The Wonder Place

We had such a fun time with Misti and her girls at the Wonder Place. The girls probably could have played all day if we would have let them. It was so nice to get out of the house for a little bit. And it worked out perfect because when I needed to change the baby Misti would watch the girls and when she needed to change her baby, I could watch them. They also had a nice little eating area where we were able to have lunch. We packed our "picnic" (in Callie's words) early that morning before we left. Here are some pics of the girls having fun.

Kayla starts school and my new haircut

Well Kayla started her first day of school this past week. She is loving it already. She is in the 4th grade this year and she has her first male teacher ever. She was a little nervous at first because she was sure that male teachers were stricter and meaner than female teachers, but we were all pleased to hear that she loved her teacher. So hopefully she will have a great year. She also just got done doing a volleyball camp a couple weeks ago. This was her first experience with volleyball, so she studied all up on it before the camp started. I tried to tell her that they would teach her how to play at the camp, but she wanted to know how BEFORE it started. So I taught her what I could remember from my middle school years on the volleyball team. She had a lot of fun. I have a feeling that Kayla will be good at whatever sport she tries. She is very talented.

I have been getting back into my regular routine. It's nice to have things back on a schedule again since the baby was born. I am already enjoying the time I get to spend with Callie and Hailey while Kayla is at school. Here are some cute pictures that I took of Hailey this week, she has already outgrown 3 outfits, I can't believe it. We are going to be getting her blessed on September 6th, so anybody who is in town is welcome to come to that.





Callie is also getting big. She is going to have her 3rd birthday next week. And the big debate of her life is whether to have a princess party or a Dora party, or to get a princess bike or a Dora bike.... you get the idea. She's kind of in a transition phase where she wants to move on to new interests but she is still holding on to her old ones. Tommorow we are going to go to a fun place in Little Rock called the Wonder Place, so I will have to post some pics of that when I get time. We are going with Misti and her daughters. She has a little girl who is also 3 and her new little baby who is just 5 weeks older than Hailey. So we are in a very similar situation with the ages of our little ones.

Other than that we have not been up to a whole lot. Brad stays pretty busy as the Branch president. And I just got called as the Young Womens first councelor so I am excited to teach the young women. I just hope Hailey will cooperate and sleep during church ;) Oh, and Kristin requested a picture of my new haircut, so here it is:

Hailey

I love, love, love having a new baby in the house. The only thing that makes me sad is how fast I know this time is going to go. I could sit and hold Hailey all day and not feel stir crazy at all. There is nothing that is better than the feeling of a newborn that is asleep on your chest, or the smell after they just had a bath, or the way they look around for mommy when they are hungry. It seems like the milestones just fly by, and I'm just thankful that Brad works so hard for our family so that I get to stay at home and be able to enjoy some of them. Hailey already can lift her head and turn it from one side to the other quite easily. She also just lost her umbilical cord yesterday, and I swear she is already smiling back at me. I know that everyone says it's probably just gas, but I don't think so, because I can get her to do it a lot during the day and it's always in response to me smiling and talking sweet to her. One other sweet thing that she likes to do is to hold both of Brad's fingers while he is holding her. She's got quite the grip. She already has grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled it so hard that it made her scream. I could hardly pry her little fingers off it. It was kinda cute. I've never had a baby that young that had hair to pull before!

Nanna and Karren

Well, it has been a fun week having my mom and sister come and stay with us. My poor mom doesn't know what she's going to do now that Karren is moving to Arkansas. All of her girls will be out here now (except for her daughter in laws). So now she'll have more of an excuse to come see us more often. Anyway, we had a lot of fun. We did some school shopping for Kayla, we went to Jonesboro and got Karren set up in her new apartment and looked for some employment, I got my hair cut and highlighted, we ate out a lot, played a lot of games, scrap booked, and just had fun. We sure are going to miss them and their extra helping hands. Here are some pics of the girls.

More pics

I decided to take some more pics today of the girls so I will be able to have lots of newborn pictures to choose from when I do Hailey's baby book. I thought you might all enjoy them, so here they are.

Close ups of Hailey and the girls

She's Here!

Well after 25 hours of excruciating labor she's finally here. Ha ha! Just kidding. Actually, I can't complain, it was a pretty good labor experience. They started me on pitocin at about 7:30 a.m. They gave me just 2 ml at first because the doctor didn't think I would need much to get me started. And he was right because I started contracting about every 3 minutes right away. The doctor came in and broke my water at 9:30 and things started to move very quickly after that. I was at a 4 1/2 when he first checked me that morning and he told me if I wanted an epidural that I only had a short window to get one. I have to admit that a little tiny part of me considered going back on my plan once I started to feel the "hard" contractions after my water broke. But I was counting on the fact that my last labors went quick and so I decided that I could endure any amount of pain as long as it didn't last long. I took about an hour to dilate to a 6 and then I went from a 6 to a 10 in about 20-25 minutes. I called the nurse and I said "I know you just checked me, but I feel like she's coming". She came in and checked and said "Uhh, yeah, your a ten. I better get your doctor on the phone." So luckily his clinic was across the street and he got there in about just a few minutes. As soon as he walked in he said "Your babies heartbeat is dropping, you need to get her out now. So he told me to use the next contraction to push her out as hard as I could. I pushed only 3 times with one contraction and she was out! And she ended up being just perfect. Her heart beat had only dropped because her cord was all wrapped around her weird when she was in the birth canal. So it was good that she came out fast.
It was soooo painful to do it naturally with no meds or epidural, but I'm so glad that I did it. Because I felt excellent right after I had her. Usually I am dizzy and throwing up after I give birth. I felt happy and wide awake and really glad that I stuck to my plan. We named her Hailey Grace Shelton. She weighed 7 lbs 1 oz. and she was 20 inches long. She is beautiful with dark brown hair. She really looks nothing like me or like her sisters but she does look like some of the Sheltons. The only thing she looks like she has of mine so far is her dimpled chin. Here are some pics of the big event.

This first pic is when I was dilated to about a 6, I was still joking around at this point but not for long! Brad and I were trying to take some pictures where I was was acting like I was in intense pain, but I kept laughing every time I tried.



This is right after I had her. It felt so good to have her out!






I had the sweetest nurse who took very good care of me and made my labor easier. She put a cute little bow on Hailey's head.

This is the girls examining her when they first got to the hospital. They love their baby sister.


This one is of Grandma Shelton getting a little teary holding her new grandaughter.


I love this picture of Callie. She is so happy to be a big sister.


Grandpa and Grandma Shelton.


Kayla is so in love with her. She just follows her around wherever she is or whoever is holding her.



Daddy with all of his girls.

Brad is such a good dad. He was so sweet to me during my labor too, he fanned me the whole time because I said I was hot.


I will post some more pictures soon that show more close ups of Hailey.