She is finally here!

After anxiously waiting all day Carley has finally made her arrival. She was born at 6:39 (which is 5:39 AL time) and weighed 8 lbs 11 1/2 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long. Amy feels and sounds great and the labor went super quick. She was born within 5 minutes of pushing! She deserves it after Reagan's long labor! I have posted the only two pictures I have so far! We are so excited to welcome Carley Jade into the family!

Carley is coming!!!

Well I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of Carley Jade today. She will be my 4th niece. I have talked to Amy several times over the last few days and she has been trying to figure out if her water was breaking and after calling the Dr. today they decided it was. They wanted her to come in immediately and not wait until her 2:30 appt. and as soon as she got there they told her it had already broken. This breakage started Sat. night so it has been a while. Now she is at the hospital and has just been hooked up to the pitocin and has already ordered her epidural. I have talked to her several times and she is just as cool as a cucumber. She seems very relaxed and excited! We are sad to be so far away but anxious to hear about the new arrival. It will probably be tonight or even tomorrow before I have any news! Pray for both Amy and Carley!

Callan's first trip to Destin

Well we have been back from the beach for a week and I still haven't posted on it so I thought I would take the time tonight to do that. Me, Will, Callan, and my mom (Momma Sheila...a.k.a. Mimi) went to Destin for a few days last week and had a great time. We got a really cool hotel room at The Palms of Destin conveniently located next door to Hooters but across from the beach. We got a great deal because the Wyndham called and asked Will if he wanted to book a trip for a really good price as long as we took one of the time share tours while we were there. So we agreed and took the tour the day after we got there. Well, it is only supposed to take 2 hours and they actually did their part in only making it last 2 hours but we were the ones that drug it out. They told us all these great perks, yada yada yada and then gave us the whopping $25,000 price to join!!!!!!! Ouch!!! We politely declined stating that there were so many other things in life we wanted for that much money. Our tour lady called the big dog over and after figuring out that his wife was from Florence and making that connection, he cut the price in half for us. So very tempting seeing as this is a lifetime membership that we could will to our children. Once paid for, it is yours to do with it what you please. Gift, sell, or will away. Being total analysts about money though (although we actually did think about it for a while) we decided that it is not us to just jump on something so suddenly like that and once again there are so many other things we want in life besides vacation points. We were about to leave (at exactly 2 hours in) and they told us about a trial offer that we could get for just a fraction of the cost and we could try the vacation points out for 26 months. Well, what do you know? We bought! We were totally talked into the idea of having some really cool vacations for not a lot of money for the next couple of years. Of course, their goal in doing this is to get you to join the actual lifetime deal after your 26 months but if you don't, no biggie. So we are going to try to use some of our points and take some cool trips and see if it is worth pursuing later.

Anyway, back to the beach trip. After spending almost 4 hours in the time share office, we finally made it to the beach for the first time on the trip. We spent a total of 2 hours at the beach the whole time we were there. It is just a total different experience with a baby. Plus we had a really unbelievable pool at our hotel so we spent quite a bit of time there. The hotel was really beautiful and the pool was amazing but the only problem was that they had a Trader Vic's in between the 2 hotel buildings and every night they had karaoke until 11:00 pm and until 2:00 am on Wednesday night. It was so loud!!! Callan couldn't sleep and then we got to where we couldn't sleep either. The first night there were only 2 people in the whole bar and they were just playing the music extremely loud for those 2 people. Will ended up calling the front desk on 2 different nights to ask them to turn the music down but the lady said that she could only ask but they didn't have to oblige. It was awful! I'm very shocked that they can call themselves a family resort and have that much madness going on. We will probably not stay there again.

Me and Will went out by ourselves on Wednesday night (thank you Mimi) and it was so nice to have a date night. We ate at the Old Bay Steamer (delicious) and then went to the Donut Hole for dessert (not so delicious). I don't know why we keep going there when we don't even really like it. Will had a little too much non-decaf coffee and got a little crazy when taking pictures. I'm posting one below. We took 9 pictures like that but I'm not going to embarass him too much! I'll only post one! All in all, it was a wonderful relaxing trip even if we didn't get a tan at all! It is always nice to be away from the crazyness of life for a while.

Constipation

I know that sounds like a weird title but that is what my sweet baby has been dealing with over the last few days. This may get a little graphic for you weak stomached kind. Sunday afternoon (right before church) Callan started grunting which is completely normal for her and usually hilarious for us. But this time it was different. Will and I both went into the living room where she was playing in the floor and knelt down beside her as she continued to do her business. The only problem was that it got stuck. She was having the hardest time! I can not explain in writing how bad she was straining and now crying. Amy heard her through the phone and couldn't believe how bad it was. I stayed in the living room with her while Will searched the internet (google nazi) to find a cure. He ended up calling Jeff Thompson from church (he is a pharmacist) to ask what he recommended. He told us to go to CVS and buy an enema (bless her heart). So he raced across the street and said he would have paid $400 for it because he hated to see her in such pain. I sang every church song I could think of to ease her mind while Will was gone. He got back and we proceeded to help her out with her business. Finally after about 10 minutes of our help, she will able to finish up. She immediately started smiling and kicking her legs, obviously feeling much better. This whole process lasted about an hour so we missed church but there is no way we could have gone. She would have grunted through our entire outreach group. She was exhausted from all her hard work so we gave her a bottle and got her ready for bed a little early. Well, half way through the bottle, she started grunting again. I felt so sorry for her having to go through this pain again. Anyway, after a few minutes and a little help from daddy and his rubber glove (that's right!), she was able to finish her business AGAIN! She finally felt better and was able to fall asleep within 2 minutes of laying her down.

Now, I had constipation one time while I was prego and I will forever have sympathy for anyone going through it. I could never imagine that it would be so painful but I remember laying on the couch crying because I was in so much pain! I felt even worse for Callan because there isn't a whole lot you can do for a person experiencing this. I had changed her cereal from rice cereal with apples to rice with DHA and RNA or something like that (mainly because Target doesn't carry the apple kind) but I quickly changed it back today. I will just have to make special trips to Wal-Mart for it. She had lots of apples today and a huge bowl of prunes just to make sure we don't have to go through this again. I hope your babies don't have to deal with this!

We just returned from the beach last Thursday so I'll post some pictures soon of our adventure!

Surprise trip to Tampa

Well me and Callan are back safely from our last minute trip to Tampa to see Will's sister, Amy, and her family. The kids didn't know we were coming so it was a fun surprise. Amy made a video (on her blog) of the kids' reactions when they walked in and saw her. Tyler thought that Amy had already had her baby, Carley, and she was home! He's a nut! Taylor was so excited she couldn't move and Reagan quickly told Tyler that it was Callan! She got to take baths in the sink which is a lot harder than I thought and she slept in Carley's Moses basket which she loved!

The plane ride could not have gone any better except for the stinky diaper at the end. She slept the first 45 minutes and played he last 45. Then on the return flight she slept the entire time. She fell asleep before we took off and didn't wake until I was walking to get my luggage. Will surprised us by coming in the airport to wait on us. We was so excited to see Callan and she smiled very big when she saw him! We had an easy drive home and I made it to Bunco just in time!

The trip was awesome. We are extremely close with Amy's family and try to visit several times a year. Scott is Will's boss for one and I tell Amy everything. When the four adults are together we have so much fun and laugh the whole time. I'm excited that now our kids will be close as well. Carley is due to arrive in 2 weeks, 3 at the latest (they will induce if necessary) so we will be going back in one month to see the new baby. Callan didn't get to stay the baby of the family very long!

The kids were so good with her. Tyler was very sweet and quiet around her but played in the floor with her. She probably would have sat in Taylor's lap all day long if I had let her and she loved to watch Reagan run around the room. He got down in the floor with her and showed her some picture books. Callan smiled every single time Scott came into view and I have never seen my child lay her head on anyone's shoulder except for Amy's. Gretchen was even wonderful at staying away from her. She adapted to Florida time with no problems and slept through the night there too. I am so glad that the trip was a success and I can't wait for the next trip so I can see baby Carley, finally!!