3 Months Old

Here she is at about 2 weeks old wearing that same top. It fits a lot better now.

Time, Please slow down! My little chunky monkey has been in this world exactly three months yesterday. I can't believe how much she has changed in three months.
We had her well baby checkup on Thursday and she now weighs almost 14 pounds and is 23 inches long! She is perfectly healthy and growing. She has just grown out of her newborn clothes. She can still slightly fit into a few things but it's a tight fit. Her looks have changed so much. She still looks a lot like her daddy but with more of my features.


She is showing us her little personality already and boy are we in trouble. She already has us wrapped around her finger. I'm sure it will only get worse. All she is going to have to do is give us her sad little look with her pouty lip and she can have whatever she wants. lol. She is so silly too. She loves to laugh at everything we do. Well at least the only way she knows how to laugh at the moment. She still hasn't quite pushed out that giggle yet but it's right on the verge.

She just started noticing her hands and I will catch her staring at them then she will put them in her mouth. And she is realized she can grab things with them. She is starting to grab onto things a little bit. She is not coordinated enough yet but it's definitely a start. Sometimes she sits on our lap while we eat and now she is able to grab our plate so we have to make sure to keep it farther away. And now she is grabbing onto the hanging toys on her bouncer. She just started doing that in the past few days. She gets really excited when she gets a hold of something and gets a little frustrated when she just can't get it. I'm excited to see what else we have in store with our silly little one.

Snow Day!

Today we got out first big winter snow since being here. It snowed pretty much all day and Jordan's classes got canceled due to the snow. We took advantage of it and went sledding with James and Heather and the boys.
Penny surprisingly likes the snow. I was worried what she would do but she ran around in it and started eating it. lol. It was pretty funny. Her legs are pretty short so she sunk into the snow a little bit.

We got some pretty sweet snow gear that we would never have any use for in Tucson. I was nice and warm and dry the whole time!

We went sledding across the street from us at Jordan's school. They have pretty nice hills to go down and it was packed. Everyone was out of school so they all had the same idea. The boys got pretty daring and did way better than I did. I pretty much screamed every time I went down. Caleb my five year old nephew told me that I screamed like a baby when we went down in the sled together. Haha. Silly boy.

And here is little Roman. He's almost two and he slowly warmed up to the idea of sledding. He watched everyone else a few times then wanted to try it. He loved it! He giggled the whole way down and eventually went down the sled by himself. Brave little boys. Jessalyn is going to have a lot of fun with her cousins when she is old enough.

Luckily we had Jessalyn's aunt Heather to hold her and keep her warm while mommy got to have some fun on the sled.

She was nice and cozy and bundled up thanks to Aunt Heather. It's so funny to think Jessalyn is going to grow up knowing snow and not knowing anything about living in the desert like I did.

Jordan got pretty daring too. He tried to go as fast as he possibly could. It was a nice work out and he was pretty tired after our snow day festivities.

I needed to take a little nursing break in the car with Jessalyn and decided to make it a photo op. Haha.

And she got pretty tired too.

Jessalyn at 12 Weeks

Jessalyn and I had a little mini photo shoot last night while daddy was at the movies with Uncle James and her cousins. Today she is 12 weeks old. I have no idea where the time is going. We keep telling her to slow down! I feel like every day she changes. She gets more and more beautiful each day. (Click on the pictures to see a larger view)
She smiles so much more now. My favorite is when she wakes up in the morning. I say "Good morning! I love you!" And she looks at me with this wide smile and tilts her head and moves her little arms so cute. It melts my heart every time. She still hasn't pushed out a giggle yet. She's trying so hard. It comes out more like a cough. I can't wait to hear her little baby giggles. She has been doing lots of baby talk. We have little conversations and she can get pretty vocal.


I knew I was going to be a protective mommy and not want anything to hurt my precious little baby. It's the worst feeling trying to comfort your baby from hurting when you're the one who hurt her. I was trying to cut her tiny little nails and when she moved her little finger really fast I cut a piece of skin. She immediately started screaming as her finger was bleeding. I can't even explain how bad I felt about it. I ran to the sink and rinsed her finger off then ran into the bedroom where Jordan was sleeping. I woke him up in tears telling him I cut her finger. He was half asleep and told me to get a band aid. I was freaking out and told him to look at it. I was thinking it was worse than it was. I was sure we needed to go to the ER for this tiny little cut. He tried to calm me down and took her from my arms and put a huge band aid on her tiny finger. There I am crying telling her I'm so sorry and she sitting on daddy's lap laughing at me. lol. She was totally fine. I was the one crying and she was the one smiling. I felt like the worst mother all day long. Her finger is just fine now with a tiny scab on the tip. I apologized to her about a billion times that day. Haha.
We were so blessed in 2010. It was such an eventful year. From getting pregnant in January and moving to Kansas in April then the birth of our daughter in October. It has been the most exciting and life changing year in our lives together so far. We are so anxious to see what challenges and excitement 2011 has to bring!

Matching Jammies

Aunt Heather made some matching PJ's for her boys and Jessalyn. And Uncle James wanted some pants too. So now they area all matching in their cozy monster jammies.
Here's silly cousin Roman. He wanted my camera so he could take pictures himself.

Jessalyn's jammies were so cute and tiny compared to everyone elses. And Heather put some flowers on them for a girly touch.
They are so warm and cozy. She loved them so much she passed on daddy's lap.

Thank you Aunt Heather!

10 Weeks Old

Jessalyn is going to be 10 weeks tomorrow. I can't believe it. Jordan and I told her to slow down and stop growing for a little while. We wish she could stay a baby for two years and then start getting bigger. Haha. She is so alert and loves to watch us. She started smiling a lot more this week. She wakes up with a huge smile on her face and sometimes when you talk she thinks it's pretty funny and smiles. It looks like she is trying very hard to laugh. I'm sure little baby giggles are coming up soon.
Another thing she has been doing a lot this week is sucking on her hands. I try to give her a binky but she prefers her hands more. They must taste pretty yummy. I tried to see if she could suck her thumb but not quite. With all this hand sucking maybe she might turn into a thumb sucker.

And as you can see as a lady said out at a restaurant the other day, "She doesn't miss a meal!" lol. Look at those cute arm rolls, and chubby cheeks and double chin. I love chubby babies! I was a pretty chunky baby so she's following in mommy's footsteps.

She is doing great sleeping at night. She doesn't completely sleep through the night yet but she does normally sleep about ten or more hours which is great for me! She wakes up to eat about two or three times at night. She doesn't completely wake up. She starts squirming and makes little noises and that's how I know she is hungry so she eats a little then falls right back to sleep. We have a routine that we started at about four weeks. She gets a bath every night at around 8 or 9 then she gets her sleepy time lotion and into her jammies. We get into bed with her blankey she usually nurses until she falls asleep. We haven't skipped a day since we started and it's working great for us. I think it's her favorite part of the day. She is so much fun. I love just hanging out and having little baby conversations with her.

Oh the drama!

I've been debating whether or not I wanted to blog about this but I decided that it's part my whole journey into motherhood. Now that I am feeling so much better I thought I would finally make a post about it. Just a warning- it is a little TMI.

At about three weeks post partum I was sitting and nursing Jessalyn when I felt something leaking down my leg. I thought I peed my pants or something so I got up quickly, put Jessalyn in her bouncer and ran to the bathroom. I didn't pee myself thank goodness but blood was dripping down my leg like crazy. I know you are supposed to bleed after you have a baby but with the amount of blood that was still coming out it was not normal. I yelled for Jordan and told him what was going on. He immediately called my Dr. but I knew it was bad so I told him we might as well go to the hospital.

We got to the ER and got an ultrasound and they checked me to see what was going on. They noticed in the ultrasound that there was possibly still a little bit of placenta that was leftover. I was instructed to make an appointment with my midwife in the morning to see what she says to do.

That following day I went in to my midwife and she prescribed me some medicine to take for a few days that was supposed to help flush everything out. She wanted to avoid any kind of surgery and said this was probably going to work.

Fast forward to about a week later, I woke up to go to the bathroom and noticed I was laying in a puddle of something. I ran to the bathroom really fast and was leaking blood everywhere. There was a huge trail of blood from the bed to the bathroom and all over the bathroom floor. I yelled for Jordan and he woke up fast and in a panic. We were both shocked that this was happening again and it seemed a bit worse than last time. Jordan said the bathroom looked like a crime scene. I started getting really nervous so I rushed him out of the house with a towel wrapped around me and rushed to the hospital. We ran red lights and everything. It was about 1 am so luckily there wasn't any traffic. I rushed into the ER and was immediately seen because of how bad I was bleeding. I got yet another ultrasound and was checked again. They decided that I should stay in the hospital over night so that I could get a D&C in the morning. Jordan and Jessalyn stayed over night with me until he had to go to his paper route in the morning. That morning the Dr. came in and informed me that he looked at my ultrasound and didn't think it was big enough or worth having the surgery to take it out. He said that was probably the end of it and it could have been the pills I was given that was making me bleed again. I went to a follow up about a week later and the same Dr. told me that he read it wrong but nothing was in there anymore. I was really relieved everything was better and I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

I was so wrong. About another week later I was sitting on the couch with Jessalyn and Jordan enjoying a nice Saturday morning. I got up to go to the bathroom and I instantly felt blood gushing and running down my leg. I hurried to the bathroom and hoped it would stop. But it literally kept pouring out. I changed my blood soaked pants and hoped maybe the blood would slow down...but it soaked through what I was wearing again. I went in and told Jordan we needed to make yet another trip to the ER. So frustrated we both started packing Jessalyn up to go again. But this time it was worse. The blood wouldn't stop and I started feeling really light headed. Jordan told me to hurry and go down to the car but I knew I wouldn't make it so I laid down in middle of our dining room hoping I wouldn't pass out. I started freaking out so Jordan decided to call 911. Luckily the ambulance came fast. They took my blood pressure and it was pretty low when I sat up. So they strapped me in and rolled me outside which was pretty embarrassing. Some of our neighbors were out and were watching them take me into the ambulance for the second time since we have lived there. They were probably wondering what's wrong with this poor girl. lol.

When I arrived at the ER the Dr. decided that getting the D&C was going to be the best option at this point. What's so frustrating about it is I should have had the surgery the first time around instead of going through all of this three times. I was prepped for surgery and rolled up to the OR. I have never had any type of surgery before so this was very scary for me no matter how small or fast the procedure was. At the same time I was happy to finally get it over and done with. All I really remember after being rolled into the OR was having the oxygen over my face and trying to breath as I passed out quickly from the anesthesia. The next thing I knew I was laying in the recovery room in a haze and the only thing I could say was "My feet are cold." haha. It took me forever to wake up. I heard everything going on around me but couldn't seem to wake up. When I finally woke up I felt so drunk and delirious. I was luckily allowed to go home right after. Everything was pretty much a blur from that point until the next morning.

I'm so happy the surgery finally took care of the problem. For the week after I was living in fear that I would wake up in a pool of blood again. But time has passed and everything is so much better. We were really being tested with all of this. But now we are back on our feet and I've been getting out of the house and enjoying things again. We are having tons of fun with our smiley baby and so happy all of that is behind us now.

Congrats James!

Jordan's brother James just graduated from Cleveland Chiropractic College. We couldn't be more excited for him and his family. It was a long road for them but they finally made it.

Being at his graduation made us so excited for us to be in the same position in about 5 years from now. Looking at them really gave us hope that it is going to happen and will be worth it :)

Mom and dad are very proud!

Jessalyn was good through the whole graduation but fell asleep at the end. But she still had to get a picture with her uncle James! Haha.

I stole these pictures from Heather.

We are so happy for this beautiful family. They deserve all the best that is in store for them.

Congrats again Dr. James Sheffer III!