Happy First Birthday Kennedy!!

Born November 16, 2009 at 9:32 a.m., 3lbs 5oz, 15.75 inches long, at 32 weeks 3 days (8 weeks early).

She is now ONE YEAR OLD!!!!  At her last appointment she weighed in at 17lbs 3.5oz, so I am guessing she is close to 18lbs now (we will know at her one year appointment on Friday). 

Happy Birthday Kennedy! You have come so far from where you started.

From small beginnings come great things, and you my sweet little girl have the world ahead of you, and it is your playground.  I know you will do wonderful and great things.

Thankful and lucky

We are incredibly thankful, appreciative, and grateful for the number of people who came out to celebrate Kennedy's first birthday with us.  We never got a chance to actually "share" her birth with everyone.  We were in what we like to call "lock down" until spring because of Flu and RSV season, and well the single fact alone that she was also 8 weeks early.

Our house was PACKED on Saturday with people who love and care for us and it warms my heart to know that everyone was there to help us celebrate.

I cannot thank everyone enough.

Here are a few pics of Kennedy enjoying some of the gifts everyone brought her.

I wrote this post when Kennedy was four months old - I think it still speaks volume today (November 14, 2010).

One year ago today, on November 14, 2009, was the day that we found out Kennedy was coming early. One year later we are lucky, happy, and thankful to have this beautiful happy girl.

Birthday Party Day!

Saturday was Kennedy's Birthday Party Day!  It went well, and I am incredibly thankful and grateful for everyone who came out to celebrate!

I will have this count as my Saturday post, and so I'll post a quick pick of her that morning getting ready for the day.  I'll do a bigger post on her party later. 

One year ago today on November 13, 2009 we were at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley, California just waiting for test results and more news.  At this point I was told I was there for good until Kennedy came.  I was getting blood drawn every 6 hours so that they could run my labs, and I was fearful as I had no clue what was to come. 

Almost time for the party!

Tomorrow is Kennedy's Birthday Party Day.  In our family we celebrate Birthday's and also have a Happy Birthday Party Day also.  Why you ask? Because my birthday is on Christmas Day and my family always wanted to make sure that I had my special day too.  So, tomorrow we will wish Kennedy a Happy Birthday Party Day to help celebrate her first birthday!

I am pretty close to having the majority of everything done.  I need to run a  few last minute errands, and make a gazillion cupcakes, but I cannot wait.  I have put a lot of time and effort into this because I have needed it to get me through this month, and I really really want to have a special celebration for Kennedy's first birthday because she has come so so far from the 3lb 5oz 15.75 inch little girl that she was a year ago on November 16, 2009.

A year ago today I was hanging out at home (after being discharged from the hospital in the early am), and I still did not feel right.

A year ago today I went back to the hospital because my blood pressure had gone back up, way up.

A year ago today the other OB in my office admitted me to the hospital, told me my diagnosis of Pre-Eclampsia, and said I was not going anywhere anytime soon.

A year ago today was when I really KNEW that my pregnancy was never going to be normal.

A year ago today I was transferred from Valley Care Medical Center to Alta Bates Summit Medical Center by ambulance.

But TODAY I will be working towards celebrating Kennedy's first year of life, and I cannot wait! 

One year ago today...

I can pretty much guarantee that today will be the start of a lot of one year ago today posts, because a lot happened in the next month... one year ago.

One year ago today I was sitting in my office preparing for trial to start on November 13, 2009.  I didn't feel very good, and even told our paralegal that something just felt off, I had a lot of pressure in my chest and head area, and felt "ill", as it was the only way I could describe it.  I had been feeling this way for a few days, but just chalked it up to nerves/anxiety over trial starting, and my GERD.

One year ago today I left work saying goodbye to everyone, telling them I'd see them tomorrow. (only to not return until March 1, 2010)

One year ago today I sat down at home and just knew, I mean really KNEW something was not right.  I talked with my sister (well sister-in-law) who is a nurse and told her I didn't feel right.  She told me to take my blood pressure.  When Austin got home he took me to CVS, and it was high, higher than normal.

One year ago today Austin drove me to the ER at Valley Care Medical Center where they admitted me right away because at that point my BP was even higher (178/108).

One year ago today was the start of when everything started to go wrong with my pregnancy (or at least when I was made aware of it).

Today though, I have to look at the upside, I can't dwell on it too much or I'll cry.  Today I have this smiling beautiful little girl that I love more than life itself.  I also have an amazing husband who supports me in everything that I do.

So, to them I say thank you and I love you :)

Bathtime

Kennedy has finally moved out of her infant tub and into the big tub.  We had been using the infant tub in the big tub, but we didn't have a stopper for the big tub (until I finally got off my butt and ordered one on Amazon - guess I was till on my butt then?) so we couldn't use it just yet.

However, this past weekend we finally made the big change and she LOVES it! She can move around more and has more freedom to play with her toys.  It is amazing how little she used to look in her infant tub, how big she got in it, and now she is in the big girl tub.  She is growing up too fast!

February 2010

September 2010

November 2010

Little Miss Independent

That is what Kennedy is sometimes.  She is very into playing on her own sometimes (which means getting into everything she can).  Luckily the two bottom shelves on our bookcase are hers.

                                                                      

Folding the laundry

Kennedy loves to help with the laundry.  She climbs inside the basket, or pulls out the clothes.  She also likes to play with the basket as well.  She is such a cute little helper :) 

Bad blogger

so apparently this blogging once a day thing isn't for me? I don't know.  I guess it was really just a busy weekend and I didn't want to take the time to sit down at the computer a blog.  So, this can count as my November 6, 2010 blog, right? 

Here is a pic:

The Mountain

I am a member of a preemie board, where I can connect with other preemie mothers.  They have helped me tremendously in the past year and I cannot thank them enough for their support.  I have come across various poems, stories, sayings while on that board, and I just love this one, so, I am sharing it with all of you.

The Mountain
Author: Jim Stovall
From: You Don't Have to Be Blind to See
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Publishers

There were two warring tribes in the Andes, one that lived in the lowlands and the other high in the mountains. The mountain people invaded the lowlanders one day, and as part of their plundering of the people, they kidnapped a baby of one of the lowlander families and took the infant with them back up into the mountains.

The lowlanders didn't know how to climb the mountain. They didn't know any of the trails that the mountain people used, and they didn't know where to find the mountain people or how to track them in the steep terrain.

Even so, they sent out their best party of fighting men to climb the mountain and bring the baby home.

The men tried first one method of climbing and then another. They tried one trail and then another. After several days of effort, however, they had climbed only several hundred feet.

Feeling hopeless and helpless, the lowlander men decided that the cause was lost, and they prepared to return to their village below.

As they were packing their gear for the descent, they saw the baby's mother walking toward them. They realized that she was coming down the mountain that they hadn't figured out how to climb.

And then they saw that she had the baby strapped to her back. How could that be?

One man greeted her and said, "We couldn't climb this mountain. How did you do this when we, the strongest and most able men in the village, couldn't do it?"

She shrugged her shoulders and said, "It wasn't your baby."

We love music!

Austin and I are pretty into music, we love all kinds of bands, and I think we connected over our love of music originally.  I think Kennedy has gotten our music bug.  Whenever she hears music she starts to groove wherever she is.  If she's sitting she starts to shake and smile, if she's standing she starts to bounce and laugh.  This past weekend while carving pumpkins I got out an old tortilla chip can from a wonderful restaurant in Santa Fe (Tomasitas) and she started playing the drums!  now when she see's the can she'll go right over to it and bang away.  I think I will be getting here this drum for her birthday.

She's standing all over the place!

Once Kennedy figured out how to pull herself up onto things she is constantly wanting to stand.  Sit her down, nope, she pulls to stand.  She will crawl over to anything and try and pull up.  On Halloween she even stood for a few seconds without holding onto anything, and I think she would have stood longer had we not gotten excited and she grabbed onto the toy so she could bounce and smile with us. 

So, without further ado, here are pics of her .... standing!

National Blog Month

So apparently November is National Blog Month   where we are supposed to blog each day.  Since I found out about this on November 2, I figure 2 posts for today should suffice? And yes, this will be my second post for the day. 

A cute picture or two of Kennedy to at least make the post good

What a difference a year makes

Last Halloween we headed out to the pumpkin patch and winery to take some maternity pics.  I was 30 weeks pregnant and thought it was a good time to go out and take the pics.  Most people told me to wait until 36ish weeks, but for some reason I was adamant that I had to have my pics done then (guess my intuition kicked in or I wouldn't have gotten any at all) 

Last Halloween:

This Halloween I have an 11.5 mnth old little girl who wasn't too happy about being put in her witches costume, but she was cute nonetheless.

What a difference a year makes!

Sorry for such a short post, i'll post more later.