Makenna Grace

As most of your know, our sweet Makenna Grace was born on Tuesday. She was born at 1:41pm, and weighed 7 pounds 12 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long! (Quite a shock to me, who was for sure thinking I had a 10 lb baby inside of me!). She is doing really well so far. She seems to be eating and sleeping good and is a sweet tiny little thing. Miss Kailey is doing pretty good. She is really sweet with Makenna. She wants to give her kisses, and hold her constantly. She is obviously having some adjustment issues, but hopefully things will continue to get better over the next couple of weeks. I am doing pretty well also. I am pretty sore, and I hate taking the pain meds because they make me feel loopy, which is a catch 22! Each day I get better though, so hopefully within a week or so my pain will be pretty much gone. Here are some of my favorite pics of our sweet family so far:

Here is us before we left for the hospital:


Here is me before they took me back to the OR:


Since my spinal worked, I was actually awake for her birth and Casey was in the room, which was great! It was really hard when we didn't get to be there for Kailey to be born. Anyway, I totally burst into tears when she arrived. Such a great moment! Here are some pics of the delivery:







Here are a few more of my favorites:






And as always...there are more on facebook!

B-day!

Well today is baby girl's birthday! We have to be at the hospital at 9:00, and she should be born around 11 or 12. I am doing well, just nervous. Actually the worst part right now is that I am extremely thirsty, because I haven't been able to have any liquid or food since midnight! This, is like torture, because when I am pregnant I drink like gallons of liquid each day. I am just ready to make it through the surgery so that I can have some ice chips!

Just keep us in your prayers today. I obviously am really nervous, but also really excited! I'll blog by the end of the week, but facebook will be updated today!

The day of Crying Fits

Well, today was not such a great day for me. I really thought it was going to be, because it was my last day of school, but it was definitely not!

Crying Fit #1: This morning when I was getting ready for school, I could not find any shirts that would fit over my ginormous drooping belly. Everything I put on came up too high and left my belly hanging out. So I did what any logical pregnant person would do, and burst into tears. The thing that made me laugh though was Kailey. I heard her say from the other room: "Settle down mommy! Settle down!". haha. So funny!

Crying Fit #2: For any of you that pay attention to my facebook statuses, I have been anxiously (or think of a word that means 10 times whatever anxiously means to you..) awaiting my TAKS scores. I could not make my maternity lesson plans for next week without them, because our incentives are based on those scores, our exam exemptions are based on them, etc. So I've been on pins and needles! Well, today the scores came in. However this morning, instead of passing along the info the counselors and principals all had their doors closed scouring over the scores, which honestly just means they were checking and comparing all the teachers to each other. It was just really hurtful that even though they knew all of us were anxious, and they know all the teachers work their tails off all year for these scores, they were keeping them a secret. I have no doubt they were under strict instructions from the district to keep them from us, which made it even worse. It is so hurtful the way the administration at district level sits in their offices and compares teacher to teacher without ever seeing our classrooms, our students, or even us! It is just really hard to take sometimes. I had heard that one of the counselors was allowing teachers to look, so I tried to find him, but he wasn't in his office. So I went in the other counselors office and she like tried to hide them from me and it was just really frustrating. So, I did what any logical pregnant woman would do, and I locked myself in my classroom, hid in the corner, called my husband, and burst into tears.

Crying Fit # 3: Ok so I didn't actually cry this time. By now, I had no tears left. They finally let us see the scores. I had more kids fail than I ever have. 14 out of 106 to be exact. I attribute this to two things: 1) My kids are more apathetic about life in general than I have experienced EVER and 2) The state raised the "met expectations" percentage to 70% instead of 63%. I was extremely disappointed, and that just made me feel like a horrible teacher, even though I know that I really worked hard to help the kids pass. The kids that I pulled for my extra tutoring did really well, with the exception of a couple, so that was good.

Crying Fit # 4: When I left my students for the last time...

JUST KIDDING. I have never been so ready to get rid of a group of students as I was this year. I know that sounds horrible, but seriously...you have no idea. For a little snapshot: My 7th period had 25 students. 4 of them were special ed. 14 of them were boys. 3 of them were diagnosed ADHD, that is not counting the others that I just think probably are ADHD. 2 of them had parents that thought their precious children could do no wrong, and if they disrespected me, it was me not allowing them to express themselves. Anyway....it was a pretty bad year. I am truly glad it is over!

Now...onto Tuesday and having this baby!

The End of the Name Game

This is the last letter that will be posted for the Name Game. I think the name should be fairly obvious after the posting of this letter, which is a bummer for me! But, you will all know the full name in 5 days, nonetheless! So here it is:



(sorry for the glare!)

I went to the doctor for my last appointment yesterday. (39 weeks!). My C-section is scheduled for Tuesday (the 25th) at around 11am or noon. Yay hooray! Oh, and tommorow is my last day of school, which I am totally pumped about! If only those dang TAKS scores would come in...that would make my life a lot easier! It is hard to make lesson plans for a sub that are contingent on the TAKS scores, without the TAKS scores! Oh well!

Random Kailey Sayings

Kailey is saying new things constantly. It is just amazing what she picks up on, just by listening to people's conversations. There are a few things that I want to make sure that I remember to tell her about when she is older, so I need to blog them!

When she doesn't like something that we give her to eat she says "I don like it, is picy!" (I don't like it, it's spicy!)That is so funny to me, that she relates things being spicy to not liking them. She will have to get over that one seeing as she has a cajun boy for a daddy and a mom who loves mexican food! The cutest part of this saying is the face she makes. I want to try to get a picture, but we'll see how that works out!

When she wants to be held she says "Hold you! Hold you!"

Everytime we get something new, like this weekend we got a roman shade for the baby's room, she carries it around and names it "Shelby". One time it was a curtain rod, sometimes it is her popcorn popper push thingie, this morning it was her toothbrush. She just carries "Shelby" around and rocks it like it's a baby. She put the roman shade in the baby's swing yesterday. She also laid the shade down one the laundry basket and said "Shelby diaper change". It is so funny!

She's also been asking all sorts of random questions about the baby:

"Baby paci??"
"Baby diaper change?"
"Where baby's diaper go??"
"Baby swing??"
"Baby cry??"

She calls herself my "big baby" because I try to explain to her that the bassinette is for the baby. Well she says "I a baby", so then I tell her it is for the little baby in mommy's tummy and that she is a big girl! She says "no big girl! big baby!". So, we call her my "big baby" because apparently she is not ready to grow up any more than I am ready for her to!

After my mom left a couple of weeks ago Kailey talked about her and my dad for the whole week. She kept saying "no mommy daddy! Want grammy and pawpaw!!" Finally one day I said "why do you want grammy and pawpaw?" and she said "grammy and paw paw loves you!", meaning "because they love me!". Isn't that sweet, that she knows they love her? Of course, we tell her that all the time too....apparently that was lost in translation.

This was definitely a scattered post, but I knew I needed to document these little sayings before I lost them completely. I just don't want to forget how sweet and cute her first sentences are!

Can I buy another vowel, please??

Here is the letter of the week:



Don't worry...it'll get more interesting next week. :)

Tiredness

I have been saying I am tired for the entire 9 1/2 months I have been pregnant. I really truly have been tired. But my tiredness has now reached a new level. You know that feeling when you go to Youth Camp, and you stay up til at least 2am every single night? Then everyday you play hard all day long, never stopping to do anything but eat? Then you know how you feel whenever you get home from camp, and you go to bed at like 8:00pm, and then you don't wake up until almost 8:00pm the following day and you are confused about what day it is? Well that ladies and gents, is how I feel. TIMES TEN. I know this is normal, but it is getting to be almost unbearable. I am sitting at work right now in the biggest cloud of tiredness. Part of this is because I am 9 1/2 months pregnant. Part of this is because I wake up every hour all night long to "use the facilities". The last part of this, is because my poor sweet angel baby has an ear infection and woke up last night at 2:30am and wouldn't go back to sleep until almost 4:00am. That my friends has happened 5 out of the last 7 nights. So sorry for the whining, but I am very tired and just thought I would tell somebody. :)

Oh, and 2 weeks from today I am having another sweet angel baby, and maybe then I will actually get to sleep. I know this sounds crazy to some of you, but I remember after Kailey was born, that waking up every 3 hours was like HEAVEN compared to waking up every hour. So yay for a baby girl in 2 weeks!

Happy Mother's Day to Me!

***Ok so I am a dummy. I originally published this blog yesterday (Monday) morning with a picture of a card that Kailey had drawn me for Mother's Day. It is so precious, but unfortunately it has the baby's name on it, and I actually took a picture and posted it without even thinking! So, I have removed the picture, and I also had to remove another picture of my beautiful flowers, today, because the edge of the name was showing in it too! I am dumb, but as far as I know only one person knows the name! We'll see!***


***Original Post, minus some pictures***

Yesterday was a great Mother's Day! Casey always does a really great job of making me feel special. The festivities actually began on Friday when I recieved flowers at work. They are beautiful, but the only picture I had of them had the aforementioned card in it, so it has thus been removed from the blog.

Then, on Saturday, Casey let me sleep in (which was a sacrifice considering Kailey woke us both up at 4am and never went back to sleep..) and then he brought this home for me:



We also planted some flowers in some new ceramic pots Casey got me for the front porch. (See below..Kailey is standing in front of them on the porch!)

Yesterday morning I woke up and got a new pair of Yellow Box Flip Flops! They picked them out by themselves, which I was impressed with!



She also made this card for me at school on Friday, and gave it to me yesterday:


At church, Kailey also gave me a balloon (even though she really thinks it is hers..) a sweet poem with her handprint, a sweet card with her picture inside, and a rose she somehow paid for me to recieve!




After lunch, Casey surprised me with chocolate covered strawberries! For dinner we went down to Austin and ate at my favorite Mexican Restaurant, Pappasitos, and got more strawberries because the first batch was so yummy!




It was a great day!

Letter of the week

For the 3 of you who are excited....here is your letter of the week!

Random Ramblings

I feel like I have tons of things to day, but none of them really are long enough to make an entire blog, so I will compile them all together into a list of ramblings for you.

1. I had my 36/37 week doctor's appointment yesterday. He "checked" me and said I am "maybe a fingertip"..which I pretty much expected. He also made a guess on the baby's weight and he says she is probably about 7 1/2 pounds at this point, and he thinks she will be around 8 1/2 or so in 3 weeks which is right on track with Kailey, who was 9 pounds when she was born. Kailey and Casey went with me to the appointment and it was the cutest thing. Kailey heard the heartbeat and she got wide-eyed and started going "boom boom boom" imitating the sound. The best part though was when I was finished she goes "daddy's turn??". haha. Dr. F was like "no no, just mommy!".

2. One of my least favorite side effects of pregnancy has kicked in, which is my inability to stay asleep for longer than an hour at a time. For example, on Saturday night I woke up at 12:30, 1:30, 2:30, 3:30, 5:30, and 7:00. Fun times. Some say, "well it is just getting you ready for the baby". I just know that when Kailey came, I was so thankful because she only woke up ever 3-4 hours, which was way better than every hour!

3. Another side effect of pregnancy that I deal with is my anxiety. When I am in "that time of the month" my anxiety skyrockets. I worry about anything and everything, and imagine all sorts of bad things happening to me or my family. Well, when I am pregnant, it is that way the entire pregnancy. Every day I can come up with some new thing that I am convinced is going to kill me, or one of my children, or my husband. I know that is kind of blunt, but it is something I majorly struggle with. I know it is from the devil, and that I need to just give it to God, but sometimes that is really hard. Monday as I was driving home from school, I really felt like God was showing me that my anxiety is NOT bringing him glory, and that, after all, is my purpose on this planet, so yesterday was a much better day anxiety-wise. I just really have been trying to pray about it and trust God, rather than my worries.

4. Kailey woke up at 3:30 last night crying. I figured it was probably a bad dream or something, so I went in there to get her and rock her. But, she would have none of that. "I want daddy!!" she said. Over and over again. She asks for him sometimes, but never in the middle of the night. Usually she is so tired she has no preference. So I, of course, automatically assumed it was because I am pregnant and that she feels like I am replacing her, because in my mind, that is totally logical. Did any of you guys that have more than one kid ever experience your kiddo rejecting you? Or...was it just the normal "I want daddy" stuff that they all go through? Just curious.

5. I only have 12 1/2 days of school left! I am SUPER pumped! This has been a doozy of a year with apathetic kids that have crazy parents. (For example, there is this one kid we have been having issues with all year, and all of us have contacted his mom at some point to speak with her about it. Well apparently she got really mad with one of his teachers yesterday, so today she is going with him to all of his classes to see what goes on at this institution. You know, because it could NEVER be her son, it HAS to be his 7 teachers ganging up on him!)Anyway, I am SO READY for summer!

6. I think that is all.