The Past 2 Weeks

Warning this is a long post: I have bolded different parts of the post that really could be post's by themselves.
What a wonderful busy two weeks it has been. As you saw in my last post our 3rd sweet baby girl was born on Feb 2nd. With each child it amazes me at how they feel like they have been a part of my life forever not just 2 weeks. I can't imagine life without knowing her sweet little spirit. We decided on the second day of her life to name her Kaylee Rebecca. We originally were planning on naming her Ella Kaylee but that just wasn't her.
The story behind the name: Ella is my grandmothers middle name and I really wanted to use a family name. We figured we ought to use a name from James' side of the family as well. This was a tad more difficult because 1- James doesn't know his extended family quiet as well and while going through names in his family line there just wasn't anything that I loved. James' mom's middle name is Lee so we thought about naming her Ella Lee but it just didn't flow well to me. So we decided to combine his moms name Karen Lee and make Kaylee. But about 2 weeks before she was born I had a dream that she was born and we couldn't decide on her name. As soon as I thought of naming her Kaylee she became full of life and personality. Even after this dream though I didn't want to give up on naming her Ella because I love the name so. But she was born and she wasn't Ella she was Kaylee, but I had to come up with a middle name I liked before I was okay with it. I thought of Rebecca which is a family name on my side. So she is Kaylee Rebecca. One fun thing about using the middle name Rebecca is her cousin 6 months her senior has the middle name Rebecca as well.

The story of her birth: As I reflect back I feel very blessed to live in this day and age and have the knowledge and technology. There was a large amount of meconium in the ammniotic fluid and if a baby breaths it, it can block airways and permanently damage the lungs. So when she born the NICU was there to ensure she did not breath any in. They worked on her for about 10min sucking and pounding out meconium. Luckily non of it got into her lungs and she has been fine since.


This labor in some ways was my most difficult only because I went in with expectations and the day did not go as I planned. But my recovery has been the best. This is the first time I was well enough to go into the nursery and watch James bathe her. I loved it! One of the hardest parts about this hospital stay is that Erin and Lily were not allowed to come and see her. They could see her through the nursery window but that was it. Lily would stand there and hold out her arms saying please, please; she wanted so badly to hold her new baby sister. So as you can imagine Erin and Lily were so happy to get her home and hold her.

This picture of the 3 girls just might be one of my favorite pictures ever!

Kaylee's 2 week check up: She is growing very well. She now weighs 8lbs 3oz. That is just 3 oz shy of gaining 1 whole pound over her birth weight. She definitely knows how to eat. She is my biggest baby for sure. Erin was in the 25th percentile, Lily in the 5th and Kaylee is the 70th.

Lily adjusting: I was a little worried about Lily being jealous. She has thankfully been doing better than I expected. I just have to make sure to set time aside for her. She is a very physical child and needs to be shown that she is loved through being held and tickled etc. She has had a few incidents to get attention though. Such as rubbing nearly a whole bottle of hand soap all over her body and kitchen set and any other toys that were near.
Judging by these pictures I think she is a little jealous over the amount of pictures that have been taken of Kaylee and not her.
Erins 5!!! As if having a baby wasn't enough Erin also had her 5th birthday. This birthday was a little unusual because of a baby being born. Before Kaylee was born we took Her to chuck-e-cheese with a friend and a cousin. I forgot the camera, but she sure had a lot of fun.
On her birthday when she came home from school she saw a beautiful bike waiting for her. She was way excited and had to get on it right away.
That evening Grandma and Grandpa Hurst came for a little bit to give her some presents. I whipped up a big cookie quick for a "make do" cake. (I wasn't very impressed with the cookie but it worked
This past week we went to my parents for family dinner and celebrated her b-day again. Erin really wanted a Cinderella dress for her birthday so I bought material and handed it over to my mom. I wanted to make it I just knew I didn't have time with a new baby. I am so happy I handed it over to my mom now, she did a spectacular job.
Since Erin wanted a princess party I made her a Cinderella cake. I am very pleased with how it turned out.
It was my nieces second birthday as well and she loves lady bugs so I made her a little lady bug cake that turned out pretty cute as well.
I think Erin had a darn good spread out birthday and is very spoiled. But its okay to be spoiled on your birthday. Here is just one more quick picture I had to take of Erin a few weeks ago. I had to laugh because I was not aware that I had cousin it as a daughter.

Valentines Day:
It was also Valentines day a few days ago. We didn't do anything big but we had a nice day at home. We had some treats and ate some yummy food. And just told each other how much we loved each other and thankful we are to be family.