Happy New Year!

2015 was a great year! We started 2015 off with a fun snow trip to Angel Fire, New Mexico. Haley turned 5 in May and 10 days later our sweet baby boy Philip arrived! We celebrated being married for 6 years, welcomed our newest doggy addition (Captain), and we had so much fun during the holidays being a new family of 4!

Philip turned 7 months old on New Year's Day ! He weighed 18lbs 1oz and is 27.25" long! He is sitting up like a big boy!  He loves to sit in the high chairs at restaurants and in the cart when we go shopping. I also put his big boy carseat in the car and he seems to like it a lot better than the carrier. 2 weeks ago while playing patty cake I would say Yay at the end and clap and he would try to imitate the sound, it was so cute! He would open his mouth real wide and make a long sound!  He's doing much better eating cereal in the mornings. He also eats mum mums and puffs snacks which are his absolute favorite. He feeds the mum mums to himself when I break them into big pieces but the puffs he needs help with since he isn't using his pinchers yet.  He is doing pretty good drinking out of a sippy cup too. He always puts his hands up when I walk into the room for me to pick him up. Also if someone else is holding him and he's being content, if I just walk into the room or he sees me he will start fussing wanting me to take him. He now reaches for Daddy any time he's around. I've been giving him a little bit of table food here and there and he's loving that!
I must say he is getting to be so different than Haley was as a baby. He is very good and hardly ever cries which is like Haley was but this boy never stays still! He is always busy and grabbing everything in sight and putting it in his mouth. I'm really enjoying being able to stay at home with my precious boy and watching him grow!

Haley enjoyed her Christmas break. I enjoyed having her home and spending time with her. We've played a lot of her new games, our family favorite is minion trouble. So much fun! I'm already thinking about the kids bdays. I'm thinking for Haley we won't do a party this year but will take her to Great Wolf and for Philip do something simple at the house. That's all in May so I have time.

Well it's been a long day so I gotta finish some laundry then I'm off to bed!!

Until next time...

November 2015-- Philip is almost 6 months!

We have been  a family of 4 for almost 6 months now!! I feel like we just brought Philip home from the hospital a month ago.  He is growing so fast! He's been rolling front to back, back to front since he was 3.5 months old and doing it really good at 4 months, had his 1st real laugh (Haley had him cracking up) and he also got to try out his new high chair Grandma got for him.

I'm growing! I'm 4 months old and I weigh 15 lbs 7oz & 26.25" long!

●I roll all over the place and love to sleep on my tummy
● I love chewing on my fingers & I'm drooling like crazy
● I am taking bottles & pacifiers like a champ

We took our 1st road trip to Longview right before he turned 5 months. He did great for the 3-4 hour drive. He slept most of the time. On the way there we stopped in Trinity for a feeding and on the way home we didn't have to stop once. He found his feet while he was there and he likes to chew on them every once in a while! 

Philip had his 1st trip to the zoo right before Halloween! He did great! He stayed awake the whole time but didn't make a peep at all. I've been so lucky to have such an easy baby like Haley was! We went with Gina & Lily, & Chrissy & Brody. We were missing Haley that day since she was in school.

Philip turned 5 months old on Halloween! Haley was Miss Piggy & Philip was Kermit. It was adorable. I made Philip's costume and ordered all of Haley's outfit and accessories off of ebay.  Next year it will be store bought, his outfit was work but it turned out super cute!

Haley sure loves her little brother! 

At 5 months old he is rolling around all over the floor and in his crib. He "disappears" most nights out of view of the monitor, usually at the opposite end we put him down and he loves to sleep on his tummy. We've always put him on his back but he just turns right over. We have also started rice cereal this month and introduced sweet potatoes first, then bananas, squash, pears,and carrots. His favorite is squash and sweet potatoes!  

We added a new member to our family recently! Captain! Trey's parents had Captain but since they travel often and are busy we have decided to welcome into our family! He is a Vizsla puppy and he is super smart. We have been working on training him and we have grown very attached to him. He is great around the kids.

Captain loves to play fetch, take walks, hang out with Trey in the garage, and run around in the front yard with Haley's friends. He can sit, shake, stay, jump super high when we play with the rope, and he walks great on a leash so I usually take him while I push Philip in the stroller. We are working on catching the frisbee and rolling over but I see that's going to take some time lol.

Big Sister Haley is loving Kindergarten. She adores her teacher Mrs. Hefner. She has made new friends this year and she even went on her first Kindergarten field trip to the Oil Ranch. She knows all her sounds from each letter of the alphabet and has learned almost 30 sight words to help her learn how to read. She comes home and reads short books to me! We go to the library often and pick out books to read. She is one smart girl!

Well Philip just woke up from his nap, gotta go! Until next time....

3 months

3 months old...my baby is 3 months old!!! Wish time would slow down. Haley has started Kindergarten and Philip and I have almost a whole day together. Although I miss my baby girl, I'm really enjoying the alone time with my sweet baby boy. He is full of smiles and loves to look at his hands or put them in his mouth. He is still on his 3 hour schedule and for the past 3 nights we have slept from 8:30 pm to 5:30 or 6am. I stopped swaddling him 2 weeks ago and he's been sleeping like a champ. Bed time he wears his cute little pj's. I'm still breastfeeding so I haven't been able to get out of the house without him but that's okay, I'm okay with that because he's my last baby and I truly enjoy our time spent together. Today I was rocking him and was about to lay him down, and it was the 1st time ever he made eye contact with me when cradling him. He usually wants to look at everything in his room but me. And when he looked at me I smiled and he smiled and we did that for about 15 mins. I would lean down and kiss him and he'd open his mouth wide to kiss me back. What a sweet boy.

Trey had a vasectomy this past Friday so we are for sure done with babies. They are alot of work and I'm okay with being done. That's why I'm cherishing all the time I have with Philip, my last baby.

Oh! Philip has also been rolling over onto his side! He's getting so big. We go back to the Dr at the end of this month. I'll update again soon!!

2 month update

Today's been an interesting day! I got Philip to drink out of a bottle today! Yay, that's progress! Thanks to my SIL Chrissy, Philip seems to like the Dr. Brown bottles. So the taking a bottle was a first. And we had just another 1st this evening! So besides the carseat out and about and in the car, Philip has NEVER fell asleep in anything without being swaddled. Not the swing, bouncer, I mean anything. He has to be swaddled to sleep. So I took a shower this evening and put Philip in the travel swing so I could keep an eye on him (you cannot let him out of your sight with Haley around). Well when I got out of the shower Philip was sound asleep in his swing. Now that's not where I would typically like him to nap but it's exciting because it gives me some hope that he will be a tad like Haley, that girl slept anywhere and everywhere I kid you not. She's the kid who napped in the stroller at the zoo if she was tired, in my lap on Pensacola beach, and in the car so sound asleep that I could pick her up, take her inside, change her diaper and lay her down and she never blinked an eye!

Our 1st 2 months as a family of 4!

Yesterday 7/31/15 Philip turned 2 months old! Can't believe how fast that time went. Haley and I watched his birth on video and he still has that sweet newborn cry. He has found his hands so it seems because he likes to suck on them. He will not take a pacifier or a bottle. He took a pacifier around 1 month but then just stopped. Breastfeeding is thankfully going strong but I can't get this boy to take any kind of bottle yet! We will be trying to work on that again very soon.

For the past few weeks I've had him on a 3 hour schedule where he wakes up, we do a diaper change, he eats, he plays for about 30-45 mins or however long he can last then it's nap time again. Nights have been great. I put him to bed around 8:30 - 9pm and he usually wakes up around 3-5am then we start our day around 7-8:30 am. I'm very used to our 3-5am feeding and I watch TV while feeding Philip and sometimes even stay up and pump but it's the time that we start our day that I struggle with because I am so not a morning person and I know I can't go back to sleep.

Philip loves to look at everything and is full of smiles when he makes eye contact. He also coos when I talk to him. Trey has watched him a few times if I quickly ran to the store or somewhere nearby and it never fails that as soon as I walk out the door, even if he's sleeping, he will wake up screaming. Trey said it's like he just knows I left.

We've made a bad habit of letting Philip sleep in his swing for naps and bedtime. It had started off in our room and putting him to bed with the swing off. Then we started turning it on if he was fussy when we put him down. I eventually moved him to his room in the swing because Trey and I wanted our room back. 2 weeks ago I turned the swing to the lowest setting and there were some times when Philip wouldn't like it but I left it like that anyway. 2 days ago I started with nap time and decided it was time to sleep in the crib. We finally got that transition done. Yay!  Now we just have to tackle the bottle thing.

This Monday 8/3 I'll be taking Philip to his Dr appt for his 1st round of shots. Dreading it!

It has been a change for all of us adjusting to a newborn schedule and not being able to go whenever we used to but it's so worth it. It's hard to describe the amount of love I have for my children.

Until next time, here's a few pics of our first 2 months!

Philip's Birth Story

The last time I saw Dr. Westmoreland was Fri 5/22/15. She was going out of town the following week for Memorial day and she said she would see me on Monday 6/1 for my scheduled c-section. It was originally planned for the week she was gone but it had to be rescheduled. Dr. Westmoreland told me to pre-register at the hospital on 5/28 or 29. I called her office on 5/28 and verified that when I go pre-register the following day that the hospital has everything they need from them, which the nurse said they did. I had asked Dr. W at my last appt if she knew what time my surgery was scheduled and she said the hospital will tell me when. Well when I called and spoke to the nurse I asked her because they have to know when it's scheduled for and I was informed it was Monday 6/1 at 5pm!!! I wasn't happy at all about it being so late in the day. The nurse said unfortunately it was the last one of the day because that was all that was available. Guess it worked out like that when my csection had to be rescheduled due to Dr. W going out of town.

So I go pre-register on Friday 5/29 where they check my weight, go over pre-op instructions, give me special soap and sponges to shower with Sunday and Monday before surgery, then inform me that I can't eat anything after 12am Monday morning and clear liquids only until 9am. So that means all night and all day nothing to eat!!! I was furious. After that I got my blood drawn and then was given a wristband to wear until I got discharged from the hospital after baby.

So all that week I had been walking around my neighborhood and down by the school, bringing my cell phone with me hoping that I could call Trey at home mid-way through my walk and tell him that my water broke but that didn't  happen!

So anyway, after pre-registration I picked my mom up and we went to lunch at Vero's, got our hair cut and did some shopping at Target. I dropped her back home later that day, came home, and Trey, Haley and I went to some friends house. Then Sat night 5/30, Trey wanted to rent Interstellar at Redbox. I had no desire to watch it so I went to bed around 11 pm but couldn't fall asleep bc Trey wasn't in bed yet. I ended up just laying there until 1 or 2am until he came to bed then I finally fell asleep. We never have late nights like that!! Bad idea and as Trey said, the movie wasn't worth it!

**It's 3 am Sunday 5/31 and I wake up feeling like I have to pee really bad. I walk into the bathroom and make it to the toilet, about to sit down and before I make it my water breaks and it goes all over the bathroom floor!! I sit on the toilet and Trey is sound asleep. I yell "Trey! Are you ready to have a baby??!!" Sitting on the toilet I had Trey bring me my phone and I called my MIL Cindy to tell her we are going to the hospital. I know he jumped out of bed fast because he was in the bathroom within a second. My water just kept coming out so I tucked a towel between my legs and waddled around the house like that packing mine and Haley's last min stuff. Bags were already packed but I had a few things to pack last minute.  Trey had nothing packed and was running around the house like a mad man. We left the house and returned the movie rental! We only got 1-2 hours of sleep!!! Trey called his mom and decided we would drop Haley off at her house. On the way I started having painful contractions 4 mins apart and they were very short. We decided to just have her meet us at the hospital so she could take Haley.

It's now about 4:15 am when we go into labor & delivery at the hospital. We got taken back to the triage room where they did a swab to really verify that my water had broke. After that they hooked me up with the blood pressure cuff and the monitors around my belly. I was still having contractions and was laying on that hard bed miserable! Nurse Sam checked me and I was only 1 cm dilated. Another lady that just showed up was 5cm so they were going to prep her for her csection 1st. It didn't seem like that long of a wait before people kept coming in and doing my IV and talking to me about my spinal. Dr. W wasnt on call so Dr. Everson came in and introduced herself since she was doing my surgery.  I got wheeled back into the OR while Trey had to wait outside for me to get prepped. It was freezing in there. I got my spinal which made me nervous bc at 1st only only my right side of my body was getting numb. Finally got it working and then my catheter was put in and now it was baby time and Trey walked into the OR!!!!

Philip Gene McDaniel IV came into the world on 5/31/15 at 7:41am weighing 8lbs 8oz and was 20 inches long. He loves his mama so much that he came a day early so we both didn't have to starve all night and day Monday lol.

After my surgery I was dry heaving and feeling so nauseated. Carl the anesthesiologist gave me some meds and I felt better in an instant. I was stitched up and wheeled into the recovery room where I got to hold my baby boy for the 1st time!! When feeding time came around he latched right on and knew exactly what to do.

Big Sister Haley was the first visitor to arrive to hold her baby brother! She was in love!!

I must say I have completely forgot what it's like to have a newborn! It seems hard and challenging at times but I love this little boy more than anything and wouldn't change a thing. And these newborn days are already flying by!

Here's some pictures of our family of 3 that grew to a family of 4!!