Wanted to post some pictures from our trip to Indiana this past weekend. (1) Kaiya (2) Mom & Kaiya (3) Dad & Kaiya (4) Aaron (Tony's brother) & Kaiya (5) Bekah & Kaiya

Tony's Grade

Just wanted to let all of you who have been praying for Tony's midterm that he had to make up from when Kaiya was born. He FINALLY got the grade for the class back. He passed the class with a C! We both would have been happy with a D+. :) That would have been enough to pass, so we are pleasantly surprised with his grade.

Pictures from our weekend home will be coming soon. Still trying to fall into a routine with being a working mom! :)

More misc. pictures

Here are just a few pictures that we took over the weekend. Ruthie was so proud of the cake that we made for Easter she had to get a picture of it. :)

Easter Sunday

Here are the pictures from Easter! We had company, which was really nice! Our friends Austin and Kristina came for the weekend and we had a great time. After church we joined some other couples for a late lunch and then relaxed the rest of the evening.

Botanical Gardens

On Wednesday, Ruthie and I went down to the Botanical Gardens with Kaiya. All of the tulips are in bloom and they were so pretty. We tried taking some pictures of Kaiya in the flowers -- and weren't too successful. Mainly because we were trying not to get caught by anyone working in the gardens. We didn't think they would appreciate me plopping Kaiya in the middle of the flower bed. :) In the picture with the pink flowers Kaiya isn't too happy with us because we decided that laying the blanket down was too much of a hassle and took too long (again - not wanting to get caught...) so we just plopped her down in the mulch. She didn't like that so much. And I'm still trying to forget about the little pieces of mulch that were in her diaper when we got home. :) Bath time!

Easter Dress

I found an Easter dress for Kaiya at Wal-Mart! It's a preemie dress so it actually fits her. And the weather is supposed to be in the mid to high 80s so I don't have to worry about finding anything to put over it. Anyway -- thought the picture was kind of funny. Aunt Ruthie says this is not a good sign -- I may not be able to get her in dresses very often. I'm still holding out hope. She does make it seem like torture, though...

Sleepy baby

See post below for info on these pictures. Now... it also looks like we put Kaiya to bed without clothes on. Not true... she just manages to wiggle right out of her clothes too... :)

Interview and more...

I was watching Kaiya this morning as she was sleeping in her crib and while I was standing there she managed to wiggle herself up so far on the sleep positioner she was sleeping on that her head fell off the back of it. So like a good mom, I ran for the camera to take a picture before fixing her. :) She slept through the whole thing.

This morning I had my interview at Westminster. I think it went well. I left feeling like it was really easy -- should it have been so easy? They asked me to share my testimony, asked what I think the needs of middle schoolers are, why I want to work with middle schoolers, why I chose counseling as a profession, how long will we be in St. Louis (ahhhh!!), and then how comfortable am I with the Reform Christian theology -- That was the hardest question because I don't know a lot about it -- and really didn't think it was a whole lot different than what I'm used to. So I told them that I don't know a lot about it, but I feel like if this is where God directs us that I'm very open and will see it as a learning process. They seemed to like that answer. And that was really about it. As I finished, the lady that I met with a couple weeks ago told the others involved in the interview that I came very highly recommended from several individuals. I really felt like she went to bat for me during the interview as well. She commented after asking me the question about the theology that when she was first hired at the school that she didn't know much about it either. Almost reassuring me that it wasn't going to be a big issue.

They said they would let me know as soon as possible. I'm hoping by the end of next week or beginning of the following. I would appreciate the prayers!

That's about it for us! We don't have much planned for this weekend -- actually I should say "I" don't have much planned for this weekend. Tony has tons of school work to do. Still playing catch up from the week he missed from Kaiya. He's pretty stressed out with all the exams, etc. And he sweetly took the night shift last night so I could be well rested for my interview today. Kaiya decided she wanted to stay awake until 3 a.m. for him too. Probably cause she misses him so much when he is at school during the day and studying at night. :)

I'm having trouble getting the pictures to post... so I'm gonna post this paragraph and try the pictures in a separate post...

Sunbathing

Here are some pictures we took today with Aunt Rebekah. It is gorgeous out -- probably in the 70s and so we took Kaiya outside to get her in the sun a bit. It will help her jaundice go away quicker. She turned into quite the little sunbather.

Sleep Deprevation

Thought this was a cute one snoozing with Dad. We are all SO sleepy!! I think I took this picture right before running some errands with Ruthie. While we were out and about Ruthie asked me what time Tony had to work and I said, "Oh, he's actually probably on his way right now. He has to be there at 4." Ruthie looks at me like I've lost my mind. "Umm... Rachel... he can't leave the baby by herself!" Yes, we are definitely suffering from sleep deprevation. For a good 20 minutes, I totally forgot that I had a kid. We rushed home to find Tony and Kaiya in the same exact positions that we left them in. I woke Tony up and he headed off to work 15 minutes late. :)

The other picture is after a bath...

$ Bags

Since they won't let me sleep in the crib... the stroller will have to work.

First Bath

Tonight Kaiya had her first bath... She wasn't too squirmy -- and only fussed a little bit. She smells much better now and we're hoping that the extra stimulation will help her sleep for a long time tonight. She's still awake from it now and Tony's trying to keep her awake a little bit longer. We can only hope... :)

Here are the pictures from the bath

In the words of Stevie Wonder "Isn't she lovely?"

We've been enjoying seeing Kaiya's eyes more lately. After eating, she is usually awake for 5 minutes or so.

Curiosity did what to moneybags?

Here's a picture of Money Bags getting his first look at Kaiya. :) He's still not too sure about what she is -- he only knows that we stay up all hours of the night now.

The other picture is one I took while Kaiya was screaming her head off. He's learned quickly what to do to when this happens.

I want to be in the light.....

Like most premies, kaiya was a little jaundiced so she has to have light therapy done.

One big happy family.

After the ped team has checked her out, rachel gets to hold her while a proud papa bear looks on!

Insurance carriers

Just b/c kaiya was so early, there was a pediatric team on standby in the room with us. Once she free and clear they wanted to check her out. You may notice in the picture that i have scrubs and gloves on. I had asked the doctor if i could be involved in the labor/delivery process and he said that it was fine. (on a sidenote, his flexibility is one of the reasons why we chose him) Rachel had a doula that was much more sensitive and helpful than I would of been, so we were thankful that the hosipital provided one free of charge. It allowed me to work with the doctor while someone was there to help encourage/coach rachel through the process. Once she crowned and the face came out, the doctor suctioned the mouth and nose and then helped coach me on what to do for the rest of delivery. I was definitely pumped!

EARLY DELIVERY!!!

We have a new baby girl! She surprised us by being nearly 6 weeks early. Kaiya Grace weighed in at 5lbs and 6 ounces and was 18 and 3/4 inches long. She is a little jaundiced but she is doing really well. Mom did well throughout the whole labor/delivery process. She did it naturally and didn't go with the epidural. Her determination was awesome! It was also great to see Rachel's chiropractic care paid off. We learn in school how it helps the labor/delivery process but its reassuring to see how it works in a practical application of the knowledge learned. The doctor's/nurses/doula all commented (several times) how well rachel was doing and how quick the delivery process went.

March 12th was definitely an interesting night for us. Rachel was having "noticeable" contractions early in the afternoon. She then lost her mucous plug around 1:30. I'm thinking at this time that its not really that big of a deal. Losing the mucous plug can happen a couple of weeks before the baby is ready. We watched/timed her contractions from then on just to make sure. I must confess that I thought she was having braxton hicks and didn't think there was much to make a fuss over. She ended up having her water break around 6:45 but her contractions were about 7-8 minutes apart at that point and they were getting further apart. Knowing that most hospitals are just going to tell you to wait till there 5 minutes apart there wasn't a whole lot we can do. Well... then the water broke and it was time to get to the hospital:) We arrived at the hospital around 7:30 (after crazily running around the house (along with rachel's sister ruthie who came to help) b/c we didn't have anything ready yet. We thought we still had about 6 weeks. She labored in triage for about an hour and a half, then they took her to her delivery room where she labored for about and hour and 20 minutes and then she spent about a hour doing all the pushing and before we knew it she was here! I'm including several different pictures for those who aren't able to come out and see her!

What's in a name?

Kaiya Grace.........We have already told a good majority of you the name we picked out. We wanted to provide a "background check" for those who didn't get to hear why we chose the name we did. We considered a few different criteria in picking our name. We liked uniqueness but it wasn't demanded. We knew we wanted to stick with one letter while we were picking our names. Rachel came from all "r's" (i.e. Rachel, Rebekah and Ruthie) while I came from all "a's" (i.e. Anthony, Aaron, Andrew). So, after looking at different letters we decided we would go with "K" as our go to letter:)
Some people have asked if her middle name was chosen b/c of Grace College. Let me just reaffirm that the college was not the source of inspiration for our choice. We both walked away from Grace caught between bitterness and just wanting to get away from being affliated with them. The middle name was more just a coincidence than any type of dedication.
Our final criterion in picking our name was the meaning of the name. If you were able to attend our wedding we hope you were able to see that our faith plays such a large role in our life. There is nothing more important to us than Jesus. We thought what an honor it would be to name our first child after two of the most important pillars of what we believe. Kaiya means forgiveness. The cleaning of our slates, forgiving the multitudes of shortcomings. Grace--God's venue to provide a way to reach him that we do not deserve nor are capable of reaching without Him. God's love for us is where the source of these two blessings flow from but these two are what's actually bestowed upon everyone who calls on Jesus' name to be saved. It is our hope that Kaiya will embrace the meaning as she continues to grow and be the blessing that we are already so thankful for!
Ephesians 1:7-8 In Him (Jesus) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.

Doctor's Appointment

Went to the doctor yesterday and it was a slightly depressing appointment. :) He measured her head, belly, & femur and gave us an estimated fetal weight. She's weighing in at 4.8 lbs. His comment when he was trying to measure the head was, "big head." Just what every pregnant lady wants to hear, right? I shot Tony a glare after this comment -- we all know he's the one responsible if she has a big head. Just determined to make my job more difficult, I guess. :)

The measurements also gave us a different due date than we have been planning on. The ultrasound machine calculated it at April 13th, a week ahead of schedule. At which point Tony shot a glare back at me... (His exams begin the 14th and go until the 19th) Oops! So... the doctor didn't officially change our due date, he just said that she is a good sized baby already -- in the 75th percentile.

So the question is... Do we pray that she comes on the original due date so Tony will have his exams out of the way. Or... Do we pray that she comes on the early due date so Rachel doesn't have to deliver such a big baby.

Sigh... :)

Baby Shower

Just wanted to post a couple pictures from the baby shower yesterday. This is the shower that the girls from Logan had for us. Picture of girls starting with Ruthie, Jen (had a baby 4 wks ago - in school with Tony), me, Alli (organized shower, married to Chris), Whitney (wife of Michael), Sarah (wife of Adam), and Maurine (Nate's wife).

It was really nice -- got the Diaper Champ to take care of the smelly diapers, lots of misc. stuff like towels, blankets, feeding stuff, onesies, etc. And then some cash and Target giftcards!

My Saturday Project!

Well, here's what I accomplished on my Saturday afternoon... I was browsing at this store called Garden Ridge which is very similar to Hobby Lobby and found a boring little lamp without a price tag. I've been looking for a lamp that I could put in the baby's room, but hadn't been able to find anything that I really liked. I asked the gal working if she knew how much the lamp was. We couldn't find any others like it, so she told me to find the least expensive lamp they had and take it up front w/ me when I checked out and tell the cashier to scan the tag on the cheap lamp. I hunted and hunted until I found the cheapest lamp -- $5.99. Then I picked out some pink ribbon and came home. I made slits with an Xacto knife and wove the ribbon through the shade. And... ta da! A totally adorable lamp for the baby's room! (One picture is with the flash and the other is without -- the lamps true colors are more cream like the picture w/out the flash.)

Hello Summer!

Just wanted to let everybody know that our current temperature here in St. Louis is 75 degrees.

I stepped outside just about an hour ago to take in a little bit of the sunshine. Isn't March supposed to come in like a lion? Well, I better not speak too soon... I just wanted to make a few of you jealous -- Laura in particular. :)

By the way.... Here is the link to the school that I've applied for a counseling position with: www.wcastl.org

I have a meeting with the Head of Guidance next Wednesday at 7:15 a.m. to just get an overview of the position and ask her any questions that I have. I'm working on thinking up something really intelligent to ask. :) Suggestions are welcome... It's not an official interview or anything, just more an opportunity for her to put a face with my name.

Please be praying!!