My Newest Treasure

I am so excited about getting the mail today. I know...it's the simple things in life that keep me going, eh?!

No really. For my birthday this year hubs bought me a pearl necklace. It was a beautiful necklace that would have looked just lovely on my neck when we actually got a chance to go out for an evening amongst adults. But, being the fashion disaster that I am, and rarely getting a chance to dress up these days I told him that I would rather him spend the money on something that I would get a lot of use out of and had sentimental meaning to me. I had a seen a gal that had a hand stamped necklace with her kiddos names on it earlier in the year and knew that once we had our little Madelyn then I would be itching for one as well.

I mentioned this to a friend of mine and she forwarded me Amanda, of Queen Bee Designs, name and blog site to check out. She had ordered a necklace for her mother and was very pleased. After visiting her site and comparing her to a bunch of others, I decided to order a necklace from her. Her worked looked good and her prices were extremely reasonable compared to some others out there.

Well, today I opened my mailbox and there was my necklace! I opened it up and was so pleasantly surprised to find a beautiful piece to wear! Here is the finished product. I am more than pleased and will be wearing this for years to come.



This picture doesn't fully give it the justice it deserves, but if you are looking for something special for a friend, grandmother, or even to spoil yourself, check out Amanda's blog site for more pieces that she offers.

My First Week Flying Solo

I honestly don't know what I was thinking. I totally thought that I would be updating my blog on a more consistent basis to give better updates on the ins and outs of our household with "two under two." Shame on me.

Things have been CRAZY here. I am totally in "lucky if I eat breakfast, shower and get dressed before 2:00 in the afternoon" mode. And by breakfast I mean shoving a granola bar down my throat or eating the rest of Kaiden's uneaten cereal. And by shower I mean quickly lather and rinse before the next diaper change or time to feed either Kaiden or Madelyn. And by getting dressed I mean throwing on an old T-shirt and gym shorts and pulling my hair back in a messy ponytail.

My Mom was here for two weeks and left on Father's Day. Making this the first full week that I flew solo during the day. I managed to make it out of the house three mornings to go to Barnes and Nobles so Kaiden could play on the Thomas the Train table they have, attend a play date at a friend's house and go to story hour at the library. And these were all before 10am. A feat that still leaves me in awe of myself. But after being home all day on Monday, stuck inside with two little ones, I just knew that Kaiden was going to need to get out. Even if it was only in the morning for a few hours. I was determined. We even made it out a few nights this week once Daddy came home from work. We went to the park one evening for a picnic dinner and out for a family walk in our new double stroller on Thursday night. We even went as far as inviting friends over for pizza and a movie last night. I know. I must be crazy.

Kaiden has adjusted so well to the new addition. He is such a big helper getting blankets to cover Maddey, trying to give her a paci or bottle and showering her with kisses and hugs. I worry that I have not been giving him as much attention in the past week and try to make up for it whenever I get a free moment. It's all still so new and I still feel lost without a routine. Which will come as the days and weeks go by.

Madelyn now is weighing in at 7lbs (as of last Friday) and still 20 1/2inches long. She is starting to look bigger to me and filling out in her face. She has gotten stronger head control and spends a little longer awake during feedings, but all in all, she still sleeps a lot. We had a few rough nights where she has been very gassy after feedings and can't calm herself down. But for every rough night it seems to be a bit better the next day. I will have to see if we can change her formula until we get just the right fit for her.

All in all we are surviving. I feel pretty good about how the first week went and look forward to Madelyn getting more active and alert. (I know I will regret making that statement once it happens!)

Here are some new pictures of our little family!

Building with Lego's at The Science Museum with Mommy and G-ma

Our first family picture before Mommy and Daddy got to go out on a date

Miss Maddey relaxing on her thrown during our family night at the park

Kaiden giving baby hugs

America's Next Top Model

Madelyn recently had her first "modeling session" with Jolie, a local photographer that I know from my mom's group at church. If you go to her website you will see Maddey on the front page looking as cute as cute can be. Also, click on "portfolio" to see some other pics of her. She is in pics # 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 21, 24, 26.

Jolie did an amazing job capturing the innocence of our little girl! Great job Jolie!

Madelyn's Story

It has been 10 days since that fateful day when I went to the hospital to deliver Miss Madelyn. Wow, what an eventful day that was!

It all started out like any other day. I had a OB appointment at 8:45 in morning. She said I was 3-4 cm and 80% effaced. At that point she gave me some options. She said that we could go ahead and schedule an elective induction for the 10th when I would be 39 weeks and she was on call. She also said in the meantime, she could strip my membranes (ewww, I know!) with the chance of two things happening. Either I would (a) go into labor within 24 hours or (b) nothing would happen. I gave her the go ahead and left the office thinking that I would probably just see her that following Wednesday at my induction.

My Dad, Kaiden and I left and went to Costco to pick up a few items before heading home. At this point it was about an hour after my appointment and I was having cramps and contractions the whole time that we were shopping. A side effect of her stripping my membranes. So I thought. On the way home, I was still contracting and getting more and more uncomfortable. Again, not really believing that I was actually in labor, I told my dad to just keep heading home. After getting home, I threw in a load of laundry and made sure that everything was packed "just in case" this was the real thing. About noon I realized that my contractions were coming about every 5-7 minutes and knew that it was time to head to the hospital. We gathered our stuff and by 12:30 we were on our way.

We got the hospital by 1:00 and when they check me I was a definite 4cm with a bulging bag. My contractions were coming every 3 minutes and getting more intense by the minute. Through every painful contraction the nurse was telling me that she would call the doctor but thought that I would probably have to get up and walk around to make sure that my cervix was changing before they would take me upstairs to L&D. I knew that would be an impossible feat as I was already in so much pain, contractions were coming one right after the other, and I felt like I just wanted to crawl out of my skin. But I humored her and nodded my head in a "whatever you say" sort of way and cursed her through gritted teeth politely asked her to have the friggin' anesthesiologist ready with my epidural ASAP. Thankyouverymuch.

After what seemed like an eternity, the nurse finally came back in and said that I was contracting strongly and frequently enough that they were taking me up to Labor and Delivery. At this point I was a full 6cm and just about to watch myself turn into my full on Exorcist self complete with eyes rolling back in my head and 360 degree head rotation. It wasn't pretty. I was quickly loosing all self control.

About 3:00 I finally had my epidural and thought that I was sitting pretty comfy for the duration of the labor. Boy was I wrong. At this point, I didn't have any pain, per se, just felt an extremely uncomfortable amount of pressure. I ended up going from 6-10 cm in 40 minutes and by 3:40pm was pushing away. Hubs said he never saw me so determined, but I wanted this little lady OUT so with about 9 minutes of pushing, little Miss Madelyn came into the world at 3:49pm.

It was a whirlwind of a labor and I still need to apologize to the staff and my family for acting like such a maniac! But there is a moral to this story...childbirth friggin' hurts. Get the epidural if you expect to maintain even an ounce of sanity.

So, we are home now and I can honestly say that everything has been going relatively smoothly. She mostly sleeps all day and gets up to eat every 3-4 hours. Kaiden has adjusted well to the new baby and likes to kiss her head and gently stroke her arms while often saying "Baby. Baby" over and over again. My mom is still here until Father's Day when we will be left to fend for ourselves with a toddler and a newborn. A thought that has me scared out of my mind! But I know that I better treasure this time when she is sleeping so much and quiet. It won't last long.

It is a blessing to have a new baby girl and we continue to thank everyone for your thoughts and prayers throughout my pregnancy. Hopefully I will be able to keep up with posting frequently about the daily changes that happen here in our home. Although sleep is high on the priority scale right now so check back often for short updates on our progress!

Blessings....

She's Here!

On Friday, June 5, 2009 @ 3:49pm we welcomed Madelyn Claire into the world!

Madelyn weighed in at 6lbs 11oz and is 20 1/2 inches long. I delivered her at 38 weeks and 2 days! I thank everyone for their continued support and prayers.

Stay tuned for the full delivery story in the next couple days.

Cleaning On A Weekly Schedule

I had an epiphany last week. After trying to think of every way that I could "lure" this baby out of me, and to curb heavy "nesting" urges, I decided that I need to try cleaning my house. But, much to my dismay, I found that I only had the energy to focus on one cleaning project at a time. Turns out that I discovered this may work out in my favor and allow me the ease of cleaning my house at a leisurely pace each week without spending a whole day doing it. There have been many times in the past that I would get to a point when I knew this house needed a thorough cleaning and just cringing at the fact that it may take me a whole day or more to complete that task. Also, with a new baby on the way and a toddler that seems be going 24/7 I know that I need a plan to keep this house tidy and clean in a small amount of time.

So, here is my new cleaning schedule. Hopefully I will be able to stick to it:

Monday-Kitchen. Scrub the sink, wipe down the inside/outside of the refrigerator, dishwasher, oven and microwave, and clean the granite and cook-top.
Tuesday-Dust all furniture, TV's and computer.
Wednesday-Bathrooms. Clean sinks, toilets and showers/tubs and Windex mirrors.
Thursday-Vacuum and mop floors
Friday-Free day to do anything that was overlooked or spot clean anything that has gotten dirty since cleaning earlier in the week.

Laundry is an ever-going-on process in my house. I typically throw a load in here and there to keep up with it and don't have any specific day that I do laundry. I try to keep the clothes piles down during the week and only have to worry about doing sheets and towels at some point on the weekend.

I believe this new schedule will save me time and energy each week. As I have already noticed I can get a project done in a small amount of time (usually during Kaiden's nap) and usually have time left over for me to catch up on emails, blogging, phone calls, etc, without wasting a whole day trying to fit in cleaning the house.

Wish me luck and happy cleaning in your house!

Essential Baby Products

In the past few weeks, and especially days, I have been "nesting." Yep, getting all the baby things back out that have been hiding in the back of our garage. Washing all the new girlie clothes and cleaning and organizing every space of this house in preparation for our little one's arrival. Even though I have been through this all before, it still amazes me all the little things that a tiny baby requires. Of course there are items out there that some of think is "essential" but I tried to keep it to a minimum and only buy things if we absolutely felt we could get through the baby phase without them. I mean, really, you could go absolutely insane "thinking" you must have this, you must have that only to really find out that it was a waste of money. I thought I would compile a list of the top 5 items that I felt were "must haves" during the infant stage.

Dr. Brown's bottles
Kaiden seemed to be very gassy from the beginning and after trying several different formulas we finally settled on a lactose free one that seemed to keep most of his spitting up at a minimum. We still had to stop him every 2 ounces or so to make sure to get burp up before finishing the bottle. Otherwise...forget it...we would be wearing the whole dang thing in a few minutes. At first I wasn't too concerned with the name brand of bottles and mostly just stuck with the cheapies from the drug store. As I started to get out more around other moms with infants and saw the EVERYONE was using Dr. Brown's bottles I started to do a little research. In a desperate attempt to curb my son's spit ups, I broke down and bought a few and ended up kicking myself because I didn't buy them sooner. Although he still had issues with spit up, these bottles seem to make the whole feeding experience sooo much better as he was not getting so much air. In my opinion, a must have.

Medela Quick Clean Micro-Steam Bags
I mean honestly, with all that is going on with your newest addition who wants to stand there every night and boil a pot of water to soak your bottles in? With these bags, you add 2-3 oz of water and plop all the bottle (and pump tubing) into them. Microwave for 3-4 minutes and all the little germies are killed. A time saver in my opinion. They were also fantastic when we traveled as the hotels that we stayed in had a microwave for easy sterilization of all Kaiden's bottles.

Cheap wash cloths
Instead of going out and buying expensive "burp cloths" I went to Walmart and spend $3.00 on a pack of 18 white wash cloths. We used these for spit ups since they were pretty frequent around these parts. I have continued to use them for drool, washing up after a meal, tears, bloody lips, boogery noses and always have one in the diaper bag for things that get all over. Now, don't get me wrong, they are certainly not the softest thing you can use, but as long as you are wiping excessively on their face, then they certainly serve a purpose. For a fraction of the cost.

Bouncy seat
A life saver for me. We have the Rain forest Bouncy seat by Fisher Price. A friend of mine gave this to us when Kaiden was about 4 months old. I couldn't believe that I had lived without it for that long. This particular one has animals that move and lights and music that plays. It was a savor for me while I got a shower, made dinner, did some laundry, etc. Kaiden would be fascinated with this for a long duration of time. I am assuming that it is much better than the bouncy seats that just have a few stuffed animals hanging from them. The kid would definitely get bored with that after a short time.

Onsies
My theory is that you can never have enough onsies. Especially in the newborn/early infant stage. With all the spit ups, leaky diapers, formula spills, drool and, eventually, food dribbles I was always changing Kaiden into a new onsie. And here in Arizona, in the dead of summer, there is not much else that anyone would want to wear. Make a onsie in an adult size and I'd be a happy camper. Not particularly stunning to look at, but a happy camper none-the-less.

So there you have it. If you are having a baby in the near future, don't get wrapped into all the items out there that you think you must have. In the end, the kid won't know the difference and you will definitely get by without them.