Happy Easter!!

We had so much fun this Easter!! Now that McKenley is a bit older, she is starting to understand all the festivities and it was Parker's first Easter!! McKenley got to hunt Easter eggs with friends, her cousin Blake, and at school, the Easter bunny visited our house and left her some fun gifts, and both girls got to dress up in pretty dress and go to church on Sunday morning!! It was a SUPER busy weekend, but we had a BLAST with our family!! Here are some pictures highlighting our fun

Ready for the Easter egg hunt at school!!

Parker's first visit to the Easter bunny!!

Parker ~ gettin into the Easter spirit!

So blessed that the WHOLE family was together!! I love these people!

So lucky that these girls have such amazing aunts!!

My precious family!!

 

 

 And the egg hunting fun!!!

Love spending time with these ladies and our family!

McKenley's Green Thumb!!

Back in December I posted about McKenley and Mimi's adventures in our front flower beds... take a look here!!  Well... said flowers were NOT supposed to bloom until April, but thanks to good ole warm Texas weather, we have tulips in February!! ERGH!! Thankfully, McKenley didn't know the difference and was so excited to see them with blooms, we HAD to take some pictures!!

BEFORE:

 AFTER:

The first few weeks...

Well... we are almost three weeks in to life as a family of four and all I can say is... WHEW!!! It's definitely exhausting, but we are surviving!!! It's weird that I've already almost forgotten what it was like to just have one kiddo, it's like Parker has always been here!! So here's how the last couple weeks have gone...

For starters, we were SOOOO excited to get to actually leave the hospital this time with our baby girl!! We could not wait to get home and finally get life started as a family of four!!

 McKenley has fallen right in line as the BEST big sister EVER!! She takes such good care of little Parker and gets soooo worried when Parker cries. From minute one, she was so gentle and loving. I can't wait to see how close they get as the months and years go by!!

The little lady is treating us pretty well when it comes to the sleep department. Sometimes at night she has 4-5 hour stretches of sleep!!! We're working hard to get her on a more regular schedule so that we can get those stretches more consistently. She is eating pretty routinely ever 3-4 hours... until the evening that is, when she wants to eat every 2 hours!! EESH!! She is napping okay, she just LOVES to nap on Casey or my chest... which makes it very hard to get things accomplished or play with McKenley. 

We had a doctors appointment last Wednesday to check on the progress of Parker's jaundice. She never had it severe enough to put her under lights, but she has had a low amount since birth. The doctor said it had not gone away completely as of last week, so we are off to see them again on Wednesday. Hopefully it has gone away enough by then that no further treatment is necessary.  Good news is, she is almost back up to birth weight!! She was 8 lbs 6 oz as of last Wednesday, which puts her in the 75%!!! She is 21 3/4" long -- 98%!!! Needless to say, she will probably have my height. Looks like poor McKenley may only be "big sis" in name after a while! haha.

 Here are a few phone snap shots that I have been able to capture over the last few weeks to show what the Boyd family has been up to... as you can see, lots of sleeping and attempting to keep McKenley occupied as much as we can!

Thats it for now! Hopefully I'll squeeze in time for another post soon!!

How it all went down...

Well... our newest addition is here... and true to Boyd form, it was an eventful entrance to the world!!!

***WARNING*** 

I'm about to go into detail about my labor and delivery... read with caution :) haha

The day started bright and early... well not bright, because it was so early it was still dark outside!! We had to be at the hospital by 5:30am. We got all checked in and settled into our room. I was hooked up to machines and had pitocin by 7am. There was really no change in my labor for a while, until the doctor came in to break my water. From here, things start to become a blur!!! They seemed to happen so fast for me and yet, I didn't have Parker until 7:40pm!! 

My contractions started getting faster and more intense almost immediately after Dr. Robert broke my water. So of course, the epidural was soon to follow!! :) I don't mess around with pain!! Just like with McKenley though, the epidural was AWFUL!!! Come to find out I have a bit of pregnancy caused scoliosis, so she was having trouble getting the GIANT needle straight into my back and after several tries, had to use a different spot in my back... NOT FUN!!!! But finally, the needle was in and relief from the pain was immediate. 

Because my contractions were already so close together, they had me start to push... and push.... and push... and push.... and, well you get the picture. This was very different for me, because with McKenley I only pushed 3 times and she was out! WHAT was the deal!?!?! Turns out, Miss Parker was turned face up, which is not how they are supposed to come out!! They tried to have me lay on my side to see if gravity would help her turn... nope... flip to the other side... nope... sit straight up... nope.... the little lady was STUCK!! I continued this pattern of pushing and laying for almost FOUR HOURS!!! until it was finally determined she was basically wedged in that position and wasn't moving naturally. On top of that, she was starting to get a bit distressed, elevated heart rate, lower blood pressure, etc. So the hard decision was made.... off to the OR for a C-Section. 

Needless to say, I was FREAKING OUT!! This was not in my plans, I didn't know anything about a c-section, what did this involve? was Parker okay? was I okay? Ugh!!! So many thoughts!!! Thank God for Dr. Robert, she was so informative and walked us through everything. Casey was the MOST supportive husband in all of this craziness and held my hand through it all. Once we were in the OR, Miss Parker was out in no time! Finally, at 7:40pm, our little angel was here!!

8 lbs 9.4 oz

20 inches

7:40pm

Casey looked so cute holding her with his scrubs on!

I unfortunately, had to wait quite a while until I got to hold the little lady!! But finally, after stitching me up and wheeling me back into our room, I got my hands on our princess!!!

 Special shout out to our amazing doctor!!! Could not have made it through all this without her!!

And then it was all worth it once my whole family was reunited!!! (this was at almost 9:45pm... LONG DAY!!)

MAN!! What a day it was, but TOTALLY worth it! These three are everything to me and I can't imagine my life without them!!

How to plant bulbs -- with McKenley and Mimi!!

This past Saturday, Daddy and Grandpa David laid the pretty hardwood floors in Parker's room (pictures to come!!). While they were hard at work, we had to keep the princess busy, so her and Mimi headed outside to plant tulip and daffodil bulbs so we would have pretty flowers in the spring (fingers crossed I don't find a way to ruin them!!). Here are some step-by-step instructions on how its done McKenley style!! haha

FIRST... you should make sure you are very educated about flowers and the bulbs... McKenley told me all about them :)

THEN... dig a hole and toss the bulb in!

 Make sure to cover up the hole.

 Its ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to stomp all over them to pack in the dirt... this was probably one of McKenley's favorite parts!!

 DON'T FORGET they need lots of water!!!

 This was her other favorite part...

 can ya tell :) haha

We can't wait until these bloom (again assuming my "brown thumb" doesn't find a way to mess them up before then!!) McKenley is going to love visiting them everyday. We love our little gardener and are so lucky her Mimi loves to do things like this with her!! Thanks MIMI!!!

Princess turns 18 months!!

Ok, ok, I know, I've been completely MIA in my blogging, but with a new baby on the way I HAVE to get back into my routine so I can blog as much for him/her as I did for McKenley!!!

So, what a better way to get back on routine than to celebrate McKenley turning a year and a HALF and to share all the amazing things she is accomplishing each and every day!

Here are a few pictures to show you the great time we've been having the last few months!!

Summer outside fun!!

Loves her hats, Happy Fourth, first ponytail, helpin around the house, BOOMER!!

Accomplishments:
- TALKING, TALKING, and more TALKING!! After month of worrying, unnecessarily I might add, that our little one may never talk, its like everything clicked around 17 months. She went from staring at me blankly when I would try and get her to say "more" or "bye-bye" to trying to mimic everything Casey and I say... which is something we will now have to be careful about!! It's so fun to watch her work her mouth in a way to say "Deuce" or "WHOA!" and she gets so excited when she realizes she has successfully said a new word. She has started asking for things by name, "milk" and "snack" and definitely "Elmo"... which sounds a bit more like "Momo" :) We can't wait for her to start putting several words together!!

- Running, jumping, bear crawling, somersaulting, wheelbarrowing... this girl moving and grooving EVERYWHERE! We've been taking classes at the Little Gym and she soaks up all they have to teach her! She loves swinging from the bars, going upside-down, kicking the balls, and generally just exploring every inch of the place!
- She's beginning to pretend play... many of you saw the picture I posted on Facebook last week of McKenley "having lunch" with Monkey! She carries her animals around everywhere, reads to them, feeds them, gives them some of her milk and water, it is so cute to watch and it makes my heart at ease knowing she is going to be such a good big sister!
- Eyes, Ears, Mouth, and Nose, McKenley knows her body parts!! And even more entertaining is when she locates them on the dogs or mommy and daddy! 
- McKenley is learning more and more animal sounds all the time. It is the cutest thing to hear her version of what a cat says or to watch her make a "fish face" or a "bunny nose"... the girl loves her animals!

I know there are probably many more things, we are celebrating milestones with her all the time. This has got to be one of the most fun ages, she's turning into such a little clown and makes us laugh daily!

I don't have her stats yet because her doctors appointment is not until next week, but our little peanut is growing, but I doubt she'll ever be one of the bigger kids in the group. She is still wearing 12 month clothes and sometimes she can wear an old 9 month shirt!!
 
Food:
Our little "trash compactor" has now decided she has preferences on what she ingests... and boy are there A LOT of preferences!!! Her favorite things right now are cheese (cheese and more cheese), mosts fruits (LOVES grapes!!), crackers, ravioli or pasta in general, sometimes green beans, tortillas and guacamole (yes, shes her mothers daughter!!!), and eggs! Yes, you are right, you did not see any meats in that list! haha, our little lady has decided that meat is NOT on the top of her food list :) she'll occasionally eat lunch meat, hot dog, or chicken nuggets, but its very hit or miss!!

Sleep:
For the most part we are on a SOLID schedule!!! and I am loving it!!! (which is great since we have a new baby coming and schedules will most likely be thrown out the window) She takes about an hour and a half to two hour nap everyday between 12pm-3pm. Then she's up and moving until bed time around 8:30. MOST OF THE TIME, she sleeps for a full 12 hours and yes, has a wake time between 8am and 9am, LOVE that she sleeps in a bit :)

We are enjoying each and everyday with this little lady, I really couldn't ask for anything more!!! We are so excited how she takes to being a big sister and can't wait to see what all she learns next.

How could you not love this face:

Hoppy Easter 2012

Its crazy to think how much has changed since Easter last year!! Since a picture speaks 1000 words, here's 2,000 to show how much our little lady has grown!!

The top one is pretty much the best picture we could get of the two babies of the family, haha!! Things improved a bit this year if I do say so myself!! :) This may be something we have to try every year!

Blake & McKenley 2011 & 2012

 AHHHH!! These pictures make me smile! I can't believe how happy these two people make me!

Miss McKenley also got to visit the Easter bunny for the first time. I was extremely nervous she would freak out at the site of the life-size, furry bunny, especially since it was a bit on the creepy side, but she LOVED him!! She sat there for so long and even started petting him, haha!!

Turned out SOOOO cute!!

McKenley had a blast this Easter! She didn't get to do much egg hunting because it was like a MONSOON outside :/ I'll be super excited when her and Cousin Blake can hunt for them together.  

We were also super lucky to have most of Casey's family join us! His brother, sister-in-law, and cousin Andrew came in from WYOMING!! and came to Gigi's house to enjoy an Easter lunch with us! She had so much fun with them & really took to them fast, we were sad they couldn't stay for longer & can't wait to see them again! Hopefully it won't take 3 years until the next visit!! :)

Love spending holidays with my amazing family & McKenley makes them all the more special!