Update to deleted photos

I just wanted to update all of you about the deleted photos. I took the SD card to J and P photo in Greenville on Thurs and on Friday was able to pick up my recovered photos on cd. Yes, they were able to recover all 900+ photos. I was so excited I started dancing in the place. So I will post real christmas photos soon. For now, I have a very tired little princess awaited her bedtime meal. Goodnight and Happy New Year.

Carly 1rst Chrismas and More

Carly had her first Christmas yesterday and it was so much fun. She got all kinds of fun things. She has been wearing herself out playing so much. Today we set up a corner in our living room just for her.

Christmas actually started for her a couple weeks ago. First we had Sarah Bradley (and her parents)over for a little party. Carly got a fun doll that is dressed in a cow outfit and it sings Hey Diddle Diddle. Carly loves it. I like it even more b/c SB (Sarah Bradley) was a moo cow for Halloween and Carly and she went to Boo in the Zoo together. The next night Carly hosted Tori and Jayden (and their parents). See Tori is a like a big sister to Carly and Jayden is her boyfriend. They gave her a little Christmas doll and a princess towel.

On last Friday we went down to Oburg. Sunday evening we had Christmas with my family. Carly had a lot of fun with her cousins. She got a little Lion ride on toy. She loves it. She plays with it alot. She also got so fun bows that she will have to grow into. My parents gave her a toy top and a thing for her crib.

Monday night we were out at my granny's with my dad's side of the family. Carly had even more cousins to play with there. She is the youngest and she had fun crawling around playing with everyone's toys. After good food and Carly opening a few gifts we hit the road for home. We got back to the house at about 11 pm.

Tuesday morning Zach parents came over to watch CArly open her presents. She had a ball opening each one and playing with them all. Then we went over to their house to open gifts. There she had even more fun. She really wore herself out playing with everything.

Well today started off just fine. We returned some gifts and got a few new things. Carly had fun playing with all her toys. Well I did something very bad. See I got a new camera yesterday. So I took the SD card out of my old one and put it in my new one. It had all the pictures on it from the last 4 months. ( I had not saved them yet) Well I was playing with the camera and deleting some fuzy pictures and I deleted my whole card. Trust me I cried (literally). I found out there is a recovery place in Gville so I am going there tomorrow to try to retrieve my pictures. Please pray that I will be able to. Pictures have never meant this much to me but if I have lost all those pictures I will cry again.

Well the pictures I posted are from today. I just wanted to show you her stuff.

Hope you all had a MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Carly

So it has been quite a while. Carly is growing up so fast. She is eating food now. She loves her oatmeal. She has eaten peas, carrots and green beans so far. She has liked them all. It is funny how much her poo has changed.

She is 6 months old and way too big. She has been clapping with closed fists for about 3 weeks. Today, she started clapping with open hands. She likes to hear the clapping sound.

Halloween was a blast. She was the cutest turtle. We went to Boo in the Zoo at Riverbanks and Greenville. We had more fun at Riverbanks. Greenville kinda herded us around like cattle in a shoot. Then we went to Downtown Clemson for Tricks or Treat. She enjoyed it. Even more so the people downtown loved her. Several college students stopped us to take pictures.

christmas is coming soon so we took Carly last week and got her pictures done. I will post one or two so that you can see what a big girl she is.

Roll Carly Roll

Carly is growing up so fast. This past Wed she rolled over from her back to her tummy. She has been rolling from her tummy to her back since she was 7 weeks old and now she can go the other way. So this is how it works... I place Carly on her blanket on her back...she rolls to her tummy...then she rolls back to her back...then she looks at me like "what's going on mommy". It is kinda funny.

She will be 5 months next Sunday. Where has the time gone? She can almost sit up by herself and she tries to pull herself up to a sitting position when she is reclined back. She can sit up when she is leaning forward a little bit and holding her toes. She is so cute.

Last night we got her her Halloween costume. I know some of you may be thinking that she is too young to do Halloween or you may be against it totally. Well, Zach and I have decided that we will do halloween and that Carly can be nice things...Not devils or witches or monsters. So this year she will be a turtle. I know those of you who know me are so not surprised. The costume is so cute. My friend Summer told me about it. We got it from The Children's Place. Bonus: it was on sale.

Well I am gonna put some pictures from Sears. She was 4 months old.

first library group

Carly had her first library group today. The Central Library has a reading group for toddlers (children under 2). It was a very fun group. We got there and Carly had fallen asleep in the van. I took her in anyway so that she could hear the books while she was asleep. Well, once we got inside she woke up when she heard all the other children around her. At first she was scared because she didn't know where she was but once I took her out of her seat she was fine. they sang a few children's songs (itsy bitsy spider and happy and you know it). Then they read a book. then they sang another song. Then they read another book and used a felt board to show the story. Next they sang B I N G O. After that we did ring around the rosie and then got stickers. Carly was smiling the whole time. I am so happy that she enjoyed it. I love to read and feel that it is super important to start early. I also like that it exposes Carly to children other than just the ones at church.

We checked out 5 books to read this week. I wont be able to take Carly next Friday because I have to work. I hate it and don't want to work on a Friday but they really need me. So I guess we will have to wait 2 weeks before Carly gets to go back.

what's going on

So I know...I am horrible at keeping up with this. I am super sorry. I am working 4 days a week and usually have something going on on my day off. AND I have a 4 month old, who has time for anything?

Carly is growing well. She had an ear infection 2 weeks ago and had her 4 month check up the same week. She is 14 lb 15.5 oz, 23 6/8 in long. She is doing really well. We went back yesterday and the ear infection is all gone.

She went to her first Clemson football game on Labor Day. We tailgaited and she did very well. She fell asleep in Paw Paw's arms on the way to the game. She slept while Fla State's band played right next to us. She slept while Fla State took the field and people cheered. However, when Death Valley erupted as clemson took the field in pregame she woke up with a fright. Imagine: you go to sleep in your grandfather's arms and you wake up to about40,000 people screaming around you. She did well during the game but it really scared her when we scored or got a first down and everyone cheered. So we left at half-time to get the tired little tiger in the bed.

She "talks" all the time now and she is getting even more cute.

Well she is talking to me now and wanting some attention. I will try to post some picts but it doesn't always work.

Pictures

Here are the pictures I promised you.

Been along time

I apologize to those who have been checking. I have been a terrible blogger since I have gone back to work. Carly is growing like a cute little weed. She is sleeping for 8 hours at a time. Yay. Sleeping is much better.

I was able to get her a an excersaucer from a consignment sale in town (www.upstatekids.com). It only cost $25 instead of $99 for a new one. She loves it. I will have to put a picture on here soon. I will try to do it tomorrow. I also got her a bumbo for only $6. Back to the excersaucer-she loves it. She sits in it and bounces and plays with all the little toys. She can coo now and she sits in it and just coos and coos. She also likes to watch tv in her bouncy seat. We got that baby tv channel. She loves it. she will watch it for 30-60 minutes at a time.

She got sick for the first time this week. She had a stomach bug. We had to put her on a pedialyte diet for 24 hours and then a combination pedialite/breastmilk for the next 24 hours. She is doing much better now. I just hated that my baby felt so bad. She just wanted to be held by her mommy. I just wanted to make her all better.

Now she feels better and was playing again today. Yayy.

The Beach, 4th of July, 2 months, 1rst Shots

So I know it has been a while since I last blogged. We were without internet for awhile. Now we have it back so I can give you updates.

We went to the beach (Surfside)and had loads of fun. Carly did not mind the water at all. She would just sit there and let the waves hit her and not mind at all. We didn't do a lot this year b/c she is not old enough. It did throw her off her schedule. She hated being in the carseat so much and she let all of us know about it. We did a lot of sitting around and relaxing. There were times that I just wanted to go home and get her back on schedule though. She would get so upset and just cry and cry. We had to just rock her and sing to her a lot. We were able to get her a lot of clothes at the consignment shops down there and at the outlets. Oh yeah, Carly rolled over for the first, second, third, and forth time. Wow, she was only 7 1/2 weeks old. Watch Mommy, she is growing up to fast.

We came back on a Sat and the next day was The Picnic at the Lake. It is where we take our church service to the lake. It is a lot of fun. The only bad thing is that there is no air conditioning. So Carly got hot and tired kinda fast. So we had the service, ate the food, and left. Next year, she will be old enough to enjoy the lake more.

Well just a few days later was 4th of July. So HAPPY BELATED 4th of JULY. We actually celebrated more the day before at Clemsonfest. Carly slept through most of it and only startled a little at the fireworks. Carly also went to the movies for the first time on July 3. Zach and I went to see Live Free or Die Hard. She slept through pretty much the whole thing. It is nice to know that we can still do stuff like that if we plan properly. So July 4th we didn't do too much. We went over to Zach's parents to eat supper. Some friends were over (Phil, Della, and "Brother" Matt) and Aunt Connie and "Cousin" Matt. To explain about the Matt's; there are a ton of Matt's in our church that we have contact with. "Brother" Matt happens to be Zach's brother's best friend and went to the beach with us. So, he is like a brother. "Cousin" Matt is really Zach's cousin. Anyway, we had a ton of fun sitting around talking about things.

Well 3 days after July 4, Carly turned 2 months old. My parents, Zach, Carly, and I all went up to the MOuntain house for the weekend. It was nice to get away for 2 days to the mountains. It is so peaceful. Carly did great b/c it was a much shorter trip. She rolled over again so that my mom could see her.

Carly got her first shots on Tuesday. She did pretty good. She only cried while the needles were in her legs. I couldn't watch b/c I didn't like seeing her in pain. I hated seeing her bleeding. It just made me want to cry too. She ended up with a fever and not feeling good on Wed. I was at work and she would not take a bottle from her daddy. So when mommy got home, she became an all you can eat buffet.

Other than that not much going on. I started my new job and Zach is still looking for a job. I hope he finds one soon. I want more time with my Carly.

Packing for the Beach

Okay, so we leave tomorrow for the beach. Yayyyyyy! I am very excited. I ended up not working a full 40 hours this week. I was happier than I thought I would be. Anyway, back to the matter at hand. This is the first time we have had to pack for a whole week. the other times we've had to pack we were going to my parents and they have some of the things we need down there. So we have to pack even more stuff. I made a list of everything we need so that we don't forget anything. It's not like we can replace something like a pack n play. Well I have a lot more to do. We got our first picture of our baby girl smiling. We were so excited. I will post it soon.

First Day Back to Work

Today was my first day back at work. I absolutely hated it. I cried last night before i fell asleep. I cried this morning getting ready. I cried when I went to walk out the door to go. I cried in my car on the way. I cried when Zach called me and said she had been crying for an hour. So the theme of the day is CRYING. I just wanted to turn my car around and drive back home. When Zach called me, I almost walked in the OR and told them I had to go home. Zach said that Carly was a grump and he thought she could tell that something was amiss. Fortunately, I was able to leave after only 6 hours not 8. And Zach and Carly were able to meet me in Anderson for lunch. The rest of the week looks pretty good because there are no cases scheduled, which will mean that I can work half days instead of whole days. Yayy.

Another thing about today is that we had to take Carly to the Dr. She has a very bad case of baby acne and heat rash. Zach and I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't anything else that needed to be treated. They said it would go away in a few days to weeks and not to use any lotion on her. We are just supposed to keep her clean. I hate that I can't use lotion b/c I love to make her smell so good. However, I hate to see my baby so broke out.

Next week we go to the beach. We are really looking forward to it. Just getting away from here for a little while. We don't plan on doing a ton. My birthday is that Wed so maybe Zach and I will do something that night. Who knows.

Well I better go now.

1 Month and More

I know it has been a while since I was able to blog. Last week we went to Orangeburg. Zach had an interview in Charleston on Thursday so we went down on Wed. My brothers and sisters in law finally got to meet Carly. She also got to meet her Granny Cola. She did very well traveling. As long as she had a full belly she slept all the way. We were very happy about that. I did take a bottle just in case and had to give her a little one time.

She is over one month old now. I can't believe it. Time is flying. Last Tues she weighed 9 lb 12.5 oz and was 19.5 in. She is getting so big. She is doing so well. She sleeps very well and usually only gets up once during the middle of the night and maybe twice. She is holding her head up very well. She even smiled this past Monday. I am very excited that she doing so well.

Next Monday I have to return to work. I am only going back to AnMed for a week. Then we go to the beach for a week. Then I plan to start working at Blue Ridge Ortho. I am very excited about that. I really miss working in Ortho.

Well that is all for now.

3 weeks and more

I can not believe that my baby is already over three weeks old. Time is flying. She is doing great. This past weekend we took her to Freedom Weekend Aloft (a hot air balloon festival in Simpsonville). She slept the entire time we were there. The festival moved from Anderson to Simpsonville this year and we were sad but we still wanted to go. We never found the balloons though. We did get Carly some styling shades though.



I did get both PRN jobs that I applied for. One of them is going to want me to work like 12 weeks at almost full time. I don't like that but they said I can do some half days. They just want to get to know me and let me get to know everything that I need to learn. I am looking forward to being able to just work part time and stay home with my baby the rest of the time.



Well I guess I will go for now.

My Poor Baby

Okay, so I have been doing a great job keeping Carly's nails trimmed. Summer cut them the first time they were cut. I watched her and have been doing them myself every few days ever since. Well I decided I needed to cut them tonight b/c I noticed that she had cut herself on the face. So I started cutting them and I cut one of her fingers. I was so sad. I had to keep her finger in my mouth to try to get it to stop. It finally stopped. My mom said she did that to my oldest brother and a lot of other women have said they did it at one point in time or another also but that really doesn't make me feel any better. But I will continue to cut her nails b/c otherwise she will cut her self all the time.

Well I had two job interviews today. One at Blue Ridge Ortho and one at Oconee Memorial. It looks like I will get both jobs. They will be PRN jobs. That means it will be on an as needed basis. I will be in charge of my schedule with the right to say yes or no to coming into work. This way I won't have to work full time. I can spend more time with Carly. Yay.

Well I am tired so I am going to try to go to sleep. I will be up between 3-4:30 for a feeding.

2 weeks old

I can not believe my baby is two weeks old already. Time is going by way too fast. Before I know it she'll be married. Okay so maybe that is an exageration. It just feels like that. She tries to hold her head up already. I keep telling her to slow down. I don't want her to grow so fast.

I went to OMH today and put in an application for a PRN job. They told me they could probably use me and would give me a call in the next two days. That is very exciting. I don't want to go back to work at all but since I have to I want to work as little as possible. Summer has agreed to keep Carly while I work and that makes me feel better than if I had to put her in daycare. I just know that my first day away from her will be super hard. To be honest I have already cried quite a bit about going back to work. I just want to stay home with her and raise her myself. I hope that I don't miss any of her firsts. I want to see her first smile, first step, first crawl.

Well I am going to try to get a picture to post the proper way now. Please forgive me for the ones that are sideways.

New Updates

Well I have lots to report from the last time. i will try to update more often but I am still adjusting to being a new mom.

On Sunday, May 13th Carly was dedicated to Christ. This is more a time for the parents to say that they will raise their child in the way of the Lord and provide a proper example. It also gives the members of the church a time to pray for the family. Carly did an excellent job in her first visit to the church. She slept the whole time. Carly got to meet her friend Jayden who will be a year old on June 13. He was hitting her during the dedication. that is his way of flirting. She also got to meet Jayden's 4 year old sister Torie. Torie has been like Zach and I's "child" for the last 3 years. her parents Summer and Allan are our best friends. Torie is very excited about Carly. She wants to teach her to dance.

Sunday was also Zach's 25th birthday. He was just excited to have his daughter. It was also my first Mother's day. I never thought I would enjoy this day. I have hated this day the last several years. It brought me nothing but pain and despair. this year it brings me great joy. I received several cards and two new books. i love books. My mom was here with us so it was an extra special day. We took pictures of me and Carly, Zach, Carly and I, and My mom, Carly and I. These will be very special in all the years to come.

Monday we took Carly by Dr. Feiste's office to weigh her. She weighed 7lb 14oz. That meant that she was gaining weight properly. That made me very happy. Since I am nursing her I have to make sure that she is eating enough and gaining weight.

We took her to Sears on Monday to get portraits taken. However, when we got there the photographer was still with another client. She told us to walk around for 20 min and come back. When we walked back over there she was outside smoking a cigarette. So we left. We went back on Wed when Tina was there. She did an awesome job.

Friday we went back to Dr. Feiste for another check up. He said that Carly was doing great. She weighed 8lb 3.5oz. We did find out that she broke her collar bone when she was born. Dr. Parker said that was a possibility but we didn't know it had happened. Dr. Feiste said she was otherwise perfect and that that wouldn't bother her. We don't go back until July 10. that seems like a long time.

First Doctor's Appt

Carly had her first visit with Dr. Feiste yesterday. He has this nice room that newborns can go into so that they are not exposed to all the other children. When we first got there we had to share the room with another couple and their little 2 week old girl. The bad thing about that is that Carly got hungry and I could not feed her b/c I am not practiced enough to cover myself and get ready yet. I guess I need to practice that at home. Well they got called back after a while and I was able to feed her then.

When we got called back they took her temp first. She did not like that at all. Then they measured her and she was 19 3/4 in long. We are wondering about that b/c Wed she measured 19 1/4 in. So who knows what is exactly right. She is 7 lb 9 oz now. Dr. Feiste said she was perfect. We are very happy that she is doing so well. Praise God.

The nights are getting worse. Last night she ate early, like 6 or 7. Then I stayed up and she ate again at about 11. She woke up at 1:30 and she fussed. She ate and went back to sleep. She woke up again about 3:30. She was not a happy camper. She was not tolerable to eating on the left side but she is going to have to learn. She loves the right side. It gets very frustrating when she won't eat on the left side and I am trying to teach her to. She finally fell asleep at about 5 but i had to keep her in the bed for a little while. After a while I got her back in the pack and play. She woke up again at about 7:30. Then I fed her again. She fell asleep again about 9 am. Then my mom took her so that I could sleep more. I was very grateful. My mom is helping me so much.

I am very tired but it is so worth it. I love that little girl so much.

Carly

Sorry that it took me so long to update. Carly was born at 7:43 Pm on May 7, 2007. She weighed 8lb 6oz. She is 19 1/4 in long. She is so beautiful. I would put a picture on here but I am not sure how to do it. My labor was not horrible. We went in that morning and they started Pit pretty early. At about 12 they put in my epidural. I didnt want an epidural to begin with but since I was confined to the bed I got one. Well after a while I got really nauseated. they gave me some phenergan and that wiped me out. Then I woke up and started itching reallly bad so they had to give me some benadryl. So then I went back to sleep again. The next time I woke up I felt nauseated again and then I threw up. Not fun. However that is what progressed me to 10 cm. then I started pushing. I pushed for a little over an hour and then a Carly came out.

We are now home and everything is going well. We are still learning and will be for a while. She likes to sleep alot and not eat so much but we are working on that.

She has her first Dr's appt tomorrow and I will update then.

Still Waiting!

This is Allison, Michelle's friend.

We're still waiting! Carly is taking her time, but it's getting close. Carly is sunny-side up (facing up, not down, as she's supposed to be).
Michelle is resting fairly comfortably, she's getting really close to pushing.

We'll post again once the baby's here!

At the hospital

We are at the Hospital! They have the Pit going, and my contractions are about 1-2 minutes apart and getting stronger. I think they are going to finally give me the Epidural about noon, YEAH. Hopefully Carly makes an appearance before to long... Updates to come.