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.