Hi everyone!! Just a quick blog post to let you know we moved sites! Instead of blogging we are now vlogging!! You can find us on YouTube at T&D Life ! Or click on the link below! Come say hi!!! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX8bBNqkwL0VCVeLDc0xHcA
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Luke is now two months old.. only one more month left to still be considered a new born! Wow! I don’t know if I’m more surprised on how fast another month went by or how much has changed in just a month! Either way, the month has come and gone and it has been mostly filled with smiles! I feel like we are all starting to…somewhat…find a new normal. Our days still seem a little chaotic but our nights are starting to come somewhat more predictable. Luke enjoys staying up during the day and avoiding any type of nap. No matter how hard I try to get him to nap…he just doesn’t want to. Power naps on my chest are what gets him through his day. Night time he does a great job sleeping in the pack-n-play and usually does a good 3-5 hour stretch of sleep starting around 8 at night then wakes 2 or 3 times till he is ready to start his day. He doesn’t like to hang out much anymore during the night but just wants to eat and go right back to sleep. This has let us all get some more sleep! Thankfully! Luke has become more alert and will smile, coo and goo when talked to. He lights up when Kinley is near and loves when she will “play” with him. It makes me nervous because sometimes she isn’t the most gentle but she tries. He likes to play on his play gym and look at the different “critters” and tries to bat at them. He has pretty good head control and is definitely getting stronger. We also found a small birth mark on his right inner elbow. I think it is adorable. He isn’t a fan of car rides or pacifiers. He is starting to fit into 6 month clothes! Even though I still try to fit him into 3 months! I’m not ready for him to be growing so fast! He also is now in size two diapers! My guess was that he would be 12 pounds when he went for his two month check up but I was way off…two pounds off. He is 14 pounds and 4 ounces and 23.5 inches long. He is seriously so big! We like to call him our little big guy! A new thing we are learning as a family of four is that it is a lot harder to make it out the door with having two kiddos to get ready. It seems like when we get one ready and start on the next the one that is ready needs something or does something… so its a constant always fixing one or the other. Sunday mornings seem to be the trickiest but we are hanging in there! Kinley as a big sisterKinley is still doing well at being a big sister. She loves to hold him, play with him, help burp him and even help with diaper changes. She thinks its fun to change poopy diapers because she gets to help wipe him. She also is usually the first one to him if he is crying and tries to soothe him until I get there. She is very good at letting me know when he is sad, mad or has spit up. I’m very thankful for all her help even though sometimes it can be a little too much help. She likes to read to him and has recently been calling him “Lukey.” That's all for now We are really enjoying the “little big guy” and I am in love with all of his little baby sounds. It is such a joy to watch him play and “talk” on his play gym and having him become more interactive with Ted or I.
Being a momma of two is definitely a little more tiring and my coffee consumption has definitely doubled! But, I never mind more coffee! Dawn
1 month fun factsLuke, is 10 pounds and 4 ounces. He is 22 inches long and fits into 3 month old clothes perfectly. He is already into size 1 diapers. I feel like we totally skipped the newborn size for everything! He loves to be cuddled and talked to. He tolerates his big sister holding him. He will look for our voices when we talk to him and will maintain okay eye contact with us. He is getting better at smiling at us and we love it! He likes to be sung to and rocked when he is tired or upset. Okay, go ahead..ask me if he is sleeping through the night? Answer is.... nope! He is only a month old and eats a lot...so there really is no time for sleep for anyone! He does like to sleep more during the day and tends to want to hang out at night. I think I am managing 1 - 1.5 hours of sleep between his night time feedings. So on a good night I get about 4-5 hours of sleep all broken up. Thank goodness for coffee, no really I am so thankful to the man who discovered it! During Luke's 2am feeding he likes to hang out the most and gives me lots of smiles. It is nice to have that time with just him. I may be really sleepy at the time but I do really enjoy that special time with him and I know soon it will be gone and he won't want to hang out with me at 2am everyday. Ted and I are doing a lot better with diaper changes and getting peed on a lot less! I think we have become faster at it. Hopefully we can keep our "not getting peed on" streak going! I'm sure soon it will break. Kinley as a big sisterFor the most part Kinley is doing so well with transtioning to being a big sister. She loves to hold her brother and sometimes gets mad that I get to hold him and not her. She is learning to be more patient and that playing by herself is okay. She is trying to learn to use her quiet voice more often and that screaming while Luke is sleeping is not always a good idea. She tries to read to Luke and loves to "help" dress him and change his diaper. She really is such a good helper to me and her brother...when she wants to be. ;) Until next time!That is all the time I have to write about how little, or not so little, Luke is doing and how we are all holding up!
I hope you enjoyed this little update, Dawn ps. I think you can click on the photos to make them bigger....if you want. He is here, finally he is here! Well, he has really been here for two weeks already. Regardless of that fact, he is here and he is a BOY! Just incase you didn't catch on to his name or me referring to him as "he." We welcomed Luke into this world on November, 15th 2016 at 6:28pm. He weighed 9 lbs 7 oz and was 21.5 inches long! He came into the world with a lot of hair and believe me I definitely had the heart burn for that full head of hair. I ate my way through Tums like they were candy...seriously. I think Ted had to take out a small loan for all the Tums he had to buy me! Anyways he is here and healthy! Not the way we planned it...
We were admittedOn the way over to the doctor's appointment, I felt our baby punch, kick and hiccup and then when I got hooked up to the stress test things changed. After about 10 minutes of no movement recorderd from Luke the nurse brought me some candy to try to wake him up. I knew this wouldn't work since the time we were doing the test tended to be a sleep time for him on a normal day. Well, I was right there was no recorded movement for the 20 minutes. I wasn't too discourgaed though becasue to me this was normal. I also was kind of excited to see that was having some contractions even though I wasn't really feeling them. Here I was thinking.... maybe this is it...maybe they will let me go home and in a couple of days I will go into labor! I like to look back at this moment as wishful thinking. The doctor came back in and wasn't as cheerful as I was. She told me that she thought it was best for me to head to the hospital and continue to be monitored longer to see if anything changed. She said, "Well baby doesn't look bad, but we do see some dips here (pointing to a squiggly line on a piece of paper) in the heart rate and the contratctions are causing some distress. So baby isn't bad but doesn't look good. Therefore, I can't send you home until I know baby is perfectly happy in there. So lets get some more tests done and go from there." Well, I didn't have much choice but to walk over to the hospital. I just remember walking quietly with Ted with tears streaming down my face because this is not what I wanted at all and I knew what was probably yet to come. After gaining my composure and finding a small amount of courage, I walked up to the desk and checked myself in. Here we waited in triage for about 2 hours having a stress test, blood work and an ultasound. Each test had points for all these things and we were looking for a perfect score. We never got that perfect 10 and ended up getting a 5 or 6. This meant that we were not leaving the hospital any time soon. He is coming one way or another....today!After being admitted our doctor came to visit us around 1pm. She told us that she did not feel okay with us leaving the hospital without a baby. She said that our baby wasn't showing signs that he was completely happy inside and waiting it out at home could make things worse. She gave us only a few options. She told us we could try an induction but there are only two ways to go about this since I have had a previous c-section. She also said that the only induction she coud do could take up to 3 days to work. She was very concered about inducing me because my body was showing no signs of progression and Luke was showing some signs of distress. She said that the chances are higher that we would end up in an emergency c-section than an sucessful labor. The other option was to just go ahead and do a re-peat c-section. As soon as she said that my heart started pounding...this is not the way we wanted any of this. She then left us to think it over. She told us no rush but to let the nurse know what we decied and we would go from there. As she left the room, I felt my eyes begin to fill with tears. My fear of having a repeat c-section was starting to feel more like a reality. Ted and I knew after talking with the doctor that an induction was probably not the best thing for our baby. Since my body was showing no signs of progress, Luke not being in 100% good health and only two options of induction that could take up to three days of working (if it even would). So, we decied to have a repeat c-section. We would still have to wait 3-4 hours until the operating room would be avivable to us. All I can remember during this time was thinking that I still had a fighting chance that my body would magically go into labor itself! I would think any signs of pain I felt would show up as a contration on the mointor...but they never did. It was time to just accept the fact that God's will was a c-section no matter how much I prayed for a VBAC. God always listens to our prayers and answers them. Sometimes, He just answers them with a no and I am thankful that He did. He is here and healthy!The anesthesiology team came and and worked as hard as they could to try to keep me awake duirng the c-section. Due to my allergy to lidocane they could not give me the normal epidoral as they do for other moms. They had to use some other fancy type of medicine. They worked for a good hour to try to get me all numbed up but it just didn't work. (Also, shout out to all the mommas who have had an epidural! Those needles or whatever they do are painful...or at least it was for me! ) All that happen was my blood pressure falling, me becoming sick and only one leg becoming numb. So once I got to the operating table all I can remember is: Me: "I'm going to be sick, I really don't feel well." Nurse: "Blood pressure dropping again." Doc: "Dawn, I'm right here. Everything is going to be fine. Trust me. I know this isn't what you wanted and I was rooting for the other way too, but it is going to be okay." Nurse: "Calling out random numbers" Me: *Can't stop crying or feeling like I was going to be sick on everyone* Anesthesiologist: "Dawn, I'm so sorry we can't keep you awake. I think we are just going to have to have you go to sleep" Me: "It's okay, I know you tried your hardest" What I'm really thinking: *At this point I don't really care. I just want it all to be over with* Doc: "Why don't we let Ted come in before we have her go to sleep" Ted: "I love you, It will all be okay. *kiss*" *Then he leaves to wait outside for Luke to be born and to be all cleaned up* Me: *Off to sleep I go* Then at some point I wake up and my doctor is holding the baby up for me to see, all sweetly swaddled in the hospital blankets. She also said, "Dawn, I am so glad we did a c-section. He is such a big guy and the cord was wrapped twice around his neck. I think that is why your body didn't progress and I think things could have been really dangerous if we went any other way." Praise God for His protection over both Luke and I! It wasn't until I got to recovery and when I was able to hold Luke, when they told Ted and I it was a boy!! But, at that point I was just so happy to have him in my arms, thankful that we were both in good health and it was all over. Then everything goes missing until a good couple hours later when family starts to come visit. That is that! Shout out to you if you read all this through! Here are some fun photos of his first couple of days here in this world. Love, Dawn Kinley and daddy had fun making some "puppy chow" together. I think Kinley ate more than helped but that is half the fun! It is so sweet to watch Kinley and Ted's relationship grow in it's own way. She adores her daddy and always wants to be right next to him when he is home!
Hello! I was so happy to receive notifications yesterday that some of you looked at our blog! That filled my heart with much joy! Also, thank you everyone who sent me a sweet message saying they read it or enjoyed it! It was a truly an encouragement! Today I just wanted to share with you a snippet of how Kinley's nap time is going, how it went today and how God used her nap time to speak to my heart. Kinley is 18 months old and she use to put herself to bed. She use to say "night night" and then walk to the gate and we would lay her in bed and walk out of the room while she fell asleep on her own. But kids change daily, weekly and monthly. There are so many phases in each new month. Her new phase over the past month has been wanting either Ted or I to sit in her room with her until she falls asleep. Sometimes we rock, sometimes we sit by her bed and draw on her back and sometimes we just sit in the chair and sing songs with her. Yesterday, at nap time (around 11:00am) I did all three while I continually sang to her until she fell asleep. After she finally closed her eyes and was not tossing or turning anymore I waited until it was safe for me to get up and leave. While waiting, I thought about how I should post about what her favorite song is right now. I'm sure you have heard it and if you haven't I will link a YouTube version of it down below. It is a song I treasure and hope one day she will too.
After Kinley falls asleep, I am able to find time to do my devotions and drink coffee. I would love to have coffee earlier in the day but when she is up it either goes cold or she tries to drink it. After she went to sleep and I made my coffee I couldn't get the song I was singing her out of my head. So I thought I would just reflect on it. While reflecting on the song I was reminded of the day that our Pastor at Grace Baptist Church in Brockport, New York preached about the gospel. I try to always take notes in church and on that day I wrote "We should remember the gospel everyday and let it stir our affections for Christ and we should dedicate our lives to Him daily." What a great reminder today as I was singing to Kinley. Thank you God for showing yourself daily in our family's lives! I am so glad that I have placed my trust in Jesus and know that He died for my sins because He loves me that much. He took the place where I should have been. I deserve death but with His love and grace I now have eternal life and the Holy spirt. What a beautiful thing He has done not only for me but for you too. I'm so glad that I have learned and am learning to trust Him always. Much Love, Dawn Ps. Comment down below or reach out to me and let me know what your favorite song is or what your favorite song is to sing to your little one! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DdgkvnsHjM
Hello everyone! It has been so long since the last time we wrote on our blog. That last time I logged in, we were just preparing for Kinley's birth. So, I guess you could say it’s been almost 19 months too long! Well, just so you know, I did have her and she is now 18 months old now. I'm sure you already knew that by following Ted or me on our social media sites. If you follow us anywhere but here, you will also know that we moved to Rochester, New York in July of 2014. I am not so sure what is the easiest, fastest or simplest way of talking about what has all happened within the last 19 months. ...so, I think a quick list will do the trick!
Until next time, Dawn We are getting so much closer to meeting Kinley!! We are only 18 days away from her due date! It feels like just yesterday that we found out we would be changing our family from two to three! I am very thankful that time has been moving so fast and often times finding myself wishing it would slow down so we could get everything ready. Speaking of getting everything ready, we are in full nesting mod! Now that I am done with school and our schedules have been slowing down, we have been spending lots of time cleaning and re-organizing our very tiny apartment. Thankfully, Ted is being a good sport about keeping up with all my cleaning and re-organizing. We finally have her room all put together! We are beyond thankful for the people who have given us their large items, which helped us save money to be able to buy the other little things we needed! We are also so thankful for everyone who has helped get us the things that Kinley needs! Sometimes I become overwhelmed by everyone's giving hearts and how amazed I am with everything by watching how God has and is providing for all of our needs. It is silly to think how we have sometimes worried and stressed about how we would be able to get everything that Kinley would need. Saying this, we have checked everything off our list but two items which were sold out at the store the other day! It feels wonderful to know when Kinley decides to come, she will have more than enough things! She is one very lucky girl and not many children are as blessed as her. Below are some pictures of the process of setting everything up and how all her things are and how everything is looks! You can click on them to make them bigger too! :) Until next time,
Dawn I think our first blog post should go out to our precious little one, Kinley Ann! Considering she is the reason we are starting a family blog, I think it is only right! We are so excited that we only have almost 5 more weeks until we get to meet this beautiful gift from God and time seems like it has been flying by! We had a doctors appointment today and she is doing great! I love feeling her movements daily and it amazes me how someone so small can be so strong! I recently had a beautiful baby shower in New York and we are so thankful for all the giving hearts there that helped us start up a huge stock pile of diapers and also lots of other goodies for Miss Kinley! It was so wonderful to see how many people already care and love her even if they have not yet met her! She is going to have one amazing set of friends in family when she decides to make her entrance into this world! While I was gone Ted repainted his "man cave" from Washington Redskins colors to pink and gray! It is so beautiful and I'm so thankful that he spent so much time doing it! It definitely has started to make things more real! A lot of people ask me how we came up with the name Kinley. When we found out she was a girl we had no idea what we would name her because we were so sure that we were going to have a boy. So, the name picking started from nothing and then grew to some different names. We started rhyming the names that we were considering in the car one day and I said "Kinley!" After this we would only call her by her name to see if we liked it and we both soon fell in love with the name! We came up with the middle name Ann after my grandma and Ted's mother. I told Ted that I really wanted her to have the same middle name as my grandma because I admire her so much for her strength, good heart and love for Jesus. Then, Ted said that would be perfect because his mom's middle name is Ann. We both agreed this would be the perfect middle name because his mom never named a girl and this way she could be apart of the naming process of her granddaughter! If you are curious and like to know what names mean and where the come from here is what Kinley means: Fair Haired Warrior. It has Irish origins. Until next time friends! Dawn |
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This blog will have two authors! Sometimes Ted will write and sometimes I will. So you never know who you will have until you start reading!
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