6 Months Ago...

This little bundle of joy was born!  

A Texan Style Gathering

Cute cousins!!

Its's been a while since I last posted and gosh, what a whirlwind this past month has been. We had a really nice thanksgiving in Texas.  Jeremy's Uncle & Aunt could not have made it a nicer stay.  They have a really great lake house that all 16 of us shared Thanksgiving at.  I am feeling really blessed for marrying into such a great family, I know not everyone is so lucky, but I really did score some great in-laws. :)

The Tale of the Two Wolves

A friend just emailed me this little tale and I loved it's meaning, so I thought that I would share it:

"One evening an old Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

 

He said, My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is fear, anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.

 The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: Which wolf wins??

The old Cherokee simply replied, The one you feed".

5 Months Old

 Playing with his Papa

 Loving his toys

Had to get a pic of him in his boxer hat, for Granny

"The Dude" is officially 5 months old!  Look at that double chin in this last picture.  What a little chunk he is turning into! At 5 months this little man is loving the sound of his voice; we get lots of happy squeal's, lots of babbling and lots of giggles. His favorite activity is to be flying around in the air, or sitting in his saucer talking to all of his toys. He still loves his bottle and hates his rice cereal.  I really want to start him on baby food, but I am a bit nervous because Jeremy was allergic to EVERYTHING as a child and so I keep putting it off.  

Saturday we had our family Christmas pictures taken, I am so anxious to see how they turned out!  It's so fun to have a baby and a reason to catalog our life!  I love the excuse to get pics taken and do fun kid things.  I also have to post some pictures of our Halloween - hopefully sometime this week.  We had so much fun in our new house this year. Our neighborhood is crazy, you can't even drive a car down the street, and almost all of our neighbors have their front yards decked out.  What a fun place for Reed to grow up.  We are loving living in such a fun, young and family friendly place.  

Peek-A-Boo

My boy, he is the sweetest - I will never get tired of his smile.

Pumpkin Patch

Look at this sweet face

Granny and Grandpa with their grandkids

My two favorite babies (or not so baby in the case of Ollie)

Look at this scary face!

Think this kid liked his rice cereal, or what?

Maybe another time.

Happy October!

We started off our October with a trip to Napa for Jeremy and Linda's wedding. It was such a fun weekend! The wedding was super cute and super small, there were only about 35 of us invited, so it was such a sweet, intimate affair. After a wonderful evening Friday at the wedding, we spent the day Saturday wine tasting with the entire group. It was so nice to have a weekend with Jer, just the two of us, enjoying each others company. Of course I didn't get a good picture of the two of us. It's so hard to get someone who can take a decent picture with my camera! But I did manage to get one picture of the pretty flower arrangements Lindsey did for the wedding and one of the bride and groom during their first dance!!

My 4 Month Old....

Our baby boy turned 4 months old on the 6th, I know I say this every month, but seriously why does he have to get big so fast?

He is SO much fun right now, laughing out loud, smiling, interacting with his toys and all of us that dote over him daily. Wow, we are so in love. He is sort of teething, which makes some days a little tougher than others right now (hence the massive amount of drool coming out of his mouth in this picture).

He started rolling over from back to front this weekend - while Jer and I were away :(. We had a fabulous time in Napa for our friends Jeremy and Linda's wedding, and of course while we were away got a call from Jana saying that Reed officially is rolling over! He has done it a few times before with a little help, but never completely by himself. How crappy that we missed it! All in all, other than missing my son rolling over on his own for the first time, life is great with the 3 of us! :) We have had a busy few weeks with Jer starting a new job, a trip to visit Jana and Napa this past weekend, which I guess means that life is moving right along!

Not so in to rolling over...

The progression of what it tummy time looks like around our house.

I don't know why, but Reed hates tummy time and I just can't force myself to make him do it. This is seriously what it looks like after about 30 seconds. We start him off happy on his back, he rolls side to side happily, and once I put him on his stomach he starts to scream and cry. Not your fussy little cry, more like "I hold a grudge and I am going to stay mad at you for the next hour for making me just do that" kind of a cry - with huge elephant tears. :( So....I have come to the conclusion that I am not going to make him do it and if he can't roll completely over until he is 6 months old then so be it.

3 Months & 3 Year's

Well my baby is 3 months old today. My oh my, I can't get enough of his little face. :)

We are all officially into a really good routine. I am back at work, spending 3 days a week in the office, which is SO nice - I feel like it's a really good balance between career mom and a stay a home mom, which for me is such a happy medium.

Reed is totally sleeping though the night. He now sleeps from about 9:30pm to 7 am. He pretty much puts himself to bed; we sing or read to him until he is drowsy and then we put him into bed and off he goes into his little dream world. Sometimes I just love to sit and watch him sleep. He is so cute when he dreams, laughing and even sometimes crying in his sleep.

He is so smiley and I love that he totally recognizes Jer and I. He loves to hear me say "Hi Reed" and he loves it when his daddy sings "Zippity Doo Dah" to him. He is starting to get a little bit of stranger anxiety, but it isn't too bad, so long as nobody startles him too much. And he is such a babbler, saying "ah" & "i" a lot, especially in the evenings after his bath, it's hard to get him to quiet down. Yesterday he found his thumb (he has always liked to suck on his fist, but never his thumb until yesterday). :( This makes me sad. I have tried SO hard to keep him from being a thumb sucker, but I guess no matter how hard I tried he still found a way to get to it. I guess I just figured that a pacifier is a habit that I can help break, but thumb sucking isn't and so I have really tried to discourage it.

He is getting so close to rolling over, but we still aren't there. I am really bad about tummy time, because he hates it, so I am doing him no favors in this area. He rolls from side to side a lot, but can't quite get all of the way over. Now that he is doing that I am starting to break him from his swaddle so that by the time he is able to roll over his had transitioned from sleeping in a swaddle to a sleep sak.

All in all things are so good. Tomorrow is our 3 year wedding anniversary. Jer has a fantasy football draft and so we actually celebrated on Sunday by doing lunch and getting massages. Tomorrow night we are going to get a bottle of wine and watch our wedding video, something we do every year at this time. It aways makes me happy to remember our wedding day, it was so special and as time goes by it is nice to go back to that place and listen to the words that we spoke to each other on our wedding day. As the years go by, my love for him does grow deeper and stronger, I didn't realize what having a baby would mean for the two of us, but honestly it has made me love him even more than I thought possible. I feel so blessed to be married to such a wonderful man and the more time that goes by, the more I know that I have married the right man for me.

August

August....is it really already over? I can't believe that summer is past, school is back in session and I have a 3 month old. This past month was spent at home in large part, we had lots of BBQ's with friends at the "A La Day" Resort as Jeremy likes to call it (aka - our backyard). Reed spent lots of time floating around in the pool. He is a total water baby. Bath time is his favorite time of day and he seems to really like the pool, so long as it is not too cold.

Jer and I spent our first night without the little man a couple of weeks back. Our anniversary is on September 6th and so we went to San Francisco the weekend of my birthday to get away for the night. I missed Reed like crazy, but it was nice to have a little alone time with Jer, where we could just focus on adult conversation and have a little one on one time. Reed stayed with Auntie Paige and did really well. It is so nice to have such great babysitters all around us and Reed loves all of his time with his grandmas and aunties!

Two Months...say what!?!

No way is my baby boy 2 months old! Seriously, where did the time go? You wouldn't even believe how big he is getting. I feel like he is changing so much everyday, I just want to freeze time so that I can enjoy him right where his is and remember this moment for a little bit longer. Honestly, everyday I love this little man more and more.

Here are a few fun facts about us at two months:

He LOVES it when we sing to him; nothing makes him smile like his mothers awful voice or the sweet sounds of his daddy, friends or other relatives singing to him.

He is the HAPPIEST baby. This is no joke, I can seriously go an entire day without hearing this kid cry. He is happy having play time by himself, he is happy in his swing, he is happy in a sling, in our arms, or laying down staring at the ceiling. Nothing ruffles this little man's feathers. (This must mean that I am in for a real treat with my next child huh?!?)

He is a grunter. He makes the funniest noises when he wakes up in the morning or is trying to poop. I love his little grunty noises.

He has discovered his hands and feet. He loves to explore with his hands; batting at objects, sticking them in his mouth and latching on to things (my hair, necklaces, and shirts seem to be his favorite things to tug on). He thinks his feet are the most interesting objects on the face of this earth, he can totally sit and stare at his toes moving around, which I think is quite cute.

He is so alert. He loves to look at his daddy with the sweetest and most loving wide eyes. He just sort of seems to follow Jeremy and watch him. I think that they are going to be the best of buds as he gets older.

He has the sweetest smiles. Honestly seeing him smile makes me the happiest person, I love that I have such a sweet and happy baby, it fills my heart. (Cheesy I know, but there really is nothing better than seeing your baby so happy).

He is sleeping through the night. He usually gets his last feeding between 9:30 and 10:30pm and will sleep until 7am. He wakes up happy, usually grunting and starting at all of his animals.

He is looking more and more like his daddy. He has the Day's round face and little round nose. I am beginning to think that the only trait of mine that he has is his long skinny body with Jelavich hands and feet.

Catching Up...4th of July

Finally some pictures from our 4th of July. We had a blast celebrating the holiday at the Cress' house in Tahoe. It also happened to be Jana's 21st birthday weekend. Jer and were pretty mellow and laid low most of the weekend being that Reed was only a month, but we got out to celebrate with Jana for a little bit on Saturday night. I can't believe my "baby" sis is 21!

Look at this house that Cronan and Lorie have, it is amazing. Her parents bought this property on the West Shore (Homewood) when she was little, right on the lake....it's truly a gem!

Some things I want to remember...

I just found this post that I never published. It was written about 3 weeks before Reed joined us. I had so much fun reading this and remembering the night that I wrote this, May 16th, 2011:

"Some things I want to remember"...

Laying by the fire with Jeremy watching a movie, just the two of us. I really like our quiet nights and I know soon enough they will take on a whole new meaning.

The anticipation of meeting our baby. It has been a crazy 9 months of waiting, guessing, worrying, preparing and finally now; a calm and quiet peace has taken over as we enjoy our last moments before the baby arrives.

My other babies...my doggies. I am worried, their life is going to change too and for the past 6 & 8 years it has just been Jer, the dogs and I. It sounds stupid to many I am sure, but I love my 4 legged kids and I hope that they adjust to a new person in the house too. I am snuggling with them more and giving them lots of love before the baby takes over some of their time with us.

Winnie the duck, our house has become "fertile manor" as my mother in law calls it. We have the cutest duck that laid 11 eggs right out our back door and she has won both mine and Jeremy's heart. We have reorganized our life around this duck, the dogs backyard time is seriously limited by Winnie's whereabouts and we love to check on her. I think she has grown to like us too, the other night when we were walking through the park she followed us as we were cruising along with the dogs.

My first (almost) mothers day. Jer was sweet, he made me breakfast and got me the prettiest Nambe piece to add to my collection, knowing how much I love it. After that we had a quiet afternoon, napped, shopped and went to our favorite Thai place for takeout and a movie. It was perfect.

Pedicures, they are my current addiction. It has gotten to uncomfortable for me to bend over for long periods of time to paint my toes. My favorite way to relax right now is to go to my favorite spa and get a nice pedicure. I haven't had too many crazy pregnancy symptoms, but one thing that has plagued me is swollen ankles. They are so fat and so a pedicure has been just the perfect remedy for me to relax and take a load off of my fat and nasty feet.

I am glad to say that after almost two months our quiet nights are still intact, meeting our baby was the best feeling ever, the doggies are doing great and my feet no longer look like sausages. :)

1 Month Old

Our little man at a month (July 6th, 2011)...the fastest month of my life. Is it true that once you have kids life just sort of seems to fly by? I sure hope not, this little guy is growing so much and changing every day.

Jer and I went out on our first date a couple of weeks back and it was so nice. Auntie Paige came down to hang out with the little guy while we went to Biba's for JJ's 30th birthday. It was the first time I was really able to relax without being pregnant or having a baby by my side. The food was fantastic, the wine was tasty and it was so nice to just enjoy an evening with my other main man!

And on a side note, Charity sent me this link yesterday. It was a feature that was done on my baby shower. Check it out if you have time. These photos are a lot better than the ones I took (photography is not one of my strong suits).

What we've been up to...

I'm not sure if anyone reads this considering that the last post I made was over a month ago. Life has been crazy busy. We just moved into our new house in Lincoln and we love it, but moving with a one month old was trying to say the least. Our poor baby has gotten accustomed to being passed around, I guess in a way that is good...he's happy as can be with anybody and so content with just being by himself (he has honestly logged more hours in his swing than any one month old has a right to do). Balancing the move and being a mommy to a very new baby was hard for me, but luckily we got through it and I feel like I am finally able to snuggle up with this cute little man and give him all the love and kisses he deserves. Here are a few pictures from our first few weeks at home -- before the chaos struck. I don't really have too many photos since we've been in our new house, but I will start snapping away. He is already changed so much from these pictures.

On a side note, I do promise to update again soon. I have a picture of him at exactly a month and some cute photos to share from our 4th of July holiday up in Tahoe. I just have to find the time to blog!!

Reed Thomas Day

Born: Monday, June 6th, 2011 at 4:10am

Weighing: 6lbs. 15oz.

Measured: 20 1/4" long

The Baby Story

Our little bundle has arrived! I am a little late in posting, considering he was born 2 weeks ago tomorrow, but settling into life with a newborn has been busy. Reed is such an awesome baby, he truthfully is the easy part. Life in general hasn't really slowed down a whole heck of a lot, which is the real reason why it's taken me so long to get this post up.

I want to share a little bit about my birth story, nothing graphic. Mainly so that I can look back on this as a reference. As many of you who read this already know, Reed was very happy in my belly. He truly made no attempt to escape and as we approached 40 weeks we started to consider what we were going to do to start the progression of labor. I don't want to say that we were in a real rush, but we were all getting pretty anxious. Our goal from the get-go with this pregnancy was to get both baby and I to term safely (38/39 weeks) and then get me delivered before any complications with my heart medications could affect our little one. Certainly this risk was not something anyone had expected, however there was always a concern about the baby's growth being that I had to take heart meds, which is why I was monitored so closely throughout my pregnancy. So once I got to term we all started anxiously awaiting the signs of labor....and there was nothing. I was checked twice a week up until I hit 40 weeks; and still no dilation, no effacement. So at my last doctors visit Jeremy, myself and our doctor all sat down and evaluated our situation. Do we wait for this baby to come on it's own and run any sort of risk with my meds, although we were all quite confident that this risk was very low, or do we induce labor and get this baby out, knowing that both baby and I are in good health? Well, I choose to induce. We left the doctors on June 3rd with a slip in our hand admitting us into the hospital on Saturday, June 4th at 7:00, my due date. That night Jer and I decided to go out and have a nice little dinner, so we went and sat at the bar with Jeremy's friend who was bartending that night at Malabar. We ordered appetizers, dinner, I had a glass of wine (disclaimer: it was one glass of wine and I promise I wasn't being neglectful - the lady sitting next to us at the bar was shooting me daggers so I still am feeling a little guilty for my indulgence), Jeremy had a nice little martini and we toasted to our last night out before parenthood. It was a truly nice evening and we were both so excited about all that was to come.

The next day my brother, sisters and Brock all came down to watch over our dogs while we were at the hospital. They sent us off and we were on our way. We got to the hospital, got checked in and started the monitoring. Well as it turns out I was having contractions 2-3 minutes apart that I couldn't feel, however I was still not dilating or effaced, so they gave me some fluids to try and space out the contractions and by 11pm that night I got my first dose of cytotec. With the first dose I started to feel my contractions, so Jer and I spent the night walking the halls and hanging out. The next morning I was in the same situation, my contractions were too close together to administer another dose of cytotec so we had to do some more IV and by 5 am June 5th I was able to receive my 2nd dose of cytotec. By 9am that morning I was 90% effaced and barely dilated so they decided to start the pitosin. I got up to 2cm by 11am and so my doctor decided to break my water. By 1pm I had my epidural and from there I was happy although apparently my body wasn't. My labor continued to progress very slowly. I was stuck at 2 cm for hours and then I was stuck at 4cm for even longer. By 10pm that evening my doctor was sitting in front of me discussing the option of a c-section, a word I had heard all too often during this pregnancy already. But my uterus was getting tired and falling into an unhappy pattern which was concerning my doctor and so he said that if I didn't get into a normal labor pattern and progress significantly by 11pm then we were going to have to strongly consider a c-section. And of course, like everything else during this pregnancy, things started to move in the direction that they were supposed to. By 11pm I was dilated to a 6 and after 18 hours of labor, I was finally ready to push at 3:00am on June 6th. An hour later at 4:10am Reed Thomas Day was born.

He truly was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I know he is my baby and so of course I am going to think that, but truly I have felt nothing like the feeling I felt the moment that the nurse placed his little life in my hands. The second he was placed on my chest I started to talk to him and he immediately calmed down, I think it was the sweetest moment I had felt, and I instantly knew that he knew I was his mommy and I was in love.

Reed was born 6lbs. 15 ounces and 20 1/4" long. He was happy and healthy and now shares his birthday with his Aunt Paige. Two weeks later I can say that he is the most happy and content little baby. He is just so sweet. We are all sleeping relatively well, waking usually once in the middle of the night to feed. Both Jer and I just feel so blessed and lucky. Since he has been born we have had so many wonderful friends and family bring us dinner, come to visit and shower him with love and all sorts of fun gifts. It has truly been the most amazing couple of weeks and we are so excited to share an amazing life with this little man as we get to love on him and watch him grow.

37 1/2 weeks

We are ready...or at least I am. :) The nursery is ready, I picked up a bunch of last minute baby things this weekend with my sweet mother in law, clothes and bottles are washed and our hospital bags are packed. Now all we need is for this little one to arrive! Jer and I had a doctors appointment today to figure out what we wanted to do, being that the baby was still breech at my appointment this past Friday. Our appointment was for today at 2 o'clock and the plan was to do our routine fetal monitoring, have an ultrasound and if the baby didn't miraculously flip over the weekend then we were going to either schedule an ECV for later on this week (procedure to try and turn the baby) or a c-section for sometime around my 38th/39th week. Well low and behold the little one turned! I think I almost jumped off the table, I know I yelled "it turned"!?! I think I had the entire staff laughing at me on our way out. I had been so nervous about today because I really didn't like either of our options, but most babies turn by the 32nd week and as you hit week 37 I think the percentage of babies that turn from a breech position goes down to like 10% so I knew that time was not on my side the longer the baby stayed head up. Thank god it all worked itself out. Now I just hope that the baby stays there. I have another ultrasound on Thursday, which should be my last one to monitor the baby's growth, and after that I would say all systems are a go! My doctor said that as long as my body is showing signs of being ready then he will look to induce labor sometime the week of the 28th which sounds perfect to me!

Nursery

I don't have any really great photos of the nursery, mainly because my camera is acting up and I am having a really hard time taking pictures. I guess I need to take it in before the baby comes and I really need it. Anyhow, here are few pictures that I managed to get. The nursery isn't really complete being that we are moving in a few months. I am doing a mural behind the crib, but I can't really do anything with that until we get into the new house, so for now the crib wall is totally blank. I am really happy with the fabrics we choose, for a neutral nursery I think it still turned out cute and I know once the baby arrives it will take on a tone all its own. A few things that I want to do when we move to really complete the room is have some custom curtains made out of the yellow fabric you see in the accent pillows, find a cute a mobile for when the baby actually goes in the crib, as well as the artwork for the crib wall. For now though I think that this is it!