It's the most wonderful time of the year!

I absolutely love this time of year. We always go get our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving and put all of our Christmas decorations out on Friday. We listen to Christmas music and watch whatever Christmas movie I want. I love it!! Yesterday we did just that, but this time we got to take Lainey along for the ride. She was a great sport while we picked out our Christmas tree and loved watching the living room be decorated. She has been staring at the lights since we put them up and I'm pretty sure she even loved the Christmas music. My mom got her a little pink Christmas tree for her room and she's loved looking at that too.

 I cannot wait for all of the holiday fun we will have this year. Today we enjoyed an afternoon with our friends Jeremy and Amanda and their sweet boys. Amanda was sweet enough to take a couple of pictures of us with Lainey's first Christmas tree. I'm sure there will be many more pictures posted in the next month, but here are the first. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Lainey's first Christmas tree!!

We love our sweet girl!

Brian is already wrapped around Lainey's little finger. We are in trouble.

This is pretty much the look we get every time we pull out the camera. :) 

Mommy's girl!

Happy Thanksgiving

God is so good! We are so blessed to have our little miracle in our life this Thanksgiving. There are so many things to be thankful for, but our sweet Lainey is at the top of our list. A year ago doctors told us we might never have a baby on our own. It was such a tough period of life. Now, we are loving every minute of life with our sweet five week old. She is one amazing girl and we are SO thankful for her. Today we spent the day with Brian's parents. It was the smallest Thanksgiving I've ever had, but it was nice. My parents also came by to see her tonight. Tomorrow we plan to put up our tree and Christmas decorations and enjoy the day. It's been so nice to have Brian off this week. We are enjoying our time with daddy. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

One Month Old!!

Lainey loves to read books while hanging out on her newborn lounger.

I get this bright eyed stare a lot! 

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One of Lainey's many crazy faces.

My favorite little curious look. She's always trying to figure out what is going on.

Today is Lainey's one month birthday. She is finally almost out of her newborn diapers and her newborn clothes are getting a little snug. Her zero to three month clothes are huge, so we are struggling to dress her right now. :) Lainey still loves to be held all the time and is very social. She sleeps anywhere from 2-6 hours straight at night, but will not sleep in her crib or her pack and play. She wants to be snuggled up next to one of us, so until she's six weeks old we are allowing it. We are really going to try to work on this over Thanksgiving break, but the poor kiddo screams if she's not with us so we aren't really sure what to do since we also need sleep. Once Lainey is awake in the morning she doesn't usually go back to sleep for about four hours. She loves to read books, look in the mirror, swing in her swing, play on her play mat and get ready with mom in her baby bjorn. She looks at everything and really notices sounds as well. I talk to her all morning and she loves it. Lainey is doing so much better about not screaming when she gets her diaper changed and we are very thankful for that. Baths are also getting better. It's been such an amazing month, we are still learning so much about her, but we have learned what her cries mean and that's helped so much. She is such a fun little girl and is so active. We can't wait to see what all she begins to do in this second month.

Loving Life!

Life with Lainey has been such a joy but also a challenge. Our sweet girl is not a huge fan of sleep or of any alone time. She wants to be held all of the time, which I love until laundry piles up or dishes need to be done. Everyone I've talked to has told me to enjoy every moment of time with her because she won't be tiny enough to snuggle with forever. So, rather than making her scream when I put her down I've been enjoying lots of time snuggling with our long awaited blessing. She may be spoiled, but she will also never doubt that she's loved. :)

At two weeks old we've made several trips out of the house to church, the grocery store and to doctor's appointments. However, most of the time we hang out here. There are so many germs and I think even though I've been careful she still may have a cold. If she doesn't sound better in the morning I may have to call her doctor. Lainey has slept for up to six hours at night and she's also stayed awake until 5:00am before falling asleep. It all depends on the day. She is very active and alert when she is awake. She loves to look around and examine the world. She also loves when people talk or sing to her and riding in her baby bjorn. Lainey does not enjoy getting her diaper changed or changing clothes. This is a shame because she has so many cute clothes that I'd love to dress her up in. We will continue to work on it, but for now she is not a huge fan.

Lainey LOVES her daddy and is always so excited to see him when he gets home. She knows his voice and calms down when she hears it. We've gone to visit him at work a couple of days that she was very unhappy and it's really helped. The poor kid has horrible tummy problems and has to take gas drops several times a day to keep from being miserable. Even with the meds, some days she still just screams in pain. It breaks my heart. We are having so much fun being parents to this little blessing from God! She is so fun and we can't wait to see how she continues to change over the next few weeks.

Precious girl!

It's amazing how much I love this girl already!

This captures everything about Lainey's personality! 

One of her quick naps!

Lainey was born on our six year and ten month anniversary. We are so blessed to have this long awaited miracle in our life.

She couldn't keep her eyes shut when she heard the camera gears turning. She is so curious about the world. I love it!

I'm so thankful for my precious family!

Lainey's first week

This week has been full of surprises. Lainey has already brought us so much joy! We are just amazed and in love with this little girl. Brian took a full week off and we loved every minute of our time with him. Lainey loves her daddy and loves to snuggle up with him any chance she gets. We are still trying to figure out this whole sleep thing. From the moment Lainey was born she has had trouble sleeping unless she is being held. We are really working to get her to sleep in her nap nanny or her pack and play, but right now she's only sleeping well on our chest. One night this week she slept six hours straight, but that was a one time thing. Her doctor showed us how to position her on her side, and she will do that for about 20 minutes. However once she realizes that she's not with someone she tends to get fussy. Lainey is a great eater! She lost 6 oz. from birth to her first doctor's appointment, but at her weight check today she was right back up to her birth weight. She eats 30-35 minutes at each feeding. We are trying to get her on some sort of routine, but we also know it's going to take some time. She is so alert and will be awake for up to three hours at a time just looking around and talking to anyone who will listen. You would think this would wear her out, but she still doesn't love to sleep at night. She even has alert times at 3:00 am. :) We are enjoying time with Joyzie, my mom, now that Brian is back at work. She has been such a lifesaver and source of strength. I love having her here. She plans to stay until Friday when Brian comes home and I'm really thankful for that. It's nice to have someone to hand her off to when she fusses for a while and someone to help take her to the doctor and things like that. I'm a little nervous to take her anywhere by myself, but I know we will have to do that soon. Lainey is such a blessing and Brian and I are so thankful that God has blessed us with the joy of being parents. We have such great friends and such a wonderful family that this week has been great. We look forward to seeing what next week will bring.

She's Here!

Our little miracle decided to show up a few hours early. We were scheduled to be induced on Wednesday morning and she decided Tuesday evening would be a perfect time for mommy to go into labor. It was quite a funny experience because Brian had decided to take Excedrine PM before going to bed Tuesday night. Little did he know that about an hour into his deep sleep I would be waking him up to take me to the hospital. I was in so much pain that I was begging him to speed and could hardly walk into Labor and Delivery. I quickly went from 4.5 cm to 8 and was at a 10 within two hours of being at the hospital. My doctor was not on call and the one that was did not do the best job. My water never broke and he did not show up to break my water until 5:00am. The nurse said I could have probably delivered around 1:00 if my water would have just broken. She had a bowel movement in her sack so the NICU had to be called in for our delivery. I was super scared when I hear the call for NICU so I was determined to push her out as quickly as possible. After we started pushing we delivered her within 40 minutes.  Needless to say it was a long night of waiting and not the easiest labor, but our beautiful little girl was welcomed with love at 5:41 am.  She weighed 7 lbs. 12 oz. and was 19 inches long. She has the fullest head of thick black hair and perfect skin! We are truly in love. Lainey hates laying on her back so we've been holding her a lot. We got to go home from the hospital yesterday afternoon and are enjoying this sweet baby at home.  Today is the first day that we've really worked with her to show her that swings, bouncers, and nap nannys are her friend. :) She's getting much better at laying by herself for a few minutes so I think she may sleep better tonight than she did last night. She's nursing really well, almost too well. She is very alert and such a precious little girl! I'll post more about her first few days later. Right now we are enjoying our visitors, trying to sleep and recover and getting to know this beautiful blessing that God has given us.

My last belly pic. about an hour before we went to the hospital.

Any Day!

We went to the doctor on Wednesday and found out that I was at a three! Our doctor was super pleased and scheduled us for an induction on Wednesday, October 19th. Since our appointment I've been having lots of contractions. Last night they were 4-8 minutes apart so we went to the hospital to get checked. They ended up letting me go because although they are regular, they are not strong enough to have dilated me more than I already was. We came home and for the first time in weeks both really got good rest. We have everything packed in the car and are ready to go if my water breaks or if the contractions get stronger. The nurse said some women have contractions like this regularly for days, and some get much stronger pretty quickly and end up back at the hospital pretty quickly. We shall see what Miss. Lainey decides to do. :) We are so ready to meet her and bring her home, but if we have to wait until Wednesday that will be OK too. We are enjoying the last weekend as a couple and trying to get as much rest as possible before she comes. Hopefully in a few days I will be posting pictures of our precious girl.