Thanksgiving plans were rearranged a bit this year. The plan was to have thanksgiving at our house so I wouldn't have to travel anywhere with a newborn. I just wasn't expecting to go that over due and have a not even one week old baby by the time Thanksgiving rolled around.

I wasn't up to having 30+ people around ALL day while still trying to figure out so much new mom stuff.
The family decided to have the gathering at my sisters church here in town and then come over to our house for a couple of hours to do the gift exchange and family picture. That worked out quite well :). Brandon's family came over and brought a Thanksgiving meal earlier in the day-which was manageable. It was wonderful being able to celebrate with both families that day and for everyone to meet our little man.

Looking forward already to next Thanksgiving!

Our little man has been growing and growing. He is now over 11 pounds and doing well despite having a cold. :(

We love having every day to hang out with him, He is just so much fun!!

We got some cute pictures of Isaiah and Chloe together wearing their "I am special, I was born at home" t-shirts that our midwives gave us. :) So very cute!

Isaiah has impressed us from day one with how strong he is. He can hold his head up so easily most times and he loves to push himself up into a standing position when we are holding him. He is incredibly strong for being 5 weeks old.(6 weeks old tomorrow!!).

He LOVES to smile and I feel like he would love laughing as well if he could do it when he wants. He smiles SO hard sometimes that I feel like it's his way of laughing for now. It's darling.

That being said, you can almost always find Brandon and I making funny faces or saying funny thins to just see him smile. I can't get enough of him!

Brandon was gone for two weeks( two weeks ago)...he had training for his job in CO and ND. We missed him soooo much while he was gone!!

And I feel like Isaiah changed a TON while he was gone. He started smiling a lot while he was gone...so I couldn't wait for Brandon to get home so he could see all the cute things he was doing.

 We are so happy he is home now. Things just seem so much more complete.

Tomorrow Isaiah will be SIX weeks old. I can't believe it!!! When people kept saying "it goes by so fast! Enjoy it!" they weren't kidding in the LEAST! Boy. I hope it doesn't keep going by at this pace.
He has already changed sooo much.
(most of these pictures are 2-3 weeks old now!!)

Hopefully I will post soon with more "updated" pictures! We have lots!

Have a most wonderful New Year!

changes

Just wanted to let you all know that I will be making some changes with this blog pretty soon...

I found out today that I can't upload any more pictures to my blog because I have met the limit of 1 GB of photo storage! Crazy. But I am not going to pay $2.49 every month just so I can keep posting pictures on blogger. WordPress lets you have 3GB's for free...and there are ways to transfer everything from this current blog to a WordPress blog.

I know this will probably mean loosing alot of followers etc-therefore I am posting this now so you all have a heads up and can be looking for a post on the new blog link.
I just can't do an all word blog :) I have to be able to post pictures :)

Hopefully I will have this all figured out soon!

Introducing...

Isaiah Tyler Lay was born on November 16th at 6:30 pm :)

It's hard to believe that two whole weeks have passed with this little guy that we get to call our own! He is seriously just so precious! The Lord has blessed us with an incredibly easy child and he has his daddy's disposition that Brandon had when he was born. Sooo relaxed and chill.

We had a very successful and wonderful homebirth. Don't think I could have it any other way next time. It was just so relaxed and peaceful the whole time. No bright lights or strange people. Just my two midwives and Brandon.

The whole labor was only 6 1/2 hours long. Pretty fast for a first time mom- which I was not expecting. Everyone always said for a first time mom expect to go overdue and to have a long labor. Well, I was almost two weeks over due but labor was short!

We had company the morning of the 16th and as soon as they left the contractions started back at 2-3 minutes apart! I had been experiencing plenty of contractions during three previous nights but the labor always fizzled out by morning. But these started out so intense and close together I was almost in denial about his being the real thing since it was in the middle of the day! Thank goodness for Brandon who WASN'T in denial and called the midwives:)

At one point I wondered if the midwives were going to miss the birth. It just seemed to be going too fast! But they obviously made it in plenty of time and in time to start my IV for the GBS. I only had to have one dose :)

To spare everyone all the details (if you want them I can email you :)) a few hours later I pushed a beautiful, big baby out! I was the first one to know it was a boy :)
The labor was seriously not as bad as I thought it would be. I can't even remember what a contraction feels like now. Crazy how that is.

Our midwives were able to go home by 9:30 that night. A short day for them :). Isaiah wound up sleeping the entire night-while I couldn't sleep! That has changed now :)

We are all doing well and loving being a family of three. Brandon was able to take an entire week off of work which was sooo nice and it went by way too fast. Not looking forward to this coming week when he will be gone on a business trip the whole week :/
 I have a feeling blogging is not going to be very frequent. It's kinda time consuming  typing with just one hand while feeding a baby :) and when he isn't eating I have way too much other stuff to do :) but ill try keeping up!

Til next time!

People move on

It's kind of weird. Within 2 months our two neighbors several miles down the road on either side of us moved away :(

To be fair, they both only moved about 30 minutes away, into the city.

But it still feels like forever away.

Their new houses are beautiful and it's where the Lord wanted them!

The first weekend of November, two days before my due date, we helped Christopher and Bethany move into their new house.

(Tyler's way of helping them decorate in their new house)

We piled high three trucks and filled a car and a van and only had to make one extra trip with the truck.

By the end of the day they were mostly unpacked and moved in! It was really fun and I'm so glad we were able to help them out.

Though, it is sad not being able to swing by their old house on the way home or have them over spontaneously for dinner or just cookies and hang out time. 

I went thru the same type of withdrawl when Todd and Hannah moved from being 5 minutes (4 miles) down the road from us to 30 or so minutes away!

I kept thinking "Who am I going to borrow brown sugar from? Or butter? or ask to pick something up for me at the store?"

Hannah and I played the violin together alot over the spring-and even played in a wedding together. I miss having her and her two girls so close.

Hopefully one day next year we will be able to move and maybe be closer to one or even both of them! :)

41 weeks and counting

Today I am 41 weeks pregnant. Kinda hard to believe. But I am following in my mothers footsteps and carrying my baby late. Seriously though, this baby is SO content inside!!

I keep getting LOTS of questions about the baby and when it's going to arrive, how I am feeling, if anything is progressing etc....so instead of responding to all of the facebook messages and wall posts and texts etc, I figured I would post a blog post and give a general update :)

First let me clarify that I REALLY appreciate everyone asking about the baby and me and for all of the prayers. They are so greatly appreciated.

I had a doctors appointment today with my OB/GYN and they did a non stress test on the baby. I was hooked up to two different monitors. One monitored the baby's heart rate and I had a little button I pushed every time he moved, so that the print out knew, and the heart beat spiked every time that he moved. It was really cool to see. He did such a good job and that's what they were looking for. The other monitor monitored contractions. But I didn't have one the whole 30 minutes I was hooked up-which was odd; but not concerning.

Next I went to get an ultrasound. There they checked my Amniotic Fluid Index. The normal index is supposed to be anywhere from 5-24. Baby's was 11. So, everything looked great!

Baby is just hanging out in there. I have an appointment with my midwife tomorrow at nine and then, if I am still pregnant, I have another appointment with my Dr on Thursday to basically do a repeat of today.

Soooo hoping baby comes before Thursday!!!

That's just about it! :) My little update. We know this baby will arrive when the Lord wants him/her to. And we are just fine with that.

(btw, I know I said "he" several times through out this post, but we really don't know the gender. It's just easier to type out a "he" or "she"....)

That is me at 40 weeks. And I have gained a total of 48 pounds.

This was me at 20 weeks, I believe. Crazy how much this baby has grown. My midwife says baby will be a nice and good size and that he fits quite nicely inside of me.

Who knows, maybe my next post (not counting the other posts I plan to do today to get a little caught up) will be about a baby in our ARMS! :) I wouldn't mind! Even though right now it seems like it won't happen (just NO signs except for an occasional contraction :) ), it very well could happen at any time. :)

Have a most blessed week!

of samples, babyshowers, anniversaries and due dates :)

I am blessed.
So very, very blessed.

And this post is just a glimpse into why I am so blessed. Just a few reasons.

I have a baby inside of me that is still cooking away and is totally content to just stay inside me for a while longer. Who knows how much longer-but I am sure whenever he/she is ready-the appearance will be made :)
Due dates are silly things anyway. Babies don't listen to them. I can tell my baby hundreds of times today if I wanted, that today is the day it's" supposed to" come out-but it doesn't care :) And believe it or not, I am not terribly disappointed if he/she doesn't make their appearance today. I know I am like my mom in pregnancy-and her tendency is to go over-due. So that's what I am planning on :)

My very pregnant pumpkin belly on Halloween :) We dressed up to go to Chipolte to get $2 booritos :)

All that being said- I can't wait to meet this baby and Brandon can't wait either, but we are happy everything looks good so far, and waiting isn't that bad.


Everyone has been SO kind and we had two more baby showers in September and October.

Those were pictures from a fantastic shower that my dear friend Bethany and her mom threw for us at their house! So much fun and everyone was so generous!!
Bethany even took some maternity photos for us after the shower. It was the first time we had some of Brandon and I and baby together :)

 Lovely ladies from our church threw us a Pumpkin themed baby shower the first weekend in October. I loved all of the decorations.

 My sister made me a nursing cover and Brandon wanted to try it on.

Brandon's brother, Jeff, carved us a pumpkin :)

Brandon and I celebrated one WONDERFUL year of being married on October 1st. To celebrate we spent the Saturday before the 1st having a picnic and taking a hike in the beautiful BlueRidge Mountains. And then getting to see my darling nephew Asher James for the first time.

On our actual Anniversary we went out for dinner and a movie :) I'd say it was a great celebration for one year of being married!

 My brother is a DAD!!!

 He is a pretty precious little guy!! :)

Lately, I have been getting a TON of samples in the mail!!! I keep forgetting to take pictures of all of them...but here are a couple :) I've gotten cereal, lotion, shampoo and conditioner, coffee, tea samples, dog and cat food, dish detergent, laundry detergent and the list goes on.

Makes getting the mail quite exciting :)

Anyway! I am off to go take a nice long walk. Maybe that will get things moving along :)

Have a most blessed Monday!