Rock a bye baby

So i just got done rocking Kenzie to sleep. She fell asleep right away...but i just kept rocking her for a while afterwards. Having a person trust you, and be so completely innocent in your arms is the most awesome thing in the world. I love bedtime and look forward to it everyday. Kenzie finished her bottle while i read 'Guess How Much I Love You' to her, and then i just sat there staring at her. Sean and Hettie...don't worry about the whole 'head support' thing on the rocking chair...you won't need it. I guarantee that you will spend the entirety of any 'rocking' time just staring at your baby's utter cuteness.
My mom always had an embroidered pillow in our house growing up and i never thought anything of it until i became a mom. The words mean so much more to me now...


"Cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow, for babies grow up, we've learned to our sorrow. So quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep...I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep."


I've had to learn that having a dirty house is ok, and missingmy favorite tv show is ok, and not eating the most healthy time consuming meal is really ok. I would so much rather spend the time with my baby girl than do anything else.


Another poem that i always want to share with kenzie is another one that my mom gave to me....

Come rest your head and nestle gently,

And do not fear the dark of night.

Almighty God keeps watch intently,

And guards your life with all His might.

Doubt not His love, nor power to keep,

He never fails, nor does He sleep.


I should probably take that one to heart a little more too. :/


.............................

So i'm sitting here with 2 of my guilty pleasures....drinking a mudslide and watching America's Next Top Model. It's funny how worldly most of these girls are.

I got a call back from a company that does surveys and study groups and pays you cash for participating. Next Weds. they are doing one on diapers that requires me to go and do surveys for like 2 hours, but then i get $70, which would be nice to have. I'm not totally sure that i qualify for it yet...and i'm actually still debating if the $70 is worth losing an entire night with my baby....but in a selfish way i am going shopping at the outlet malls next Friday with my MIL and it wouldn't hurt to have $70 to spend on Kenzie and myself outside of our regular income. So i think i'll do it if they let me.


Anyways....uhmmmm i don't really have much else to talk about so i guess i'll check out! Lata!

We have successl!!

So today i tried feeding Kenzie some thicker rice cereal with a spoon for the 2nd time, and we have success!!!! I'm so proud of my little munchkin! She ate quite a bit and was really getting the hang of moving her tongue around to swallow food and opening her mouth for the spoon. It was fun to feed her and i actually can't wait to do it again tomorrow! YAY i'm so excited! once she gets really good with the cereal we can move on to real foods! eek!
So anyways....on to other things....
Work is getting really busy and hectic. They are not hiring any new people when employees quit, just splitting up their work between others....which means i have 3 extra offices so far to process checks for....plus the processing has become harder and harder making my job more tedious and time consuming. I used to have free time to relax and take my time...not so much anymore. Oh well. At least i have a job.
As for how i'm doing....I don't know how i'm doing. I'm struggling a lot with my walk with God because i think I'm angry with him. I hate to admit that because i know that i shouldn't be, and i'm really trying to get past it, but i just don't know how. I am getting so tired of never being home, and never seeing Joel during the week, never seeing Kenzie, hating my job so much...During the week i am pretty miserable in general and then on the weekend everything is great because i get to be home with my family. I feel like God wants me to learn from this and fix how i feel about him, but i also feel like i have no time to work on it. I get home from work and see Kenzie, cook dinner, eat dinner, play with Kenzie for a few and work on the newest developmental milestone, and then get her ready for bed. After that i feel like i HAVE to have some time to just relax and do nothing. It's during this time that i need to focus on God and my walk with him, but i just feel so overwhelmed. I want to just sit back, watch tv, get ready for the next day and relax! I don't know what to do and Joel is trying to help me but with us being apart all week it's hard to really work on anything together. I need to be thankful for everything that we have been blessed with in life, but because i am so miserable with so many life situations, i am finding that difficult. I pray every day that God will give me a new job and give me more time at home, but i don't think he will give that to me until i learn to ask the right way and stop wanting things to be my way or nothing else.
Ugh. So that's how i'm feeling right now and what i'm struggling with. I need to force myself to read the Bible daily and pray more often. I need to learn to give everything to God and he will provide and do what is best for us. I need to not be mad at God for our situation. I need to work on my relationship with Joel and find out why i get so defensive with him when he tries to help me. When he tries to talkto me i just get so defensive! ugg.

I guess i need to focus more on creating time for God.
Well i'm off to bed and some overdue reading....

Mommy and Me weekend....

This weekend was a fabulous warm and sunny one. We had 80-90 degree weather every day! It has been loverly. Friday night we helped some friends of ours move some stuff out of their old apt building and then they treated us to some pizza....DELICIOUS pizza by the way. Saturday morning we volunteered at our church with Angel Food again which was fun. Afterwards a lot of us went back over and helped unload our friend's stuff into their new apartment. I had Kenzie however so i took her with me over the the nearby mall and went to do some much needed shopping. I got to the mall and sat outside in the shade to feed kenzie her bottle. She ate it up and got into a good 'full' and happy mood. I stuck her in the carseat in the stroller (travel system) and off we went. I was really hoping that she would be good because i knew it was going to be a good 2 or 3 hours before Joel was done with helping out. Can i just say how proud i am of her for being so good!? I was able to shop around all i wanted, try stuff on, eat, and do whatever, and she was just content in her stroller! I know that she loves her stroller but i couldn't believe she was good for that long in there just sitting! I got me some shirts, her some pants, and a long past due bathing suit for me too. It was so nice to go shopping with my baby girl. I look forward to many years of having fun together. :) As weird as it is i would ask her all kinds of questions and talk to her. She is really 'googly' with her cooing and stuff now so it's like she wants to reply, but can't quite get the words out. :) She's the best kind of shopping buddy because she thinks everything you say to her is great! so everything looks good. She fell asleep at the end of the trip and slept while i finished up. She's at the point now where any fussing that she starts to do, all i have to say is 'you're alright' and soothe her a little, and she's fine. VERY helpful.

Anyways.....Joel and I spent the evening together watching Twilight...an AWESOME movie...i'm totally into it now as much as i tried to resist it.
Sunday was church, dinner at another couple's house from our church, and then grocery shopping. Ugg we spent just over $200 but really needed to do it so it was ok. Then we got home and finished watching Twilight with Kenzie just cooing away in her bouncy seat. She earned the new name 'Chief Crazy Hair' because when you spike her hair up she looks a little 'nutso.' At night Joel cooked while i got Kenzie to bed and we enjoyed the night together. Wonderful weekend but a little busy too. Next weekend we have every single day booked with...absolutely nothing. We are going to try our absolute best to stay home for once!!

Ok I'm going photo crazy!

I'm getting back into taking pics all the time....and I'm glad because i really need to take lots of pics of Kenzie while she is still young and small. It goes by too fast to not document it all! So i'll try to keep it to a minimum....well.....ok no i won't....but i'll try to blog about other stuff too...LOL....

I just got Kenzie to sleep for the night, which i really enjoy doing. It's bathtime, which is the best most relaxing time for Kenzie. She loves to kick and splash in the water. She loves the soapy bubbles, the little rubber duckie 'kissing' her cheeks. She just loves it. Then i have to take her out....she cries...i put a 'new butt' on her, and calm her down. Brush her little hairs and get her 'jammies' on....then i plug her little mouth with a small bottle. I rock her and sometimes sing, sometimes read, sometimes just stare at her. She eventually gets the heavy eyelids and falls off into a light sleep so i put her into her crib to fall asleep the rest of the way. I don't know why, but it's my favorite time of the day. I miss her once she's asleep....but i love the playtime of the tub, and peacefulness of bedtime. Anyways.....enough of that right?

Joel and I are doing well. We did a lot of reorganizing this past weekend on Sunday afternoon. We cleaned house and after that was done we switched the bigger tv into the living room and started using our big cabinet for a pantry in the dining room. We have a lot more 'storage' food than i thought! And now i have cabinet space to spare!

This coming weekend we have Angel Food to help out with and then we are going to help some friends move into their new apt. Well....i say we, but mean Joel. I'll be watching little girl, LOL. Our friend's wife is pregnant so they needed some extra help :) After that i'm hoping to hang out with Joel's friend who is living in TX now for the AF, but he is in town visiting. HOWEVER, he misses his GF a lot so i know that the whole weekend will probably be just 'their time'....we'll see.

So i guess i'll post some pics now...

ahhh sun..how I missed thee

The day is gorgeous...grandma has baby for the day...its just me and my hubby outside. I'm having a great time sitting here and doing nothing....well except blogging....but I'm gonna go now so I can tan this white mess of a body lol

Bored and at work...

So i'm on my lunch break at work....trying to save money and eat in more so today was a delicious sandwich, actually it was quite good....but anyways....you aren't here to read about my food reviews.

Joel and I aren't really up to much of anything new. Kenzie is still sleeping in her crib but not doing quite as well as she did at first. But in her defense, i did stop swaddling her so she is probably waking herself up with fidgets and jolts. I finally got around to cleaning up her room and organizing it all again. YAY for mom! it looks like a real room now instead of a baby supplies storage facility.
This coming weekend is the annual 'Thunder Over Louisville' fireworks show. Joel and I were going to go but had an unexpected $80 expense to fix Joel's car so i don't know if we'll go or not now. Either way it's supposed to be a gorgeous day from what it looks like so we may just stay home and enjoy it all. Kenzie will be hanging out with grandma for most of the day Saturday so that mom and dad can have come quality time. She was going to stay the night so we could be out late for 'Thunder' but nevermind that! :) I'm going to miss her, but i also miss my hubby...so i gotta split up the weekend time. I'm actually really looking forward to sitting around at the house and doing absolutely nothing but watch movies and cook lunch together etc etc etc.
Nothing else really new to post about. Things are going well, still looking for a job and my state of daily stress is still pretty high since i'm gone from home so much, but i know that a better job will happen in God's time....eventually.
Well i should get back to work soon so i'm out!

pics of the growing girl

Ugh! I'm so glad i finally caught it on film!!

Who tells me?

So remember how mom always said to be sure and scrub behind your ears when you are in the tub as a kid? (at least my mom and grandma always did). Well who's around to tell me to be sure and wash behind Kenzie's ears? I'm telling you...parenting needs a manual. On sunday i was holding my sweet baby and was looking at her ears and cleaning out the inside, and then realized, ECK! what's that BEHIND her ears!?! Oh yeah....3 months worth of gook. LOL So needless to say, i now realize that i have nobody to tell me to do that for her....I'M THAT MOM now!?!?! ACK!

ok random thought concluded.

Easter Weekend

This weekend was a busy, but fun one. On Friday night I was released from work at 3:00, which was nice of our office to do. I got home around 3:45 and took my baby girl off of daddy’s hands. We hung out around the house and did a little bit of cleaning until 6:30 when Joel’s great ‘uncle’ (not sure what exactly he is but he’s somebody’s uncle lol) and ‘aunt’ came over. They hadn’t had a chance to meet Kenzie yet as they are older and don’t get out of the house too much. They walked in the door and immediately starting fawning all over the munchkin. She was pretty well behaved and sat like a little princess while we ate. She loves to be involved with what is going on so we are sure to sit her right in the middle of everything. She likes best to sit up now since laying down ‘is for babies,’ and she ain’t no stinking baby! LOL. Anyways, aunt Evelyn just loved her and held her while I prepped the tub for the bedtime routine. She was just a’talkin to Evelyn and telling all kinds of stories. Then Saturday rolled around and we took Kenzie out to Aunt Sandy’s YMCA to make an appearance at the Easter egg hunt. It was freezing cold outside though so we had to keep Miss Mess all bundled up. She had a cute Easter bunny ‘ears’ hat to wear but that child HATES hats. Anyways, then we had lunch together and went back home. Joel and I got Kenzie to bed around 8 as usual and I made my cake balls/easter chickens for a dessert for our family get together the next day. They turned out pretty well I think, at least for my first attempt at animal cake balls.

LOL After Kenzie went to sleep we stayed up and cuddled on the couch and watched a little bit of Cinderella Man. It was a nice end to the day. Sunday brought in waking up at 5am for sunrise service. We made it but again….FREEZING outside, so I sat in the car with Kenzie and rolled the window down. I could hear the Pastor though and watched the sunrise so it was really nice. Went to regular service, then off to the family dinner. My cake balls were a hit, especially with the kids. Everyone ooed and ahhed over Kenzie again because they hadn’t seen her yet. We stayed for a little over 3 hours but then headed home. Once home we relaxed and I played with Kenzie. She’s really starting to enjoy laying under her play gym. I covered it with toys and a big mirror so she has a blast looking at the baby in the mirror. We also got in a little bit of peek a boo time. She’s smiling SO much but has yet to get a real good laugh. L It will come though. Saturday night Kenzie went to bed at her regular time, actually a little early and Joel and I played our first 2 player game in forever! Mario Tennis on the Game Cube. I kicked his bum! Haha…go Princess Peach!

So for Kenzie’s landmark of the week…..first off….last Weds. was her first night sleeping 8 hours straight. It was SO great. I woke up at 4am with her and was like WOAH….did I miss something? And secondly……this weekend….was Kenzie’s very first night sleeping in her own crib…Friday ngith went well, as did Saturday and Sunday! So now she is officially sleeping in her very own big girl bed! Mom and dad can claim their room back now! This week I’ll start moving all of the supplies and such back to her room so that she is totally on her own in there! It was nerve wracking for me, but at 3 mos, I told myself that by then I wanted her in her room….and I’m so proud of myself for following through. She isn’t sleeping the full 8 hours in there yet, but hey….between 4 and 6 hours is great and I’m used to that so no problem! Plus it’s a nice sound sleep for me now without any baby squirms to listen to right beside me. We have the video monitor on her in her bed though which is a nice perk for me. I can watch her still without having to have her right beside me.
Overall we had a great weekend and a BIG milestone for both baby and mommy.

Watch me grow....

Here are some more snapshots of Kenzie from birth until now...
My My how big she has gotten...and chubby too! :)






















The END! Thanks for lookin!!

I wasn't gonna....

Ok well i wasn't gonna post the 'yucky' pics of birthing Kenzie....but per Hetties' request...let's take a little walk down memory lane shall we? ((warning....this will be a photo overload!!))

we all remember this little lady right??


And this is what ensued!!
Hubby by my side while i was on sleepy meds. Happy times. :)


ANd then blah blah blah 19 hours passes by and then WHAM! A baby!!


Awww so cute!! lol



The proud daddy!! and then the proud mommy!!



and then there is a video that only people who have birthed a baby should watch...Vanessa....turn away...you will NEVER have children if you watch this...i repeat...turn away NOW!

Weekend Update....

This weekend was a marvelous one. On Friday we went and met with our new sitter...LOVE her. She seems great. Then we went home and had our friend over for pizza and drinks....mmmm mudslides....but maybe 3 was a little much, LOL. Saturday Joel and I got up early and had a good long talk about our relationship and issues both him and I are having. I was getting over-stressed for no reason at all, and taking it out on him, but all is well and fixed now! Then we went and got my hair cut and had lunch at BW3's with jami/Ethan and their 2 kiddos. So cute! Then we all went to the zoo from about 12-6 and had a blast! Their little 2 yr old really enjoyed it. Kenzie was great for all but about an hour when she was hot and hungry.
Sunday we went to church and then stayed for a potluck afterwards. There are 3 babies under 3 mos in our church now, one brand newbie so we all talked and shared info and stuff. I should be a paid spokesperson for Gripe Water....i tell every new mom about this miracle stuff, LOL. Then we went home and watched movies and cleaned house. We all sat outside in the beautiful sunny 80 degree weather for a little while too. We had dinner together and put Kenzie to bed around 7:30 because she was getting fussy and tired. Then we made brownies...YUMMO and headed off to bed ourselves. It was a great relaxing weekend overall.
Today is weird.....it's supposed to snwo tonight...yesterday high of 80....today is snow. This is madness!!
But anyways....that's my update and below was the pic of the week so i'm out to work some more...or at least pretend to do so, LOL.

L'Mac!!

Here is a pic of lil miss l'mac getting ready for bedtime...