Monday, December 31, 2012

Happy New Year!

Since it is New Years Eve I of course had to write something about the past year!  2012 was a GREAT year!  A lot of wonderful things happened.  Korey and I got to go on a lot of great trips.  We went on 7 day cruise to some great tropical places, we went to Key West for the first time, we took a trip to the mountains in NC, we went home to Brookville and also up to New Hampshire and we of course made our way to Orlando for a long weekend.  We got to participate in "Uncle" Kody's wedding and welcomed "Aunt" Chelsea into the family.  I ran the bridge run again and Korey participated in his first Sprint Triathlon and did amazing.  He is also training for his first Half Marathon that he will run in a couple weeks!
Of course the most amazing and wonderful thing that happened to us in 2012 is that we became parents and welcomed Konnor into our family!  We have been super excited about him for almost the whole year!  After trying for almost a year, we found out in February we were pregnant, we spent the next 9 months anticipating his arrival, and on November 10th we welcomed him into the world!  We fell in love with him the minute he was born and we love him more and more each day.  Along with being thankful for Konnor, we are also extremely thankful for ALL our friends and family who kept our secret for such a long time, who showered us with love and presents and advice, and who have been with us through the whole experience.  I can't even begin to thank everyone and let them know how truly appreciative we are!
Unfortunately Korey had to work this New Years Eve.  Konnor, Bella, Chloe, and I will be ringing in the New Year from our cozy living room.  But,seeing as midnight is only 5 minutes away now and Konnor is fast asleep in the Mama Roo, and Bella and Chloe are fast asleep at my feet.. I guess I will be the only one awake to ring in the New Year! 
I hope 2013 is just as great as 2012 has been for us.  I hope that Korey finds a new job that he loves.  I hope we get to go on our trip out West and/or to Hawaii.  I hope we are able to go to our trip we have booked to Jamaica next September.  Along with hoping for all these things I am also looking forward to spending more time with friends and family and to being a part of Lisa's wedding!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!  WE HOPE 2013 IS A GREAT YEAR FOR EVERYONE!

My New Years Eve crew

Love this little guy!

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Konnor's First Christmas

We all had a great Christmas!  It was a wonderful first Christmas for Konnor.  It was also a busy first Christmas!  We were very lucky to have lots of family come down to see Konnor and spend Christmas with us.  Grandma and Grandpa Witt got some timeshares up in Myrtle Beach so that we could all be together for the holidays!  We did some driving back and forth between Mt. Pleasant and Myrtle Beach some days and other days we were able to stay up there with everyone.  We spent Christmas even and morning at home with Aunt Courtney, and Grandma and Grandpa Kelso came down Christmas morning while we opened presents.  Konnor made it as far as seeing what was in his stocking and then he passed out in his mama roo!


After opening presents, Korey and Courtney made some breakfast for everyone and then we hung out playing with our new stuff and entertaining Konnor.  In the evening we packed up again and headed back to Myrtle Beach with Aunt Courtney.  Gma and Gpa Kelso stayed behind to spend time with Bella and Chloe and make sure they got food and let them out for us!
The day after Christmas we woke up and had our next Christmas celebration at the timeshare.  Once again Konnor stayed awake for a little bit and then fell asleep in Aunt Courtney's arms.
Konnor got a lot of wonderful stuff.  We are very thankful!  Even though Konnor cant' really appreciate all the great gifts he received, we know he appreciated all the snuggles and kisses he got from everyone!  He is one lucky boy to have so many people who love and care for him!
Korey and I were also thankful that we had a few opportunities to leave the timeshare and go eat lunch and see a movie together.  Korey went to see The Hobbit with some family, and then we both went to see Les Miserables.
Overall I would say it was a very successful and wonderful first Christmas.  We are already looking forward to next year when Konnor will be a little more aware of what is going on, and he will be able to rip open some of his own presents instead of sleeping through the whole thing!  But we can definitely wait.. time doesn't need to go by THAT fast :)
We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!









Wednesday, December 19, 2012

It gets better

Things have still been going pretty well and we are super thankful for that!  Konnor seems less gassy now, and when he does get gassy we are pretty good at helping him work it out a lot quicker!  Which makes things ten times better for all of us!  He is staying awake more during the day and he will sit in the mamaroo or lay on his play mat without getting fussy.  He also has started smiling at us when we talk to him.  Korey got another nice big smile this morning and I think it made his day!
We've gotten more adventurous and have been trying to take Konnor on outings with us more and more.  Sometimes it goes well, other times we go home early :)  The last outing we had to do some Christmas shopping went great.  We went to the outlets and to Walmart.  With a little planning ahead we got done shopping at the outlets before the rain came, and we made sure Konnor ate before we headed to Walmart so he didn't have a breakdown when he got hungry!  We managed to make it through the whole shopping experience without him getting fussy.  Although we did have a huge poop blowout that we had to change in the car!
Christmas is getting closer and closer and we are getting more and more excited!  Korey is on the shift where he goes to work in the afternoon and doesn't get home til late so now he wakes up and plugs in the Christmas tree first thing in the morning :).  If we lay Konnor on his play mat in front of the tree he will turn his head and stare at the lights for awhile. We still have a few presents left to buy.  We will either have to find some more time to go to a store or end up paying extra to get it here in time!  We also will have to find some time to wrap presents!  We didn't go too crazy buying present for Konnor.  Since he was born on a little over a month before Christmas he has quite a few clothes and he has lots of toys that he will be able to use as he gets older.  We did of course buy some stuff though.  It's his first Christmas after all!
Here are some of the things we are getting him:
Bella and Chloe seem to still like Konnor which makes us happy!  Chloe has always been interested in him.  She likes to try and lick his toes and if he is on his play mat she will lay down beside him.  At first Bella didn't want anything to do with Konnor.  She would sniff at him and walk away and if we tried to put him anywhere near her she would get up and run away.  Now she will lay down beside him if he is in the mamaroo and if we place him beside her she stays.  She also comes running when he is crying instead of running out of the room and if I don't pick him up quick enough she will sometimes come over to me and stare at me like I'm an awful mother for taking more than 10 seconds to pick him up!  We are trying our best to make sure we still give them lots of attention.  Bella likes to snuggle with us when Konnor is taking naps so she has all of our attention.  Chloe will try and snuggle anytime she has a chance!  Now that Konnor is a little bigger I'm going to try walking with him in the baby carrier more so that I can walk the dogs too.  Some day I'll master walking them while pushing a stroller but for now I think it will be easier to do with Konnor in the carrier.

We are really lucky that we have great friends down here who are so helpful!  Whether it's coming over and hanging out, making us dinner, holding Konnor for a little while, watching him so we can go out for a bit, giving us advice or reassuring us that we are good parents.  We are super thankful that we have them in our lives.  We are also looking forward to seeing all of our family at Christmas because we know they will be super helpful also and some of them haven't had a chance to meet Konnor yet!  I'm sure we will be taking lots of pictures.
Enough for now though.. Konnor is actually asleep for the first time at night before midnight in awhile.  I am going to try and finish our Christmas cards and maybe squeeze in a nap.  (fingers crossed he stays asleep a little longer). 

lifting his head up

staring contest with daddy

This picture makes me laugh!  Bella looks so over the picture taking and Konnor looks terrified :)

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Confessions

I apologize that it has been over a week since our last post!  Things have been busy and a little crazy here.  People keep telling you when you are pregnant that "Your life will be changed forever" and "Things are never going to be the same again".  When you hear these things you know they are true, but you don't REALLY understand how true they are until you have that little bundle of joy here and at home with you.  It has been 5 weeks already which is crazy!  One month has come and gone!  There have been ups and also downs in those 5 weeks.  I think we have finally got some things figured out, and I'm sure now that I've said that something new will come along and throw us for a loop.  But hey..that's what being a parent is all about right?
So my first confession is that one of the main reasons I haven't posted anything in awhile (other than being super busy and rarely having my hands free) is that I didn't know if I would have anything positive to write about!  There were a few days in the past week where I just felt like an awful parent already and I would go to post something on here, but was afraid I would just complain during the whole post.  Poor Konnor has had some gas issues and so there were a few days where he would be miserable and just cry and cry.  By cry I really mean SCREAM... a high pitch Scream that sounded awful because he was in pain from the gas.  Adding in all the sleep deprivation, and the screaming, and the feeling awful because we didn't know how to help his gas... there were definitely moments we thought.. "what have we done!"  Now that we know it's gas we have been able to some days give him something for it, and also to figure out ways to help him work out the gas on his own.  This has made a huge difference for him and us!  The past couple days he has been much happier and less gassy and we have been much happier too! 
My second confession tonight is that I went for a run for the first time since Konnor was born and shhhhh but it hasn't been six weeks yet, and I have not gone to my follow up doctors appointment!  But it was another 70 degree beautiful day here and I just couldn't help it!  I have been feeling great for the past two weeks and watching Korey head out to run every day was making me super jealous.  I couldn't get an appointment at six weeks because of the holidays and have to wait until 7 1/2 weeks and I just could not wait that long to run!  I only ran 2 miles tonight and even that was difficult which is super sad since I had been running a lot further before I got pregnant!  I know that I will eventually work my way back up again and that I will be able to run faster again, but for now I'll just have to accept that I need to take it slow!
We took Konnor for a walk in the stroller today since it was really nice out.  We walked over to the Starbucks near us and we even managed to take him inside without him screaming  because the stroller stopped moving :)  We saw lots of babies out and about while we were at Starbucks.  I love that we live somewhere that we can go out for walks in short sleeves in the middle of December!
I think that is all I have to confess for now :)  We have been taking pictures like crazy so I of course have to post a few here!
Konnor hanging out under the bridge

Konnor and Daddy
Big Yawn!

We love snuggling with Konnor
Bella  hanging out with her little brother

Do I really have to wear this silly giraffe hat?
Konnor and Mommy
Bathtime

Big Smiles!

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

I Love this time of year!

I can't believe it's already December.  I also can't believe that in just a few days Konnor will already be a month old!  Has it really already been a month?!  So crazy how time flies.  Everyone says it goes so fast, but its crazy how true that really is (although I didn't feel that way when he was awake at night screaming those first few nights).  Night time is starting to go a little smoother.  Some nights he sleeps for longer periods of time, and other nights even if he wakes up more frequently, he at least goes back to sleep easily.  This is wonderful since I still find it hard to take naps during the day.  He is staying up a little longer during the day which is fun, and the times he does sleep I usually end up doing stuff around the house or watching something, or trying to read a book instead of napping!
Pretty soon Christmas will be here!  I remember last year on Christmas day Korey said that the only thing that would've made it better was if we had a little one to share it with.  This year we have our little one!  And even though he won't remember anything about his first Christmas, we are definitely excited about it.  Korey and I are going to try and watch as many Christmas movies as we can from now until Christmas day.  We even made a list and have set the dvr to tape several Christmas movies!  I'm glad that Korey likes Christmas time as much as I do!  He made sure to put up all our lights outside already and every night when he gets home from work he plugs in the Christmas tree :)  The only thing we have left to do now is shopping.  We have not bought ANYTHING yet.  Usually I'm pretty good about trying to get most of the shopping done already, but this year we have something to distract us from Christmas shopping :)  I have a feeling I better hurry up and do some online shopping soon so that everything will arrive on time! 


Hopefully it won't take me as long to post something again, but sometimes its hard to find time or free hands!  For now I'll just add some more Konnor pictures until next time...