Temple BaByQ

We had our BaByQ here in Temple on May 30th. It was supposed to be our first of three showers. Due to the dates of the others and Kinley coming early, it ended up being the only shower we were able to attend! It was a co-ed shower at our house with burgers, hot dogs, lots of sweets, hanging out and even a little cornhole tournament. Our friends, Anna, Whitney, Alicia, Kacie and Tina, were the hostesses. They went above and beyond! Everything was so cute!

This was the entrance to our house.

The sign in high chair

 Late night diaper notes from our guests... It was funny reading these those first few weeks as I changed her diaper. 

The girls were supposed to have a bow making session. Everyone was so busy visiting though that it didn't happen. I now have a box full of supplies they left me with! 

 Our back patio

We had cake, cookies, brownies, orange and pink kettle corn/popcorn and so much more! 

The cake was so pretty. It looked like a mini wedding cake. Evidently Sam's charged them wrong so they got a good deal.

A few of the guests and Colt heading out the door to grill. 

Colt told me beforehand that this dress made me look REALLY pregnant and it did... but hey... I was really pregnant!

Some of our gifts

James wrapped his gift in Christmas wrapping paper. Evidently he told his girlfriend that he had wrapping paper at home!

I'm pretty sure Colt was saying I would be the one using the NoseFrida that Kristen got us.

It looks like Whitney was having Lucky pose for Alicia and the camera.

I think this was about the time that Colt realized how much pink and girly stuff we were getting and it hit home! 

He did think all our little rompers were pretty cute though!

Parents to be with Lucky photo bombing us!

Colt and Brandon during the cornhole tournament

Wade and Tina

Alex thinking they were throwing bean bags to her

Ben and Matt got 3rd place in the cornhole tournament.

Tina and Brandon took 2nd, and Colt and Kristen brought home the gold!

Matt and Lucky are good friends as you can tell in the pic.

Kristen let Colt keep the 1st place trophy, and it's sitting on Kinley's shelf in her room!

Colt and I after the shower... I was exhausted and my wedges were definitely off!

Josh and Brianna weren't able to come to the shower but dropped us off these two awesome gifts a day or so later. 

And this was me trying to organize our gifts after the shower

Of course Lucky was helping me... He's kinda like Where's Waldo in all of these pics. 

Little gift sacks for our hostesses

We are so grateful for the hostesses and all of our friends that came to celebrate and help us get ready for the arrival of Kinley! We had a blast!

Week 34

This was back on May 28th when I was about 34 weeks pregnant. At this point, I was outgrowing most of my workout tops.  My workout shorts were getting pretty snug. These two things were pretty much my daily wardrobe so I placed a Target and Old Navy order that week to order some maternity clothes to get me through the rest of my pregnancy. Up until then all I had really bought was a couple pairs of shorts and a few tops. At that point I had no idea that my pregnancy wouldn't last much longer and I would be sending everything that I ordered back!

Trying to relax and get some of the swelling in my feet to go down... candlelight thanks to Colt :)

Celebrating Hensley Grace / Memorial Day Weekend

Gerald and Allison's due date was about a week after our due date. One of their baby showers was on Sunday, May 24th in Forney. Colt happened to be off that weekend so we made plans to go visit his family and to be there for their shower. 

Our friends, Matt and Whitney, were moving to China Springs that Friday before. Colt helped load up some of their things in Temple Friday morning and had planned on heading to China Springs later that day to help unload. We ended up deciding there would be no point in him driving all the way there, coming home and then us going back that direction. After I got off work that day, we went ahead and packed up and decided we would go to their house and then head on to Forney that night. We ended up stayingat Matt and Whitney's longer than we had planned so we were on the road and got to Forney LATE after everyone was in bed. We were both exhausted! 

The next day I wanted to eat at On the Border and go to a couple of other places. David, Colt and I drove to Rockwall. We went to Home Goods, Target and then met Dede at On the Border. We had planned on going to North Park but we ended up at BuyBuy Baby instead because I wanted to exchange a carseat adapter. At this point, we already had our rocking chair for the nursery that we had ordered from Target. However, we walked by and sat in the rocking chairs while we were there. I made the comment that the one we already had was pretty comfortable but not super comfortable and it wasn't comfortable enough that I would have it in our living room or anything. Colt was like "you've got to be kidding me!" He said it was going back, and we were getting a new one.  There were a couple at BuyBuy Baby that we liked. One of them we would've had to order and it wouldn't be in until after our due date. Another one that we liked they had one or two in stock in Frisco. We had them hold it for us, and we made a trip to Frisco. On our way home from Frisco to Forney, it started pouring down rain. The box with our chair in it got pretty soaked. Needless to say, we didn't ever make it to North Park, and our day out lasted a lot longer than we had planned! 

Sunday afternoon, Colt and I went to Gerald and Allison's shower. 

 Here are a couple of pics from celebrating Ms. Hensley Grace.

Us and our girls... I was about 33 weeks and I think Allison was about 32 weeks.

The four of us ... or six of us I guess you could say!

Sunday night David cooked us steak for dinner. We had planned on going home fairly early on Monday but it was storming pretty bad. Colt had to go buy a tarp to cover our chair for the trip home. We spent a lot of the day just hanging out and waiting out the storm. We had one of our favorites, Cowboy Chicken, before heading back. Our ride home was a little dark and eerie looking but we made it home safe with chair in tact, and we had a good Memorial Day weekend.

Week 33

These pictures were from back on May 20th at about 33 weeks pregnant. I had a doctors appointment that day a little before lunch. When I first got to my appointment, my blood pressure was 144/110 when the nurses checked it. The doctor rechecked it manually a little later in the appointment and it was 110 over something. My weight was 149. I had gained another 4 pounds in the two weeks since my 31 week appointment. Overall, that was 8 pounds in 4 weeks. I definitely wasn't staying in the pound a week range. I began to realize, I probably wouldn't be staying in the 25-30 pound weight gain range that I had hoped since I was already about 30 pounds up at 33 weeks! Kinley's heartbeat was 140 and she was measuring right on track. Everything was looking good which is all that mattered! At this stage of pregnancy my tailbone was hurting. I think it had actually started a few weeks prior but it seemed to get a little worse. Kinley was also definitely all in my ribs. My feet were also swelling. I don't think that sitting in an office chair all day helped with either the tailbone or the feet swelling.

Here's a pic I took on May 21st while I was working that showed her sticking what I think was her butt out! 

And just for fun... a couple of random outtakes that aren't cropped that show the stages of Lucky while I was taking my weekly pictures!

Little Update and My 30th Birthday (in May)

My hopes of getting caught up on blog posts while I'm on maternity leave are pretty much gone! I start back to work next week, and I'm still in May, pre-Kinley. Colt has had a pretty awful schedule lately with a lot of flipping back and forth between days and nights. Since we weren't going to be seeing a lot of Colt anyways and since I didn't know when I would have another chance, this past weekend I braved the 4 hour trip solo with Kinley to stay a few nights with my family. We got back on Tuesday to Colt getting sick while also still being on a bad schedule. He was finishing up working 9 pm - 7 am shifts at the first of the week and now he's switched to PICU for the month of September and has been working 6 pm - 6 am shifts the rest of the week. He comes home and sleeps during the day and because he's been sick, he's been basically getting up just in time to make it back to work. He's been looking like death when he gets up. Kinley and I have probably saw him about 30 minutes each day the last three days. When we do see him, he keeps his distance so we don't get sick too. Here lately, I've definitely been solo and feeling what I think it would feel like to be a single mom.

Kinley is 12 weeks old now. I can't believe it! It makes me sad that she's growing so fast. I've heard the saying "the days are long but the years are short" a couple of times lately, and I TOTALLY get it!

When Kinley turned about 10 weeks old, it seems like she started to become less fussy and rest/sleep better (knock on wood). Who knows the real reason or if there even is one but my guess is that it's because at 8 weeks, I quit drinking cow's milk. I'm not going crazy and cutting out cheese or everything that has milk in it. I'm just not drinking my normal 2-3 gallons a week. I'm drinking almond milk instead. Supposedly it can take a couple weeks for milk to get out of your system so the timing kind of fits. We also started her on a nightly probiotic at the same time. Regardless of the reason, I'm not complaining about more sleep, and I'm not reintroducing cow's milk into my diet just yet. The last couple of weeks she's been doing at least a 3-4 hour stretches of sleep each night and a couple of times time a 5 hour. Before that, it was 2-3 hours tops at a time. However, our pediatrician said at her 8 week appointment that we have to keep thinking of her as 4-5 weeks younger than she really is since she came early and in her opinion 2-3 hours was good for her "age" at that time.

Kinley does still want to be held all the time. It seems like as soon as I put her down, she realizes it within 5-10 minutes most of the time! I know one day I will miss it so right now I am just holding her as much as I can. I have recently became addicted to watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix while I hold her though. Besides the fact that it's hard to type one handed while holding her, my binge watching is another reason I haven't been on the computer. It's a good show!

 Now a quick rewind back to my 30th birthday that was on May 17th... There was something about turning 30 that made me feel like I was getting a lot older. Of course Colt gave me a hard time since he's 27. We played about it, but it really didn't bother me that much. I did fail my eye exam at the drivers license office that week though! Later that day, Colt tested me at home and told me I should've passed and that I needed to retake it so it wasn't on my license. I went back a week later and passed. He's so smart :) I also played about me being "30 and pregnant." I had told Colt years ago that I wanted to be pregnant by the time I was 30... he joked with me that he did his job. We really aren't big on celebrating. However, I had scheduled massages for both of us that Sunday for my birthday at Woodhouse Day Spa in Belton. I got a prenatal. It had a lot to be desired. Colt got a deep tissue which he also said was not that great. He kept asking me where I wanted to go for dinner. I told him I was good with ordering pizza and staying in. He kept acting like we needed to go somewhere for some reason. Finally, he said that he had already told Matt and Whitney that we would meet them at BJs so it was too late to back out. When we showed up at BJs, not only were Matt and Whitney there, there were a ton of people at a group table when we walked in the door! Colt had planned a little surprise dinner. He had also gotten Anna to bake me a birthday cake. She didn't just make me one either, she made me two. She made both a red velvet and a german chocolate. They were so good! Of course the leftovers got sent home with me, and I'm sure that didn't help with my pregnancy weight gain!

Here's a pic of the cakes before they were devoured.

A little before my birthday, David and Dede had also gotten me this ring. It fit at the time. Now it's a little big so I need to get it sized. 

Here's to my 30s! I think they're going to be pretty great!

Week 32 (yes of pregnancy... almost 3 months ago)

Well ... in my last post when I said I would post soon... I obviously meant a month! This was definitely a long time ago considering Kinley will turn 8 weeks old in a couple of days. This was back on May 13th when I was around 32 weeks pregnant. I had definitely planned on getting all these old post up already. Now all I'm going to want to do when I do blog is post about what's going on currently!  I'm hoping I will be able to get better about posting though because I feel like I'm FINALLY in a position I can take the time to. I'm finally caught up on thank you notes (it was hard since two of our showers were the weekend Kinley was born and presents were coming in the mail and from parents, etc.) I've gotten a few things done that I needed to get done both at work and around the house, and we're getting in somewhat of a better routine some days. Maybe in my small moments of spare time, I might choose to blog! Here lately sleep has been the better choice though! Then there's the fact that I actually sat down to write this and pump (I'm trying to get better at multitasking), and before I even got a sentence typed, Kinley had other plans for me! Now I am holding her in a baby carrier in need of a shower from having spit up and I'm sure milk all over me! I will say that the Baby K'tan baby carrier that Mallory gave me has been a life saver. I did have to watch youtube to figure out how to wear it, but it definitely makes it so I can get things done when all she wants me to do is hold her. I've made beds, cooked and pretty much done everything in it! Even ahead of catching up on the blog, I also have to make taking care of myself a priority too. I had big plans today of trying to get a workout video in (since I have managed to do a whopping 1 1/2 workouts since my postpartum checkup). That's one thing I can't do with a baby carrier on though so we will see if that ends up happening before the night is over!

 

Some days I feel like we really have this parenting thing down ... others definitely not so much! We will have a great day and she will sleep great at night. Then I will try to do the same exact thing the next day and it's the complete opposite! Colt says we have it figured out, it's just that she doesn't yet!  Even on the days of chaos or when all that happens is staying on the couch with her, I wouldn't trade it for anything though!

 

Now here are some pics of me back when I was 32 weeks pregnant.

Yay...I got a post done! Now Colt gets off at 11 tonight... it's already 8 so not to be negative but I don't really have high hopes of getting a workout in, eating and getting her and myself bathed and ready for bed before then!

   

Introducing Kinley Taylor Smithson

These past few weeks have flown by and in just a couple of days, Kinley will already be a month old!  Time needs to slow down ALREADY.  It seems like she was just born! The days seem to go by so fast, and there's not a lot of free time that's for sure! Besides the normal household chores, I try to get at least one extra thing marked off my to-do list everyday. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't!

Kinley decided to join us about a month earlier than planned. She was born on Friday, June 12, 2015, at 11:57 pm. She barely had a June 12th birthday! Her daddy thought she wasn't going to make it and that she was going to end up being a 13th baby. She was 6 pounds even and 19 1/2 inches long. To say that we are in love would be a major understatement. We have stared in awe at her (I could stare at her all day), laughed at her, and definitely worried about her (especially those first couple of weeks). I know we are a little biased, but we think she's pretty perfect. We loved her before she was born, but it's crazy how much we immediately fell more in love as soon as she was born. It may have been the hormones but the first few days in the hospital, just looking at Kinley and the thought of how much I loved her and her daddy would make me tear up a little.

All the things that I was worried about beforehand and especially the things that were running through my head that Friday morning when my water broke unexpectedly… I'm not ready… I thought I still had a month…We don't have hospital bags packed… We don't have anything washed… We're supposed to have two baby showers this weekend...I was supposed to transition my work projects and clients today...Will I be a good mom?... Will I know what to do?…. Will I be able to breastfeed... and so on… none of it mattered AT ALL! It's amazing how the whole "being a mom" thing just came naturally. Even though there's definitely been lack of sleep and some days have been a little harder than others, overall it's been absolutely great. I've had some of the best moments, and I love being a mom.

Colt has been a great dad and husband the past few weeks as well. On the day we had her, he was exhausted. He was going on probably about 48 hours of no sleep because he was getting off a night shift when my water broke. However, he went above and beyond to make sure everything was taken care of.  In his haze of no sleep, he ran home and packed hospital bags and with a little help from moms started washing stuff and getting the house ready to bring Kinley home while also being at the hospital with us. I think both of our moms have since commented on how much he was doing, and I am definitely grateful.

I love seeing Colt with Kinley. I knew he was going to be a great dad, but it's even better watching it play out. You can tell he loves her so much and would do anything for her. Fortunately, he got a few of his shifts covered while we were in the hospital. Unfortunately, he had to go back to work a couple days after we got home. All of his days off were spent at the hospital so he didn't really get to experience a lot of time at home with her at first. Lucky for us, and for him, he finished up intern year and finished up his last 12 hour shift in the emergency department on June 30th! Now he has a lighter month in July since that's when we were planning on Kinley being born. The first couple weeks of July he has a pretty easy schedule and weekends off. Then the last two weeks he is on vacation. When he is working though, he gives Kinley goodbye kisses on his way to work. When he gets home, he immediately strips off his dirty scrubs, showers and goes to her. It's the best. Seeing him as a dad has made me love him even more now than I did before.

I am going to post about her birth story and about our first few weeks soon... as well as post all the drafts I have of the rest of my pregnancy leading up to her birth. The last post I published was my week 31 pregnancy post so think I have about 20 drafts waiting to post! Until then, here's a couple of pics of Kinley right after she was born!