picture!

Well, it has been forever. Life with a baby is taking a bit more of my time than I thought it would! But it is wonderful. This past weekend Avalyn was dedicated at church, pictures to come.
Here is a picture I thought you might enjoy in the meantime!
At her 2 month checkup she weight 10 pounds, 9 ounces and was 22 inches long. She had gained almost 4 pounds since birth! WOW!
She is such a sweet baby and we are so blessed to have her. I still cannot believe God gave us this child. The past 2 nights she has slept from 8:00 PM-6:15 AM! She is starting to recognize us more and gives us lots of smiles!

1 Month

Avalyn was 1 month old on Tuesday of this week. Here are a few pictures. She has grown quite a bit and we are noticing some of her clothes are getting a bit too short!
We are finally feeling like this is normal and are all adjusting quite well. She is sleeping pretty well at nights and some nights will let us sleep about 5 hours at a time! She is such a mellow and sweet baby. She is also becoming quite cuddly and when she is awake we are getting a lot of smiles out of her!
God is good!

what to do on maternity leave

While both Josh and I are off this month we had some projects that we both wanted to work on. The first one was completed by Josh and my dad and that was building a roof over our back patio. It is really nice to have a shady spot in our backyard now!
Second major project was some painting that Josh has been wanting to complete. The colors we have used are Gobi Desert by Behr and Asparagus by Behr. There is also a reddish-orange color but we made it based on another color so it doesn't have a name.
Here are some photos of what we have done with the paint!

Asparagus and the reddish-orange color.

Gobi Desert starts in the dining room and goes all the way through to the living room.

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

This week I did not finally put my little sweetie in a dress only 2 weeks after she was born because I would never wait that long to put a girl in a dress.

I did not go to the grocery store and realize why I really prefer babywearing over lugging that infant car seat all over the place...because I did not place the infant seat in the front seat of the cart and realize that I could not see over the seat thus having to peek around the edge of the seat the whole time I was trying to maneuver through the grocery store! No, that would not be me and my short little self!

And, no, it would not be me who would consider keeping our newborn in the Moby wrap while riding in the car instead of taking her out and putting her in her car seat. Nope, not me!

Have a great week!

Birth Story with photos =)

Finally!

My water broke and we were on our way to the hospital. This is me at 39 weeks and 5 days pregnant.

The most joyous part of this is that we had decided to induce on Friday night, May 29 since nothing was happening and we were ready for the baby to come. We had still planned to do things as naturally as possible after the induction. We were really praying about if we should induce and although we felt like it was ok we still weren't super excited about it. I had been praying all day that God would make it very clear if we shouldn't go ahead with the induction. I was exhausted and just wanted to meet this baby girl. I left work that day about 11:30 AM and then Josh and I spent the afternoon shopping and ate a nice early dinner around 3:30. We got home around 4:30 and were finishing packing and cleaning house before our time for induction which was 8:30 PM. At 5:15 PM I coughed and to my amazement my water broke! I was still not quite sure since I wasn't having contractions so we went to the hospital.Here I am in triage. Most definitely water has broken they said. There was meconium in the fluid so this meant baby was in distress, she wanted out. It also started the timer, she needed to be delivered within 24 hours. We walked for 3 hours while we waited for a room to open up! There were a lot of babies being born this day but I was so glad that God answered my prayer. I have no doubt that He heard our cries for direction. We are so blessed to serve the Master Physician!
After 3 hours of walking we were only at 60% effacement and barely 1 cm dilated. We decided to start pitocin to see if that would help. We gradually turned up the dosage for a few hours and tried to labor without the epidural. The pitocin started contractions hard and fast and they were unlike anything I have ever felt. After 3 hours of these contractions I still had not progressed any more. We decided to start the epidural. They started me on a prett high dosage which did not react well with my low blood pressure and ended up having to give me some other drugs to keep my blood pressure up which in turn kept the baby's heart rate up. It was a very long night and morning with having to be monitored so often due to the BP and heart rate issues. Around 10:30 AM, May 30 I was finally dilated to 8 cm, and baby was at station +1. I was finally able to push around 12:00 noon on Saturday, May 30.
Exactly 19 hours after my water broke precious Avalyn Marie entered this world. I only pushed for 15 minutes. She was posterior which typically takes a while to push or ends in c-section and that also explains why labor was taking so long. From the looks of her head she was stuck for a while on my pelvis! She came out a little bit blue due to her cord being wrapped twice around her neck but they got her some oxygen and suctioned out all the meconium from her mouth and she was good to go!

Our doula, Nicki. She was amazing and it was so nice to have a familiar face join us in the delivery room after such a long night!Who needs a boppy when you have a sweet black Lab princess??

Hopefully she'll fill out these pants soon!
Our lives have totally been turned upside down and we are so happy that God chose to bless us this way. We cannot fathom His love for us, that he would entrust us with His creation. That He created Avalyn for us to enjoy just as he made the mountains and the trees and the clouds in the sky, she is part of His masterpiece-wow.
We love you sweet girl, your life is a miracle to us.

Sling and Swaddle Journey

I just wanted to let you all know that I am participating in a very fun thing for the month of June. I was chosen to be one of 30 moms to Tweet for 30 days in a contest called Sling and Swaddle Journey. If you have Twitter, be sure to follow me, I am Mom_12! I will be Tweeting about life with a newborn, some of the new products we get to try and also sharing pictures and more fun stuff! So follow me on Twitter and keep up to date on how Avalyn changes every day!

Avalyn Marie Easterling

She has arrived, in case you are a blog friend!
The details-
Avalyn Marie Easterling
Born: May 30, 2009 at 12:15 pm
6 lbs 13 oz
20.5 inches long
Most fun part of delivery...when she came out totally posterior (face up) and cord wrapped twice around her neck. I will share more of the story soon!

great deal today!

If you are interested in babywearing or know someone who might be, please share this link today!

Baby Steals

They are selling Moby D Wraps for only $29.99!! We have a Moby already and cannot wait to use it. The different ways you can wear your baby are amazing. Also, the Newborn Care Class that we took at the hospital recommended a Moby wrap for babywearing so that is a plus! I have only heard great things about them.

nursery!

A virtual tour of the nursery. Hope you enjoy! Here is our wonderful rocking chair from Grandpa and Grandma Miller! This is standing in the doorway looking to your left.Here is the rest of the crib, this is from Grandma and Grandpa Easterling! The photos are photos of the baby and our friends so at this point it is all photos of me with people! We will trade these out with updated photos of special people as she grows. The "old" photos will then go in her scrapbook! Also we will take out the stuffed animals once she is actually using the crib!


That changing table, what a steal! We were given the bookcase from some wonderful friends and had planned to use it as a changing table but then did not have quite enough room on top for a changing pad and all the supplies so I commissioned Josh to make a box on top of it! He did a great job and I think it is awesome!What's in all those cubbies?? DIAPERS! WIPES! BLANKETS! Here is a close up of our diaper stash: prefolds, fitteds, and disposables.
Some of her toys and blankets!Dresser full of clothes and other stuff. This girl is way blessed in the clothing department, I can't wait to bless others the way we have been blessed with hand-me-downs. God is so good!This is the closet with more clothing...that is just newborn, 0-3's and 3-6's. The rest are stored under her crib. Like I said, we are so blessed. Below that is the hamper and obviously the exit. :)Now her book stash is pretty small at this point but we plan to remedy that with some garage sale-ing this summer! I already got about 20 books at a garage sale last weekend, it was great! She also has a Webkinz black lab...do you think we should start that once she is born? I think you can track it on a website or something...not totally sure. :)
This is the whole stinking huge bookshelf that Josh made. He is such a great guy! I guess it's not very nice that we only give the babe one shelf but we have a lot of books for us!!
Hope you enjoyed the tour! She will be here soon and I am sure there will be tons more pictures!

37 weeks...

This might be the last week I post a photo of myself. On Friday I took Josh on a date to the Mona Lisa Fondue Restaurant. It was a lot of fun! The food was delicious! This picture was us on our way out the door. Josh is looking especially slim lately after having his tonsils, uvula, and part of his soft palate removed. He lost about 12 pounds while on his liquid only diet! All is well here, we are just ready and waiting for this little princess to arrive! We can't wait to meet her in person!! I will try to post pictures this week of the nursery since it is really finished now!

Also, last week Josh went to get some coffee where 95.1 was broadcasting live and he won me a nice little gift basket!And since I didn't post it earlier, here is me at 36 weeks, I apologize for whatever was going on with my hair...apparently I didn't think to brush it before the picture! Oops!

a few photos

All credit for these photos goes to www.daronshort.com.

Daron Short is a good friend of ours and took some pictures for us. He is SO talented and has such a creative eye. This was his first maternity shoot but I think he did an amazing job!









35 weeks!

35 weeks

We are at 35 weeks. Wow. The time has seriously gone so fast, we have the nursery all done and filled up. And I do mean, FILLED. We have received so many generous gifts from family and friends. This weekend we had some maternity photos taken so instead of taking our own little funny looking picture I will wait until we get those photos back to post a 35 week picture. Little Miss is still very active although her kicks are getting lower, YAY! :) My ribs are excited about this too although once in a while she still manages to reach up there.
We have her bag packed for the hospital but won't pack ours until a little bit closer to the due date. Please pray that she has hair, I am bringing some bows just in case. :)
We have our last childbirth class this week and also will have our doula who has taught these classes at the birth with us. She does the classes and doula service as a ministry and she is really a wonderful lady. We have enjoyed getting to know her through her teaching and I know she will be a great blessing during labor and delivery.
I am also working on a playlist for labor and delivery, any recommendations?? :) I am thinking peaceful, soothing music that will provide nice background noise as this sweet creation enters the world, no Welcome to the Jungle or anything like that!
We were reminded last week in our class that this child is a gift from God, that God saw fit for us to raise and show His love to. That was such a great reminder because I get so nervous sometimes that we are going to "mess up" or not have the right things for this baby and then I was struck with that reminder and thought, "Hello, God has entrusted this little person to us. He will provide everything we need as He already has done." Then I was reading in the Psalms and came across this passage and I was again struck by His provision...

Psalm 139:15-16

¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

¹⁶ your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Before she was even placed in my womb and entrusted to our care, God knew. He has already written her days.

Praise God! We are merely his vessels and caretakers for her. What an amazing calling!

32 weeks

Here we are at 32 weeks! We had a baby shower last weekend so my mom flew out. It was so nice to have her here! We have the nursery organized for the most part and I am having another shower this week at work so we'll see what else we get from that one and then probably have a few last minute things to still pick up. While my mom was here we went and picked out a rocking chair and that arrived last night. It is in about a million pieces so that is Josh's weekend project! I have been working out the details of my maternity leave for work and my boss is very supportive and helpful. Praise God!

30 weeks

Can't believe how close it is getting to the due date! She is still quite active. I think she has learned how to dance! Right now she is jamming out to Chris Tomlin and she has decent rhythm. We got another huge box of baby clothes from one of Josh's co-workers, people are so generous!! Yesterday we went hiking but our camera was dead so no pictures of that!

29 weeks!

My first baby...still trying to figure out how she will handle the change of sharing the attention!

Taking a little break because that is how we do now. =)



Well here we are at 29 weeks.
We went for a hike today and then did some cooking. It was a lot of fun. Baby Girl has been a lot more active lately so that has been way cool.
In the past week I think I have counted:
10 frog kicks
2,768 alternating leg stretches
20 hand waves
2 hiccups
87 rib kicks
=)

We also got to see her (briefly) in 3-d last week. She was pretty shy but it was fun to see what we were able to see. She only showed about half her face at a time but we could see a very active mouth and some little eye lashes. Also looks like she is getting some round cheeks already!
On other fronts, ankles have started to swell so I have been trying to consume amazing amounts of water!