First Solid Food

Faith had her first real taste of solid food today when Kevin fed her Carrots. She absolutely loved them! She tried to help daddy put the spoon in her mouth.

She loved the carrots so much that she started to cry when Daddy went and put the food away! She ate half of the jar in one sitting. We are so proud of her. She is getting so fast.

Oh, and the pink 'burns' on her cheeks...well, that's rug burn as she is learning the crawl...using her face. She will put her feet on the ground and push her butt in the air and push herself all over the carpet face first. Not sure where she learned that from, but if she keeps it up, she'll be crawling before long.

Oh, and she loved to giggle, especially when Daddy bounces her on his knee, like riding a horse, and singing the Bonanza song.

Rawhide Game and Country Music

Me and new country singer, Troy Olson. He performed before the Rawhide game and threw out the first pitch.

Faith at 4 months!

It's hard to believe that Faith will be four months old on Thursday! Time has flown by so fast!

Faith on Father's Day

My two favorite people in the whole wide world!

Faith has learned to roll over, hold herself up and will be crawling anytime now! She is so advanced for her age!

Update on the new house...

We've been very busy since we moved into the house. We've painted the whole inside of the house so far and we finally moved out of the garage!

The upstairs guest bedroom.

Faith's nursery...work in progress.

The kitchen and our new appliances.

The front of the house...after Kevin pulled out all of the ugly plants.

We still have to hang all of the pictures and make a few changes to make through out the house, like remodel the downstairs bathroom, but that will all be done in time. First we need to get the office organized and usable.

It's Been Awhile...

I know, I know. I haven't updated my blog in like, FOREVER! A lot has been going on the last two months and I will update you all on the new house, Faith and my travels. I have been extremely busy, but have a lot to share!

Faith is six weeks old

My little girl is growing so fast! It seems like just yesterday that we just brought her home from the hospital. She has done so much in the last six weeks. She gets to go to work with me and she got to go on her first trip to Visalia for Easter.

A few days later, I took her to her first baseball game....the Visalia Rawhide's opening day verses the Stockton Ports.Up next...this weekend Kevin and I are taking her to Monterey for the weekend while he attends a union training event and then we get to move into our new house in the next two weeks! So much to look forward too!

It's Official!

The house is ours!

We got the keys last Friday to our new 3,000 sq.ft., six bedroom, three bath house! We are so excited. Kevin and I have been spending every free minute at the new house we can to get it move in ready.
Kevin surprised me with the good news Friday evening after I got off work with a text message picture of Faith sitting in front of the stairs with a message saying, "Hi Mommy, I'm at my new home!" He had gotten the key earlier in the day and spent the rest of the evening changing all the locks on the house and even put a new handle on the front door.
On Saturday, Kevin and I spent most of the day cleaning the house and taking measurements of windows for blinds. Things were going well until we moved the old stove and found roaches. Yuck! We stopped cleaning, figuring it wasn't going to do us any good and decided we needed to bug bomb the entire house before we finish cleaning and painting. So we called it quits, packed everything up and went home.
On Sunday, Faith went and stayed with Aunt Poe while we went back to the house to get it ready to bug bomb. Kevin fixed a blocked gas line in the laundry room and the leaky sink in the master bathroom. Once we finished all the repairs we could, we got it ready to bomb and Kevin set the off.
On Monday, Kevin went back to the house by himself to fix some more stuff and clean up the first bug bomb mess while I stayed home with the baby. We are going to wait a few days and then bug bomb it one more time to make sure we get rid of all of the roaches.
Today, Kevin, Faith and I went to Lowe's to start the fun stuff. Picking out paint to the inside of the house! We picked a pretty light green for Faith's nursery, decided to paint two walls in the office/baseball room Green Monster Green, the kitchen will be a Medium Buff and the rest of the house will be Cream in my Coffee in color and all the doors in the house will be Roasted Coffee.
Can't wait to start the painting next week so we can start moving in next weekend!

Great News!

Well, Kevin and I have some exciting news to share...We are buying a house! After months of searching, we finally the house of our dreams for a great price.

We started are search just before Christmas. We looked at quite a few houses before we found our first dream house. Kevin found the home on an on-line home forclosure website and got really excited about it.

We contacted our realtor and asked if he could take us to see it because what we found seemed too good to be true. It was a two-story, six bedroom, three bathroom, 3,000 square feet home selling for less than $230,000. When we saw it, we fell in love with it immediately. We went back to the realtor's office and placed an offer on it that day. Well, a week past and we never heard back from the selling agent. Another week past and we still didn't hear back from the selling agent. We later found out that the house sold to someone else. Needless to say, we were devistated.

We ended up going to see another realtor and a month later, he found is an identical house just a few houses down from the one we originally put an offer on that had just come on the market. We jumped on the house and went and saw it. At this pointm it hadn't even been on the market for 24 hours. We knew going in to see this house that we wanted it and after we walked through it, we put an offer on it right then and there.

The good news is that we close escrow on the home sometime within the next week. Once we close escrow, was can started painting the inside and move in by the end of April. We can't wait!

Awaiting Baby's Arrival

On Sunday, February 28th, I arrived at Clovis Community Hospital, not really knowing what was going to happen. Kevin was hoping that all that was going to happen was that the nurses were going to check to see how the baby and I were doing and then be sent home. We didn't really expect to stay. Little did I know, Dr. Swanson had something else in mind for us.

When I checked into the hospital, I was taken to a room and told to put on the standard issue hospital gown, put into bed and hooked up to the fetal monitor machine. A nurse came in and explained to Kevin and I what all was going to happen. Apparently, Dr. Swanson was planning on inducing me the next day as a precaution because of the gestational diabetes.

Despite Kevin's hopes, we were spending the night at the hospital. Well, once I was given the medication that was going to help soften my cervix and was all settled into my room, Kevin went home to grab some things and to also get us something to east as we hadn't eaten since lunch time and I was not on a diet restriction just yet.

First thing the next morning, Dr. Swanson came to check on me. He told me the procedures od induction that was going to happen over the next few hours, which included breaking my water and administering the pitocin and then checking my cervix every couple of hours to see how far I had dilated. While we waited for the mediation to run its course, my mom and Melissa, Kevin's sister, arrived to spend the day with us as we waited for the baby's arrival.

I did pretty well for the first couple of hours after the pitocin took affect and the contractions started. From day one, I told everyone that I did not want to have an epidural done, so I opted for alternative pain medication that was administered through an IV in my hand. By mid-afternoon, the pain from the contractions became to bad for me to endure any longer (to the extent that I was told that at one point I flipped Kevin off for taking pictures of me in pain), so I eventually gave in and had the epidural done.

At around two or three in the afternoon, the nurse came in and checked on me and told us that I was dilated to about a six and that we should have the arrival of a baby sometime before 8 p.m. or so. At around 4:30 or so, Kevin decided that he needed to go home real quick and grab a bote to eat, take a shower as he had been with me all night the night before and bring me some things I wanted from home, and I was fine with that.

A couple of hours later, Dr. Swanson came into check on me and told me that I was still dilated at a five or six and I had not dilated any further since the nurse had come in and checked on me a few hours before. While Kevin was still at home, Dr. Swanson informed me that he was not happy with the progress that I had made and was going to have to deliver the baby by c-section. I had to ask home if could wait until Kevin got back and Melissa had to call her brother and tell him that he needed to get back to the hospital as soon as possible as the doctor wanted to take me in soon.

As soon as Kevin arrived, the nurses quickly prepared me for surgery and rolled me out of my room and into the operating room. At 7:21 p.m., Faith Catherine Westbrook arrived into this world by c-section, weighing in at 6 pounds, 13 ounces and was 19.5 inches in length.

Preparing for Baby's Arrival

On Thursday, February 25, I went to see Dr. Swanson for my 38-week check up with Kevin in tow. Dr. Swanson did his usual exam and then checked my cervix to see if I was dialated yet, which, according to him, I was to a one. After he finished his exam, he looked at us and told me that he wanted me to check into the hospital Sunday night at 5 p.m. and he would meet with me at the hospital first thing Monday morning. Not really sure about what is going on, we said okay and went home.

Well, once Kevin and I got home, we realized that there was still quite a bit a things that we needed to do before the baby's arrival, like finish hanging up pictures in the nursery and going to have some maternity pictures taken.

On Sunday morning, Kevin and I went to the mall and had some maternity pictures taken of us before the baby came. This was the first time the two of us had had our pictures taken like that, aside from our wedding, was when we had first started dating, nearly twelve years ago. That task alone nearly took all afternoon. Needless to say, we didn't make it to the hospital on time, but when Kevin is involved, when are we ever on time!