Five Months Already!

Look-I'm five months old! Oh, how time does fly :-)

Legoland!

Carla, Kayla, Mindy and I all went to Legoland Discovery Center in Schaumburg last Wednesday. A good time was had by all, even though Kayla slept through most of it! We woke her up to take a picture next to the Lego Christmas tree so that is our excuse for the look on Kayla's face. We know she's way to young to remember stuff like this but we are starting our family traditions right from the get go.

Ho Ho Ho

Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas :-) Well, that is totally what this picture says. Isn't she just adorable?? We are busy around here getting ready for the holidays-I just love this time of year. This year though I've been a little behind..but at least I have a good excuse. I am, however, now officially done Christmas shopping and I almost have everything wrapped! Just have to wait for a couple more things to arrive-oh the wonders of internet shopping-so helpful with a little one :-) I tried not to spoil her this year too much since, afterall, she won't remember a thing and has no clue what's going on..we'll save the spoiling for next year!

Quite a mess!

A lot has been happening around here lately. Kayla is now eating "real" food. Well, rice cereal that we are now mixing with a vegetable to start-peas at the moment. Then it's on to carrots. She seems to love it, as you can see in this pic-if you can see through the mess! We're still working on eating neatly :-)

Discovering her voice

In the last week or so we've really noticed Kayla discovering her voice. She's "talking" more and definately being more vocal. She has also taken to sticking her tongue out all the time. My sister Mindy says that she always stuck her tongue out but this is even more pronounced than before. She's really growing up fast. Here's a pic of her sticking her tongue out. It's not as far out as she sometimes sticks but still, you get the idea.

Cute pic!

Just a quick pic post. I love this one! I'll try and write later to update you all :)

Thanksgiving Day!

It was Kayla's first Thanksgiving and nothing went as planned! We had wanted to decorate our fence outside before we went to Aunt Sue's for lunch but that didn't happen as I am still feeling under the weather and time just got away from us. Kayla was spitting up all morning but we were smart and did not put her in her Thanksgiving outfit until we were ready to leave. We had wanted to feed her cereal off of a spoon for the first time today but what with all her spitting up and irregular sleeping patterns it just didn't happen. Here's one pic of her rough morning. She seemed to have fun at Aunt Sue's and here is a picture with her Great-Grandma on her mom's dad's side. After Sue's we went to her Great-Grandma's on Carla's mom's side and slept almost the entire time! She woke up after almost everyone had left and those still there got a kick out of her kicking up a storm. Well she's starting to cry so I guess that's all for now!

Kayla's 1st Cold

Well, Kayla was sick for the first time Sunday night. We had gone over to Carla's parent's house to have dinner with her folks and her brother who was in town and by the end of the evening she was very hoarse when screaming and kinda weezy. This kept up until about Wednesday. I stayed home from work on Tuesday to take care of Kayla since Carla wasn't doing so well either and then I ended up getting sick! It was not alot of fun!

Kayla's Stats

We went to the doctor yesterday and Kayla has grown some since last time. She's 24" tall/long and 13 lbs 9.6 oz. They measure her head too every time, I'm not sure why, and her head is 16 1/8". We asked the doctor about her drooling all the time and she told us that it was normal and she didn't see any teeth buds yet. When we asked about her sleeping patterns we were basically told we were enabling her because she doesn't need to eat at night for 8 hours and she needs to learn to fall asleep on her own which she can't do if we keep rocking her to sleep. So last night was our first night of "tough love." We put her down before she was asleep and let her cry until she settled down and went to sleep herself. She woke up once around midnight and I picked her up for a few minutes then put her down again and she eventually fell back to sleep. Then she woke up around 2am and we let her scream for about 10 minutes but then decided we should feed her since it had been about 5 hours since she ate and the last time she ate she had barely had 2oz out of her 5oz bottle. After we fed her she went back to sleep until 5am and then we decided to have her sleep with us in bed since she had fallen asleep at like 4:30pm and was probably done sleeping if we didn't hold her. Around 6am she woke up again and we put her in her crib and turned on her battery operated mobile (one of the best baby accessories ever for us!) to entertain her and we went back to sleep for about an hour. The doctor said it would take about a week and a half to get her on a good routine but only waking 4 times in the night is still WAY better than what she had been doing before so we're moving in the right direction!

Sleep, or lack there or it, and teeth!

I am finding it harder to try to keep this updated that I had hoped. So sorry for the lack of updating..here's some news :-)

We have had a rough week here. Kayla is going the wrong way with sleeping at night, as in she is sleeping less and less. She almost always starts off well at the beginning of the night and then she crashes and burns and is up every hour or so. Very exhausting on us to say the least. So if you see us and we're cranky, you know why. However, she has also started drooling TONS and always wants to chew on things now, and we think this is probably due to her starting to teeth. How fun..That's just everyone's guess though, but it's probably a correct one. We go to the doctor on Monday for her check-up and shots, so maybe we'll find out then.

On other fronts, so far the best baby purchase in Kayla's mind: her jumparoo. She just loves it! Her tiny self can't reach the floor, so we have stacked up magazines and books under her feet to jump on, but it works. She can sit in it forever and just laugh and jump and flail about...it's so cute!

Christmas Letter

This is an option for our Christmas letter picture this year. Being as indecisive as I am at times I couldn't pic just one ;-) Now if only I can actually get a letter written...

Mom baked :-)

Mom baked :-) Yes, I completely understand that monkey bread is easy to make, however, for me, it was quite an accomplishment. Most of you know I so don't really cook or bake so for me this was a big deal. So here is my pretty pretty monkey bread..and it was yummy to boot! I am trying though to increase my cooking skills...afterall, I am a mom now..and mom's need to cook :-)

Just a riot!

We are really starting to see Kayla's personality come through these days. She is starting to coo and giggle up a storm, and yesterday she absolutely laughed hysterically for quite a while when I was playing with her in her jumparoo. The flight of the parrott was just a riot to her! I made a video of it on the camera, but I can't seem to get it to upload here to the blog :-( Oh well..you'll just have to come here and watch it :-) Anyhoos, that's about it for now. She and I are home watching history today. I keep telling her about it. She can say she was there.

Warm, Sleepy Sunday

We had a warm, sleepy Sunday here. I don't know what the high was today but we opened the patio door and the front door to get some air circulating through the house. The day started off very early since Kayla didn't know about daylight savings so she woke up around 5:30am and was ready to be up for the morning. Around 6 I went downstairs with her and watched The Legend of the Seeker that I had recorded from Saturday. It's a new TV show based on the books by Terry Goodkind. One of the best series of books I've ever read and so far a good TV show too. After being up for a few hours Kayla went back to sleep and proceeded to sleep pretty much the entire day away. She'd wake up, eat, then go right back to sleep all day long. We're hoping she sleeps tonight or else she will have some very cranky parents Monday. Mom and the Little One, as I've come to call her, Carla calls her Small Fry, have gone upstairs for bedtime but I'm downstairs watching my Patriots on Sunday Night Football. It's the 3rd quarter and the Pat's are down by one. Go Patriots!

Growing up

They get so big so fast! She's already looking like a little person. Not that she wasn't one before..but she is so not the tiny little baby we brought home not so long ago. We really do have to cherish these times...she'll be all grown up before we know it!

Adorable pic

I just had to post this pic..it was just too cute :-)

Family Photo Shoot

I fixed the Boo at the Zoo post for Kyle :-) Now you can read it..all is better. Here's a pic showing how the neighborhood is. It's our default picture taken at our family photo shoot. One of Kyle's sister's friends is a photographer and she came out in September just after Kayla was two months old and took some family pics for us. Here's the link to the shoot: http://audreyphotodesign.com/blog/?p=292

Kayla's 1st Halloween

Well it's Kayla's first Halloween. We didn't take her Trick or Treating. She and I just handed out candy to the hundreds of kids that swarm to our neighborhood every year for Halloween. We have a nice safe neighborhood, everyone's porch light automatically comes on at night because they are wired into photosensors and there are many houses close together so kids can score tons of candy. Half of the houses face each other with a sidewalk seperating them so kids don't have to cross the street either. I'm kinda new at this posting (Kyle typing) and I learned my lesson from the posting at Boo at the Zoo so here's a picture of Kayla and I without messing with the text.

Boo at the Zoo

Last weekend Carla, Kayla and I along with Kayla's Nana and Auntie Mindy all went to the Brookfield Zoo's Boo at the Zoo. It was fun to see all the other people there in costume's. Especially the large family all dressed up as a pack of pachyderms (elephants). Kayla was the only one dressed up among us. It was a little cold but a fun time was still had by all. We didn't get a picture of all of us but here's one that Mindy took.

Not so working mom

Life around here these last couple weeks has been a little strained to say the least. As you know, I was back to work at the beginning of the month. I would either work mornings 5am-11am or nights 5pm-11pm depending on what Kyle was working so that one of us was always home with the baby. It sounded like a great idea in theory. However, in actuality it was stressing everyone out and causing me to loose my mind. So for now it's been worked out, thanks to my wonderful parents, that I can stay home and focus on taking care of my family. As everyone who has them knows, taking care of little ones really is a 24/7 job in itself. I am just so thankful that I am able to have this opportunity now. I wasn't sure what the options were, I just knew that working as I was was not an option at all. It was entirely too stressful and tiring on all of us and left no room for error. It was tear home, pass the baby, and off the other person went. That was so not fun or healthy for our relationship. So for now, things are about to be so much better. I love you mom and dad.

Fun with Knight Rider

Well it was an eventfull last couple of days. Carla was sick both days so Kayla had to hang out with her dad all day both days. Luckily I was off work so it wasn't a problem. Carla tried not to be around Kayla too much and spent most of the two days sleeping. Kayla doesn't seem to be sick so we're glad for that and I'm feeling fine too so I think we dodged a bullet. Carla's working tonight, tomorrow night and Friday night so Kayla and I are just hanging out, watching Knight Rider.

Sleeping Beauty

Today Kayla felt the need to sleep..practically all day. Kyle had to work, so just Kayla and I were venturing off to visit my aunt and her family for my cousin's birthday. She slept on the way there, was awake for just a bit once we were there, and then has slept just about the entire rest of today! After the birthday lunch several of us went on a walking adventrue along the prairie path to Sonny Acres pumpkin farm fall festival. Mom and I took turns pushing Kayla in the stroller (mom did most of the pushing :-) ). She fell asleep as soon as we took off and litterally slept the whole walk there, all the time we were there, the entire walk back, and then continued to sleep the whole time I drove home. Guess she was tired? Or growing? She needs to grow, so if that's the case, I am all for the sleeping. Now if only she'd use those sleeping skills at night better...and since she did sleep all day, she'll probably be up most of tonight. Oh well. However, if that's going to be the case I am off to sleep now to try to get in a few good minutes at least...today's pic is not from today, but it isn't she an adorable sleeping tiger? I thought it was appropriate to the sleepy sleepy girl of today.

Three months already

These last three months since we've had our little one home and a part of our lives has been amazing..and stressful, and exhausting, and wonderful, and...you see what I mean. We can't believe how much she has changed our lives in her little bitty time on this planet. And what they say is true-the love you have for your child is like no other. She is such a perfect baby. Well, she still won't sleep through the night, but she will someday, hopefully sooner rather than later. We love to make her smile and laugh and see her cute little dimple (she just has one on her left side). Everyone comments on how precious she is. I think that they'll all comment on her looks her entire life..it's the red hair that does it. She gets that from her Daddy. And her big blue eyes. It should be illegal for babies to have such long eye lashes! I am totally envious. She has taken on a more laid back personality as of late and enjoys "playing" more on her own now as well, as much as a three month old baby "plays". Ok, I think I could go on and on so for now I am going to call it a night. I'll keep playing catch up when I can and then try to keep this updated as often as possible.

Happy Birthday!

Kayla Liberty Bell made her arrival in this world on July 14, 2008 at 12:29pm. She weighed 6 lbs and was 18 inches long. Kayla decided to be on her own time schedule, however, and came almost 4 weeks early. I had a natural delivery with her (no epideral!) and she seemed to be doing fine at first. Then later in the day they took her away and to our amazement she ended up admitted to the NICU, where she remained for the first 10 days of her little life. Little did we know that once she was admitted she would remain hostage for so long. The original diagnosis with tachypnoea, or rapid breathing. There was not much to be done about that though besides letting her little lungs settle down. She was hooked up to oxygen and had a feeding tube and whatnot and quickly her tachypnoea diminished and then all but went away. So you'd think that once she was better she'd be able to go home, right? Oh how wrong you are. Once admitted to the NICU, there are rules. Many rules. For us, there were four. 1. Have the tachypnoea go away. 2. Have all tubes out for 48 hours. 3. Eat 60 mls at each feeding. 4. Gain weight for 2 days. Well, as you see, the last three were all tied together. And for us, they proved quite a challenge. Our little one was not the eater. There was no way she was going to eat 60 mls at a feeding (2 oz). So that kept resulting in not gaining weight and also in having her feeding tube kept in. Oh were we frustrated and everyone knew it. She started gaining weight though and we just fed her what she would eat whenever she was hungry. She'd eat well every so often, just not consistently. She had her feeding tube out once, but then had to have it put back in when she didn't eat enough again. When she finally did get it out she had removed it herself and they decided just to leave it out and see what happens. On July 24 they finally let us go home. She'd gained the weight she needed, she'd had her tubes all out for over two days, and her tachypnoea was gone. She was eating 60 all the time, but we promised not to let her starve and to take her in for weight checks to make sure she was ok. It felt sooo good to get her home!

Off to the races...

Well here we go..a place to keep everyone updated on our lives. As soon as time permits, I'll start it off...everyone wants updates on the reason we created this blog-our little Kayla Liberty Bell.