Christmas 2010

We are alive! Our little girl is already 11 days old! She is doing so awesome at home. We are all having a blast, even Leyla! We dropped Grandma Connelly off at the airport yesterday which was really sad. She helped us out so much the first week we were home. We now have a freezer full of meals ready to go! A couple of days before Christmas, we had to say good bye to Dax's mom and dad. I know it was hard for them to leave their first grand baby!! Both Grandmas will be back to visit in a couple of months!

We have started to establish a routine now that all our guest have gone home (as much as you can with a newborn) and she is responding well. She is sleeping 4 hour spans at night, sometimes more when mommy doesn't wake up! Daddy Dax is so helpful to me and Harlow, it has been such a blessing to have him home with us. Most mommies would have to say good bye to their husbands at this point in time. We are lucky enough to have a whole month together! We plan on just hanging out and spending time getting to know Harlow. We have our 2 week pedi appointment on Thursday where we will see if Harlow has gained enough weight to return to her birth weight of 8 lb 3 oz. Since she barely fits in her newborn outfits, we are guessing that she has!

A little bit about Harlow:

She loves to be swaddled with her arms to her sides when she sleeps

She is starting to calm to the sound of my voice (PRECIOUS!!)

She will be visiting the chiropractor today for her first adjustment!

She actually likes her sponge bath!

She always poops when she eats, usually right after a clean diaper change

She has pooped and peed on Daddy two times now!

I'm coming back later to add pictures and video but the little one is waking up now!!

Introducing our sweet baby girl, Harlow Connelly Kuykendall

Getting checked out by the nurse, she is about 2 minutes old in this picture

Mommy gets to hold her baby!

This was her going home from the hospital outfit!

Look at all that hair! We LOVE it!

Sorry for the delay on updates and pictures! As you can imagine our family has been very busy lately! We are so happy to be home and have been enjoying every second of our baby girl! We are starting to establish a routine, or at least somewhat of a routine now that we are home. We will continue to update once things get easier, I promise!! If you click on this link, you can view some pictures that were taken at the hospital before we left. It will up for a couple of weeks...

http://www.pitterpatterpix.com/index2.php?v=v1#/proofing/

Password is: GS7152

5 days and counting!

Just popping in for a quick update. We only have 5 more days until LB turns into Harlow! We will only be working 3 days this week (Monday-Wednesday), then go in for an appointment on Thursday and check into the hospital Thursday evening. Sometime Friday afternoon/evening, we will hopefully be holding our precious little miracle child.

I can't believe that it's finally "time". I'm trying to enjoy the last few days of pregnancy, even the uncomfortableness of it. I have been reflecting on how badly we wanted a baby in our lives and how incredibly blessed we are. I pray that we never, ever forget that. We are just so excited to start another chapter in our lives!!! And I can't wait to have feeling back in my hands. That is the one thing I am hating right now, swollen hands and fingers!!!

If you are reading this, please remember to keep us in your prayers this week and on Friday for sure! You can specifically pray that Dax won't faint on me during delivery. And that's not really a joke. Well, okay, it kind of is a joke but we seriously have talked about what his boundaries should be and we have decided that standing bedside holding my hand will be the perfect spot for him to remain. We will do our best to text all of our friends/family after Harlow arrives. Please feel free to share the news with everyone in case we accidentally miss someone!

We will also try to post some pics as soon as we can! Love to you all!!!

LB has a name

It's....

Harlow Connelly Kuykendall

And just in time too!

37 weeks down, just a few left to go. The room is done, the bags are packed...we're just waiting for Harlow to make her arrival. It's been an amazing journey, but we (especially Jessica!!!) are ready for the next chapter to begin.

After a few weeks of concern about which direction she was facing, we were relieved to see at our last doctor's appointment that she is facing head down. Hopefully she decides to stay that way...she seems pretty smart.

Thanks to all of our friends and family for the great shower presents. The amount of "stuff" you're supposed to have when you bring home a baby is overwhelming. Thanks to all of you, if she decided to show up today I think we would have everything we need. We are truly blessed.

More to come...

Some Videos

We have some neat videos that I have been wanting to post. Let's see if I can figure it out!

LB dancing around...once you get the hang of how I am breathing, you can see her bumping all over the place!

This is a funny video of Leyla discovering the diaper genie...it was given to us by some friends and although it was clean as a whistle, it must of had a lingering scent that was quite interesting to Ley....

This is short video of the shower before we arrived and the diaper cake!! Make sure you read the post below this one to read all about the shower!

LB's Baby Shower

Click on any of the pictures to view it larger...

One pregnant mama!

All the girls

Can you see all the onsies?

So many beautiful flower arrangements!

Last night we were so privileged to attend a baby shower for both Dax and I. It was given by my besties, Maggie, Christy and Ria and it was absolutely amazing. We arrived to a house full of our favorite people and the most beautiful decorations you can imagine. I was "showered" all night long and treated like a princess while Dax was able to hang out with the guys and enjoy some man time. We snacked on all kinds of our favorite goodies and chatted with everyone. Then, the boys left to go out for awhile while the girls stayed back to open gifts. Each and every gift was so thoughtful and meaningful, I just can't believe that we are so lucky to have such great friends. All the decorations, flowers, food and drinks were so perfect! Not one detail went unnoticed. We also were served a catered dinner from Cheesecake Factory (yummy-o), do our friends know us well or what?

Some of the highlights was the diaper cake with a pair of cowboy boots on top!!! How adorable!! We can't wait till LB will be able to wear them, now our whole family has a pair! Ria was videoing the whole night on this little camera that I thought was a phone. We found out when opening the gifts, it was a camera for us! What a huge surprise Chad and Ria, now we can video all LB's milestones for everyone to see and for us to cherish forever! We also made unique and adorable onsies with our favorite bands. Our little girl is going to be one hip mama. The gifts we received were all so thoughtful and special. I can't wait to take pictures of LB in all her new gear and send you pictures!

Here are some pictures of the evening. We can't even explain how thankful and grateful we are to each one of our friends in attendance. We love you all so much and are just filled with happiness. This is the best time of our lives and we are so incredibly blessed! Only 4 more weeks until we get to meet our little one!

it's pretty boring around here!

There is nothing new to report but I know I have to update anyway so....let's see. Hmmmm......

Leyla thinks we are talking to her when we talk to LB so this concerns us a little bit. Don't have a solution to that problem yet. She runs over to us and starts licking and wagging and looks at us like we are crazy because we are not petting her. We are still hoping that everything just falls into place when we bring LB home and Leyla learns to love her little sister. Otherwise, Leyla's life is going to change even more than we anticipated. But we don't like to think about that particular possibility.

Work is crazy and I am getting to the point where I just do not want to be there anymore. I have so much to do before I leave, and I'm trying to prepare everything so it will go smoothly for my replacement, calm parents concerns with me being gone the rest of the year, paperwork, meetings, and on and on and on!

Baby is moving all the time, but is still lying sideways (transverse). The scary word "C-section" has been brought up if she doesn't turn since you can not deliver a baby sideways, so I am really hoping that she turns! I visit a chiropractor 3 times a week and she has been doing a special technique to turn the baby. So hopefully she will. She has three more weeks to turn before my doctor schedules the C-section.

I told you it was super boring around here. We will update after our next dr. appointment!!