COUSINS

Being from a pretty large family I grew up with a lot of cousins. I remember going to family functions for holidays and birthdays from the time I was very young. During summers we would get together with our second cousins for annual camping trips and family reunions. Some of these memories still put a smile on my face. We are all a little older now and have our own families and children, but we do try to get together and see each other for holidays. Now that I am older I have come to realize how important family is. I am glad we had the opportunity to be a close family. I now want to make sure that Kyle has this same opportunity. My sister and I were blessed to have boys that are 4.5 months apart, and although they are not very old yet it has been a blast getting them together. I really hope that Kyle and Brody will have many opportunities to make lots of great memories together.

Hand / Eye Coordination

This week Kyle is really noticing his surroundings. He is using his hands to hit the toys on his rocker. It is amazing to watch his actually think, look and then hit an object that he sees. Every day seems to bring a new action. I think that it is an amazing thing to watch how a human learns the smallest things from the very beginning. The ability to react if someone smiles at you to smile back. To laugh at something that you think is funny. Stuff that I have just taken for granted are things that I had to learn too. I know that it will get complex and we will be learning algebra one day, but I will definately enjoy the process that we take to get to that point. I have incuded a little snip it of Kyle playing with his toys.

Important Things! :-)

Over the 3 months that I have been home with Kyle we were able to visit with friends and family. I thought I would share a few pictures from our travels. I am very blessed to have lots of family and friends. I am very lucky to be blessed with grandparents and Kyle is now blessed to have grandparents and great grandparents.

"The most important things in life are your friends, family, health, good humor and a positive attitude towards life. If you have these then you have everything!"

Being a Mommy

I want to take a minute to let everyone know how much I love being a mommy. I have always heard of how wonderful it is to be a mom. Now that I am one I understand what everyone was talking about. It is amazing! The phrase that I have heard over and over "you do not realize how you can love something so much", is so very true. Kids are very special, and in my case he has seemed to make life all so different. I love to wake up and see him every day. I make sure that we make every minute count. I know that it has not been very long but I know that this is really a wonderful thing. His little smile makes me laugh and his little tears almost make me cry. I know that he will turn into a big kid one day, but I have heard that this feeling does not go away. I am definately looking forward to many years of being a mommy! :-)

Kyle's First Bath

I never thought I would be so excited for a bath to happen. After 11 days the cord finally fell off! It was bath day...:-) Our first bath went very well. Kyle was very excited and also very curious as to what was happening to him. I have included a snip it of his first bath for you below. I hope you enjoy it as much we did....:-)

O' Holy Night

Christmas was extra special this year with the two new babies in our family. As most of you know my sister had a baby at the end of July and his name is Brody. Brody and Kyle had there first Christmas together as cousins. We visited with their great Grandma Freeman and then spent Christmas Eve night with Gramma Huth. We had snacks, a nice dinner and hung out in our pajamas. Normally our family gets together for Christmas eve, but with all the little ones that were born so close to Christmas this year we did not have it. Hopefully next year we can all get together again.

Christmas day we spent with Pat's family. Traditionally Pat's mom is in Michigan for Christmas, but this year she came around New Years. She was able to meet Kyle and we were still able to celebrate the holidays together. Overall it was definately a wonderful occasion and one to remember. Since Kyle was born 2 weeks before I had a few themed outfits that he was able to wear at Christmas. I made sure that over the corse of two days he was able to wear them all.

Our First Night Home

We departed from Wyandotte Hospital around 6:30PM on Wednesday. I had brought Kyle a winter fram and a couple of outfits for our trip home. I was disappointed that the winter fram that I had picked out did not fit him! Kyle being on the small side when he was born only fit into the newborn pants and the hospital onsie..LOL! We made it work as you can see in the picture above. I was pretty nervous to have no nurses, who by the way were awesome, at home. I was also a little nervous to introduce the new baby to our animals! The introduction did not go bad at all. Shilo our shepherd mix was worse than Kyle the first night. She stayed up the majority of the night watching over him and wimpering! She is now his watch dog and good pal.

My Birth Story

My Birth Story...
December 8, 2008

I went to my 39 week (last) ultrasound at Oakwood Hospital and was told that the baby was progressing just fine but my water was low. I was immediately sent to Wyandotte Hospital to be induced. I remember having a range of emotions driving to the hospital. Everything from excitement to sheer panic. I arrived at Wyandotte, composed myself and got my stuff together that had been in the car already. Thank God for being on top of things! I had called a few people and waited as I was checked in. Pat met me shortly with the remainder of our stuff, he of course was nervous but held his composure very well. My doctor was already at the hospital waiting for me. She told me she was going to take this slow because we were not in an emergency situation. The remainder of that day they had just given me gel and let me get a good night sleep.

December 9, 2008

Six AM came very early as my doctor came in to begin pitocin. I was scared because I had heard that you begin to feel alot of labor pains when they use pitocin. I really did not feel any different until my doctor broke my water at 8:15am. It seemed to go real fast. The onset of contractions followed by more and more pain. I opted for the epidural and of course that did get rid of the contraction pain. My body seemed to want to push with every contraction after that. I remember her telling me that I was ready and the time was now. I only pushed for 16 minutes until I was able to meet my baby boy for the first time. At 1:46 PM Kyle Ryan was born! He was so beautiful that I did not feel any pain, or care what was going on post birth. We were lucky enough to get video and pictures of this blessed event. Although for a short time I thought the pain was going to over take me it was all worth it in the end. The rest of the night was wonderful. I began my journey of being a mother to Kyle.

December 10, 2008

Early (7am) my doctor came in and told me that I could go home any time today. Pat and I went back and forth about when we should go home. We could of stayed another night if we wanted, but why prolong what we will have to do when we go home. BE PARENTS.... and the story continues....