O summertime how I love thee (sometimes)...

Today was a great summertime day. We went to a picnic at Tanglewood. Played, ate, and ate some more. Took naps in the nice AC and topped off the day by going to the pool. However all this was done on this HOT summertime day without our Steven, husband and father, and that just made it half the fun. I love my husband and I love to spend time with him (Quality Time is my love languages.) If you don't know what that means click here to learn more about Gary Chapman's 5 love languages! (It could change your love life or marriage!)

But since Steven is a youth pastor most of his summer days are spent hanging out with Youth (duh) or going away on trips. And today was the start of one of the 4 weeks that he will be gone this summer. I know this is not bad considering how often some men, husbands, or fathers travel but it just makes it even harder for me since this is my SLOWEST time of year, being a teacher and all. Anyways I guess I am thankful that this year I don't have a four week old baby by myself to get up with in the night and nurse. Now I have a 1 year old to play with all day!!! I'm also sad that Steven wont be here for Father's day, however once again I am also very thankful he is not fighting the war in Iraq or Afganistan...I can do 4 weeks!!!

Love you Steven and we BOTH miss you!!!



This picture is totally unrelated to this post....I just like it! (I do have some from the summertime picnic I just haven't uploaded them yet.)

Centering That Picture!!

I dont really know blogger and all the tricks of the trade yet....

HOW CAN I center that picture in the "header" where my blog title and description are?? It just doesn't look right! Will someone please help!

3 Posts in one day...what what!!

here are two side dishes we are having tonight with our beef tenderloin:

Potato Casserole:

2 baking taters-peeled and sliced
1 can cream of celery
dash or so of milk (or water) to thin out the soup
1 onion-sliced
Cheddar cheese, lots!
salt, pepper, and Tony's to seaon

Cut taters and onions in small slices. Layer in greased baking dish. Layer about 1/2 of the potatoes and onions, then sprikle with soup mixture and cheese. Layer again with taters and onions then add rest of soup mixture and top with cheese.

Bake at 350 or so for about 1 hour or until nice and bubbly.

Picture Before Cooking:





Second Dish:

Spincah Stuffed Onions - A good way to get a little green in your diet!

2-3 onions
1-2 packs of frozen spinach
parm cheese, I used both grated and fresh
Miracle Whip, I used the lite version
salt, pepper, garlic salt, tony's, and nutmeg to taste (I did not measure any of these)

Par boil onions with skins off for about 15 min. Let cool.

Cut tops and bottoms off par boiled onions. Place in baking dish.



Next, chop onion centers and sautee in butter along with the two packs of spinach.

Add spices to taste.




Then add the stuff that makes the nutritional value of the spinach decrease, I didnt measure, just added till it looked good.




Next stuff your original onions, (with centers removed, I think I forgot to mention that earlier.)

And bake for about 20 or so minutes at 350 just to warm them up! Here is the picture before baking!




These are one of Steven's favorites and I don't think he had even eaten spinach before he met me!! Hahah!

Ideas...

Here are just a couple ideas for me to remember things I want to blog about--

-Brayden, mommyhood, parenthood...
-Steven, marriage
-Family
-Gardening, Flowers
-Cooking
-Swimming lessons
-Adventures
-Faith
-Trips/Travel
-Teaching
-Math/Science
-Photography-I'm not a professional or anything but just got a sweet new camera!

Speaking of photography, and gardening, here are some pictures of flowers in our yard, taken with our sweet new Nikon D60. We love it!

I believe the flowers pictured here are petunia's, lantana (sp?), geraniums, and maybe some others!

9 months

Ok, Woah....long time since I have posted anything on here...But I think I am inspired to start back on this bloggin thing.

I just don't know what to blog about sometimes. I see all these cute blogs and people who blog about their children, their hobbies, cooking, cleaning, ANYTHING! And I guess that is key...you can truly blog about most anything. What has really drawn me in these last couple month to the bloggin world is reading about these families out there who are having major difficulties and struggles with their little newborn babies. It is just so sad, yet encouraging to see how they are dealing with these issues that arrise in life.

So here is to a new start back into the blogging world. I need some time to think about where to start and catch up on these last nine months since I last blogged!

Heres to just writing my thoughts out, documenting life (no matter how boring it may be), and just having a new hobby in general-- BLOGGING. I'm Back!


Now How do I make this thing cuter?!?!?!

How fast they grow...

3 days old...first day at home!



A week or so old...compare this one to the other bobby pics!

Rolling over already....Sept 9th

I have to admit I am a pretty proud parent. This week Bray has learned to roll from his tummy to his back. But I also have to admit that its because he sleeps on his tummy which pediatricians do not recommend since the risk of SIDS is higher when babies sleep on their tummies. This has been an inner struggle for me the whole time...doing something I knew was not the "best".

I did not plan on Brayden sleeping on his tummy...actually when my 14 year old student, (who became a mother 2 months before me) told me she put her baby to sleep on her tummy I was shocked! For the first couple weeks Brayden could sleep anywhere anytime. At about his fourth week of life he was getting a little harder to get down for naps during the day. One day I was at my parents house and I left and went to the gym while my mom was watching Bray. She put him down for a nap and when I came home I went to check on him and what did I find...my little baby sleeping soundly on his tummy. I was like "Mom! You know they are not supposed to sleep on their tummies!" She of course said yes but that me and my two sisters all slept on our tummies. (If you were born during the 70's or 80's like me, that was a time period where doctors told mothers to let babies sleep on their tummies.) So anyways after this nap where Brayden slept great we slowly transitioned him to sleeping on his stomach. We learned that Brayden actually wanted to be and liked his tummy better. At night we would lay him in his crib on his back for a while. He would be fine and so we would let him lay there for 30-40 minutes. Eventually he would start "talking"...we would come in flip him over to his tummy and his eyes would literally shut. Now when we lay him down on his back at night he immediately starts fussing or "yelling" at us--and I believe this is his way of saying come turn me over. Anyways, all this to say that I have learned as a parent I decide what is best for my kids. Sometimes you just have to do what works. Brayden sleeps great on his tummy, takes good naps, and sleeps through the night. So ultimately yes I am doing something that is not recommended, however I think if I did what was recommended, I think I would have a baby who never sleeps!!! My life as a mother would be a whole lot more stressful and crazy if he did not sleep well. Ultimately I just have to trust God that my little Bray will be ok, and God already knows the whole course that Bray's life will take.

All this to say...babies who sleep on their tummies roll over sooner then babies who sleep on their backs. Last weekend I was looking through my own baby book where my mother chronicled that one night she had to get up with me two times because I had rolled over and could not go back to sleep. It was so funny because that next week I had to do the same thing with Bray. At 4 am one morning I heard him talking...and I thought hmmm, this is odd. I went in and I saw the cutest little face staring up at me. I was so shocked I ran back into the bedroom and called for Steven to come here. Of course Steven thought something was wrong and I had to calm him down. It was so cute to see little Bray there in his crib looking up at us! We were such proud parents. (Its amazing at how you get so excited about such little things!) Congrats Brayden on your accomplishment. (Now you just need to learn how to get back to your tummy so we don't have to get up in the middle of the night! :-)






Brayden doesn't get tummy time, he gets back time!



He loves splishy splashy time! All wrapped up!

3 months already!

Wow, I cannot believe I have already been a mom for three months. The time has flown by and I have learned so much. I have absolutely loved every (mostly every) minute of motherhood to my precious baby boy. Things I have learned:

-That I no longer come first--Brayden's needs take precedence to my own. If I am hungry, but its time for him to eat, he gets to eat first.
-Patience-Not to wish each stage away just so he'll be at the next
-Time management-how to get ready in less than 20 minutes or how to look decent without taking a shower
-How to do things with one hand
-Unconditional love-Even through all the crying, spit-ups, middle of the night feedings, diapers, stressful moments, moments of not know what to do I love this boy with all of my being. It doesn't matter if he has been crying 1 hour straight I would still do anything for him. I truly cannot express the love that a parent has for their child, besides unconditional...and just think, how Christ loves us even more than we can love our own children!

Brayden is now three months old and he is doing great! He in about 25 inches long and we are guessing somewhere around 13 lbs. He weighed 11 lbs. 10 oz at 9 weeks and we have not weighed him since. He is sleeping through the night (praise God) and has been since about 8 1/2 weeks or so. He is smiling and giggling at us now and it is so fun to see his personality coming out. He loves looking at people and bright lights or colors. Papa Rick Reed can get him to talk the longest and it is so cute to see. Here are some recent pictures of Bray around three months!

More of the Story...

Anyways it was getting near the end of school, I was pregnant, huge, and miserable. I was so ready to be away from school and the kids that I prayed every day this would be the day our baby boy would make his entrance. Everyone talks about the first few weeks of pregnancy being so hard but no one tells you how bad the last few weeks are.

Well it was a Wednesday night and Steven had church so I watered my whole yard and then went to sleep. I was planning on going to our end of the year field trip with my school kids the next day. (Steven was planning on going too, incase anything happened with me.) About 1 am I woke up and felt really hot and sweaty. I asked Steven to feel under me because I thought my water had broke. Well as it turns out it hadn't...we had just put a new plastic water-proof mattress cover on our mattress and it was just making me sweat really bad. So with that I turned over and went back to sleep. Exactly 2 hours later at 3 am I woke up with the strangest feeling. I woke Steven up and said, "Steven I think my water just broke!" With that announcement he popped straight up out of bed. I said its ok, we can take our time I feel fine. So we did. We called the doc and he said to go ahead and go to the hospital. We showered and got a few things together and at 4 am we were headed to Forsyth. The ride to the hospital was surreal...knowing that we would eventually have a child in our arms was crazy.

I had not actually started contracting very badly so I was able to relax and walk in the hospital calmly (more so than Steven). We called our parents and announced the news that we were going to go have our baby and they were both ecstatic. Well, we checked into LDR and I was put in triage for forever since I was not actively contracting. Finally after five boring hours and some prodding with nurses I was put into a nice LDR suite. At Forsyth they have recently re-done the LDR rooms and they are really nice and huge. About 9:15 am they came and checked me and decided to start me on Petocin because I really was not in labor. Petocin is a drug that helps induce labor and make your body contract. I had thought I would try to be drug free and forego the epidural, however they say that Petocin makes your contractions worse. So I had an epidural at about 3:30 that afternoon because my contractions were getting really intense. Fortunately the Petocin was able to help my body relax enough and it actually sped up my dialation! However it also made Brayden's heart rate drop once I was about 8 cm. I remember the machine thing started beeping a nurse popped in immediately. She looked at what was going on and then explained it to me. When she left I started crying and said that I just wanted this baby out now. They ended up taking me off of petocin for a hour or so to monitor Bray. Then the doctors decided they had to put me back on it to help my labor get to the last stage. Once I was about nine cm, they came in and checked me and said that Brayden had turned and he was facing the wall instead of down. I was really upset at this point. Here I had labored to 9 cm and I thought I was going to end of having a C-section. I remember praying for God to turn that baby and get him here. Finally around 8:30 on Thursday night I suddenly felt this overwhelming urge to push. Steven's mom and my mom were in the room and Steven looked over to them and said "See ya when the baby gets here." They left and I pushed for 1 hour and 7 minutes and Brayden was born at 9:47 pm! He weighed in at 7lbs. 1 oz. and 21 inches long. Here are some pics of the fresh Brayden Ackley.



Me feeling pretty good and texting friends and family to update them.





Brayden a little more cleaned up.

First Born hugs!




N......C.....State. NC STATE!



Getting him warm in the hospital.



Daddy dressing Bray to go home!



Bray and mommy ready to go home!

7 weeks already!

Whew, this last seven weeks have flown by yet been very slow and tiring. I just now have had the time to sit down and write and reflect on these past two months....so lets start from the end of school.

I was measuring pretty large, actually I was measuring two weeks over what I should have been which was ok but the doctors wanted to check things out. So I had another ultrasound because they thought baby Bray was extra huge. What ended up being the case was that he was normal size when they measured me but I had a whole lot of extra amniotic fluid in there which was making me so big. They said everything looked ok but they would do anther ultrasound in a week. (At this point I was about 38 weeks along.) In the meantime I talked to one of my med school friends (Jenn Wilson) and told her of my latest pregnancy news. Around the same time Casey did some research on extra amniotic fluid in the womb and the results did not look so good. Jenn also did not tell me of all the problems associated with this. Casey was quite worried and Jenn told me after Bray arrived safely of all the horrible conditions such as the intestine's of the baby developing outside of his abdomen.

Here are a couple pictures of how huge I was. Things that were said to me a million of times by all sorts of different people..."Are you sure you are not having twins"...."You still have not had that Baby"...."You look like you are going to POP!" Wow, being a huge pregnant person taught me SO many things NOT to say to a pregnant woman. Advice to all: Just say wow you look so great or cute, don't comment of her size! :-)




I will have to finish my entry later because Bray is waking up and it is time to eat!