Maisie – 1 Month Old

Maisie turned one month old yesterday and I really can’t believe it!  She is growing like crazy.  I'm not sure of her weight/height but know that she is almost too long for her newborn outfits.  When we left the hospital she was down to 7 lbs 8 oz.  We went to the doctor when she was almost a week old and she had gained to 7 lbs 12 oz and then at her 2 week appointment she was 8 lbs 4 oz, so she gained 8 oz in about a week! 

Maisie is a really good baby and seems to be so much easier than Ryan was.  I’m not sure if she is easier or if I just know what I’m doing with her and had no clue with Ryan. 

I had forgotten how much newborn babies sleep!  The first couple of weeks that she was home, both Micah and I mentioned that we almost forgot she was here because all she did was sleep, waking only to eat … and we had to wake her up to eat!  The first night Maisie was home we let her sleep in the pack and play in our room.  She didn’t sleep well at all, so the next night I moved her to her vibrating papasan chair and she slept much better so she slept there the rest of the week.  Micah was off a total of 8 days, so when it was time for Micah to go back to work we decided to move her to her crib where she has slept ever since.  She sleeps swaddled on her sleep positioner.  The first few nights we swaddled her with her arms in but she always managed to get her arms out within a matter of minutes so we finally gave up on that.  At the beginning I was waking her up every 2.5 to 3 hours to eat, then she started waking up on her own every 2.5 to 3 hours.  The past couple of nights she has slept anywhere from 3.5 to 5 hours when I first lay her down and then about 3 hours after that.  Hopefully she stays on this schedule (or gets better!) because I can definitely do it!

Maisie has been taking naps in her cradle swing.  In the past week she has been awake a lot more and only sleeps for about an hour at a time during the day.

I often lay Maisie in the floor on her mat when she is awake.  She enjoys kicking, looking at the ceiling fans, and looking at the walls.  She has started cooing and letting out loud squels.  The other day Ryan told me that she talked! HA!

Maisie is getting much better with holding her head up by herself.

We think her eyes are going to be blue, but according to what I read we won’t know for sure until she is almost a year old because if they appear to be blue now they can change in the next few months.

Maisie – Your big brother LOVES you to pieces.  He never wants to hold you (which is probably a blessing in disguise), but he wants to give you hugs and kisses ALL OF THE TIME!  In fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t suffocated you yet! 

Here is a picture of Maisie getting her Vitamin D.  This was the first afternoon we were home on February 11th.  Micah thought it would be good for her to be in the sun for a while so we stripped her down and found a pair of Ryan’s baby sunglasses to put on her!

Maisie got to experience her first snow on February 13th.  I, of course, wanted to take her picture in it.  Micah thought I was absolutely crazy, but I did it anyway!

Maisie’s first holiday to celebrate was Valentine’s Day.  And of course she had to have a shirt to celebrate the big day! 

The day after Valentine’s, Mandy, Brianna, and Drew came for a visit.  They brought Ryan and Maisie each a Valentine’s Day card.  Ryan wanted to make sure that Maisie saw hers so after they left, he took it over to her and put it in her hand while she was sleeping!

We gave Maisie her first bath on February 17th.  Ryan was determined to help us! It wasn’t until we were almost done with her bath that I realized we weren’t even supposed to give her one yet because her umbilical cord was still on.  Oops!  After freaking out and thinking that we had completely ruined her umbilical cord, Micah got me calmed down and put alcohol on it and it ended up being fine.  It came off the next day after newborn pictures.  It was hanging on by one tiny piece and my Mom pulled it off!  She actually pulled Ryan’s off when he was little, too.  They gross me out and there is no way I could have done it!

 

Here’s a funny story that I want to write down to give Maisie a hard time about when she is older.  We are at Mom’s on Monday.  I knew Maisie had a dirty diaper so I was going to change her.  I laid her down on the carpet and took her diaper off.  As I was getting a new diaper, I looked and she was peeing so I was trying to get her onesie under her so she didn’t get it on the carpet.  As I was adjusting her onesie, she pooped and it completely covered the bottom of both legs of my jeans and even got on my shirt!  It was bright green and there was no way to hide it.  I was just thankful that I wasn’t out in public!

Here is Maisie’s one month picture:

For comparison, click here to see Ryan’s 1 month pictures.

Happy 1 Month, Maisie Grace!!

Ryan – 3 years, 3 months

Ryan turned 39 months on Tuesday.  He weighs 33.5 lbs.

The biggest change in Ryan this month is that he is now a big brother.  And not only is he a big brother, but he is a fabulous big brother!  I was expecting the worst from him – thought there would be a major change in him after having a baby sister here, but thankfully he has taken it very well.  He loves Maisie so much.  He doesn’t like to hold her … in fact he probably has held her less than 5 times since she was born, but he LOVES giving her hugs and kisses.  Sometimes I worry that he may squish her with his big head when he gives her hugs but so far she is OK.

Ryan also loves to lay down with Maisie when she is on the Boppy.

 

I love seeing him with Maisie and know it will only get more fun in the next few months.

Ryan can put his own shoes and socks on.  Sometimes his shoes are on the wrong feet, but it’s a good start!

He has really gotten into “texting names” (typing) on the computer.  He likes it when I pull up a blank document and just let him type on it.

Always asks, “That be OK?” before doing certain things.

Ryan repeats everything now so we have to be very careful what is said around him.

Says “share” a lot when he sees that me and him are doing the same thing or wearing the same color of shirt or something.

Ryan cracks me up when he starts to run.  He likes to kick one leg up in the air and then take off running.

Speaking of kicking, Ryan is a great kicker.  Granny Joy always has balloons at her house and he could spend hours kicking them.  I absolutely can not wait to start him in Soccer this coming fall.

Ryan is always asking where his daddy is during the day.  I always tell him he’s at work.  Now he says, “He’s at work.  He’s gonna make me some money!”

He is big into making sure your mouth is closed when you eat.  If it’s not, he is quick to let you know to close it! 

He calls Rowan ‘Rowan’ now instead of ‘Ro-Ro’.

It’s been a chore the past two weeks to get Ryan ready to go anywhere.  He constantly says, “Not yet” when I want to change his clothes, put his shoes on, etc.  I’m hoping he improves on this before I start back to work!

Ryan’s sleeping is still very unpredictible.  Sometimes he goes right to bed (usually after the promise of candy the next morning if he goes to bed like a big boy) or sometimes it could take an hour.  Thankfully once he gets in bed he normally stays there until the morning.

Every time we go to town, he thinks we should go somewhere to eat!  He is definitely my child!!

Ryan has learned to open the refrigerator by himself, which is perfect timing because he can get stuff out if he wants it without me having to get up if I’m busy with Maisie.

The Wednesday before Maisie’s newborn pictures, he and Austin were wrestling in the living room and Austin accidentally kicked him in the eye with his boot.  Then on Friday  night, Ryan was playing around with Eric and hurt his lip.  So in the pictures he had a red eye and a busted lip!  That boy is sure accident prone before we have pictures.  Last time he hurt his nose a couple of weeks before them!

Micah was able to get Ryan’s tube slide on his playground last weekend.  Unfortunately Ryan won’t go down it because it’s green and not yellow!  Micah forced him down once but Ryan was not a fan.  Hopefully he will decide to give it a try soon!

      

Since I’m on maternity leave still, I’ve only been taking Ryan to daycare three times a week.  I don’t want him to get out of the routine of going, but also don’t want to make a special trip into town five days a week to take him.  The three days seems to be going well. 

Here is Ryan’s 39 Month Picture:

Maisie’s Newborn Pictures

We had Maisie’s newborn pictures taken by Tonya Reeves when she was 10 days old.  I am SO, SO, SO happy with how they turned out.  Maisie actually slept the entire session, only waking twice to eat.  Thankfully after she ate, she went back to sleep!  We were there for four hours but part of that time was spent getting everything ready and an hour of that was spent with Maisie eating!  I was really worried that Maisie wouldn’t cooperate, but she did great!  We brought most of the props,which were family heirlooms that came from both of our families. 

The bread bowl that Maisie is in belongs to my Mom’s aunt (Maisie’s great-great aunt) and was originally her grandmothers’, so it dates back to the 1800’s!!  It was made for her by her brothers in Kentucky.  She was married first to a man who was abusive to her, so she took her daughter and left in the middle of the night and evidently the bread bowl was one of the items she brought with her.  So, if the bowl could talk, it would have lots of stories to tell!

The blocks that spell Maisie’s name were my Mom’s Granny Abbie’s (Maisie’s great-great grandma). 

This picture is one of my favorites from the session. 

The hanging scale belonged to my Grandpa Ernest and Grandma Maisie (our Maisie’s great-grandparents).  My Mom says that they had this scale as long as she remembers, but she is unsure where it came from.  It always hung in the white shed behind their house.  Special thanks to my Mom who cleaned it up and made it suitable for the pictures!  We won’t mention what Maisie did on the white rug she was laying on in this scale!! HA!!

Here is Maisie with a quilt block that has my Grandma Maisie’s name on it.  She obviously prepared it to be in a quilt and it was just never used.  I love that my Mom was able to find something with my Grandma Maisie’s signature on it that we could use for the pictures. 

 

 

The bucket that Maisie is in is an old syrup bucket from Micah’s grandfather John’s (Maisie’s great-grandfather) farm in New York.  You can’t see it in the pictures, but there is a little metal hanger on the back of it where they hung it from a tree to collect the syrup.  I LOVE this bucket!!

This is another of my favorite photos!  Tonya was able to take this one picture before Maisie’s head fell over.  It turned out perfect!!

 

 

 

 

The basket that Maisie is in belonged to Micah’s grandmother Theresa (Maisie’s great-grandmother).  It was her knitting basket. 

The old teddy bear in the picture belonged to Micah’s uncle Harvey (Maisie’s great-uncle), who passed away in 1984.

 

 

 

The porcelain bowl that Maisie is in came from the farm that Micah’s grandfather John (Maisie’s great-grandfather) grew up on.  It has a pitcher that matches it and is part of a wash basin.  The bowl is very pretty with pink flowers in it but we were unable to position Maisie where the flowers would show, so this was the next best option.

The scale in this picture came from Micah’s parents’ house but we don’t know the history on it unfortunately.  We used the base of the hanging scale to put Maisie in and Micah held it on the scale so that Maisie didn’t fall down.  Tonya was able to photoshop Micah’s hand out!

In this picture, Maisie is in a wooden bowl that belonged to Micah’s Mom (Maisie’s Grandma Brenda).  You can’t see the bowl since it is covered with the changing pad cover from Maisie’s bedding, but it is beautiful!

Here are the other pictures from the shoot:

In this one Maisie is wearing my wedding rings and Ryan is wearing Micah’s ring.

Ryan’s hand holding Maisie’s precious little feet:

Our little bundle!!

Here is one of Ryan & Maisie … SWEETNESS!

Here is our family picture:

     

And just so Ryan doesn’t feel left out, here are a couple of him.  I LOVE the black and white one of him because that is the face he makes a lot!!

 

I am so thankful that we were able to get these pictures taken.  And they are even more special to me since almost all of them were taken with things from our families.  They will be treasured for years to come!  Now I have to choose which ones I want to get printed … that could take a while!!

Maisie Grace’s Birth Story

I worked up until Tuesday afternoon before Maisie was born on Wednesday morning, February 8th.  I took off a little early to pick Ryan up from daycare.  I took him to Wal-Mart to buy Maisie a welcoming gift.  He wanted to buy her a pink monkey but we weren’t able to find one so he settle on a pink pig.  When I asked him what her name was he told me it was ‘Pink’ … very creative!  I took Ryan to meet my Mom and we went our separate ways.  Micah and I decided to go to Fayetteville for our last meal as parents of one child.  We came home, finished up cleaning, took my last pregnancy pictures, and went to bed.  Here are my 39 week, 4 day pictures:

Before looking at this next one, let me explain!  The night before Ryan was born, Shandy was staying at our house.  Micah got this Scream mask out to scare her.  It was sitting on the table before I took my last pregnancy pictures with Ryan, so I decided to put it on and take a picture.  So Micah said I must do it this time too!  Beware … it is a little scary!!

I slept surprisingly better than I thought I would, only waking up at 2:30am to use the restroom.  I didn’t really get back to sleep after that but at least I got around four hours of sleep.  My alarm went off at 3:30am, I showered with the special soap they gave me, got ready, and we headed to the hospital for our 5am check-in time. 

When we arrived, I was hooked up to the monitors to monitor both me and the baby.  I was also started on an IV.  We waited and waited while we caught up on the news.  Around 7am, I started getting very nervous and started shaking non-stop.  Dr. Smith, the surgery nurse, and the anesthesiologist all came in for visits with me to let me know what the procedure was going to be.  I started crying as Dr. Smith left the room so she walked back in, gave me a hug, held my hand, and told me everything would be OK.  I knew everything would be fine, but I just really dreaded the whole process.  Here are our last pictures as parents of one child:

They finally wheeled me back to the operating room after 7:30am.  Micah sat outside the door dressed in his scrubs and waited while they gave me my spinal block and got me all prepped for the c-section.  I will never get over how fast the spinal block takes place.  Within seconds I started feeling a warm feeling in my legs and they began to numb.  It was the craziest feeling ever.  They put up the curtain and brought Micah in to sit with me.  Dr. Smith started using tools to poke on my stomach making sure I couldn’t feel any of them and, of course, I could not.  There was lots of pressure and tugging and within a few minutes, Dr. Smith held Maisie up for us to see for the first time and told us she was chunky!  Maisie came into this world at 8:01am.  It was such a relief to hear her let out a big cry and see her moving.  They put her on a warming table to clean her up and it was within my eyesight so I could see most of what they were doing.

 

Micah was able to walk over and start taking pictures and I just watched them work on her.  When they got her cleaned up, they swaddled her and handed her to Micah to bring over to visit with me. Micah brought her over and said, “Here’s Maisie Grace.”  I was so excited that he had given in to the name I had wanted all along. She had her first picture taken with us and I could not stop smiling.  She was just perfect! 

I stayed in the operating room for a while and then was moved to recovery where I stayed for two hours.  Micah was able to go back and forth between recovery and the nursery, so he took several pictures of her while they were getting her measurements and doing all the tests on her. Maisie weighed 7 lbs 15 oz and was 20.75 inches long.

Here is big brother Ryan and Granny Joy looking in on Maisie:

I was finally able to be rolled to our room and after Maisie’s temperature was normal, they were able to bring her in for me to hold.  I was instantly in love!

After Micah and I held her for a while, we let Ryan and the grandparents come back and let Ryan hold Maisie.  He didn’t want to hold her for long, but it sure was sweet seeing him with her for the first time.

He gave her “Pink” (the piggy) by putting it on her head. 

The grandparents all took their turns holding Maisie while I rested in the bed. 

I was very drugged (of course) and kept wanting to look at Facebook and post about Maisie but every time I looked at my laptop screen, my eyes would close. 

Our visitors on Maisie’s first day included Ryan, Granny Joy, Granny Brenda, Pa David, Aunt Shandy, Donna, Eric, Rose and Jan.  Ryan was super sweet to me all day.  He kept asking if there was anything he could get me and was very polite all day.  I felt bad because I couldn’t hold him or get him in the bed with me, but thankfully  he didn’t seem to care.

Maisie spent her first night in the nursery, while Micah and I tried to get some sleep.  I slept horribly because of all the things attached to me and all the nurses coming in.  And Micah slept horribly because of the pull-out chair he was sleeping on that they called a bed!  I was able to get out of bed the next morning and able to take a shower that afternoon, which made me feel so much better.  I walked around the hall several times.  I was still in pain, but could tell that I was doing much better than I did with my first c-section.  Maisie started getting a newborn rash and it looked horrible!  It looked like both sides of her face were super sun burnt.  We had the nurse from the nursery come in to verify that everything was OK and she said that it was completely normal. It seemed to get worse right after she ate and then would fade away.  Micah got the fun job of changing all the diapers, which he loved!  HA!!  Visitors on day #2 included Emily, Cindy, Chelsea, Dustin, Granny Joy, Ryan, Jessica, Becky, Denise, Laura, and LIndsey. 

Here is our first picture as a family of four!

I decided to stay three nights in the hospital just to make sure everything was OK.  By the third day I was quite bored and ready to go home, but I knew it would be best to stay there and be waited on.  I missed Ryan a lot and was just ready to get home and be a family.  I actually enjoyed the hospital food (I know, I know … crazy!!), so I didn't mind getting a few more meals!  Maisie pretty much slept all the time, only waking to eat.  Granny Brenda, Pa David, and Jennifer visited us on Friday.  I love this picture of Maisie that Micah was able to capture!  Such a sweetie!

We got up early on Saturday and got ready to leave the hospital.  We tried to take some pictures of Maisie in her going home outfit, but she was awake and not very cooperative! 

We left the hospital a little after 10am on Saturday morning.  It was freezing cold, as in single digit wind chills!  Maisie stayed awake the whole way home, just closing her eyes because of the bright sun.

We arrived home safely with precious little Maisie and Mom brought Ryan back to the house. I immediately realized how big Ryan was!  I asked him if his hands grew over the past few days because they seemed so big.  And his head seemed massive!  We were finally at home as a family of four and I could not have been happier!   She is so beautiful and I feel so lucky to be her mother!  I can’t wait for the years to come with her!