Happy Thanksgiving!

This Thanksgiving was the BEST Thanksgiving I have ever had for many reasons!  The first of many is that we have our precious baby Kenleigh here to celebrate with us and also because my family came to VA to celebrate with us!  I miss them each and every day and it made Thanksgiving so special and it was tons of fun!!!!!  

Love!!!!!  

Our Thanksgiving bird!  

Kayse and Kenleigh!  

The spread....we are still eating leftovers.  It was so delicious, but we had way too much food.  

Uncle Trey giving K some love!

The whole fam in front of the Washington Monument!

On Friday after Thanksgiving, we woke up early and headed off to do some sight seeing in DC.  We started the day at the Holocaust museum, then the American History museum.  We spent the afternoon at Arlington National Cemetery watching the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

And we finished the day with dinner and cupcakes in Georgetown!  Such a fun day!!!!

Saturday morning we went to Mount Vernon for the Christmas at Mt. Vernon experience.  

3 Generations!

"The Kids"

Love these 2 boys so much!!!!

"The Guys"

Alladin the Christmas Camel :)

Handmade Chocolate...it smelled amazing!

The Christmas Bird

The whole gang in front of the mansion!

Just the 3 of us!

I just love this picture and I know that Kenleigh will treasure it once she is older!

Solving the worlds problems???  Spitting????  Nope...just looking at a snail.  

So adorable!!!!!  

It was such an amazing weekend and I hated for everyone to go home!  I can't wait for many more holidays and many more memories!  Only 2 weeks until we head home for Christmas!  

2 weeks old!

Time is flying by!  Our little peanut is growing right before our eyes.  Every day she changes a little and becomes a little more alert.  She eats like a champ and sleeps pretty good too.  At her 2 week check up, she  was back up to her birth weight and then some.  She is in the 33%...so she is still a petite little thing.  

Can't get enough of that precious little face!

Loving on her lovie from Nannie!

2 weeks old!!!!

This is her adorable/eclectic outfit from Nonni for Thanksgiving!  So true....we are all so extremely thankful for this amazing blessing!  Last year at this time we thought we would never have a baby...so much has changed in one short year.

K and her very own Barbie Christmas tree.

Getting some cuddles from Dixie. :)

First week!

Our first week at home with little Miss K was wonderful!  Thankfully, we had the help of Nonni to make the transition smooth!  Not only is she a wonderful Nonni...she is also a fabulous cook, laundry lady and housekeeper!  I wasn't able to do much for the first week and we WOULD NOT have made it without her!  Here are some of K's first week activities...

First trip to the pediatrician.  They wanted to check her weight and make sure the jaundice was gone.  She checked out great!  She was down to 6 lbs., 14 oz, but the Dr. said to feed her every 2-3 hours and she should be fine.

Her first sponge bath!  She loved it!  Look at that grin!  Melts my heart!

Lots of sugars from Nonni!

1 week old!!!!!!

Lots of time on the play mat.  

Our first walk!

Looking adorable in her pink hat!

We are adjusting well to being a family of 3 and we were looking forward to the rest of the K family to arrive for Thanksgiving!

40 Weeks and Kenleigh's Birthday Story

Here I am on my due date...11-9-11!  

Here is how it all went down....warning...this might get long.  I woke up on Wednesday, November 9th and thought my water might possibly be leaking.  We figured that it was a false alarm and just some other crazy pregnancy side effect, but decided to be cautious and call the Dr.  The Dr. said to head to Labor and Delivery at the hospital to get checked.  I just knew that we would get there...wait many hours...only to be sent home.  We were big time wrong!!!!!  

The nurse came in about 11:00 AM to let us know that it was indeed my water breaking and we would be having a baby that day!  Well....we hoped we would have a baby that day.  My plan was to have a completely natural birth...no drugs or epidural if I could help it.  That plan went out the window real quick when the nurse said they would be starting my pitocin drip.  There is a small window of time to deliver after your water breaks to avoid any infections.  I was barely contracting on my own, so they had to speed up the process to stay in the window.  Things started out nice and slowly and the pain was manageable...until they cranked up the piton (evil drug) and re-popped my water that had a bubble or something.  And this is where it got real....

And by real...I mean real painful!  The contractions went from manageable with breathing to.....I THINK I MIGHT DIE!  Mark and my Mom said that now was the time to get the epidural so I wasn't miserable for the next how ever many hours.  At this point it was 3 PM and they expected the baby to arrive around midnight.  I decided I couldn't just lay there in bed and take contraction after contraction for the next 7 hours!  If I had gotten my natural birth, I would have been able to move around...sit on the ball...change positions...etc.  With my "helped along" labor I was stuck laying down in the bed for the long haul!  

So...the anesthesiologist arrived promptly and gave me the epidural.  It wasn't long and I was smiling again...Labor continued on pretty uneventfully until around midnight.  The nurse checked me and said we were getting close to pushing.  We did a few test pushes a couple of hours later, but she thought I was too tired to be effective.  She gave me an hour to rest and said we would start pushing at 3:30 AM.  We gave it a try, but the baby was sunny side up and it would have been quite a bit more painful to deliver her face up, so they put me in an awkward position and said we would try again at 4 AM.  By this point, the epidural had been turned off and I was really feeling some serious pain.  At 4:30 AM we gave it a try...and this is where everything got scary!

After I gave 1 push, the room became quickly filled with Dr.'s and nurses and the bed was turned practically upside down.  Mark had huge eyes and I knew something was wrong.  Kenleigh's heart rate had  dropped to around 40 and that is not good!  The Dr. said we would wait a few minutes for her to stabilize and then we would try again.  If we weren't successful in keeping her out of distress, she would do a c-section.  I really didn't want a c-section, but obviously the baby being healthy was the biggest concern.  However, once we started pushing again there were not anymore drops in her heart rate, so we thought we were good to go...

2 hours later of pushing and contractions...with no epidural!  The Dr. said Kenleigh just wasn't going to fit and we needed to get her out quickly!  In walks the team of Dr.'s....more epidural...more nurses and off they wheeled me to the operating room.  

About 30 minutes later, baby Kenleigh was born!!!!  

Kenleigh Grace was born at 8:17 AM on November 10.  She weighed 7 lbs., 7.3 oz. and was 19.25 inches long.  We think she is perfect and beautiful and she has already brought us so much joy!  Our hearts are overflowing with love!!!

Aunt KK meeting Kenleigh moments after delivery!

Beautiful girl with her cute pink bow!

Special moment with Nonni!

Our first family picture!  

Mimi and Papa admiring sweet Kenleigh!

Finally going home!

As we rolled up to the car, I became flooded with emotions.  I had dreamed about the day we took our sweet baby home and my dream was coming true.  I was overwhelmed!

Sweet Dixie and her baby sister!