Personalized Presents

Our great friend Amy Stewart (who, incidentally, just started a blog about Kansas City--we can't wait to see what she writes!) gave us some gifts from this adorable little store in the Brookside/Waldo area called Pistachio Gifts for our Kansas City baby shower.

Aaron has known Amy for several years, and they have hilarious stories they can tell you about their antics--just maybe not on a blog about a baby! Amy is one of those people who knows all the secret and special things about Kansas City, so if you're looking for an event venue, a great new restaurant to try, or need something awesome to do on a weekend, she usually has the info you need. She's also VERY fun to spend time with, whether it's just hanging out or laughing over a great meal, so we weren't surprised at all that she gave us such a unique and fun gift for baby Izzy (known only as Cupcake at the time).

The lovely owner at Pistachio's (whose name has escaped me), provides embroidery services, so you can pick out an adorable item, then have it personalized for the recipient. Unfortunately for Amy, we couldn't decide on Izzy's name until she was hours away from being born, so she told us to take our gifts in when we made a decision and get them personalized!

I've spent some time with Amy working with her pups (in my attempt at amateur dog training), so one of the gifts is this great stuffed animal. It's sort of like a bearskin rug, but it's a puppy (because of the dog training) and so soft and cuddly. When I took it in to Pistachio's to have it personalized, I asked for chocolate brown and to use Izzy's full first name, Elizabeth.

The second gift is this cute little diaper cover--still a little big, but it will be great when Izzy is toddling around in a little fancy dress--I can't wait to see her in it. I asked for hot pink and Izzy's nickname across the rear.

I didn't pick the fonts, but they did a perfect job! I love that Izzy has these great gifts that are just for her! I can't wait to see her enjoy them. Thanks, Amy!

Flashback: Kansas City Shower

My lovely friends in Kansas City threw us a fabulous shower last October (incidentally, it was part of the First Best Day Ever--none of the shower guests knew that later that evening, Aaron Blythe and I were getting married in our living room).

It was a morning shower with delicious brunch food, yummy punch (one version with champagne and one without), and CUPCAKES from my favorite place in Kansas City for sweet treats, Cupcake A La Mode. The company was fabulous, and the hosts (Missy Thomassy, Aimee Morrison, and Renee Simcox, who offered her pretty new house as the location) were great!

Here are a few pictures of the event!

Our Tiny Music Lover

Playing with scarves and shakers at Kindermusik class!

Izzy LOVES music. At first I thought I was imagining this, because I love music so much. Aaron loves music, too, but we have very different tastes. I think we generally appreciate each other's musical leanings, but they are very different--he loves classic rock, but before we started dating I couldn't have named a single Led Zeppelin song (that's his all-time favorite band). I love bluegrass and singer-songwriters, and he'll listen, but probably wouldn't chose either of those to listen to. We meet in the middle with an affinity for pop music--don't tell anyone, but Aaron loves Britney Spears.

So we sing to Izzy a lot. I pick songs I know all the words to (at first Christmas music since she was born in December, now musical tunes and songs I remember from youth choir in high school), Aaron chooses songs from his Rock Band game or makes up his own songs. In the morning I usually sing "Good Morning" from Singin' in the Rain, and Izzy just lights up. Aaron sings a little number he made up called "Freshen Up the Baby" when he changes Izzy's diaper and she smiles a giant smile every time.

Thankfully, since we apparently created a little music lover, we have a great friend, Amy Pennington, who runs a Kindermusik business, and she let us know what a great learning opportunity (and how much fun) we could have in class! We started Saturday morning classes at InJoy Music when Izzy was less than 3 months old, and she has loved it from the very first day. The music is great (and we even got a CD we can listen to in the car and at home) and the interaction with us and with the other families is so much fun! Izzy loves to watch the other babies in class, and when we sing some of the songs at home she grins--I think she remembers the songs!

I recommend Kindermusik to ANY family with young children--they have classes for kids from ages 0 to 7--contact Amy at injoy@kc.rr.com for more information on previewing a class or signing up for the next session!

Izzy Tweets!

In case you're interested, Aaron created a Twitter account for Izzy--we (try to) post a picture every day for those of you far away who might like to see her more. Aaron has become a wiz at editing photos on his iPhone and has come up with some amazing shots.

I added a stream of the recent posts to the sidebar of the blog, and you can also check them out on the Twitter website at http://twitter.com/izzyblythe. You don't even have to sign up or create an account to view the posts.

Enjoy!

Flashback: The First Best Day Ever

The Second Best Day Ever was December 7th, when we got to hold Elizabeth Suzanne Blythe for the first time, but I thought it was worth mentioning that I had the First Best Day Ever not very long ago.

On October 16th, in our living room, Aaron Blythe made me the happiest I have ever been by becoming my husband. Our families were there (well, my sister and her husband, and Aaron's best friend and his wife, were in attendance via Skype, but they were pretty close to actually there) and our friend Larry was the officiant.

It was very simple--we rearranged the furniture a bit, and Aaron bought some mums to decorate the space. Larry spoke some beautiful words about us and our union, and there we were, husband and wife!

Aaron wore his flip flops, linen pants, and a blazer (probably the only time I've seen him voluntarily get that dressed up for anything). I wore the only really "dressy" shirt that fit me at 8 months pregnant and some black dress pants.

We wrote our own vows the week before--which was a wonderful discussion about the things that are important to us, and what we wanted to promise to each other in front of witnesses.

It was fun to surprise everyone the Monday after with the news. We are thinking about a reception sometime in the spring if we can get our acts together and plan it, but who knows how that will go with a new baby around!

Aaron is truly my best friend and my partner--it feels amazing to make the commitment to each other to support and love and laugh with each other for the rest of our lives. I'm excited about our future, and blessed to have him by my side on the journey.

The Nursery!

This post is long overdue (well, all of them are, sorry about that, I'm trying to catch up!). One of my favorite things about preparing for the birth of my child was the decorating of the nursery. I wanted it to be soothing and fun and beautiful and creative, and something the Cupcake would enjoy as long as we live in this house (and hopefully the elements can transfer easily to another location if we ever end up moving).

I didn't want to use pink--don't get me wrong, I LOVE dressing Izzy in pink--little girl clothes are just TOO adorable--but there are so many fun colors out there in the universe that I wanted to do something a little different.

The room itself was painted in a color called Taupe Tone from Sherwin Williams--we saw this color at a friend's house and loved how soothing it is, and we actually painted the room the fall before we found out we were pregnant. Since Aaron and I do such amazing painting work (and since we were SICK TO DEATH of painting all the rooms in this house) we decided to keep the color if we could.

Next step: fabrics! I have watched my fair share of episodes of Trading Spaces, and my favorite designers always pick one thing to base a room around, whether it is a piece of art or a fabric or an accent of some sort. At this great fabric store in Springfield, my mom and I found a line of fabrics from a company called Premier Fabric--it's hard to find one of their prints I DON'T love! I previously blogged about my fabric selections (purchased on fabric.com) here--I chose prints with a lot of orange, brown, robin egg blue, and sage.

My mom put these fabrics together to create AMAZING curtains, crib bumpers, and a crib skirt, plus a cute hanging organizer and sheets to match! It all turned out BEAUTIFUL, and Izzy loves to look at the curtain fabric when we are in her room. We purchased the crib from cribs.com--free shipping! The crib was selected in a color that would match the dresser and shelf (more on those items in a minute).



Gorgeous custom linens!

 The dresser/changing table (previously mentioned in this post) looks beautiful in the room! Thanks again to my mom, dad, and brother-in-law Cameron for the refinishing of this piece and the custom changing table topper (it comes off to turn this into a regular dresser).



Dreser with monkey decals above (Izzy loves to smile at the monkeys)

 My parents also finished a bookcase in the same color as the dresser, and we have it loaded up with toys, books, and stuffed animals (lots of monkeys and other friends).

Our friends Amy and Dave Stevens gave us the monkey wall art and decals, and Izzy loves looking at them.

I got this mirrored shelf with metal hooks from a co-worker who was selling it on our internal classified ads. Notice the cupcak themed stuffed toys, hats, and little tiny cupcake trinket box on the shelf.

The room also includes a rocking chair I bought years ago at an estate sale that has sage green cushions--it looks just perfect in Izzy's room. On the back of the chair is a little quilt made with some quilt squares I found at JoAnn's and pieced together, and my mom added the orange and brown minky fabric and quilted it together. Behind the chair is a fun lamp from Target that you can't really see in this picture--it has five bendy arms with different colored shades on the ends.



Such a cozy seat

The room turned out better than I could have hoped! It's officially my favorite room in the house--especially when we get Izzy ready for bed and read her books in the chair, sing her a few songs and put her to bed. She must like it--she falls asleep almost immediately after you lay her down in bed and she stays asleep 8 to 10 hours every night. We have a video monitor my mom found at a garage sale for $15 and we can look in on her without even getting out of bed. I look forward to seeing her grow and learn to play in her very own room.

Flashback: The Birth of a Blythe Baby

Elizabeth Suzanne Blythe, December 7, 2010, 7 lb, 10 oz, 19.75 in

So all three of you my faithful followers know that Izzy was born, but I feel like I must tell the story--it's all out of order and should have been done ages ago, but it wasn't, so the anal-retentive part of me is going to have to deal with the fact that this blog is not always going to be chronological (because let's face it, life is just going to get busier from here on out). So, without further ado, the story of Izzy's birth!

The Friday before Izzy was born (one week and one day before her due date), I said to my co-workers on the way out the door, "I think it's going to be Sunday night. I don't know why, but I think it." We all laughed, because really, who can ever know when nature will decide that baby is going to be born?

Aaron and I ran errands over the weekend, nothing too exciting. I was feeling to huge to spend much time on my feet, but on Sunday afternoon we went out to Best Buy because they had a small deep freeze on sale, and I wanted to get one for our house. This specific model was small enough to fit down our agent basement stairs and upright rather than chest-style, and it was a pretty good deal, so we bought it. It isn't huge and it isn't that heavy--Aaron could get it from the Best Buy shopping cart into the SUV by himself.

When we got home we decided we needed an appliance dolly to get it into the house and down the basement stairs (especially since Aaron was doing this all by himself since his over-nine-months-pregnant wife was going to be no help at all). We ran over to the Home Depot to pick up a dolly and then Aaron got the freezer into the basement, but it was late in the evening so we couldn't return the dolly till the morning.

In the course of moving things out of the way to get the freezer downstairs, Aaron pushed a trunk we have in the kitchen into the main walkway, and my big old pregnant self decided to step over it instead of moving it--I'm not really sure why. Maybe I felt a little proud of myself that I COULD still do such a thing...who knows. By the end of the evening, I started wondering if maybe my water had broken...I just felt a little like something was going on. I told myself it was because I had made that statement to my co-workers on Friday, so I didn't think much of it, but had a tiny bit of spotting so I called the doctor, who said unless it got more pronounced, just to stop by the office in the morning.

In the morning, we had to return the appliance dolly to Home Depot (or risk a late penalty), so we ran there before we stopped by the doctor. I fully expected to be told to head on to work after I saw the doctor, so I didn't eat any breakfast and called to let my boss now I'd be about an hour late.

Then we saw the doctor. "Your water might have broken," she said, and sent me over to the hospital to have a little swab test done that would tell us for sure. I still thought there was no way (I hadn't felt a single contraction and I still felt as awesome as I had the whole pregnancy) so instead of stopping for a bite to eat, we went over to Labor and Delivery. I still expected to be sent on to work in just a little while.

Well, lo and behold, the nurse does her little swab test and voila, my water HAS broken. They tell me I am staying and that they will get me started on pitocin ASAP since I'm not having any signs of laber. Aaron says he will go get our bags (which are at home). I ask the nurse if I can have some food. She says I can have a popsicle, and no, they do not have red. My choices are orange and green. I am irritated and hungry.

Aaron eats something and gets back just as I get into a hospital gown and get settled in my room (which is nice and big--St. Luke's has recently remodeled Labor and Delivery and it is really nice). Around 2 they start me on pitocin, and pretty much all I can do is sit in my bed--once they give you something to induce your labor, you're required to be on a baby monitor. Thankfully my sister has burned the entire season of Glee onto DVDs for me, so I have that to do. Then we wait.

Around 8, Aaron decides to go get dinner (at this point, I have not had anything to eat for 24 hours). While he is gone, I start to feel the contractions, so I call him and check to be sure he'll be back soon--things are getting a little uncomfortable.

I should mention that my "plan" was to try labor without any medication. When the contractions started getting noticeable, I thought to myself, no biggie, I can do this. Around midnight they were pretty intense, but I still felt good. They stopped my pitocin so I could rest (seriously? People can rest while they are having those sorts of labor pains?) and at some point I got up to go to the bathroom--and then the contractions moved to my back.

The baby must have moved into a different position--but after that point things got REAL. I have never felt anything like those back contractions. The nurse told me I was dilated to a 2, and that I would likely be in labor for at least 18 more hours. Just thinking about feeling that way for even one more hour made me start crying. I asked the nurse to please send in the anesthesiologist to answer some questions about an epidural--I was kind of afraid of the idea of that needle in my spine.

When the anesthesiologist finally arrived (it must have been around 2:30 a.m.) he started explaining the process to me, but I was in so much pain I couldn't even listen. Finally I said "I don't care, just give me the papers to sign." I though the guy was sort of unfriendly--as soon as he was almost set up, another guy came in, and I learned that the first guy is new at this--an intern or something. While he is sticking a serious needle directly into my spinal column, I am watching Aaron's face--he looks ready to punch the dude in the face. Apparently he had to reset the needle three times--I was focusing so much on breathing through my contractions that I didn't even notice.

Then the drugs kick in...and life is glorious. I felt SO much relief that I almost immediately fall asleep. Aaron says "I thought that wasn't supposed to make you loopy, since it doesn't go in your bloodstream?" I felt so great, I was giddy and giggling. They woke me up every hour or so to have me switch which side I am lying on, but mostly, I just rest.

They restart the pitocin around 5:00 a.m., and at 9:30, Mary (our great Labor and Delivery nurse) checks me and says I am now dilated to a 3. A THREE??? Seriously? That many hours later? Mary tells me that I should keep getting rest, because at this rate, it will be late evening before the baby arrives. She says she will come check me at 12:30, so Aaron goes to take a shower and eat lunch.

At 12:30, Mary comes in and checks me, just as we planned. "Oh!" she says, sounding surprised. "Well!"

Apparently, I am now completely dilated. I call Aaron.

"What are you doing?" I ask him. He's just about to hop in the shower. "Well," I say, "I'm a 10, so you might want to speed it up."

"Should I come now? What do I do?" Aaron starts to freak a little. Mary tells me that he can take a shower, but not to dilly-dally, so they get the room all ready and call the doctor while we wait for Aaron to return.

It's about 1:00 when Aaron arrives, and they page the doctor and tell him I am ready. In the meantime, Mary has given me a quick verbal tutorial about pushing, and I sort of start to feel the contractions enough to know it's time to do this. The doctor arrives.

At 1:20, I push for the first time. Five or six pushes later, Elizabeth Suzanne Blythe is born at 1:38 p.m. She weighs 7 pounds, 10 ounces, and is 19 and 3/4 inches long. She is beautiful and amazing, and I hold her on my chest and Aaron and I both cry. We are amazed and in love at once.

After about an hour, they give her a work-up--measurements, Apgar test, clean her off, etc. I eat the most amazing cheese and peanut butter crackers and have the most glorious Sprite that ever existed. (I hadn't eaten in 43 hours).

We did it! Silly me to think I needed to do it without the drugs--they were amazing! More power to you ladies who can do without them, but it made my experience SO much better. I can't believe my body is capable of such things.

So that's the story! Mainly I wanted to record it somewhere so I wouldn't forget. Hopefully it wasn't TMI. :)

I Suck at Blogging

Izzy agrees...mom is not good at time management these days.

The truth is out, folks--I suck at blogging. In fact, I am finding it hard to do much of anything besides get to work and get home and hang out with the baby, then get ready to do it again the next day.

Izzy would like you to know that lots of exciting things are happening in her life and she would prefer it if I would update the blog more frequently. I am resolving to do just that--so be watching for new posts (and several flashbacks to what has been happening with us since the Cupcake arrived!).

Hope you haven't all abandoned us!

Love,

Kate