February 12 of 12

Making sure to get everything documented for this month's 12 of 12, because I have this feeling I won't be getting this layout done on time. Don't wanna forget why I took so and so picture, ya know? :) Note the posting time of this, yes, definitely a newborn in this house. So here goes my 2nd month of this project...

Waking up with Sam, giving him a little sponge bath. On this day, February 12th, Samuel is exactly 10 days old and his umbilical cord had not fell off yet. At his changing table, Sam likes to look at this stuffed doggie that Dylan gave to him at the hospital. Sam just stares at it and grabs at it's paws. I think Sam is so interested in this doggie, because of the black and white contrast.

UPS man drops off a package at the door! I love the way this photo came out too! It's Sam's teddy from Cliff's parents. I just love these teddies! Dylan got a similar one with a green bib when he was first born.

As you can see, we are still trying to figure out what formula, bottles, and water temperature Samuel prefers. Sam likes his babas room temperature so far. Soothie pacis may be awesome, but their bottles suck. So do the cheapo target brand ones. I like the vent-aires and Cliff grabs for the avent ones.

Dylan wakes up in a good mood! "Hops" (ha ha, okay I'll stop now) in to the bath tub and asks me to take a picture of him being the frog king.

I should probably mention at this point that I didn't actually wake up until about 2 PM I wanna say? Maybe it was 4? Pain medicated and over tired from not sleeping in the hospital. Anyhoo, here we are on our way to Grandma's to eat dinner. Dylan's good mood is gone as he ducks out of the picture.

We all get Chik Fil A, but Cliff wanted Chinese from Top Wok. Their spring rolls are the best in town.

Grandma always tends to blink with photos so it's about impossible to get one of just the two of us that is semi-okay.

Packing up to leave after sitting around watching CNN and E! with Grandma. Funny how we can go from smart t.v. to complete mush. Me and Grandma drive Cliff insane with our ongoing commentary. This is Dylan "helping".

We head over to Cliff's parents' house. Cliff's Dad gives Sam a little smooch after I got finished changing him.

Cliff earned his epic flying mount dragon on World of Warcraft.

This frickin smoke alarm kept going off making me insane. It would beep the loudest beep about every 20 minutes. I would groan, Dylan would do his hissing snicker at me. Clifford finally decided to see what was up--needed new batteries.

We finished the night off making valentines for family members. Here's Dylan stamping out the hearts. Dylan always likes to play with ink.

Samuel Avery

Samuel Avery
February 2nd, 2009
7:26 AM
7 lbs. 12 oz.
20 1/4 inches

He's here! Healthy and big! He's the most calm and content baby. Hardly cries, makes little "raccoon noises"/grunts when upset. Sam is so strong. He held his head up off our shoulders his first night. He already tries to roll over, getting about 3/4's the way to doing it.

The Whole Long Drawn Out Story

We showed up for the c-section at 5 am. I wasn't taken back to a pre-op room until about 6 am. That's when it finally, after 9 months, set in that this was happening! I cried over a shot in my hip, but not over the spinal block. I'm silly that way. I think I was just starting to get too nervous and was eventually given something for that, as I was not able to stop shaking.

During the whole c-section, I was alert and aware of everything happening--something I was pretty concerned over before-hand. It was student nursing observation day or something of the sort, so I had a few of them in on the birth of Sam. One of them, Betty, held my hand and it was her first time viewing a birth. She is the one that took the pictures of Sam's actual birth in the O.R., which I'm very thankful about. We have few pictures of Dylan's birth.

Sam came out and I had to wait a minute or two and then Cliff brought him over to me. I was so happy to finally see his face. I just remember saying, "Hi Sam!" over and over. I was just amazed and babbling. Cliff had the biggest, proudest eyes. Cliff took Sam out to meet the family. I was off to recovery for about 3 hours due to having a low temperature.

Dylan had been waiting with his grandmas and papas. Our hospital has a little window where family can watch the baby get his check-up, bathed, etc. Dylan had been peeking through the blinds to this area very anxiously. He was ready to hold and feed his baby brother. Any shirt with writing on it says, "Sam is the little brother and Dylan is the big brother" according to Dylan. We got to go home only after 2 nights-- so happy, as I was being told 3 nights was the minimum and I should expect 4.

Second children really do mellow you out. I'm not as bossy and anal about how I want things done. I still have ideas on how I would like it, but don't stress/freak out when it doesn't happen that way. Maybe it is because Sam is so chill compared to Dylan? Or being 25 vs. 21 years old this time around? Or because I'm not nursing an episiotomy and already up riding in the car? Or that Cliff got 2 weeks leave for Sam vs. 4 days for Dylan? Probably a combo of all of this. :) I'm not good with babies, I'm just not. But, I am honestly happy.

"Celebration of Kimberly"

My mother is a little crackalacka sometimes. She calls me one day proclaiming that January 24th will be the "Celebration of Kimberly." What?! I tell her straight out that she is weird and ask if she is on drugs. Basically it was a "feed-the-pregnant-chick-whatever-she-wants-before-she-pops" dinner with family night. I picked out fried catfish, grilled shrimp, coleslaw, and southern black eyed peas. :) Momma got all the good pictures on her camera, but here's some pictures of that night from my camera.

Come on, you know this looks so good! Jealous? You should be :) My camera-shy step-dad frying the yummies below.
9 days til Sam comes...aka 37 1/2 weeks. I think?I'm officially huge as can be. This was about the same day whenever I breathe my bellybutton started popping in and out. That never happened with Dylan.

January 12 of 12 page

Here it is :) This was a lot of fun. My husband thinks I'm pretty cheesy, but he was a good sport about it all. He really liked looking at the page when I got done. It's kinda awkward getting the courage to take photos in public places. I did okay at the pizza place, but just didn't have it in me to take a pic at the hair cutting place. I'm a shy gal :)

It's too long of a photo to fit on the blog, but if you would like to see both pages side by side, just click on the page below.
I have a feeling I'll be pretty good at making 2-pagers by the end of this year.

Did journaling strips, trying not to overthink things. I'm realizing now I need to buy 1 and 2's to put on my layouts. I had no numbers!

Thanks for looking :)

in 2 weeks or less...

This is at 35 weeks. Dylan took this picture himself. I didn't purposely cut my head out, but I did straighten it out. Last night, I said something about I'm gonna be at home with my boys. My boys. Wow. That's weird to say. I'm more nervous than excited, but that's probably because I don't feel 100% prepared, but of course, you're never actually 100% prepared. I need to get some night gowns that I saw at Target that didn't look grandma-ish. Still need more bottles. I'd really like to get a haircut before-hand too.

C-sections are usually done a week before your due date. My doctor scheduled mine for 6 days ahead of time. I was thinking, well maybe he doesn't work on Sundays. Then he said Mondays are an add-on day of his, as he usually doesn't do them then. So a week or so passes... I find out the date of the Superbowl. It's the day before my C-section. Do you think that was done on purpose. :: squinty eye shift left to right::

Happy Martin Luther King Day! You know we love him in Georgia, almost all of our roads are named after him. :)

January 12 of 12 :)

So I decided it would be fun to be a part of the 12 of 12 project. What you do is take 12 photos on the 12th of each month, print 'em out and make a scrap page. I don't have my page done yet, but here's my photos. I'm hoping to get these printed off at Walgreens pretty soon.

Dylan is obsessed with Britney Spears' "Womanizer" song. We've bookmarked the video from youtube so he can hear it when he wants on the computer. It was one of the first things he did when he woke up.
Having serious bad allergy problems, never this bad in my entire life. I'm hoping it all disappears after I have Sam.

Dylan's attention span is pretty short and I've been trying to get him to do more art. The Magna Doodle is perfect as he can draw and erase instantly. He likes to draw circles and dots the most.
Self-portrait :) Can't wait to get that bottom layer of hair cut off.

36 weeks pregnant
After Dylan's nap, I took a still sleepy/grumpy boy out to play. After an hour, he cheered up for me and picked me some danny-flowers. Melts my heart. They then had to go in a bowl so they could grow some more, according to Dylan.After a week of driving me crazy about his stupid ankle that wasn't swollen or bruised, wouldn't respond to tylenol/aspirin or muscle rubs, and couldn't be fixed by a brace; Cliff went to the doctor and came home in an air cast.
Out of nowhere, my hippie-kid decided he wanted a haircut. I jumped on this opportunity and RAN out the door before he could change his mind.I finally met my craving of frozen yogurt from the machine when we went out to eat at Stevi B's, a pizza buffet restaurant.
I guess Boppy's were some sorta hit-gift for the holidays. From the end of October until maybe last week, I haven't been able to find one. My MIL took me and we each got one.

There's my day :)

Infomercials- As Seen on TV!!

My 3 1/2 year old son is obsessed with informercials. He got pixos for Christmas. Pixos, by the way, are fricking awful. They take an entire day to dry. The little pen does not gently dispense them out, it's more like jet propels them across the room. We've played with it just twice. I'm glad we just got the starter kit.
The only thing Dylan asked Santa for was a remote control helicopter. Over and over, it's all I heard about. Of course he meant one of those Air Hogs from the commercials. This isn't too bad. The only downfall is that the charge on it only lasts for about 5 minutes playing time. Daddy likes playing it just as much as Dylan.I got a sewing machine for Christmas and he asks me to make him a snuggie. Yes, a snuggie for him. I think they look like cult members. Dylan even does the commercial like the lady flipping out with her blanket because she can't answer the phone with her arms. You know what I'm talking about, yes? I may make it him one, but it will be a print or something less-cult-ish.Now I'm being told I need Mighty Mend It. He stops what he is doing to tell me how much I need it. How it's my lifes' dream. Yes, he really does say lifes' dream to me. :) I need it especially to scrapbook with, as they show that in the commercial. I don't know what scrapbooker would use such expensive glue to scrap with. The crap is 20 bucks plus shipping for 3 tiny bottles. I cannot stand how tv shows scrapbooking to look so lame. I also need Mighty Mend It to fix Sam's face with? I have no idea where that one is coming from and it kinda weirds me out.
The cutest one is the KidzBop CD informercials one. Dylan tells me he wants to be a singer kid like those kids. He will dance and sing trying to show me why he should be one. He points to the boy singer at the beginning with the blonde hair saying, "That one is me, Momma!"
I swear we really don't watch that much tv. Usually when Dylan watches tv, he is watching Noggin--commercial free channel. These infomercials really stick out to him. It's pretty funny.