Happy Birthday my little darlin

What a great day Nece had! Some (okay all) of mom's birthday excitement IS going to rub off on my girls! It's so much fun to have your special day and I want to make sure both girls know that!

Our day started about 7 days ago (one day after mine) with a birthday countdown! We had to stop mid-week because Nece got ticked that it wasn't her birthday YET. Yesterday I sent Marc and Nece to the grocery to grab some pink frosting for her birthday cupcakes that she was taking to Sue's. What did they come home with...

• pink frosting



• princess sprinkles



• princess candles



• a '3' candle



• happy birthday cupcake liners

After getting home from camping, we made our princess cupcakes... and before bed we picked out our birthday outfit! Thanks Grandma Moger- this is the one she chose, and loved it!

No problem getting Nece up this morning (it's normally a struggle). She popped right up when I walked in her room and said "Good Morning birthday girl".

Off to Sue's for the day, while Mom ran around getting everything ready for this evening. 4PM rolled around, and I picked the girls up... Happy as a clam with her new Barbie and princess coloring set from Sue. Thanks Sue.

Then it was time for the birthday girl to choose her dinner. She proudly announced "I want to go out."

Okay, Nece... where do you want to go?

McDonalds. (yum, thank goodness for the Southwest Grilled Chicken Salad). Chicken Nuggets, french fries, chocolate milk, a happy toy and ranch/ketchup for dipping.

After dinner we came home and stalled about 20 minutes before going to the garage for the 'big reveal'. We've asked Nece for weeks what kind of cake she wants... Dora. Okay- Dora theme it is this year.

• Dora Cake



• Dora napkins



• Dora plates



• Dora balloon bouquet



• Dora wrapping paper

LOVE and overwhelm on her face as she took it all in. 6:30 arrives and our neighbors start arriving for the birthday party! Dairy Queen cake and we said no presents, but we opened presents.

Thanks to:

• Marjene- Dora bubbles and Color Wonder Kit
• Don and Alvina- Memory, Princess color set for the car and Dora puzzle
• Auntie Mona, Mya, and Emmie- Doctor Kit
• Mom, Dad and Kara- 5 Little Monkey's Puzzle, Handy Manny Puzzle and a cottage for the backyard
• Brian and Rene- came for the party and abided by our wishes, no presents and we LOVED having them celebrate with us
• Auntie Molly- a hand-made tutu and her first leotard
• Grandma, Grandpa M & Jon- A Nemo book/CD and Princess book/CD
• Erica, Casey, Tanner & Sam- Princess Tupperware and a shirt with a 'K' embroiderred on it
• Grandma and Grandpa B- money for the savings/college account
• Aunt Cindy and Uncle Marc- a cute outfit
• Great Aunt Julie- a couple outfits, a book and money
• Great Grandma M- money

A fabulous day she had, and one she may or may not remember... but she'll have this blog and all the pictures that we taken! Happy third birthday my little Nece! We LOVE you!

Life changing...

3 years ago today, my (our) life changed forever...

Due date had arrived and passed, another day passed, a third day passed and on the fourth day around 1:45AM... was something really starting to happen? Yep I think so... laying in front of the TV timing contractions it seemed to be pretty consistent and was pretty sure this was the real thing. By the time Marc got up at 5:00, I told him I think that today is the day.

Really? Do you think this is the real thing?

I do. You should call Jason and tell him you aren't gonna be at work.

I bit more time passed. 6AM, we called the doctor. Contractions are a couple minutes apart consistently. He told us to wait for another 30 minutes and call back.

7AM we were in the car for what was a very LONG drive to the hospital. You see the hospital is a good 25-30 minutes away... now lets add in rush hour, a mom in extreme pain every 3 minutes and a very nervous daddy.

Got to the hospital and checked in. By this time, the pain was ridiculous and there was no break between contractions... they were coming on top of eachother. I vaguely remember the doctor checking me and telling me that I was only a couple centimeters... I then remember him telling me that we were gonna break my water. At this point, I had a contraction, was grabbing the top of the hospital bed and in such pain that I literally kicked his hand away and told him NO WAY are you doing that to me right now.

Fast forward a couple LONG painful hours (I don't remember much.) But the one thing I do remember before the epidural arrived was Marc trying to do something with a switch on my hospital bed and the radio started to blare. All I could say was turn that f'ing thing off. He scrambled and couldn't figure out how. It probably didn't help that I was NOT a happy camper at this point so he finally pulled the plug. Thank God that terrible noise was over. Oops... in pulling the plug we (he) set the alarm off at the nurses station.

Finally, the epidural had arrived. Ahhh... the instantaneous relief. I can't believe I had to wait so long, but it was pure heaven when it did arrive. Once the epi was in... I was able to nap, watch TV, hold a coherent conversation with my husband and wait anxiously for the next step in this process that we'd never been through before.

After the doctors knew the epidural had taken effect, they broke my water. No problems this time... do whatever you need to. At this point, they figured out a couple things, I had minimal fluid left and the baby had pooped in me already. Because of these two things, they calmly explained to us there were going to be a couple extra NICU nurses in the room at delivery and it may be a little chaotic.

2:05 the nurse came in and woke me out of a dead sleep to check me (dad was sleeping too). It's time to call the doctor.

Are you serious? Okay. (and the tears started flowing. Why? I don't know, I suppose the hormones and being petrified of what was about to happen).

2:25 doctor arrived. As she put her scrubs on, I did a couple 'practice' pushes. Not having a clue what I was doing, the nurse just told me to push like I had to poop. Okay... that's fine, but I cannot feel a thing with the epidural. At this time, the doctor also explained to us that when the baby comes out, they are going to 'plug her' so she isn't able to breathe right away. They wanted to make sure the babies poop didn't end up in the lungs.

After a couple pushes, and now realizing the cord was wrapped around the neck, and knowing the baby had pooped... the doctor pulled the vacuum out. She didn't want that baby in any more distress than it needed to be in.

2:45PM life had changed forever.

What is it?

It's a girl!!! Kailee Denise was born into this world a whopping 5lbs 13 oz and I think there were three immediate reactions when seeing her, oh my gosh its a girl AND she's SO tiny AND is everything with her okay?!

13 hour labor from first contraction (that I felt) until the time she arrived. 20 minutes of pushing, the doctors preparing for the worst, but everything was perfect. Mom, dad, doctor and nurses were all in the room as Nece had arrived...

Why did I write this post? Well... to capture the birth day of Nece. I don't think I've ever written it down because you believe the details will stay with you forever. They don't and I found myself going back multiple times adding to this post as I remembered different things I had forgotten about that day. If another year had passed, more details would have been forgotten, unintentially.

Hiatus

By the look of things... I've been on hiatus for close to two weeks now. Not a great way to keep people interested in what we have to say. So, for those of you that still like to follow... thanks. Pass the word along that I'm back, though it may be sporadic for the next couple weeks until things slow down a bit after Cindy's wedding.

What are a couple funny things that I wanted to write about?!?! Well, Nece met a robot- sort of. We were in Walmart one day last week- Nece was walking and Franny was riding. A lady stopped and asked how old Franny was. This was a lady that had one of those microphones because her vocal cords were shot. I don't know what they are called, but regardless... kind of robotic.

I answered, 10 months.

Nece looked at me and asked 'mom, is that how she talks?'

I said, Yes, Nece... that helps her talk

The lady was very patient, and she also piped in "This helps me talk"

Nece seemed good with this explanation and off we went. Fast forward a couple minutes.

Mom, I want to see the robot again.

What?

I want to see the robot lady again.

Oh Nece, she isn't a robot, she just needs a microphone to help her speak.

Oh, okay.

And about five minutes later, we saw the nice robot lady again, and I just prayed Nece didn't announce 'there's the robot'.

She didn't. A good teaching moment for mom, Nece and how to think on my feet quickly to address what is appropriate and what isn't.

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Marc wanted his haircut one Sunday night after a LONG weekend. Now that I think about it, it was Father's Day, so he played the card of 'it's still my day, you have to.'

Okay. Girls are bathed, but not in bed yet. And oh how interested they were. We finally gave in and let Nece help cut dad's hair.

But, why do you want/need to know about this?

As I was going to get the camera to take this picture- all I heard was "No Nece, not on your hair, only daddy's.'

Whew!!! That could have been a close one- Nece with a partially shaved head less than one month before Cindy's wedding. Disaster averted.

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This past weekend, mom and dad went on a much-deserved (if I do say so myself) long weekend to Countryfest. Four days of camping, drinking and concerts... a good time was had by all! We always look forward to the annual trip and can't wait til the next year. The girls started out at home with Grandma M, but they ended up at grandma's for the remainder of the weekend. From what I understand, Reggie didn't do too well with the rain, so they packed up and headed 2 hours south where the sun was shining! I'm sure a good time was had by all the kids enjoyed playing with their cousins.

Looking forward... there may very well be an announcement coming from our household (NO, we're are NOT having another baby). Will keep you in limbo until details are finalized this weekend. Couple more weekends of traveling, and by the end of July, we should be able to enjoy our summer weekends relaxing!

Thanks for following, and will try to update more regularly. Just know, it's a crazy busy time for us right now!