Terrible at Blogging!

This is Nolan writing to whoever still follows this blog. I know that it seems like forever since anything has been posted on this blog and to tell the truth it has been! It has been almost a year! Holy cow! Emery is 13 months old and getting into everything! I love her though, she brings so much joy into our lives. I never thought about how having a kid could change every aspect of your life. People say that they change things but I just did not realize how much. I don't think it has change in a bad way, I believe it has been a great change. There are little things that she does that just make you feel like you are the most important person in the world! I love her little laughs and the little quirky things that she does!
Life has been pretty crazy here lately. For work I have been doing a lot of projects that take up both my physical and mental time and it seems like I have not seen my wife or child in about a month. That should all be over pretty soon in about 2 weeks which is great! Amanda is a great mother! I never had any doubts! I love to watch her interact with Em and see how they mesh together, they both love each other a ton and you can really see it. Emery loves to hug and cuddle with Amanda! Last weekend we had one of our first major meltdowns and it was on the way to my parents house. Emery just freaked out and would not stop crying and screaming and she was just getting so upset! We could not figure it out and Amanda was about ready to give up cause she had already had a bad day! Finally we just took off her shoes, Amanda held her for a bit and we gave her a french fry and she was fine! No more problems all the rest of the way there! I really don't know what happened if anything! HA!
Amanda has been reading other peoples blogs and really enjoying them. I figure that if I start posting on them, she might start posting on ours more often now. Sorry to those that follow if any and hope to start blogging some more. Have a blessed day/week/month/year!!

shades

Yesterday I was able to go shopping with my mom and sister to get all the last minute things she needed for college. We had a lot of fun and it seems it gets easier each time we take Emery out. We had to go to Target of course and I found Emery a couple of cute outfits and some adorable baby sunglasses. I just wanted to share that picture with you all because it's one of my new favorites. Enjoy and hope all is well with you!

long overdue announcement

It seems a little ridiculous that we would wait six weeks to announce the birth of our daughter. However, in the midst of diaper changes, 3am feedings, and lullabies, blogging was pushed to the bottom of our priority list. Now life is starting to hit a routine so I find myself happy to announce that Nolan and I have a bouncing baby girl! Her name is Emery Ruth and she joined us on July 3. She weighed in at 7 lbs, 14 oz, and was 19 inches long. She is absolutely beautiful and we are enjoying watching her grow each day. She now weighs well over 9 lbs, she's probably closer to 11 lbs by now actually. I am fortunate enough to be able to stay home with her while Nolan goes to work. Sometimes I wouldn't mind switching places but I most certainly would miss her before too long. I was just commenting to a friend today that I think she's getting very close to responding to us and laughing with us. She coos more and more each day and occasionally I can get her to smile when I blow raspberries on her belly or kiss her cheeks. She has a prominent dimple on one cheek and I love trying to get it to show. I'm nursing her and that is getting easier each week as well (thank the Lord). She gives me about 3-4 hour breaks in between feedings at night so I am not too terribly sleep-deprived. Nolan is such a great dad. He willingly does the gross jobs like suctioning her nose and emptying the diaper pail. He's also not afraid to get the dirty diapers and Emery certainly puts him to the test on those! Hopefully I'll be able to update this a little more and let you know how Emmy is growing and changing.
In other news, I had to have my gallbladder removed last week. I went 23 years without ever having surgery and then I underwent 2 within 5 weeks of each other (I had to deliver by C-section). Pregnancy really messes with a girls' body! Luckily I was able to have outpatient, laparoscopic surgery. The recovery time has been much quicker than the C-section. My mom came to stay with us and got up with the baby so I could sleep a few nights so I am on the mend.
Tomorrow my mom and sister are coming to pick up Emery and I so we can help Bethany pick out a computer for school. My little sister is moving in to college this weekend! I'm so proud of and happy for her but I cannot believe she'll be so far away from home (SIU Carbondale).
Well, as I said, I will do my best to update more often. That's all our news for now. Enjoy some pictures! She's seriously the best baby ever!

update

Hello all!
We had our doctor appointment this morning and here's the news: I'm still not dilated! ah! Anyway, my doctor wants to induce me this evening at 9 pm so we're going to enjoy our last day of freedom and then head to the hospital this evening. We'll update as we can and of course there will be pictures soon!
Love to you all!!
Nolan, Amanda, and Baby!!

still pregnant

Hello all!
For those of you that check this blog and are thinking, "I bet they haven't updated because they're busy with their new baby..." You'd be sadly mistaken. I'm still pregnant!! I realize I shouldn't complain to much because many woman go much farther past their due date than I am (not even a week yet) but I'm ready to have this baby!! I'm getting very anxious and I don't really like not being able to give people definite answers.
On a positive note, Nolan and I have had a great couple of 'last days' together. Emotionally I might be crazy because I'm super excited and impatient to have this baby. On the other hand, I'm a little sad to be changing into a family of 3, rather than just a couple. We are definitely excited to meet our little one though! The last few days have been wonderful for me though because I've been reminded how amazing my husband is. He's actually the greatest!
We're going to the doctor tomorrow morning at 9:15 for another checkup. My doc said she doesn't really like her patients to go much over 41 weeks because it increases the risk of having to do a C-section and can create complications for the baby. 41 weeks will be Wednesday so I don't know if she's going to induce me tomorrow or wait to see what's happening. As of last Wednesday I wasn't dilated at all so we'll see what sort of progress the little one has made in a week's time. Any prayers would be much appreciated. Despite the fact that we're nervous about what's going to happen, Nolan and I aren't enjoying this limbo time. We'll be sure to give you updates as we hear them and when baby comes, you can count on pictures! Thanks for the love and support and prayers!

The Nursery

So just wanted to post some pictures that were taken on the way to making this new nursery of ours. Remember that it goes from an awful pink that will never be seen in this house again to this little cute nursery ready for baby K. Hope you all enjoy!

Its been awhile....

So for all of you that have been reading the blog for sometime have probably stopped reading it because we never update it with new things. Well this time we have a good excuse. By the way this is Nolan writing this time, I haven't wrote on here yet so I decided it was time to let everyone know from my side what is going on. So the excuse is that when you are having a baby come soon you really try to get things finished before the little guy or girl gets here. In our house we had a bright pink room that was there when we moved in. Now it has been transformed into the new nursery. I will post pics later on when I have some time to do that. This room was also the room that we had stored everything that was moved into the house that we did not need at the time. It was filled to the brim with stuff. When we actually got to sorting things out I found out that most of the stuff that was taking up the room in there were books! My wife loves to read so they were all of her books that had been packed into boxes. After much sorting and placing books in their right places the room was finally ready to be worked on.
I would like to say that I was able to do all the painting myself but I am even happier to say that I am glad that we have the friends that we do. The first night of trying to cover up that horrible pink...and I say horrible because it was everywhere....walls, trim, closet door! AHHHH!!! was done by me, Jen, Nikki, and my wife with a respirator on. There was one gallon of primer down and you could still see the pink like crazy. Round two of priming was done by me, Nikki, and Kristy came by to help. Kristy, Nikki, and I did the painting of the walls and then I finished the rest of the painting up myself. Big thanks to Nikki though for coming over to do the red on the bottom part! Now I am glad to say that last night the last of the pink finally disappeared! I finished up the trim and now it is all gone! EVERYONE CHEERS!!!! Yeah!
Other than that with the room, our house is a disaster, I finally put up a new mailbox and numbers on our house. I feel that is it officially ours now! Manda is 35 weeks pregnant and is about ready to burst...the baby is getting bored and wants out....no room! It will be here sooner than we know.
Well if Manda does not post on here then I will try as well. For now here you go and I will try to put some pics up.