Evie’s birth was actually very, very similar to my birth with Kaelyn. My pregnancy with Evie was pretty much the same too except I didn’t have anemia this time. The doctor figured I’d need to schedule another induction so we went ahead and picked the date of June 4th since it worked for everyone’s schedule. At first I didn’t really like the idea of picking the birth date like that based around schedules, but it all worked out really well in the end. It was helpful especially because our family could plan when to come to town so that they could take care of Kaelyn for us while I was in the hospital. (Just an FYI – my due date was originally June 6.)

So around 6:30am on Thursday, June 4th I headed to the hospital along with Matt and my mom. My dad and brother stayed at home to take care of Kaelyn. They started my pitocin around 8:00am and the contractions started kicking right in. It was about 2 hours later before I had dilated enough (I think to around a 2) for them to break my water. Doctor broke my water around 10:00am and said if I wanted an epidural I could go ahead and order that so I did. I knew after my birth experience with Kaelyn that I was definitely going to get the epidural. I spent all morning just getting up and down going to the bathroom. I think I had to go a lot because they were also pumping me with fluids and I remember that i just felt better to sit on the toilet than to lay in the bed. That pitocin really brings the contractions on fast!

Then around 11:00am the doctor came in to give me the epidural. It was good timing too because my contractions had just started to get more intense. I had to stay in bed after that and I felt totally relaxed so I just took it easy and kind of dozed in and out of sleep.

Around 1:30 I remember feeling a lot of pressure every time I had a contraction. It wasn’t really pain since I had the epidural, but there was definitely a lot of pressure. I told the nurse when she came in to check on me the next time. She didn’t seem to think much of it and said she would check me during her next visit in another 15 minutes or so. Right as she was about to leave the room I had another contraction and I told her again how much pressure there was and that I really felt like I needed to push. She decided to go ahead and check me and sure enough I was a 10 already!! This was around 2:00 or 2:15.

I think the nurse was totally shocked. Evie’s head was *right* there. She told me to hold on and not push while she scrambled to call the doctor and everyone else in. As soon as the doctor came in and let me push Evie popped out! It literally only took one big push and Evie was out at 2:27pm. She weighed 6lbs 15oz and was 20 inches long.

She was perfectly healthy and beautiful! My first words were, “She looks just like Kaelyn!” She was a little bit cold so they had to warm her up under the lights for a few minutes which she really seemed to enjoy. She had the same hair that Kaelyn had at birth and weighed just a few ounces less (probably due to the fact that Kaelyn was born over a week late). Both girls were delivered by the same doctor too which I was happy about.

(One major difference between this birth was that with Kaelyn my water seemed to gush the entire day every time I had a contraction. It didn’t do that at all this time which was so much nicer not to be soaking my bed linens every few minutes.)

Mom cut Evie’s umbilical cord just like she did with Kaelyn. Dad, Jared, and Kaelyn got to come in the room just a few minutes after Evie arrived to meet her for the first time.

I still had some tearing like I did the first time, but other than that it was a pretty easy experience as far as birthing babies go.

A couple of pictures from right after the birth…

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Evie
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Baby Evie is almost 4 months old already!! She is a little mover and shaker. She is so curious about everything and always so wide eyed. If I put her down on the floor she will roll to the other side of the room in no time. She is much more active than Kaelyn was at this age. I think she is just anxious to keep up with big sister. She loves playing in the excersaucer or sitting in the Bumbo seat and watching Kaelyn play. She’s also grabbing onto everything in sight (especially my hair) and putting it in to her mouth. It’s fun to see her hand-eye coordination developing. I swear sometimes she even pushes up on her hands and knees. I think she will be crawling by Christmas…we’ll see if my prediction is true.

Overall she is a very happy, smiley baby and never gets too upset about anything. She is sleeping great at night – usually about 7:30-7:30 with one wake up time around 4:00am to eat and go right back to sleep.

We had her baby dedication during a very nice service at church last month and Momsie, Papa, Uncle Jared, and friends Dan and Ariel joined us for that.

At Evie's Baby Dedication

Uncle Eric and Aunt Lisa came down for Labor Day weekend to meet Evie for the first time and we all had lots of fun! Right after that we headed to the beach with Momsie, Papa, and Uncle Jared for Evie’s first ever family vacation. She decided that sleeping on the beach to the sound of the ocean waves was very relaxing.

Relaxing on the Beach

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Kaelyn
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Now for the biggie – Kaelyn turned TWO in August!! I can’t believe my first-born child is already 2 years old. She is not a baby anymore but her very own, independent little person. I always knew that babies changed a lot from age 0 to 1, but I think they change just as much or even more from age 1 to 2. At age one Kaelyn was only crawling and saying a few words. By her second birthday she was running everywhere and speaking in complete sentences (usually several complete sentences at a time)!

This year has been so amazing to really see her little personality develop and to be able to find out what is going on in that brain of hers. I know I’ve written it here before, but she really does amaze me every single day with the things that she says.

By 18-months she knew her alphabet and numbers up to 20. She knows all her colors and shapes, many songs, and can tell you what the opposite word is to probably about 30 different words. Her favorite thing at the moment is to point out every traffic light and stop sign along the road as we drive. She will describe the stop sign, “It’s an octagon shape, and it’s red, and it has the letters O, P, S, T.” She will describe all the lights on the traffic light, “Red means stop, green means go, yellow means slow-up.” Seriously, she amazes me.

I don’t mean to brag so much, but that’s what a mommy is supposed to do, right?

Kaelyn continues to be an awesome big sister who is so loving, kind, and caring towards baby Evie. She’s always wiping the spit-up off her face or sharing her toys. I think it says a lot about Kaelyn’s heart in general which I think is so very loving in all ways. She honestly cares about other people and wants them to be happy.

She’s now fully into two-year-old mode and we are just starting to work on potty training. She’s getting more and more independent and is always saying, “Do it by yourself.” (Meaning she wants to do it by herself.) She still enjoys reading books as much as ever, loves being outside and playing with friends, and she is already taking soccer classes with Daddy on the weekends.

Here’s a comparison for the past year:

WOW – I am so truly blessed! I LOVE both of my wonderful, beautiful little girls.

It was becoming quite stressful (especially for me) because I really wanted to know her name. I wanted to be able to get things monogrammed, wanted to put her name up on the wall in her room like we did for Kaelyn, wanted to start calling her by name so Kaelyn would get used to it, and I definitely didn’t want to wait until we were in the hospital to decide (that seems like too much pressure and stress for me).

At one point a few weeks ago Matt had told me that I could go with “my” name for baby girl since I was the mom/pregnant one and all. Then he added that he would be disappointed “to see the letters go up on the wall.” That’s when my heart just broke! I wanted the naming to be a happy decision for both of us.

So we moved onto another strategy of going back to the drawing board and trying to think of another name, a third option, that we could both compromise on and be happy with. We spent hours pouring over names on the internet. We even went on a date to the bookstore one night and sat and read through baby name books. The problem was the more we looked at other names, the more we kept coming back to our original two names.

Somewhere along the way last week I was thinking about names and for some reason my mind started to look at things a little differently. I still loved both names, but for some reason I was feeling more and more drawn to the name that was Matt’s top choice…it just seemed to “fit.” I didn’t say anything to him because I wanted to give myself some time to think it through in my head, and I didn’t want him to be disappointed if I changed my mind.

By last Friday I had 99% sure made up my mind. I called my parents who were on their way for a visit to see us and had them stop by the store where we bought the letters for Kaelyn’s nursery and pick up the appropriate letters for the new nursery. Once I saw the letters I knew for sure that I was 100% happy with my decision. So on Saturday morning while Matt went out for a jog we quickly hung up baby girl’s new name in her room.

When Matt came back this is what he found:

At first he said “did you buy other letters?” thinking I had bought letters for all the names we were considering just to see how they looked. I told him that, no, I had only gotten those. He kept asking me if I was sure and I said definitely. Then he sat down for a while and just kind of stared at the wall -I think he was in a bit of shock (a good shock).

So that’s our naming story. It was stressful for a while, but I think it ended up being pretty special for both of us which I was extremely happy about. Now we have been having fun calling baby girl by her real name: Evie Wren Miller

We can’t wait to meet you very soon little Evie!

(p.s. We’ve had the middle name picked out since the beginning – that was the easy part for us.)

I’ve neglected to post much lately, especially about the fact that we are having another baby, but I figured most of our readers knew about that already. We had our ultrasound today and everything looks great! Still on track for a June 6 due date.

Kaelyn is excited and has already learned how to say “sissy” so she is well on her way to being a great big sister!

We might have our hands full in about 12 or 13 more years, but that’s okay. A girl house will be lots of fun I’m sure. Plus we already have all the girl stuff from Kaelyn so it will make things easy for now in a practical sense.

Now the selection of a name begins….

• SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!!! – I didn’t want to get my hopes up right away, but after the most difficult week of my life of CIO (crying it out, for all the non-parents out there) Kaelyn is finally sleeping through the night. For the past five nights she has slept from 7:30 – 6:30. I’ve had my first full nights of sleep in over a year!! (Over a year because the last few months of pregnancy I was up every two hours going to the bathroom.) REJOICE!
• Claps her hands – so cute when she gets excited.
• Gives high-fives – she thinks this is particularly funny.
• Clicks her tongue.
• Pulling up on things more and more – which lead us to install our top-of-the-stairs baby gate and put baby-proofing stuff on our kitchen cabinets.

We’ve put up a few new pics and videos.

Ready for our Memorial Day cookout

Just checking my email

Swimming with Mommy

Admiring Daddy’s handiwork on the baby gate

Don’t mind me, I just want to read some books

• She is crawling all over the place now. She has adopted the “army style” crawl for now.
• She pulls up on things sometimes as long as they are short enough. Her favorite thing to pull up on is the laundry basket. She hasn’t started pulling up on the furniture yet, but I’m sure that will come any day now.

• She has 4 teeth (two top and two bottom).
• She went to her first ever wedding when my cousin, Julie, got married on May 17.

• She just got back from her first ever vacation. We went to Garden City, SC for the week with my family. She loved the beach! (More details about our vacation to come.)

• She can get herself into a sitting position now. We discovered this one day when we put her down for a nap and when we went back in to get her she was sitting up smiling at us.
• She sometimes does a bye-bye wave kind of thing, and we think she sometimes does the baby sign for “milk.”

She has her 9-month check-up later this week and I’m looking forward to get her new height and weight measurements. And of course just like every month before she managed to grow more adorable than ever! Everywhere we go people always say “Look at those big eyes!”

*Edit: just as I was about to post this blog I went to get Kaelyn up from her nap and found her standing up inside her crib! I guess it’s time to lower the mattress down. My baby is growing up!

• She has eaten ALL kinds of things now including macaroni and cheese (the real kind), banana pudding, cottage cheese, baked ziti, Wendy’s frosty, pancakes, waffles, Chick-fil-a chicken nuggets. Don’t worry – I do give her healthy things too like peas, carrots, black eyed peas, and bananas.

  She is good at chewing so I always try to give her some of what we are eating (“table food”), but she still also eats the regular baby food in the jars. Her favorite is prunes.


• She is pushing up on her hands and knees. She’ll probably be crawling anytime now. She does manage to get from Point A to Point B by using a combination of rolling and scooting. I think she’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn how much more efficient crawling will be. Time to baby proof!
• She still doesn’t sleep through the night, but she does take much better naps. Hooray! She used to take about two 30 minute naps, and now it’s more like two 1-2 hour naps. Oops, I just gave up any excuse I had for not being a better blogger.
• Two words: Swinging Rocks!

• She babbles ALL the time. I’m starting to think she is getting the idea of what Mama and Dada actually mean, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking. We are taking a Baby Signs class, so maybe we’ll be communicating more clearly soon.
• She loves to point. Her two little pointer fingers are always sticking out looking for something to touch, poke, scratch, and explore. Exhibit A:
  

Hmmm, I’m sure there are more, but that’s all I can come up with for now. A few of Kaelyn’s “firsts” the past couple of months include:

• A Clemson baseball game
• A train ride
• Getting teeth (she has 3 now with 1 more on the way!)
• Her first 5k race

I personally think she is getting more adorable and precious and amazing everyday even though I didn’t think it was possible. Sometimes I just want to squeeze her as tight as I can until she just mushes into me. It’s like I just can’t be close enough to her. Sometimes I just want to kiss off her entire face. She is Daddy’s joy and Mommy’s girl.

• rolling over from back to tummy (now she can roll both directions!)
• picking up her legs in a walking fashion when you hold her arms so she can “walk” around
• saying the “ma ma” sound frequently (gah! – it melts my heart)

She hasn’t been eating her solids this week. She literally seals her lips together if I offer her food with a spoon. Everyone tells me it sounds like teething. I swear she has been exhibiting teething symptoms for months now so I am hesitant to claim that, but maybe it’s the real deal this time. Who knows?? Maybe she’s just going to wake up one morning with a full head of teeth all at once – ha! My mom laughed at me because she said in about 13 years I will probably be saying “I wish you’d seal your lips together!” I talked back something major growing up, so if Kaelyn does it I guess I’ll just be getting what’s coming to me.

Matt and I are planting a maple tree in our backyard today. It will be Kaelyn’s tree. We don’t have any trees in our yard at the moment and we are looking forward to having some shade eventually.

I’m getting my hair cut tomorrow – finally. I haven’t had a cut since October and I can’t wait!

One more thing, I went to my first Mommy’s Night Out last night. I had so much fun! At first I was all stressed worrying that Kaelyn would wake up screaming while I was out, but Matt said she did great and slept the whole time I was gone. We went to one of those Japanese steakhouses (my favorite!) and it was so yummy. There were 7 of us and we even managed to talk about things other than babies (most of the time). I didn’t realize how much I needed some time to get away for a couple of hours.

That’s all of my thoughts for now. Have a good weekend!

Congratulations to some of our best friends, Will and Valerie, on the birth of their son! We can’t wait to meet Graham Vincent!!!!

Speaking of births, we got to meet another new baby last week. Scott and Jansy are friends of ours from Clemson who live here in NC now. We met their little 2 week old daughter, Brynn, and she seemed sooo tiny. Hard to believe Kaelyn was that small just a few months ago.

One thing that made me very happy today was the discovery of my favorite Starburst jelly beans that only come out at Easter. But the thing that made me very, very happy was finding out they now make a bag of only the red jelly beans! Wahoo – no more eating the yellow and green ones – now I can have my favorite with every bite. Now my pooping chicken is filled with lots of red chewy goodness (kind of like this).

We’ve had a few visitors since the last time I updated. Matt’s parents, aunt, and grandparents came over to celebrate his birthday. My BFF, Lisa, also came to visit for a long weekend.

Unfortunately Kaelyn and I were sick the week before Lisa visited and we generously shared our germs with her. Please forgive us Lisa and come back to visit again soon!

Kaelyn had her 6-month check-up last week. WOW, I can not believe it has already been more than half of a year since she was born. She weighed 15 lbs. 11 oz. (50%) and was 26.5 inches long (75%). Her weight percentile had dropped some, but the doctor said it was okay because she is becoming more active now. Plus, she had been sick for the week before and had not been eating well. The whole sickness thing was not fun at all. She had a bad cold and didn’t eat or sleep well. Then a couple of days after Kaelyn got sick, I got it too. Matt had to come home early one day because I was feeling so bad I didn’t have the energy to give proper attention to Kaelyn. Fortunately Matt stayed clear of the germs.

As far as new things, Kaelyn loves exploring sounds and facial expressions. She makes funny faces with her lips and smacking kissy noises. She also likes to stick her tongue out in different ways. She is such a joy to just sit and watch.

She also pats her hands up and down on things, even on my face. I love when she grabs my face…I swear she is giving me kisses. Oh, and she loves my hair. She will do anything to grab on to my hair and she can really yank it too – sometimes she pulls out a whole handful. She is SO curious. She constantly has to be looking at things and checking them out. Sometimes it is a real challenge to feed her because she just wants to look around at things. Even when she is breastfeeding she is looking up and grabbing at my hair instead of really concentrating on eating. I think it’s great though that she is so curious and interested to discover new things.

She still doesn’t care very much about rolling. She will occasionally roll from her tummy to her back, but never the other way around. She sits very well and pretty much never falls over anymore. Really she just wants to be sitting or standing all of the time. Even though she can’t crawl she does manage to scoot herself all around somehow just by squirming a lot. I’m sure once she figures out the crawling she will be everywhere!

Kaelyn attended her first little birthday party for one of her friends last weekend. Little Miss Sophie turned 1 and Kaelyn helped her celebrate. It was so cute to see all the babies together. Pictures will be posted soon…

The weather has been beautiful here lately and we’ve really enjoyed some time outside just sitting in the yard or going for walks. I love that spring actually arrives in March instead of like in Illinois where it seemed winter would never end. Sunshine makes me smile, and so does this little lady:

She’s also doing lots of other new things such as jumping like crazy in her Jumparoo, rolling from tummy to back (sometimes), getting better with her eye/hand coordination, sitting better on her own, wearing bows in her hair (to mommy’s delight), and having more diaper blow outs (not to mommy’s delight). I’m sure there are some other things, but those are the main things I can think of off the top of my head. Oh, and Kaelyn also really enjoys reading books. She’s actually quite good for a baby at turning the pages.

Needless to say, Kaelyn racked up at Christmas. She was a very good girl for the first 4 months of her life.

At Kaelyn’s 4 month check-up she weighed in at 14 pounds 6 ounces (75%) (exactly double her birth weight!) and 25 3/4 inches (95%). The doctor said she looked great and was really impressed with her great eye tracking skills. The past couple of weeks we’ve been successful at getting Kaelyn on a good night time routine. I think she has gotten used to it and gets quite fussy if she’s not in bed by 8:00. At 7:30 we give her cereal, wash her face, put on her pjs, read a night time story, breastfeed her, and then she’s in bed asleep between 8:00-8:15. It’s been nice to have a couple of hours in the evening to spend alone time with Matt or to get things done around the house. She’s still waking up once during the night to eat and then she goes back to sleep until between 7:00-8:00. She actually did sleep through the whole night one time about a month ago. I keep hoping she’ll start doing that consistently any day now…

We continue with many of the same weekly activities such as walking at the park with our friends Ariel and Esher, going to Gymboree (now twice a week), and volunteering at the church office each week. We usually fill up other time in the week doing normal household chores, grocery shopping, going to the mall, having playdates, or just being goofy together.

Kaelyn really is such a good baby and just goes with the flow with wherever we take her. On Sundays we usually play Ultimate Frisbee and she just loves hanging out at the park for a couple of hours. By the way, it’s really nice to be able to be outdoors year-round here in NC. We could never play Ultimate in Illinois, much less in shorts and t-shirt!

Well, I’m not making any promises, but I’ll try to get better about posting here. Kaelyn is better these days at entertaining herself (I think she’d stay in the Jumparoo all day if I let her), so it’s really helpful for doing things like cleaning house or making dinner.

By the way, I think Matt already pointed this out, but just a reminder that there are two new links over on the sidebar that go directly to pictures and videos of Kaelyn.

Our little love bug is now two months old and growing like a weed! It has been so much fun this past month watching her little personality really start to shine through. She loves to be talked to and sung to. She will just laugh and smile and “talk” along with you. I really think she is going to be a little social butterfly. She loves being around people, she always has to be doing something, and she loves to be outside. She also likes going places…I really think she knows when she goes in her car seat that we are going somewhere and she gets happy about that.

This month Kaelyn and I started going to Gymboree classes and we are both really enjoying that. We get to play with other mommy and baby friends, learn new songs, etc. We also get together with some of our other mommy and baby friends every week for play dates and walks at the park. Kaelyn made her second road trip to SC this past month when my dad had a heart attack (thankfully he is going to make a full recovery!). My college roommates all came to NC for a little reunion and to visit Kaelyn. Kaelyn’s Nana and Papa Miller also got to make a trip down to NC a few weeks ago. Then of course there was the excitement of Matt’s injury. As you can see it’s been a busy second month for Kaelyn! We’ve also done a few projects around the house like planting new grass seed and painting our office.

Kaelyn had her two month check-up today and had to get her first round of vaccinations. She did really well. She screamed really loud (she has some lungs) at the first shot and cried while she was getting them all (three), but once I was able to pick her up and hold her she calmed down pretty quickly. I felt so horrible though. She now weighs 11 pounds 14 ounces (75%), 24 inches long (90%), and her head is 15.25 inches (5%). Hehe, she’s long and skinny with a little head. Also, the doctor said if her eyes were going to get dark that they would have changed by now so the doctor thinks she will keep her blue eyes! Tall with blue eyes? We must have some serious recessive genes.

There are recent pictures in our photo gallery here. We’ve also uploaded a few videos on YouTube which you can see here.

She is a great baby. She sometimes has a little fussy time in the evenings, but I think all babies have that. She eats really well and is starting to get on some kind of a schedule (most days anyway). At night she will usually sleep about 2.5-3 hours between feedings and sometimes she will sleep for four hours.

She is definitely growing like a weed. She hasn’t been weighed since her 2 week appointment, and I wish I knew how much she has gained. Her next doctor appointment isn’t until two months. She is noticing things more and she hits at toys in front of her. She also is getting pretty good at holding her head up for a short while, and lately she has been trying to talk more and making lots of little cooing noises.

We’ve been trying to get out of the house at least once a day even if it’s just to take a walk or go to Target. It makes me feel a lot better to have some kind of goal for each day. We’ve been meeting up with lots of other little baby friends for trips to the mall or walks at the park. Kaelyn also made her first trip to church a couple of weeks ago…she pretty much slept right through it all.

Well, I better keep this short and sweet because our Sweet Baby K (as Matt likes to call her) is getting a little restless. I’ll leave you with some recent photos of her first road trip to Mooresville, NC and to Anderson, SC. (She got to meet lots of great-grandparents and even her great-great grandmother!)

I can hardly believe that Kaelyn is already 2 weeks old as of today! Life with a newborn is incredibly wonderful and busy, which is the reason we haven’t had a chance to write a detailed post yet about the newest member of our family. Usually when she naps I try to do one of three things: 1) sleep 2) eat 3) shower. As you can see blogging just doesn’t get much priority over those three things.

I guess I should start from the beginning and see how far I can get before our little princess wakes up from her nap…

I went into the hospital on Monday, August 27 for a scheduled induction since Kaelyn wasn’t in any rush to come out on her own. We got to the hospital at 7am that morning, and I was all hooked up to the pitocin and had gotten my water broken by 8am. My contractions started out easy, but it didn’t take long for them to pick up the pace. I was 2cm dilated when I first arrived at the hospital (I had been having some very mild contractions the day before).

When the doctor checked my progress again around 1:30ish, I had only dilated to 2.5cm!! I was not very happy about this news at all. My contractions were already pretty hard and coming about a minute apart, so at this point I asked for the epidural (or the “Happydural” as my doctor called it). By about 3:00 I had gotten the epidural and it had started working. (For anyone out there who may be wondering about the epidural for childbirth someday…it is awesome and I would highly recommend it. It didn’t hurt at all…I didn’t even notice when they were doing it because I so busy trying to breath through my contractions.) Within just about half an hour I had already dilated to 5cm. The nurse then turned up my pitocin since I couldn’t feel it at this point, and she said she’d just let me lay there and “go” for a while. She estimated I’d have the baby around 10pm that night. She just told me that if I felt the urge to go to the bathroom to let her know.

So I laid there for about another hour. I could still tell that I was having contractions, but it didn’t hurt at all. Hooray! Then all of a sudden I felt like I really needed to go to the bathroom. I told Matt I thought we should call the nurse. She came right away to check me. To everyone’s surprise, in just an hour I had dilated from 5cm all the way to 10cm. This was about 5:00pm and the nurses started setting up all the delivery equipment right away. I had a few “practice” pushes with the nurse before the doctor arrived. (Apparently the doctor had to come running to my room, hehe). The doctor arrived about 5:30, and after 15 minutes of pushing Kaelyn Rose was born at 5:45pm.

Matt and my mom were there in the room with me the whole time. My mom and I were sobbing at this point and even Matt had some tears in his eyes (Matt never cries). Kaelyn weighed 7 pounds 3 ounces and 19 inches long, and was perfectly healthy. Like any proud daddy, Matt immediately started taking about a million pictures. We stayed in the delivery room for about another hour while I got stitched up (I had some tearing during the delivery), and Kaelyn got her bath. Finally my dad and brother got to come in the room and meet Kaelyn. They had been in the waiting room about to go crazy to come in and see her.

Kaelyn came out sucking her hands like crazy! The nurse said it was the strongest sucking reflex she had ever seen in a newborn. We stayed in the hospital the next two nights and came home on Wednesday. During our time in the hospital, Kaelyn passed all of her tests with flying colors. The nurse also told me that Kaelyn’s bilirubin score (the test for jaundice) was the lowest she had seen in over a year (low is good). Needless to say, I was a very happy momma to hear that my baby was so good and healthy.

By the way, there are lots of other TMI details I’m leaving out here (like how I leaked out amniotic fluid like someone opened up the Hoover Dam), so if any of you out there (most likely those of you who will soon be experiencing childbirth for the first time) who would like the complete details, just let me know.

My parents and brother were here for the delivery and for a few days afterwards. Matt’s family came over Labor Day weekend, and then my parents came back again for the whole week after that. Today has been my first day alone, but I think we’ve done great so far. Kaelyn had her two week doctor’s appointment this morning and then we even managed to stop by Target on the way home. When we left the hospital, Kaelyn’s weight had dropped to 6 pounds 11 ounces, but today she is a hefty 7 pounds 14 ounces! The doctor said she was doing great on her weight gain. She has also grown to 22 inches…3 inches in just 2 weeks…holy cow! Her head has also gotten about an inch bigger around. No wonder she seems to eat ALL the time.

She is a great eater (as you can tell by her growth) and she is pretty good at sleeping too. We are still working on getting into a normal routine, but it seems to get better and better each night. Even though I’m not getting much sleep these days, the funny thing is that I don’t even care. When I look at her little face nothing else matters, and I could just stare at her nonstop all day. I LOVE being a mommy!!!

One of the best things about becoming parents has been seeing Matt become a daddy. I just want to tell the whole world what an amazing husband and father Matt has been these past two weeks. From the second Kaelyn was born I could tell that Matt was instantly in love with her, and she totally loves him too. Matt has been so wonderful at taking care of both of us! He even changed her first dirty diaper at the hospital.

So far Kaelyn has been to Target (twice), Old Navy, Subway, Blue Rain Cafe, and Belks. I’m getting her started on shopping early, hehe. She’s also been on a few walks around the neighborhood. I have been feeling much better this week and so I try to get out of the house a little bit every day for at least a walk or something. It feels great to be getting my body back and to be able to sleep on my stomach. I only need to lose about 7 more pounds to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight (I gained about 30 pounds while I was pregnant) – hooray for breastfeeding and burning all those calories!

I feel like there are so many things I could write about…like how adorable her little smile is, or how she poops nonstop all day long, but I should wrap this post up sometime. I’ll leave you with links to pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Our pictures of Kaelyn

Professional pictures of Kaelyn (6 days old) (click on “Proofing” link at bottom of the page, the password is: Kaelyn) (these pictures are only available for another week or so)

Fortunately I’ve been able to keep myself somewhat busy this week which has really helped. It’s just really strange not knowing at any second when I might go into labor. The good news is that at this point I am so ready to have this little girl that I’m not even really worried about the whole pain thing anymore.

I had two doctor appointments this week. At both appointments I had a fetal monitor hooked to my belly for about 20 minutes to make sure Kaelyn’s heartbeat was good and she wasn’t under any stress. They also did a quick ultrasound to make sure my amniotic fluid levels are still high enough. The good news is that everything still looks nice and healthy and Kaelyn is just as happy as can be in her little cozy cocoon. My guess is that because it’s been about 100 degrees for the past three weeks, she is just waiting until it cools off before leaving her nice little air conditioned bubble. I can’t say that I blame her really.

So, the doctors and I have decided that if Kaelyn hasn’t made her appearance before Monday morning then we are going to force her out with an induction. It helps knowing there is a definite end in sight. Of course I know it’s not true, but at times my pregnant emotions have seriously convinced me that she might never come out. Hehe.

Well, that’s the latest news…just still waiting at least until Monday anyway.

By the way, I saw a cute movie today called Stardust. It’s sort of a romance/fairy-tale/Princess Bride-ish type movie. Girls will definitely love it, and some guys might even like it too.

P.S. If Kaelyn happens to come on Sunday then she will share a birthday with one of my best friends! Happy early birthday Valerie!

I was reading Harry Potter and that gave me something to keep my mind off of things, but I finished that earlier this week. (By the way, excellent book and I’m kind of sad that they are all finished.) I also finished all of my Beth Moore Bible study homework lessons today. I went for a half hour walk several times this week hoping to trigger something, but that hasn’t seemed to help so far. Maybe I will try another walk later this evening if it’s not too hot. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, so maybe I’ll get some kind of news at that time.

On a kind of ironic note, our pastor was preaching on “joy” this morning. One of the versus he used during the sermon was this:

A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. John 16:21

Anyway, that was a particularly encouraging verse to hear this morning. Hopefully we’ll have some exciting news to post soon…

I had a doctor appointment today and he said I haven’t dilated at all yet. Stinky!! But the doctor did say that it doesn’t really mean anything and I could still go into labor at anytime. I guess there is just no way to know when the big day will be. He said everything looked great though, so I suppose Kaelyn is just nice and cozy in her little uterine home.

Matt’s Aunt Jeannie, cousin Jacob and his wife Cody all came over to visit us on Saturday. Jacob and I had a little contest to see who is having the biggest baby. I dunno…it’s looks pretty close…who do you think will win?

I added a few new pictures in the gallery of Kaelyn’s nursery which is all ready to go, and also a new album of some belly shots. There’s also a little video here of Kaelyn’s room. We have everything ready to go whenever she is ready!!

Oh, and here’s my newest cool trick…balancing a salt shaker on my belly…

We kept busy during Ben’s time here with stuff like frisbee golf, ultimate, tennis, swimming, playing games, going to the movies, grilling out, and eating out. Ben also got to play golf on three different courses around the Raleigh area. Matt and I aren’t golfers, but we have heard the golf around here is pretty good and Ben said it was true. Ben also lucked out with his rental cars (props to Avis Rental Car) and got upgraded to a sweet Mustang. See how fun NC is??

Well, as of today I am 37 weeks which means I am officially considered full-term. So now I am ready for Kaelyn to come anytime she is ready. At my doctor’s appointment this week, he said that she is really, really low. I also have quite a few Braxton-Hicks contractions every day. Seems like my body is definitely warming up for the big event. As my sister-in-law Lisa put it, it means she is on her way!! The doctor seems to think my due date is still reliable. It’s definitely gotten harder to do a lot of things lately since Kaelyn dropped. The other day Matt had to tie my tennis shoes for me.

I thought it might be fun to have a little pool to see who can guess Kaelyn’s birthday. So, leave your comments and guess the following things:
1) birthday
2) birth time
3) weight (Kaelyn’s, not mine!)
4) length
5) hair or no hair

A couple of weekends ago we went to SC for our baby shower. It was so much fun! Special thanks to Aunt Connie, Aunt Shirley, Aunt Tamara, Lisa, and Kelly for throwing me the shower! We were really blessed and got most of the “big” items that we needed for Kaelyn. There are lots of pictures from the baby shower here.

Matt’s parents even got to come down for the shower. Afterwards they came back to NC with us for a couple of days. We worked on putting together all the fun toys from the baby shower. It took almost a whole day just to hang up all of Kaelyn’s new clothes….

So far, Matt’s favorites are the waterfall soother which he will turn on and stare at, and the jumparoo which he really wishes he could fit inside of. We wonder what Kaelyn’s favorite toys will be?

We also got our new, super cool Mei Tai baby carrier from our friends Sharon and Joel yesterday. Here’s Matt trying out the carrier using my Cabbage Patch doll.

Matt’s brother, Eric, has been working in Greensboro, NC for a few days so he got to come over and visit us for the weekend. It was really great to see him…the last time we saw him was Thanksgiving! We didn’t take any pictures over the weekend, but we did a lot of fun things like played frisbee golf at a course in Chapel Hill, grilled out, and played games.

We started taking our Lamaze classes at the hospital a few weeks ago. There’s only 4 weeks until my due date!!! I’m still feeling okay, but it is definitely getting harder to move around and do normal things like bend over or go up and down the stairs. Probably the worst thing is that it is really hard to get comfortable to go to sleep and I wake up to go to the bathroom every two hours. I guess I’m preparing myself for after Kaelyn is born.

There are definitely fun things about being pregnant…like how everyone wants to help you by carrying your groceries, opening doors for you, etc. People also will just smile at you, talk friendly to you, and say how cute you are (especially when I’m at the gym). I’m enjoying it while it lasts, but at the same time I will also be happy to start getting my normal body back so I can do things like mop the kitchen without getting out of breath or sleep on my stomach.

I’ve still been volunteering for the Red Cross, although I just have one more day scheduled and I will probably take a break for a while. So far I’ve volunteered over 61 hours since March. Pretty much all of our other free time is spent getting everything ready for Kaelyn like hanging curtains and getting our car seat inspection.

I don’t think I mentioned it earlier, but we have finally decided on a church home. We’ve been to the church, Crosspointe, probably 5 or 6 times now and we are really enjoying it. We are anxious to start meeting people and getting involved. The church is less than 10 minutes from our house which is really nice too.

I think that’s the majority of the latest news. There are a few new pics in the Watch My Belly Grow album…I don’t think I can stretch much farther, ack!

On Saturday morning Matt went to “Daddy Boot Camp” at the hospital. Even though he had to get up early on a Saturday morning, I think he learned a few things and even had a good time. Our big labor and delivery classes start next week. Less than 7 weeks to go now!

On Saturday afternoon we drove to the Greensboro airport to pick up our friends Will and Valerie (aka Willerie) who flew in from Ohio. It was their annual Fourth of July visit to the South. That night we just hung out around the house and Willerie showered us with baby gifts for Kaelyn which included a beautiful handmade quilt by Valerie.

Sunday we made a day trip down to Wrightsville Beach, NC. It is only about a 2.5 hour drive, but then it took us about another half hour to find a public parking place. One of the highlights of the day was seeing a billboard along I-40 with a picture that looked exactly like Valerie’s brother, Caleb. Even though it was a bit crowded, the weather at the beach was great and we enjoyed a few hours soaking up the rays. Of course I was again jealous of everyone laying on their stomachs, so Valerie and Matt dug me out a belly hole.

Wendesday morning we took in the sights at the Apex Old Fashioned Fourth of July which mostly consisted of about twenty million kids riding decorated bicycles, wagons, and scooters through downtown. There were also other activities such as duck pond games, inflatable bouncy thingys, firetrucks, hotdog stands, and karaoke. Afterwards we enjoyed some NC BBQ for lunch before heading back to the airport in Greensboro.

We had a great mini-vacation! Thanks for coming to visit us Willerie! All the pictures from the week are in our gallery.

We had a fun game night this weekend with the ladies from my Bible study and their hubbies. We introduced them to a nice, long game of Settlers of Catan. Rumor has it that at least one of them is already addicted to the game and has been playing online everyday.

Leigh Ann, Jen, Ariel
More pics here

I had another doctor appointment this week and found out that I have pregnancy-induced anemia which means I don’t have enough iron in my system. The doc assured me that it was common and nothing to be worried about, and I just have to take an extra iron supplement everyday. One symptom of anemia is fatigue. I had been feeling extra tired the past couple of weeks, but I just assumed I was tired since I’m pregnant and haven’t been sleeping very well. I’ve only been taking the extra iron for a couple of days, and I can already tell a difference in my energy level. Yay! Other than that, things are still going well. Less than 8 weeks to go!

On Sunday afternoon we were watching the US-Mexico soccer game and Matt was laying in the living room floor looking all comfortable. I wanted so badly to lay in the floor on my stomach and watch the game too…so here was Matt’s invention for me…

I’ve been working at the Red Cross a lot more lately. All of the regulars are taking vacations now, so I’m filling in a lot of hours at the blood center. I was there for a little over 4 hours today and it was the most busy I’ve ever seen it. The blood supply in the area is low and Red Cross had made announcements on the radio, tv, and newspapers. On a normal Wednesday there are about 17 blood donors, but today there were 49! On top of that we had someone pass out today which hasn’t ever happened while I’ve been working before.

Working in the canteen can be interesting. Today I met a lady who has 9 children ages 7-19 and none of them are multiples…I can’t even imagine! I also met a lady and her son who were giving blood because their husband/father is having surgery tomorrow. He has been sick for a long time and it was touching to hear what all they’ve been through. In just one of his surgeries a few years ago he needed 120 units of blood! Even though I can’t give blood right now I’m glad I can help some small way. If any of you out there are able, I encourage you to donate blood…it really does save people’s lives! You can contact your local Red Cross to find out where there is a donation center near you.

Another exciting thing this week is that my gym finally finished building their new facility and started having their group fitness classes. Already this week I’ve done BodyAttack (a hi-low type cardio class), Yoga, and Pilates. It’s fun and frustrating at the same time. I’m excited to be back in group fitness classes, but there are so many things I can’t do these days. For example, in most classes the teacher gives you options such as (easy) march in place, (medium) jog in place, or (hard) high knees run. Typically I’m always going hard and sweating it out, but now I’m the just the one over there marching my little heart out. Yoga and Pilates were especially hard since I’m not allowed to lay flat on my back and I obviously can’t lay on my stomach. But I just try to modify what I can’t do and enjoy the things I can do. It’s also kinda fun because all the people always comment how cute it is to have a pregnant lady working out.

Speaking of working out, time to get ready for my next aerobics class. Have a great week!

The movie was funny, but I’m surprised it got such high ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. I didn’t think it was 91% good…more like 75% I’d say. I think it was mostly funny to me because I could relate to the pregnancy parts, and it could have cut back a little on the swearing. But then our dinner was amazing!! It was the best steak I’d ever had…the melt in your mouth kind. They even gave us a free lemon pound cake and balloons for our anniversary. And check out the world’s largest doggie bag…these were our leftovers!

We had another baby class at the hospital last week. This one was “Newborn Basics” and they had about 15 workstations set-up where we practiced things like giving a baby a sponge bath, talked about marriage after the baby arrives, and various other activities. I’m still feeling good these days, but I haven’t been able to go on my long walks like usual since it’s gotten so hot. I’m trying to stay cool because I really want to avoid swelling. My favorite thing at the moment is just floating away in the pool.

Sometimes though your body does un-cool amazing things, such as waking you up screaming at 3:00 in the morning with leg cramps. What’s even more amazing is that your husband can sleep right through this event even though you jump out of bed and hop around the room making all kinds of noises.

In other pregnancy news I am now 30 weeks along. Thirty seems a little scary to me because it seems so much closer to the big 4-0. That means only 10 weeks until my due date!! I had another doctor’s appointment last week that went well. The doctor said during the hot summer months I should be drinking a gallon of water a day…no wonder I have to pee every 20 minutes! I’ve been doing pretty good with my water drinking so far, but I really have to make an effort to make sure I drink that much.

We bought a new bookshelf for the nursery recently. You can see pictures here. We’ve also started taking our classes at the hospital. I remember when I signed up for the classes it seemed like such a long time away. I’m sure the next 10 weeks are just going to fly by. (gasp)

Other things happening lately…Mom and Dad came to visit for the weekend, I taught another Red Cross class, we played Putt-Putt with some other pregnant friends. I also started a Beth Moore Bible study last week with 2 other girls. We’re doing the Daniel study. So far it’s been great!

The next week is shaping up to be exciting. On Friday we celebrate our 5-year wedding anniversary! It’s been an amazing 5 years. It just seems like yesterday when we were planning our wedding. Here’s a flashback picture of us when we first start dating back in January 1999:

I don’t think we’ve changed that much.

We also found out that we are scheduled to (finally) get our new car next week – a Toyota Rav4. We bought it back in March, but we had to order it from the factory (in Japan) because of an option we wanted. I’m going to feel like a free woman to have a car during the day! Being a one-car family wasn’t a big deal when we lived in Champaign, but it’s much more difficult here in NC. Things are much more spread out and there’s not really any public transportation to speak of. It’s getting here just in time for my birthday – hooray!!

Here’s a few more new pics that I put up in the gallery…

By the way, I am 28 weeks pregnant today which is the official start to my third trimester! I can’t believe there are only 12 weeks left until my due date. It seems there is still so much to do and so many things to learn about. We will start our series of classes at the hospital next week and I’m looking forward to that. It will be fun to meet other new parents-to-be and hopefully learn a lot of useful information.

We had a very nice Memorial Day weekend filled with several cookouts and trips to the neighborhood pool. We hung out with some new friends a couple of times this weekend, and also did lots of yard work. It was a beautiful, sunny weekend with about 90 degree temps all weekend. We really could use some rain though!

• I hung out with a new friend that I met from the TriangleMommies group that I joined. We just had lunch and had girl-talk while her 18-month old daughter was taking her afternoon nap. She is originally from Greenville, SC so we had a lot in common and it was fun to talk. We are supposed to be hanging out by the pool together later this week too.
• We got to see SpiderMan3 at the movie theater (for free!). Several of our friends joined us as well and we even got a chance to have dinner with Naomi before the movie. I thought the movie was good, definitely not great, but worth seeing for sure.
• I met with a pediatrician who we decided to select to be Kaelyn’s doctor. The office is really close to our house and they got excellent reviews both on the TriangleMommies forum as well on the internal Cisco email lists. That’s another thing marked off my to-do list. Hooray!
• The big event that happened was our trip to Illinois for Matt’s UIUC graduation. This was his PhD hooding ceremony and we didn’t want to miss this special occasion! We drove from NC to Ohio and met up with the Millers, and then we all drove together from Ohio to Illinois. Will was also graduating, so Will, Valerie, and Michelle joined in on our Ohio to Illinois caravan. We arrived late on Friday night and went straight to bed. On Saturday morning Sharon and I went to the MBA graduation to see our old co-workers and MBA friends. That afternoon Valerie’s parents graciously hosted a cookout bash at their house to celebrate for Matt and Will. Lots of our friends were able to come and it was SO good to see everyone!!
  
  
  

  Later that night we hung out at Ben’s new apartment for a little while. BTW, here’s a good tip to know…if you ever want to get some Papa Murphy’s pizza and you don’t care what kind of toppings you get, you should go there about 5 minutes after they close. We went to get pizza at 9:05 not realizing they closed at 9:00 (what kind of pizza places closes at 9:00 on a Saturday night anyway?!). Well Ben walks in and they are cleaning up everything, but the guy says they have a couple of pizzas left in the back if we want them. We agree and end up with two large pizzas with several toppings each for a grand total of $6!

  Sunday morning we met with Matt’s advisor and about 10 of his lab mates at a Chinese restaurant. The food was very yummy! After that we had to head over to Assembly Hall so Matt could get lined up for the graduation ceremony. He looked so sharp in his fancy robe and hood!

  

  Jawed Karim, a UIUC alum and one of the founders of YouTube was the commencement speaker. The best part of his speech was when he talked about his favorite YouTube video – the dancing Matt guy. He showed a small clip from the video and then he had the dancing Matt guy give a special address to the UIUC graduates via video. He told all of the graduates to stand up and dance! It was very cute to see all of the graduates dancing around. Here is a video I took, although it’s kind of hard to tell what is going on since it was so dark and everyone was cheering.

  Finally Matt got his name called and walked across the stage to be hooded by his advisor. Here is a video of his graduation. You have to follow him closely because the graduates all kind of bunch up on the side of the stage when they are getting their hoods put on.

  Sunday night we headed back to Ohio and then on Monday we drove back to NC. We managed to get stuck in an hour and half traffic jam on our way home to NC. Apparently a transfer truck had overturned and spilled sheet rock across all of the lanes on our side of the road. It had just happened before we got there so we had to wait for all the tow trucks and bulldozers to get there and clear the road off. At least it was a beautiful day, so we just got out and walked around our car and stretched our legs a little. And the really good thing was that we had just stopped at a rest area about 20 minutes before that. Whew!

  Also over the weekend it was my brother’s, Jared, 21st birthday! And of course it was also Mother’s Day weekend. It was a lot of fun, but it went by so fast.

  You can see all of the pictures from the weekend here.

• Last week I went to dinner one night with 3 other pregnant women from the TriangleMommies group. It was fun to sit around and chat about all things pregnancy related. I also had lunch one day with our realtor and it was nice to catch up with her. BTW, she is an excellent realtor so if anyone ever needs a realtor in this part of NC we’d definitely recommend her!
• Last Saturday Matt and I went strawberry picking at a nearby farm. It was the first time we’d ever been and it was so much fun! The weather was perfect and the strawberries were amazing. It’s awesome too because they only cost $1.10 per pound which is much cheaper than the grocery store! I’ll definitely have to take Kaelyn there someday. There were lots of little kids and they all looked like they were having such a good time. We miss the apple orchard that we frequented in Champaign, so I’ll have to look for one of those around this area for this fall.
• Also on Saturday we got a new pet fish! We went to PetSmart (by the way, the PetSmart CEO is a UIUC alum and received an honorary degree at the graduation ceremony) and it took me quite a while to decide on which fish to get. I think that I think about it too hard. Of course I want a pretty fish, but I try to look for one who looks like he needs me or wants to go home with me, haha. This particular fish just kept staring at me when I walked by so he was the one. Although, we still have not decided on a name for him yet. You’d think we’d be experts at picking out names by now, but we can’t even come up with a good fish name.
• I had a doctor’s appointment on Monday of this week. Everything seems to be going just fine. Now I have to start going to the doctor every 2 weeks! Kaelyn is moving more and more and kicking hard. I think she must have her daddy’s legs! Matt likes to just look at my belly and watch it pop out as she kicks around. She usually gets especially active around 10:00 every night when I usually lay down for bed. I think she has a 10:00 kickboxing class or something, hehe.



• On Monday night Jared and two of his friends were driving through on their way home from Boston, so they stopped here about 2:30 in the morning to spend the night. We hung out by the pool for a few hours yesterday and then they headed on to SC. It was fun to get to hang out with Jared for an afternoon!
• Matt’s grandma had to go to the hospital for a few days last weekend. She was having problems with her back. I think she will be okay, but she just has to stop doing so much and take it easy because her bones are very fragile. It’s hard for her to sit still though…especially when she has company over and she wants to cook, clean, etc. She also has a twin sister that she takes care of a lot, so she will have to cut back on some of that.

Well, I think that covers the highlights of the past couple of weeks! I’m impressed if you made it all the way to the bottom of this post.

P.S. Special shout-out to Gwenna, Michelle, and Jay for my new maternity clothes, and to Sharon for my Korean gifts. Thanks for spoiling me!

Anyway, I got a few to-dos marked off my list this week. One big project was posting a bunch of Matt’s old textbooks for sale on Amazon.com. We’ve sold one book already. Hopefully the others will sell so we can clear them out of the closet. I’ve also sold a few more boxes of books on craigslist lately. I’m continuing to babysit for our friends in Durham one day a week and I taught my second Red Cross Babysitter Training class this weekend.

Another new thing I started this week is a group called “Triangle Mommies.” They have a huge online forum and they have all sorts of activities during the week. On Friday I went to a lunch near our house with several other moms and kids. I was the only one there without a baby/kid, but everyone was really nice. There was one other mom that I clicked with easily and we are planning to get together to hang out sometime this week. She is from Greenville, SC and just moved here last fall so we seem to have a lot in common. Yay for meeting new friends!

Speaking of new friends, I met another new friend recently at Babies R Us. I love going there…I always end up talking to several different people because most people there are either (A) pregnant, (B) recently had a baby, or (C) shopping for a baby and just love babies in general. So I was there this particular day just to look around and compare some products when I met another girl there who was doing her registry. Turns out that she is due on August 20 (just one day before me) and she is also having a girl! Her and her husband have only lived in this area about a year (seems like 99% of the population here just moved here in the past few months), and we were super excited to meet each other since our pregnancies are so similar. We are planning to meet them for dinner tonight.

The other big thing we finished this week is our baby registries. We are now successfully registered at Target, Pottery Barn Kids, and Babies R Us. It feels like a big relief to have those all finished. I spent lots and lots of time reading books and comparing products online to make a list of all the stuff we need. It’s a bit confusing at first because there are SO many baby products out there.

I think that gives you most of the highlights of this past week. There were a few other things I did like picking up the keys for our neighborhood swimming pool (which opens this weekend, hooray!) and taking our car to the shop. Looks like this coming week is shaping up to be pretty busy as well…

Have a great week!

We finally chose “Tea Garden” green by Kilz which is actually Wal-Mart paint. Kilz has good reviews from Consumer Reports, and it ended up working very well, and it is very reasonably priced (about $19 a gallon).

We also went to Home Depot and picked out the crown molding for the room. I got to cut the pieces down to the right length in the store. My mom took a funny video of the pregnant lady sawing away in the store, but I’m not sure yet how to transfer the video off of my cell phone.

Before we started working, we stopped to have a yummy breakfast at Biscuitville. We’ve been wanting to try this place out for a while and they lived up to their name…very yummy biscuits. Plus they had other good breakfast food like grits, although my dad said their coffee wasn’t very good.

After we gathered all of our supplies and had our energy food, we worked the rest of the day painting the molding and the nursery and hanging the molding. While those things were drying we also did some other quick touch-up projects in other rooms in the house. We finished up around 6:00 or 7:00 that evening and then sat down to relax with some yummy dinner and to watch The Queen. All of our work turned out great and we were very pleased with our color choice. Now we just have to add the finishing touches like hanging things on the wall.

I also got my first ever Mother’s Day present this weekend. My parents gave me the “Cherish” Willow Tree figurine. I love it!

You can see all of the pictures from this weekend in our gallery.

In other news, yesterday I spent half of the day with a new friend and two (she has three) of her kids (ages 2 and 4). We went to a story time at Barnes and Noble and then hung out at the mall afterwards. The story time was lots of fun…someone read a story and the kids got up on a little stage and sang songs like Row, Row, Row your Boat, ABCs, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and a few more. I’ll definitely take Kaelyn to activities like that during the day. I heard libraries have good programs like that too. Just more good preparation for my life for the next few years…

Have any of you seen that new show “Notes from the Underbelly“? If you’re pregnant, ever been pregnant, thinking of getting pregnant, or just find pregnancy humor funny, then I’d recommend watching this new series. There’s been 3 episodes so far and I am really enjoying them. I guess it helps that I completely relate to the characters in the show who are pregnant. You can watch the first 3 episodes online if you want to catch up.

And finally here’s my stay-at-home-wife tip of the week…for those of you who actually have time to do this you should definitely check out all of the grocery store ads in your area. I went grocery shopping at three different stores this morning to get things we needed that were on sale. I ended up saving almost 50% off my groceries this week. Sure it takes more time and effort, but if you’ve got the time, then why not save some money??? That’s good money I can use towards a much needed pedicure.