Lilypie Second Birthday tickers

Lilypie Second Birthday tickers

Lilypie Pregnancy tickers

Lilypie Pregnancy tickers

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Valentine's Day!

Someone asked me what Richard and I were doing for Valentine's Day this year. I chuckled and said "what can we do with a 2 week old and a 17 month old?" I will tell you what we did, we went to bed at 8:00! :) Richard is so wonderful and spoils me so much. We decided months ago that we weren't going to do gifts for Valentine's this year. Well in true Richard fashion, my sweet husband has been getting me little "just because" surprises all week and then yesterday surprised me with beautiful flowers. He is so sweet :)

Walker and Lucy's surprises :)




Walker loved his surprise! :)



Happy Valentine's Day!

Monday, February 13, 2012

Lucy's first two weeks!



Little Lucy turned two weeks yesterday! These past two weeks have been wonderful and challenging, exciting and frustrating, so perfect and so hard, so normal and so new. It has been a time of learning and adjustment for all of us.


Lucy is just an angel. We have only had a couple of sleepless nights since she arrived. She is typically a wonderful sleeper and is rarely fussy. She LOVES to be held and cuddled (which makes this momma HAPPY because her brother IS NOT like that AT ALL). She is an awesome nurser and is so laid back. She typically eats every 2-2.5 hours during the day and 3-4 hours at night. The past few nights she has made at least two 4 hour stretches in between feedings. She sleeps a lot during the day but when she is awake she is very alert and has the biggest eyes you have ever seen. Lucy totally stole our hearts from the moment we first held her. I am looking forward to seeing what her little personality will be like!

Walker has been doing great! The first week was hard for all of us. I think Walker was just confused as to what was going on. I must say though, from the moment we brought Lucy home he has LOVED her. Now, the first thing he asks for when he wakes up is "babee? babee?" and is NOT content until he gets to see her. Having the baby in the house has not been the hard part for my sweet boy. He has had a very hard time with mommy having to split her attention....but he is only 17 months old and he just doesn't understand right now so the meltdowns have been frequent....but each day gets a little bit better and he adjusts a little more...

Yesterday was my first day at home with both babies. I was very nervous. If you know Walker at all you know that he is....let's say....very spunky. He definitely has a personality of his own and is too smart for his own good! He is also very busy and likes to be on the go. He gets stir crazy if we are in the house too long (very much like his momma) and is a HUGE creature of habit and routine (partly because I am obsessive about routines) and does not do well when our routine is broken. He is also a MOMMA'S boy! He does NOT like my attention to be on anything other than him....So...my sweet boy's personality coupled with a newborn who wants to nurse every 2 hours made me very, very, very nervous about having them both alone...especially since we can't get out and go anywhere because Lucy is so young! Well, our first day went much better than expected. I think Walker really liked having a lot of attention from me. It was quite exhausting but it was ok. I think in a few days we will all be in our new routine and things will calm down a bit. Even though some of the adjustment has been tough, I am so thankful for my two beautiful, healthy, unique children and am SO in love with our family of four!


Sweet boy tucking Lucy in

Sharing his "night-night"

Giving her sugar

Walker-man wanted to hold Lucy before bed

Daddy and Walker before school


SCARED face!!

My babies :)
Being so sweet.....

He could just eat her up :)




Thursday, February 9, 2012

A Baby Story! :)

Meet our newest addition, Lucy Katherine Willis!


Sweet Little Lucy made her big debut last Monday, January 30th at 7:59am. She was born at 37 weeks and 4 days. She is perfectly healthy and perfectly tiny! She was just 5lbs 11oz and 19 inches long. So here is the story of how she got here :)

The week before sweet Lucy's arrival I had a busy week planned. I did not SERIOUSLY think that Lucy would be coming at 37 weeks, but loved to joke about it. The week before I had all sorts of little things planned like a haircut and pedicure. We also had the carpets in our house cleaned and finally got all of the baby stuff put together (you know like swings, bouncy seats) and put the infant carrier in the car. On the Thursday before she was born Mom and Dad were so wonderful and offered/agreed to keep Walker for us for 2 nights while we got some rest before the big day...little did we know that the big day would be so soon!

Well, that week I started having contractions. Nothing too painful but definitely more uncomfortable than any other braxton hicks contractions that I had experienced before. Most of that week I had contractions that were semi consistent during the day but would stop after an hour or so. On Wednesday, contractions started coming pretty consistently at night. Wednesday they came 10 min apart for about 3 hours, Thursday they were 15 min apart for 2 hours, and Friday they came every 15 min for 4 hours straight. This was pattern was making me very anxious/excited/ready to go into labor even though I STILL thought labor was going to be weeks away.

On Saturday I woke up and went to the gym and did BodyAttack and as usual it kick started some contractions. After BodyAttack I cleaned up and went to a wonderful, sweet baby shower for little Lucy and her soon to be friend Lilly (due in March) that was thrown by my wonderful Share Group from church. Throughout the shower we were joking that I was going to go into to labor right after the shower because the contractions continued for several hours. Well, that night they became pretty strong for 2 hours and were 7 minutes apart. Now, I know this is my second chid but I honestly did not think anything of this pattern. With Walker I did not have any pre-labor contractions until the day that I went into labor so I honestly thought they were just braxton hicks contractions and still had it in my mind that little Lucy would not be here for at least 2 more weeks.

On Sunday morning (Jan 29th) I woke up not feeling well and not feeling like myself. I just kind of felt bad all over and was very anxious and maybe, just maybe a TOUCH hormonal/emotional :). That morning I slowly got ready for church and all 3 of us headed out. When we got to church Walker decided that he was just going to be in a mood that day. We picked him up after Sunday School and it was a FIGHT to keep him halfway content for longer than 1 minute at a time. So that coupled with the way I was feeling we decided to head home pretty quickly after Sunday School. That afternoon I continued to feel bad and instead of laying down for a nap I had a big nesting spree. Now, I had seriously been nesting since probably month 3 of this pregnancy so there was not much to do...but in my mind the house was horribly dirty and unorganized and nothing was going to be ready for the baby. After a couple of hours of being a *TOUCH* manic around the house I REALLY felt horrible, so, that night Richard and Walker had some daddy/son bonding time and went to share group while I "rested" at home.

While they were gone the contractions started up again and were about 10 minutes apart. This was similar to how they started in the previous week during the day. This started about 5:45 at night. By the time Richard and Walker got home they were still coming and by 7:00 they were down to around 8 minutes apart. And just FYI did you know they actually have an app for your iphone for timing contractions??? HA! Anyways, about 10:00 that night they were down to 5 minutes apart and so we decided to call my parents and let them know that they may need to come down to watch Walker. At about 1:00 in the morning my contractions had been about 3 minutes apart for a couple of hours and had become very uncomfortable. Richard had fallen asleep so I woke him up and asked if he thought this is for real. Yes, the contractions at this point had been coming since 5:45pm and very consistently since 7:00 and had become increasingly painful...but I still just could not believe that Lucy really was on her way!After some discussion we decided to call my parents and tell them to come on to Opelika to watch Walker. Mom and dad got to our house a little before 3:00am....by this point my contractions were close (1.5-3 minutes) and very, very, very uncomfortable...so Richard and I loaded up and headed to the hospital.

When we got to EAMC we went directly up to Labor and Delivery and they took me back to observation while Richard had to wait out front (GRRRRR and BOOOOO...I do NOT like being away from my husband ESPECIALLY when in labor). When I got back they checked my progress. The nurse told me that I was about where I was at my last doctors appointment and that this fact coupled with the "fact" that my contractions weren't that "consistent" (which yes, I would have 3 at about 1 min apart then 1 at 2.5minutes apart...so I guess technically they weren't "that" consistent?) she thought I wasn't really in labor but was just experiencing braxton hicks contractions or pre-labor and that the contractions would probably ease off! WHAT?!?!?! After HOURS of painful contractions??? So after about an hour they finally let Richard come back. The nurse encouraged us to go home but said that if we wanted we could wait a little while for the doctor on call to come make rounds and we could let him check me again. By this point, if you have ever had a baby you know there are just some things that only happen when you are in labor. I asked the nurse about it and she completely dismissed this huge fact! Anyways, Richard said "we will wait."

TWO hours later, a little before 6:00am I told Richard we needed to find the doctor! The contractions were super close and super strong. The doctor was still not there but the nurse checked and said that I had progressed some (NOT much...I was only about a third of where I needed to be to deliver) so she could go ahead and admit me to the hospital. I was finally moved to a room about 6:00am. The doctor on call finally got there a little before 7:00. I had made slight progress but was still not even at the halfway point. I got very discouraged. Several months ago Richard and I decided that a natural childbirth is really what we wanted for little Lucy. Well after 12+ hours of labor and my body not even being halfway to where it needed to be, I told Richard that I could not do this for hours more, so I agreed to an epidural.

I got the epidural about 7:15. At about 7:40 the new doctor on call (my favorite doctor and the one that I had been seeing throughout this pregnancy) came in, checked me and said "Well are you ready to have a baby?" Yep I was ready to go! Richard and I were shocked!! We said "YES!" She got everything set up, broke my water and about 6 pushes later at 7:59 Little Lucy was born! She scored 9 and 9 on the APGAR and is perfectly tiny and perfectly perfect! At first I was a little mad that I agreed to have an epidural since I delivered less than an hour after I got it, but I really think the epidural allowed my body to relax enough to do what it needed to to get ready to deliver!

It is such a blessing to have two healthy precious children! I am totally in love with my beautiful, sweet daughter and in completely in love with my family of 4! :)


First picture of mommy and baby! :) My sweet, beautiful little girl!



Daddy and his little girl...she already has him wrapped around her little finger :)

Isn't she beautiful!?

Sweet Lucy was so small that none of her newborn clothes fit her! The hat she is wearing is newborn size...look how big! Thankfully, family and friends were so sweet to bring her some premie clothes to wear! :)

Sweet, sweet girl!