Obviously!

Day five is to post a picture of something or someone that made my day special. This is an obvious one for me.

Rowyn is getting so big and learning new things every day! We were grocery shopping at Rosauers on Sunday and as she was being carried by Kelly, she was blowing raspberries, spit bubbles and grabbing her toes. She cracks me up and I love it. Kelly is also in the picture and he makes my day special, too. He's such a good husband and father, I'm so lucky to have him. =)

Get it out of here!

Okay, the weekend is over and now I need to get back into the challenge!

Day four's question is: If you could rid the world of one thing, what would it be?

There are so many things the world could do without. I personally hate scorpions. Can we get rid of them? (and I don't even have to deal with them in Idaho!) I would normally post a picture of one, but I dislike them so much, I don't want a picture of one on my blog.

Okay, but really, to get serious, I think hate would be nice to get rid of, but I would love to get rid of school debt. (Thanks Michelle! She gave me the idea when she wanted to get rid of Sallie Mae) I know it's a silly answer, but why do we have to go into debt for bettering ourselves? I really don't have a lot to go into with this answer, but I think anyone who has ever had to deal with paying off school loans, like I have (and mine weren't even that bad!) would love to just get rid of them, too!

You sunk my Battleship!

Day Three: "What was the last movie you saw in the theatre?"

Since we have a new (ish) baby at home, it's been a while since we've gone to the theatre. The night before my water broke (before I actually went into labor!), we saw The Hunger Games because we knew it'd be awhile before we would be able to see a movie again.

It took us 3 1/2 months to leave Rowyn with a sitter (Kelly's mom) and go see a movie. We ended up just going to the dollar theatre to see Battleship, but it was still something we were able to do, and do with Rowyn. We went to Olive Garden beforehand, just because we like to go, and we hadn't been since April, which wasn't a great experience. (It was our one year wedding anniversary and we had an 11 day old baby with us who screamed and cried the whole time we were there!)

Battleship was okay. I'd call it a renter so you can watch it in your pajamas and maybe even do something else while watching. LOL

*I wrote this Thursday morning, and scheduled it to post on Friday just after midnight. I probably wont do days 4 and 5 until Monday night when I'm at work...Just so you know, because, I know that you are really looking forward to all of my posts. ;)

Advice for a Newborn.

Day two of the challenge is "If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be?"

I honestly don't know. LOL I just had a baby four months ago and I can't think of one thing I would tell her to take with her through life.

But really, I think that I would tell her not to worry about what other people think. I know it's not easy, and especially when you are a teenager, it's what everyone seems to worry about, but it doesn't matter. I might be almost 28 years old, but going back to school is making this hard. I'm going to be in classes with 18 year olds and here I am worrying about how my back pack looks, and if I'm too old to wear skinny jeans. Do you really think everyone is going to notice my back pack or think I'm too old for those skinny jeans? No, probably not. And if they do, they more than likely wont let me know.

In the end, you need to be your own person. This is something I learned in my mid-twenties, and would have loved to learn it when I was 13. I may have looked like I didn't care what people thought in my sparkly jeans, fire red hair and jelly bracelets all up my arms, but I did. (I sure had fun dressing like that, though!) I really hope Rowyn can be who she wants to be, and enjoy it.

Here are a few of my senior pictures for fun. (yep, I'm a nerd.)

Let's attempt a challenge!

So, my wonderful group of friends that were all due in April like I was decided to do a blog challenge. I've seen a few of you do them, but I didn't think I'd have the time or motivation to do one. Well, I can't promise much, but I'll sure try! Here's the challenge. (Yeah, yeah - we are doing a July one, but who cares!)

Today (Well, technically yesterday) we needed to write our goals for the month. August 2012 is turning out to be a big month for me, so I have a few important goals. The big news is that I'm quitting my job in the hotel industry that I've had for over 5 years to go back to school!  I have been anxious to go back to school for a couple years, and it's actually one of the things that helped Kelly and I decide to do other things, like get married and have a baby first. So, I'd say the original decision was a good one. =) It's weird to leave a job after over 5 1/2 years with the company, but I gave them about 5 weeks of notice because I was able to. I have two more weeks left, or technically 6 shifts. =)

Rowyn helping me announce me going back to school. =)

This gives me many goals to work on this month:

School Goals

• Make sure I have everything I need for going back to school - notebooks, binders, back pack, a working computer (haha - I think I'll be spending a lot of time in a library until we can get one, probably on Black Friday)
• Get ready to focus and work really hard. - I wasn't the best student, but I need to work really hard and get really good grades because I'm hoping I can get my bachelors in Early Childhood Studies and then get my masters in Speech Pathology. It's not going to be an easy program to get in to, but it's want I ultimately want to do.
• Work on a schedule that will help Rowyn. - I've already scheduled my classes so I can go to school after Kelly is off work. I can be with Rowyn in the mornings, and then go to school in the afternoons, and then we can spend time as a family in the evenings. (Then I can do my homework!)

Non-school goals

• Get Rowyn sleeping in her own room by herself! - Rowyn has been in her crib in her own room for a month now. But, we sleep with her on a mattress in the room. Whoops. She still wakes up a couple times a night, but a quick insertion of the pacifier helps her to go back to sleep. It's such a quick fix, it's going to be hard to have to get up and go down the hallway when she starts to fuss in the middle of the night, but we are going to start working on it soon!
• Really work on saving money. - We have been saving money, but when I quit my job, it's going to be a lifestyle change for us, so we are going to have to do some adjusting. (not eating out so much!)
• Learn to cook more! - This goes along with saving money. We are really working on learning to cook more meals at home, and we are enjoying the things we can come up with. =)
• Lose some weight. - I'm not one who loves to work out or even eat healthy, but I've noticed some weight loss since we've been eating at home more, and I'm hoping that I can get myself into an exercise routine very soon.

So it turns out I have a lot to do this month.... Maybe one of these goals should be not to be so wordy and work on shorter blog posts. Haha.

 

The last four months have been so fun with Rowyn! I don't have a lot of time to go into details, but I will post a few of my favorite pictures. =)

Rowyn was two months here. I love this shirt and hope it'll still fit when it finally cools off!

A collage I made of her first three months. I'll be taking her four month picture this weekend!

Rowyn's nursery. We have the changing table in the corner under the mobile now. I need to take an updated picture!

Four generations! Rowyn finally got her meet her Great Grandma when she was just over three months old. =)

My beautiful girl. Love her. =)

She's Here!

It's a little late, and everyone knows I had my baby, but I need to put it on the blog, so I have my birth story recorded! It's long, but so was the labor! =)

Rowyn Olivia Kilgore 

was born on April 5th, 2012. She weighed 7lbs 9.5oz and was 19 1/4 inches long.

My due date, April 1st, came and went. I wasn't showing any signs of labor and was not progressed at all. At my appointment on Monday April 2nd, we tentatively scheduled an induction for Monday, April 9th. I was scheduled to go in for one more appointment that Friday, April 6th to see if I have made any progress, and if I hadn't, we would go through with the induction. So, starting that Monday, Operation Induce Labor began! (I had already been on maternity leave for a week!)

I started walking a lot, and I read that eating things like eggplant and pineapple could induce labor. Of course, also eating spicy food. On Tuesday, we had the carpets cleaned, and went and saw The Hunger Games. We aren't really into The Hunger Games, but since it was such a huge movie, and we knew we wouldn't be able to see it anytime soon, we figured we'd go. After the movie, we went to the store and got some eggplant and pineapple and some Sriracha hot chili sauce. (This stuff) Kelly made me an eggplant pineapple smoothie and I drank it. It actually wasn't too bad. LOL I wasn't feeling like this was all very promising, but I played along. After that, Kelly made me some ramen noodles and put the Sriracha sauce in it to make it spicy. (I don't like a lot of spice, so it was spicy for me! I'm a total baby...haha) We headed to bed, just like every other night.

I got up to go to the bathroom about 5am Wednesday morning and got back into bed. I was laying there, and actually felt her jump, then I started leaking. She had actually broken my water! Since my water was broken, we had to go straight to the hospital. I didn't get to labor at home at all. I was admitted to the hospital about 6am, and when they checked me I still wasn't dilated or anything. They gave me some Cytotec, which is used to help soften the cervix. I started feeling some minor contractions, but I knew it was going to be awhile, so I sent Kelly to work. (He works 5 minutes away from the hospital, so I knew we were okay. My Mom was on her way from Mtn Home (45 minutes away), so I wasn't going to be alone for very long.) By lunch time, I ordered a turkey sandwich, and when it came,  I took one bite and suddenly started feeling stronger contractions. It was the food that helped! (lol) They checked me after I ate, but I still wasn't progressed enough. They wanted to start Pitocin, but I asked them to wait a little bit. Finally they gave me the Pitocin at 3pm and things started happening! Contractions got very strong and I was finally dilated to a 4.5 by 5pm, so they let me have the epidural! I LOVE that thing! haha!  Since I have scoliosis, it took them almost an hour and three tries to get it in, but it was so worth it!

Happy after the epidural! =)

I continued to progress, and they took me off the Pitocin to see if I would keep progressing on my own, and I did. Hooray! By the time I knew it, it was after midnight, so I wasn't going to have my baby on April 4th, she was going to be an April 5th baby. I really didn't feel like I had been in labor for 18 hours, but I had. I had kept sending Kelly home since it was taking so long and we live so close to the hospital, but around midnight, I had him come back. Then the nurse then had some scary news - I had developed a fever and probably an infection since my water had been broken for so long. If I couldn't get my fever down, they were going to have to take my baby to the NICU and treat her for what was called Chorioamnionitis. This was pretty upsetting, but there wasn't really anything I could do. Finally I was dilated to a 9.5 by about 2:30am, and even though I wasn't at a full 10, they had me start pushing at 3am because of the infection. All of this is pretty fuzzy in my head, because I was pretty out of it while pushing, but I pushed for three hours and she got stuck! The doctor told me I had two options - they could try the vacuum, or do a c-section. I wanted to avoid a c-section as much as I could, so I chose to try the vacuum. Finally, at 6:47am on April 5th, I had a baby! I had labored for 25 hours! Kelly cut the cord, and I got to hold her for a quick minute and they cleaned her up, then gave her back to me for a couple more minutes before taking her to the NICU. 

Kelly got to take her to the NICU, but I had to stay until the epidural wore off and I had eaten something. I sent Kelly to work again since there wasn't a whole lot we could do, and he only needed to work for about 3 hours anyway.  After a couple hours, I finally got to go see her and hold her and it was so nice!

My pretty girl with all her wires! This was before she was hooked up to the IV, too!

Proud Daddy!

A very tired, but happy mama!

Rowyn (Who actually didn't have a name for the first 36 hours of her life!) was tested for the Chorio, but we wouldn't know if she had it for 24 hours, so she had to stay in the NICU until we knew. It was rough to have her in there, not knowing if she was going to test positive and spend 10 days there. The NICU is upstairs from Labor and Delivery, so I had to go up there, hold her and feed her, then go back to my room and rest. I know it could have been much worse, though. She ended up not having it, so that was a huge relief! We got her in our room with us the second night, after 36 hours in the NICU, so it was great!

 Hanging out. 

We got to go home on Saturday, but ended up spending most of the day there anyway because there so many people coming in and out of our room. Nurses for me, nurses for Rowyn, the lactation consultant, and other people. Finally, we got her in her car seat for the first time and headed home!

Our first family photo!

Once we got home, we moved her stuff around, trying to figure out the best way to do things. It's been just over three weeks since we've been home and things have been going great! She is a little colicky, so we have some pretty good crying sessions, but we are figuring things out. I love my little girl!

 Maggie wanting to give Rowyn kisses when she first met her.

 Clyde checking out Rowyn.

Clyde saying "Please don't forget about me, Mom!"

Maggie and Clyde have done pretty well with her. For the first couple days, when Rowyn would cry, though, Maggie would get upset! (Then she got used to it and it does phase her anymore...LOL) Poor Clyde has had to get used to not seeing me as much, but we have started to get them together more and they seem to like her. We have already gone to a Pug Meet when she was 2 weeks old, too! We love our life with Rowyn! =)

If you can help...

I know, I never post, but my local Pug Rescue group, Pug Pals, has a Pug named Thor who needs his little leg amputated! They are taking donations, and I thought I'd put it out there into the blog world and if anyone has the means to donate even a couple dollars, you could help Thor out! Here is the facebook post and x-ray picture :

 His broken right leg is so sad, but he has adjusted to the pain and puts on a brave little face. Sweet boy! Thanks to the kindness of generous Thor Fans, we now have $457 in the Thor surgery fund (for his amputation), YEAH! We need to raise around $1,500 more before we can schedule his surgery. If you are interested in helping Thor, whether it's $1 or $1,000, please go here http://pugpals.org/help-thor/ and click "Donate." THANK YOU from Thor! ♥

If you are able to donate, please click here! Thank you!

About me:

I'm about 4 weeks (1 month from today!) from my due date (April 1st), and we are very anxious to meet our little girl! Here is my most recent bump picture, with Maggie included. =)

Also, just for fun, I'll show the nursery! We have painted and set a few things up, but it isn't finished. we still need to get some crib bedding (she will be in a cute cradle in our room first), decorate the walls and put curtains up. (Pink things, of course!) Here's the progress so far. =)

Maybe I'll have something super exciting to post about soon! =) (but not too soon, of course, we want our baby as cooked as possible, hehe!)

A Merry Little Christmas!

We enjoyed our first married Christmas, but it was very hard not to be looking forward to next year when we have our daughter to enjoy it with! Kelly and I went to my parent's house on Christmas Eve afternoon for dinner and gift opening. I got some maternity shirts, Kelly got a sweater and we got a digital frame from my parents. I don't have any pictures of the gift opening, though. It was pretty low-key without any kids around. On Christmas morning, my parents drove 4 hours down to Ogden to celebrate Christmas with my sister, Natalie, her husband, Adam and her son, Joey, then on Tuesday, they drove 12 more hours to Phoenix to visit my other sister, Alicia and her daughter, Emma, so they had three Christmases with three daughters this year! Hopefully next year we can all celebrate together!

After leaving my parents' house, we drove back to Meridian to Kelly's uncle's house for Christmas Eve. We ate more dinner there (Sloppy Joe's - haha!) and played some games, and watched Kelly's cousins' little boy dance. Cooper is a good dancer! Look at those cute PJ's - perfect for Christmas Eve!

We slept in on Christmas morning (probably the last time we ever will, so we took advantage! lol) and then went a took advantage of a free Indian food buffet. LOL One of the Indian buffets we eat at, Madhuban, always has a free buffet on Christmas, and Kelly and his brother, Dan have gone for a couple years, but this is the first year I could join them (since I wasn't working this year! Yay!). It's pretty popular, and you have to get there early and wait in line outside in the cold. I waited in the car, though. Hehe. We ate some pretty good food, though, my favorite is always the Makhani Chicken over some rice with some Naan bread. =)

The line was really long, Kelly and Dan are behind the green SUV (a RAV? I can't quite tell), and was even longer by the time we got to the front. (Well, when I joined them from the car to go inside...lol)

After lunch at Madhuban, we went to Kelly's Mom's house to bake some brownies (So glad I found a box in my pantry! I had no idea what I was going to bring to the Christmas party at Kelly's Uncles house, and hadn't bought any ingredients!), and we opened some gifts there, too. Kelly's mom is very generous and got Dan a new vacuum (it was needed - our other one stopped working! lol), Kelly a toaster oven, and I got some more maternity shirts, which I promptly changed into, since I was having a "I have nothing to wear, nothing looks good, and I already wore a different color of the sweater I want to wear" type day. LOL

 Dan opening his vacuum, which he put together while we were there. Needless to say, our house got vacuumed on Christmas night! Yay!



 My handsome husband and I in front of Kelly's mom's tree. =)

 I had to take a bump picture in front of that beautiful tree, I hit 26 weeks pregnant that day!

After spending some time at Kelly's mom's house, we caravaned over to Kelly's uncle's house again for a Christmas dinner of ham and turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and a lot of other food! Kelly's mom made this delicious fruit salad that I couldn't get enough of, and everyone else thought it was good, too, you had to make sure you got enough the first time or you may not have gotten any more. LOL

Here's me getting ready to take and eat one of my brownies. Did I tell you we got a new camera as our present to each other? We have been having fun playing with it, hence this silly picture of me.

And because there aren't any pictures of our Puggie babies, here they are in the car getting ready to go look at Christmas lights. They were so good in the car that night, I think because it was dark, so they knew we weren't going to Pug Meet. Haha =)

I still need to write about my birthday back in October and the last month or so. I don't think I have any pictures from Thanksgiving. I ended up staying here and n going to Utah for only the second time in  my life, but I needed to work and save up vacation hours for the big event coming in a few months! So, I worked and went to Thanksgiving at Kelly's mom's house. We had a good time, but I can't find any pictures!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and has an awesome New Year! =)

Sugar and Spice!

We are having a girl!!!

(I know everyone knows this by now, but I still want to blog about it. hehe!) We had our big ultrasound on my birthday! It just happened to time itself right, I was 18 weeks then, so I made sure I got to find out the gender on my birthday. It was a week earlier than they usually do it, but since it was my  birthday, they said it was fine. =) What was also kind of cool about it, was I was born at 11:27am, and at that time, we were looking at our little girl on the ultrasound. It was the best birthday present!

I honestly thought it was going to be a boy, LOL. Kelly said he knew it was a girl the whole time, but he would never tell me when I asked him what he thought. I always told him I was 51% wanting a girl, and 49% wanting a boy. A couple weeks before the ultrasound, I started getting nervous and leaning towards maybe wanting a boy more. Kelly said he was doing the same thing! Haha!

But now, we are so excited to be having a daughter! I start thinking a lot about how blessed we are to be having a baby, and then I think about how blessed we are that it's a girl. I just think that's the right fit for us right now.

 Here is her profile. See her making the I Love You sign with her hand? It's perfect because Kelly and I do this all the time!

Her perfect feet with ten perfect toes!

Five perfect little fingers!

I am now 23 weeks pregnant and feeling pretty good! Other than the general aches and pains that come with growing a baby, I'm gaining the 15lbs that I lost during morning sickness back, and I am able to enjoy this pregnancy! I have my glucose test on Dec 13th to test for gestastional diabetes, so hopefully I pass! We don't have a name completely picked out for her - that's a lot harder than I thought! I had always had a name kind of picked out, but it's almost like it's just not her name, so we are going through a lot of different names, and we have one that we call her occasionally, but we still aren't 100% on it.

She is very active, and I have been feeling her kick since I was about 16 weeks. It so cool to feel her moving around in there! I love being able to tell how much she is growing by her movements, and the different places I can feel her. By 23 weeks, they say that her face is fully developed, minus the baby fat, and that she can hear things outside the womb, so I have started to play her some good music! Just tonight, she let me know that she liked Frank Sinatra. =)

I have taken a belly bump picture every two weeks, which has been a lot of fun to see the changes. I might start taking them every week once I hit 30 weeks or something, but for now, I think every two weeks is good. Here is the one we took on Sunday for 23 weeks.

Let's Try This...

My goodness! I started this post 6 weeks ago, and I'm finally getting back to it! (I only know that because I had to delete the part I had written here saying how I'll be 17 weeks in a couple days! I'm now 23 weeks along in my pregnancy and I'm feeling pretty good!)

 

 

~*~End of July~*~

 

At the end of July, we went to the Boise Music Festival. It's a huge free concert in the park with acts that aren't very popular anymore, but fun to see anyway. Last year was BackStreet Boys and Brett Michaels (Remember my Pictures of Trees post?) We didn't have tons of fun last year, but figured we'd go this year because Sugar Ray and MC Hammer were performing. Who wouldn't want to see them?! (Apparently no one... It was possibly more packed than last year!) I think they had the stage in a different position this year, and we came in from a different entrance, so we were actually able to see the stage! We saw Sugar Ray, and had fun with that (top picture, I think that's them, it's hard to tell... )

Then, MC Hammer came on and started performing and it was fun, but it was starting to get really crowded at that point and I almost got knocked off the chair I was standing on a couple times, and there was almost a fight with me in the middle. That was about the time we decided it wasn't really fun anymore, so we left. But, before all of that, MC Hammer was performing and came off the stage, walked through everyone, and got up on the sound stage we were right next to! So we got some decent pictures and video of him, so that was pretty cool!

 

~*~August~*~

 We celebrated Kelly's mom's birthday on August 2nd. Kelly and I made her a coconut cake. It wasn't a very easy recipe, but we made it and it actually turned out! We had just found out we were pregnant earlier that week, so we got her a bib that said "I Love Grandma" on it and wrapped it up for her. I think she enjoyed that birthday gift. hehe!

 Maggie got into the birthday spirit, too. =)

Clyde just wanted some cake, and jumped up onto the table to see if he could taste some... Poor guy - he didn't get any.

Later that month, I travelled down to Utah with my parents to my cousin, Joshs' wedding. I had just started experiencing morning sickness, which at that point was mostly just no appetite, so that made for an interesting trip. (It wasn't the only thing that made the trip one to remember, though!) It was great to see some of that family, though! It's a side that I don't see very often, so I wanted to make sure I was able to go.

We got to the luncheon and visited with family. We had some time between the luncheon and the reception, and were kind of wondering what we were going to do.

 We were standing talking with family, and all of a sudden Joey (my 3 yr old nephew) fell back, and hit his head on a pillar! (Sorry - TMI - that affected me so much that I was bawling, almost passed out and then got sick! I was about 7 weeks pregnant then.) We ended up having to take him to the hospital to get three stitches in the back of his head! Poor guy!

 This is a picture of his head after he got the stitches put in, and the picture below is of him dancing at the reception. You would have never guessed what he had been through that day! (Well, I'm sure the painkillers were helping, too!)

 Of course, no trip to Utah would be complete without seeing my Grandma! I love this lady so much! One of my favorite people!



At the end of August, we went to the Western Idaho Fair. I was in full blown morning sickness, but still wanted to go, so we went, twice. LOL I realized snow cones were great treats for a pregnant lady! Look at these bad boys!

 We saw a cute sea lion show!

We also got to walk through a fun butterfly exhibit. =)

Sometime in August or September, I was able to get Maggie and Clyde matching harnesses. I'm still pretty excited about these. =)

Kelly had won a Roaring Springs ticket at my work BBQ earlier this summer, so we made sure to take advantage of it before summer ended. Of course, I was pregnant by then, and in full blown morning sickness mode, so I just hung out in the lazy river, the un-crazy part of the wave pool, and took pictures of Kelly and his brother, Dan going down the slides. I was totally fine with this since I wasn't feeling so well. lol

~*~September~*~

Y'know, looking through the pictures I have to add to this blog, I can't find any of something we did in September. LOL We were going to go a big vacation to Florida, with trips to all the theme parks, but hadn't taken into account me getting pregnant. When we realized this, we were going to put off trying for another month so we could go, but Baby Girl decided it was time for her instead! But we are so excited for her to join us, and although we are putting the trip off for a few years, we plan on making it a family vacation!

~*~October~*~

October 8th was the Boise Diamond Dash. This is a scavenger hunt through downtown Boise for a $10,000 diamond ring! You would get clues on your phone through texts, and have to run to a place in  downtown Boise, find the answer (it was usually a trivia question), answer back through text, and when you got it right (or wring three times) they would send you to the next area to answer another question. The people who won were the ones who got the most answers right in the two hour period. It was pretty fun and we plan on participating next year. I wont be pregnant, so we might be able to run a little faster! lol

 We started on the steps of the Capital building. I can't remember how many couples participated, but it was A LOT!

We went to a wine festival out in Kuna at the Indian Creek Winery. (Even though we don't drink wine, and I'm pregnant anyway...lol) It was cold and rainy that day, but Kelly was still game to smash some grapes! (I didn't want to have to take my boots and socks off!)

My handsome hubby in the bucket.

 After he had smashed the grapes.

There was a super cute lab puppy there who was very interested in drinking the grape juice!

Well, that's it for the pictures I have uploaded since I uploaded the pictures 6 weeks ago! Hopefully I can blog a little more about a couple other things, and then get current on here! It WILL happen, I  WILL get back into it! Congrats for reading all of this. Sorry, I promise it won't happen again. =)