Harper Gets Baptized

This past Sunday, one of my best friends little boy got baptized.  Tiff and I were pregnant at the same time with our boys.  Carter was born 5 months, almost to the day, before Harper.  I’m hoping they grow up to be big buddies :)

My mom kept Carter overnight on Saturday (because we also had a wedding shower to attend Saturday, so it was just easier to let my mom keep him overnight and during church the next day).  Justin and I headed to First Baptist Church of Pelham to watch Harper along with several other adorable babies get baptized.  After the service, we all headed over to Tiffany and Trevor’s house to celebrate!  I got videos of the actual baptism for Tiffany, but I won’t put them on the blog.  I will put up pictures of the after party though!

Harper and his daddy

The cake that Tiff’s mom made!  She’ s FABULOUS at stuff like this!

This is Tiffany’s high school friend Sam and her husband Joe.

A few of the girls from their high school group

All the girls!

The Lobdell men, minus Harper

Chad is Trevor’s brother and this is him with his wife Alyssa.

All the Lobdell men AND Harper :)

The sweet Lobdell family!

Me and my hubby

Harper and his grandfather (Tiffany’s dad).  How sweet is this picture?!?!

The Twins Turn One

Cynthia and Celia are my nieces (Justin’s sisters girls) and they turned one year old on Tuesday.  Jennifer planned their birthday party for last Saturday at their house.  I got the best part on video…the cake eating!!

And here’s some pictures from the day:

Carter was saying “Nana, I love you, but I’m gonna need that bottle ASAP”

Yummy cakes!!

Celia with Papa Gordon and Uncle Justin

Jen put pictures throughout the house of the girls

Cynthia taking a few steps

Opening their gift from Nana and Papa

Celia was tired of opening gifts and decided to come play with Carter

The school dresses we got the girls.  Carter and the twins start Mother’s Day Out next week.

Celia just follows Carter around basically ;)

Love her sweet face!!

The Gault Family

Going to town on that cake!

Celia didn’t start out as messy as Cynthia, but she eventually got there!  Both girl had to have a bath immediately following this meal.

Today

Today, Walt Bridges would have turned one year old.  Some of you don’t know Walt and may not have heard about him from my blog.  I don’t even think I ever blogged about him in the time he was with us.  Walt is the son of two of me and Justin’s good friends, Katy and Joe.  He was born one year ago today.  On the morning of September 17, 2011, when Walt was just 9 weeks old, he went to be with his Creator in Heaven.  Walt died of SIDS in his sleep.  I was about 5 1/2 months pregnant when Walt died.  I was already a ball of emotions because of the extra hormones, but the death of a baby can send you into emotion overdrive.  I’ve never been to a funeral like that and hopefully never will again.  It was truly the saddest day I’ve ever experienced…and he wasn’t even my child.  Seeing Katy bend over that insanely small white casket to say goodbye to her son before they put him in the ground was unbearable.  UNBEARABLE.

So why the need to blog about this?  Well, for starters, I’ve been a nervous wreck ever since I got to work this morning.  I’ve been crying uncontrollably.  Partly due to the sadness that came with Walt’s passing and the hole that I know is still in his parents heart, but also because I’m mad at myself.

I’m mad at myself for all the times I have gotten beyond frustrated with Carter in the past 6 months.  For the times he wouldn’t sleep, the times he wouldn’t eat, the times where he screamed uncontrollably and I couldn’t calm him down, the times where he wouldn’t even let me take a shower, the times where he spits up or poops on me…I could go on like this for days.  Bottom line, I’ve gotten 6 months with Carter.  And Katy and Joe will never have that with Walt.  I am so blessed, even in the chaos.  Life is so short and you NEVER know when the Lord thinks it’s your time to go. 

A fellow blogger friend of mine is going to have a D&C today because she miscarried her first child.  Her and her husband have been trying to get pregnant for over a year.  Another girl that I was really good friends with in middle school and parts of high school (we lost touch as we got older) was pregnant with her fiancé's baby boy and a mere week before the birth, her fiancé died suddenly.  She is now raising a baby boy that she looks at every day and sees her fiancé.  Loss is all around us and for some reason it never really hits you until it happens to someone you know. 

So today, hug your children a little tighter.  Don’t get mad at them, but instead show them how much you love them and how you would do anything for them.  Because some people don’t get to experience that kind of love.

A friend of Katy’s made a video to honor Walt.  Click on the link below if you want to see it.  He was so beautiful.  At the time, Katy and Joe lived in Auburn, AL so we didn’t get to see them much.  But we were honored to be able to meet Walt for the first time a couple of weeks before he passed.  A group of us went to eat dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings in Hoover and they brought Walt and he slept the whole time.  He was such a good baby.  Happy Birthday Walt!

http://animoto.com/play/781cAkElt9vQztnJ2rHOiA

#55 - Check!

Number 55 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to meet Baby Lobdell.  Tiffany and Trevor welcomed their first baby boy, Harper Benjamin Lobdell, into the world on May 28, 2012 at 7:13pm.  He weighed 7lbs, 4oz and was 20 inches long.  He is so incredibly perfect.  Tiffany had a long labor like me, actually, hers was longer than mine by an additional hour or so.  I thought my almost 11.5 hour labor was long!  The good news was that for the most part, she couldn’t feel anything.  Once it was time to push, she pushed for 30 minutes or so and he was here.  I’m slightly incredibly jealous. 

Since she didn’t have him until 7:13 and I was putting Carter down for the night, I decided not to go see them last night and waited until today.  During lunch, I left work and headed to Shelby to see the happy parents and this tiny ball of preciousness:

Tiff was feeding him when I got there but I eventually got to hold him.  He slept the whole time I was holding him.  So adorable.  I have a hard time remembering when Carter was this small, and it was only 5 months ago!!!  The smallest Carter ever got (after losing weight after birth) was 7lbs 4oz, so I imagine Harper will probably drop below 7lbs but hopefully not for long.  I can’t wait to see him again!!!  Him and Carter are going to get into so much trouble together in the future :)  Congrats to the new parents!!  Love you guys!

Baby Top 5

I’ve been meaning to do this post for a while, just haven’t gotten around to it.  When I was pregnant, I absolutely LOVED reading pregnant women's blogs.  I loved it even more when I saw “Baby Must Haves” or “Baby Top 5” listing all the things that the author found necessary for having a little one.  Me being a first time mom, I was willing to hear anything about the things I “should have” to help me prepare.  So here I am now, mother to a 3 1/2 month old, and now I am making my own Baby Top 5 List.  I am putting this list out there for any first time mothers, or even second or third time mothers that aren’t aware of some of these products.  These are the 10 items that I/Carter can’t live without:

1. The Woombie

I’ve blogged about the Woombie a ton.  Carter’s sleep improved drastically as soon as we put him in the woombie for the first time.  I was scared because I thought it was choking him (they’re meant to be REALLY tight) but he loves it and I honestly dread the day we have to convert him out of it.  There are several different versions of the woombie.  You can go to their website here and go through them all.  Carter had the original newborn one (5-13lbs) for about 2 1/2 months and then we moved to the convertible woombie (14-19lbs) that has buttoned sleeves so that when you’re ready to transition a baby to not be swaddled, you start by letting their hands out first, but the woombie is still tight on their body.  Basically, a woombie replaces a swaddle.  Babies bust out of swaddles ALL THE TIME.  The velcro ones are much better, but I hated washing those because they stuck to EVERYTHING in the dryer.  The woombie is the answer.  It zips up and buttons at the top.  Completely baby proof!

2.  Video Monitor

We absolutely love our video monitor.  It wasn’t the cheapest and it wasn’t the most expensive, it’s right in the middle.  For anyone that plans to have their baby sleep in another room than where they will be, I suggest this.  Carter’s room is upstairs so it would be a pain to trek upstairs every time I wanted to check on him.  The video monitor makes it easy.  We have the Summer Infant Best View monitor and we got it from our registry at BuyBuyBaby.  The reason I love this monitor is because it zooms and rotates.  The four buttons around the center button on the remote move the camera.  This is VERY helpful when you have a mover on your hands.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up in the morning and looked at the monitor and Carter wasn’t there because he had moved to the bottom of the crib directly under the monitor which blocks the view of him because of the wood on the crib.  Picture below is from BBB’s website:

3.  Baby Einstein DVD’s

Boy does Carter love him some Baby Einstein!  These DVD’s are incredible.   I don’t even know how many there are, but there’s tons.  I inherited some from my sisters from when their kids watched them and I’ve bought some of the more recent ones too.  Each DVD is roughly 30 minutes (newborn babies won’t be able to make it that long anyway) but on the menu, there’s a “repeat play” button that will just repeat the show over and over.  This comes in handy when you need to do the laundry :)  I don’t even know what all DVD’s there are, but I’ll list some of the ones I have to give you an idea:

• Backyard Animals
• Ocean Animals
• Baby Mozart (centered around music)
• Baby DaVinci (centered around art)
• Around the World Music (music on each of the continents)
• Baby Sign Language

I have more than that, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.  Along with Baby Einstein DVD’s, I’d also say Praise Baby DVD’s.  It’s the same thing, but plays Christian music the whole time.  Carter likes them both.  See their website here.  Again, BuyBuyBaby has numerous of the Baby Einstein DVD’s as does Target and Walmart.

4.  Noise Machine

Boy is a noise machine a must!!!  Carter is out the second he hears the rain!  Rain is his personal favorite.  A lot of noise machines come with various sounds.  The most common I’ve seen are ocean, rain, heartbeat, waterfall and rainforest.  The heartbeat one is freaky.  I can’t fall asleep listening to that, I feel like a someone is going to bust up in my house and kill us all.  The rain machine we have is really thin and easy to fit into the diaper bag to carry anywhere that Carter may need to fall asleep. 

This is a SoundSpa Sound Machine.  It’s $20 at BuyBuyBaby.  You can plug it into the wall and it will go all night long, or if you only don’t have a plug near you, you can put batteries in it and by the press of a button can decide if you want it to go 15, 30 or 60 minutes.  I honestly don’t know that Carter would be able to stay asleep for long without this playing in the background.  We also live relatively close to a railroad and trains come through CONSTANTLY between 3-5am and he can’t hear them because of the machine.

5.  Babywise

This should be number 1 on the list.  Because of this book, my son slept 11 hours last night (with a 15 minute break in there where I woke him up to feed him around 10pm).  This book is all about how to put your child on a schedule so that he/she will learn sleep habits.  It’s based around a feed/wake/sleep schedule.  Instead of feeding a baby and then putting it to sleep, which is tempting to do since after eating is when they’re the most tired, you should let your baby play and then go to sleep.  Putting them to bed awake is key in getting your child to learn how to fall asleep on their own.  Otherwise, you baby will always need to be fed in order to fall asleep.  That’s just the main tip.  There’s so many other things in this book like what a baby’s sleep habits should be at what age, how many feedings they should have, when to drop feedings, etc.  LIFESAVER.

And there’s my top 5, in no particular order.  I hope other will find this as helpful as I have found other people’s top 5 posts!!

Reflection

I’m writing this post in reflection of the past year.  It was a year ago today, April 16th, that I found out that I was pregnant with Carter.  I already went back and read the post of how I found out (see here and see here for where I announced it on the blog).  I loved reliving those emotions and remembering how excited yet scared out of my mind I was.  I remember Justin’s reaction, which was rather hysterical.  I remember that April 16th was also the day that we purchased our lot at James Hill to start building the home we live in now.  The home we brought Carter to when we left the hospital.  I remember how thankful I was and how much I prayed thanking God for this blessing and hoping for a healthy baby.  I started immediately going out of my mind trying to figure out when my first doctor’s appointment would be, when we’d make it public, who we would tell first, how we would tell our families, if it was a boy or girl, what the name would be if it was a boy or girl, etc.  My mind was in overdrive.  We were entering a new stage of our lives.  We were preparing to become a family of three.
The pregnancy had its ups and downs, but overall I had a great pregnancy.  I remember seeing that first picture of him on the ultrasound (of course we didn’t know it was a “him” yet).  Most everyone by now knows that I knew Carter was a boy all along.  This is partly due to the motherly instinct, but mainly it’s due to my faith.  I’ve never mentioned this before, but I want to share it now so that I’ll never forget it.  Our first ultrasound was on May 20th.  I was already beginning planning for a nursery and couldn’t stop thinking about whether it was a girl or a boy.  Justin and I wanted a boy so badly, but we obviously were going to be appreciative of whichever sex God gave us.  On my work email, I get a daily Bible verse in the mornings.  On May 19th, the day before the ultrasound, as I was constantly wondering if we’d have a boy or girl, I got this email:
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” - Isaiah 9:6.
No, I don’t think my son is a God or the Everlasting Father or Prince of Peace.  My main focus was on the first part.  “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given”.  After that, I just knew that we were having a boy.  Can’t really explain it, but I think God was telling me to chillax and that he was providing us with what we wanted.
I remember finding out it was a boy and I am one of the lucky few that was able to get that moment on video (excuse the 13 minute long video…you can fast forward to 5:40 which is where I cut into the cake and find out that Carter was a boy):

I remember telling Justin’s dad, Gordon, that Carter’s middle name would be Gordon.  He cried and hugged me.  I’m so upset we didn’t get that part on video.
I remember the end of the pregnancy, feeling absolutely miserable to the point of tears as I got closer and closer to my due date and Carter didn’t show any sign of making an entrance.  I remember how devastated I was when I wasn’t holding him in my arms on Christmas Day like I wanted to. 
But I also remember my last doctor’s appointment the morning of December 27th, my actual due date, and my doctor telling me that I would be admitted that night and induced.  I remember the joy I felt to know that our son would be here in less than 48 hours.
I remember the night I got induced.  I remember the next morning when all of our family showed up to watch Carter enter the world.  I remember the very easy labor, but very painful delivery.  And I remember his first cry.  The moment when I knew he was ok and that I had given birth to a son.  Nothing else mattered.  My drastic drop in blood pressure, the fact that I was freezing and shaking uncontrollably from the epidural and the massive amounts of blood I supposedly lost.  None of it mattered.  All that mattered was that cry.
I remember our nurse giving him to me with his hand reached out touching my face and his eyes WIDE open looking at me and at that exact moment, he stopped crying.

Carter,
You are such a joy to mommy and daddy.  Your smile lights up a room and your precious laugh brings me to tears.  I can’t believe we created something so beautiful and perfect.  God chose us to be your parents and I only hope I can raise you to glorify God the way we did that day.  You will never know the depth of my love for you.  I would die for you my son.  I can’t wait to see the person you will turn into.
With more love than you’ll ever know,
Mom
My life didn’t change on December 28, 2011.  It changed on April 16, 2011.

The Twins Are Here!!!

The twins have finally arrived!  Long story short, my sister-in-law, Jennifer, was admitted to the hospital on Thursday because her urine was showing too much protein and her blood pressure was getting too high.  They decided to keep her at the hospital until the babies were born.  Jen is only 34 weeks right now, but for twins, that’s a good time to be born.  She thought she’d have to be in the hospital for a little over two weeks because as of Thursday, babies were showing no sign of coming anytime soon.  The doctors said that they would take the babies on August 30th if they hadn’t come before then.

But then this morning, Jen’s blood pressure skyrocketed so they decided to take the babies today.  Justin had to wake up around 5:30 because he was traveling to Bend, Oregon today with his dad for work.  Justin and Gordon had both gone through security at the airport when they got the call that the babies were coming today.  They ended up leaving the airport and Gordon headed straight to the hospital while Justin came back to our house to get me.  I was still asleep at this time.  I was woken up by our house phone ringing three times in a row.  I figured something was up.  I missed it the third time but then saw my cell phone and had 4 missed calls and two voicemails, all before 7am.  So I kinda knew babies were coming and got up and immediately got ready.  I’ve never gotten ready that fast.  Ever.  This is the SECOND time I have woken up to news of babies.  Cooper started coming in the middle of the night too and I had even more missed calls/voicemails/texts then.

It’s been a long day, Justin and I got to the hospital around 8am and just got home around 5pm.  I am SO exhausted.  Babies were born at UAB and boy are they secure about their babies.  We had to take a picture and wear a badge based on what wing Jenn was in.  First she was in the pre-labor rooms, then she went to labor and delivery, then to recovery then to her final post-partum room.  That’s a lot of moving!  The annoying part was that since they kept moving Jenn, we had to get new badges before we could see her after the surgery.  There was literally 10 of us that had to go all the way back to the lobby to get a new badge before we could see Jenn or the babies.  So annoying.  But I guess I understand.  Ok now for the good stuff….the pictures :)

This is  everyone in Jenn’s room waiting on her to come back from recovery.  She had a C-Section and couldn’t leave the recovery room until she was able to move both of her legs, so we were just waiting on her arrival to greet the new momma!  This is Debbie and Gordon (the new grandparents), JoAnne and Russell (the great grandparents) and our pastor at St. Mark, Steve West.

This is me and Stacey, Jenn’s bff.

Sweet little Cynthia Ann….born first at 4lbs, 14oz, 17 3/4 inches

Auntie M holding little Cynthia.  We figured out that Cynthia only gets upset when she’s being moved.  She cried when Aeron picked her up from the table, but then was fine.  She cried when I took her from Aeron, but then she was fine, and then she cried again when the nurse took her from me to put back on the table.   I can’t wait till I feel like she’s a little less fragile!!

    

Daddy holding Celia Grace, 3lbs, 7oz, born second, 14 1/4 inches.  Y’all, no pictures can explain this.  Her body is TINY.  Her sweet little head is no bigger than my palm, maybe even smaller.  But little girl had her eyes wide open looking at her surroundings and everyone that was holding her.  She never cried either.  Sweet sweet little girl.

Celia sucking her thumb

Cynthia

Uncle Justin is holding a 4x6 picture next to Cynthia to give you an idea of how little bitty she is

That’s one happy Nana!!

Nana holding Celia and Auntie M holding Cynthia.

You may have noticed both of their names start with “C”.  I absolutely love this.  That means we’ll have three C’s when Carter comes.  I am so excited about pictures that are captioned with “Celia, Cynthia and Carter”.  LOVE IT!  Prayers for Jenn and the babies though.  Jenn will probably be in the hospital until Wednesday or Thursday.  The babies have to be 5lbs before they’re able to leave, so poor Celia has a bit to go, but Cynthia’s close.  Both babies have shown interest in sucking on things so hopefully that means they’ll take food easily.  The more food they eat the quicker they put on weight and the quicker they’ll leave the NICU.

Cooper Francis Cowley

Cooper is finally here!!  I guess I shouldn’t say “finally”.  Jen’s due date wasn’t until July 20th.  But she’s been 3cm dilated and 80% effaced for over a week now so we were sure he was going to come early.  When I woke up this morning at 6:30am, I had 7 missed calls and several texts.  As soon as I saw my phone, I knew she’d gone into labor, I didn’t even have to look at who the calls were from.  Apparently everyone in our family goes into labor in the middle of the night. 

As soon as I woke up I called Jeff (by the way, for those of you that don’t know, Jennifer is my sister and Jeff is her husband, they live in Tampa, FL and this is their first child) and he said she was actually taking a break from pushing.  So at 6:30 she was pushing already.  When I hadn’t heard a peep from anyone at 10:30am, I started getting very nervous.  Come to find out, she labored and pushed for FIVE HOURS but Cooper just wasn’t wanting to come out.  His head was crooked in the canal and they couldn’t get him out after five hours of trying so they did a c-section and he arrived at 11:36am EST. 

Can I just say…PROPS to my sister for laboring for five long hours (in which the epidural was not always working) and then having to have a c-section.  She’s my hero.  Cooper was 7 pounds, 15 ounces and 19 inches long when he was born.  As you can see, he was born with a head FULL of black hair too :) 

God has been so awesome to our family guys.  For real.  With Jennifer getting pregnant and having a healthy baby boy and my sister-in-law (also named Jennifer) pregnant with twin girls right now and due in September and my own little Won Ton due in December…the Lord is truly smiling upon our family and we are so grateful for his blessings.  Please keep Jen in your prayers as she recovers from the surgery and also pray that her and Jeff remain patient with Cooper and with each other in this new transition into parenthood.  We all know that newborns can be frustrating when they wake up 12 times a night and you can’t figure out why they’re crying.  So just pray that they remain patient and always know how truly blessed they are. 

I LOVE MY NEPHEW!!!

And The Twins Are

I can’t believe I haven’t blogged about this either.  Jennifer (my sister-in-law) told my MIL that her appointment to find out the sex of the twins was on May 2nd (when Justin and I were out of town).  However, Jen’s a pretty good liar.  She actually had her appointment the week before that and right before we all went to Olive Garden to celebrate my birthday, we headed over to Debbie and Gordon’s house first.  Justin and I knew that Jen had found out the sex, but we didn’t know what the sex was.  Jen gave Debbie a cute little bag and had her open it before we went to eat dinner that night.  (Sorry the video is dark, there wasn’t a lot of lights on in the house because Debbie just had eye surgery and she’s really sensitive to a lot of light.)

GIRLS!!!!

 

Debbie is one excited soon to be Nana!!

#81 - CHECK!

Number 81 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to help host a baby shower for someone.  I got to mark that item off the list this weekend when myself along with my sister Lindsey and aunt DeLane hosted a couple’s baby shower for my other sister, Jennifer, and her husband.  The shower was at DeLane’s house in Tuscaloosa and we had a great turnout with great food!  Jen got lots of great gifts for Baby Cooper and got to spend a lot of quality time with family and friends that she barely ever sees since she lives all the way in Tampa.  Here’s a few pictures from the shower:

I am loving these baby converse shoes!!!

       

This is an Auburn little man hat that my aunt gave Jennifer.  This was  huge thing for DeLane because she is an AVID Alabama fan, as is the rest of our family. 

I am loving all of these little onesies that Lindsey got for Cooper.  I particularly like the crab.  Lindsey likes the alien one the best.

Heart my hubby :)