Thursday, March 31, 2011

Brynlee's first month in pictures

First attempt at tummy time... not quite sure how to feel :)

Always sleeping like a beauty queen :)

Cuddle time with mom after my cousin's wedding

Always cuddling with dad...

Just plain cute.

First walk!

Cutest little toes

Like I said before, best. facial. expressions. ever.

And last but not least... St. Patty's Day with mom! :)

Slacker.


I have been quite the blog slacker lately. And for that, I am sorry! I have been enjoying every little moment with our baby girl. Everyday I have been meaning to post and then the day gets away with me and Brynn wakes up, and I am not going to lie, I'd rather hang out with her than be on the computer! But hey, I found some time as Brynn is swinging so it's time for a 2 week update!

The last 2 weeks have been, amazing and challenging all at the same time. A good friend of mine, Shauny, told me about a book called Babywise. It is a sleeping/eating schedule technique that is supposedly supposed to get your baby sleeping through the night at 8 weeks. So I bought the book before having Brynn, and me being the huge avid reader I am (insert sarcastic grin here), I didnt read it till she was 2 weeks old. Go figure and go me. So I read it about a week and a half ago sitting on the couch one night while Brynn was passed out at 830... which clearly meant, mom and dad were getting no sleep that night.

The technique is basically this... feed the baby every 2.5-3 hours during the day, make them stay awake after a feeding even if its only for 5 minutes (we all know babies go into a milk coma after eating, so this is the HARDEST part), and then down for a nap. If the baby goes longer than 3 hours during the day sleeping, wake her up by tickling her feet, changing her diaper, wet wipe on her toes or head, anything to get her to wake up to eat at no more than 3 hours. Then at night, give the baby her last feeding of the night, put her in her crib and let her self soothe herself to sleep. Dont wake the baby up at 3 hours, let her naturally wake up to eat during the middle of the night. The hardest part again, is keeping your baby awake after each feeding during the day.

The outcome... well its been almost 2 weeks on this schedule. They say it takes anywhere from 3 days-2 weeks for your baby to really grasp on. And the point is to get their days and nights on point, because most newborns have them backwards, awake during the night and sleep all day. And Brynlee, well, she is doing GREAT on it. We really struggled the first few nights, not with her crying or being fussy because honestly, she is a great baby, but with the keeping her awake part. I know it sounds silly, but its hard! Now she almost does it naturally. Last night for example. I fed her at 10, she ate till 1030, went in her crib, slept till 12:50 and was up to eat. Ate till 1:15 and slept till 6:05 this morning. Ate till 6:30 and is awake right now in her swing. Now if she does what she's been doing the last couple mornings, she will be out in about 30 minutes till about 9am till her next feeding. She has taken to it really well, and me and Ryan, well we can't complain about getting 5 hours of solid sleep in the night! Oh and ps, 5 hours is a full night sleep in newborn terms, you are not supposed to let them sleep longer than 5 hours without a feeding, and if they do, wake them up!

Hopefully for all you new moms or moms to be that hate reading like I do, you learned a thing or two in this post, and let me know if you have other questions if you dont feel like buying the book :) I suggest buying it and reading it as it has a lot of great information and it's honestly, an easy read.

Besides the sleeping schedule in the last 2 weeks that we have been working on, the house going on the market is in full swing. Our realtor came over to take pictures and the virtual tour is officially on YouTube. Crazy! It will be listed after Ryan's parents leave town so we can get the house back in order and people can start coming in to tour. I am nervous about the house... the neighbors house behind us, sold in 3 days! I am really not nervous about the house not selling, I think it will sell. I am more nervous about how quick it might go. Quick means, we need to pack up asap, and live with my sister and Jeff for a bit till our new house is finished. Oh well, if it happens it happens, no way we can time it just right. Also, we have our design center meeting on the new house this afternoon, cabinets, flooring, countertops oh MY! :)

Well guys, thats about it for now... Brynlee is doing amazing, seriously the best baby I know. Doesnt cry, which scares the crap out of us to have another baby, because we have only heard her cry twice. She amazes us every single day with how much more alert she is, she's growing like a weed with her chubby little thighs that I could just eat up. Her facial expressions are classic as ever and we have captured some really great moments on video. I can't wait to share those with her when she gets older.

I will do a separate post with pictures of some of our best captures since she's been here! But for now... you get her 3 week picture! I can't believe she will be 4 weeks tomorrow!!! Time goes way to fast!

Friday, March 18, 2011

2 Weeks Old!

Hope everyone had a great St Patricks Day! We stayed in and watched a movie... oh the life with a newborn :) I was really wanting to be at the Flogging Molly concert in Tempe but then I see her sweet little face, and she's worth the night in. Life sure has changed since Brynlee has gotten here. You start to not care about going out, drinking, and all the other things we used to do. I'd rather just be with my family. Of course we are looking forward to a date night soon! Once Nana Deb and Nonno Dean get into town!!!! :)

Oh and in the last week with Brynlee... not much has changed haha! She eats, sleeps, poops. Oh the life. She's a great baby. Doesnt cry until she wants to eat and then I feed her so all is well in her life! She started her own schedule of every 2-3 hours. Thanks for making it easy on me Brynn. Love you!

Until next time ;)

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

It's the little things...

I cannot believe our baby girl is almost 2 weeks old already! I wanted to document some of the little things she has done that have made us laugh our head off, smile and just love her so much more!

  • Dad went to school for 3 hours, came home gave you a kiss and went to change your stinky diaper. Mid-change you decided to shoot like a rocket, a poop at him. Classic Brynn, classic! Thats what he gets for leaving you :)
  • You've also pooped on mom twice. You are getting good at pooping mid change, little turd. But even better was when we were taking your newborn photoshoot, I was holding your naked butt and dad was holding your head, you pee'd all down my shirt. Thanks babe.
  • You have the CUTEST facial expressions when you sleep. Your lips turn into shapes I never knew were possible. Pictures to follow soon, I swear.
  • After you get done feeding you always have the biggest milk mustache, its adorable.
  • You have good dreams and bad dreams, your bad dreams sound like a whimpering puppy dog, its the saddest thing ever. But your good dreams, well you smile and smile big when your sleeping! (We know good dreams mean your dreaming about mom, and bad ones about dad, right???, only kidding! ;)
  • When you sleep and eat sometimes you coo like a little puppy too. I swear, its the cutest noise I have ever heard. I LOVE IT.
  • Your a thumb sucker, and its adorable... but mom just knows thats when your hungry so usually it comes out and the milk goes in! :)
  • You have the best hand placement. I know this sounds weird. But seriously, when your sleeping you know exactly where to put your hands to make you look like the biggest diva ever. Pictures to come on that soon too!
  • Oh and one last classic moment thus far. The mortgage company called yesterday on the new house. And RIGHT as I answered the phone, you decided to let a big one rip. A nice big fart. I was already answering the phone, and I just started to crack up laughing. The guy probably thought I was such a weirdo. Oh well, it was awesome and perfect timing baby girl. Perfect.
You are so amazing. You hardly cry, just when we wash your hair, honey you need clean hair! We dont need you to have oily roots, come on now. I am sure we are in for it because right now, well you've been QUITE the angel baby. Everyone comments on how chill you are and how gorgeous you are. Well we think the same of course. I always said when you were in my belly that I thought you were going to be a little bit of a problem child since you were SO active. But nope...! You are still extremely active and that is why you hate being swaddled. You like to kick and squirm your arms and legs around and dont like anything holding them back!

We love you SO much Brynlee. It is out of this world. Your dad has been amazing and I love seeing him as a father. You already have him wrapped. Lets keep it up! My love for him has grown to a whole other level. Seeing a man turn into a father is amazing.

This is just some of the things that has happened in a little less than 2 weeks. Man, time is going by fast. I can't wait to see all the other memories and little things you create for us. I love you baby girl!

Monday, March 14, 2011

The new build in photos...

Here are some pictures of the model home from our new build... oh and our DIRT :) We are lot #37... so you can see that we are on the corner but still in the culdesac. 6 months and counting!


{our dirt, yep were excited about dirt!}


{The den right when you walk in in the front of the house}
{The view when you walk in the front door}
{The kitchen/dining room}
{view from the kitchen/dining room}
{the kitchen}
{looking downstairs from the loft}
{the loft, with one bedroom to the right and 2 bedrooms to the left}
August can't come soon enough!

Friday, March 11, 2011

Weekly photo project

I got this inspiration off another blog, Young House Love... I will take a weekly picture of Brynlee. It is just a plain white onesie with a piece of fabric on the ground. Then I just use powerpoint to edit the photo since I dont have photoshop. The fabric was all on clearance and about $1 per piece. So over the course of the year, this will be about a 50 dollar project, not too shabby! Lets watch this little pumpkin grow, week by week!

1 Week Old!

Geez... I cannot believe our baby girl is one week old today! In pregnancy your constantly waiting... waiting to get past 12 weeks so you can breathe, waiting to find out the sex of the baby, waiting for the first kick and punch and then of course waiting for your baby to arrive.

Then... once their here, you just want to slow all time down. I cant "wait" for all of the things to come, like what will she look like as she gets older, who will she resemble more, mom or dad, what will she be when she grows up etc. But I also reallllly can wait. I am taking each day and trying my best to cherish every minute. Sometimes we will be snuggling and I know I should be trying to get something done, and I just remind myself to stop. My baby girl will only be this size for so long, I need to take it all in!

So in the last week whats happened? Well... Sunday was our first official day home from the hospital. Brynn had a rough night and I think it was because they had given her a shot on Saturday and they warned us she might be a little fussy. Well, they were right. So Sunday we just chilled out. Mom, dad and baby B :) We got plenty of naps in and Ryan unpacked all the hospital stuff and put it all away. He went and got groceries for us too! *he has been AMAZING by the way, with helping around the house and trying to take a lot off of my plate since I am always, well... feeding!*

Monday she had her first doctors appointment! Of course the first time we have to take her in the car, Maricopa had a newsbreaking dust storm... of COURSE. I was terrified the whole drive thinking every car was going to hit us. Ryan did great at staying calm. We arrived at the doctors, they measured her head, 14 inches by the way, and we filled out a lot of paperwork. While waiting for the actual doctor to come in I had to feed... of course, this little diva needs her milk! Once the doc came in she listened to her ears, heart, lungs and checked her eyes. All is welll, perfect! She weighed 7lbs 3oz, so lost 3 oz but that is completely and 100% normal and expected. She has no jaundice and is looking great! We go back at 1 month for her next appointment where she will get shots... I told Ryan I dont think I want to be in the room when that happens. Sad!

Tuesday-Thursday... we had some visitors! Aunt Olivia came over to see her on Wednesday and we made dinner, Thursday Kelsey, cousin Ashley and Elizabeth came over. All of them fell in love, its hard not to! We took our first walk down to the clubhouse in the neighborhood and enjoyed a beer and an appetizer. Brynlee liked the walk, the weather has been just GORGEOUS. It hit 90 degrees this week! The pool looks so appetizing and we are so ready for summer!

Today, well today we celebrate her being one week old! I am going to be doing a weekly photoshoot for her first year, more to come on that soon. I got inspiration off of another blog for whats about to come :)

Oh and right now, well daddy is sleeping, he just let me get 5.5 hours of sleep, he rocks. And Brynlee is next to me propped in her boppy snoozin away, in yet another, milk coma! This girl lovesss to eat. Oh and I forgot to mention, I LOVE breastfeeding. I never ever thought I would say that! It is the most amazing bonding experience ever. I thought I was only going to do it for the first 2 months and I can already tell that I dont plan on stopping for a while... going to try for the 6 month mark and see how we do!

Brynlee, mom and dad love you all the way to the moon and back! You are the sweetest baby girl and we couldnt have been more blessed with a perfect angel! You truly are amazing. Slow down a little and let mom and dad take in every moment, so try not to move to fast on us!!

Until next time... :)

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Milk coma,,,,


I feel like I have soooo much to blog about!!! Im not going to lie... I am sad Brynlee is already going to be a week old tomorrow! It's already going wayyy to fast! Brynn is in my left arm right now as I type one handed and she is in what we like to call, a milk coma! After she feeds sometimes she just zonks out so hard! Like mmmm mommy, my belly is SO full! :)

We are so in love. I have never known a love like this! And it's the little things in life that mean a lot more after your baby gets here, like a shower! I got one today and it felt soooo good! I promise I will post more soon! Typing with one hand is hard work and daddy is in school so he cant take over for me! Time to snuggle with my peanut, to be continued...


Sunday, March 6, 2011

Hello World

Brynlee Madison Lopez
Born March 4th, 2011 at 7:39pm
7lbs 6oz 19inches long

And so her story begins. On Thursday March 3rd I spent the day with one of my best friends Morgan who was in town from Chicago. We spent the day checking out the new house, shopping, grabbing lunch, and visiting Connor at the hospital. All day long, Morgan was telling me how she just knew my water was going to break when we were together. She went as far as saying, that she would google how to deliver a baby if something happened, haha, love her! I left her friends apartment at about 6:30pm and started my drive home. Ryan has class Thursday nights from 7pm-10pm. So I knew I was going to be home alone. We were scheduled to be induced in the morning so I wanted to clean up around the house and just get it ready for when we got home. I got home around 7pm. I was on the phone with my sister, chatting away. I felt like I had slightly pee'd my pants! So I went to the bathroom to check out what was going on down there. There was definitly more leakage than normal, but I didnt know for sure if it was pee or I had in fact broken my water. So I text Ryan and told him "honey, I think my water broke." He quickly called me, left class and rushed home. I started walking around my house to see if I would continue to leak and called the doctor. He told me to come in to make sure I hadn't in fact broken my water. I made it to the bathroom when suddenly, I KNEW my water had broke. It wouldnt stop coming out. I never had a huge "gush" of water but there was plenty to be had to know it was in fact my water. I couldn't believe this was happening! The three hours in a week that Ryan has school and I am home alone, my water has to break! At one point, it was me, Ryan, my mom and sister all on a 4-way call. Laughing about how this all just happened, and I packed up my cosmetic bag and literally, curled my hair. Yes, curled my hair! I didnt have anything else to do and I was stuck in the bathroom till Ryan got home haha!

We drove to the hospital and as Ryan only drove 10 over, he said he already knew what he would say to a cop if he got pulled over, haha! We made it to the hospital, and my mom met us in the parking lot with food, I didnt know for sure if I would be cut off from eating, so I had to get one last meal in! Mcdonalds happy meal it was!

We got all checked into OB triage, they confirmed it was my water that had broke, and we moved over to labor and delivery. I really couldnt believe this was happening. It was still very very surreal.

They started me on some pill that was supposed to help contractions get going. I was having some but nothing regular. The pill helped, but they really didnt hurt too bad yet. The next morning, they wanted to start me on Pitocin since I was still not having crazy contractions. I was dilated to a 3 by morning. (Getting from 1-4cm is the LONGEST part of labor). The pitocin started and a few hours later, so did the contractions, and they came on strong. At around noon they were getting very very strong. I knew I wanted to try to push as long as possible all natural. I just wanted to see how far my body would take me. I also wanted to get to a 4 (which is also considered active labor) before I had any pain meds. Pain meds can slow down contractions and I didnt want to slow them down before I was in active labor. So I went through 3 hours of horrific contractions. Horrible. No pain I had ever felt in my entire life. I was a champ at breathing through them according to the nurse! She asked me if I wanted an epidural, and at the end of each contraction I just kept thinking, I can do just one more. She told me it would take about 30 minutes to get the epidural ordered and in. I told her I would just give her a call when I was ready for it to be ordered, to give me 30 more minutes. After about another hour, I called her. And I wanted it NOW. When you are ready for the epidural, lets just say, you are READY. The epidural nurse came in, I couldnt be happier to see her. I was scared out of my mind for it, but knew once I made it through that I would be in a better place. My sister was in the room during the epdiural as well. Both Ryan and her were amazing. I dont know whoever said they dont hurt. I call bullshit. It hurt! Not as bad as a contraction, but it hurt. Once the epidural kicked in I felt a lot better. I had gotten a low dosage of the epidural because I told her I still wanted to be able to feel some pain. I am soooo happy I did that. The pain I felt during labor was still strong, but definitly bearable!

So around 3pm the doctor checked me, I was at a full 4cm and officially in active labor! Yay! The nurse came in around 2 hours later and told me, I had really progressed and was already at a 7! I was soo happy about that! At 6pm we had gotten a new nurse so she wanted to check me again just to see if I had progressed at all in the last hour. She checked me and I was still at a 7. At this point, I really started to get nervous. It was 6pm. My water broke at 7:30pm the night before. Typically they dont want you to go past 24 hours of your water being broke before they c-section you to eliminate the risk of infection. I only had 1.5 hour to move 3cm. EEK! I started to cry a bit and told Ryan I just really didnt want one. I had come this far. Dr. Wilson came in around 7:15pm. He said these words "I am really not impressed with your contractions, they are definitly strong but not close enough together for me to be impressed. I am going to check you to see where you are at and then we will empty your bladder." So on he went, checked me and looked at the nurse and said "you may want to empty her bladder now, there's the head!".... WHAT!!??! The head?! He let Ryan look and he was in shock. Dr. Wilson could NOT believe it. I was complete and her head was already decending down! The nurse quickly emptied my bladder and said we were going to begin pushing. Dr. Wilson had left and said he would see my in a while when I was ready to deliver. Most women push for at least an hour. So I got into position to push, she told me we were going to push on the next contraction. So I did. She said "umm okay, lets do that again, I think she is ready to come out, but lets do one more push before I call the doctor in." So another push I did... halfway into the push she told me to stop, she needed to call the doctor. Brynlee's head was literally halfway out. Dr. Wilson came back in (he was literally gone maybe 10 minutes) He laughed as he came back in and said, wow, this girl means business! So he geared up, I gave him another push. During that push he said "this is not a delivery for teenagers to watch, your making this look way to easy." And then this happened... he said "oh look we can curl her hair" as he gave her a little alfalfa. I was laughing so hard. Dr. Wilson, REALLY?! Your curling my daughters hair. He said "continue laughing and talking". And out she came. I literally, LAUGHED Brynlee out. The 2 nurses were in complete shock. And Dr. Wilson, just could not even believe what just happened. He said he had never seen a delivery like that. And the nurses said the same thing.

She came out and was just PERFECT. No bruising, no cone head. We didnt have time for all that! She knew when she wanted to entire the world! Exactly 24 hours and 9 minutes after my water broke. Dr. Wilson was honestly expecting me to have a c-section, he told me this after my delivery. He didnt think I was going to progress fast enough before we were out of time. Way to prove him wrong Brynlee!

And so the story goes on. I will post more later of our hospital stay etc. Here are some pictures of the delivery of our sweet, amazing, beautiful, breathtaking daughter. We are in love!

About 10 minutes before pushing!

Speechless.
Daddy holding his baby girl for the first time.The moment our lives changed forever. Never will I ever forget March 4th, 2011. We, became a family!