This morning we woke up to snowfall in Dallas! On December 2! If this is any indication of what’s to come this winter, I need to beef up Kaylee’s winter wardrobe. Right now she just rotates between the two fleece pajamas that fit her at the moment. I’m so afraid she’ll be cold!

This is the scene I had to leave this morning:

What I wouldn’t give to have crawled back in bed to snuggle with my two favorite people.

I opened the door to this:

Brrrrrrrr. By the time it was all over, there was accumulation on buildings and trees. And we’re supposed to get more on Friday! Did I move to snow country? Ha. Ha.

And this is what Miss Kaylee is up to right now:

Snug as a bug in a rug. Or in this case, a frog on a lily pad.

No, that’s not some ritualistic chant we are teaching Kaylee. It’s the marketing messages on the back of the box that contained her brand new Boppy play mat that the friendly neighborhood UPS man delivered tonight. Thanks to her great aunt and uncle and second cousins, she’s the proud owner of a lily pad she can call her own.

Before I got pregnant, I had visions of her “supervised play” also known as “tummy time” looking something like this:

Charming, huh?

Instead, her supervised tummy time looks like this:

and this:

She thinks tummy time is for chumps and would rather spit up on her new dragonfly boppy and chew on her fists.

Don’t worry, her head is pretty round. And she’s certainly in control … she screams bloody murder and we pick her up and rescue her from the horrors of supervised play.

For now, we’ll consider her a tummy time drop out. But we’re working on it …

**disclaimer** this post contains blatant statements of jealously. Don’t be offended if you are a stay at home mom. I warned you. **

I made a mad dash through Target on my lunch break today. I needed more water for Kaylee’s bottles, I had formula coupons to spend and a few other things were on my list. I meandered through the kid’s clothing section, wishing the cute fleece feetie pajamas were $4 instead of $8 and then made my way to the book section.

Standing in the middle of one of the aisles were two women in workout clothes chatting loudly about their charmed lives. A third middle of the day workout lady was in the card section and must have turned the corner to see her long-lost friends and this is the conversation that ensued:

“O my gosh. It’s so good to see you. Did you just work out too?”

“Yes, and I haven’t had a shower yet. You look better than me. At least you have a hat to wear.”

“Yeah, I didn’t shower either. Who has time to go home and shower? I have WAY too much to do.”

“Tell me about it. Little spoiled Susie wanted me to pick her up from school today and I told her I just don’t have the time. Besides, I can’t go there looking like this.”

I wanted to ram them with my basket.

1. Get out of my way. Target isn’t a social gathering place. Go out for skinny lattes or something instead of blocking the aisles for all of  us poor working moms who neither have time to work out, or chat up our friends in Target at 12:30 in the afternoon.

2. Don’t go to Target during working people’s lunch hour. It’s just annoying.

3. I seriously don’t care that you don’t have time for a shower after your fancy pants workout. I don’t have time to stop after work to pick up water for my kid’s formula before rescuing her from the daycare where strangers have been caring for her all day.

4. Yes, I’m jealous of your life. And at the moment, that is manifesting itself in this bitter tirade on my blog.

Guess what else?

My engagement ring fits again! Now I’m constantly banging it on stuff and am worried the diamond will fall out.

And Kaylee pooped in her whale tub last night. It was the funniest, yet most disgusting thing to date. She was flailing about gleefully … sending water cascading over the edges of the tub, then all of a sudden her face turned red and the water turned brown. God, I love that kid.

Wow, what a blur the past 8 weeks have been. I go back to work in a week (boo.) so hopefully I’ll have more time to blog then. What? Did I say that outloud?

Anyway, Kaylee’s October was full of adventures. She cried her way through the pumpkin patch:

She hung out with her grandma/mimi for a week while I had gallbladder surgery and recovered. That week was full of adventures. Like massive spit up face.

She smiles and coos at us regularly now. She’s found her hands and tries to eat her fist when she’s hungry. Which is ALL THE TIME. This girl can EAT! Poor baby also got her first stomach virus and was sick for her entire 6th week of life. That week was really rough on me, so I went to Iowa Park for some support from Nana and PawPaw and some SLEEP. We ended up spending Halloween weekend there, which really couldn’t have been more perfect.

Kaylee was Bacon and Eggs for her first Halloween. Remember way back when I was pregnant and sick and Kris and Geoff named the baby Bacon? We just couldn’t resist the opportunity to dress her up as such for Halloween. She can be a cute angel next year.

It was fun for her to meet her cousins. Next year is going to be a very busy Halloween with all these little ones running around!

This Tuesday Kris and I will celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary! We’re going to stay at the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine the following weekend while Kaylee parties with Nana and PawPaw. We can’t wait! Uninterrupted sleep! And Kaylee will get to meet Santa. Hard to believe the holiday season is upon us.

Where has the time gone? I’m still writing September in the date line on checks because in my mind, it’s still the middle of September, not nearing the end of October.

I can’t believe Kaylee is 5 weeks old already. She smiles and coos a little and is starting to giggle at us. She loves bath time and hates having to get dressed. Her favorite place in the house is chilling out on her changing table. She’s not really fussy, but still has her nights and days totally mixed up. She’s outgrowing newborn clothes and newborn diapers. She weighed 8lbs 10oz at her 4 week doctor’s appointment. She’s got a tight belly now and her little legs and arms have rolls that weren’t there when she was born. Her hair is getting darker and her eyes are still dark blue. She’s the love of my life … the person I’ve been waiting to love all my life and just didn’t know it yet.

I love watching her sleep because she makes the best faces. I love her little cry and know I could pick it out of a crowd of crying babies. I love watching Kris interact with her. He carries on the sweetest conversations with her. Plotting about only taking a bath once a month and telling her how pretty she is. He’s a natural at fatherhood and I’m so glad I could give him that gift.

It’s hard to remember our lives without Kaylee. She completes our little family in ways I never dreamed possible.

Things I’ve done so far that I never thought I’d do:

• get peed on at 11p.m. and realize there is nothing to do but laugh
• right after getting peed on, experience my first blow out diaper. again, nothing to do but laugh
• learn to function on 2 hours of sleep or less for multiple days in a row
• be thrilled at the sight of 2oz of milk that was just pumped out of me
• embrace feeling a little bit like a cow who gets milked every 3 hours
• learn how to send dangerous glares at strangers who even appear to look interested in coming to peer into my carseat and breathe on my baby
• learn now to insert a screaming baby into a carseat and get the carseat into the car. this requires much patience and lots of sweat.
• learn how to use a baby sling
• actually looking forward to a good night of marathon TV on Nick at Night
• bond with my husband over endless seasons of The Office and learning to laugh until you cry at 3 a.m. when the baby still hasn’t fallen asleep
• realize that it really is true that you don’t mind changing diapers when it’s YOUR baby. most of the time.
• learn how to send withering looks to neighbors who dare to look at me twice when I’m outside in my nightgown, with my hair a hot mess, pacing up and down the sidewalk with my baby in a sling, praying for her to go to sleep
• realize that I haven’t been outside in 2 or 3 days
• try for 3 days straight just to leave the house to go to the post office
• learn how to mostly function in a constant haze of exhaustion
• try to fall asleep with the hairdryer blowing because the noise keeps the baby asleep … but not being able to fall asleep because you keep worrying the hairdryer is going to catch on fire.

And most importantly:

I’ve learned what it means when people say they have never loved someone as much as they do their child. I want to feel her pain for her. I want her childhood to be full of fun, learning and all things magical and fantastic … because it is true, she only gets ONE childhood.

I want to remember these days when she is small enough to fit in a sling around my neck and her hands and feet are still so impossibly tiny.

I never knew this would be so hard. I never knew I could cry so much. But I know without a doubt that it’s all worth it.

Kaylee is having more periods of alertness every day. Too bad they are mostly in the middle of the night. We are so sleep deprived and I’m beginning to wonder if my days will ever consist of anything other than staying up all night, getting her to sleep around daybreak, napping until 10 or 1, feeding her, feeding me, feeding her again, trying to sleep but realizing I can’t, then looking at the clock and being shocked that it’s 5 p.m. already. Then we start the process over again.

Here’s a video we took last night of her wide awake and happy. She’s such a cutie.

Friday, September 11 was a rainy day in Dallas. The first cool front of the season was set to push through. I worked a regular day and came home to hang out with Kris. We decided to brave the storms that were about to hit and eat at Applebee’s. As we were eating the rain started. It was raining so hard when we left that the streets were already flooding. We joked that if I went into labor that night we might have to call the rescue boat to come take me to the hospital.

I went to bed around 8:30 or 9 and watched some TV. By the time Kris came to bed at 11:30 I was feeling sort of crampy. I didn’t think too much of it since I had been feeling like that off and on for a few weeks. By 2 a.m. I realized that I was having regular contractions. They weren’t terrible, but they were coming rather steadily. I woke Kris up at 2:30 and told him he probably wasn’t going to work Saturday duty that day. We started timing my contractions using contractionmaster.com and after about an hour realized there was a definite pattern. I got up and double checked my hospital bag and fixed my hair because I wasn’t going to the hospital with crazy bed hair! I was having to stop what I was doing and breath through the contractions when they hit at that point. They were coming anywhere from 2 to 6 minutes apart then.

I called my mom at 4 a.m. and she agreed that I was really in labor and should call the doctor. I think it’s funny now that she told me to take a hot shower and I said, “I can’t mom. I just fixed my hair!” I called the doctor at 4:26 a.m.

Kris packed all of my bags in the car and I wouldn’t leave until we took some pictures. You can tell I was still feeling pretty good at this point.

We drove through the rain and as we went my contractions started becoming less fun and more painful. I had a stress ball that I was squeezing with each one. We got checked in at Labor and Delivery and thought, ok, I’m admitted, right? Wrong. The nurse, a less than friendly lady named Ify, came in and checked me. I was only 3 cm dilated and 90% effaced. She told us they would watch me for a couple of hours and that Dr. Umholtz would be coming in around 8.

I suffered through more and more intense contractions for another hour and finally had to ask for something to take the edge off. I got a shot of something magical that made me a little loopy, but a lot more comfortable.

At 7 a.m. a wonderful nurse named Vickie walked in. It was shift change and she was going to be my nurse for the duration of the delivery. Thank God. But immediately after she walked in Kaylee’s heart rate started to drop with a contraction. Vickie rotated me from my right to my left side and Kaylee’s heart rate picked back up. Vickie told me that I would be admitted for sure now, because they don’t mess around with decelerations in fetal heart rates.

Vickie was really a gift from God. She kept us informed of every single thing that was going on, what drugs I was getting, why things were happening and the possibility that I might have to have a Csection to get Kaylee out fast if her heart rate kept acting up. By that time I was dilated to a 5 and she put in the orders for an epidural.

I know lots of people are scared of the epidural, but my experience was fantastic. The anesthesiologist, Larry, was a friendly, chatty guy. He told me everything he was doing as he did it, but I didn’t care. I was having a contraction and just wanted the pain to stop. And stop it did. Kris and Vickie were having to tell me when I was contracting. The only other way I could tell was by listening to Kaylee’s heart monitor.

Finally Dr. Umholtz came to check on me and I think I was about an 8 at that point. She told Vickie to get me started pushing once I got to 10, but warned me again that I might have to have an emergency Csection if Kaylee didn’t handle the contractions any better.

I was getting pitocin by then, so I dilated fast. Everything is sort of a blur from that point. Before I knew it, I was feeling a little pain with each contraction again and Vickie told me it was time to start pushing. After a few pushes, they called Dr. Umholtz back in to vacuum Kaylee out. I think I only had to push twice once she got there and she didn’t have to use the vacuum.

Kaylee was born at 12:51p.m. on September 12. I was so relieved to have her out safely. It was so scary to hear her heart rate drop with each contraction and watch multiple nurses rush in the room each time.

It turns out that the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. I’m so thankful that there were no further complications and she’s here with us now, safe and sound.

Once she was out, I was so excited, relieved, tired and drugged that my first question to Kris was “Does she have a head?!” I think I meant “Is the head out?” or “Does she have hair?” but that’s not what came out of my mouth.

She weighed 5lbs 10ozs and was 20.25″ long. She’s a tiny little peanut and we are head over heels in love. Her personality is priceless. She makes the best faces.

A week from today Kris and I will morph from being Kris and Tammy … married couple who enjoy sleeping late, watching movies, laughing at each other’s dumb jokes and pretty much doing as we please to Kris and Tammy … parents of Kaylee. Mom and Dad. A parental unit. We’ll be responsible for taking this little life that we created with some major help from God and molding it into something spectacular. This little person who will look like us will be ours to keep. We’ll be a “family.” A party of 3.

Personally, I believe we became a family the moment we said our wedding vows. We are the Gibson family, established November 10, 2007. Kaylee will just enhance our little family unit.

I think I’m in a state of denial right now. Sure, I realize that the squirmy wiggle worm who currently resides in my belly has to come out eventually. But I know I won’t actually realize how much my life is about to change until it actually happens. I was wrapping Christmas presents last Friday (nesting, if you will) and found it odd to sign the tag From: Kris, Tammy and Kaylee. Who is that second K? I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life figuring that out.

We’ll see you soon Kaylee Lynn. Let the adventure begin.

Our adventure to see the new Cowboys stadium began with picking up our tickets. They were supposed to be ready by 4 p.m. at the Sheraton hotel. Well, parking at the Sheraton was an adventure because little did we know, it serves as one of the $40 game day parking lots. After circling around a few times, and much confusion, we parked by the front door with a swarm of other fans who were walking in with StubHub papers that looked like mine.

Actual ticket pick up was a breeze. Give them your printed confirmation, show some photo ID, sign, and voila, you have tickets.

Then we made our way to the Hilton to check in. We discovered that the only shuttle left to the game left at 6:15. We weren’t sure if that would allow us enough time before the game to see the sights, so we decided to eat at Boston’s and then catch a cab.

Here’s Kris in our fancy hotel room.

We waited and waited for our pizza buzzer to go off at Boston’s … we took pictures:

We talked about the bar tender who was wearing a pair of pants that showed her butt crack. Kris wonders if she did that on purpose. I’m quite sure she did. Better tips from drunk fans. Finally we went to check on our buzzer. Yeah, it wasn’t working. We were seated immediately and I ordered a whole wheat Florentine pizza that was guaranteed to have 15 grams of fat or less. I ate half and got wicked bad acid reflux. But it tasted good in the moment.

Then we caught a cab that took us to Jerry’s World. Every business surrounding the stadium offered a parking space for an outrageous price. We were glad to pay $12 for the cab that dropped us off as close to the front door as you could get.

Forgive the face. Kris was whining about staring into the sun.

Everyone was stopping to take photos like these … I guess this place really is a tourist destination. When we walked in the front door, some crazy fan LITERALLY fell to his knees in awe. I wonder how many $8 beers he had already consumed.

It is a sight to see. The big screen is just that … BIG.

After wandering around on the first level for awhile we found the escalators that took us up and up and up some more to the 400 section. Here was our view of the field. Not bad really.

Then we found out we were in the wrong seats. So our view got a little less obstructed by the stair well and the beer guy who wasn’t selling his $8 beer.

The cheerleaders are very larger than life on the big screen. I bet that big screen is a self esteem nightmare for them. Not only are they in HD, so every little flaw shows … but they are 72 feet tall. I wondered how many of them have hair extensions and how bad their hair is tangled after the game with so much tossing about of the head that goes on down there. It was also entertaining to watch fans react when they saw themselves 72 feet tall.

After the third quarter, when the starters weren’t playing anymore Kris decided he wanted to walk around. So we did. We walked and walked until we got to this view of the big screen:

Yep, I walked that far and only got a picture of a 49er’s rear end. A larger than life picture. That could be because we got kicked out of the section we were loitering in. But not after Kris tried to stand his ground. The little old lady section attendant let us stand there for a few minutes, but then she finally turned to Kris and said, “You can’t stand here if you don’t have a ticket.” Kris said, “What, a ticket to stand?” Ahh, my smart ass husband. I started pulling on his arm, not wanting to get arrested at 9 months pregnant.

So we kept walking and found ramps that would take us down to the ground level. No problem, I thought. Ramps, just like at Kyle Field. Well … it felt like about 20 levels of ramps and by the time we got outside I was exhausted. Only to realize we were now at the WRONG END of this monstrous stadium, and our cab pick up location (yes, there’s only one place the cabs can pick you up) was at the other end. I wanted to cry. My feet hurt. My belly was hard. My baby was protesting. But I walked. And walked. And walked some more. Finally after about an hour (ok, maybe only 20 minutes) we found the taxi pick up line. Yes, there was a line. Just like Disney. Hurry up and wait.

So we waited. And this old geezer who managed to flag down a golf cart to give him and his old geezer friend a ride to the front of the taxi line tried to CUT IN LINE in front of us. Um, NO. Sorry gramps. Lose weight and lay off the alcohol. I’m 9 months pregnant and just waddled a million miles to get here … back of the line you go.

We finally made it back to the hotel where I took a hot shower and collapsed in the nice king size bed. Overall, it was a really fun night, made just a little more challenging with me hauling a bowling ball around under my shirt.

I’ll leave you with a little pricing info about Jerry’s World. We left with a bag of cotton candy and a souvenir Cowboys soda cup. That set us back $11.50.

But here’s what we learned thanks to a little video about the gigantic coolers at the stadium that they showed on the big screen:

Price of bottle of beer: $8

Number of bottles of beer sold on game day: 150,000

A little cell phone calculator math told us that means SOMEONE is taking in: $1,200,000 in beer sales every game day.

What recession?