and party.

Christmas Eve we drove home from Louisville in the snow (which took an hour longer than it should because the Kentucky drivers didn't go more than 25mph on the highway!) We had a white Christmas for the first time in forever!! It felt like a real Christmas! Christmas isn't Christmas without snow!

The stockings were hung on the chimney with care...

Our dining room.

Adalyn (in her Christmas sleep sack) and Coda ready for bed Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning! Santa came!!! It was so cozy to open presents in front of the fire!

My favorite Christmas present!

6 and 7 Weeks!

So Adalyn was 7 weeks old on Tuesday and between Christmas and traveling I haven't had the chance to post the pictures from 6 or 7 weeks.  So here we go...

6 Weeks

 Pucker up!

At 6 weeks, Adalyn had grown from newborn clothes and is now wearing 0-3 clothes. (It was hard for me to pack away those newborn clothes and admit that she is growing up!)  She actually is still wearing newborn sized onesies but cannot wear newborn sized pants unless we want them to be high-waters:)  She is so long!  She is wearing size 1 diapers.  The newborn diapers still fit just fine and the size 1 look enormous on her but we found that the larger diapers help eliminate the blowouts!  She is just now starting to smile at things (and it's not just gas!).  She's also staying so alert and is tracking objects.  She loves her little jungle gym and bats at the animals hanging over her head.

7 Weeks

She's even cute when she is screaming! She now has tears and it breaks my heart!

At 7 weeks, Adalyn met lots of new family members at both Jonathan's family Christmas Eve party and also when we went to visit my parents and saw lots of family members in the couple days we were in Toledo!  She is trying so hard to talk.  She moves her mouth all around and tries to make noises.  Sometimes she really gets going and coos back to you when you're talking to her. So cute.  She also seems to try to mimic if we stick our tongues out at her she tries to do the same. She has been on a great schedule.  We are following Babywise and it seems to be working.  She sleeps through the night which is soo wonderful for me!  She even slept all night at my parents' house in a different room and a different bed!  I can't complain over her sleeping 8 hours!!  She is so laid back.  With travelling and being out and about, she just rolled with the flow and went past feedings without crying!  She made the 5 hour drive to my parents' house with sleeping the entire way!  (The way home...not so much. But it wasn't her fault.  We hit traffic and the trip took longer than it should. So by the time we stopped to change her and get her some milk we would have already been home had we not been traveling at rush hour.)

She is so precious and I love this new stage of discovery.  It is so much fun to see her learning...even if it means she won't be a newborn forever!

Merry Christmas!

5 Weeks

So I realize that you may want to read about something other than my child, but right now my life is revolving around my child so I can't really think of much else to blog about! Although with Christmas around the corner I'm sure there will be lots to blog about if I can find the time!  Tomorrow Adalyn gets to meet her sitter who will be watching her when I go back to work.  I'm thrilled about her new sitter.  We are so lucky to have a wonderful woman of God who will be taking care of our sweet baby since I can't. 

Here are Adalyn's 5 week pictures.  She's getting to be such a big girl!! (And she even slept through the night for 8 hours one night this past week!)

Is that a smile?? I can't wait till she smiles on purpose:)  She really is a happy and content baby!

Our schedules have been full with Christmas events already.  This Christmas will be so special!! (Now if only I could find Adalyn a Christmas stocking to hang!)  I think that having a baby really puts the Christmas story into perspective more than ever.  It's hard to put into words the amount of love I have for my baby and to put myself into Mary's shoes...I just can't even imagine!

1 Month

How has it been one month since Adalyn was born?? I knew that time would fly by but this is just crazy! I can't believe how big she is getting (she's still in newborn sized clothes but she just looks big to me!)  She has started lifting her head up and is so alert during the days! (Thankfully she doesn't have her days and nights mixed up!)  I love watching her see lights and colors.  I know that every milestone will be fun to watch!

Here are her 4 week / 1 month pictures!

 Coda really wanted to be in the pictures:)

 Sitting up like a big girl!! I love the surprised expression:) She needs a bow on that head! What was I thinking??

 That face... I'm in love... *sigh*

 And this picture is to prove that my child really does have a bottom lip:)  She just likes to suck it in most of the time:)  Ok, seriously I could just kiss those cheeks!  I think I will right now...

Christmas Tree Linky

This past month I have missed a lot of things in the bloggy world!  I feel a bit out of it.  But I saw on twitter that The Thrifty Decor Chick was having a Christmas tree linky party and I knew I had to hop in!

This tree was our original Christmas tree.  I started collecting the decorations for this tree in my single days.  I like the dark golds and dark reds.  This year since our house is bigger; I decided I would like this tree in our dining room front window and then I'd like a new tree in our living room!

 If you look in the last picture, in the background you can see my Willowtree nativity scene that I have been collecting since our first year that we were married.  Last year Jonathan found out that Willowtree had yearly angel ornaments that they started making in 2006 (our first Christmas we were married), so he found a website where he ordered the back years and gave me four of these ornaments for a present.  I love them and will look forward to my new angel ornament each year!  I think they show up well on this tree!

We bought a new tree for our living room this year. We needed to get a tree that was a bit fuller and found a great deal on one for 50% off at Michaels on Thanksgiving day!  I didn't know how I wanted to decorate it but I knew I wanted it to be more "fun" than the other tree which is more traditional.  I went to Hobby Lobby to get inspired and decided that I wanted to do lime green and silver.  Well, it looked a bit bland so I added some pops of bright red and now I LOVE it! (Still not sold on the skirt which is why it's not "on" the tree...I'm trying to find some fabric that I can make my own.)

 I knew I wanted to do mesh on the tree but couldn't decide whether to do vertical or horizontal but ended up with the horizontal mesh.  I had originally wanted green mesh but Hob Lob didn't have it.  I got the silver and am so happy I did.  I think it looks way better than green would have!  I also got some fun feathers that I stuck around.  I didn't know what I wanted for my topper and I found these fun pick things at Target and thought they were whimsical!

 I have about 6 or 7 "B" ornaments.  I love collecting them.  This one came from a cutie boutique here in town.

 I couldn't find lime green ornaments that I liked so using an idea I saw on blogs last year, I got clear ornaments and shredded tissue paper and added cute ribbons and I think they turned out great!  I ended up adding the ribbons to the plain white and silver balls too to tie them all in to the theme of the tree!

 After Christmas last year I bought a bunch of fun decorations at a boutique I love.  Don't you love how you forget what you bought after season and when you open up your decorations it's like you opened surprises!! I had bought 5 special ornaments on sale and they all ended up being green so they are perfect on my new tree!

I hope you enjoyed a "tour" of our Christmas trees.  I don't love the effort that goes into putting them up, but I do love looking at them all month (especially this year that I'm home all day for the month on maternity leave!)  We have a bunch of small trees around the house too, but that will have to be part of my Christmas decorations post. 

And I can't write a post anymore without a picture of this cutie.  She was having tummy time today and seemed to actually enjoy it! Such a big girl now!

3 Weeks!

As of yesterday my baby is 3 weeks old!  Where has the time gone??  I know I'll be saying that her whole life!  Adalyn really is a great baby!  She is so content and laid back.  I really can't complain.  She cries if she is hungry or wet or has gas...but really who wouldn't? :)  Other than that she is content!  She pretty much sleeps as long as she's in her car seat when we're out and about.  She usually gets up once during the night to nurse and goes right back down.  I mean seriously...easy peasy!  Since I have said that, she'll probably be up all night tonight. HA!

We are taking weekly pictures of Adalyn and since I have neglected my blog I haven't posted them.  So here are weeks one through three! (Thanks to Billie for the adorable onesie stickers!)

Week 1

Week 2

 

Week 3

My baby is growing!! Did you notice how she fills out the onesie more now than she did in week 1?  Or is that just me?  I can't believe how long she stays awake and alert now!  Last week we went to Adalyn's two week doctor's appointment and she was 7lbs 4oz (only 3oz less than her birth weight! Yay for weight gain!) and in the 50 percentile for weight.  She was 20 1/2 in long and 90 percentile for height.  And her head was in the 10 percentile... her daddy's girl!

We are just so blessed!  I just can't believe how amazing Adalyn is and how absolutely amazing motherhood is!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving...a few days late!  That seems to be my story lately:).  This year for Thanksgiving my parents were at our house.  So we had a small Thanksgiving group but we had a delicious dinner thanks to my mom!  This was our first time hosting Thanksgiving and we were able to break in our new dining room set and our wedding china and crystal!  Adalyn was a good girl and slept through our entire lunch!  She knew the importance of turkey dinner! :)

Our yummy spread!

 My precious baby was still sleepy after dinner! I had to put a giant bow on her head to make her outfit look girly! :)

 And I just had to post these couple precious pictures of my little angel!  I might be a little biased:)

 She is so alert now! I can hardly stand how fast she's growing!!!

Adalyn's Birth Story

We were scheduled for a 6:00 AM induction on my due date, November 9th.  I kept hoping that I would go into labor before the induction because of the increased chance of C-section from being induced.  Our alarm went off at 4:00 AM and I was not in labor, so I got myself up, dressed and of course did my hair and make-up.  I wanted to look nice for pictures since I could take my time to get ready:)  We left the house at 5:30 after a half-hearted attempt at breakfast.  We were just too excited to eat much but I knew once I was in the hospital that it would only be ice chips for me!

We checked into the hospital at 6:00, got changed, took pictures and waited for an exciting day! 

I got hooked up to my IV around 6:45 and when they checked me I was at 3cm and 50% effaced (which was what I was the previous Friday at my last doctor's appointment.)  After they started my pitocin I didn't feel much pain...that is until my doctor came in around 9:00 to break my water.  I had back labor and once my water was broken, that along with the pitocin had me in serious pain!  They actually had to turn down my pitocin because my contractions were coming so close together and so hard!

When my doctor came in to break my water, I could tell there was something wrong because she started telling the nurse all of this stuff she needed.  It turns out that I had meconium in the water (otherwise known as Adalyn had gone potty in the womb).  So my water was all green!  I didn't realize until later how dangerous this is.  Thankfully we were all calm about it.  They had to hook up a machine that pushed saline into my uterus to try to wash out all of that meconium.  Then they explained to us that they were hoping that Adalyn would not cry at birth and that they would not "rough her up" like they usually do for babies to cry.  They didn't want her ingesting any of the meconium into her lungs.  She would also require a special team of nurses to be present at birth.

Around 10:30 I got an epidural and it was nowhere as bad as people say!  Maybe because I was in so much pain, I really didn't feel the pain of the needle.  And sweet relief!  It felt great!  They were only going to check my dilation every 3 hours and they would "flip" me since I had to lay on a side and couldn't feel my legs to roll over every 2 hours.  So we occupied ourselves by watching HGTV and reading blogs.  Around 2:30pm I was at 4cm and 100% effaced.  It had taken so long to get one cm that I was worried we would be there all night!

At 4 pm I had caught up on all of my blog readings.  (See? Jonathan took a picture as proof!)

I was laying on my left side and started being able to feel my right leg.  I was also starting to feel twinges of contractions.  I called for my nurse and waited.  By the time she came in I was in full pain from contractions.  I couldn't figure out what had happened to my epidural!  They called for the anesthesiologist and he ended up shooting some meds into my regular IV (instead of the line in my back) and about 10 minutes later I got a bit of relief.  They did say that they weren't going to give me a lot because they wanted me to feel enough to push.  They told me the reason that I thought it had "worn off" was because I went from 4 cm to 10 cm in 1.5 hours!! So my pain had sky rocketed and the epidural was a constant so I had to have a boost for it to stay up with my pain.

We were so shocked that I was ready to push already!  We called Billie to come to the hospital asap since she was planning on being in the delivery room to take pictures and video.  Good thing she lives so close!  By the time she walked in the room, my legs were already in stirrups and I was pushing for the nurse!  It was like a whirlwind!

I only pushed about 3 times for the nurse and then the doctor came in and two pushes later our precious little girl was born!  It was amazing!  (I really can't imagine doing it without pain meds after feeling my contractions so much at the end!)  They showed her to me and then the team of nurses started working on her on the other side of the room while my doctor finished up with me.  Jonathan and Billie weren't allowed over to Adalyn until the nurses finally called for them.  I got really sick and it ended up that I had a lower uterine tear that was bleeding uncontrollably.  So my doctor worked on me for a long time.  Jonathan finally got to hold Adalyn but I was so out of it that I didn't really get to actually see her for a long time.  Thanks to some good meds and my wonderful doctor I was finally back to feel among the living!  She came so fast that she didn't get a cone head, but lets just say she left me with some damage:)

Our first family picture!

We got to keep Adalyn in the labor and delivery room with us for an hour but because I was being worked on for so long I actually only got to hold her for 15 minutes before she had to go to the nursery for 5 hours to go through more tests and be monitored due to the meconium.  I had to stay in L&D for extra recovery due to my bleeding so we were just itching to get to the mother/baby room and have our baby with us!!

We finally got moved to our mother/baby room and my parents made it to town (Jonathan's mom had been there the whole day) and finally around 10:30 pm Adalyn was wheeled into our room!!  Our precious little girl! 

Adalyn with my parents!

Adalyn with Jonathan's mom!



Our M/B room was great!  We had a double Tempurpedic bed so Jonathan didn't have to try to sleep on a chair at night!  We had some great nurses in both L/D and M/B.  Our night nurse in M/B happened to go to our church and so did one of our daytime nurses! (It's such a big church that we didn't know either one but they read on my file that I worked there and brought it up!)  We felt blessed to be in such great hands!

We got discharged Thursday morning/afternoon and drove our Adalyn to her home for the first time! 

 Going home outfit!  Adalyn's first real clothes!

 Leaving the hospital!

 All ready to go!

 Dakota is greeting Adalyn!  He didn't know what to think but he now loves his sister and is great with her!

All in all this labor and delivery was great! I couldn't have had a better experience!  I thank God for his hand of protection on Adalyn and myself through the process.  We have had an amazing support of family and friends!  So far it has been two weeks and we are still receiving yummy meals every other day from our Sunday School class! It's such a blessing!  I can't believe how fast time is already flying! My baby is two weeks old!!