Monday, December 28, 2009

Introducing Quinn Alexander Smith


Quinn joined our family Dec 28th at 1:31 am. He weighed 7 lbs 7 oz and was 20 in long. We were taking the Christmas tree down when my contractions started getting more noticeable and closer together. Around 10:30 they were 4-6 min apart and we headed for the hospital. I was disappointed when they checked me and I was only at a two, but I shouldn't have been because 45 min later I was at a 4. They started an epidural about 12:20, but 20 minutes later I was at an 8 and the epidural still wasn't working. They came in at 12:50 and placed a second epidural but by the time it was time to push I was just barely starting to feel my legs go numb and still feeling every contraction, even temperature on my belly. So needless to say, I did something I NEVER EVER thought I would EVER do. And that is have a baby naturally. Not by choice of course. I'd take this experience, 4 hours with very little paid medication, over the 26 hours completely drugged any day. We are both doing great, and I've been up and walking around all day, even took a shower...needless to say this has been a MUCH better birthing experience. We are so glad that Quinn is here healthy and strong.







Monday, December 21, 2009

Christmas at Stone Mountain

We went to Stone Mountain again on Saturday. They sure know how to make it feel like Christmas. With all the lights and even snow we really were feeling the Christmas spirit.

The train ride was great. Lots of lit figures, and a southern telling of the first Christmas. Complete with the Angles that say "Hey y'all, a baby is born" And the shepherds say "Ya reckon we should go find the baby" It was a classic southern experience, and so nice to have some Christ in Christmas.




They had a parade with Mr. and Mrs. Clause, and the best part....the Snow Fairy who actually makes it snow. Kyler was in heaven, he's been seeing snow in cartoons for the last few days and was so excited to see it for himself. We sure miss the snow, so it was fun to pretend for a while.



Thursday, December 10, 2009

There's no place like home for the holidays...

I love my home around the holidays, their's just something about lights that make me happy...



My 37 week pic...two weeks left after tomorrow (give or take!)

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

The Busy Month of November

The month of November is always a busy one. We started by celebrating Brian's 30th birthday. We had a group of friends from Brian's work over for an appetizer/dessert evening. We made lots of yummy food including: Sausage stuffed s, spinach artichoke dip, brochette, guac, cheesecake, tarts, apple crisp, and homemade egg nog ice cream...yummy!


My birthday came the following week. I woke to strawberry cream cheese crepes for breakfast, and then had a blast making pies for Thanksgiving. Brian wasn't suppose to give me anything for my Birthday because wanted to combine our birthday's and Christmas, and then save for a piano that we'd get sometime next year. He surprised me with the piano bench, and then totally shocked me when he told me the rest of the piano was in the car....here's proof.

I absolutely LOVE it! It's been so fun to play, and has brought the spirit of music back into our home.
Thanksgiving was GREAT! We were all still getting over being sick, but that didn't stop us from eating like crazy. It was my first Thanksgiving were I actually cooked all the food and was "in charge" so to say. We celebrated at Phillip and Jamie's house, so it was nice to have family to be with. I loved how the table turned out. Very festive.


After turkey nap...he's NEVER fallen asleep on a couch like this before, it was so cute.


My sisters and I had a great time at the zoo with Kyler before they left. We loved watching the lion roar, the gorilla's wrestle and the otters being fed. Kyler of course loved the carousel and the train.


What a great month!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Happy Birthday My Love

Happy Birthday My Love!!
Some things I love about Brian:
* He makes me laugh
* He loves cream cheese as much as I do
* He makes me feel like all my dreams can come true
* He has the most amazing heart...I wish everyone knew his heart like I do
* He gets excited when I get the itching to have a dinner party
* He loves the outdoors
* He's taken me on so many adventures, I know our life will never be boring
* He tells me I'm beautiful, and somehow I believe him every time he says it.
* He's the best Daddy ever
* He listens to me and is supportive
I'm so glad your mine, I hope you have a perfect day!

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Stone Mountain Park

So we went to Stone Mountain Park last Saturday while Brian's parents were here. We had a great time. For those who don't know what Stone Mountain is, it's kinda like Mount Rushmore, but for The South. There is this big granite monolith that has three of the confederate generals carved on it, and then they built an amusement park (kind of) around it. We had a blast!

Brian had fun doing the high ropes course. I didn't get to watch him do much of it because Kyler had bigger and better things to do, but Brian said it was a lot of fun.

Kyler LOVED the train, the kid was in heaven, we could have done it all day and he would have been happy.

Grandpa, Savannah and Kyler watching the train pull in, the whistle was pretty loud.

Getting ready for Snow Mountain, in the winter months they make their own snow and make a big sledding hill. How fun is that!

They have a big tram that takes you to the top of the granite mountain. It has a pretty incredible view.


We also enjoyed the big ball barn, eating lunch on the lawn, the Indian pow-wow, and a 4-D movie. We plan on going back several times during the year. Great family fun.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Halloween and Amicalola Falls

Here are a few pics from Halloween. My nephew Ethan was baptised on the same day, so we spent the day playing with their family. Kyler was a monkey as you saw before.I was a butterfly...lame I know....and the grim reaper with the monkey. Brian had another wonderful Halloween. We went to a neighborhood party and he had a blast scaring all the teenage s, and trying NOT to scare all the kids. He just walks in the room and everyone starts talking about him, he's like the Santa Clause of Halloween and loves every minute of it.


During the day we went to a place called Amicalola falls, it was SO PRETTY!!! It was pretty cold because it had rained all night and that morning, but it stopped raining long enough for us to enjoy the beautiful autumn leaves.


It was a great day. Thanks to all who came.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Ward Halloween Party

We had a great time at our ward Halloween party. We all dressed up, but we only got pics of Kyler, typical. Brian was his very scary 10 foot Grim Reaper, and I was a clown. We'll get better pics on actual Halloween.

Kyler loved bobbing for apples, the bean bag toss, and the basketball toss. Brian and I were in charge of the doughnut eating contest which was a lot of fun. The evening wrapped up with a chili cook off and trunk or treating. It was a busy fun filled night.We just put Kyler to bed in his costume, he was so tired. When we checked on him when we went to bed this is what we found. So cute!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Surgery

So Kyler had surgery yesterday. He's had an umbilical hernia since he was little, the hope was that it would close up on it's own. They like to wait until their two to do surgery, and have to have it done before their 3 if it doesn't close up on its own. Kylers was so small that the surgeon was worried that the little bits of intestine that stick out would get stuck, then things would become an emergency situation, and we didn't want that to happen, so we opted to go ahead with the surgery.
So we couldn't feed him anything after dinner on Sunday, and his surgery was scheduled for 1:00pm Monday. I could give him apple juice and water, that's it. You can imagine how long that held him over. Poor guys was supper cranky by the time we got to the surgery center. He kept looking in the diaper bag for treats, he just didn't get why I wasn't feeding him, I felt terrible.

The surgeon ended up having an emergency procedure to do, so we waited for quite some time, but they gave Kyler some loopy juice to help with the anxiety. He was hilarious! When we checked in they put a hospital bracelet on and he hated the thing, the completely tore his first one off and they had to give him another one. But once the loopy juice took effect he thought his bracelet was the coolest things ever. He also had a blast playing with a hair net thing. He kept putting it over is face and laughing. Brian had fun playing the "touch this" game and watching him completely miss his target. It was nice to have some relaxed laughing time with him before he had to go. Then we put him on the stretcher with three nice nurses and watched him roll down the hall, he just waved...it was so cute and so sad all at the same time.

Then the wait. They surgery was actually really short 15-20 min, I can't imagine waiting for hours, 20 min was long enough. Everything went fine, we went into the recovery room and Kyler was one cranky little boy. He was still pretty out of it, so there wasn't much we could do to comfort him, he kept trying to pull his IV out, and pull his bracelet off again. It was hard to have to hold him down and comfort him at the same time. Once they got him all unhooked and ready to go we were anxious to get him outside to see if we could get him to stop crying. No such luck, he was just mad at the world. So we put him in his car seat and drove as fast as was legal (not fast enough). He screamed the whole way home, he hated being strapped down in his car seat. He kept arching back and I kept thinking....."eeee....don't pop your stitches please...." When we got home I unbuckled him and he flung himself on the floor of the car. Sigh, I felt so helpless. We gave him some space, and then Brian went for a long walk with him, it was a nice day and we hoped the sunshine would help. When they got back he was still whimpering, but at least he wasn't screaming. Finally he let me sit on the couch with him and was happy watching cars.

Brian then set out to get he and I food, and fill Kylers pain medication. He got the run around on where he could fill the prescription, so two hours later he got home. I felt so bad for him, thanks Brian for dealing with all that crap when you really wanted to be home with us. While Brian was gone I finally looked at the bandage and got a little worried. It is just a big clear plastic bandage, but is was full of lots of bright red blood. I was pretty sure it didn't look like that when we left the hospital. So then I was worried that he'd popped his stitches. I paged the surgeon and he said to fold up some gauze and tape it over the plastic bandage just to add more pressure to the wound. Then tonight we will remove the plastic bandage and put a large waterproof band aid over it. So hopefully that goes well. We weren't suppose to touch the bandage till his follow up appt next week. So we'll see how that goes tonight.

Then we all just watched movies on the couch and then carried Kyler to his bed about 9:00. We layed him down and just sat with him until he fell asleep. It didn't take long. Brian and I were exhausted and headed to bed shortly after. I thought for sure I'd be up with him most of the night, because he's a tummy sleeper, but he actually slept all night! I could believe it. I kept waking up and turning the monitor up way high so I could hear his breathing just to make sure.

It still hurts him to move his tummy this morning, he doesn't like sitting up, or the process of picking him up or laying him down. I assume because he automatically flexes his tummy muscles. We'll just chill this morning, and then I'll see if I can get him walking around a bit. I'm thinking that some of it is just feeling the bandage there, especially with the added pressure of the gauze. So hopefully he'll get use to it and things will get better .

Thanks to all of you who kept him in your prayers. I know they helped!

Friday, October 23, 2009

Pumpkin Carving

We carved pumpkins for family night the other night. We had a great time. This was the first time doing it just us. We usually do it at least twice with our families, but it was fun to do our own thing this year. I sure missed how creative my family is though....we were thinking of you!

I think Kylers favorite part was picking out the pumpkins, even if it was just at a grocery store.



Kyler had no fears about cleaning out the inside. He loved it! These pics are terrible, our camera is on it's way out.



Tada! We had fun putting them outside and sitting on the grass and playing while we ate pumpkin cream cheese bars...mmmmm. It was a great night. I'm so thankful for my family!!!