Monday, February 18, 2013

Kenzington

With all that has been going on the blog has been the last thing on my mind but I did want to acknowledge that Kenzington turned 18 months this last week! I can't believe how fast it has gone. She is now officially in nursery at church which is awesome so that I won't have to deal with 2 kids now! She isn't sure if she likes it or not, so I guess only time will tell.

She went to the doctor and she weighs 23.6 lbs. She is in the 30% for weight, 80% for height, and 30%  for head. Basically nothing has changed!

She is my pickiest kid so far when it comes to food. I don't know if it can get any worse. Right now for breakfast she will eat oatmeal or a poptart. For lunch she might eat half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a few bites of a quesadilla. Dinner is a miss most nights. She likes chicken sometimes, and whole beans are usally a go. She like most types of fruit but no veggies. Of course anything with sugar is fine by her but even then convincing her she wants it can be comical. She hates water and throws a fit if you give it to her instead of milk. If she sees me watering down juice she'll refuse to try it, but if I'm sneaky about it she loves it. She likes goldfish and ritz crackers but that's about it in the snack department. It's a miracle she's still growing!

She says a dozen or so words: mama, dada, Axton, yes, no, baby, up, all done, baby, and a few others I'm too tired to think of!

She loves going to sleep with her baby doll, but prefers the really baby! She's always making sure Leighton has a blanket and will come rub her head when I am feeding the baby. She also loves to hold her, but doesn't like us to help her. If she thinks we are going to take the baby away she'll grab and hold on to her for dear life! She is a wonderful big sister with NO jealousy issues, which I am grateful for.

She loves Axton too. She follows him around every where. She loves to chase him and be chased by him. She loves to look at books with him.

My favorite time of the day is when Greg comes home because she starts screaming in excitement and goes running, often times falling over because her feet won't move fast enough. She is daddy's little girl for sure. She cries every time he leaves her, so it's a good thing she is still alseep in the morning when he goes to work!

She is at such a fun stage right now and I love it. She gets so excited about little things. Has recently discovered her love for all books. She is always happy and shares easily with other kids. She'll pat people on the back and rub their heads to comfort them. She is a cuddler. She is getting so full of personality and will give you the funniest looks, from being a cheese ball, to glaring at you, or simply pretending you aren't there. She loves to look at you out of the corner of her eye.

I am so glad this little girl came to our family, and it was well worth the 3 years of trying to get her here!

Baby Blessings

Greg's family (minus Katie and Spencer) came to town this last weekend since it was a 3 day weekend. Since we had 3 babies born in Dec/Jan we decided that we would bless the babies so that all the Leavitts could attend. Now that I'm thinking about only Leavitts were there, no other "in-laws".
 
Before the blessings. I never got around to buying a new blessing dress for Leighton so she used Kenzingtons. Only Kenzington was a few months older when we blessed her, so this dress was HUGE on poor Leighton. Oh well.
 
 
 
All 3 babies together: Leighton (Jan 21), Anna (Dec 17), and Noelle (Dec 9)


The whole gang

The 3 babies again
 
And all 3 babies have older sisters within 2 years of them (they're in the same order too)! Kenzington (Aug 11), Camille (Mar 9), and Charlotte (Mar 8)

All 12 Leavitt grandkids! Vanessa, Daniela, Brooklynn, Noelle, Axton, Leighton, Talia, JJ, Charlotte, Camille, Anna, and Kenzington (sitting in birth order, minus the babies anyways).

Projects

As if having a baby wasn't enough of a change we took on several projects the week, and month, since she was born.

My mom came to help out for 10 days, which was a blessing and a curse! ;) When ever she comes she motivates me to think about decorating my house! I happened to see that a friend was selling her rocking chair for $10 and that it needed to be reupholstered, but otherwise was in great shape. I have always wanted one, since the recliners we got with Axton are too big for me to comfortable rock in while nursing.

So I talked my mom into helping me reupholster it since she has way more sewing experience then me. So she did most of the work while I kept convincing her that she could do it (since she never had before). We went to hobby lobby and picked out the material. I wish I had the before picture but I didn't think about it. So here is the after.

 
She also recovered some pillows I had for the couch. I want to make more but in different colors like the mustard, and blue, but we couldn't find any material that was the right color, so I continue to search!

It also made us think about repainting the walls, which we will do but haven't yet. We also got Greg on board to make some wooden cornices for the windows and sliding glass door. I won't share how much convincing it took, but it was a LOT!



I love how they turned out. We will probably paint them blue when we get around to painting the walls, but for now they'll stay white. I am now on the search for decorations to go above my kitchen cupboards, but I need money too! So one step at a time.

Leighton Olivia Leavitt

This post is long and mostly for me, so read if you want, or just look at the pics!

My due date was January 20th and I have a thing about letting my babies come on "their own", that is until I'm late! So even though my doctor said he would induce me up to a week early I opted to have a scheduled induction for the day after my due date because I was done, but really wanted her to come on her own. Plus I have never had to be induced so I was hopeful that it would just all happen on it's own. It didn't!

I was scheduled for 5am on the 21st, and knew that I could get bumped back or even canceled which had me worried since Greg's wonderful brother and sister-in-law, Brad and Ashley, took our kiddos the night before. So I started calling at 3 am to see if we were still on and up until 4:30 they didn't know. At 4:30 they told me no, and that they would call me when I could come. I was bummed. I manage to fall asleep and then of course at 5:15 they called to tell me that if I could be there by 6 then they would start me. So we got there at 6 and spent at least a half hour getting checked in, and by 7 was in a room. The nurse putting in my IV was HORRIBLE! She couldn't get it in and kept trying to force it. The mixture of morning sickness and my hatred of all things needle related, plus the pain she was inflicting, led to me all but passing out. To keep me from passing out she waved one of those awesome amonia sticks in my face which really did me in. I'll spare you the details! So about 45 minutes later a different nurse was able to get the IV in on her first attempt. At 8:45 they started the pitocin. I had heard horror stories about the intensity of it, but truthfully for me it was the same as going into labor naturally. It might have helped that I was already having regular, but small contractions. At 10 or so the doctor came in and broke my water. At 11 I decided I wasn't ready to try for a natural birth thanks to the drama of having Kenzington, so I asked for the epidural. The doctor came in at 12:20 and after 3 big pushes and 2 little ones, Leighton Olivia joined the world.

She weighed 7 lbs 13 oz, and was 20 in. She had dark brown hair, and more of it than either of our others which made me happy! The next thing I noticed was that she had ridiculously long fingers compared to her hands. I think it was Greg's first comment too! They are very long and skinny, freakishly so.

 
Luckily there were no complications this go around, and Brad and Ashley brought the kids over after dinner. Kenzington wanted nothing to do with me which I was prepared for, since Axton had had the same reaction when she was born. Something about hospital gowns and IVs freak my kids out (and most others too).
 
 

Greg went home with the kids and so it was just the baby and I which was a first. I thought I'd end up sending her to the nursery for the night, but I felt really good physically so I opted to keep her and all was well.

The next day Greg came for a few hours in the morning while his amazing sister Kim watched the kids. It was nice to have some adult interaction even if most of it was him on the phone for work! He then left to take Axton to preschool and put Kenzington down for a nap. We agreed he'd come back after Axton got home and that's when I would be able to leave too.

As it turned out Leighton was right on the border of having to stay for jaundice which had me bummed, I hate hospitals and couldn't wait to get out of there and back to life. I was bored with tv after a day and ready to be busy again. Luckily the pediatrician agreed to let us leave as long I would bring her in to see him in the next day or two. Kenzington finally came to me once I was dressed and "normal" looking, but she still preferred to be with Greg! I think Axton hates hospitals as much as we do because when we got in the car to go home he said he wasn't feeling well and was going to throw up. He got really pale to. But by the time we got home he was back to his normal self and said he felt fine thankfully (I have the same reaction every time I go to a hospital).