One.Month.Old

I'm a couple days late! Our sweet Natalie is one month old!

We have had quite the month!

We brought Natalie home on a Thursday afternoon and that evening it started raining. And it didn't stop. It literally did not stop raining until late Monday. It rained for four days straight. Record rainfall in Oklahoma. It rained so much it pulled the whole state out of a four-year-long drought. Something like 19in of rain in the month of May - and most of it was that weekend. Now why have I mentioned all this rain? Well if you know what its like to take a newborn home - slightly chaotic - and be stuck inside the house with an almost two year old it made us all a little crazy!! But our sweet Natalie was a trooper through all that crazy. For the most part, she was a mellow happy baby that weekend who was figuring this whole being in the world thing out!

Natalie's first week or so home we spent time outside [after the monsoon rains stopped!], visited the pool for big sister, ventured out to dinner, and thoroughly enjoyed our Natalie.

She is quite the [welcomed] opposite of her sister - at this newborn stage at least! She has a lot of nice quiet awake time, she only wakes up once or twice at night [most nights!], and she is pretty relaxed. She does have some reflux trouble and isn't always happy after mealtimes, but that is quite minor compared to what we dealt with when Evelyn was a newborn.

We had great visitors in Natalie's first month. My parents came down when she was about 2 weeks old and stayed for a whole week. My sister Katie was able to come over from Nashville and hang out with us too! We went to explore the Oklahoma Salt Plains and the OKC Zoo. I bawled like a baby when my mom & dad had to leave us!

Jordan's parents came down the following week along with his sister Megan & her boyfriend Caleb. We hung around Enid and they took in all the sights & sounds of living on a busy Air Force base. We hung out at the pool a bunch while Grandma got to spend time with Natalie inside (it was 95 & humid all weekend!)

We were certainly blessed by our family making the long drive to meet Natalie and visit with us!

This month went by in the blink of an eye and I'm sure the months will continue to move quickly past us.

Natalie's sweet smiles & her sweet personality bring me so much joy. She is starting to find her little voice and having even more awake time. I can't wait to watch her continue to grow and change as the months go by. She is just a bundle of love!

Love you sweet girl! 

The First Days

So here is our daughter....Evelyn June. She weighed 7lbs 4oz and was 20 in long! She came a whole week late, much to my dismay. Now, looking back I am very grateful she was a week late because that led to her being a very good nurser and she sleeps like a rockstar (*sometimes*).

The first day in the hospital was quite a blur of visitors, getting used to my numb leg and trying to wrap our minds around the fact that we have a daughter! After she made her quick entrance to the world she decided she wanted to let us know that she has a voice. She cried for about the first hour of her life! I thought it was great, I knew she would adjust to the world quite well! You have to have a voice to be heard as you grow up ( I might regret saying this later on). Jordan, the proud daddy, gave her a good first bath. He did such a good job with it being the first time he has really been around/touched a newborn baby!

When she first came out, we didn't really know what we were going to name her. We had a couple girl names narrowed down, but we wanted to get a good look at her once she was cleaned up and then we would decide. After studying her features and having some alone time with the three of us, we decided on Evelyn June. Evelyn we have always loved and it happens to be my pappy's aunt's name (my great-great aunt) and June was my great-grandmothers name. I was lucky to know my great grandma until she died when I was in high school, so naming our daughter after her has some extra special meaning to me!

After failing my first attempt to get out of bed (almost passed out), and getting more fluid and having a little more time in our labor & delivery room, we were moved up to our post-partum room! And boy did the visitors start coming then! My co-workers were excite to come up and visit us, as was family and friends. Evelyn is the first girl on either side of Jordan and I's families, so she is quite the hit, people were very excited to buy us clothes and other fun girl things!

Evelyn adjusted to eating and being in the world very well. Our first night in the hospital with her we were very anxious to get some sleep. It was Monday night and we had been up since Sunday morning at 9am! We had been running on adrenaline for 36 hours and were about to crash. With a little baby who wasn't quite full and would love to have a bit more in her belly than I was able to give her, we were SO thankful for the nursery and the nurses willing to watch over her for us while we rested!

Family of 3 heading home for the first time! 

The next morning we woke up and felt ready to take on the world (or so we thought!) My doctor came in and since things were going so well with me and with Evelyn, as long as the pediatrician approved Evelyn to go home, we were going to be home free that day! She was born early enough in the morning that 24 hours old for her worked out well for us to go home in the early afternoon. I was a little sad we weren't going to be able to use the nursery again that night to get one last night of good sleep, but I was sooo excited to get home and start figuring life out as a family of 3!

Evelyn in her car seat for the first time

We were so grateful for the quick & uneventful hospital stay enjoying family & friends visiting with our beautiful little daughter. We are absolutely smitten with her and just couldn't wait to start our life at home!