Meet Florie!!!

Florence "Florie" Caroline was born January 24, at 1:23 p.m.  Super easy, wonderful delivery!!  She was 5 lbs 7 oz...a little squirt...and 19".  Florence is my great grandmothers name and Caroline was my middle name.  And I just think "Florie" is cute. 


Here is the last belly pic I took one week before I had her.  :)

Rhodes got strep throat the same day she was born so he couldn't come up to the hospital to meet her after she was born. 

My three girls!!!

So far things have been smooth.  It's been a week and there haven't been too many hiccups...yet.  I know there will be good weeks and hard weeks. 

Right now, we are just soaking up every little ounce of the newborn stage. 

Lots of people want to love on her and we take lots of turns holding her. 

Rhodes has been sweeter than I expected.  Always wants to know where "his baby" is.  He wants to pet her and constantly turn her bouncy seat on and off.  :)

We will have to get a better family picture soon.  Rhodes had just fallen and wasn't having it. 

So far the nights have gone really well.  We had one rough night.  Maybe my milk was trying to catch up to her, but she just wasn't settling.  Since then, I've been aiming for 8-10 feedings a day which means being purposeful about feeding her every 2 hours at the earliest and 3 hours at the latest during the day.  Even it it means waking her up.  And it sure does make the nights a little better.  On average I'm up 2x a night with 3-5 hour stretches. 


AND at 1 week old she was up to 5 lbs 15.1 oz!!!  Half a pound over birth weight!!  I was going to be happy to see birth weight at one week old, but was SUPER pleased at how much she has surpassed it.  Which goes back to why she needed to come out!  She obviously is doing better outside the womb than she was inside.  :)

We are so glad she is here and healthy!  We have received many congrats and well wishes and thank everyone for them!!  We are surely blessed!!!

Flurried

Looky here!  2 days in a row!!  AND I pulled out my big girl camera!  Maybe it won't be so hard to get back into this! :)  Don't hold me to it too closely though ;)

So today we had some flurries.  Here in Alabama we lose our heads and act like we don't know what to do about a few flurries! ;)

I had put Rhodes down for a nap before I went to get the kids from school and he just wouldn't settle.  I kept hearing him talk and he kept calling me (which I ignored for a while).  Then I finally went in the to see what was going on because it was almost time to head to carpool.

He was sitting there with boots in hand saying he was ready to go outside and see the snow.  Then I realized, "Poor baby!  This is his first time to really see and and remember snow!!"  There was too much excitement for him to fall asleep.  I told him to get up, put his boots on and grab a jacket and we would go outside for a minute to check it out.

He picked out the hat and gloves. :)

We headed out and instinctively he stuck his tongue out and and began to try and taste the snow!

He loved it!!

Then it was onto Landon's bike. :)

He just went to town!!

The rest of the week/weekend looks be to be sunny and in the upper 50s!  Crazy Alabama weather......

The Waiting Game

Well, here I am.  At the end of my pregnancy.  Just waiting.  In my opinion, the first few weeks of pregnancy and the last few weeks are pregnancy are the hardest.  Probably because of all the unknowns.  :)  But I am surprisingly still comfortable.  I don't think I've ever been able to say that at the end of any of my pregnancies.  In fact, when other people would say that to me at the end of their own pregnancies, I would think in my head, "you're LYING!".  Haha.  Yes, I have my moments and harder days, but I feel very rested most days and haven't had any major issues toward the end.  Could be because Baby Girl is measuring "petite", shall we say.  Hope she goes this easy on me when she comes out. :)

I get a lot of "you're so tiny" comments.  I can't say I'm not tired of them.  But whatev.  I was able to hide my baby bump for so long in public that I've only been getting them recently.  I carry my babies close in to me for sure, but also Baby Girl's gonna be little.  I also haven't packed on tons of weight like I've done with earlier pregnancies.  I've learned the hard way that most of that stays with you after the baby comes out.  And my doctored and I agreed that packing on a lot of weight at the end would only go to my hips and not the babe.  I'm still enjoying my peanut butter ice cream and chocolate chips almost nightly though. :) With that being said, we are hoping she stays put for a bit longer and gains some weight.  On all the ultrasounds and non stress tests, Baby Girl looks  GREAT!  Just "petite".  My girls have always been smaller (Lillian just over 6 lbs and I went past my due date with her).  The main concern is that my placenta doesn't give up doing it's job.  My doc is watching me week by week.  I think he feels that if she can gain weight faster OUTSIDE the womb, then he will want her to come.  But for this week, he feels she is still better off inside me.  And I agree. :)  Although at this point, she could come whenever!


Still no name agreed upon!  (Key word being agreed!)  We are rolling some names around in our heads but I guess it's going to come down to officially naming her once we see her.  I don't think we've named any child before they were born (except Landon b/c he's a junior) and I don't see us naming this one before she's born either.  Hopefully there won't be a knock-down-dragout over names at the hospital ;) 


All the kids are doing very well in school.  I'm glad to be back into the swing of things after the holidays.  The structure is going to be very helpful after the baby comes.  We haven't decided what sports/activities the kids will do, but I think that we will keep things pretty calm this spring.  Saying "no" to some things (for a short season) is the only way I know how NOT to stress my family (or me) and still be able to take the best care of everyone.   AND stay on top of our commitments in school. There is no shortage of fun around here though! :)


OH, my sister is expecting again too!!  This July!!  So it's fun to be pregnant together - even if just for a few months.  And I hope it'll be fun having a babies fairly close together too.  She finds out the beginning of February what's she's having!  I'm sure we'll be doing another Gender Memory game for that baby as well.  Her baby will be grand child #7 for my side of the family!!


I haven't taken many pictures.  Instagram has taken over.  And I'm not a fan of reposting Insta pics on FB/blog/twitter/etc....just gets repetitive to me.  Oh well.  I'll get over it. :)  I'm sure I'll get my big girl camera back out soon.  Seeing I'll have a tiny, cute reason to snap some real pictures.   Before she learns to run away from the camera like her siblings, of course!


Last, but not least, I'm headed to the JUSTIN BIEBER concert tonight!  Yep!  Me and my 9 month pregnant belly.  At Justin Bieber.  Rockin' out.  And I can't wait.  Ever since my fam and I watched Never Say Never (I highly recommend! Ha!) I've thought it would be fun to go to one of his concerts.  Well, my mom scored some tickets so Lovey, Lacey, Olivia and I are going!!  We borrowed a handicap parking pass (uber important in case I go into labor....ya know!) and our phones are charged up and we are READY!  I'm sure I'll pay for it tomorrow, but that's what naps are for!!!  And I'm pretty sure I'll be "overgramming" the whole time.  ;)  Don't say I didn't warn ya!


Alright...anything else?  I think I may try easing back into blogging.  Seems a little overwhelming to me right now though!  I just think one day I'll look back and regret not blogging for such a big chunk of time! (I've had this little corner of the internet for 5 1/2+ years btw!)  So it's very fun for me to look back through everything. 


Thanks to anyone who may be still reading!!! xoxo