Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a very busy Thanksgiving weekend. Thanksgiving day we went over to my aunt's for an early dinner. It was nice seeing everyone and the first time for a lot of my family to meet Kaitlyn. For those of you who know Kaitlyn she is a very fussy baby. But pretty much the whole day she was perfect! It was a Thanksgiving miracle! The next day my mom and I woke up at 3am to go Black Friday shopping. It actually wasn't bad at all b/c we went to Wal-mart first and they match all printed ads for an identical product so I didn't have to worry about running around all over the place.
This past weekend was also Kaitlyn's 2 month birthday! She is so old! We had her baby blessing this Sunday as well. It was a beautiful blessing and all of our family was present for it. Kaitlyn has also started smiling a lot lately. Here are some of our favorite recent pictures of her.

And here are a few pictures of her blessing day...

Halloween!

Here are a few pictures of Kaitlyn in her Halloween attire...

Kaitlyn Hannah Wood

This post is long overdue, but I have just now found the time to get around to it! So here goes...

Kaitlyn Hannah Wood was born Monday September 28th at 2:13 pm. She weighed 6 lb 2 oz and was 19in. long. The labor was actually not too bad. I went into labor around 1:30am Sunday night. I woke up and tried to go back to sleep, but realized the contractions were coming regularly at 5 minute intervals. I woke Justin up after about the 5th one and told him I thought I was in labor. We got up and started to get our hospital bag packed (which we had not done since she was 8 days early!) and we tried to just hang around. I took a bath and then we finally went to the hospital at about 6:00. My contractions had started coming about 3 minutes apart and were getting much stronger. Around 11 am my midwife stated that I was still not dialated at all. I had had the surgery where they go in and freeze cancerous cells in your cervix and it had left scar tissue so they said they were going to need to induce me. They told me I probably would want to have the epidural so i did. It was great! Everything was a breeze after that and she was born within about an hour and a half of getting the epidural and being induced!

Everything went smoothly and Kaitlyn was healthy and just perfect! She was so tiny...which made it easier on me since I only had to push for 25 minutes! The first two weeks we thought she was the perfect baby! All she did was sleep literally almost all day long. Then she woke up and has stayed awake since! haha! She cries a lot. I know they say you can't spoil them at this age, but if she is awake she has to be held. She cries every time you put her down. So it makes it very hard to get anything done! It wasn't too bad when I wasn't working, but now that I have started back to work it makes it pretty difficult!

This past week has been better though. She has started to get on a schedule finally and for the past three nights has only woke up once during the night to eat. We are just so happy to be parents and love her so much! It's so funny how just the smallest little things that she does make you so happy! She is just so cute...well when she is not crying! haha!

Here are some pictures of her life so far...

5 minutes after birth

Kaitlyn in her "Going Home" outfit

Arriving at home to find a Giant Stork!

All wrapped up after her first bath!

Daddy and Kaitlyn at her first outing to the Belmont Festival

Almost all of her outfits are huge on her!

2 Weeks to Go...hopefully

Well today marks the 2 week countdown for my due date. However, I am now a little worried b/c I went to the doctor yesterday for my regular check-up and the midwife got concerned b/c I was measuring small. She sceduled an ultrasound for the same day which I was actually happy about b/c we had hoped that we could have another one that insurance would cover!

Well the ultrasound didn't help either! Our baby girl is measuring very small! Only about 5 1/2 pounds and a projected due date of 2 weeks later than our original due date! With out first ultrasounds she was measuring on target so now everyone is perplexed at why she is so small! I started getting nervous b/c the ultrasound tech. just kept staring at the results like "hmm...well...hmm...I don't know what to tell you." I was like "ok this doesn't sound good."

Well thankfully our midwife said she was not concerned. She said that somebody has to have the 6lb baby and maybe that just might be me! So that eased my mind a bit. Our baby is measuring in the 14% percentile for weight and she said it is only a real cause for concern when it is less than 4%. So keep us in your prayers that everything is fine and I just get to give birth to a tiny baby! That should hopefully make trying to go natural easier at least!

Other than that everything else looked good. All of her other vital stats were normal and I have been feeling fine and feeling her kick and move a lot. We are just ready to welcome her to the world! And hopefully not 2 weeks after our due date!

Kaitlyn's Nursery

So with everything going on with us lately, we got behind in getting everything ready for our baby. It took us FOREVER to decide on a name which we finally have! Her name will be Kaitlyn. It was not my first choice, but Justin would not agree on my others!

Also we have finally finished her nursery! I love it! Justin did most of the work so I can't take credit, but I think it turned out wonderfully! We found our bedding set a long time ago and had it on our registry, but then we went into the store recently to discover that everything had been discontinued and there was hardly anything left! So we had to just buy it all ourself! haha! It wasn't too bad though since it was discontinued, everything was on sale.

Justin painted our walls pink on the top and then light green on the bottom and then installed a white chair rail to run around the room. He did a really good job! I was impressed. So here is the finished product! It is hard to capture the whole room in one picture, but I tried.

Thank you

Some of you may know, and some may not, but my life has completely turned upside down in the past 3 weeks. My wonderful step father passed away 3 weekends ago and it was a very heartbreaking event for my family. My mom and step father were married for over 11 years so he was very much like a father to me and we will all miss him greatly. The past 3 weeks have been filled with stress and heartache and a mixture of emotions I cannot even describe. We are all exahuasted from going up every weekend to help my mom get packed up to move. My mother will be moving in with Justin and I for an indefinite period of time until she is able to get back on her feet. This has been a very difficult time for her especially and we are doing our best to be there for her.

With that said, I just wanted to say a special thank you to my husband. He has been so supportive during all of this and has not complained about anything. He has worked hard and helped with the move the best he can. He is not complaining at all about having his "mother-in-law" move in with us, and in fact has been very sweet and supportive towards me during this time as well...although we may hear a few complaints when her dog and bird also move in with us this weekend :)

It will be an adjustment for us all, but hey I guess that is what family is for. You have to help pick each other up when the going gets rough. So here's to you Justin. Thank you and I love you.

Outsmarting Nature

So you may have seen that I complained on Facebook about the stupid deer at our house destroying our garden. Well I think Justin and I may have finally stopped them. This year has been so frustrating b/c everything we planted the deer were eating before we even had a chance to harvest anything! They ate the tops off of almost all of our strawberries, zuchinni and sugar snap peas! I was furious! Well we built this contraption here out of PVC pipe and this plastic 'deer netting' stuff. So far it has worked pretty well and was fairly easy and inexpensive to build. I am just hoping they don't realize that all they would have to do is charge into it and they could tear the whole thing down!

Close up view of the netting

My poor grape vines. They used to be so full and bushy!
You can see where they ate the tops off each little limb.

These are still exposed since they grow up the arbor so we are

still trying to figure out what to do with them.

Disney World 2009

So I am finally getting around to posting pictures from our trip. It was a lot of fun even though I couldn't ride any of the fun rides. I really enjoyed the Disney meal plan. More food than I knew what to do with! Enjoy our pictures!

Miniature Golf

One of the few rides I was able to go on :)

Posing with Goofy

In front of the Epcot Ball

The massive amounts of strollers at WDW

In front of the Castle

Learning to ride a Segway!

Breakfast at the Grand Floridian

Wearing Mickey's Sorcerer's hat

Man, I am strong

Pregnant Picture

Winnie the Pooh

Me and the Bro

Whew!

So I thought I would write a post just b/c I feel like I have been MIA for a while. I can't even express how busy these past couple weeks or so have been. They have been filled with tears, stress, excitement and uncertainty. I won't go into everything, but it looks like things are finally starting to slow down.

First news...we are back from Disney and had a great time. I won't get into it b/c I plan on making a separate post about our trip!

Now some exciting news...we are having a little GIRL! We found out right before we left for Disney so it was nice knowing! The parents bought her a little cute outfit from Disney and a little stuffed Dumbo. I will have to be sure to post our ultrasound pictures as well. They weren't any super clear ones, but we got a couple good ones. I still haven't felt her kick yet...at least not that I am sure of. But they told me that apparently my placenta is towards the front of my stomach so when she does kick I probably will not feel it until she is much bigger. I am looking forward to it though!

Now for some news that I don't really know what to think yet...Today was my first day of working from home...kind of. As everyone knows, the housing market has been hurting for quite some time now and of course that has affected my job. I was told right before we left for Disney that we were consolidating into a very small office space and that I would now be working from home and cut back to 20 hours. I think I am actually really excited about this. I am currently still full time and no one seems to know what to tell me about when I go part time so I don't know my hours or anything yet. But hopefully this could be something that can really help us out when the baby comes. Since I get to work from home and only 20 hours a week I could keep working once I have the baby!

So that is my news for now. Sorry a long post of me just venting! I promise there will be fun pictures to come!

Triple Coupons!

So today was the first day of Harris Teeter Triple Coupons! I am new to this whole couponing thing, but it is great! This is round one. I could only get nonparishable foods since I went on my lunch break from work and so I didn't have that much time to try and find EVERYTHING that I wanted. I got everything you see here for only $3.66! Oh yeah! I know some of you professional couponers probably could have even done better than that! But I am pretty happy with my finds!

15 Weeks Today!

So I am 15 weeks pregnant today! Wahoo! The second trimester is so much better than the first. Not that I ever really had "morning sickness" but I always felt really weak and tired. And I felt like if I didn't eat every few hours I felt even worse. But now I barely even feel pregnant! It's great. I don't really have any side effects at all except headaches every now and then and usually a stuffy nose which apparently is pretty common. So here is a picture for any of you all that don't see me very often!


Also Justin and I just finished building our nursery furniture last night. I know its a little soon, and we don't plan on doing anything else to the room until we know the sex, but I thought I would post some pics of the furniture that we got! It was a gift from both my parents and Justin's parents. Yay! We love it!

Layoffs

So I guess my Employer is at it again. Due to the economy we had 6 more layoffs at work today. One of them being my boss. That leaves JUST me left to manage and run my whole department. Plus, the real kicker...they laid off our purchasing/estimating guy today as well, and they want to train me to take on some of his take off estimating as well! This economy is just awesome!

I probably shouldn't have done this, b/c now I have just created an awkward working situation, but I felt so bad for my boss getting laid off, that I told one of the Owner's that I was pregnant, and was most likely not coming back once I had the baby and perhaps they would want to keep my boss instead of me. But no. They said they would just deal with that situation when it arrived, but that he was still going. I really think I am about to go insane there. I would really have rather been laid off than have to deal with all of this stress and headache! ahh!

WDW Here we come!

So yesterday I got a call from the family saying that they wanted one last family vacation before the baby comes. So apparently Disney World has some amazing deals for military right now and since my step-dad is retired military we are getting to go for a great deal...Plus the fam is paying ;)

So we are going for a whole week in May! I am really excited to have a vacation before the baby gets here, but also I am a little disappointed since I won't be able to ride any of the fun rides! I will have to go hang out on "it's a small world" while the rest of the fam goes splashing down "Splash Mountain."

Also just an update. I had another doctor's visit on Wednesday. They didn't do an ultrasound, but they did listen for the baby's heartbeat and it was strong they said. So I am relieved b/c I have still been so nervous from all the past complications. So hoping everything stays good!

ehh.

Well I thought I would update everyone on how I am doing. I haven't blogged in a while and I thought I would say why. I have had a really hard couple of weeks. About 2 weeks ago I noticed some dark bleeding that was fairly light and only lasted about 2 days. I called the doctor and they said they weren't too concerned and I didn't need to come in. Well about a week ago I started having heavy bright red bleeding. I don't have any cramps along with it but I was still freaking out sure that I was having a miscarriage. I called the dr. and they brought me in and did an ultrasound. They were able to find the baby's heartbeat and said it was strong. They saw all the blood in the ultrasound but didn't know what had caused it. They said that the baby's sac looked secure though. I was relieved but still so nervous and almost didn't want to get my hopes up. When I first found out I was pregnant I was telling everyone so excited, but now I am so afraid of miscarrying that I don't tell anyone anymore. This pregnancy has been really rough on me lately too. I am always SO tired. I go to bed at 9:00 and still don't feel refreshed. I also just always feel so weak and fragile. I also almost passed out twice this week. I started getting really hot and everything got really blurry until I sat down and let it pass. I don't have nausea per say, but I always have an "unsettled" feeling to my stomach. I don't even know how to describe it. Food doesn't taste as good to me anymore, even though I am always hungry. I took today off from work...well actually Justin made me since this has been such a rough week for me. I really needed it to rest. I slept a lot but I still just feel so weak. Anyways, I know this is a really negative post, but I felt like I needed to vent. I am so grateful to be pregnant and mainly just concerned that this baby will be ok. I am just ready to get past the first trimester so that my risks of miscarriage will go down.

Goodbye for now.

Our Honeymoon

Here are some pictures of our Honeymoon to Costa Rica. Enjoy.

Sunset at the Beach outside our Hotel

Getting Read to go on the Canopy Zipline Tour


Justin at the Hot Springs...He will kill me for posting this pic!

The View of the Arenal Volcano from our Hotel

A poisonous Costa Rican snake getting ready to attack Justin while he tries to take a picture of it. Tip...don't go walking on the beach at night in Costa Rica without a flashlight!

May is the rainy season in Costa Rica. We stayed half of our trip in the rainforest and the other half on the beach. After a 3-4 hour drive, we realized that we forgot our passports in the hotel safe and had to go back to the rainforest hotel. This is what we came to and couldn't get to our hotel!

How it all began...

So since I am new to this whole blogging thing, Justin is having to help me out a bit. I even checked out "Blogging for Dummies" from the Library. Haha! Let me tell you, it has been pretty confusing so far! Anyways, I thought I would share some pics from our wedding and engagement for you all. Even though most people don't know this blog even exists yet. (Until I am positive about the whole pregnancy thing)

So Justin and I had a pretty quick engagement. We met at the Singles Branch in Charlotte and were part of the same group of friends. When Justin finally got around to asking me on a date it was back in October of 2006. We talked about getting married two weeks after we first started dating. It helped being friends first, b/c we already knew a lot about each other.

We got married on Friday May 18th 2007 at the Washington D.C. temple. We then drove back to Charlotte and had our reception at the Ballantyne Country Club on the 19th. And then it was off to Costa Rica for the honeymoon on Sunday! A very busy weekend let me tell you! So here is a little peek at our special day!

Our Engagement Photo

The D.C. Temple

Standing in Front of the Temple Doors

Both Families United

First Dance

Cutting the Cake

Justin's Groom's Cake

Breaking it Down on the Dance Floor

The End!


Just one we took for Fun in DT Charlotte!