Kate's First Christmas

Kate is doing great! She's sleeping much better now. We've discovered she prefers to sleep on her side, so that was the trick. I'm getting up about 2 times each night to feed her which is not too bad. Two nights ago we had a catastrophe. I got up to change and feed her and while I was feeding her she pooped so I got up to change her and she wasn't quite finised! So she continued to poop while I was trying to change her diaper. In a matter of seconds I had poop all over the place-her back/front/on the changing table-it was a mess! I woke Leland up asking for help. It was hilarious! Lesson learned-wait a few minutes until the pooping is done!

Here's a really good picture of her awake (which is not often) in her Christmas outfit.

Kate Emma Wells

Meet our beautiful baby girl, Kate Emma Wells. Kate is a name that we liked and Emma was Leland's grandmother's middle name. We are home and adjusting to our new life! It has been an exhausting and exhilirating last 4 days. But I wouldn't change any of it for the world! She is just precious!

Tuesday night I was having really strong contractions and back labor. They starting getting closer and closer together about midnight. I went to bed and was miserable. I couldn't sleep-they were so bad they kept waking me up (we had just been to the doctor earlier that day and she said I wasn't quite ready yet so it was our 2nd false alarm) so I wanted to make sure this was the real deal before we drove to the hospital in the middle of the night. Well, it got to the point where they were every 4minutes and I couldn't take it anymore-it was the worse pain I have every experienced. So, we packed up and headed to the hospital. When they got us all checked in they checked me and I was 3 cm so it was the real deal and they weren't going to send us home-thank goodness because I was in pain! So 13 hours of labor and about 5 pushes and she was here! The nurses were so surprised at how fast she was coming that they told me to stop pushing because the doctor wasn't there yet and they were waiting on her. So not long after she arrived, little miss Kate arrived too. It was a suprisingly easy labor and delivery once I had the epidural-which was great by the way!

Now we are home and Leland's mom is staying with us this week which has been great! We had trouble with the breastfeeding at first, but I think she's getting the hang of things now. We go to the pediatrician tomorrow for a weight check. It's amazing how you get concerned about little things like, why hasn't she had a bowel movement in the last 24 hours?! etc......Our biggest challenge is getting her to sleep in her bed at night. She does not like laying on her back and the minute you put her down she starts crying......not sure how we're going to get past this. It was quite an exhausting night our first night home-I think Leland and I only got about 2 hours of sleep. If anyone has any suggestions on how to get her to sleep in her bed or bassinet at night, please let me know!

We'll keep you posted on more pictures and updates.

Our Baby Girl is Here

We had our sweet baby girl yesterday, December 17th at 2:03pm. Her name is Kate ? Wells. We are still working on a middle name. She weighed 7lbs. 2oz. and was 20 inches long. She is perfectly healthy and all is well. She is trying to learn to breastfeed and is finally getting the hang of it! Yea! We will post pictures soon. It's been a hectic 24 hours but all went well with the labor and delivery. All I have to say is epidurals are wonderful!! More to come soon.......

Baby Time??

Well, this morning I woke up around 5am with some pretty uncomfortable contractions. They started out about 12 minutes apart and stayed that way for a while. My doc had always told me to wait to come to the hospital until they were about 5 mintues apart, but I called her anyway because I just wanted to get her input. I was suppose to have a check-up tomorrow but she asked me to go ahead and come in today for my appointment and see where I'm at. Well, I'm still only 2 cm dilated, but I was about 80% effaced so that improved. I was just sure I'd be farther along than that. Some of the contractions I was having were so intense I thought how in the world am I going to be able to handle these every 5 minutes for an hour before we leave for the hospital!? But then they started to taper off in the afternoon. Well now they're back and they hurt. I don't think I'm going to get much sleep tonight, but we'll see. Hopefully tomorrow will be the day. We'll keep everyone posted!

9 Month Baby Bump

Here's my 9 month baby bump. She's getting bigger and bigger. We still have about 4 weeks until our official due date, but hopefully she'll come before that because I am ready to not have an aching back anymore! I think she's about 6 lbs. right now. I go back to the doctor on Tuesday for another check-up. Leland has to go to Dallas Monday and he'll be back Tuesday evening, so pray that I don't go into labor while he's gone! We have our sweet neighbors and so many people at our church have offered to give me a ride to the hospital or come be with me if it so happens while he's gone, but I hope that won't happen. Now would not be a great time to have her because my doctor is ill right now and just starting to get over it and Sadie just had surgery last week (we got her fixed finally) so she's kind of under the weather and Leland is traveling. So as soon as he gets back and everybody is feeling well again, I'm good to go!

Dogs, Doctor's Appointment, Snow!

I had my 36 week doc appointment. We had our final ultrasound-baby is head down thank goodness and she weighs 5lbs 13oz right now. The doctor said she has really long legs-I'm not sure who she gets that from-Leland I guess. Everything looks great. I'm now 1-2cm dilated and 50% effaced. Her head is really really low so the doc thinks she will come before our due date even though the ultrasound was telling us her due date is now Jan 6th but that's just based on her head measurement so hopefully she just has a small head-I'm good with that! So, we'll see. It could happen very soon......or it could go for another month-who knows. I still have some last minute things I'd like to get done before she gets here so I hope she holds out for at least a couple more weeks!

We had a good Thanksgiving! Some friends from our church invited us over for their family Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun. They were so nice to think of us.

I'm now officially a stay at home mom! Yea! Today was my first day to not have to go to work. I don't think it's set in yet.....just feels like I'm on vacation. But today I stayed busy-one of the ladies at our church just passed away and the church was putting on a lunch for the family today before the funeral service so I volunteered to bring a dish and help serve the food/clean up, etc. It's nice to have the free time to help out with those sorts of things now. I had to leave early to go to the doctor so it was a pretty busy day. I was worried I'd be bored being home but I have a feeling I'll be busier than I think.

We're dog sitting this week for our neighbors who went to Costa Rica for Thanksgiving (must be nice). The puppies love each other and have so much fun together. It's kind of nice because they keep each other entertained and wear each other out and then just crash. Normally, Sadie just follows us around the house and wants us to alway pay attention to her and if we're not she whines-it's can be really annoying -but we love her anyway!

We had our first Snow for the year yesterday and today. It was cold and windy!

Names

As some of you know we mentioned that we thought the baby's name would be Caroline....it's a name we both liked plus it's a family name on my side. But after telling several people the name we're thinking of they thought we were saying Carolyn and that is not what we want people calling her....plus for some reason now that it's getting closer I have been having second thoughts on the name. I can be so indecisive sometimes and that annoys me about myself! So, we still don't have a name picked out as of yet. And the funny thing is, we've had 2 people make some personalized gifts for her with the name Caroline on them......one was a swaddle blanket with Caroline embroidered on it and the other was a onesie with her name on it. Oopsie. So, if you're one of the people that we've told Caroline, please don' t get us a personalized gift until we have come home with her and the hospital has forced us to name her! Ha!
Tomorrow we have another doctor's appointment and this time we will have another ultrasound to see how she's postioned. I'm so excited! More to come on that.

34 Weeks Dr. Appointment

I had my 34th week check up yesterday and found out I am already dilated 1 cm. That's not very much but it still kind of shocked me. My doctor told me to take it easy these next few weeks. My last day at work is Wednesday, so thankfully I will be done with that soon. However, I have a list of things to get done that I was planning on doing before this baby gets here and my doc told me to take it easy on that list. Yikes! She said if I went into labor soon they wouldn't try to stop it at this point but she'd really like to see me go for another 2-3 weeks before we go into labor. I have so much to get done! Oh well, I'll just need to listen to my body I guess. I have a feeling this baby is coming before Christmas.

Let's see what else is new? Leland and I went out on a date to the symphony last night. It was nice. I'm not sure going to the symphony is my thing. Leland fell asleep during first piece. He said he was just listening to the music with his eyes closed, but when his head starts bobbing I'm thinking he's not listening so much as he is sleeping! But it was fun to get out of the house and go downtown one more time before we're confined to the house for a while. We have a couple of Christmas parties to go to here in the next few weeks but other than that, I'm just getting too uncomfortable to get dressed up and go out anywhere so hopefully I can make it to them.

Well, that's about it for now. We'll keep everyone posted on any changes.

Nursery Progress

The nursery is just about finished. I finally decided to just paint an accent wall in the nursery. It looks really good with the cream color on the other walls. I have a few more things to do but for the most part am done. I want to put some more stuff on the wall where the dresser is and get a rug to go in there, but other than that, we're ready!

I just love looking at all these cute little girl clothes. I can't wait to get her all dressed up!

Church Shower

The ladies at our wonderful church, Hope Bible Church, hosted a baby shower for me last Sunday. They were so very sweet to do this for us. There were ladies there that I hadn't even met yet that came and brought us gifts. We go to a fairly small church and so we've really gotten to know the members there pretty well and we have felt blessed that the Lord led us to come to this church. We got some really nice stuff and I wish I had better photos to post. I had one of the ladies take some pictures for me with my camera and I know one of the hostess, Jill, took some she's suppose to email me so I'll post those when I get them. We played some fun games and had a little devotional time and ate food and cake and they watched me open gifts. It was really nice and we are so thankful for our church friends here in Missouri!

One of the games-try to guess what baby food it is. YUM! Remind me to never buy Macaroni and Cheese dinner

All the kids there were so cute. They all wanted to help hand me gifts and see what I got. I think I had about 6 of them surrounding me.

This was a diaper cake that one of the hostess' and her daughter made for us. It had little goodies all stuffed around it.

These were two knitted blankets and some booties that two ladies made for us. I thought that was so special and nice. We were just overwhelmed with everyone's generosity.

8 Month Baby Bump

Here's my 8 month baby bump. I'm actually 32 weeks so when I say I'm 8 months, I still have 2 more months to go. Since you're pregnant for actually 10 months (40 weeks) it's kind of misleading. So anyway, here it is.
I had my 32 week check-up appointment with Dr. Moore yesterday and all is well. She checked me again to make sure I'm not dilating since I'm still having daily contractions but they are so irregular and infrequent that we haven't been too worried. I've gotten so used to having them I tend to just ignore them now but I hope I'll know when it's the real thing! I'm sure it will be obvious! My doc said that after 2 more weeks I'm in the clear for a safe delivery-in other words they won't try to stop labor because I'll be far enough along. That just seems crazy to me that it's getting so close! She checked the heartbeat and the baby had the hiccups at the time so it was kind of funny sounding on the heartbeat checker thingy. I will have another ultrasound when I'm 36 weeks to see what position she is in and make sure my amniotic fluid looks good. So far I'm feeling okay, just starting to get tired easily and my back is always sore-I pretty much look like a granny when I first get up and start walking and then I'm just waddling the rest of the time. So far, being pregnant has been a wonderful experience and even though I complain at times about it, I want to cherish this time while I can because it's just flown by so fast and it's such a miraculous thing to experience. I only wish Leland could feel all the movement and kicks and things like that that I do.

Fall Flowers

We have Chrysamthemums in our flower beds that I've been having to trim back all summer long because they were getting out of control and now they are finally bloomed! I'm so excited they are finally here. When we moved here in January, they were just little twigs sticking out of the ground and I never thought they'd blossom into this.

I heard Sadie going nuts one day outside barking and I went downstairs to see what she was all worked up over-it was a little snake. I think it's just a grass snake. I think Sadie scared it so bad it didn't even make a move when I went down to look at it. We have a little creek behind our house so I'm sure it came from back there.

National Day of Prayer

This came in a forwarded email that my friend Niki emailed me......

"I am asking every believer in Jesus Christ to set aside Monday, November 3 as a day of fasting and prayer . I would urge you to review the prayer of Daniel on behalf of his people in Dan . 9:3-19, and to pray that way for our nation. And finally, I would ask you to distribute this call to prayer as widely as possible so that the greatest number of people would lay hold of the throne of grace all at once. It may be that God will show mercy to America , that He will shed His grace on her once again."

'If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.' 2 Chronicles 7:14

In church today, this was the very topic our sermon was over, Daniel's prayer in chapter 9. This is the prayer we should be praying for our nation right now.

Sadie's 1st Birthday (and 1st Heat)!

Our dog, Sadie, has finally had her first heat. We've been told by our vet to wait to have her spayed until after her first heat because she had some female problems as a puppy and if we waited until after she has a heat then she's less likely to have urinary tract infections. So, of course it had to happen while we were in Texas and our sweet neighbors were watching her for us. So we got home and didn't really know what to do with her. She was bleeding and didn't want it getting on the carpet, furniture, etc. So I had to go to the store and buy some diapers that would fit her. We just cut a hole out for her tail. I thought she would go crazy trying to get it off, but she just sits there when we put it on her and walks around like it's not even there. We laughed so hard the first time we put it on her. She had this little look on her face like she was so humilitated. Anyway, 3 weeks later and she's still in heat. I can't wait for it to be over!

Oh, by the way, Leland's gotten really good at this diaper changing thing, so no excuses when it comes to changing our daughter's diapers. He's had plenty of practice!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SADIE!

Sadie turned one year old on Sunday. I made her some homemade peanut butter dog treats which she loved and made her a little birthday hat. I would have taken her to the dog park to play but since she's in heat we figured that's not such a good idea right now!

"Mom, this is so corny!"

Work Shower

Yesterday we had a dual baby shower at work. Another girl I work with is pregnant and due a month before me, so they took us to Applebee's and we had our shower there. I meant to take pictures but forgot to get my camera out. We had it on our lunch break so we didn't have a ton of time. But we recieved some nice things........our diaper bag that I registered for with some diapers and wipes in it, we got 2 teddy bears and 2 blankets, bottles, a cute purple outfit, a swaddler blanket, and I think that's it. Our manager who was sort of planning the whole thing and even picked the day didn't show up. I guess she forgot. But it was nice of the girls to do that for us!

Texas Baby Shower

My aunt Cindy and sister-in-law Lindsey were sweet enough to host a beautiful baby shower for me! It was so much fun and I was so appreciative for all the hard work they put into the shower to make it special for me! Thanks Cindy and Lindsey! I got to see all of my closest friends (minus a few who couldn't make it). I just wish I could have spent more time with them. It was such a packed weekend while we were in town that we just didn't have enough time to make the rounds visiting everyone so thankfully most of them were able to make it to the shower. We recieved a ton a adorable baby clothes, and some other goodies. We barely were able to pack it all in our extra suitcases we brought with us, but we made it work and got home with all of our new baby things. I didn't get too many good pictures from my camera -it was on the wrong setting and most of them are blurry, so if any of you have any pictures from the shower, will you please email them to me? Thanks!

Texas Trip

We went home to Texas all last week to see family and friends one more time before we were not longer able to travel. We won't be able to come home for the holidays this year which really stinks but that's okay, it's for a good reason. Since our baby is due so close to Christmas, we'll get to see family around that time when they come up to see the baby. Yea! 2 1/2 more months to go!

This is Leland and my mom out on my parents' tank shooting turtles. Mom had just gotten home form work-I find it funny that she's in her work clothes and shooting a gun! We had fun hanging out on the "dock" feeding the fish and just relaxing. We were in Wichita Falls for 3 days and then headed to Clifton for 3 more days to see Leland's family.




Here is Leland's parents' pet duck Miss O and their dog Wildthing. The duck follows Wildthing around most of the time-it's so cute. She's so domesticated. Kathleen feeds her dog food and goes out everynight to catch grasshoppers for her to eat. We had a relaxing time out at their house too. It's so beautiful out there. They live just on the tip of the Texas Hill Country.


Then we headed back to Dallas and spent some time with family and friends. We were able to see some of Leland's friends Friday night over at Ryan and Melody's new house.

Leland and Elijah (Ryan and Melody's son) Sorry so blurry.


Thursday we hung out with Ellen, Leland's sister, and went to Babe's Chicken House for dinner-yum yum!

Saturday was our baby shower at my aunt Cindy's house. I got to see most of my friends there but unfortunately I didn't get to spend much time with them. Well, that about sums up our trip. Hopefully we will be able to make it back home in early springtime when we're brave enough to travel with an infant.