Cecily is HERE!

Just a quick post to announce that our sweet Cecily Blanche is finally here!

Born Monday, July 5th, at 8:01am via planned C-section.  She weighed a healthy 7 lbs 14 oz, and measured 20 inches long.  Head full of dark brown hair, which surprised hubby and I--Knox had NO hair when he was born!  :)  She's a wonderful baby, and rarely cries unless we're changing her clothes or diaper.  We actually have to wake HER up every four hours to eat!

This past week has been an easy transition, due only to my wonderful hubby and amazing parents being here to help out with Knox, grocery shopping, cooking, clothes washing, etc.  Sweet Brother and Lindsey came for the weekend to love on both Knox and Cecily.  It meant the world to have all of them here.  Knox went home with Ma Jack & Big Daddy, then on to Grammy & Grandaddy's until Thursday or Friday.  That way, he gets a little "vacation" while I continue to heal since I currently can't even pick him up.  After his vacation, he along with Grammy & Grandaddy come see us for the weekend so they can have some quality time with baby girl.

We're definitely blessed with amazing family, as well as wonderful friends.  Jeff, Bridgette & Holly all were able to come meet Cecily in the hospital.  Jill drove 2 1/2 hours down for a Friday visit, and the Bowlings (Jayma, BJ & presh Miss Molly) drove 3 hours over for a Saturday visit.  One more friend may be able to stop by at the end of this month to meet Cecily, but we're waiting on the approval.  :)  Now, we just have to wait several more weeks until we go to the grandparents' houses before Cecily is able to meet more friends--and we CAN'T HARDLY WAIT to see them!

Anywho, that's a quick run down of this amazing week in our life.  Gotta go love on baby girl.  :)

Month 8 Down--one more to go!

So, I didn't get around to doing more than one post last month.  Sorry!  We're on the downhill end of yet ANOTHER cold--this one being the worst I've had.  Coughing all through the night, and little sleep for the past 5 nights.  Not. Fun.

Anywho, I've taken my 8 month pic about a week late again.  This is the last Knox comparison pic I have--didn't think to take one at the end.  :(  Oh well, I was huge-antical.   Today is week 35, and we scheduled Cecily's birth date:  JULY 5th!  That's in four weeks from today and I got the doctor I requested to do the C-section (he's not even on call, but "made time" for me)!  Wish I could kick this cold to get a few more things made for her before she gets here.  Total weight gain for me is currently at 21!  Totally in the doctor recommended frame, and if I keep up what I did the past two weeks (2 lbs in 2 weeks--exact amount I'm supposed to gain here at the end!!!), I should only be at 25 total pounds!  That is HALF OF THE WEIGHT I gained with Knox.  Crazy, but I'll take it!  :)  Insane difference in each pregnancy!

So without further delay, I give you the gigantic pregnancy pics:

You can't really tell from the Knox pic, but my belly was REALLY low and football shaped.  With Ceci, I'm definitely more "out there" (as my parents would say :)  and round.

I do have nursery pics, and will post...sometime.  :)  Happy Monday!

7 Months!

I'm about a week later than my normal monthly pregnancy post, but better late than never.  I've been crazy busy with work, so hopefully now that I'm slowing a bit, I can post a few more things.  I'm also working on Cecily's room--crib skirt and duvet cover for the queen/full bed are done.  Just bed skirt, crib sheet, pillows, curtains and some artwork are left.  I'd love to make her a few outfits and some burp cloths--just hope I can get it all in these next NINE WEEKS!  Eeekk!

Anywho, here's my picture.  Warning:  the Knox pics are of some whale that invaded my body.  Oh and I had my hair cut over the weekend, which I love, but didn't really bother to fix this AM.

To date, my official weight gain with Cecily is only 11 lbs, though I think I've gained about 4 in the last week.  Not sure my exact weight gain with Knox, but it had to be somewhere around 35-40 lbs at this point.  Crazy.  Other current preggo facts:  she's SUPER LOW, as Knox was.  Constant pressure "down there", and head in my pelvic bone, like Knox as well.  Only one noticeable bout of Braxton Hicks, but almost constant round ligament pain.  Lower back hurts when I sit up-right for long periods of time, and I can feel my hips "loosening" for the labor I won't have to go through.

Saw sweet Cecily's face today.  The body attached to that face is already 4 lbs 4 oz, according to her measurements.  Thankful to the C-section, I won't have to worry about how big she might get.  It's just crazy since Knox was only 6 lb 7 oz, being 3 days late!

Anywho, hopefully it won't be almost 5 weeks until my next post!  Maybe I can get her room done before then to share pics!

Starting the Nursery

We're starting the nursery process.  Keith will be painting Cecily and Knox's rooms a yellowish cream color while Knox and I are away next week (getting the house ready for a possible move in the near future).  Cecily's furniture will be an antique, white set of my grandmothers, but for the time being we're keeping the queen, dark wood bed currently in the spare room.  Mainly for our parents' to have a space to sleep while they're visiting after Cecily's birth.  Knox's crib is a light wood, which I hope will fit well with the queen bed.  I would love to find a dresser that could stay with the bed, so that when we do happen to move, they can stay together in a spare room.

I'm trying to find a decor that will look great with yellow walls and wood furniture, that can translate to a light green room with white furniture.  I'm going to incorporate both colors, with many shades of pink and purple.  My dark color was originally going to be black, but now I'm leaning more towards brown.  I received the first piece of artwork for her room, and couldn't be more thrllled.  Already have it matted and framed.  I found the print of the water color alphabet on Etsy (I'm infatuated, and not just because I have a storefront there).  This girl offers some beautiful, reasonably printed watercolor prints.  Just be ready to wait at least a week or so for your order to arrive.

I think I'm going to lean towards a mix retro/mod and dainty florals--a nice eclectic mix.  I bought a duvet at Ikea for $15, a rusty orange and white.  Don't know if I'll keep that with the white furniture, but I'll make it work for the time being.  I found a really easy tutorial online to make crib sheets and changing pad cover.  I'll make the curtains--bubble shade, maybe?  I need to find a little posh rug and some sort of side table if room allows.  I'll paint her a pic and maybe hang a shelf.  I know I'm rambling, but you'll see the process as it happens, I'm sure.

Anywho, hope you have a wonderful weekend!  We should--I'm hoping to get my hands dirty in the yard!!!  YAY!

 

Print in the frame.  I should have lightened it--color much darker than in person.  Matte is more of a bright pink.  Wish they had a lighter pink one, but it will work.

 

The duvet cover--looks totally different in person than it does on line.  But you get the jest.

21 Weeks!

Today I'm 21 weeks, and only 18 to go!  We had our last "official" ultrasound today, but will more than likely have a 3D ultrasound in two months or so.  We had one with Knox, so we'll have to have one for her!

Cecily is STILL a girl, and a healthy one so far.  She's measuring just under a pound at 13 ounces, which is just shy of typical weight.  Her heartbeat is 140--pretty consistent from a month ago at 146.  She has all hands, feet, kidneys, chambers of her heart and a cute little nose.  It's not quite as turned up as Knox's was at his 20 weeks, so I'm guessing she's going to look more like her Daddy.  :)  She's crazy active, at all times of the day.  I don't know if I'm able to feel her much more than Knox for the fact that she's that much more active, that this is my second pregnancy or that I've gained much less weight than I did with him.  I just hope it's not a foreboding of a hyper little girl!  She kicked or punched at both the ultrasound tech AND the doctor today--both asked if I felt the kick that they saw or heard during my checkup.

 

I labeled this one--it's just a double image, so only one side is labeled.  Her little hands are up by her face.

 

All is well with me--I've gained 4 pounds this past month, putting my total weight gain to 2 pounds (I actually lost 6 pounds last month, more than likely due to the nasty stomach bug that put me under my starting weight.)  That makes me beyond happy--at this point with Knox, I think I may have gained 15-20 pounds!  MOO!  I, sadly, gained 50 pounds with Knox, and I'm making a point to NOT let that happen again.  You'll be able to tell a huge (no pun intended) difference in my two pregnancies from the comparison pics starting in this month.

Anywho, Happy Monday AND HAPPY MARCH!  (February and I just don't get along so well!)

Up To Speed With This Blogging Slacker

Just thought I'd get y'all (all of 6 readers, prolly) caught up with our goings-on the past few weeks.

• Snow was awesome the weekend of Valentine's Day, complete with a visit from Grammy & Grandaddy.  Knox LOVES the snow and might love sledding down our little hills even more.

• I've been working on a few things for Cecily, and some things will soon be available via my Etsy Storefront so check out my Creative Blog for info when items will be listed

• Knox knows where Cecily is:  if focused, he'll lift my shirt and put his finger in my belly button

• Knox has his 5th or 6th ear infection.  His NP now thinks that he will need tubes due to the number of infections, his delayed/chopped speech (by chopped I mean he normally only says the first syllable of each word) and his off sense of balance.  We head back to the ENT on March 9th.

• Due to the infection, he's on a fourth type of antibiotics.  We're on type number four due to his rash/whelp reaction to other antibiotics.  His NP and an immunologist she consulted with believed his reaction to be associated with a red dye in the other antibiotics, and not the antibiotics themselves.  We thought we were in the clear with this one, a non-red dye antibiotic, but he started his rash/whelp reaction today.  Looks like a trip to the allergist, in addition to the ENT.

• I'll be 21 weeks on Monday (only 18 to go to C-section!!!), and we get to see Cecily again.  This would actually be the gender reveal if we hadn't already done so!  I COULD NOT have waited this long!  ;)

That's about it for now.  I'll leave you with a few more pics of our snow day!  Hope you have an amazing weekend!

 

 

  

Just call me Momma-Can't-Wait

So I've been telling a few fibs since Saturday, and left out a little chunk of Saturday's events of celebrating my 30th birthday.  :)

I decided I couldn't wait until March 1st to find out Baby #2's gender, so I made an appointment at a local 3D/4D Ultrasound office (not linked to our doctor's office) for this past Saturday afternoon.  Keith and I went, while Knox napped under the supervision of our neighbors, and found out that our sweet second child is, in fact...

A SWEET BABY GIRL!!!

Since we've never been able to do anything fun revealing that we're pregnant or Knox's gender, due to distance between us and family/close friends, we wanted to do something fun to tell our parent's the gender of this baby.  It will be our last child, after all (two's our limit--man on man defense in this household--no zone!)  We hardly told anyone so we could get packages in the mail and to our parents before we told the whole world.  :)

Here are a few pics of what we put in the package to tell our parents:

 

 Knox holding a balloon similar to what we sent.  Keith thought I was crazy since I bought them the Thursday before we went for the ultrasound Saturday.

Balloon again.  My thought was that when they opened the package, the balloon would pop out.  Mylar balloons stay inflated forever--and apparently mail well too!

 

 The "balloon weight" was pink M&Ms in a favor bag and a favor topper I made to match the cards I sent with the package.

The card I sent... :)

We obviously would have been thrilled either way, but we are beyond excited and extremely blessed to have both a boy and a girl.  So let the pink buying begin for little Miss Cecily Blanche!