Anna in Kansas: Part 2

In Part 2 you'll get to see a rare sight. Grandad holding a tiny baby! This is something that in general he does not do. Well, I guess nobody told Kevin this and before anyone knew what was happening Kevin plopped Anna down in Grandad's arms. I ran to get the camera because I had to document it. The moment was brief because Anna started fussing but here is the proof!

Grandad and Anna

 Next stop was my parents house. Kevin and I dropped Anna off and then drove to pick up Hailie and Seth from school. We thought it was a surprise but as soon as they saw us we realized they already knew. The first thing Hailie said was "Where's Anna?". 

Hailie was pretty stoked to finally get to meet her cousin! She was very helpful too. I remember holding her when she was that young and here she is holding my daughter. Crazy!

Hanging out with Grandpa Chuck!

 Both Hailie and Seth change so much each time we see them. This trip, however, it really hit us how much Seth has changed. Where did that little chubby blonde haired baby go?!?!

 Being a 10 year boy, Seth isn't particularly interested in babies. After we picked him up from school he went straight to his room. A little bit later I headed over there and asked him if he'd like to meet his baby cousin. His response was, "Oh yeah". He'd pretty much forgotten. Seth did seem interested in holding her later on and luckily we got a picture of it. 

Kevin and I had planned on going to church with my family that Sunday. We were over at their house finishing up getting ready to go when I started having some back pain. I look some ibuprofen but it did nothing and in the 10 minutes or so it took to drive to church I was in excruciating pain. Kevin and I had to leave Anna in the arms of my Mom and we were headed to E.R.

 Long story short...I had a kidney stone and I'll get to look forward to the pain again in the future because there is one in my other kidney. It wasn't exactly how I'd imagined spending the day on our already short visit but what can you do? Luckily Anna was darling at church and they had a blast showing her off.

Because of the pain medication I was given I wasn't able to nurse Anna for most of the rest of the day. I had one bottle of pumped milk but my freezer stash for emergencies was in Michigan so we had to do formula for the afternoon/evening. What are the chances? Luckily she switched back fine and we've had no problems since. 

Although Hailie wanted to see us more at least Anna was over there and she had a blast helping take care of her. That was the longest Kevin and I had both been away from her since she was born. Thank goodness we had the family around so Anna didn't have to hang out in the E.R.

 

 The trip went way too quickly. We so wish we'd had more time and didn't have to waste half a day at the hospital. Hopefully we'll be back very soon and things won't be quite so crazy.

 

 Thank you to everyone who came to see us while we were back and if we missed you this trip hopefully we'll see you next time!!!

Anna in Kansas: Part 1

I have way too many pictures from our trip to Kansas and it was impossible for me to choose! I would love to put them all but I can't. Since I'm so behind on posting this I'm going to attempt to let the pictures tell the story but I often say that and it doesn't happen. I have split pictures up so this post features more of the Kent's and the next will be more of the Copp's.

We had an incredibly early flight and although we had some hotel drama the night before the flight went great! Anna slept most of the time and didn't seem to care about pressure changes at all.

Baby's first flight!

We were both fairly exhausted by the time we made it to Topeka but luckily there were tons of people ready to get their hands on Anna so we could get rested and cleaned up.

Uncle Scotty!

 Adell and Anna got to meet for the first time and it was pretty cute. Adell was a little timid but seemed pretty interested in Anna. It will be fun to see them playing together when Anna gets a little older.

Grandpa Kevin introducing the grandbabies

 We were very pleased with how well Anna did with all the new people. She did start using the pacifier much more than she ever has. Now that we're back she doesn't seem to need it very often so we think it was her way of dealing with the traveling and so many new faces.

Nap time with Uncle James

 Anna got to meet so many wonderful friends and family during her brief visit. She is one lucky kid!

Chillin' with Grandpa Kevin

Patti had some darling matching outfits for the girls to wear. So cute! 

Family photo

Patti was not excited at all to be holding both girls. :)

Grandma Patti and the girls

 We loved getting to see Adell. It had been since summer and she has changed so much. Since she is 11 month older than Anna it is sort of a preview of a year from now. Crazy!

Hugs!

 

I love this one of Thomas and Kevin looking down at their daughters. 

Anna's hair is starting to come back in on the top. I love her hairline and how it scrunches up when she is concerned or surprised. 

Kevin also had a blast with the dogs. I failed at getting a family shot with Kevin and his parents or brothers but somehow I managed to get one of Kevin with the dogs...go figure. 

Jackie, Bella, and Maddie loving up on Kevin

I apologize if your photo with Anna didn't make it in. It took me forever just to go through the photos and then get it narrowed down to this many. That many pictures and I still didn't get all the one's I would have liked...

2 Months old!

Last week Anna turned 2 months old! It's hard to believe 2 months has already gone by. She's changed so much and in looking back at older pictures I'm truly amazed by how much. I have a bazillion pictures to sort through from our Kansas trip and the week with my Mom here but I figured I'd get this photo shoot up and work on the rest later.

We had Anna's 2 month appointment this last week and I was very happy to have my Mom at the appointment with me. Kevin was unable to come due to some work craziness and I appreciated the support since Anna had to get a bunch of shots :(

Kevin sat Anna up for this picture and I managed to get a picture or two in before the inevitable happened.

The inevitable.

Anna weighed 11 lbs 2oz this appointment putting her at 39%! She measured 22 inches long (21%) which was exciting since she was only 8% last time. Her head is still big: 16 inches (96%) and to quote the doctor "she has a big melon". 

She's been smiling a lot more but especially in the last week. She'll have moments where you know she's looking right at you and she'll smile and coo and it is absolutely adorable. 

She's been getting stronger and really enjoys laying down and moving her arms and legs like crazy. It did make getting pictures a bit challenging since she is a bit unpredictable in her movement but it was still fun.

Anna has had a few 5 hour (or close to) stretches of sleep over the last week or so which I will say was pretty awesome for me. It's not consistent yet but I'll take it whenever I can!

We are continually amazed at how beautiful our little girl is and we just love her to pieces! 

A few more firsts

Thought I needed to get a few more pictures of Anna up since she is changing all the time! I took this one while she was snoozing in my arms. I just love how chubby her little cheeks are getting!

Lupin has been very well behaved so far but we don't really trust him at all. For awhile there he ignored all of us completely I think in the hopes that this "thing" would eventually go away. Now I think he's realized she is here to stay so he will try and socialize with us more. Whenever we're not with her he takes advantage and attempts to get in some Lupin time and is very loving and will purr a lot. He's certainly curious about her but he gets annoyed when she's crying too loudly.

Kevin, Anna, and Lupin working on tummy time

 Anna is doing better and better every day at tummy time. She has been lifting her head more and more. When you have her over your shoulder to burp or carry her she really is looking around all over the place.

We've had to retire a few of her newborn sleep and play outfits including the one we brought her home from the hospital in. I was a little sad about this but excited to see her growing and I'm having fun being able to dress her in more of her outfits of the next size up.

Anna and I are working on getting out of the house during the week. It is sort of overwhelming to do by myself but we're getting the hang of it. It's a little hectic because by the time I've changed, nursed, and got her in the car we've only got a short window of time before she either needs sleep and gets crabby or she wants to eat again.

One of the places we've gone to twice now is 'Baby Time' at the library. It is for babies who can't walk yet and we do a series of rhymes and songs together before it's play time. She's a little small to get a lot out of it yet but I enjoy the adult time with a few friends of mine that have been attending. They gave us a booklet with all the rhymes and songs too so I have inspiration for playing with Anna at home as well. I've really enjoyed going the last couple of weeks so I'm going to try and keep it up. There is also a new mom's group at the hospital that I've been to once. I may try and start going to that again soon as well.

 Last Sunday afternoon we dog sat for our friends Will and Kristin's puppy Copper. Kevin had an amazing time playing with the dog. Kevin wore him out running around outside.

Last week we had our first real smile from Anna. She doesn't do it all the time but it is starting to happen more and more often which we LOVE! You can definitely tell she's focusing on our faces now and she is just so much more alert. The other day she grabbed a rattle for the first time too! She hasn't really done it since but it's on they way. It's so fun to see her do new things and we look forward to what each week brings.

Anna is still a really really loud sleeper with all of her grunting. She can't be laid flat on her back to sleep at all or it starts up immediately and she'll wake herself up. It is apparently normal for newborns to grunt although nobody can tell you exactly why some of them do this. We basically just have to let the "grunting phase" pass.

Love her to pieces though and can't wait to take her to Kansas next week (although a little nervous about traveling with a baby). It's a quick trip so we aren't going to get to see everyone we'd like but we will be back again!

Anna Update

At Anna's 1 month check up last week Anna weighed 8 lbs 13 oz (27%) and was 20.25 inches long (8%).  Her head is still big compared to the rest of her (94%) but she's catching up! We still have her in newborn clothes for the most part. A few 0-3 month onesies will fit but it's difficult to dress her in these because the pants are too long. I just hate to buy any more newborn stuff since I know her days in those are limited. For the most part we just let her hang out in sleepers and it doesn't seem to bother her too much.  

Everything else seems to be looking really good too. She's holding her head up more and you can tell she's getting stronger. She also has had a few longer alert and content stretches in between eating and wanting to go back to sleep. There isn't much else to report developmentally right now but hopefully we'll see her first real smiles coming up in the next few weeks. It feels like every now and then she's looking at us but we can't be certain yet. The pediatrician said we'll have that to look forward to over the next few weeks as well.

Happy Baby

Anna is losing some hair on the top of her head which gives her an awesome mullet appearance. It will be interesting to see if she continues to lose hair or if this will be her new look for awhile.

Falling asleep on the Boppy.

She's still a little grunter and will wake herself up occasionally but we're getting a couple longer stretches of sleep in at night. Most nights after she wakes up to eat she'll go back to sleep pretty easily. I don't want to get too used to that though because if I do it will just change again. She was a little snuggler the last couple of mornings and I managed to get this wonderful photo. Melts my heart!

Snuggle time

We love our little bug!

Poor Lincoln

I'm very behind on this post but figured better late than never. This happened the same week that Kevin had his appendectomy and infection from surgery.

Kevin had missed the entire week of work from everything so on the Saturday following his Monday surgery he headed into work in the afternoon. That evening he had to run back in for just a few minutes to start something so it could be running the rest of the weekend. On the way in, another driver ran a red light and Kevin T-boned her van.



His airbag went off but luckily he and the other driver were okay. Kevin hit her side of the van but it was the backseat and not the drivers side door. There were several people around and the accident happened right in front of a fire station so there were EMT's there almost immediately. They looked over Kevin's incisions and there didn't seem to be any issues. He said he was surprised at how little he felt in the accident. Our car has good safety ratings and proved itself very well.

 We are so thankful everyone was okay and that Anna wasn't in the car at the time. With that being said, we are very sad about our poor car. It was towed to the dealership and while there is obviously significant damage there wasn't quite enough to total it out. We have a loaner car from the dealership right now and it will be several weeks before we get the vehicle back. They had to order so many parts that weren't going to be in until after the 1st of the year. Michigan is a 'no-fault' state and we've found out what a pain that is. Our insurance pays for the repair even though the other driver admitted fault and it is in the police report. Luckily our premiums won't go up but it is still a hassle.

When Kevin went back to work Monday and told them about the eventful week before they were in disbelief. The rest of December was uneventful and hopefully 2013 will stay the same!

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