Kayleigh's 1st Birthday!

A lot has happened since my last post in...cough cough....April.  The end of the school year wrapped up and I could not have been happier. I can't say that I loved my class this year as much as my class last year, but then again...I think it'll be awhile before I get a group that beats my 1st class ever. They were a good group, but I'm not gonna lie-I was ready to see some of them out that door for the last time. 

Since school got out, I've been busy off and on. I have spent many days sitting around the house not doing a stinking thing AND IT FELT AMAZING! Is it bad that deep down I still felt a twinge of guilt because I wasn't doing anything? It must be the teacher in me. I really struggled to get myself into relaxation mode and not feeling guilty about doing nothing. I guess this is something I am still struggling with and I honestly don't think is going to get better since school starts in....wait for it....5 weeks!!!!!

Summer is officially half over and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that. Don't get me wrong-I've had a blast sleeping until almost 9 o'clock everyday (yes, Kayleigh sleeps that late too!!), but I think Kayleigh is getting to the point where she almost misses being at daycare and playing with all of her friends. I take her every Thursday because let's face it, I need some me time and that is really the only time that I can get stuff done and do something for myself. I'm not complaining, but it is nice to have that time. She comes home on days that she goes to daycare and is worn out! Bedtime is no issue. However, when she's at home all day with me I don't think she gets as worn out and so bedtime has ranged anywhere from 8-9:30!!!! She always sleeps through the whole night and in until about 8:30-9, but I have always loved that 8 bedtime. Hopefully when school has started and she's back to daycare full-time that problem will solve itself. One can only hope.

We celebrated Kayleigh's first birthday on June 16th, even though her real birthday is the 17th.  We had tons of family and friends over and had a great time. I don't feel like I got to sit down, relax, and enjoy her party as much as I would've liked to, but then again that's probably the OCD perfectionist in me. The important part is that I think everyone had a great time, especially the kids. We had tons of activities and things for them to do in the back yard so they would be entertained despite the extremely hot weather we've been having. We are so blessed to have such great family and friends that came to celebrate our baby girl's big day! I can't believe how fast time has gone and it seems like yesterday we were spending our days in the NICU praying for that week to fly by so we could take her home. 

What a difference a year makes

 

Such a big girl

Her adorable smash cake

Our world 

 Her actual birthday morning-1 ballon for 1 year!

Tonia's birthday was in June, but Jessica and I took her down to Indy a couple of weeks before to Wine & Canvas. I had never been or even heard of it, but we had a blast. I have never been artistic or a fan of art, or wine for that matter, but we had a great time and I'd actually love to take some of my other friends down sometime soon. Here are our finished products:

On the 30th, Sally, Abby and I ventured up to the Chicago area to do some outlet shopping in Aurora and at IKEA in Bolingbrook. We stayed in the Allegro hotel in downtown Chicago Saturday night.  Jackie met up with us Saturday night for dinner and some fun out a bar to celebrate Sally's birthday (it was Sunday).  On Sunday we left Abby since she was meeting up with her new boy toy, and met up with Jackie to go to the Tory Burch store (for Sally), and then went to the Magnificent Mile. We didn't do much shopping, but found a nice pub to eat a late lunch at. They had some great food. I'd like to take Kyle back sometime if I can get him to go to the big city again.  Before Sally and I made the long 2 1/2 hour drive home, we went to a tattoo shop so that she could get a tattoo supporting her mom's ongoing battle with ovarian cancer. She was a champ and her new tat looks awesome. I think it's an amazing way to honor and show love to her momma!

Dinner at Tavern on Rush



This past Saturday we went to Brandon and Tonia's house to celebrate Landon's 2nd birthday. We had a great time spending time with that cutie-patootie.

Summer weekends are definitely proving to always be busy with something. We have something to do every Saturday until school starts. Unfortunately I think that's going to make the rest of summer break go even faster. This weekend our neighborhood is having their annual garage sale, which we will be taking part in. Jackie and her mom, Diana, are coming over so I'm excited to spend some more quality time with her. The 21st, Kyle and I are going to go up to the Dunes-not exactly sure where yet, but that's going to be our mini vaca this year. The 28th we will be heading down to Indy with Brandon, Tonia, Jessica, Phil, Lauren, and Ryan to see Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw. Can you say excited?!?!? I can't wait to see those hunks of hotness shake their thing on the stage for me! From there on it's a trip to the lake with friends and a weddding and school will start the next week. CRAZY!

I'm going to try and enjoy the rest of break, but thoughts and plans for school are already starting to overtake my mind. Stay cool in this freak heat wave!!

10 months, 10 steps

So Kayleigh is officially 10 months old as of yesterday. So on Saturday in prep for her 10 month birthday she apparently decided that she was ready to stand all by herself and give walking a go. She would get a couple of steps in and crash to the floor-still enough to make this momma a little bit on the emotional side ( I know, I know-I'm a hot mess!).

So Sunday Kyle and I took her upstairs to try to get her to walk around her room. It's a lot easier for her upstairs because it's carpeted where the downstairs is hardwood. Plus it gives her a little more cushion when she does fall. So Sunday she does even better walking back and forth between Kyle and I getting about 6 or 7 steps in. She was starting to slow down a little bit, so I headed downstairs to start making dinner when Kyle yells at me to hurry upstairs. Now I consider myself a pretty laid back mom, but I shot up those stairs as fast as I could thinking she fell and got hurt or something. No-she just walked from her crib to the door which is at least 10-12 steps. I didn't see it and of course she wouldn't do it when I was up there.

Fast forward to Monday night. We take her back upstairs to "practice" walking (which I'm sure in about 2 weeks we will wonder why we encouraged the walking so much). I think we're as excited to see her walk as she is. She gets SO excited that she's standing all by herself and taking steps that her little arms just go in little circles so fast. Monday night is when it hit me. My 10 MONTH OLD is on the verge of walking....all by herself....like a big girl....AHHHH!!! And the waterworks begin. Those 10 steps I told you I missed...well I saw them Monday night....numerous times. It's so hard to believe that she is finally at this stage in her life. It is so rewarding as a parent to see your child accomplish something so big. I'm already so proud of Kayleigh. We will continue to practice with her each night until she's walking all the time. Her confidence has already grown so much just in these last couple of days. I can't wait to see her continue to grow.

No Good at Resolutions

So I realize it's been over (cough, cough) 3 months (cough, cough) since my last post. So I've basically failed miserably at one of my resolutions. I would like to think I have a really good excuse but I really don't think I do. So what's new? I guess I'll try to put 3 months into as short of a post as possible.

Kayleigh had her first tooth (bottom right) poke through on New Year's Day. Two weeks later her bottom left came in. Her top left one came in about 4 weeks ago when I was on Spring Break and the top right one poked through about a week later. The first two did not phase her at all. She was still her usual perky, happy self. The top two however were a different story. I think the fact that they were both pretty much coming in at the same time, coupled with an ear infection and an upper respiratory infection (we think RSV), and needless to say I spent my spring break with a sick and unusually unhappy, needy baby. I felt so bad for her. I literally wish I could've taken all the aches and pains away so that she would be happy and healthy again. It was not fun at all to see her like that. Luckily, we had her 9 month appt at the end of the week so we were able to get her some meds and see what the doctor had to say. Her growth continues to be on track for the most part. She slipped a little in weight this time, but nothing to worry about. She weighed 17 llbs. 11 oz. (has gained 10 lbs. since she was born now!) and was 28 in. long. She is all over the place now! She did not crawl for very long and before we knew it she was pulling herself up on things and cruising around. She's a lot faster than she used to be so it's been a big adjustment for Tucker and Zeke. I think Zeke finally gave up on trying to run away from her all the time, so he has become her jungle gym. She literally crawls all over him, eats his tail, and pulls at his ears. He doesn't budge! I LOVE IT! Makes my heart smile! Tucker on the other hand...well he growls, gets up and move away. Kyle has definitely let him know that it's not okay for him to growl at her and that he just needs to get over it. So now he growls when he sees her coming and gets up before she gets there. We think it's his way of telling us he's not happy that he's got to get his lazy bum up. It's so fun to see her personality start to come through. She definitely lets us know when she's not happy about something, but mostly when she likes something or thinks it's funny. Her favorite things to do right now are climbing on us or the dogs, opening and closing doors, and playing with my hair while I hold her. We've officially began the transition to eating actual foods. I'm excited for this part, but I can honestly say that I'm ready for it to be over already because it makes me so nervous that she's going to choke. So far so good, so hopefully that continues and we have no problems.

We ended up getting rid of Kyle's truck last weekend and going back to a car. With gas prices continuing to go up, it was just way to much gas for such little mileage. We traded his dream truck in for a 2011 Hyundai Genesis. I had never heard of these cars before we saw ours, but man am I glad we found it. It is such a nice car and Kyle and I are actually going back and forth as to who should drive it and who should drive the Outlook. Right now Kyle is driving it, but we will see what happens. I drove it yesterday up to Chicago to see Jackie and it is such a smooth ride. It doesn't hurt that I got 26 mi/gal. yesterday in comparison to the 11-12 mi/gal. that Kyle was getting in his truck. Definitely a smart decision for us. If we need a truck down the road both of our parents have trucks so we'll just have to borrow. Hopefully one day he can get his "dream" truck back, but for now it's just not realistic.

We had Thursday and Friday off for 2 built in snow days that we didn't use this year. I am SO glad too because I needed one last break before this last 6 week stretch until school is out. Kayleigh and I got up bright and early to head up to Chicago to see Jackie. It was Kayleigh's first time to the Windy City and she did great. It was a very relaxed day. We just hung out at her apartment and had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. She took us over to the American Girl Doll store. If you haven't been there, oh.my.word-the place is so unreal. Very cool, but definitely hoping Kayleigh doesn't ask for one until she's like 10. It will be fun to take her up there when she gets older. It was so nice to just hang out with her like old times and catch up. I definitely miss my bestie being 2 hours away and only getting to see her once every couple of months. Hopefully that's something we can get changed.

Here are some pictures of sweet, precious doll baby. She will 10 months old in 10 days and I have absolutely no idea how this happened. It just does not seem possible. I guess I better get into planning her birthday party.

Happy Easter!

6 months

Kayleigh is 6 months old today! Holy moly!

I don't know where the time has gone. It's gone so much faster now that I'm back to work and I wish I could just freeze time right now because she is SO much fun! My winter break is starting this upcoming Wednesday. I'll get 2 weeks off with her and I. CAN'T. WAIT! This is definitely my favorite age so far. Her personality is really starting to develop and she's jibber-jabbering nonstop now. As of last weekend, she is officially a roly poly. Up until then she was strictly a roller from her back to he stomach to the left. Now it's back to tummy either direction and tummy to back either direction. She's also starting to realize if she wants to look or get to something that is not her reach or view, she can turn herself around. So fun to watch.

She's been sitting up for a couple of seconds by herself for awhile now, but in the last 2 weeks she's really started to fly solo with little help needed. My little girl is growing up WAY too fast! Sitting up is quickly becoming one of her favorite things so that she can see everything and know what's going on.

On Thanksgiving we gave her her first real food-sweet potatoes! She made some hilarious faces but after a couple of bites she was having no problem eating them. Since then she's had peas, carrots, green beans, squash, bananas, and as of last night-apples. She has liked everything she has eaten which makes me happy. I'm hoping she grows up liking more of these fruits and veggies than her mommy does. She of course loves her rice cereal and now oatmeal.

She's still a phenomenal sleeper. She goes to bed at 8 every night and I usually have to go wake her up at 7:15 when I'm ready to take her to daycare so I can go to work. And on the rare occassion (like last night), she slept until 8:45 this morning! Needless to say, she gives this mom and dad plenty of beauty sleep and we love it.

Here's a couple more fun things about our little angel:

-Still the happiest baby I've ever seen. (No joke-this child rarely cries.)
-LOVES to read and look at books (this makes my heart smile. Proof that she's truly my baby girl)
-Loves to get kisses from Tucker and would love for Zeke to let her touch him. haha
-Loves anything that crinkles. One of her favorite toy is this blue elephant with crinkly stuff in it.
-Favorite toy-a little monkey that plays the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and has two red dots that light up on its cheeks when you play it.
-Favorite food-probably carrots or squash so far. She had no problems annihilating both of those veggies.
-BOYS! I hope this is not a precursor to what she will be like when she gets older. She lights up whenever there is a guy around-Kyle, my dad, his dad, Brandon....
-sucking her toes and looking at her hands.
-my favorite thing-still cuddling with her momma when she's tired. I'll be said to see these days go. I'm sure they are closer than I want them to be.

Wow! Where did the time go?!

Holy smokes! I have completely neglected my blog for the past 2 months?!!? So sorry. Luckily our lives are pretty uneventful with the exception of our sweet little miss. She keeps us busy and entertained.

I know everyone raves about how wonderful their kids are, but Kayleigh is truly an awesome baby. I definitely think that Kyle and I hit the jackpot with this little one. She will be 5 months in 9 days. 9 days!! Again-I have no idea where time has gone. She's growing up so insanely fast. We took her for her 4 month appointment a couple of weeks ago. She finally started to gain a little more weight(now at 12.6), but is still in the 23rd percentile. I'm not really worried-she's eating and gaining weight and those are the most important thing. Length was 24 1/2 in and somewhere in the 60th percentile. Kyle and I are just convinced that she's going to be a skinny girl. Although since the doctor cleared her to eat rice cereal now, her little thighs are definitely starting to chunk up. So cute! She also got her 2nd round of shots at the doctor. Same result of course-cute, happy, smiling face until she realized something was pricking her. She was a trooper and was over it in 5 minutes. She did great last time after her round of shots-just tired, but no fever. I was hoping that would be the case this time and it was. She was just really tired, but never had a fever, and most importantly still slept through the night. Her first experience with rice cereal was hilarious. Her facial expressions were hilarious. Of course it's something new so it's taken her awhile to get used to it, but she's finally getting the hang of eating with a cereal and kicking it all to the back of her mouth to eat. I was a little worried about how she would handle Daylight Savings Time. She goes to bed at 8 and I typically have to go wake her up around 7:15 in the morning (did I mention she's a sleeper?). But to no avail, she did amazing! No problems whatsoever and it was a smooth transition. You would have never known that we gained an hour back.

She is doing so many new things since my last post it's unreal. She is now laughing (music to my ears), rolling over from the left side on her back to her tummy making tummy time no longer as much of an issue as it used to be, she can sit up in her Bumbo, she's definitely learned who Kyle and I are, and she has found her feet which are her favorite thing these days. She can even suck her toes-can you do that? haha. On a serious note, I have to sadly admit that she is totally a daddy's girl. She is all about Kyle right now which breaks my heart and makes me smile all at the same time. She's always got her eye on him.

We got a new couch a couple of weeks ago....FINALLY! It's an early Christmas present from both sets of our parents. We have desperately been wanting to get one for almost a year now. We ended up getting a sectional with an ottoman and a chaise and we are absolutely in love. It's been the best gift ever. Only downside is that Kyle is on a comfortable couch again, making him fall asleep anywhere from 7-8 pm again. The dogs are not as big of fans. With the new couch came new rules-NO DOGS ON THE COUCH! Tucker has adjusted, Zeke-not so much. We have to set the ottoman a certain way, use the gate from the stairs and a chair from the kitchen to block off all access points onto the couch. We were sitting something in the ottoman so they couldn't jump over it, but Kyle didn't do it the other day and came home to Zeke laying on the couch. Crazy dog just wants what he wants. Overall they've been good about not jumping on it considering how used to it they were before the new couch.

It was Kayleigh's first Halloween this year. She was my little baby bumblebee. Rather than go out and spend a ridiculous amount on a costume, I just grabbed some wings and a headband from Meijer for $5, some striped leggings for $10 from Gymboree that I had a gift card for, a black onesie we already had, and a black tutu from Target for $6. $11 spent total. She looked too cute! We went to my parents house first so that they could see her in her costume, and then went to Kyle's parents. She was a trooper but was up and missed her 7 pm nap so she got a little cranky and exhausted by about 7:45. I'm looking forward to next year when she can walk around with us for Halloween.

Fall and I have a love/hate relationship. I absolutely LOVE fall because of the beautiful weather, leaves changing colors, and anticipation of all of the wonderful, fun holidays that are coming up. However, I also hate fall because it's now dark when I'm driving home from work (yes, I'm still here until about 5:30 or 6 EVERY night), and the colder weather. I despise the cold weather and even more, the snow that will grace it's presence on us before soon I'm sure. Having said that, I can't wait to eat Thanksgiving dinner and celebrate Kayleigh's first Christmas. She'll still only be 6 months and really won't understand but she's already made Christmas exciting again just by being here.

I'll try to be better about posting.

Kayleigh Marie Withers 6.17.11

Our little bundle of joy has finally arrived and I realize I am extremely late in posting this. Things have been extremely crazy to say the least. Ironically enough, my water broke about 2 hours after my last blog on June 16th. It's quite the story.

I had been outside reading most of the the day on the 16th. It was a gorgeous day outside and I wanted to have the dogs out as much as possible because the next morning I was scheduled to be induced. Kyle called on his way home from work and asked me to make him a sandwich because he hadn't had lunch yet. I got up and heard something make somewhat of a popping sound, but didn't think anything of it. By the time I got to the door going into the house from the garage I had my first contraction-though I wasn't sure at the time. I made it into the house and was able to get the bread and peanut butter out for Kyle's PB&J, but when I bent over in the fridge to get the jelly, my water broke-kinda. It was only a little bit, so I wasn't really sure if that's what it was although I did know I didn't have an "accident". At exactly that time Kyle was walking into the house from the garage. I looked up at him and told him that I thought my water had just broke. The look on his face was priceless. He asked me if we needed to go "like right now". Haha-I had to laugh. I told him to go ahead and take a shower and get something to eat really quick because I wasn't 100% sure and wanted to see if it happened again. Well it did, but still not a lot so I called the doctor's office and they told me to come in and the doctor would check me. Thank goodness I had finished packing my hospital bag the day before because once the doctor laid me down and checked me my water completely broke in his office! We were having a baby!

To make an extremely long story shorter, I'll skip to the happy news! Kayleigh Marie Withers was born on Friday, June 17th, 2011 at 4:22 a.m., weighing 7 lbs. 10 oz. and was 20 1/4 inches long. And for the time being that was about the only good news. Apparently I was running a fever during labor which put a lot of stress on her and made her run a fever as well and also caused her heart rate to sky rocket into the 200s. Our baby girl was having a tough time breathing when she was born so they had a NICU nurse come look her over. The nurse told us that they were going to have to take her to the NICU for more observation. Mind you, neither Kyle or I had held her at this time. They let me hold her for 10 seconds and they took her. I told Kyle to go with her so he knew what was going on because I obviously wasn't going anywhere. They told Kyle that she was going to have to stay there for 48 hours because she had to be on oxygen and was being fed through a feeding tube. We later found out that she had some sort of infection and would have to stay in the NICU for 7 days while she received antibiotics. We were crushed to say the least. Luckily she was off the oxygen within a couple of hours that first morning and was off the feeding tube the next day. We knew this was what was best for her and I definitely wanted her coming home healthy, but this was definitely not how Kyle and I envisioned welcoming our first child.

Sunday night was the hardest night of all. I got discharged to go home. I made it right outside the hospital doors and saw Kyle waiting in the truck for me to go home and I lost it. It hurt me so much to know that I was leaving the hospital without my daughter. I felt guilty and horrible even though I knew it was better for her and there was nothing that I could do. Kyle and I spent the next 4 days in the NICU with Kayleigh. I was able to nurse her which was nice despite everything. Luckily she had no problems whatsoever latching on or the process in general so that made things nicer.

Kayleigh finally got to come home Thursday night after her last antibiotic treatment. Words cannot begin to describe how nice it was to bring her home and to see her not hooked up to any cords or wires. Her daddy could finally hold her and not be paranoid or worried that he was going to hurt her. As hard as this whole process was, I think it was the hardest on Kyle. He had never been exposed to anything like what we went through with Kayleigh and he was petrified the whole time we were in the NICU with her. He definitely did not like seeing his baby girl the way she was, but once we got her home he scooped her up and cuddled forever with her.

Here are some pictures from that first week.

Her first picture-a little pale

All hooked up in the NICU

Getting to hold her for the first time in the NICU

All buckled up in her car seat to come home...FINALLY!