January and June

One Month Update

It’s hard to believe that Miss Isla is one month old already! This last month has gone so fast, yet when I look back, it’s hard to picture what our life was like before she joined us. Before Isla was born, we both felt like we had a good idea about what life with a newborn would be like, but I don’t think one can ever be fully prepared to bring a brand new infant home from the hospital!

I read somewhere (or heard from someone – I can’t remember) that having a newborn is like having a boss who complains all the time. While that sounds a little harsh, it definitely has some truth to it! We’ve started calling Isla “boss lady” because we’ve learned that her schedule has become our schedule and when she wants something, we had better fulfill her wish!

Despite the nickname, the “boss lady” has really been a pretty great baby so far.  She sleeps about 4-5 hours at night in her Pack n’ Play next to our bed, wakes up to eat, and then goes back to sleep for another 3-4 hours. Her nighttime feeding sessions usually last about 2 hours though by the time we finally get her back down to sleep.

She is really only fussy when she’s hungry, and is a pretty happy baby otherwise. When she’s awake, Little Miss LOVES her playmat. She kicks her feet and punches her arms to the music and loves looking at the designs on the playmat floor. She enjoys looking at the “mobile” on the ceiling in our room (the fan) and stares at designs around the house as we carry her around. We also try to read at least one book every day (hello, teacher mom!) and while she lacked interest at first, has started to look at the pages and listen to our voices.

A lot of you have asked about how the dogs are getting along with Isla. They’ve really adjusted well to her being home, and seem to ignore her more than I thought they would. The one time they really notice her is when she wakes up crying in the night. They look at us with concerned faces until the crying subsides, like “are you going to take care of her?” (Yes, the dogs sleep in bed with us – it’s a crowded room!) Isla hasn’t really noticed them yet except for when they occasionally sneak her kisses before Logan or I can stop them! She doesn’t seem to mind though.

By nature, I’m an “on-the-go” kind of person. I get a little stir crazy when I’m just home all day, so we’ve tried to get out of the house when possible.  I’ve learned that getting a baby ready to leave the house and keeping her happy (or asleep) while we’re gone is quite the chore, but I’ve become more confident with each outing and figured out Isla’s schedule and cues better than I did a month ago!

Logan’s grandfather passed away last week after suffering from dementia for the last few years. We knew he had taken a turn for the worse last weekend, so we made the 3-hour trip to Sioux Falls last Saturday and will be traveling to the funeral in Oklahoma this weekend. Isla will have been to (or traveled through) six states after this weekend! I would say that’s quite the feat for a month old baby! If anyone has any tips for traveling with a little one, I’d love to hear them.

I’m having a hard time accepting the fact that our tiny little girl is already a month old. When everyone told me to enjoy every minute because it flies by, they weren’t kidding! I’m looking forward to watching her continue to grow and change and reach new milestones during month 2.

Thanks so much for reading today!

XOXO, Jenna

 

From Dad’s Point of View – Part 1

Over the last week or two since our baby was born, we have had a ton of visitors. It’s given Jenna and I a chance to tell the “birth story” over and over again, and I feel like Jenna has the entire timeline memorized. Every time we tell it, I enjoy hearing it from Jenna’s perspective, because it is slightly different than my own experience. I’ve decided, though, that I want to thrown in a few variations to the story, as well as a couple confessions I need to get off my chest.

It all started Thursday at Jenna’s doctor appointment where we left with the idea that we would be having this baby on Monday/Tuesday of the following week (via induction).  Jenna called me Friday morning saying she didn’t feel well, but I didn’t think much of it as I would guess very few 40+ week expectant mothers feel in tip-top shape. Plus, I had a few things I wanted to get done at work, so it’s very possible I was in a state of denial.

I knew that with the induction, I would be in at work the following day, so when I drove home that afternoon, I was ready to relax and enjoy my weekend before gearing up for Jenna’s impending labor and sleepless nights.  Jenna was finishing up some things at school, but finally around 6:00pm, I texted her, “Are you alone at school?”. I had these visions of her going into labor at school with no one around to drive her to the hospital. I tried to call her a couple times without an answer and was trying to decide how long to wait until driving over to her school and checking on her. Thankfully, she arrived home before I had to make that decision.

I heated up a couple bowls of chili for us both (I’ll take credit for putting some habanero in there to speed things up), and then by 9:30pm I was ready for bed. Jenna wasn’t quite ready yet, so I talked her into letting me take a nap on the floor in front of the TV while she finished up some things.  Right before my nap, I remember Jenna telling me she felt crampy. Here’s my first confession:  I didn’t really think she was going into labor right then.  To be fair, our doctor said “you’ll know when it’s a contraction”. In fact, she likened it to a bus hitting you…you don’t know what it feels like, but you’ll know when you get hit by one.

A half hour later, Jenna was kicking me on the floor saying “I don’t know when, but I think we’ll be going to the hospital tonight”.

I jumped off the floor (at least it felt like jumping) and hurriedly gather our bags and packed a few final items. In the mean time, Jenna’s contractions were getting worse, so she started timing them.  I saw them go from seven or eight minutes to two and three minutes. Each contraction was lasting between 20 and 50 seconds, and with every contraction that passed, we were closer to them lasting one hour.  I am very analytical, so when our doctor told us not to come to the hospital until 5-1-1 (five minutes between contractions, contractions last one minute, and that cycle lasting for one hour). Confession #2, I almost made us wait longer at home because while contractions were less than five minutes apart and had been going on for an hour, we had not met the “one minute long” criteria…we were only at 50 seconds.

Anyway, I let the dogs out one last time (knowing it could be a long night for them), helped Jenna out to the car, and off we went! Just like they told us in our birthing class, I had called both the doctor and Labor and Delivery to let them know we were coming, and I dropped Jenna off at the ER entrance so I could park and meet her inside.  They wheeled her up to the second floor, and sure enough, they decided these were actual contractions and would let us stay!

At the risk of you losing your attention, I’ll call this part one of the story. Spoiler alert that Isla Melina (eye-la mah-leen) is the end product, but my 16 hours in the Labor and Delivery room were not exactly what I was expecting. I’ll follow-up with part two in a future post.

Logan

Introducing …

Happy Saturday, you guys!

We couldn’t be more thrilled to introduce Isla Meline, born January 21st at 2:38 P.M.  She weighed 7 lbs., 12 ounces and was 20 inches long.

Our Story

I came home from work on Friday after staying late to prepare for my sub who would start the following week, regardless of when Isla made her arrival.  My doctor had planned to induce me Monday night or Tuesday, so I wanted to make sure I was fully prepared to be gone from school the next week.  When I finally got home around 6, I told Logan I had been feeling pretty crampy that day and we decided it was probably just from being checked at my appointment the day before or Braxton Hicks contractions.  We both went on with our night and Logan fell asleep on the couch while watching TV.  The cramps started becoming more intense and were coming and going rather than a constant pain, so I decided to start timing them just in case.  I woke Logan up around 9:30 and said, “I think we’ll be going to the hospital tonight,” once I noticed the “cramps” or whatever I was feeling were increasing in intensity and frequency.  I went to the bathroom to straighten my hair (because that’s the first thing you do when you’re in labor!) and gather a few things that weren’t already in my hospital bag.  By the time we were ready to head out the door, the contractions (I knew for sure by now!) were pretty intense.

Long story short, we arrived at the hospital emergency room and they wheeled me to a delivery room where they checked me and decided I was definitely in labor.  I requested an epidural right away – the contractions were REALLY intense by this point. It took about 30 minutes to finally get the IV in and have the anesthesiologist come in. Things progressed pretty quickly.  I really thought it was going to be a short labor, but boy was I wrong!

I was sleeping off and on throughout the night and at one point I woke up and there were 5 nurses standing around me with concerned looks on their faces.  Apparently I had a really long contraction – 6 minutes long! – and Isla’s heartbeat had dropped quite a bit.  They had to give me some medicine (not sure what) to stop the contraction, which made her heartbeat return to normal, but slowed things down significantly.

It wasn’t until about 11:30 the next morning that it was finally time to start pushing.  Pushing seemed super easy at first, but after 3 hours of it, I was just DONE.  I even said to the doctor, “Can you just use the forceps or vaccuum to get her out?” We laughed about it later since most women don’t usually request those things.  She said she knew I was exhausted at that point!  She had me push for a few more minutes and then did use the vaccuum to help with the final stage of delivery and perfect little Isla made her entrance into the world after 16 hours of active labor!

On a side note, I tried to imagine what our daughter would look like throughout the pregnancy, and she came out nothing like what I pictured, but was more beautiful than I ever could have imagined!  The Lord works in such amazing ways – we can plan and picture how things might go or look – and He always has something even better in store for us!

The doctor handed her to me right away and it was the most magical feeling to hold my daughter for the first time!  Honestly, I was so exhausted though that I don’t think I was truly able to take in that amazing moment for what it was.  I felt like I was dreaming and that none of what I was experiencing was real.  It was definitely a surreal feeling!

After Logan and I had some time with Isla and she was all cleaned off and measurements taken, it was time to introduce her to the family.  The grandparents and proud aunt came in first and oohed and awwed over her for about 10 minutes before we said, “Well, do you want to know her name?” They had been dying to know for the last 6 months, but were too enthralled with the baby to even ask at that point!

We announced her name: Isla (pronounced eye-la) Meline, and told the story of how we chose it: We had a boy name picked out right away, but had a harder time coming up with a girl name.  Logan liked a lot of the names that could work for both genders and I liked the really feminine names, so we just couldn’t agree on anything! As we were driving back from Dallas this summer, we took turns suggesting different names we liked and Isla was one of the first names we both really loved.  We had a few other options that we were both fine with as well. As I lay in bed that night, I repeated the names in my head with the middle name, which we knew would be Meline (my middle name as well as my mom’s).  As I was saying the names in my head, I realized that Isla was the exact same letters (an anagram) of Lisa, my mom’s name.  I told Logan about this realization the next morning, and we both decided that should be her name – it was our favorite anyway!

We spent another hour in the delivery room and brought in my aunts and cousin who had been waiting, too, before moving upstairs to the room we would be staying in for the next couple nights.  We both went to bed that night so amazed at God’s worksmanship in creating this tiny little miracle we had watched grow from the size of a poppyseed to a beautiful baby girl who was OURS!

   

Thanks for following along during the pregnancy and for all of your congratulatory wishes!  We are so appreciative of your love and support!

XOXO, Jenna

’80s Flashback…

In case you haven’t figured it out already from my social media posts, Logan and I are very anxiously awaiting the arrival of our little girl!  Her due date was yesterday, so we are more than ready for her! Looks like she already takes after her mama and runs fashionably late.  I thought it would be fun to do a little flashback post of some of our own baby pictures as we prepare for Baby W’s arrival.  I wonder who she will look more like, or if she will be a perfect combination of both of us!  We can’t wait!

Baby Logan

When I was born, my parents were so excited to dig out their own newborn pictures to see who I looked more like, and there was not one baby picture of my dad, who was the youngest of four in his family.  Not one picture until he was about three years old – haha! So anyway, I’m pretty impressed with all of the baby pictures Logan’s parents have of him!  He and his older two siblings are each 16 months apart, so they had to be pretty busy parents when they welcomed their third child, but still managed to find time to snap a few pictures.

Look at that stylin’ outfit!  Wasn’t he a cutie?

I just love that little smirk!

…And that tummy roll 🙂

I’m loving this corduroy suit / bowtie combo!

All 3 kiddos on Loy’s lap… I’m so excited to watch Logan as a dad!

He looks like he’s up to no good. According to Logan’s mom, he was the sneakiest of the 4 kids.

Baby Jenna

I was the first-born in my family and as the story goes, my parents were told I was a boy.  So imagine their surprise when I made my arrival! I’m really hoping our ultrasound tech was right with our baby, or baby boy will have a pretty girly nursery and plenty of pink outfits and accessories to choose from!

This first picture is kind of hard to see, but I love seeing all of the faces looking in at baby me in the hospital nursery.

 

 

My Grannie Annie was also a 4th grade teacher and had the best sense of humor.  I remember loving to play with her jewelry, snacking on wafer cookies and rainbow sherbert in her kitchen and listening to her read Shel Silverstein poems with the best expression!

 

These are my grandparents on my mom’s side, Virginia and Earl. My grandma loved to shop (surprise, surprise) and I remember her always wearing fancy shoes and clothes.  My grandpa had the kindest, gentlest spirit. When they saw me for the first time, my grandma said “Where on earth did she get those dimples from?” and my grandpa replied, “You’ve been married to me for 35 years and you never noticed my dimples?”  I love that story!

Just chillin’ in my crib 🙂

There’s that dimple I was talking about earlier … I wonder if our little girl will have one!

I think every baby has a cute bathtub picture 🙂

That’s all for today!  I’m hoping our next post will be a baby announcement, but we’ll see!  I’m so curious to see which features from each of us our little girl will have and to watch her personality develop.  Hurry up, little one!

XOXO, Jenna

Pig & Finch Restaurant Review

For those reading this who know me well, I do not like change.  I am very much a creature of habit and am a huge advocate of routines.  However, one area of my life where I like getting out of a routine is eating at new restaurants.  On New Year’s Eve, Jenna and I decided to try a new place, so we made the trip to One Pacific Place and tried out Pig & Finch.

BEFORE

The first thing I would say is that it seemed important to make a reservation in advance (probably depending on the day of the week and time of day).  Since I figured it would be busier with the holiday, I made a reservation on OpenTable, which is a great idea for any dining establishment if you are willing/able to commit to eating at a specific time. When we arrived, I was glad that I did, because the dining area is relatively small, and it was hustling and bustling with NYE traffic.  With that said, we got right in and seated at our table.

APPETIZER

Since this was a little bit of a special occasion (with Baby W on the way, every dinner out just us is a special occasion), we ordered a Shrimp Cocktail as an appetizer. I’m not a big fan of cocktail sauce, but this I think had more of a tomato flavor to it than what you typically think of with shrimp cocktails. In addition, they gave you a bunch of little slices of buttered/toasted bread that you could dip in the sauce.  While I probably would not be inclined to order again (the price and serving size did not seem to match-up, in my opinion), Jenna and I did enjoy both the presentation and taste of our appetizer.  They even brought us extra bread!

MAIN COURSE(S)

Since it was NYE, they had a special menu to order from. For some reason I also feel like I need to order off the “special menu”. I think I justify it because the regular menu will always be there, but you never know when the specials will go away! I am a sucker and fall right into the restaurant’s trap.  FOMO!  Anyway, Jenna ordered a clam fettuccine pasta, and I ordered a steak (to be honest, I can’t remember if it was a New York Strip, Ribeye or what).

From what Jenna and I talked about, both dishes were just “OK”.  I had requested my steak to be cooked medium, and while most of it was cooked at that level, I felt like it was kind of uneven throughout (some parts were medium-well, some were more medium-rare).  My plate came with mashed potatoes and squash, and while I forced myself to eat the vegetables, the potatoes mysteriously disappeared off my plate and into Jenna’s mouth (mashed potatoes have been a HUGE pregnancy craving for her).

Jenna’s plate was pretty standard, and while she enjoyed it, I think she also wished they had gone a little lighter on the sauce. Also, since the clams came in shells, it was a very “active” dinner for her. I think we both left wishing we had ordered something different (maybe just two giant plates of mashed potatoes).

ATMOSPHERE

Now onto other “non-food” related things, the atmosphere at Pig & Finch was really pretty cool. It almost had an old-English pub feel to it. It wasn’t too loud, and although some of the tables were pretty close together, I never felt like I was dining with other people.

SERVICE

The other important thing for us was that the service was outstanding. Along with the extra bread mentioned above, our sever checked on us just the right amount (not too little and not too much). She was very pleasant and was patient as we asked different questions about the menu.

CONCLUSION

Overall, we had a good experience at Pig & Finch on NYE. While I’m sure the experience would be different during Happy Hour (M-F 3:30-6 and weekends 2:30-6), I don’t think Jenna and I feel an inclination to go back. We both seemed to think it was a little overpriced for the experience, but maybe your trip there would be different! Overall grade: B-

Logan

Baby Love

Happy Wednesday, friends!  We are now 6 days away from Baby’s due date and I can’t even explain how excited we are to meet her!  We’ve been doing some serious nesting around here, so we are more than ready for her any time!  I’ve already started thinking about Baby’s first holiday outside the womb, which will be Valentine’s Day.  She’s going to need a cute outfit or two to celebrate the day of love!  I’m rounding up some of my favorite picks for little girls to celebrate Valentine’s Day in style.  Just click the corresponding link below the picture to shop all of the looks.

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7

Wishing you all a fabulous week!

XOXO, Jenna

38 Week Bumpdate

It’s been a few weeks since my last “bumpdate” and Baby and I had our 38 week appointment today, so I thought it was probably time for one again!

Logan and I are definitely anticipating Baby’s arrival at this point and just cannot wait to meet her!  I haven’t felt any contractions yet, but I have been feeling more intense movement – enough to remind me there’s definitely a human inside me!  It has been fun to feel little limbs poking out of my belly, but also a little weird visibly see and feel tiny hands and feet!

I’m back to work this week and plan to work up until Baby is here.  I explained to my students that she could come any day and they’d have a sub for a few months while I’m gone (not a few days, like some thought!).  They were so sweet and understanding and are anticipating Baby’s arrival, too!  I feel pretty good while I’m at school, but have been exhausted in the evenings!  I’ve been trying to sit as much as possible during the school day, but that isn’t an easy task for an elementary teacher! 🙂

Like I said, we had our 38 week appointment yesterday.  We went in excited and hopeful that Baby might be showing some signals of impending labor, but left the doctor’s office a little disappointed because there really hasn’t been a whole lot of change.  The doctor reminded us again that this will probably be a due date (or later) baby, as she still seems pretty cozy in there!  I’m hoping we may see a little more action next week!  I think these next few weeks may pass pretty slowly as we anticipate Baby’s arrival!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  If you follow me on Instagram, I’m co-hosting a “Back to School” winter fashion week challenge next week with some fellow fashionista teachers.  Head on over to check out some great outfit inspiration, or use #btsfashionweek to share some of your own looks!

XOXO, Jenna

Winter Soups

I am not a fan of winter.  It’s cold, windy, cold AND windy at the same time, and being that we live in Nebraska instead of Texas, we are more prone to snow/ice.  There are only a handful of things I like about winter, and most revolve around Christmas (i.e., cookies, lights, carols, etc.).  The one non-Christmas item that I always look forward to in the winter is soup. It’s just not the same to pour yourself a hot bowl of soup when it’s 90 degrees outside and you’re sitting with the air conditioning on high. As a rule of thumb, soup should always be warmer than the outside temperature.

Soups are also great because you can put them in a crockpot and let them cook all day, or you can put on a stove top, do other things while it cooks, and an hour later you can eat!  I love the idea of a soup cooking all day, but truth-be-told, I usually am not on top of my game enough to do anything that cook on a stove top an hour or two before we eat dinner.  Even so, I feel like I’ve honed in on a couple different soup recipes that have been winners in the Watley household.

1) Plain old, regular Chili – Come on, there are really no rules with this type of soup! You can make it vegetarian without meat or you can pack the thing full of it (my brother Grant used to cook chili with beef, ground sausage, sausage links AND bacon). I don’t have an actual recipe for this, but I know all the basics that I use.

*Mrs. Grimes Original Chili Beans

*Tomato Sauce

*Hamburger

*Johnsonville Sausages (cooked separately and cut up into bite size pieces)

*Ground Pork

*Chili Powder (usually I put in enough to cover the top of the soup in the pot).

*Other Options I’ve Used – diced habanero, kidney beans, cannellini beans

2) Cheesy Ham and Potato – I don’t think I had a soup like this until one Christmas Eve while I was in high school (soup is a Christmas Eve tradition in the Watley household). I’ve made it numerous times since, and haven’t had a bad batch yet (fingers crossed!).

*32 oz. of chicken broth/stock (honestly, I don’t really know the difference)

*1 bag of frozen hash brown potatoes

*1 bag of shredded cheese (I’ve done cheddar and colby jack before)

*1 package of diced ham (real ham is better)

*White Sauce (butter/flour/milk)

Anyway, looking at the 10 day forecast, it seems like there are some good soup days coming up, so feel free to take a stab at these two. If I can make it, you definitely can! There are probably two other soup recipes that I have in my arsenal, but I would say the above are staples when I’m in-charge of dinner (easy, quick and delicious).

Logan

My nephew Jaxson, who I’m told looks quite a bit like me, on Christmas Eve (before eating soup, of course).

Baby Girl Nursery Inspiration

Our little girl’s nursery is almost complete and I plan to share some photos on the blog once it’s ready, but here are a few “inspiration” photos in the meantime. I wanted the room to be soft and feminine, with touches of gray, white, light pink and gold. I am so happy with how it’s turning out and can’t wait for Baby to be here!  She’ll be the perfect “finishing touch.”

P.S. We are keeping her name a surprise until she’s here, so don’t let the “A” fool you! No hints 🙂

Find links to the items pictured above here (clockwise from left):

Crib, zebra rug, glider, pillow, ottoman, dresser, wooden letter, “Little Miss” hanging, Bible verse canvas

XOXO, Jenna

Christmas Card + Maternity Photos

Merriest Christmas wishes to you all!  We spent Christmas Eve with Logan’s family and spent today with my family.  Christmas is always pretty eventful around here – last year we had to take my dad to the E.R. right as the relatives were coming over for dinner (complications from hip surgery), and this year the power went out for about an hour, with all 16 of us gathered ’round some candles!  We are enjoying our last Christmas as a family of two (four counting the dogs), but can’t wait to have a little one to experience all the magic of Christmas with next year!  Maybe next Christmas will be a little more normal, but I have the feeling it won’t be! 🙂

Just wanted to share a few of our Christmas card photos with you taken by the fabulous Kristin Polking.  Logan HATES to have his picture taken, but agreed to some Christmas card / maternity photos as long as Kristin was taking them!  She’s easy to work with, reasonably priced, super talented and always smiling!  If you’re in the Omaha area, be sure to check her out!

   

 I hope you all had a merry Christmas!

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

XOXO, Jenna

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