Our New Bathroom

Well we got the bathtub installed this week. We only have one bathroom in our house now and it only had a shower. Kynslee is obviously not big enough for a shower yet so we were bathing her in the kitchen sink...not very practical. So we were very excited to hear that the member we are renting from was okay with installing a bathtub. He had the contractor come out and look at it and he said that it was going to be really difficult to install a bathtub in such a small space but that he thought he could do it. Turns out that it wasn't as big of a job as he originally thought and so he was able to do it a lot more quickly. 

Here's a reminder of what our bathroom looked like before:

And here is the new and improved version:

We are so grateful to have a tub now. It makes giving Kynslee a bath so much easier :)

Early to Rise

         This morning I woke up to Kynslee crying. It was still dark outside so I thought I would just feed her and then put us both back to bed. After rocking her for a long time, Don came in her room dressed for the day. I was completely confused as to why he had gotten up and dressed for the day already, because I knew that the latest it could be was 5-6am.....WRONG!! He informed me that it was already 7am!! So the extra sleep I thought I was going to get was not going to happen. I was not a happy camper to say the least! I grumped about it for most of the morning. Until I realized how silly it was to be so upset over something so trivial. It wasn't anybody's fault but my own that I didn't know what time it was. 7am is when I should be getting up every morning anyway. On top of that I had yet to realize the even better news that Kynslee has now slept through the night for 3 nights in a row! Something that she hasn't done since she was a newborn. Oh how I hope this is a new phase! But back to my original point: It is ridiculous how upset I get over loss of sleep. 
          This is something that I have been thinking a lot about lately. It is hard to get things done when Kynslee is awake. She demands a lot of attention and loves getting into everything (and putting it in her mouth). So if I wait until she wakes me up to get up each morning. (btw I want to go ahead and assure you that it's not like I am sleeping in until noon every day. I am up every morning somewhere between 7-9am.) I have to wait until she goes down for a nap before I can really get anything accomplished. This is not a very functional schedule! I also have been reading about what the bible has to say about sleep. Proverbs talks a lot about sleep and how too much is the equivalent to laziness.

~Proverbs 6:6-10 "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:    Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her    food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy   sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:"

~Proverbs 19:15 "Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep; and an idle soul shall suffer hunger. "

~Proverbs 20:13 "Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread."

       
           I also thought about the Virtuous Woman mentioned in Proverbs 31. In verse 15 it says "She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens." Now I have always had a problem with having to be up before the sun does. I just did not think it was very fair. BUT after re-reading this verse I think I might need to adjust my attitude towards sleep. 

            Now don't misunderstand me, sleep is good. More than that it is a necessity. But like with everything else you can have too much of a good thing. So in order to improve myself, I am going to challenge myself to get up early at a consistent time every morning. I think it is going to have to be a gradual thing. Start going to bed a little earlier each night and get up a little earlier each morning. The hardest part of this challenge is probably not going to be getting up earlier, but getting up earlier and being nice about it.

          

           

Fun at the Park

 Ames has a wonderful park in the middle of town. It's within walking distance (like everything else in town) from the house. I have been wanting to take Kynslee since we moved, but it has been so cold every day we've had the opportunity. Yesterday we had some time in the afternoon so I decided to go ahead and take her. It was still pretty cold so we didn't stay too long, but we had lots of fun!

                                                     Kynslee ready to go play at the park!

She loved playing with this. If you spin it around all of the beads roll around and so it makes a bunch of noise which is her main requirement for a toy :)

She really likes to swing!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Happy Valentine's Day everybody! So far we have had a great day here.  I got to sleep in until 9am and Don brought me breakfast in bed, a box of chocolates, a sweet card, and a beautiful cross necklace.

                                                   

Don also got a gift for Kynslee. It was so sweet! He made her a card and wrapped her up some cookies and a new book. 

Here's a video of her opening her present and Daddy reading her the book :)

                                     

And another video of her playing with her presents...well mainly the tissue paper lol!

Since Don and I can't go out by ourselves tonight, we are going to stay in. I am going to fix us a nice dinner after she goes to bed and then we will watch a movie. Hopefully a chick flick since it is Valentine's Day, but we'll see if Don agrees ;)

      

Pics of our New House

        Okay, so I finally got to take some pictures of our new house. We haven't finished decorating and arranging our bedroom or the guest room so those pics will come later.

This is our across the highway neighbors. It really weirded me out after we first moved here. I would go out to our car and hear bleating, but I am getting used to it now. 

We are hoping to revamp the outside once it warms up. It looks pretty sad right now. The man that we rent from said that he was planning to give it a good washing and repaint it this Spring/Summer. The house sits at an angle so until you get used to it, it is really weird watching the traffic on the highway go by from the living room. 

Our Living Room. The front door is to the left and to the right is open to the Kitchen. The doorway in the back right leads into the guest room. It is supposed to be the master bedroom, but we are using it as a guest room/craft/whatever else we want to put in there ;) It is a huge room and it's really a lot bigger than we need for a bedroom so it works better this way. 

Another angle.

And one more angle. The entryway is really supposed to be a dining room but it just isn't big enough. We tried our table in there and it just made it awkward to walk around and left a huge empty space in our kitchen. 

The kitchen. Very spacious and functional. So much easier to cook in than a galley kitchen that we had for so long. At the end of the week the contractor is supposed to come out and install a dishwasher to the right of the sink. YAY!! I absolutely hate to wash dishes so I am so excited!!! I think that it is weird that we have the same countertops that we had in Memphis.

The Hallway

The Bathroom. 

In the near future we are supposed to get the shower taken out and a bathtub put in. I am really excited about that too because Kynslee is getting too big to bathe in the kitchen sink. She also likes to splash and having to dry the entire kitchen counter and floor is getting old very quickly. 

Kynslee's room

 

The laundry room. I love that the laundry room is so big. The built in cabinets are an awesome bonus too. I also love my new washer and dryer. Makes washing clothes a lot funner ;)

Door leading into the garage.

The garage. We have room to park the car, but we don't have a remote to open it from the outside yet so we can't really park it in there right now. 

              So that' s the house as of right now. I'll try to update it as we get things finished and remodeled. Hope y'all have a great week! :)

Our Week in Review

       Well all of my hard work is paying off! All of the exercising that I have been doing is finally starting to show.....I lost 1LB! Big whoop! I couldn’t believe that is all I have to show for it! I am choosing to look at this as an inspiration to eat better along with my exercising. I have been very consistent with my workout plan for the past two weeks, but my eating habits? Well they could use some improving to say the least! I usually do pretty good during the day, but it’s the nighttime snacking that gets me…well really it’s probably like a like a 4th meal to normal people. The other night I was relaxing in the recliner and really wanting to eat something, but instead I decided to get up and do 2 miles of my Leslie Sansone DVD. It about killed me because I was still VERY sore from my leg workout from the day before. I felt a lot better about myself afterward than if I had fixed that box of macaroni that was calling my name. I felt like I had really conquered something lol! I’m also trying to keep up with the Fab Ab February. I have missed a few days so Fab Ab February will actually spill into March, but as long as I’m trying. That’s what counts, right?
Some exciting news is that Kynslee has started waving “hi’ and “bye” and will give high fives. She is also working on chewing her crib until it falls apart. I had plans to make a cover for the rails of her crib, but as you can see I am a little late.





Yesterday I made some homemade teething biscuits and baby puffs. I of course got the recipes from Pinterest. I pinned them a while back, and yesterday while I was looking through my “Kynslee” board I saw them and knew I had the ingredients to make them and since Kynslee was down for her afternoon nap I went ahead and made them. The teething biscuits (which is a horrible name in my opinion, it makes me think of dog biscuits) turned out really well and were a lot of fun to make.

        The puffs didn’t turn out as well. They taste good (yes I have to taste everything she eats) but they are very crunchy. I think I might have cooked them too long because I put them in the oven and noticed that Kynslee needed a diaper change and then forgot about them. So they cooked for about 5 minutes longer than they were supposed to. I think I may try them again and try to not get distracted this time.

Why yes that is a Play Doh Maker! It actually worked really well :) 

And that's a pic of them after they burned :( 

Kynslee trying out the teething biscuits

          The church here in Ames is hosting a marriage seminar this weekend at the Civic Center. It cracks me up that it’s called the “Civic Center!” It’s a very nice facility for the community but it is not what you picture when you think of a Civic Center. This morning me and a few of the ladies of the congregation worked on decorating for the seminar. I made the centerpieces, pens for registration, and cut out some hearts with my Cricut to use to sprinkle on the tables. Everything else the other ladies took care of. I think that everything turned out really well. 

        
 The first session was held tonight and it was very interesting. There is no one to watch Kynslee so it makes it hard trying to keep her quiet and pay attention but what I am able to listen to is very good. I am looking forward to hearing the rest of the seminar. 

The Week in Review: Exploring the Town and Cooking with Pinterest

       This week went by a little faster, but I still cannot believe that we have only been here two weeks! I don’t mean that in a bad way, I really like it here. I guess we’ve just accomplished so much in such a short time that it seems like we have been here a lot longer. We just about have everything unpacked. Only 4 more boxes to empty. They are the “miscellaneous” ones that I am not in a hurry to sort through! We still have a few more things to hang on the wall and then maybe I will be able to finally post some pictures. 

       We spent some time this week walking around the town and exploring. We walked to the park, but it was really cold so we decided not to stay. We did check out the “Corner Store” which used to be a gas station and now it just sells a few staple items like: milk, bread, macaroni, candy (yes candy and macaroni are “staple” items). They also recently started cooking burgers and sandwiches. One thing I thought was really cool was in the back of the store they have a section of books that people have donated. People just take and donate whatever and however many books they want to. You can keep the books for as long as you want. Return it or don’t. So it’s like a community book exchange. They had bunch of the type of books I like to read. Some that I haven’t read yet. So needless to say I was very excited!

       Yesterday was a very “Pinteresty” day. At least at meal times. For breakfast we had biscuits, Chocolate Gravy, and ham and egg cups. They were both super easy and delicious! If I had known all you had to do was call it “gravy” and you could have chocolate for breakfast, I would have started cooking it a long time ago. For lunch we had BLTs but instead of just slapping the bacon on the sandwich like an animal I cooked it in the oven in a basket weave pattern. Such a simple thing, but it has totally revolutionized the way I make BLTs from now on. Honestly, I don’t know how I functioned before Pinterest! :)

Tonight a sweet member of our congregation is going to watch Kynslee so Don and I can have a date night. Since we have to drive 20 minutes one way to do anything, we are just going to go eat somewhere. I am still not totally comfortable leaving Kynslee for extended periods of time. I also think that this will be the furtherest I’ve been away from her as well. So baby steps! Maybe one day I will be okay with leaving her for a longer time. It will still be nice to have a nice uninterrupted meal where the only person I have to feed is me!

The Importance of Being a "Homekeeper"

I wanted to take a minute and talk about the verse that I chose for my blog. l tried to come up with a verse that meant a lot to me. I thought about it for a few days, and then the other day while I was doing my daily bible study I came across Proverbs 14:1 which I’ll repeat right here: “Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.” I really feel like this verse encompasses what my purpose is in life and really reveals what my main goal should be. 
As a stay-at-home-mom, I often feel like I am not making a difference. A lot of the jobs that I do are undone in a short while. If I finally get ahead on laundry it won’t be long before more dirty laundry is generated (especially with cloth diapers).  If I get the floors clean it is an invitation for dirt to be tracked in. When I spend a few hours preparing a nice meal (which is fairly rare since I usually go for quick and simple recipes) it is scarfed down within minutes with nothing but full bellies to show for it. Oh, and apparently a clean diaper is a lot more fun to dirty than one that is already wet! So I spend a lot of my time doing, and redoing, the same things. I sometimes feel like I am on a treadmill. Walking and walking, but not getting anywhere. 
It’s at these times that I have to sit back and reflect on what my purpose is in this life. It is easy to get caught up in our daily routines, but what is the main goal of Christians? To get to Heaven and to take as many people as we can with us when we go. It is such a simple goal in theory. That our whole lives boil down to a one sentence goal, but it really is true. In Titus 2:5 it says that women are to be “keepers at home.” Does that mean that God is concerned with whether or not all of my laundry is washed? Or that my floor is sparkling clean? No, it doesn’t. Now I’m not saying that keeping a clean and inviting home is not an important part of the job. Keeping a clean home is essential, and I believe that it is extremely important when it comes to creating a “safe haven” for your family to come home to. But it is just a small part of our jobs as wives and mothers. The inspired writer, Paul, did not say that the women are to be “housekeepers” he said we are to be “keepers at home” or as I like to refer to it “homekeepers.” 
My main goal is to build up my home upon the foundation of Christ. It is more important for my daughter to be taught the word of God, than it is to make sure all of her toys are picked up. It is more important for me to spend quality time with her and cultivate her desire for learning than it is for me to check my facebook notifications. If she sees that I put a clean house, errands, facebook, tv, or whatever else before I do bible study then she will grow up thinking that God is not important. If she is left with this conclusion, then I have ultimately failed as a mother. It is true that when she is grown she will have to make the decision to follow Christ and be a faithful child of God on her own, but I must do everything I can to ensure that we will spend eternity together. 
I said before that sometimes I feel like I am on a treadmill going nowhere, but you know what? Walking on the treadmill still gives results. They might not show as immediate as I would like, but eventually they will show all of the hard work that I have put in. Being a “homekeeper” is the same way, except the rewards of it are much greater in the end. 
         This song came on yesterday evening while I was listening to Pandora, and I felt like the first verse really said what I had been feeling. 

"Do Everything" - Steven Curtis Chapman

Taking Time to Settle in

      This was our first week in our new home. We arrived last Thursday and were greeted by probably more than half of the congregation. They helped us unload the truck very quickly and even stayed to help us put together some of our furniture so we would have somewhere to sleep that night. They stocked our pantry, fridge, and freezer with food. This was especially helpful because the nearest grocery store is 15 minutes away and anything more than that is about 30 minutes. We really had a wonderful welcome. Everyone here is so friendly and always willing to help. It’s not just the church members either, the townspeople are like that as well. It is like stepping back in time and visiting “Mayberry”...except Mayberry was bigger and had more businesses. Ames only has two gas stations and a post office. Speaking of the post office, our mail is not delivered here. We actually have to walk to the post office (which is right around the corner) and pick up our mail. They have a real nice park area that is fairly new. We haven’t had time to really check it out yet, but I am looking forward to doing so. I think Kynslee will really enjoy it. On the Saturday evening after we moved in, they had a soup and chili supper for the community. It was a fundraiser to build a sprinkler park across the street from the park. We were able to meet a lot of people in the community there. That’s another thing about this town, everyone seems to be involved in community events. It is such change coming from Memphis. Not just because of the obvious size difference but because everyone is so courteous and friendly. It is very refreshing. 

Kynslee turned 9 months this week!! I cannot believe it! She will be 1 year old in just a few short months! Where did the time go? She, like the rest of us, is still trying to get adjusted. I really can’t blame her though. All of her surroundings and people that she is used to being around have changed and she doesn’t even understand why. The first few days after we moved into the house she would scream every time me or Don would leave the room. She is also in the process of cutting two more teeth (on the top) so that is adding to her frustration. 

We love the congregation here at Ames. We are really excited about settling in here and getting to know everyone better. The Tuesday after we moved, Don went door knocking down our street just to introduce himself to our neighbors. I was so surprised when he came home and said he had a bible study set up! I am really excited that he was able to get a bible study so  quickly and I am praying that she will see the truth. 

A week after we moved and we have just about gotten unpacked. We have most of the boxes unpacked and even have pictures up on the walls, so it is starting to feel a little more familiar. I’ll be glad when we feel settled and more like this is our home. I truly think that we will really love it here, it is just going to take some time. 

4 Weeks Later and I'm Still Trying to Get it All Together

Kynslee is 4 weeks old today! I cannot believe it!! We stay so busy that time has just flown by. She is doing very well. I weighed her yesterday on our scale at home (don't know how accurate it is) and she is up to 8lbs. 3 oz. which is exactly a pound more than when she was born! She is still really small and most of her outfits are still too big, but progress is progress. Besides, I don't want her to grow up any faster than she has to. The hardest thing about having a newborn (or maybe it's just being a first-time mom) is trying to not only take care of a baby, but still find time to cook, clean, run errands, etc. It's just within the last few days that I feel like I am getting the hang of getting things done while she sleeps during the day. The only problem with this is that it means that I don't get to nap when she does, which is hard after some nights when she is up several times but you do what you have to do. Running errands with a baby is a lot of work and strategic planning. All through pregnancy you take it easy and can't lift anything real heavy, and then...BAM! After you have the baby you are expected to lug around the baby in the carseat. Putting it in and out of the car, lifting it up into the grocery carts, and if you're lucky enough as we are lugging it up the stairs to your apartment along with all the groceries. There's also the whole strategically planning your outing in between feedings or else you'll be once again stranded in the car feeding a screaming baby. It's funny how much experience you gain in such short time after you have a child! Not to mention all of the hilarious stories you can tell to all your friends. Like the time we had a blowout diaper outside Dairy Queen on the way home from a weekend trip and how poop got all over me, her, and the car seat! Or the time when I actually took the time to shave before my postpartum checkup, but somehow only remembered to shave one of my legs! Life as a new mommy is never dull and always busy. Kynslee has been having a lot of tummy trouble lately. I bought some gas drops yesterday, and have been giving them to here at every feeding and she seems to be doing some better. I can still tell there are times when it hurts her, but she doesn't all of the sudden burst out in an ear-piercing scream until it comes out one end or the other anymore so that's improvement. I am going to cut milk from my diet and see if that helps. I read that milk is one of the most popular things for causing upset stomachs. Something about their stomach not being able to break down the enzymes in the milk. So we shall see if that works. Like I said I was able to get some cleaning done today, and I actually got to bake some banana bread this afternoon while she napped. I got the recipe from Pinterest . I wanted something sweet, and I just happened to have some nearly rotten bananas so I decided to try it. It was delicious! It didn't taste like traditional banana bread, but it also wasn't made like banana bread lol! I liked it because it was quick and easy and I didn't have to throw out my rotten bananas. Don thought it was wonderful. He said anything that had chocolate chips and pecans had to be good. I also made Teriyaki Chicken for supper tonight. It was a meal from my freezer stash. I am so glad that I took the time to make those meals before I had Kynslee. This is the third night in a row that we have eaten something from the freezer and they have all been great. It really helps me out a lot to have all or a majority of the meal already prepared and just have to heat it up and fix a veggie or two to go with it. It's almost as easy as going out to eat.

        So I am doing as well as I thought I would about writing regularly, but I did just have a baby so I at least I have that excuse. 

Kynslee Caitlin was born on April 25th at 3:44am and weighed 7lbs 3oz and was 20 1/4" long. It was a hard labor because she would not cooperate, but (now that it's been two weeks and I am starting to not hurt as badly) she was definitely worth all the pain and someday (in the somewhat distant future) may consider doing it all again. 

        My doctor decided it was best to induce me at 39 weeks because Kynslee was, what doctors call, "sunny side up" (which just means that the baby is face up) and she didn't want her to gain any more weight and risk her being too big and having to do a c-section (she said that when a baby presents face up there is already a 50% chance of a c-section). In the beginning I didn't want to be induced, but at 39 weeks pregnant I really didn't care if it meant I didn't have to be pregnant anymore and I could meet my sweet girl. I checked in the hospital at 7am on Tuesday morning, and by 8am I was hooked up to just about everything in the world and the Pitocin was started. They increased the Pitocin every 30 minutes, but at 11am they had to turn the it off because Kynslee's heartbeat kept dropping every time I had a contraction. I continued to labor on my own, but the contractions got further and further apart. At 1pm my doctor came in and checked me and I was only at 3cm, (I had started at 2cm) so she went ahead and broke my water to try and help things along. On a side note anytime they checked me, and when she broke my water, it hurt SO bad because Kynslee was so high it felt like they had to stick their whole arm up there! My doctor, also, wanted to try to turn the Pitocin on again at a slow rate and see if Kynslee would tolerate that. 

After my doctor broke my water my contractions started coming 1-3 minutes apart and would would measure from 80-110 in intensity on the contraction monitor (the scale on the monitor only went to 100). Don and my mom thought it was a fun game to tell me how high the number would go with each contraction, and cheered when I broke 100 (yes, they are a bit sadistic). Even though the pain was the worst I've ever felt in my life, I wanted to hold off on the epidural as long as I could. I had read that the earlier you get an epidural, the more likely it is to slow your labor down and since my labor wasn't progressing very fast anyway I didn't want to take any chances. My goal was to make it to 5cm before getting the epidural. At 5pm, after 4 hours of the worst contractions, I finally relented and asked for the epidural. Once I got the epidural it was amazing! I felt so relaxed and I couldn't feel a thing! Don and my mom had to tell me when I was having a contraction, but they weren't near as excited about it now that I couldn't feel them (like I said sadistic). The nurse checked me right after I got the epidural and I was at 5cm. I had made my goal!! About an hour later though they had to stop the Pitocin because her heart rate was dropping again. They put me on oxygen and made me lay on my left side. Once the Pitocin was turned off my contractions spaced out to 3-5 minutes apart and decreased in intensity to 70-80. 

My doctor came in at 7pm and checked me again, but I was still at 7cm and Kynslee had not dropped at all. She said that she would come back at 10pm, and if I haven't made any progress I will have to have a c-section. She put an internal heart rate monitor on Kynslee for a more accurate reading. I am completely exhausted at this point (I had been up since 4am because I couldn't sleep due to nerves) and scared and feel really defeated at the prospect of a c-section. I felt like my body was working against me, and not progressing like it should have naturally done. It was a long 3 hours, but when my doctor checked me again at 10pm, I was 7cm. She said that as long as I was making some progress she would let me go as long as she could to avoid a c-section. She said she would come back at 1am and check again. At some point between then and when she came back, I begin to shake uncontrollably. It was kind of scary at first, because I felt like I had no control over my own body. We asked the nurse about it, and she said that it was a normal side effect of the epidural. 

At 12am I started to feel some pressure. At first I tried to ignore it because I didn’t  think I could possibly be progressed enough to be ready to start pushing. The pressure increased over the next 45 minutes until I finally told my mom to get the nurse because I couldn’t ignore it anymore. The nurse came in and checked me and she didn’t tell me if I had dilated anymore, but she said that if I felt the need to start pushing we could. I pushed for 3 sets of 10 seconds with each contraction for 3 hours until she was born. She still had not dropped, so I had to really push to get her under my pelvic bone. The poor child looked horrible when she was born. Thankfully they had kind of cleaned her up, and put a hat on before I saw her, otherwise I would have been pretty freaked out! Later when I was going through the pictures, I saw what she really looked like and it was pretty awful! She looked like the Bride of Frankenstein! Her head was not only cone shaped, she had  a ridge in the middle of her head and two big gashes (one from the internal monitor and one from the birth itself). 

Like I said before, now that she’s here I can honestly say that it was all totally worth it, but if any of my subsequent children are face up I think I may just go ahead with the c-section. Thinking back, and seeing what her head looked like after birth, it scares me as to what could have happened. I am very grateful and know that I am truly blessed to have had a safe delivery and a healthy baby.

Me after they put me on oxygen and I had the epidural (notice I'm smiling lol)

Don was such a great support through the whole thing. 

Getting me anything I needed, and giving me massages :)

Our first family picture!!

Kynslee's hospital photo

So I am starting this blog because I am terrible at calling people letting them know how things are going. I figure this way friends and family can keep up with what is going on in our lives. With a baby due any day I probably won't get to update this as often as I should, but if I can it will be a great way to keep you up to date with her as well. I hope that this will be a good experience and provide a way to look back and see our family life day to day.