Axton and his dog!

We recently were convinced that adopting a dog was a good idea. Meet Laney, a 19 week old Basenji. We adopted her from the Hernando Animal Shelter. So far she has been a good dog, and Axton is enjoying his new friend. 

9 Months Old Already!

Aimree Reese weighs 18.6 pounds, 27 in long, and her head has grown to 42 1/2 cm. She is Still with Ashley Rines while I am at work Monday- Friday. On a daily basis at Ashley's, she Eats 6-8 ounces  with breakfast, lunch and snacks. My little Lou Hoo Still wakes up every night one or two times. She Smiles all the time and is still the Absolute sweetest baby with the best  temperament. God granted us with an angel. I love her snuggles and giggles.  She Says dada, momma, baba bubba, and jabbers. She has 2 teeth and cutting a top one. Poor thing has had 3 ear infections and fighting to get rid of this last one, Gives kisses, Blows raspberries using her hand, Sits up perfectly, Rolls over all over the place but still can't sit up from lying position, and rocks back and forth on all fours.  It is the cutest thing watching her try new things. 

She Can scoot wherever she wants to go. Daddy bought her her first pearl bracelet. We got brave and adopted a dog, Laney. She Has now tried Aunt Cins cooking of mashed potatoes Mac and cheese, Tried mommy's spaghetti, green beans, salmon, mashed Tators and Aunt Ashley's grits. She still Loves her jumper but has Outgrown her first car seat and vibrating chair, swing and bumbo. 

She has stolen my heart and my worry of not having room to love another child like Axton was crazy. My heart has just gotten bigger! I feel like our Family of four is complete, for now. I look forward to what God has in store for us in the years to come. 

8 Months Old

My my how time has flown by. Aimree Reese is 8 months old as of October 22. She weighs 17.3 ounces and 24 inches long. Aimree can sit up on her own, roll over, say mama, bububu, gugugu, aaahhhh and laugh really loud. She reaches for me and gives kisses. Mommy is her favorite, and you can imagine this makes me happy. She still wakes up through out the night to eat, because she is reverse cycling. This happens with breastfed babies sometimes. Reverse Cycling is when a breastfed baby switches their nights and days while mommy is away at work. Aimree takes 5-9 ounces a day of breast milk along with 1-2 jars of food a day with snacks in between. She has come a long way. It is so hard leaving to go to work everyday. I wish I could stay home more than anything in the world. I hope one day she understands that I did everything I could to be the best mommy possible. Aimree has been such a blessing in my life. She has the sweetest most laid back personality. She is quiet and content doing whatever. She loves her brother, and boy, does he love her. Before I know it, baby girl will be crawling around and exploring the world. Happy 8 months baby girl! I love you! 

Classroom Magic: Teaching Figurative Language with Commercials

Classroom Magic: Teaching Figurative Language with Commercials: I don't think advertisement creators know what a blessing they are to teachers. I love the La Quinta and  GEICO commercials. This com...

Four Months Old

Aimree Reese is now four months old. Time has flown by, and she is an amazing blessing. She has gone from 6 lbs 8 ounces to 15 lbs 6 ounces. She is now 24 and 1/4 inches. Her head circumference has grown to 39 cm. 

Initially, we were concerned about her head size being too small. Even though it is small, 5th percentile, it is on the charts, and we are happy about that. 

 Aimree has been exclusively breast fed, until now. We  introduced baby food the week after her 4 month check up. We started with rice cereal and mixed breast milk in it. She got so excited about eating. The next week we tried carrots. Aimree loved these as well. My friend Laura watched my kids for me to have a birthday dinner with my husband. She refused to take a bottle, but ate like a champ. 

This picture is hilarious. I love when Laura watches my kids, because she sends me updates. After carrots we tried squash and green beans. Both of them were a success, with no reactions. Squash is her least favorite. 

 Aimree's sleep habits are pretty good. She wakes up at 11, 3, and 6 to nurse and falls right back asleep. She sleeps in a co sleeper beside me. I sneak her in my bed after the 6 o' clock feeding for precious cuddles. 

 Her personality has started to shine. She laughs and smiles all the time. She also squeals and screams and talks. She doesn't cry often, usually when she is hungry or really sleepy. 

 Aimree Reese can roll over from back to side to stomach but not all at once yet. She has started playing on her mat. Her Lovies are her favorite. She has a birdie and an owl. 

 Aimree is a cuddle bug, she wants to be snuggled into you all the time. She will try to kiss you when you kiss her sweet cheeks. 

 The past four months have been unimaginable. She is the sweetest baby,  and with a much needed good bill of health, we are adjusting to life with four. Axton kisses her, hugs her, holds her, and plays with her, ALL day :). 

Baby Girl is Growing So Fast

From the moment I found out I was pregnant I was in love. I didn't know if it was a boy or a girl, and I didn't care. Axton was 3 when I got pregnant. I always wanted a big family with chaos surrounding me, however my husband was content with only one. I tried not to press the issue with him, because I didn't want to be dissatisfied with what God had already blessed me with. Every time I looked at my son my heart melted. It still does to this day. I am reminded everyday how amazing God is. I told a friend once that having another baby was in God's hands, and if it was meant for us to have another baby then it would happen on its own. I promise you that not six months after these words came out of my mouth, we were pregnant. The pregnancy flew by and now she is growing before my eyes. I never thought my heart had room for more love. I feared that I would feel different towards her than Axton. What a silly fear haha, she is amazing. I explained to Axton that every heart has two ventricles and mine has a baby in each one. The size of my heart has grown by leaps and bounds since having kids. I look at the world completely different. I watch my beautiful kids grow each day and count my lucky stars. I pray everyday that they grow to be strong, healthy, kind, and loving. I pray that we all grow old together, and live life to the fullest every chance we get. I pray for our guardian angels to be with us at all times, safe from evil and the dangers of the world. I am reminded of how lucky I am to hold my babies everyday. So, needless to say; since having babies I am a big sap :) God Bless! 

Here are a few pictures of my loves. 

First smiles :)

Sleeping with Mommy

My silly boy

All dressed up for Ashley and Patrick's rehearsal dinner. 

This picture melts my heart. Axton was singing If You're Happy and You Know It

He loves her and she loves him 

Oooohhhh love my new dress 

Sunset on the Square. I love living here. 

Swinging with my baby 

Plaque Attack

Last night Axton and I started a science experiment to learn about plaque. In order to do this, we boiled one egg and submerged it in coke. When we woke up we went straight to the egg, poured out the coke, and examined our egg. It was no longer white but brown. Axton was excited to see this. He even told off on his Daddy. His dad put him to bed one night this week and told him he didn't have to brush his teeth. Axton told me that he explained to daddy that he had to brush them every night or they'd be dirty and stinky. I couldn't help but laugh and be proud of my lil man. The next step was to brush the egg just as you would your teeth. The egg instantly started getting white. We discussed what plaque was and how it was bad for our teeth. To sum it up, he said he would always brush his teeth because he didn't want them to turn brown. 

Mission Accomplished 

Our Stay at Methodist Germantown Hospital

Day One After the birth of our beautiful daughter a lot of things happened really quickly. The nurses came in my room asking about my Strep B test results. I had no idea what my results were, because I had just taken the test the previous week. Since I had her at 5:30 in the morning my doctor's office was closed. As a precaution the pediatrician decided to put her on antibiotics through an IV. I was so sad to see my baby with her hand bandaged up where her IV would stay for the next three days. When the office finally opened we found out that my results were positive for Strep B. I didn't really know what that meant other than it could harm her. In most c-sections though the baby is not exposed but some doctors still treat the newborn just to be safe. After this sank in I realized there are definitely worse things that could of been wrong. A few hours later the pediatrician came back in our room with more news. I started to get really worried, because we had already seen the doctor once. The news was that she heard a murmur while listening to her heart and she wanted to get a cardiologists in to do an echocardiogram. So, Dr. Kevin Stamps was called in, and he found out that she had or has two holes in her heart. One is called a PFO and the other is called a VSD. I surprised myself when I heard this information, because I did not cry. I realize now that it is because I was in shock. Dr. Stamps was so thorough and sympathetic. He drew an illustration explaining her condition and comforted us. He said that the VSD is so tiny that it should not get larger and will likely close before her first birthday. He said that there are no symptoms that will be caused by this due to its size. My next question was, what is a PFO. He said that a PFO is a hole in the heart that failed to close after birth. It is open at birth in every child so that the infant can make the transition from being in amnionic fluid to breathing in oxygen. After the first breath the hole usually closes. In almost all cases having a PFO does not need treatment and will not cause any harm. Even though he did an amazing job explaining all of these things, I was still a worried mommy. Being worried however accomplishes nothing, so I decided to hold my baby close, say a prayer, and hand it over to God. After all, the baby I was looking at, feeling breathe on my chest, grunting like crazy was perfect in every way. The rest of the day was spent with family and loving on her and Axton. Day 2 I started to retain a lot of fluid and decided to keep the compression bands on my legs to help with the swelling as well as reduce the risk of clots. I was very sore of course, but I was better than I was after the spinal block wore off. The first 12 or so hours, after the spinal wears off and the catheter is removed, are the worse. The pain of having to stretch your body out after being cut open is indescribable. Then, having to sit on the toilet until you can actually pee is worse than walking! Anyway, so the second day was better. I made myself walk around as much as possible in order to heal faster. I have to say the staff at this hospital is the best. They made me feel confident and made sure we were taken care of at all times. I only had to press the call nurse button when I needed help going to the bathroom. We had a few friends that brought us food which is always appreciated during these times. Lindsey even took Axton home with her so he didn't have to stay there over night. We are so thankful for good friends. Another perk for me was being able to call in room service. Brandon went to the cafeteria, shopping, and local restaurants to eat. Day 2 was looking good and we were all preparing for our trip home in a day or two. Aimree's pediatrician came by again and didn't have any different news. No news is good news to me. Day 3 I was feeling a lot better but was even more swollen and my milk started coming in. Aimree was nursing pretty good and we were off to a great start. Axton was even taking it well. He wanted to know why she was eating my booby lol. Needless to say we discussed what she was really doing and he understood, I think. All three of us laid in bed together for awhile. Axton and I even napped together while she was getting her last round of antibiotics. We walked around the entire floor to exercise and  get out of our room. Aimree was having a car seat safety test done while we walked. She had to be monitored for an hour while buckled in her seat. She passed with flying colors. She also passed her hearing and vision tests. Day three was a good day. Day 4 Time to go home! Our time here was great, and we were very excited to be going home to start the new chapter in our lives.