A girl's best friend...

Not diamonds... but I'm sure one day they will be.  Today though, Caylee's best friends are Sammy and Diego, our dogs!  It is sooo funny watching them with her too.

Sammy always has to follow us when we take her from room to room.  Yet, when we tell him it's ok to come over and sniff or something he is scared.  When she cries in her bed, it's Sammy who jumps up first and looks at us.  Then, when we don't move (because we're trying to let her work it out), he sighs and lays back down.  However, as soon as I get up to go get her he's right by my side!  Then he puts his front paws on the crib and looks in, wagging his tail.  I have a feeling he'll be pretty protective of her as she gets older and when she can interact back with him.

Diego on the other hand can usually care less about her.  That is until she starts crying, then he cries.  It's pathetic really...  She will cry sometimes when we change her diaper (I think she doesn't like being cold, that's my theory- could be bc the diaper is dirty and we aren't moving fast enough), but anyways- when she cries he sits by the changing table and wimpers.  The first few days it was extremely annoying bc the louder she got, the louder he got. We've since worked on that too... :)

They are both pretty good at not going on her play mat when she is on the floor.  However, I never leave them in the room without me, but they still seem to understand that distance is needed. 
**Sidenote:  Even people should learn what personal space is!  An arm's length people!  Just sayin...

 It will be interesting to watch as she grows and to see what she thinks of them... I think many days playing outside will be in our future! :)

Here are a few pics.. not great, but we are trying to get them used to her...

Sammy always stands guard

Diego doesn't care bc she isn't crying :)  Sammy of course standing guard :)

Thanksgiving 2011

This year has been full of lots of change.  Some change has been not what we planned and some has been great.  But overall, we have so much to be thankful for!  The most important being our first daughter, Caylee!!  As it turns out, the day after Thanksgiving (also Black Friday) Caylee was officially one month old.  Wow... time is flying and she is getting so big.  She is already outgrowing her newborn clothes and moving into the 0-3 month outfits.  We're currently working on a nap schedule- some days it is great, other days not, but we'll get there.  She is, however, finally sleeping well in her crib at night.  We have started letting her "cry-it-out" because the Dr. suggested that...  definitely hard to do, but it has paid off.  She wakes one time for a feeding and as long as she makes it past 5am I consider that a good night.  (Yes, eventually we are aiming more for a 6:30-7:30 wake time, but again, it's a process).

Here she is at almost a month.  She is very good at following toys and seems to enjoy her play mat.   For Christmas I am going to try to find some musical/light up toys that she can follow and focus on... I think she'll like those.

This Thanksgiving my dad, Debbie (dad g/f), my sister and Nick (Cass b/f) all came down to Lexington for a few days.  It was my dad's first time to see his granddaughter!  He informed us that he wants to be called "Pops"... that works, whatever floats his boat :)   Here are some pics of the visit....

Pops and his first time meeting Caylee

Debbie, Caylee and Pops

Caylee's first restaurant experience at O'Charleys

Nick, Aunt Cassidy and Caylee

Nick and Cassidy

Thanksgiving 2011 family picture

Black Friday... Nov 25th... officially 1 month old!

Pops, Caylee, Debbie

Pops and Caylee

 
We had a great time visiting and good food.  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!!!

More Visitors...

Yesterday, we had Matt's family down for a visit.  Here are some pics from the afternoon...


Great Grandma Bergstedt (Matt's Mom's Mom)

Great Grandpa Bergstedt (Matt's Mom's Dad)

Great Grandma Max (Matt's Dad's Mom)

Uncle Mitchell (yes, that is an Ohio State hat he brought her... don't worry, we are still all Aggie, but Uncle Mitchell thinks he'll change her mind one day :) ) 

Matt's dad (Grandpa Mark) was down for the visit too, but I think we were all eating cake when it was his turn to hold her so there aren't pictures from this trip. 


The dogs came back too... more on that on another post!

3 Weeks

Well, Caylee is 3 weeks old now!  Things are going pretty well since company left, but I still miss them tons!  I have been able to stay on top of laundry, but have yet to cook a meal (thanks to the sweet ladies at church who have brought us some delicious meals!).  Next week starts the cooking... but just for a short time because then it's Thanksgiving and I don't have to cook!  Caylee is taking a bottle about every 3 hours now, occassionally at night she can go 4 or 5 (those are rare, but we love them!).  I've been trying to keep her awake more during the day with a good long nap in the afternoon and hoping that helps her sleep better at night.  Still.. something about her crib she doesn't like.  She can be totally out cold and when we lay her in the crib it's about 15-20 before the crying begins... so frustrating, but we'll get there.

Here are some pics a friend took yesterday....

Lots of Pictures

Here are some pictures from the first 2 weeks...

Halloween: Taken from my mom (Grandma's) phone- pretty good quality!

Gotta love the feet... the rest of these pics were taken with Sherry's camera- thanks for some gorgeous pictures!!!! (This doesn't even cover what we took, but I picked some of my favorites)

 Our first walk outside... I didn't make it too far, but it was a beautiful day and we don't have too many left up here!! Brrr....

 Love the expression :)

 This would be our 2nd bath... she wasn't too sure about the whole thing, but we have since learned to enjoy bathtime!

 One of my very favorite pictures!!! 

 Our first family picture that I actually like...  :)

 Mom and Caylee :)

Visitors

Since Caylee has been born we have had a bunch of visitors...  here are some pics...



Grandpa Mark

Grandma Karen

Grandma

Mom and Grandma :)



Aunt Cassidy

Mom and Aunt Cassidy :)

Dad and Cody :)

Courtney & Michele 

Sherry :)

So... my mom stayed with us the first week.  Aunt Cassidy came up that first weekend to help out.  And Sherry got us through week 2.  Man, was I glad they were here!!!!  I was super emotional- the Dr. warned me of that, but of course I didn't believe it since I didn't have super crazy emotions during the pregnancy.  But this was different!  I was also in a lot of pain these first two weeks and loved having these people take care of me so I could take care of Caylee.  I had some problems with the breastfeeding early on and it was nice to have people I was comfortable with help me out and encourage me.  I loved having them at the house and already miss them.  It's ok though because visits are being planned for the near future!!! :)

The only immediate family who was not able to see Caylee yet was my dad, Grandpa and Uncle Mitchell.   Uncle Mitchell should be down soon and my dad knew I had already planned on the people I needed to stay with us and was good with that.  So... it all worked out because Grandpa will come down for Thanksgiving and is super excited about that!  Plus, by then I'll be ready for him to make a great T-Day dinner!!! :)



Birth

Ok... looks like I have a few minutes to update a little about Caylee's birth!  As said earlier, I had a c-sec at 39 weeks with her.  I don't know what I thought it would be, I guess no one had really told me what to expect.  I had heard it was the "easy" way.  I would disagree!! True, I didn't have to labor for hours on end, but the recovery was/has been way more difficult than I thought. 
The actual day of the c-sec we arrived at the hospital and it wasn't until that point that I was nervous.  They explained everything they were gonna do and it all started with a simple IV.  Well... I have great veins, but nurses never seem to be able to get an IV in.  So... 2 nurses, 1 anesthiesologist, 1 hour later and 10 IV tries I was ready for the surgery.  The surgery part was easy.  I didn't feel a thing and everything happened so fast (at least I think... I wasn't quie there all the way to know how much time had passed).  The next thing I knew I was asking Matt if they had started.  He laughed and said they had just about finished.  Shortly after they were holding her up and all I could say to Matt was "she has hair!".  I was so excited that she had a full head of hair.  The whisked Caylee and Matt away to the nursery for all the shots and clean up and everything else they do, while I stayed and was sewn up and moved to recovery.  They kept her in the nursery just a little bit because she was a little cold, so Matt came back to me and showed me the pics he had taken.  Then they brought her to us and life as a family of three began!

The recovery is still going on, but those first few days in the hospital and at home were the hardest.  I am sooo thankful Matt was around to change all the first diapers (seriously, I don't think I changed a diaper for about 4 days!) and sooo glad for the people I had come stay with me who got me through the first 2 weeks! I could not have done it without them!!!  More on visitors later...  

Caylee Ann Parsons

Born: 12:43pm on Oct 25th at Central Baptist Hospital Lexington, KY
Weight: 8lbs 4oz
Length: 19.5in