6 weeks

jillian is 6 weeks old this week!

i was going to do a month post but that came and went quickly! here she is at a month..


last week we weighed her and she was a whoppin 9 pounds! she has already gained 3 lbs..that's insane!

she has lots of new tricks..

she loves for people to talk to her and she'll smile now (like she actually knows what she's doing!) she's also started "talking" a lot and it's soo sweet!


she kicks her legs non-stop! when you lay her on her back she will kick and inch along backwards. on her changing table, she starts the diaper change at one end and by the time she's done, she has scooted all the way to the other end!

the girl is a snuggly little thing. and i looove that! i remember when i was pregnant, i told kyle, i just hope we get a snuggly baby! and we did! when you're holding her up against your chest she will scoot and wiggle till she's all tucked up under your neck. and if you lay her next to you, she wiggles herself almost completely under your side! i love it!

the down side of her being so snuggly is she doesn't love to sleep in her bed! it's more a problem with flat surfaces. she wants to be all cuddled up. she does great in her swing or bouncy seat, but we're really trying to get her to sleeping in her crib/bassinet!

the poor girl has tummy issues and spends lots of days uncomfortable. we go through mylicon likes it's going out of style! those hard days also earn her more snuggle time =) we've been letting her sleep in her swing (turned off) because it seems to give her some relief, but we're trying to not make that an un-breakable habit!

she still loves to be swaddled. she will fight sleep so much, but then you just wrap her up (or just lay a blanket over her) and she will immediately start dozing off! she comes by that honest--i won't watch tv without being covered up!

she still eats every 3 hours during the day and she has started stretching out her feeding times at night. last night she went from 12:30 to 5 am!! (but that was in her swing..probably wouldn't have been that great in her bassinet).

we're still in size 1 diapers. and we go through a lot!

oh, and it looks like her eyes are going to be a dark blue.

she is still soo sweet, and i'm loving these more alert days. each phase we get to, i want to just freeze time and soak up this stage (minus the tummy issues).

look at that little face!

mother's day

we celebrated my first mother's day on sunday and it was great!! i love being a mom, and this was just icing on the cake!

that morning we went to breakfast with all my family and celebrated mother's day for my mom!


happy mother's day ammaw!

that day was baby dedication at church, so it was great to dedicate our jillie! she did so good, and slept through the whole thing, and looked super cute doing it!



this was the only picture taken of our little family all day. it was in the parking lot at church. who knew we were going to have this dark, wintery day in may!


we spent that whole afternoon snuggling on the couch and napping. it was the perfect mother's day!

kyle surprised me with a gift card to a spa to get a massage! i'm soo excited (and a little nervous). i've never had a massage! i can't wait! and he also got me some caffeine free cokes! i was real excited about this..i call them my guilt free cokes. jillie doesn't do wonderful after i have caffeine so i have cut it out completely (well..very close to completely).

that evening we went out to dinner with kyle's family to celebrate his mom and grandmothers.


happy mother's day gigi!


it was a great day to be a mom!

i adore every minute of having my sweet jillie girl. this is definitely what i am meant to do. i love it! even the "trying times" bring joy.

she melts my heart daily!


happy mother's day to all the mom's out there! (a couple days late, but it wouldn't be my blog if it was on time!)

life as the 3 of us

we have adapted well to becoming a family of 3 and we are liking it quite a bit.

here are random (quite random) highlights from our life in the last few weeks..

at jillie's 2 week appointment, she weighed 6 lbs 14 oz, and was 20 1/2 inches long. she's gained almost a pound since we left the hospital!

she is still eating every 3 hours, almost on the dot!

when we first brought her home, we had a hard time getting her to nap during the day. well, she has switched that up. she now naps great during the day time, but puts up a fight to sleep at night.

we've just started trying the whole "crying it out" thing, and that is not fun for anyone involved!

once jillie is asleep (usually about midnight), then she eats every 3 hours and then is ready to get up about 8 am when kyle is leaving for work. so we're really not losing too much sleep..can't complain!

the doctor thought she might have colic, due to some of her symptoms (screaming at the exact same time each evening/night), but we've kind of adapted a few things, and she seems to be doing better. one of those things being zero caffeine for mom (ouch) and jillie getting mylicon at each feeding. she still fusses at those times, but has taken the screaming down a few notches. which we appreciate!

just about every evening we take a walk. the girl loves loves loves to be outside! she just looks around and is so content. so we head outside when we can tell the fussiness is coming!

she loves her baby bjorn! it's her favorite mode of transportation!

she doesn't love being in the car. and when i say doesn't love, she lasts about 5 minutes before she decides she would "rather be somewhere else".

jillie has really taken to her swing. she didn't love it at first, but they have become good friends. she's actually in it right now. it buys a lot of time for mom to get stuff done.

i have learned it takes a lot of strategy to get things done during the day!

after all the randomness of our life, here are some pictures of our sweet girl..

jillian grace

she's here!

we've had her for 11 days now and time is already passing too fast!

i quickly learned that you fore go certain "luxuries" when your life turns into 3 hour increments and blogging was one of those!

her "birth story"..

--on april 5th, we got to the hospital at 4:30 am to start the induction process. (we tried everything to get her here naturally, but she wouldn't have it). when we got to the hospital my blood pressure was sky high! like..wow..HIGH! my blood pressure has not been high my entire pregnancy, but apparently my body didn't like being in labor. so immediately we were on "blood pressure precautions" and having to lay a certain way, keep the lights out, no visitors, just chill.

--the pitocin started at about 5 am and within minutes we were ticking off some pretty intense contractions every 1-2 minutes. it was a good sign i was responding so easily to the pitocin, but we were contracting a little too much, we had to back off the pitocin just a tad. and my blood pressure was coming down..things were looking good.

--jillian decides she doesn't want to tolerate the labor and dropped her heart rate to the 80's-90's. (should be 120-160). and my blood pressure was back up. doctor broke my water at this time. of course my fluid was meconium stained, just to make matters worse! the plan for now was to try to deliver as soon as possible to solve blood pressure and heart rate issues.

--at about 3pm we decided to get an epidural to see if it would help me and baby chillax. well, it did and everything was going great! i was dilating and our strips were looking great, so i was very relieved!

--well, she decided to be stubborn a few more times and drop her heart rate for several minutes at a time, which scares the poo out of all the docs and nurses. we kinda discussed a c-section if it keeps happening, but nothing to seriously.

--at 8 pm i was dilated to an 8, but our strips weren't looking great. the doctor decided to call a c-section at this time. they wanted to get it done before it became an emergency situation for baby's heart rate. insert 15 minutes here for me to completely break down because things weren't going as we had "planned".

-- we got ready for the c-section and headed to the O.R. well, apparently there happened to be an emergency situation, so they went to the O.R. first and we waited.

--during the time we waited, jillian's heart rate dropped to the 70's and wouldn't come back up. now it turned into a stat c-section and all craziness broke loose. all the staff was great and they got her out so quick!

--she started crying immediately, all i could see was kyle's eyes because of all his O.R. gear, and they were all squinty from smiling so big.

--she was so perfect and healthy, despite all the issues of the day!


here we are waiting to go into the O.R.


meeting jillian for the first time!


kyle carried jillie from the O.R. to the nursery.


my first time to see jillian after leaving the O.R.









she is the most precious thing ever! the first night with her was so surreal, i just kept looking at her, and couldn't believe she was ours!

i don't know if motherhood is what i "expected" or not. it's not any harder or easier than i thought. i literally love every minute of it! i actually love feeding her at night. i'm always a little sad when we have to put her to bed each night because we want her to stay up with us!

we're still getting into the routine with everything. she does not like sleeping during the day, so that is our only struggle right now. she is sleeping great at night though, so i'm ok with that trade off!

we are absolutely loving life as a family of 3!

we'll catch up on the rest of her life at a later date..someone is ready to eat!

39 weeks..

and counting!

i was not anxious to deliver at all, until last week, when they (doctor) said, "it'll be any day now. i'll be surprised if you make it through the weekend."

so that does absolutely nothing for me, except make me start counting days (or hours) and wondering if every little twinge might be the start of labor.

well, i'm still pregnant.

i'm walking. a lot. i would be much more prone to walk more if it wasn't freezing outside. and i'm not sure why kyle and i always end up waiting till like 11 pm to walk. (that might have something to do with the freezing.)

tonight, we had to cut our walk short, because i thought i would surely wet my pants if we didn't make it back to the house. so we came back, i went to the bathroom, but after going i didn't feel like going back out into the cold.

so i walked around the living room while he watched tv.

oh, and while drinking raspberry tea. apparently that is supposed to make you go into labor. we're definitely drinking that. i made up a whole pitcher and drink it iced because hot tea is "ugh". with a little sugar (and ice), i actually really like it!

people ask if i've been craving weird stuff, and i usually say no, not really..i've just been eating a lot more. i usually don't make it through the night without getting up and eating a snack. usually a bowl of cereal. i was not a cereal person before pregnancy, so i guess that's weird for me.

this week, i got up about 4 am and had wheat thins, crackers, pepperoni, diced peaches, and a banana.

I DON'T CRAVE WEIRD THINGS?!

so now, i'm going to have to answer "yes, i eat random crap".

i bought a cute set of pj's to wear while in the hospital, and i've been saving them for that time. well, i put the pants on tonight and they don't fit anymore!! well, they're just definitely "snug"!

that's medium depressing!

ah, pregnancy.

i actually do love it. i'm just thinking i'm ready to love the end result.

now i'm gonna go walk some more laps around the living room. while wearing these snug pajama pants. maybe i'll get them stretched out!

38 weeks!

yes, we're still alive over here at the nelsons!

yes, we're still pregnant!

38 weeks (and 3 days) to be exact!



this is what we're looking like these days! (kyle takes these pictures from odd angles, maybe we'll get it down by the time we deliver!) we're really bad at remembering to take pictures of the ever growing belly! every couple of weeks, i'm like, oh wow, i've grown, we should document this!

things i've learned as we near the end of our first pregnancy:

-- take a very deep breath before bending over to do anything
-- opt for shoes with no laces, ultimately flip flops (thank you warmer weather!)
-- i have to go to the bathroom more than you thought would be humanly possible!
-- keep tums close by!
-- rolling over is much harder than one would think
-- maternity jeans are the greatest creation ever
-- i didn't know my toes would swell! much less every other part of my body!
-- and it's really sad when a bath robe doesn't fit anymore (a BATH ROBE!! aren't those like one size fits all!? nope!)

we had a doctor's appointment today and everything is still going wonderfully!
--blood pressure is in check.
--still gaining weight, but it has leveled off quite a bit. i've gained 32 lbs =/. sounds like quite a bit to me, but it's right where doc wants us.
--jillian's heartbeat still sounds great. it's been in the 130's like 4 appt's in a row. maybe she'll be a chill baby!? (one can hope!)
--and we're at a 3! (tmi?)
--doctor mentioned we might go this weekend (which sounds very soon!)

and so you remember what the cute jilli-bean we're waiting on looks like, here she is!

so sweet! look at those little lips! can't wait to see her little face in person!

jillian's room

we've been working on jillian's room for awhile now, just whenever we get the chance. it's pretty much finished, although i'd like to add a few details here and there.

i'm pretty happy with how it turned out. a baby girl's room, but not over the top, everything pink frills girly.
this is the view from the doorway into the room.



and here's the other side of the room. we still need to stain the rocking chair. that's a project for this weekend. we'll see how it goes!


here's the inside of the bed. i love the bumper pad! my mom made all the bedding. you can see the quilt hanging on the rocking chair in the previous pic. i guess i need to get a better picture of it.


we painted the room khaki and i drew a tree on the wall in chalk. i read this technique for painting things ("murals") on walls and it definitely sounded the easiest! you just have a wet paper towel and wipe the lines off to erase.


here's the tree after the first coat. it took 3 coats of acryllic to get it as bright as i wanted. (that's 3 different colors of off white)


i had this white lamp and wanted to "cute it up" a little, so i started tying ribbons around it. well, i think you could tie ribbons forever and never be quite perfectly happy with how it looks, so i just stopped!


here's how it looks for now. i may go and tie a few more on, but not today!


like i said, we're still working on the little things here and there..and considering she probably won't even sleep in here for quite some time, i think we're close enough to being ready!