Now Kyle is Famous

Geez it's a week for the Toti's. Now Kyle was in the Cookeville newspaper for DCOM students starting rotations there. Here's the link if you want to check out the article. Click here I'm considering on applying for editor for the newspaper, because I caught several grammar errors.

My friend Heather put up a picture that she took and edited, it's better than my phone picture. I can't wait to see the rest of the pictures. She definitely captured our beautiful baby girl. Just looking at this makes me realized how amazing she is, she has turned our world upside down (for the good) and we can't get over how in love we are with her.

The last thing I wanted to share is a song I've heard on the radio several times since we've moved here. They have a lot more Christian radio stations here and the play more contemporary Christian music rather than bluegrassy gospel music or as Libby would say (Sea Shanties, however you spell that). The words to this song just fit exactly how I feel, God really did give us Aubrey Lynne and we are so thankful for this wonderful blessing. You truly are amazing little girl.

Aubrey's Famous!

Ok, not famous but in the Knoxville newspaper. Here's her birth announcement, she's at the very bottom of the page under Mercy Medical Center St. Mary's...
Click here

Anniversary

Today is our two year anniversary, and it's crazy at how much our life has changed over the past two years. We've moved 3 times. We've lived in 3 different states. We've made it through 2 years of medical school (emphasis on the "we", because med school takes a lot on both parties-student and spouse). I've added two years to my teaching experience and received my Tennessee teaching license. I talked Kyle into getting a dog and Bailey might have been the smartest "purchase" or adoption that we've done since we've been married. And last but not least, we've received the amazing blessing of our beautiful daughter, Aubrey Lynne. In just one week, she has stolen both Kyle and my hearts and we are amazed every day at how much more we love her even than the day before. So what we did on our exciting anniversary, well Kyle had his first day of rotations so Aubrey and I had our first day home alone. Colleen came over for a visit so technically it wasn't just us two all day, I'm so glad to have Colleen so close by. When Kyle got home we celebrated with a family nap in the rain, even Bailey joined us. We had a nice home cooked meal, first time really cooking besides just warming up since we've had Aubrey and it helped that Kyle and her were still sleeping in the bedroom. Lastly, I haven't left the house much with Miss Aubrey so I didn't get a card or anything for Kyle so instead I made this video and wanted to share it on here. I am not good about printing pictures out and I've had a blank wedding photo album for the past 2 years (biggest regret ever!!! not having our photographer put together our album!). I am good about putting pictures online and messing with videos online so my plan is to put an entire wedding album together so we at least have our pictures somewhere organized, rather than just in a folder on our computers. So thank you Kyle for two wonderful years and I look forward to many, many, many more!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Sneak Peek

My great friend Heather, offered to come take some pictures of Aubrey as a shower present. I can't thank her enough for driving all the way to Cookeville and for capturing some great photos of our sweet baby girl. She was down on the floor getting some great shots and Aubrey was great awake and asleep. She let us put her in some pretty cute poses. We'll have the real pictures in a week or so but for now here's a sneak peek of a picture I took with my phone. If this is how good it turned out with just my phone pictures you can imagine what Heather got!

Aubrey continues to amaze us every day of how much you can love someone. We are the luckiest people to have such a healthy, happy, beautiful baby. I just look at her in awe that we made her, well God made her and she is truly a blessing.

Other sad/exciting news, Aubrey's umbilical cord fell off today. I am not going to be one of those parents that saves it in her baby book, but it's still on her dresser and I haven't had the heart to throw it away yet. I told Kyle it's the last thing that held us two together. It connected us in a way only a mother and a child can be connected. I will throw it away by the end of the week, I promise. On the upside, she's got an INNIE!!!! I'm weird about outies and Kyle was even trying to literally push it back in but then as I was changing her I yelled to Kyle, YES, we've got an innie!!! YAY!

Aubrey also went to her first church service today. We've tried out two churches since we've moved here and neither of them are First Christian Church. I told Kyle no one had hugged me, there's no Stephen (our pastor), and it's just not the same. I know God has a plan and a church home for us, we just have to find it. Well Kyle starts rotations tomorrow, so it's Aubrey and my first day at home together. What exciting things can we get into, I think a visit to the neighbors will be on the agenda. I'm so lucky to have such good friends so close by.

Hiccups

It's crazy to think that just last week we were in the hospital resting after a long night of labor (totally worth every contraction). Crazier is that the hiccups that I get to video now I was feeling inside of me more than a week ago. Aubrey used to get the hiccups all the time and it's so neat to hear them when I used to just feel them. Poor baby though gets hiccups about every time she eats. I know how annoying hiccups are but at least we get to try holding our breath, drinking water, but yep Aubrey just sits through them. I guess if hiccups is her biggest problem in life right now, she's got it pretty good.

We have two more days of relaxing before rotations start. Aubrey and I are enjoying our time with Kyle because unfortunately life is going to pick back up again. I've definitely enjoyed this week just being us three though. Right now we're waiting for Kyle to get back from Knoxville. He had to run our billy blanket to our friends the Ornburns because their little boy is jaundice. Aubrey and Aidan are sharing already! I just know they'll be best friends.

From COMLEX to Babies

We got good news from the doctor yesterday that Aubrey's jaundice levels went down so we can take her off the blanket. We kept her on it for one last night because we figured it didn't hurt, only helped. Yesterday we also took a trip to Knoxville to see our friends Alarie and Michael and their little baby boy Aidan. Aubrey and Aidan will be neighbors in a couple of weeks and Alarie and I can't wait for them to be best friends. They got their first picture taken together outside the womb. Aidan was 9 lbs. when he was born and Aubrey looked tiny next to him. They even had lunch together. Then we got to show Aubrey off to our OB dr.'s office and the nurses loved seeing her after waiting for her for so long during the "labor process" (really only 3 days, but it felt like forever).

From this....

to this....to this!!!!

Here's Kyle and Michael holding their little ones rather than a COMLEX review book, thank god that is over, at least for now. It seems to be a reoccuring trend whoever lays down next to Aubrey usually falls asleep. I think she's Kyle's little twin. It's nice to have such great friends close. Colleen and Chuck stop by throughout the day, especially Colleen when she just wants some baby time. We've also had our friends that live in Crossville, Jamie and Patrick come by and meet Aubrey. They even brought us Olive Garden, thanks guys you don't know how much that helped. Last night was our first really tired night. I don't really know why either, Aubrey is sleeping great (knock on wood) and we've taken naps. I think it's just all the emotions and now we have a break for a few days before Kyle starts rotations. We're definitely taking these days to relax as much as possible.

Here's one last picture of Aubrey, because you know you can't get enough. (Ok at least I can't).

Our Jaundicey but Adorable Baby

Well Miss Aubrey is 5 days old, where has the time gone? Haha, I know it will fly by though even though I kid. Anyway we went to the pediatrician on Tuesday and Aubrey weighs 7 lbs. 3 oz. now so she's lost 10 but that's normal. We were concerned with how much more jaundice she got since we had left the hospital and the doctor agreed and wanted us to go get some blood drawn. We went to the Cookeville Hospital (where Kyle will be doing some rotations) and got her blood drawn. Kyle had a hard time watching his little girl get stuck, but she did great and didn't cry too much. Her results did come back much higher than in the hospital so they said we needed to get a billy blanket (uv light blanket) and put her on it for the night.
Kyle first tried laying out in the sun with her trying to get her jaundice to go down.

Well then the nightmare begins, the doctor's office tried to get a billy blanket for about an hour and then the office closed and they said they couldn't find one so just keep her in the sun (even though the sun would only be out for a few more hours). Well Kyle and my mom started the calls and tried calling about 20 different home healthcare places trying to find a billy blanket. I guess there were a lot of jaundicy babies this week because Cookeville was completely out, the whole area....crazy! I even called where we delivered to try to catch our OB and see if he had any suggestions. When I called the OB floor the nurse said he was in a delivery and I got all excited because it was our friend Alarie. Who which by the way, had an adorable little boy. Aidan Michael, 9 lbs. 0 oz, 22 in long, born at 6:33 pm, and dad got to deliver him too. So FINALLY we found a billy blanket and Kyle drove to Crossville (about 30 minutes away) to get it. By this time it was about 8-9 o'clock at night and we were so thankful to finally find one. So here is our super baby she looks like a little glow worm when we wrap her up.

So glad that we FINALLY found a billy blanket, three hours later.

We're going back to the hospital tomorrow and we're hoping her jaundice level went down enough to take her off the blanket. She's been a little naked baby since she can't wear clothes while on the blanket and it's been a pain to always have her plugged into the wall (the blanket has a huge battery and cord). She's still as happy or I guess as sleepy as can be.

Hospital Pictures

Here is the link to our hospital pictures that they came in and took yesterday. I can't believe that was only just yesterday. Click here and you'll have to enter the code- 72531301096142 as the customer number and password. Our first night home was pretty good. Aubrey was crying from about 12:00-12:30 and I kept telling her the Fishers aren't going to like you. Once she calmed down she slept until 3:00 and then ate, pooped like crazy and then fell back asleep until 9:00. We were lucky to get some sleep. Today we're just resting and enjoying our brand new little girl.

She's Here!!

Aubrey Lynne is here. She was born at 6:23 am Saturday morning, June 19. She weighed 7 lbs 13 oz and was 21 inches long. She has a full head of dark hair and is as absolutely gorgeous (we're a little biased though). Kyle was able to deliver her, I changed my mind the last second, and I actually got to pull her out. Everybody is doing great, she's a healthy little girl and Kyle and I are both recovering. Yes, Kyle is recovering, more to come on that later. Let's just say he worked very hard during labor, he was on his feet for a good 4-5 hours. But like I said, more to come on that later. Here are some pictures of our little girl...

Getting checked in and still feeling good, that changed after a while.

I was so happy to finally meet her.

7 lbs, 13 oz, 21 inches. a lot bigger than we thought she was going to be.

Dr. Vick, the best doctor ever.

Instant love.

New family of three, 6:30 am and we were running on fumes.

Just chilling...

Her outfit for her photshoot, they had a professional photographer come in and take pictures. She got a lot better shots than I did. We'll post the link when the pictures go up.

It's STARTED!!!

Well big news, I am technically "in labor", haha. I know blogging while in labor, weird. We went to the doctor this morning and after his check and some other things to get stuff started I decided rather than going home just yet we should stick around Knoxville. I made Kyle walk around Ross, Marshalls, Target, and then do a few laps around the mall. I was on a mission, I was walking this baby out. I started cramping while walking and decided I needed to sit and see if anything was happening. After riding in the car for about 20 minutes headed back towards home I'd had contractions 5 minutes apart. Kyle and I decided to turn around and hang out in Knoxville a little longer to see if they stopped or not. So we hung out in Borders, I felt so stupid jumping from store to store, but I wasn't ready to go home yet. Finally after the contractions keeping up we left and called our doctor back. He told us to come back in and get checked. I hadn't dilated anymore but he hooked up the fetal heart monitor and checked the contractions. I was having them about 7-8 minutes apart and Aubrey was handling them wonderfully (no heart decelerations).

So he asked us what we wanted to do? I said you're the doctor, I don't know. Well he said people can be like this for a week but he definitely didn't think I would be, so we asked if it would be smart to stay in Knoxville for the night and he said yes. So the plan is to go in the morning (if I make it until then) and see if I'm more dilated and then we'll probably be walking next door to the hospital. Sooooo we may have Aubrey here some time tomorrow!! We're so excited, nervous, anxious, and every other emotion. Now I'm going to try and get some sleep so I have energy for tomorrow. They also told us to eat a lot tonight so we went to Chick Fill A and filled our stomachs. We'll keep you posted. The next post may be a picture of our little girl!

39 Weeks and Hiking in Flip Flops

Well I'm the idiot who decided to wear flip flops to go check out this waterfall we have about 15 minutes away from our house. It was only about a 100 ft. walk so it wasn't bad, but Kyle kept on saying just walk this baby out of you already. It didn't work, she's still in there as cozy as can be. It wasn't the waterfall in Corbin or anything, but it was still very pretty. There's a much bigger waterfall a 1.5 mile hike away and I can't wait to go check that one out.

I'm so glad my mom stayed with us until Aubrey gets here. She's been a HUGE help and it's been fun doing last minute baby projects and sewing projects. I would have had a hard time if she had left and I would have gone into labor right afterwards. Thanks mom for staying with us!!

Kyle's mom, cousins, and brother also stayed so we have a house full right now, but I'm really glad we're getting the chance to spend time with them too. The girls have been a lot of help and it's been great for Kyle to spend time with his brother and mom. Both Grandmas are anxiously waiting for their little grandbaby.

I'm really glad we've gotten a chance to check out Cookeville before Aubrey is here. We've eaten at a couple of really good restaurants, they have more than Ryans and J Milton (CRAZY I KNOW, CHOICES!!!) It has been weird to be in a bigger town with all of these restaurants and stores. We had lunch at my favorite restaurant here so far, called Crawdaddy's they have the best fried shrimp. Colleen and I went there during one of our visits here. We've also had ice cream at the cutest little ice cream shop not once but twice, we had to make sure it just wasn't a fluke the first time, but it was delicious. Now we're just kind of hanging out waiting for baby to come. We have a doctor's appointment tomorrow in the morning and we'll probably hang around Knoxville for a little bit just in case the Dr. checking me puts me into labor or he may possibly do something to "get things started". Uncle Cole has started a betting pool with what day Aubrey will get here, how much she'll weigh, length, time, and who she'll look like, oh and if our baby is bald or not. It's been pretty fun and we've even called the Grandpas to get their input. The winning date so far is Friday, but we'll see. Right now we're just enjoying spending time with each other and with our families. For now here's a picture of my two babies until I can get a picture of the third.

Little Helpers

Jasmine and Cecilia have been a huge help during the move, no really they have. Jasmine was carrying in boxes off the truck and even was nice enough to slip off her flip flops before walking on our brand new carpet (can you tell I'm excited about the carpet). She also was decorating with my Aunt Sissy and helping her clean out drawers. My Aunt was calling her Speedy Gonzales. Cecilia had a different job while moving and that was the dog watcher. She kept Bailey outside for hours while we unloaded the truck and set things up in the house and she helped out immensely by doing that. Bailey likes her new house by the way and allllll of our visitors.

So last night my mom said she'd pick up a doiley (however you spell that) for our stove because we have a glass top stove. Instead of being old ladyish I realized I had some zebra print fabric and instead she made a little zebra "doiley". She had the girls help her. Cecilia did a fantastic job sewing and was really concentrating. Jasmine on the other hand was hilarious and slammed on the peddle and starting sewing fast. Jasmine said see I'm Speedy Gonzales.

My mom had a lot of patience teaching them how to sew. She had such a good time with little girls again, I can't wait for Aubrey to learn how to sew from Grandma. Here's what they came up with, and they really did sew it with just some help from my mom.



The guys had some down time so Kyle was trying to teach Cole how to play poker on my brand new coffee table!!! :)

This could possibly be my last belly picture. 38 weeks 4 days and no baby yet, we're still just waiting. I'm ready and I think she's ready to come out now too. Now that the house is completely unpacked she can come any time now. Kyle even somehow got my gazillion Christmas decoration boxes stored away so no storage facility for us, woo hoo. I'm trying the bumpy roads to get her out and last night we went to a great BBQ place but instead I got a spicy chicken sandwich. Kyle asked if it was hot and I said no, lying to him so he wouldn't be made later if I had ummmm how do we say this..."pregnancy gas?" but it was extremely hot and he tried some and was like how are you doing that! Anything to get Miss Aubrey here before Pa-pa leaves today. So no, I didn't have pregnancy gas and no the baby didn't come last night. It was exciting to go to sleep every night thinking, this could be it. We've got our bags all packed and we'll just see what day she picks for her birthday.

Oh and happy birthday do my pregnant bffaf that I couldn't have done this whole pregnancy without!! Love ya Alarie! Now that your birthday is over Mr. Aidan can make his appearance, come on babies. Gotta have a picture of Colleen with all of the baby belly, since she'll be loving on these babies since we'll be neighbors!!! (P.S.- Can you guys move already so I have somebody next door, I'm waiiiiiting.)

Finally!

FINALLY I'VE GOTTEN MY CHANCE TO NEST!!! Well we're all moved in and surprisingly have most of our stuff unpacked due to the help of all of our family. I can't imagine doing this without them, we are very, very thankful for all of our family. I finally have pictures of the nursery because it was the first room we set up. Kyle, his dad, and his brother got the crib all set up today and we got to hang our letters (Thank you Sheila, they look amazing!!) I feel so much better now that we're here and that I have finally got to look at all of our adorable baby stuff that has been in boxes for so long. Here are a few pictures of her room, still have a few things to do but definitely better than our corner of boxes at our old place.

My aunt had Jasmine doing all sorts of stuff, decorating, cleaning cabinets....can you say child labor laws?

Jasmine was also showing Kyle how to wear the Baby Bjorn.

Going through clothes Kathy had bought for me and outfits that were mine when I was little. How I know I'm nesting is because I had to make sure the outfits were going the same direction on the hangers. I even re-hung some clothes, I know....bad.

Kyle had the professional Babies R Us supervisor Uncle Cole to help put together Aubrey's bouncer.

The guys put together the crib in under an hour.

Then we got to finally put on her bedding, I LOVE it!!

Kyle wouldn't let me watch while he put up the nursery letters.

Annnnnnd.....guess why....

I made him switch it and I made him touch my belly, he doesn't love taking the hand on belly pictures.

ANNNNDDDDD HERE'S HER ROOM!!!!!!



Like mother, like daughter. Can you see a resemblence in our too full closets? The sad thing is Aubrey's closet is full with just her 0-3 months.



Well any day now we should be meeting our little girl. I've had a lot more contractions and Kyle is ready to start CV 4. With a few more drives up and down our ridiculously bumpy gravel steep driveway I think Miss Aubrey will just decide it's time to come. We'll see when she shows up!!