Mackenzie is 4 Months old

We got Mackenzie's 4 months pictures today. It's amazing to see how much she has grown in just a few months. I can't believe how different she is. She is getting to be sooo fun!! She laughs and sings with the radio. Her personality is constantly oozing out.

Here Mackenzie is at 1 month old.

Here Mackenzie is at 4 months old.

Our little family. I wish she would have smiled but every time the camera comes out Mackenzie gets serious. It's like she's trying to figure out what the camera is exactly.

I'm so glad when Daddy comes home

Mackenzie and I have been loving having Jason home. They are getting along so well. We thought maybe it would be a transition having daddy around all the time, but she has adjusted to having him around really well. She just seems happy to have 24/7 attention from two parents at the same time. I feel like a better mother because i'm not worn so thin or so tired. We are loving having our man back!

Watching the morning news with Dad

Little Book Worm

It started like this. Mackenzie was sitting on my dad's lap while he was working on his computer and he decided to entertain her by setting a woodworking magazine on her lap. She loved it! She went crazy smacking the pages and cooing like she was reading out loud. When she was done with a page she would just stop cooing or moving and my dad would change the page and she would start all over again. It was sooo cute and entertained her for an hour.

So I decided to buy her one of those cloth books for babies. The spine is a teething ring so she can chew on it if she chooses. I gave it to her when we got home from shopping and she loved sitting in the big chair reading her book.

Then on the ride to Concord, NC to look at a truck for Jase I gave her the book for entertainment. She didn't want to read it this time. She grabbed on to it and started moving it and playing with it. Then she got quiet and I turned back to see her shoving it into her mouth! Silly girl decided she was done reading it and it was time to eat it. She's so funny.

Mackenzie's First Halloween

Mackenzie was a kitty for Halloween. I thought it was appropriate because whenever I sing "Old Macdonald" to her she loves the kitty sounds. She always trys to make them with me. But she wasn't too impressed with her costume. The picture above is her "i'm not happy and i'm going to cry soon" face. It's so stinking cute!!
My little kitty. We had a family Halloween party and ate Chili and a bunch of yummy treats. It was a fun day minus daddy still being in Iraq. Three more weeks and he's home for good!!

Playing with Grandma Katherine.

Three Months of Catch Up

I was taking some pictures of her in this outfit and I said to her "Smile for daddy." and this is what she did. It just melts my heart. Miss Mackenzie is three months old on Sunday and I can't believe how fast she is growing. At her two month check up she was 10 lbs. 4 oz. She had already doubled her birth weight! We got her shots and that was NOT fun. The both of us bawled through the experience and had a hell of a time for the next week after. It was nearly enough to keep me from going back for the next round.

Mac is such a happy baby, even though she has a bad case of acid reflux. She just wants to be held by me all the time (a total momma's girl) and as long as i'm holding her she's in a good mood. Her preferred method of communicating with me is talking. She coos and coos away at me and i'm supposed to understand what she needs by her tone or she gets very upset and cries. It's like she's saying "Mom, why aren't you listening to me?" She will still cry when she's angry or doesn't feel good but we pretty much just talk. I've been trying to get her to say "Momma" or "Daddy" which is obviously a few months away, but when I tell her to say "Momma" she will usually coo in response. She's trying to say it.

She is a busy girl. She is always wiggling and kicking her legs or waving her arms. Mac has figured out that if she does this during her bath it makes a splash and she LOVES it! I can hardly keep her still enough to get her soaped up. She will only tolerate being on her back to play. She prefers to be sitting up. But she is so anxious to get going that if i don't hold on to her she throws herself forward and flops face first on to the floor or rolls herself onto her tummy and starts trying to push herself away. I'm going to have my hands full when she's mobile.

Here she is playing with her keys. She loved hearing keys clang together. She has started to smile a lot. Every morning when i see that she has really woken up I say "Good Morning Sunshine" to her and she response by giving me a HUGE smile. The other day she smiled at her Aunt Jenny (Nick's wife) for the first time. Jenny was sooo excited. She loves her family. Her daddy is her favorite. When he calls, i put him on speaker phone and they just sit and talk to each other forever. She also loves her grandparents and aunts and uncles. Every time my dad sees her he growls at her. One day when he picked her up, she looked right up at him and growled back. She knows who her grandpa is.

She's not sleeping through the night yet, but she's only waking up at 3 or 4 a.m. and then again at 6. But she will sleep until 10 most mornings. it's pretty nice.

This is the little coat/suit i bought her. it's HUGE! and seriously cute.

My Girl - all ready for church and waiting on mom. She is such a joy and I thank God every day for her. I love being her mom!

Wait for it...

I only have so much time to post so this is going to be in two parts. First, I'm going to post some of the pictures from the last 5 weeks and then whenever i have time i'll explain better what's going on in them. Click on them to enlarge.

Mackenzie is here!

Long time no blog. A LOT has happened.

Our beautiful baby girl, Mackenzie Taylor, was born July 26, 2009, three weeks early. We had planned to induce her while Jason was here for his two weeks of leave, but Mackenzie had other plans. A few nights before she was born I had a dream that she came early and that I wasn't ready (and in reality I wasn't ready for her to come. My baby shower was set for July 25th) for her and all the clothes i tried to put on her were too big and kept falling off. And so i couldn't take her home. I was horrified and got up the next morning determined to go buy everything I needed just in case. I didn't though because my family convinced me that I should wait for the baby shower.

At about three in the morning on July 25th, I woke up to make my nightly trip to the bathroom and felt my water break. But I didn't think it was enough water in my sleepy haze and decided the baby wasn't on its way and went back to bed. I woke up a few hours later and built a list of what i needed, packed what I had of what i needed for the hospital and researched labor on the internet (yes that's how i am). When 7 or 8 a.m. finally rolled around, I decided it was time to let my parents know that my water had broken (though i still wasn't totally convinced that it had). I walked into my parents' room and asked my dad what it was like when my water broke. I've never seen him move so fast. Knowing my dad as i do, I realized he was going to take me to the hospital whether i was ready or not so i hurried to get dressed.


The whole way to the hospital I tried to convince myself that I wasn't going to have this baby and that Jason wasn't going to miss it. The idea of doing it without Jason had me in tears. We went right into delivery and they told me exactly what i was dreading; I was having this baby today. My family started a mad dash to get the things the baby and I would need and get in touch with Jason. I got to put on a hospital gown and have them start my labor.

We finally got a hold of Jason and set up the webcam so that he could help me get through labor. It took all day for me to dilate. Jason talked to me the whole day. And let me say the epidural is FABULOUS! I highly recommend it.

Finally at 10 p.m. we were ready to go. I only had two hours of pushing ahead of me because Mackenzie had decided to turn toward the webcam where Jason's voice was coming from. She is such a daddy's girl. Jason cheered me on the entire time and my parents' coached me. And at 12:18 a.m. on July 26, 2009 Mackenzie was born. She was 5 lbs. 10 0z. and 18 inches long. She was so beautiful. I kissed her fingers over and over.

She is such a good baby. She only cries when she has a reason and she is such a cuddle bug. She loves to be held. I love her so much and I am sooo grateful that she is here. I love my little family!!

Jason made it a few weeks after Mackenzie was born and we've been enjoying two weeks of being a family. It's so wonderful!

25 Weeks

Just a reminder of where I was at 17 weeks.

Here I am at 25 weeks...and I thought I was fat before!

25 weeks down

She's not even born yet and it's already true!

Another cute outfit I bought for her.

It's a Girl!!

We had our ultrasound today and found out that we're having a baby GIRL!!

Here's her cute little face.

Her cute little foot and arm. She's soo lucky she got Jason's perfect toes instead of my crazy ones. She'll have pretty feet.

Here comes the Fatness

Me and Sara on her 18th birthday. I thought you'd like a cute picture of me along with the profiles.

Here I am, exactly 17 weeks pregnant. I wasn't sure when my dad was going to take the picture.

Here's the fatness, what do you think?

Baby's First Ultrasound

Hey babe!! Today was the first ultrasound. I was so excited last night I couldn't sleep. You would have thought I was a kid on Christmas Eve. I really wish that you could have been there. I was sooo nervous. I was wishing you were there to hold my hand. Both my Mom and Dad showed up and it was fun. My dad video taped the whole ultrasound and you could see it really well, but i'm having a hard time getting it uploaded. I'm still trying though. But here are the pictures from it.
You can see the baby in the top middle. It's cute little head, belly, arms and legs. During the ultrasound the baby had the hiccups and you could see it just bouncing like crazy. And it kept kicking and swinging it's arms. It was sooo cute. I'll upload the video as soon as I can. This picture isn't as good as the top one. but you can still see the baby. Congratulations Daddy!! That's your baby!!

I LOVE YOU!!!
Ash

P.S. Still to early to tell the sex. Maybe the next ultrasound. The doctor says the baby measures at 12 weeks and four days.