Fabulous and 50!

My mom is THE BEST MOM in the WHOLE world! She turned 50 this year. Me and my sister took her downtown Chicago to see one of her favorite artist, John Cougar Mellancamp, in concert. We had an amazing time together, but unfortunatly John didn't show up to play so much. I love my mom SO much. She is not only my mom but one of my very best BESTIES! Mom, you are an AMAZING women! I want to thank you for just being you. I only wish I can add up to half the women you are.

My mother is one of the most caring, unselfish,beautiful,loyal,Godly,and MOST much fun women I have ever met. Here is to FABULOUS and 50! Love you Momma!

Glug Night!

Day After Thanksgiving is ALWAYS Glug night at my mother-in-laws house. We make basically a spiced liquor (Glug) and eat a traditional Swedish dish Lapskus (cooked down meat and potatoes). Poppy was the man to always make the Glug. Zack took over the tradition this year and did a great job! Can't wait for Payton to be old enough to try her first spoonful of Lapskus!

Zack starting up the Glug. It consists of Port Wine,Merlot,Brandy, Everclear, and spices. Oh boy. It really can clear up the sinuses! lol

Great Aunt Denise got all the babies matching Christmas Jammie's. We just HAD to do a photo shoot.

We have from the top to right: Reese, my lovely Payton, Blake, Rylee, and Bruno the cabbage patch! LOL

Happy Thanksgiving!

Payton's first Thanksgiving! The weekend before Thanksgiving was with my family at my parents house. We had a great time and Payton got to meet her Great Uncle Terry and her Great Grandpa Joe for the first time. Lots of food and good wine. Never gonna hear me complain about that. Isabel ( my niece) really likes Payton or I should say "Paytee". Bel has coined the new nickname and I find myself saying it now too.

On the big Thanksgiving day we were at my mother-in-laws house. She had about 18 people including babies for dinner! We had a great time there also eating 25 pound turkey and lots more. Way to go Diane! Zack, me and Paytee were over for the whole day. If it was up to us we would have stayed another couple of hours but Payton thought different. Weather she was overstimulated or we got a our first stint with what people call " The Witching Hour", Payton decided to start crying at not stop. It took us a bit but we got her in her car seat and drove home. By the time we got home it had been a good hour of straight screaming. Zack took one look at me and told me to step out and take a break. That was it. Mandy had her first new mommy meltdown! whats wrong with her? she was fed.....check. no dirty diaper.....check. burped a million times....check. what am i doing wrong? whats wrong with me? is she in pain? Is she gonna be a colicky baby? How do you deal with a colicky baby? Did she sleep to long during the day? Did she not sleep enough? And the list goes on and on and on. This consisted of a lot of crying and an emergency phone call to my awesome sister Annie. Thanks sis. by the the time i got off the phone (reassured that everything is fine with Payton and me) Payton was sleeping for the night like a peach. Zack was able to get one more mini burp out of her and she passed out. I think God is slowly teaching me through Payton to stop worrying about things you can't control.

"Save BIG money at Menards!"

   Zack and I LOVE Menards as well as any other home depot store! We love to walk around and just plan our next DIY project either in our condo or dream about what we are going to have in our home one day! Thats why Payton's second shopping outing with Mom and Dad HAD to be Menards. She slept through the whole thing! I don't know if she is planning on becoming a DIY'er herself.

Happy One Month Birthday P.K.

I can't believe our peanut is One Month already! It one sense it seems like it is going by fast. Probably because this past month has seems like one long day of a three hour or so turn around. Around every three hours Payton and I go through the routine. Wake up, change diaper, feed, play a bit, and then back to bed. Payton is starting to have a bit more awake time. which is fun because we play in her play mat for a bit. Just a week ago or so I put her in there while I was making bottles for the day and heard her first cooing. To a first time mom that's A LOT of fun. Its always nice to hear something else besides crying : )! She likes to spend about 10 minutes or so in her play mat. In the beginning you would put her in there and she would look around for awhile and then fall asleep. Now I put her in there and her friends ( cartoon animals) piss her off after awhile. it is funny to hear her talking (cooing) at them in the beginning and then just when she has had enough she starts really yelling at them ( just straight on loud "AAAAAA's"). As if one of the animals really did something to make her mad! She REALLY loves to eat also. She is eating around 4 1/2 oz at every feeding time (which is around every three hours). When we go to her one month follow up I can't wait to find out how much she weighs! I am very excited because when I change her I can start to see the beginning of some chunk on her baby thighs. Growing baby is a healthy baby! Payton does a few long stretches of sleeping for me through the night. She is kinda deciding on her own at least right now that her bed time is somewhere between eight and nine in the evening. From there I wake up to do one middle of the night feeding and we wake up for the day between six and seven in the morning. She is pretty good to her momma. I have never been an early bird so I am getting used to starting my day so early, but I know I should not complain! Payton is also holding her head up on her own a lot more now. When she is awake she is REALLY awake. We laugh because sometimes we just wait for her to blink. Everyday is a struggle for me as a new mom not to over worry about EVERYTHING!. As time goes on , with the support of awesome family, I can say I am beginning to get better with that.

P.K.'s Bath Time!

    Can't believe that we are on week two already! Payton had a weepy eye and I called the doc who ordered up and antibiotic for it. They think she could have an eye infection, but it also could be a blocked tear duct! Oh Boy, welcome to parenthood. She is a trooper and takes the ointment twice a day very well.
Here is our little peanut at bath time. Grandma Davis takes charge of this because I am still a little nervous. Payton's belly button fell of this week, AND at tummy time she lifted her head and turned it 90 degrees. What a big girl already!

Happy Halloween

   We were so excited Payton graced us with her presence on mommy's FAVORITE holiday! We ended up having an open house for friends and family to come and see her. It was a little overwhelming after a night out with hubby, but we had a great time showing P.K. off!

Payton's First Week and First Photo Shoot!

P.K. had a not so fun first week. I had to bring her back up to the hospital everyday for the following 4 days since we had brought her home. She had jaundice and she had to have her little heels pricked everyday for a blood test to see where her numbers were. Her white blood cell count was also high so they wanted to keep and eye on that, because of her ripping her umbilical cord at birth. It could have meant an infection of some sort. Thankfully her white blood cell count went down and she was checked out as fine. The Jaundice was another story. It is very common for babies. I had it, zack had it, etc. Her numbers were skyrocketing though. I also was beginning to breastfeed through all this. Because of her Jaundice numbers going up the doc said to breastfeed but supplement afterwards with a bit of formula, and the next step would be to push formula for a straight 12 hours. The more dirty diapers the less jaundice I guess. The problem is once I formula fed it was very hard to go back to breast feeding. By the end of the week, through mommy's many melt downs on feeding, and having to take a newborn out to the hospital everyday, P.K.'s numbers were down. I still don't understand why everybody thought she was jaundice, I just thought it was GREAT "Jersey Shore" tan! She is sweeter then ever and put up with all the blood tests really well including her first photo shoot. Poor child , but we went picture crazy! 

At the weeks end Zack and I went out for our first date night!We went to one of our good friends wedding and had a blast. Thank you SO much grandma and Grandpa Davis for watching P.K.! Payton is really loveing her little lamb chair! This is a plus for mommy , because she was able to watch mommy get ready for the night out and was just fine. It was very nice to be able to get out for a few hours and see all our friends!

Welcome Payton Ann Kerruish!

        SHE IS HERE!!!!

Here we go with the labor and delivery story! I find it is the first thing women want to hear about.LOL
I have been effaced, dilated, and having pretty strong braxton hicks off and on for a bit. So on Monday October 18th at about 10pm, when I had been having contractions for two and half hours ( 5 minutes apart) me and Zack got all packed up and went to the hospital! We were very excited and thought we are coming home with a baby. We got to the hospital and they watched me for about and hour and then we were sent home! My contractions started to subside and my water did not break. The nurse and doc on call said go home, relax, and it will be soon. I felt like an idiot because I really thought it was time. I continued to work the rest of the week , as it was getting harded and harder! Standing on my swollen feet full-time really started to get old. Right when I thought I was getting close to my breaking point ,early Saturday morning hit! Saturday October 23rd, 2010 Payton Ann Kerruish was born! I woke up about 2:00 am Saturday morning with what I thought was just another braxton hick. Annoyed...... I went to the bathroom and decided to spend some time on facebook ( nothing else to do when you don't sleep anymore and are up that early)! When I sat down to the computer , I was confused, I don't know if my water broke or if I had peed myself a little bit! YOU LAUGH, but let me tell you when you get that big and uncomfortable you could laugh and with a baby pressing on that bladder, nature can take its course. : ) Went back to the bathroom to check everything out, literally woke up my husband with" I don't know if my water broke or i just peed myself?" I am sure when he was saying his vows to me at the alter he did not think that he would ever be waking up at 2:30 am to those wonderful romantic words! lol. We both were awake then and decided to google it! lol. I know I know our generation is google crazy. The best is that when I googled it there were pages and pages and pages on women who weren't sure of the difference! As we were looking it up I leaked a little again so we just decided better safe then sorry! We packed up to go to the hospital. Of course the movies have ruined everything. They make you think you are gonna have a waterfall come out! not so much. I was very nervous we were gonna be sent home again because I was wrong. But as I was talking to Zack about this in the car ride to the hospital I realized, CRAP, these Braxton hick REALLY HURT! actually they feel like something completely different. And on the 15 minute drive to the hospital I have had 3 of them or more! By then I told Zack if my water hasn't broke SOMETHING is going on because this is NOT comfortable and they are not sending me home in this pain! We got to the hospital and got all checked in. The nurse checked and my water had broke. By then my contraction were going from 3-5 minutes apart and I was 4 cm dilated! We were so excited because we knew we were coming home with a baby! Zack called my mom and dad, his mom, and my sister and family around 3am to fill them in. EVERYBODY was really excited and nobody could stay away too long. Zack and I just wanted it to be me and him in the room when I was ready to deliver but my mom was on call just in case Zack couldn't do it. Daddy has some issues with blood, etc. My sister could not stay away either. My mom , dad, and sister showed up right away for the long hall to actual delivery. Zack's mom was not far behind at all. I got my epidural around 6cm and was a very happy comfortable girl. We had about 8 hours of labor and 1 hour of pushing. Zack was a GREAT coach and made it through the delivery just fine . It was me and him and a nurse for most of the pushing and then the doc came in for the final hurrah! It had been a pretty gloomy day outside and I remember at 10:31 am when our peanut came into the world it cleared up a bit and the sun was shining in my delivery room. Payton decided to hold onto her umbilical cord when she came out so it ripped. The doc clamped right away ( which was good because neither Zack or I wanted to cut it) , they watched her for the first half an hour or so to make sure she wasn't stunned, and then cleared her as a beautiful baby at 7lbs 7oz and 20 1/2 inches long!
She has her daddy's cleft chin ( touched by god) and looks just like Zack's baby picture. From what we can tell so far though she definitely got her mommas BURPS! loud and proud!LOL We love our Payton and were so excited to get her home. We stayed one night in the hospital and then headed home! Sherman was AWESOME! And for my family we are on our third generation of women born there. My mom, me, and our little peanut! Now let the fun and games begin...............