6 Weeks Old ~ November 28, 2011

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Sleeping Baby

We have a sleeper!!!  Charlee May slept through the WHOLE night last night at 9 ½ weeks old!  She’s always been a wonderful sleeper and has been “sleeping through the night” since about 4 weeks of age.  Pediatricians say that “sleeping through the night” in a newborn is considered a span of 5 hours.  We had that schedule down pat…put to bed at 9pm, feeding at 2am, and then slept to about 5:30am.  I consider myself a very blessed momma because there are many babies that don’t do that until 9 months old or even later!  I have to credit the principles of the book “Baby Wise”.  Babywise is an infant management plan that successfully and naturally helps infants synchronize their feeding, waketime, and nighttime sleep cycles.  It totally woks!  It’s like Charlee’s little internal clock knows when its night time and day time.  From the time she wakes up around 5:30-6am, she eats every three hours (give or take) and then we have “playtime” until I put her down for a nap about an hour and a half before her next feeding…The big baby wise thing is to put the baby down awake so she will know how to put herself to sleep on her own.  Now there might be sometimes where she’s zonked out when I lay her down but there are other times when she’s awake.  She doesn’t seem to mind…….yet!  I hope that she continues the 9pm to 5:30am nights!  Who knows, last night could have been just a lucky night, but I’ve been waiting for her to drop that 2am feeding in the middle of the night and it happened!  Here are some photos of my sleeping angel...

 





Monday, December 19, 2011

Charlee's First Halloween

Charlee was 2 weeks old for her 1st Halloween.  I looked high and low to find her a costume, but I refused to pay $40 for a newborn costume so I decided to create my own!  Yep, you guessed it, she’s a HOOT OWL!  I bought her little beanie off Etsy and then stuck a onesie on her with a homemade tutu and some feather clips on her feet from Hobby Lobby.  It was perfect and very cheap!  Most of all it was made with love from her mommy!  I got her all dressed up to sit in our living room…I know ridiculous, but she’s so cute and she has to have a costume on her first Halloween no matter how old she is…right!?  We had our porch lights turned off because

(1.) We didn’t have any candy and
(2.) We didn’t want to be around other kiddos with germs. 

Little kids are germ infested and we are just trying to keep Charlee away from children until she’s 8-10 weeks so her immune system is a little stronger.  Some people might say we are being overly cautious, but we don’t care because we just had a child who spent 8 days in the NICU at St. Vincent for lung and breathing issues.  So we just sat in the dark basically watching the kids run by our house and then we went to bed!  That’s as exciting as it gets folks!  Here are some pictures of our little Hoot Owl…
Charlee May - 2 weeks old

Sunday, December 18, 2011

I know EVERYONE does the "month by month" pictures and I think that it's a fantastic idea!  We are currently on month 2 and Charlee has changed so much already!  Here is Month 1 and Month 2...two different poses

 


Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Introducing Charlee May Matthews

My Due Date: October 18, 2011

Labor Began: October 16, 2011 ~ Woke up in the middle of the night (1am) thinking I might be having contractions. (Felt like menstrual cramps that lasted only for a few seconds). I got up and walked around the house and they didn’t stop so then I downloaded a "contraction timer" app on my iphone and started watching my contractions. Josh woke up at about 3am thinking that I was just having trouble sleeping, but he quickly learned that I was having contractions. We waited until my contractions were about 5 minutes apart and then headed to the hospital. It was 5am on the dot when I got in this hospital bed...I was 4 and a half centimeters dilated...I got my epidural about an hour later. Here we are waiting for me to dilate to 10 centimeters.

Aunt Lo goofing around...I couldn't feel my legs. It was the weirdest feeling ever!
Coffee and Word Feud to pass the time...


Daddy got a little antsy from waiting so he watched the contraction monitor for amusement...

The nurse made me sit Budda style to help Charlee drop into the birth canal...


Finally after pushing for 2 1/2 hours Charlee May arrived!!!!!  Welcome to the world baby girl!
Charlee May Matthews
Born October 16, 2011 @ 2:42pm
7lbs 13oz and 20 3/4" long


Charlee had "Meconium Aspiration Syndrome" and had to spend 8 days in the NICU.  It is a serious condition in which a newborn breathes a mixture of meconium and amniotic fluid into the lungs around the time of delivery.  We didn’t get to hold Charlee until 2 days after she was born…it seemed like an eternity and was torture! 

Our poor little girl with all those tubes!


 First time Daddy & Mommy get to hold Charlee....two days old!

We had many people praying for Charlee May and God is so good and healed our little girl!  Charlee went home on an Apnea Monitor for our piece of mind, but other than that the doctor said that she is 100% healthy and perfect!  (A home apnea monitor is a portable machine used to monitor a baby's heart beat and breathing.  When the baby has a heart rate or breathing rate that is below the limits set on the monitor, an alarm goes off.)  Other than false alarms (like a loose connection) the alarm hasn’t gone off and we hope to be taken off the monitor in a few weeks. 

That's the hopital story :)...Here we are on our way home!  Charlee wasn't a huge fan of her "Going Home" outfit but she was beautiful!  Her great Aunt Kathy gave her this Petit Ami smocked dress and Bonnet....precious!


First Car Ride to Home to Sweet Home!

Monday, December 12, 2011

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Maternity Pictures

I know, welcome back right! It’s been a little over a year since I last blogged and a lot has happened since then. We sold our home, moved right outside of Little Rock to Benton, Josh changed jobs again (no longer with Farm Bureau) and we were blessed by the grace of God with a little baby girl! I figured that I would keep my blog updated with daily activities of Miss Charlee May Matthews. She is the most wonderful gift from God and she belongs to me!!! I’m a little behind on blogging because Charlee is 8 weeks old…so I’ll get us caught up…


Aunt Lori took all of my maternity pictures and they were beautiful!  Here are a few of those...




Monday, May 31, 2010

Please Somebody Buy Our Home!

HOUSE FOR SALE BY OWNER:




DOWNSTAIRS FOYER

FORMAL DINING ROOM / OFFICE

LIVING ROOM

NEW UPDATED KITCHEN

KITCHEN NOOK EATING AREA

KITCHEN DESK

LAUNDRY ROOM

DOWNSTAIRS HALF BATH

SUNROOM OFF LIVING ROOM

GUEST BEDROOM #1

GUEST BEDROOM CLOSET
(Both Guest Bedrooms have this same size closet)

GUEST BEDROOM #2

GUEST B ATHROOM

GUEST BATHROOM (Different View)

MASTER BEDROOM

MASTER BEDROOM (Different View)

MASTER BATHROOM

MASTER BATHROOM (Different View)