Charlie's Hair

 I love my chunky monkey! Having a baby with hair is so fun. I don't always have her hair done and I sometimes I don't even try, but it sure is fun when I do. I call this her "Bear Hair".

 Doesn't she look like Winnie The Pooh? Just Adorable. She's so chunky that her eyes almost close when she smiles.

 Cute little Pooh Bear.

Oh the Joys - Mommyhood

poor charlene has thrush (and guess who she shared it with). so until it clears, i am pumping. nursing has been a roller coaster with this one. she started to wean herself at two months - who does that? she only nurses during the let down and then doesn't want to work after it stops. is anyone elses' baby like this? so for the past month and a half i have been nursing as often as possible, then pumping immediately afterward for 15 minutes. which by the way is so hard to do with a toddler and baby needing your attention. plus, now i am washing bottles and pump equipment. before the thrush, we were trying something called a sns. what a hassle, but it has stretched nursing out this long. i wish my babies were good nursers. so frustrating!

purple mouth girl:

then there is this stinker. isn't she beautiful?! at dinner with kyle's family she got a balloon nemo (her FAVORITE movie). she loved it.addison got into my makeup before church. "how i look mommy?" ahhhh perfect addy. i love her face!

Charlene - Four and a Half Months

does her hair look red to you too?! i love it.

kyle helped me with charlene's blessing outfit pictures. the naughty charly wasn't really in the mood and cried or looked away most of the time, but i managed to get some great ones that i love. she sure is cute!love that her dark brown hair has a beautiful tint of red. i would love to have a dark red-head.not always happy, like i said, but she sure is cute.

Attitude Changes

lately, this is what charlene looks like when i hold her...

and when daddy holds her...stinker.

Baby Hairdos

if you don't have your hair already done when your aunts come over, it's okay, they'll do it for you. then they will laugh and show you around and then take pictures. sumo charlene!
doesn't she look like my dad, papa mccleve?!

Gone

i don't know when it happened, but charly lost the hair that was growing on the back of her ears. i am so sad about it. i meant to take a picture of how the short hair curled around to the front of her ear, but i never did. that hair was the last thing charly had to connect her to newbornness and it's gone. to say i'm dissapointed is a huge understatement. so, gone is the newborn cry, the newborn smell, her little quivering chin, and now the last of the soft, fuzy hair that covered her sweet body. she was a newborn yesterday, but today she is a baby and tomorrow she will be a toddler. i am already missing newborn charly, she grew so fast.

maybe the next baby won't grow in the blink of an eye. doubt it though, they're all stinkers.

We Love Bath Time with Grandma

this is what happens when your family gets halo reach for christmas. they become zombies in front of the tv, who only get up every couple hours to eat and go to the bathroom. as you can tell, kinsey loves it too and plays anytime someone will let her. (she kinda kicked jesse's butt the other day, but in all fairness it was his first time playing and he killed her a couple times too.) kyle asked for an xbox game for his christmas present, but i knew better than that. sorry kyle.

while the men (and kinsey) played reach, i decided it was time for charlene to have a bath. my mom LOVES to give babies baths. while i got charly ready, mom scrubbed the sink. she has this whole routine when it come to their baths, and a clean sink is first on the list. i handed a very cute, very naked charlene to my mom. she made sure the water was the right temp and started soaping up my chunky baby, scrubbing every crevice and lifting every roll. charlene loved it. she was kicking and splashing the whole time. she got serious when the camera came out, but i swear she was all smiles seconds earlier.

next comes lotion time. mom insists the lotion must be rubbed everywhere, even the bum. i personally won't be smelling that area, but she insists. if i try to stop her and tell her charly is cold, or she might pee, my mom will just start rubbing her lotion on faster. as a baby, addison peed on her several times.

this was charlene's first time being bathed and lotioned by grandma. she didn't like being exposed during lotion time, but loved everything else.
clean, smelling good, and all snuggled up. she fell asleep promptly.

Baby Time

charly mae took newborn pictures of this beautiful baby girl. she was a little older than the typical age to take newborn pictures - six weeks. it was harder and took more time to get her to sleep and stay that way, but i enjoyed it. totally in love with all her squishiness. love my girl.

Moms, Jobs, Babies - such fun!

there is no time to blog when you are the mother of seven - at least a temporary mom! (eight if you count kyle) i have a renewed respect for moms with large families - especially those with teenagers!my sisters have been pretty good for the most part. last week, i bribed them with tickets to harry potter, this week it's sunsplash. a few of them lost their tickets and had to earn them back with a chore. thanks to that, my mom's room and hall closet are getting very organized.

this week, kyle stared his new job at bank of america. since compass bank had to lay off all employees in az back in march. kyle applied for jobs and heard back from several places and found this job with balboa insurance. just in time for school, thank goodness. kyle was really excited in march when he was able to stay home and be with addison and i, but the excitement wore off quickly when i put him to work helping with addison, cooking, cleaning, or when he got real bored. i miss him though.

remember me saying i wanted to be more crafty? well i got down to business with my sister kenna and made addison (and me) some serious flowers clips for her hair. prolly like fifteen. but i have a problem with addison finding the flowers and bows and pulling them off. any suggestions on how to get her to stop? my sisters and i shopped and bought some of the cutest ribbon too - clearance! i can not wait for that.

speaking of babies and bows, my cousin stacia just had her baby girl saturday morning at 6:50. breckyn ray rogers was 7 lbs 1oz, 20 1/2 in long. what a sweet baby! she is so tiny and has beautiful dark hair at the back of her head, a cute pointy nose, and itty bitty wrists. stacia and i have been close cousins for our whole lives and i am so excited for her and what a great mom she will be. when i got a phone call telling me about the birth of breckyn, i remember how happy i was for stacia and reflected on the special time when addsion was born. i miss those first days and can't wait to have them again some day. the precious babies grow so fast.
last saturday, my parents ward had a slip n' slide day using billboard signs and a fire hydrant. adults and kids got in line to slide down the steep hill for several hours while others liked to just watch from the shade and eat watermelon. it was a blast. we had a short scare when kyle lost his wedding ring, but it was found. the last hour, they poured soap on the slide and it was fun to watch to little kids fly! Kyle even took Addison down a few times. She liked the slide, but didn't like the water spraying on her.

You Live and You Learn

a mom was at her wit's end trying to stop her 4 year-old son from sucking his thumb. finally, she told him if he didn't stop, his stomach would grow very big and puffy.

the following sunday in church, there happened to be a very pregnant lady sitting in the same pew. the boy kept staring at her. when the meeting was over, he pulled at her arm and whispered, "Your stomach is big and puffy... I know what you`ve been doing!"

okay i admit it, i read this on another blog and used it. but i thought it was just so perfect. before i got married, i thought of binkys as a crutch. if they got lost then forget trying to put your kid to sleep or calm him down.

but then i started dating kyle. introduce his niece, maeli. she is an adorable little girl who loves to suck on her first two fingers. because they are wet when she pulls them out of her mouth, anything she touches sticks to her fingers, eventually ending up back in her mouth where she sucks them clean again. i have seen maeli do this over and over with the three cats that live at kyle's parent's house, which means she is eating the cat hair. poor girl. she might as well lick the cats. (for those that know me well, i do knot like to touch animals, and when i do, i immediately wash my hands when i am done. i hate smelling like an animal or wearing their fur. plus i HATE cats. cats + hair + mouth = so disgusting).

as a part of growing up, addison is finding her fingers.

can't let her get used to that. ps. isn't this a gorgeous pic? i could eat her. yum.

while addison's cousin is adorable, i don't want this to be a habit for addison as well. i think that maeli's parents have tried to stop her fingers from going in her mouth, but what can they really do? douse her fingers in hot sauce? no, then they have to bring the sauce everywhere they go. plus some kids like that stuff. bribe her? that never works more than a few times. we're talking about habits people, they take time to break. cut her fingers off? i think that CPS might have a problem with that. (there is also the possibility of kids sucking on their thumb. my dad did this until he was in fourth grade. i know, pretty sad. you run into the same problem of how to stop that too.)

so i had all these thoughts running through my mind when i had addison. i hate binkys like i said earlier, but i would rather have my children suck on something that is not connected to the rest of their body. plus binkys are something that i can eventually take away. i let you know how that goes, but i don't anticipate it being that hard.

note*(some kids are trained to never use anything, and you would think that this is clever, but i had to babysit for those kids growing up. when babies don't know how to soothe themselves and can't take a bink, they are a NIGHTMARE! maybe the parents delt just fine, but you gotta remember to think of the babysitter. you want them to come back right? just a thought...)*

again, like i said, i hate binkys. they are ugly and never match clothes. but i received some adorable binki clips *thank you casslyn* and found binkys at target that are completely clear - made by avent. PERFECT! i bought two. they are great with the clips and match everything. plus this brand is small, and with it also being clear, you can actually see addison's face. imagine that. i was told that i needed to buy several different kinds to see which addison would take. then i heard that my next baby might like a different kind. how ridiculous is that?! i would be swimming in binkys. nope. some other mom can hassle with all that stuff. only one kind for me thank you.

TO ALL NEW MOMS: introduce them early. your baby might have a hard time at first with the binki you choose, but stick with it. everything is new in the beginning. do you stop feeding solids to a baby that doesn't like it, or that doesn't know how to use his tounge yet? no. you keep trying and encouraging them and they learn.

all well. you live and you learn right?

An Unusual Lullaby

addison is growing up so fast. i'm constantly amazed at all the new things she is learning to do. most are things of a typical baby, but somehow it's a bigger milestone for her. (coming from a biased mommy) her personality is very strong, and she is very happy. everyone who meets her comments on how often and easliy she smiles (oh what a smiley baby!) she loves to talk, and squaks loudly when she likes something, or in protest! but my favorite thing, and most recent, i have to kiss her to sleep! for some reason, kissing her also calms her. i lay her down to nap and let her cry for a few minutes. then i come back into the room and tell her everything is all right and that it is time to go to sleep. as i tell her this, i slowly kiss her everywhere on the face and she closes her eyes. sometimes i have to stay there with my head close to her for several minutes before i can leave. even though this routine can take a few minutes, i don't mind. how long will it be before she doesn't need me at all? it's little things like this that i want to remember and cherish forever.

FINALLY! The Wait is Over

we have our beautiful addison grace mckay!! (yes it did turn out that we with with addison even though kyle created a facebook group to get people to vote for their his favorite name, brooklyn). here's addy's story.

like i said, i had my membranes stripped on tuesday morning. i had many contractions that didn't get me any closer to having her. i was scheduled for an induction at seven thirty wednesday morning, but got a call around five saying that they were too full and they would call when they had room for me. i was pretty disappointed, but with kyle still so sick i thought that heavenly father was just trying to make it work out for the best for him. then i got a call just before three pm from the hospital saying that i could come in.

we arrived forty five minutes later and while we were waiting to be checked in, i walked the halls to try and speed labor up myself. i figured it just made sense since my body had done a pain free job of dilating so far.

i was checked in around five and hooked up to the monitors. i had to get my blood taken - which terrifies me because i hate needles. then they stuck me on my other arm and waited until they had given me a whole bag of fluids before they started me on pitocin at seven to make my contractions become serious business. it didn't affect me for a half an hour. i remember feeling the first contraction that wasn't painful, but really just more pressure and tightness. i was excited to feel what everyone called labor, but i knew that i would eventually ask for an epidural.

my contractions came and went for about forty five minutes before i talked to the nurse and asked her if my contractions would get a lot worse. i knew that if they didn't get too much more intense i could handle it without medication. (my thought in the middle of labor is if it doesn't get worse and i don't need medication, that would be a cool thing to brag about.) the nurse just smiled and told me the pain was going to get much worse. BRING ON THE EPIDURAL.

i had to wait about 15-20 minutes before the anesthesiologist was available, so of course that made the contractions seem much longer and more painful. but she finally showed and kicked everyone out except kyle and my nurse. when i get nervous or am in pain, i tend to make jokes about myself to try and make myself feel better. the nurse sure seemed to think i was funny, but i never felt too much relief until the epidural kicked in. it took about 30 minutes for it to take full affect. but don't worry, my contractions got lighter and lighter, and ten minutes into it, i didn't feel pain. modern day medicine is amazing. that's what i kept telling everyone.
after that, some of my family left and the rest of us fell asleep, with the nurse coming in every so often to fix a monitor, up the pitocin, or check dilation. poor kyle was so tired and let my mom do all talking for him (he still had sores in his mouth) and eventually went to sleep and let her do everything for me. at about 2:10 am, summer - my nurse - turned on the lights and woke me up to tell me that i was dilated to a ten and that my water had broke. after that, my sisters were kicked out, kyle was woken up, and nurses were everywhere. my mom got the camcorder ready and kyle grabbed the camera. i asked to have a mirror so i could see everything. (you have to understand that i have been waiting for this for years - reading pregnancy books and watching the birthing channel, there was no way i was going to miss this.)i started pushing with the nurse. it was crazy, the whole time i thought, "this is really it, i'm going to meet my baby. i'm the one having the baby this time, me". i was in shock. it was surreal, the whole experience. i could hardly believe it was happening, addison was finally coming. the nurse had me push for a few minutes and then called the doctor. he asked me to push when he got there and then said "whoa, whoa, stop!" in the mirror i watched him catch/pull her as a contraction pushed her out for me. (only thirty minutes of pushing and only 1/2 push with the doctor). then she was on my tummy screaming and i couldn't stop staring at her. i was in shock. she was my daughter. seconds ago she was in my tummy where i had known her to be for nine months and now i was meeting her face to face. i felt like she wasn't really mine and that the real parents were going to come and whisk her away. everything about her was amazing, but i mostly loved that she was a little part of me and a little part of kyle. i immediately noticed she had kyle's mouth and my eyes, swollen as she was. she was beautiful.

just a quick look at the facts:
name: addison grace mckay
born: thursday, february 19, 2009 at: 3:21 am
weight: 9 lbs 7 oz height: 21 inches
hair: dark brown

recovery for me has been great, although my mom thinks that i just have a high pain tolerance. i can sit down now (yeah!) and can walk at a decent speed (woohoo!). can't wait to heal up the rest of the way so that i can enjoy my husband and brand new baby girl to the fullest!

It's All About the Baby!

on the 22nd of this month i had my baby shower and it was too much fun! i had friends come that i hadn't seen in a while and all the family that could make it. i have a huge family when you put both sides together, it's quite fun. the food was excellent and displayed beautifully - thank you to everyone who brought something and jen for decorating so cute. we had a leaf salad, chicken salad croissant sandwiches, lemon squares, brownies, chocolate cake, nuts and candy, a cheese ball, and fruit and veggies with dip. it ended so fast. i'm so glad for all who made it a huge success! i had a great time with great company.