Easter 2011!

Well... McKenley's first holiday was SUCH a success!!

She got to meet some of her aunts, uncles, and cousins for the first time...

She was quite comfortable 

with Cousin Allison

Cousin Blake is SO excited to have a playmate!

She got to wear an ADORABLY cute dress... (sometimes I forget she's not a doll, haha)

Spend some time with ONE OF her favorite aunts...

And we got to take our first, OF MANY, family photos!!

I don't think McKenley spent more than 5 minutes not being held by someone, and believe me, SHE LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT!!

I can't wait to spend years and years to come enjoying holidays with my little girl and our family. Especially since I will get to find more fun outifits to dress her up in for every occasion!!

Lately...

Can't believe it's been so long since I have posted about how things are going for baby and me! :/

Well, needless to say, Ms. McKenley has been a busy little baby lately!!

Last Friday, Mimi, Aunt Katy, McKenley and I met for lunch on the square in downtown McKinney (oh! and Melissa joined us!!) and ate at YUMMY Spoons. Then, Mimi, McKenley, and I strolled around the square and enjoyed the AMAZING weather!! We stumbled upon an ADORABLE baby/kid clothing store and good thing they had very little in the way of infant clothing, it could have been detrimental for the bank account. I did end up getting a precious head band with a flower!! I used it in her pics on Sunday!! SEE BELOW!!

Then the next day, Daddy got a new car! McKenley is very excited about driving around in his new ride.

Sunday, McKenley participated in her second photo shoot! Erin brought over some fantastic props and McKenley cooperated amazingly. Check out some of my favorite pics below:

 And then after being such an angel in the pictures, things have been kinda rough for my princess :( She is having some tummy issues that are making it very hard for her (and therefore mommy) to get any sleep.  We visited the doctor and she gave us some ideas to help make her more comfortable. Daddy and I have done everything we can to help our baby out and things seem to be getting a bit better.

Yesterday we went to Target to get her VERY FIRST Easter dress!! I cannot wait to get her all dolled up in her fancy new dress and take her to enjoy her first holiday with the family.  She is going to LOVE GiGi's house and meeting all of her amazing aunts, uncles, and cousins. To top it off she is also looking forward to meeting Aunt Stephanie and Hunter!! Now, lets just hope the long day away from home goes smoothly... should be interesting getting everything packed up, heading out to Colleyville and spending the day there... maybe we should all start praying now for patience :) haha

Will post soon with Easter pics and an update on how things went!!

Happy 1 month princess!!!

I CANNOT believe our princess has been with us for 1 month already!! Not to mention she is not even supposed to be here for another week! haha

We went to the doctor for a one month check-up, not a standard visit, but since she was a preemie, they said it was an option. Needless to say, we took them up on their offer! The first time we took her, she had only been home for 2 days, at that point, we didn't quite know what we were getting into. At this point though, we DEFINITELY had questions!!!

Here are her stats after being part of our world for 1 month:
Height/Length: 20 inches - 95%
Weight: 7 lbs 9 oz - 75-90%... yes, she put on a whole pound in 2 weeks, shes a growin girl!!!
Head: 13.5 inches - 50%
Note: these percentiles are based on other babies that were born at 35 weeks, not babies that were carried to term and now 1 month, at some point she will transfer over to the scale with full term babies! :)

The doctor gave us some pointers on how to help the little bean with all the congestion she has been dealing with and hopefully the drops and propping up her mattress will help her. She can thank her mom and dad for being dealt the crummy hand of allergies and congestion, sorry love! :(

Other things she has done/mastered in this month:
- The pouty face:

How will we EVER be able to say no to her!?! haha

- Our first walk:

No worries, she slept right through the entire walk! But mom enjoyed getting out!

- First shopping trip with the girls! Thanks Mimi and Aunt Katy for all the fun clothes!
- She's getting better and better at holding her head up while on her tummy. Dr. Smith even told us that she was impressed with how comfortable McKenley was at being on her tummy for a preemie baby!

We can't wait to see what McKenley accomplishes in her next month of life!

Two weeks later...

Well Casey and I have successfully made it through our first 2 weeks at home with our precious little girl... I say successfully based on the premise that we are not completely sleep deprived, I get to shower on a semi-regular basis, neither of us have dropped the baby, and she seems to be a healthy baby :) Who knows if we would be considered "successful" to anyone else, but we really don't care about anyone else at this point :) haha

In these past two weeks McKenley and I have:
- Gone to the doctors - where they told us she was perfect
- Been on our FIRST shopping trip to BabysRUs
- Played on her awesome new activity mat

She stared at the lights and mirror for sooo long!! (Can you spot McKenley's guardian in the picture?)

- Had several successful bathtimes

Mommy's little flower :)

- Had her first (of many) photo shoot

Is she not BEAUTIFUL!?!

- Had PLENTLY of lounging time

Such a lady-like sleeper!

- Worked on our tummy time, which she seems to LOVE and is already picking up her head and turning it back and forth!! 

Isn't she just the most precious thing you've EVER seen!!! Thanks Cousin Allison for my lounger!!

On MOST occasions, McKenley sleeps for 3 hours (I never thought I would be soo excited about 3 full hours of sleep until now!!) and then is up and ready for a FULL meal! The girl knows how to eat! haha

All in all, I am proud of how Casey and I are making in through these first two weeks. Casey has been SUCH a huge help, making dinners, cleaning up around the house, and ALWAYS taking the midnight/1 am feeding, which always allows mom to get a big chunk of sleep in before I am up for the feedings thru the rest of the night.

Neither of us can believe that she is 4 weeks old, everyone is right, this time FLIES by!!

Finally getting settled!

Well, after 16 of the longest days of our lives, Casey and I finally got to bring our little princess home this past Saturday!! It was such a HAPPY day for us!

FIRST CAR RIDE HOME!!!

We have successfully made it through 2 nights without losing our minds or getting too sleep deprived! Even though getting up in the middle of the night is not the easiest thing, when I look down at her and she gives me a little half-smile, it makes it all worth it!!

We didn't waste ANY time getting our precious baby photographed! Sunday afternoon we had some amazing pictures taken and needless to say, McKenley is VERY photogenic! :) Here are a few sneak previews that I took over her shoulder.

BOOMER!!!!

This was the "Glamor" shot :)

I still cannot believe Casey and I were able to create something soooo beautiful and that we could love her as much as we do already, can you believe she is still technically supposed to be inside of me still!?!   This tiny princess has changed our lives so much (for the better :) and although it was quite a challenge making it through these past two week without COMPLETELY losing my mind, we have a precious and HEALTHY daughter that we already could not imagine our lives without.

Thank you so much to our family and friends that have helped us with prayers, happy thoughts, drives back and forth to the hospital, and food!! We definitely could NOT have made it through without all of you!

Princess Update

Well, it has been a long 10 days... wait, can you believe that she is already 10 days old!!! This has already been a whirlwind of events and is flying by! But look at just how cute she is!!!

 Casey and I are trying to soak in every moment we get with her while we are at the hospital.  She is making great progress and everyday we can see her growing and developing.  McKenley has to fulfill certain criteria to be able to come home with us... so much pressure on such a little girl!!
1) She has to be breathing completely on her own - CHECK!
2) She has to be able to maintain her body temperature without the need of heat lamps - CHECK!
3) She has to be consistently gaining weight - CHECK! She is back up to 5 lbs 12 oz. and counting!
4) She has to be taking 8 FULL "meals" a day without the assistance of the feeding tube - this is the only part that McKenley is still working on.

Our poor little princess just gets so tired sometimes and falls asleep in the middle of the bottle! BUT, this is happening farther and fewer between with each day! We were so encouraged by the progress she showed yesterday! She is up to taking 6 out of 8 full feedings and the nurses and doctors are are very optimistic that this number will keep increasing with each day. 

Haha, the little bean passed out like this and I couldn't bear to move her!!

 So, to answer the question EVERYONE seems to be asking, including Casey and I, when can she come home?!? Well, unfortunately I cannot answer the question with an exact answer.  :( At this point we are being given "probablys" and "estimations" of Wednesday or Thursday, but we will not know for sure until the time gets closer.  I PROMISE as soon as I get a definite answer, the WHOLE world will know!

So for now, please continue to keep McKenley and her daddy and I in your thoughts and prayers. I must say, this process is not easy on any of us and we are ready to all be at home together. McKenley has a beautiful bed and lots of fun things that she needs to take advantage of! I will continue to keep everyone updated and hopefully, the next update will be pictures of her AT HOME!!!!

How it all went down!

I have been asked many times now about when and where I was when McKenley decided she wanted to be a part of this world! Sooooo, here it is! The story of McKenley's early entrance into our lives! :)

Having my water break at school was not completely "ideal situation" for me! In fact I was planning on starting my leave a week early to try and avoid this happening. I guess thats what I get for trying to plan things out!!

So there I was sitting behind my desk as the 20 little fourth graders entered the room. I stood up to greet them and let them know what to do next when, WHOOOOOSH! Lots of water came pouring out of me! Yes, I was quite shocked and NO, I had NO idea what was going on!! Luckily I was wearing leggings so you couldn't really see what was going on.  I sat back down and tried to compose myself. Last thing I needed was to have to have a sex ed class with traumatized 10 year olds while going into labor!!

Not to worry though, things were just going to get more complicated! haha I had agreed to help a substitute out with a complicated science lesson that day, so in walks 23 more fourth graders!! I managed to get them seated at the back of the classroom without them detecting that I was in FULL panic mode! And because I didn't know what else to do, I started teaching the science lesson! :) We discussed producers, consumers, and decomposers!!! Yes, all while going into labor! Gotta love the dedication right!!? After our lesson, we were supposed to take the students outside to do an activity, so I got the students lined up and flagged down the sub, I wanted to hold up a sign that said SOS! haha.
THANK GOD she has had babies and knew that my water had broke, even though I argued with her about that fact! and cleared the students out of my class and went to get the nurse for me.

After that, everything is pretty much a blur! Teachers running in to check on me, unknowing students barging in to what probably looked like MASS chaos, the wheelchair ride through the hallway and down the hill to Casey's car, all the while saying, "Oh My Gosh, WE ARE NOT READY YET! The car seat is in the box still!! Our labor & delivery classes are next week!! What are we going to do!??!!"

We rushed to the hospital, checked-in, and 7 hours later, our little princess officially made herself part of this world! I doubt that will be a day I will ever forget! Look what amazing beauty it created!!!

Thanks to all my girls at school that helped me stay calm and get into Casey's car, couldn't have done it without you!!!