8/18/08 - More pictures of Makenna...finally
Poor thing nearly fell asleep in her exersaucer. But then there are times when she is having the time of her life.
Cristi thinks she looks her cutest when her hair is wet. She also thinks she looks more like me when her hair is wet. I'm guessing it has something to do with the bald head look.
This is a more recent picture of this picture. She has gotten quite a bit bigger from that last one.
She just looks so cute. The first picture is her in an outfit that her Mimi bought for her down in Mexico I think. The other is her attempting to eat her feet which she likes to do a lot.
Raider is no longer scared of her. In fact, they are both getting really interested in each other. Raider is realizing that she isn't going away, and Makenna is realizing that he is a little bit different from Mom and Dad. I can't wait until she becomes mobile and see Raider's reaction to that.
We love hanging out with each other. Apparently when I was younger, I loved sleeping in my dad's armpit...I guess Makenna comes by it naturally. The other was taken just the other night. You can't really see it in the picture, but as I was holding her, she just put her hand behind my back and rested it on my neck. Then she just leaned over and put her face right on mine.
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1 Comments - Leave one yourself6/24/08 - Makenna is a doll
No captions...just pictures.
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0 Comments - Leave one yourself6/6/08 - Makenna is awesome
So the other night, it was my turn to feed at 2 in the morning, so I got up and headed into her bedroom to feed her the 2 ounces from a Dr. Brown bottle. These bottles are made to mimic the flow of milk from the mother, which means that it is incredibly slow in comparison to most other bottles.On average, it takes about 20 minutes from the time I get out of bed, feed her, swaddler her, get her back to sleep and get back into bed.
This night was slightly different. After about 10 minutes, I noticed that the milk didn't seem to be getting lower. I pulled it away and checked and sure enough, there were still 2 ounces in the bottle. I checked the nipple and it had gotten jammed or clogged or something. I had to go get a new nipple and start over. I should also mention that this particular night, I had not gotten to bed until a little after midnight...I was tired.
Once we got the bottle figured out, we sat back down and she got about halfway through when she decided she wanted to go back to sleep. There are nights when she is just so tired, she doesn't want to eat at all. Usually, if you sit her up, play with her ear, move the bottle around, you can get her to start eating again. No more than 2 or 3 of these moves is required to get her to finish the bottle.
This night was slightly different. It took close to 15 minutes of constant stimulation to get her to finish the last half of her bottle. This puts the entire feeding time to right around 35 minutes or so. I should also mention that I new that I had to get up again at 5:00 to go to work...I wanted sleep.
I should also mention that prior to completing the bottle, she decided that then and there was the best time and place to complete load her diaper. How anyone can sleep through an explosive pants filling like she did is beyond me. Normally, Cristi has changed her diaper and all I need to do is swaddler her and put her down.
This night was slightly different. Of course, I had to change her diaper (which is not at the top of my list of favorite things to do) because Cristi would have been pretty upset if she checked her diaper before the 5:00 and saw that I had left a big o' pile of poopy in her diaper. So...by this point, I'm pretty upset because all I want to do is get some sleep. I had zero patience and was tempted multiple times to just give up the whole process, wrap her up and put her in her swing for the rest of the night.
Well...that was until I laid her down to change her diaper. She looked up at me with those big eyes of her...tilted her head to the side a little...and laughed. For some reason, she thought it was the funniest thing to her. Well, if you've ever seen a baby smile/laugh...you can't do ANYTHING but look back and smile and laugh with them. At that point, I didn't care if I had to stay up the rest of the night, that little smile was the most incredible thing I had seen. She's been smiling for a while now, but the whole situation leading up to that smile made that one just so much more special.
So before I finished changing the diaper, I just leaned over and played with her for a bit. She just kept smiling and what I believe were laughs. When all was said and done, I got her wrapped up and sat in the chair for probably a good 5 or 10 minutes just looking at her...all the while she was asleep.
It doesn't change the fact that I was a zombie the next day at work, but I'm in so much trouble when she gets older if she figures out that her smile makes melt in a split second.
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1 Comments - Leave one yourself6/3/08 - Almost 8 pounds
Cristi took Makenna to get weighed yesterday, and the little girl has gained 9 ounces in the last five days or so to put her at 7 pounds 14 ounces. That puts her at a pound gained in just under 3 weeks. At the rate she is going, she should reach her fighting weight in about 20 days based on cristi's calculations. 0 Comments - Leave one yourself5/20/08 - Makenna has gained the weight
Since last week, Makenna has gained 8 ounces. The goal was 6 ounces so the doctor was very pleased. He said he is comfortable with Cristi continuing breastfeeding and no formula supplement will be needed. He did say that when we go back in two months, that he would like to see her around 10 pounds or so. That means that Cristi's schedule is going to have to continue to be very frequent which means in turn that she is going to not get much sleep for a while.The biggest thing that we learned from this is that it is very important that young babies eat at least every two hours when breastfed. They should also be woken at least every three hours at night to feed, regardless if they act hunger or not. We realized recently that many of the signs that Makenna was giving off were actually signs of hunger and not sleepiness. Since we started listening better, she has more energy and is a much happier baby.
Thank you for everyone who was praying for us and thinking about us. We still need prayer as it will be difficult to keep up this feeding marathon and make sure Makenna is growing the way she should.
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1 Comments - Leave one yourself5/14/08 - Makenna's doctor update
Yesterday afternoon, Makenna had her second wellness checkup. She is in perfect health from head to toe with the exception of her weight. She currently weighs 6 pounds 14 ounces (12 ounces without a diaper) which means she has only gained a total of 2-4 ounces since birth.There is no question that she is eating. Cristi feeds her every three hours, sometimes two. For some reason, she just isn't getting the calories and fat that she needs.
For the next week, Cristi is going to start feeding every two hours and she will start waking her up every three hours or so to feed her at night. The goal is to gain roughly 6 ounces by next Tuesday. If she can do that, we won't have to start adding two ounces of formula after ever feeding.
This is really important to Cristi that she be able to breastfeed only, so please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. After these couple of trials, if Makenna is still not gaining weight, we will have to run more tests to see what's going on.
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0 Comments - Leave one yourself5/6/08 - Today is a good day
So far, today has been great. I have nothing really to share with anyone, just that it's a good day.A while back Cristi had some pictures taken of makenna, and they are now on the photographer's website.
Makenna pictures
I haven't been posting, simply because I've been pretty busy. Softball has been awesome and lawncare, although not taking up ALL my time, has consumed a fair amount. On top of that, I haven't really had anything to share. Also, with the PayPerPost deal, for some reason, they lowered all my rankings so I am no longer eligible for any of the offers. That really sucks, because I don't know what happened to cause my rating to drop. 0 Comments - Leave one yourself
4/28/08 - We had a great weekend
This past weekend was Makenna's first weekend to be out in the world. Last Thursday was her first day out with a trip to Cristi's doctor's appointment, Corky's for dinner with her dad (ME), and a trip to her Mimi's office.But Saturday, she went to Home Depot, Lowes, Wal-mart, back to Lowes and Home Depot and finally to Sam's. I was shopping for lots of tools for GrassGuys, so she got to come along. She even got to ride in a wheelbarrow. We forgot the camera, so we didn't get a picture of it. She did really well, sleeping for most of the day and only had to eat once, right before we went in Wal-mart. We left the house at 11:00 that morning (having gotten up at about 8:00 to start getting ready to go) and didn't get home until around 4:00 or 5:00 that evening. We got a lot done, but we were exhausted.
When we got home, I had to put my new tools to use, so I spent the rest of the day working in the yard and flower bed. I've still got several hours of work to go on the flower beds, but everything is really starting to look pretty nice. I've got to prune, weed, till and finally put down a layer of mulch. It will take the rest of the summer I think to get it looking really good, but this was a start and mainly just an effort to get it to a manageable position.
Saturday was the draft, and my beloved Raiders came through and picked up Darren McFadden. I was hoping it would happen, but I just knew something was going to get screwed up. When McFadden declared, my biggest fear was he would get picked up by the Cowboys or the Patriots, but then he is now playing (assuming a contract can be agreed upon) for my favorite team. I'll probably have to order a jersey and get some collectible items for my room. I think what would be awesome is if I could find a half jersey with one side being Raiders and the other being the Razorbacks. It would have to be Raiders black and Razorback red, but that would be an awesome jersey.
Tuesday, Grand Theft Auto IV comes out. I won't be getting it yet, as I want to make sure it's going to be as good as everyone is hoping. From what i've read to this point, it sounds like there is more online stuff than actual game play. I'm hoping that is not the case, but considering I'm hoping to get Live in the next month or so, it wouldn't be the end of the world. 0 Comments - Leave one yourself
4/21/08 - more new Pictures
More pictures of Makenna. I have this fear that Cristi and I think we have the cutest baby in the world, but instead, she's only cute to the two of us. It doesn't bother me, but I just hope that as she gets older she stays/becomes a beautiful young girl. With piece of my thoughts, here are a few more pictures of the darling child.
She looks her cutest when she's sleeping. That might have something to do with the fact that she isn't crying during that period. Whatever the case, Cristi loves it when she falls asleep with her pacifier and then it slowly starts falling out. She finally grew into one of her hats, so we put it on her and she thugged out for a while.
Because of her yellowish color, we're supposed to keep her in the sun for 10 minutes at a time several times a day. It was really bright on Saturday, so we had to put on her shades, so she just chilled as she sun bathed. Sunday, she was finally fed up with all the pictures, she just couldn't take it any more.
Finally, so far she is slowly becoming daddy's girl. I don't remember the first picture, but I really like it. The second one was right when Cristi got home Sunday afternoon after my first "babysitting by myself" couple of hours. The picture you see here is a summary of what we did. She slept, I played XBox360, it worked out well.
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0 Comments - Leave one yourself4/18/08 - Sleeping, Baby acne and a yellow color
I think it's been a while since I've updated everyone on how Makenna has been doing. As of three nights ago, we have decided to completely alter the way we are putting her to sleep. Previously, she went to bed when we did (around 11:00 or midnight). The problem we ran into is that it took her 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep which meant that we didn't get much sleep at al.We changed this to start putting her down to bed between 7:00 and 8:00. She has been getting to sleep around 9:00 every night and sleeping for a good 6 hours. At that point, Cristi wakes up, feeds her, changes her diaper and gives her to me to swaddler her. After that, she goes right back to sleep and wakes up around 8:00 for a total of about 9-10 hours. We have also started putting her in her own room, in her swing (which I will be reviewing, hopefully this weekend) where she won't be bothered by the noise of the TV or Cristi and I talking before we fall asleep. This has worked out well for ALL parties involved.
Ever since Makenna was about a week old, she has had pretty bad baby acne. Cristi has assured me that this is normal until the last couple of days. It has gotten much, much worse and she said she thinks it might be insert-skin-condition-with-a-name-I-can't-spell-or-pronounce. It's not a big deal, but if it is the case, it would require us to apply a cream to her skin to help it go away.
Also, Cristi mentioned a while back that she thought Makenna was still a little yellow. Her eyes have been yellow since she was born, but I just assumed that was due to being a baby and not having eye color yet. Some of her friends came over and also commented that she looked a little yellow. With that said, I think Cristi might try to take her to the doctor in the next few days to see if we can get a true medical diagnosis and treatment for these things.
In somewhat related news, Cristi has possibly found a position at work that will allow her to actually make more money than she is now, work just about half as many hours and get to be at home Monday through Friday to stay with Makenna. This of course will greatly cut into the amount of time that she and I would get to spend together, but I think it's definitely worth a trial run. It's possibly that this position will be available for her before she goes back to work.
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0 Comments - Leave one yourself4/12/08 - New Makenna pictures
Here are the latest pictures of little Miss Makenna.
Sometimes, she just likes to stretch out and fall asleep, other times, she likes to post while she sleeps. And of course, she loves to sleep in her dad's lap. We've also noticed, that she loves to sleep with her mouth open (just like her dad)
One of our favorite things about her little personality, is her facial expressions. These are just a few of the different faces she likes to make. She still has really bad baby acne, which is normal, but that explains the red spots. Last but not least, Cristi dressed her up for me the other day and sent pictures of her in her cute little dress (the hat is still just a little too big.
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0 Comments - Leave one yourself3/31/08 - Updated pictures of the baby girl
I had all intentions of getting pictures of Makenna up for everyone to see, but life is busy, really busy. Raider has been sick (he can't even hold down water) since we got home Saturday afternoon. Makenna has been better, but she is still not back to her previous self. Cristi's car wouldn't start yesterday, and it's still not running today after my wonderful uncle Glenn came by and gave me some help.With that said, here are the pictures as promised.
These first few are really just some nice black and white pictures we've been able to snap over the last week or so.
On Easter, we had the privilege of hosting a large portion of our family for dinner. Cristi's mom fixed all sorts of food, Aunt Bev provided some meats and my mom brought desserts and I think a few appetizers. Altogether, it was a great effort, we had a great time and the above picture sare just a few from that day. The picture of all of us is awesome, I can't believe everyone, even the dogs, except for Makenna was looking at the camera and smiling.
Apparently, we do a lot more sleeping around here than I realized. It seems like just about every other picture is of someone sleeping holding Makenna, or just Makenna sleeping. Here are four of the most recent good ones.
Last, but not least, I had to show you how Dad likes to babysit, how Mom likes to burp, and of course how cute Makenna looks in her I Love Grandma shirt. Doesn't she look like a little angel.
Finally, if you would like a larger size of any of these pictures, please just leave a comment with the picture number that you are interested in. I like to keep the pictures online smaller in an attempt to save on bandwidth and storage (although at this point, it doesn't really matter, I don't have enough traffic). I don't have a problem uploading a few that you really like. The ones I have posted are the ones that I felt were the best of the bunch, although it is difficult to narrow down from a couple hundred pictures. If there is another one you think I might have, just ask, I can look.
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0 Comments - Leave one yourself3/28/08 - Makenna has been sick
So Thursday morning, when Makenna woke up for her morning feeding around 5:00 she was just fine. But then she started getting really fussy. This is not common for our precious little baby, so we were obviously concerned. We assumed it was just gas, so we have her gas drops, then gripe water, then tried Tylenol, but nothing really worked. I had to be at a conference at UALR early, so I left just before 7:00. Cristi said that after I left, she actually fell asleep for about 15 minutes or so, but then woke up screaming. She was obviously in pain.Cristi called me about 8:00 saying that she had taken her temperature and it was very high. Her training has taught her that any fever on a baby Makenna's age requires immediate attention so she went to the ACH Emergency Room. After getting the regular treatments, they decided to keep her for 48 hours to give her antibiotics and monitor her. They tried to get a spinal tap but was unsuccessful.
Today is the 2nd day, and they tried to get another tap, but still nothing. They have run test after test, but still no reasons why she would have felt so bad and had the fever. We thought it might have been a UTI, but they ruled that out too. At this point, they think it was a viral infection and that the antibiotics have taken care of everything.
I've got to thank my parents, Aunt Bev and Aunt Diane for being there for Cristi. I really wish Cristi's mom could have been here too, I know she was just as worried about Makenna. We should be going home tomorrow morning/afternoon so I'll try to have a much happier update with pictures.
I should also mention that ACH is awesome. I'm actually typing this on the computer in Makenna's room. Its a touch screen monitor that controls the TV, internet, media center, games, and so many other things kids (it is intended for the kids) can do all from their bed. I'll also mention that each room has it's own XBox360 with a library of games avaiable 24 hours a day. I haven't tapped that resource, but the fact that it is there is really cool.
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3 Comments - Leave one yourself3/25/08 - Makenna is such a cute little girl
I've uploaded a video to YouTube of our precious little baby girl. As you watch it, just make sure the audio is turned up on your computer. It's only 30 seconds long, but you have to watch the whole thing to truly appreciate the video.(and yes, I'm pretty sure she got this from her daddy)
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1 Comments - Leave one yourself3/21/08 - Newest pictures of the baby
So yesterday, we had the doctor's appointment, and Makenna is a very healthy baby. She has grown 1/2 an inch in length and has lost 1.5 ounces which is normal. The doctor was very pleased about her weight, and her yellow color was not a concern at all.Today, Cristi got to take Makenna for her first walk since it was so pretty outside. She said it went great, except for the 2nd half of the walk when Makenna started getting hungry and fussy.
Other than that, I don't have much else to comment on, but I thought some pictures might be nice for everyone, so here they are.
Makenna loves sleeping in her grandparent's and parent's arms. She also likes to sleep in the big bed with us, as long as she is swaddled well.
She got her first bath at home the other day, and although you can't really tell from the pictures, you would have thought that we were beating her. Not before, or since, has she yelled and screamed as loud as when she was getting cleaned up by Cristi. Of course you see in the pictures how she left when her daddy held her.
We were told we had to take pictures at out doctor's appointment, but I wasn't sure what we could take pictures of. So here she is all bundled up ready to go, and then with me holding her, wrapped up in a blanket.
Last but not least, these are just a few of the pictures I thought were really cute of her. That is how she fell asleep in the first one. I picked her up like that, she stretched and fell asleep almost instantly. The striped shirt is a 0-3 month outfit and you can see she still doesn't fit in it great. You can also tell she's not a fan of getting her diaper chagned. Finally, it might not be the safest thing in the world, but she stays comfortable and Cristi and I are comfortable with the safety of. But doesn't she just look cute all wrapped up like that? 0 Comments - Leave one yourself
3/20/08 - First doctor's appointment
Makenna has her first doctor's appointment this afternoon. We were hoping to see Dr. Robert Choate, who was my pediatrician for the first 20 or so years of my life. He was also my brother's doctor. Instead, we are going to be seeing Dr. Frazier in the same clinic. Dr. Frazier is the father of one of the girls that Cristi and I went to high school with. She was also on the same cheerleading squad as Cristi.I'll have another update this evening with more pictures, and some information about the appointment. We are hoping that Makenna's yellowish color is not too bad and we can continue breastfeeding. The color has gotten MUCH better in the last couple of days, and her diet and dirty diapers has remained constant and healthy.
This will be her first experience in the outside world (with the exception of the ride home from the hospital. It's a pretty exciting day for her (as well as her proud parents). 0 Comments - Leave one yourself
3/17/08 - She's an interesting one...
So far, I can't complain at all about Makenna's personality or behavior. The first two nights were pretty rough, mainly because we didn't know what was going on. We were trying to get her to sleep in her bassinet, but yesterday afternoon, realized that that won't work at this point. After 9 months of being actually part of Cristi, she has separation issues if she is too far away. Because of this, Cristi stayed up all night the first two nights, to make sure she would sleep and eat and stuff.Last night, we put her in our bed, right between us, surrounded by pillows so we wouldn't roll over on her, and she slept for over 4 hours without waking up once. Needless to say, we both got great sleep last night and if future nights can be like that, I won't have a complaint in the world. In fact, it worked out great for me because I was able to get up super early with her, Cristi fed her, I changed her diaper and she and I watched an episode of SportsCenter together, and then went through my RSS reader, email and other misc websites, all before about 10:00.
I got out this afternoon to pick up a few things and then came back home only to spend the last several hours trying to get my computer setup so I can work from home. I'm almost there, but I basically lost an entire day trying to get things working. I should have it done by in the morning and I can get started on some work. I'm really grateful to Midland for letting me have the opportunity to stay at home for two weeks and only use a week of vacation (this assumes that I work at least a half day average during that time period).
That's all I've got for now. As we start using different baby products, I might start writing about them because I know that there are plenty of other pregnant people out there that just don't have a clue about stuff. My first review will probably be the Diaper Champ....it's sweet.
Last but not least, Makenna is once again an internet superstar with her pictures up on the Baptist website (actually a company they outsource to). You can see her pictures on their website. I have to admit that I personally don't think she looks very cute in those pictures, but you can be the judge.
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3/15/08 - A few pictures
I have no idea what the easiest way is going to be for me to get these pictures up with some captions on them. I could easily do it on facebook, but then only people with Facebook accounts could see them. I'll try to group them in sections with generalizations and see how that goes. Enjoy the pictures and there are plenty more where that came from. We have close to 400 pictures of the first 24 hours of her life. Luckily, it has slowed down a little bit, so hopefully she will not be blind from all the flashes. I say that, knowing good and well that once I have a little more energy, I'll be taking picture after picture of her myself.As for the first night at home, it was very very very long. It stormed, so Raider was very nervous and freaking out. I don't think Makenna was comfortable with anything going on, so she would not sleep unless you were holding her. On top of that, even when she would sleep it was in about 30 minute increments and then she would kind of try to feed. This allowed me to get a couple hours of sleep, but if Cristi got more than about 2 hours last night, I'd be surprised. We did get it worked out today though in that while she as sleeping (in 2-3 hour increments), I took her and let Cristi sleep. This allowed Cristi to get several hours of sleep and up until about 30 minutes ago, we have both had plenty of energy.
With that said, here are some pictures. The blurb beneath will be the captions/descriptions of the images. Also, I know some of them are sideways, but you are going to have to use your imagination for now because I'm way too tired to be rotating them right now. Also, you will notice that there is a red mark, just below Makenna's nose. That is a birth mark and she gets it from her Aunt Diane. It has already faded quite a bit, but it is very noticeable in many of these pictures.
This was on the way in to the hospital. As you can see, Cristi was not feeling her best. Next is Dr. Singleton, who is a great guy and we both HIGHLY recommend him as a doctor. They gave me a Daddy shirt with her footprints on them and proof of her weight at birth.
That is one proud dad :D
This would be the proud grandmas (nana, grandma, and mimi) and a proud dad comparing noses (and yes, they match).
Look at the size of those feet in that first picture. 2nd picture - we are all in so much trouble...I'm pretty sure I speak for all of the men in that picture that she already has us wrapped around her finger. The rest of those pictures are family getting to hold the new baby and the entrance to our room that my mom made up for us.
She was not happy with us for some reason, I don't remember what we were doing. Then we had to get her all pretty for her pictures in the nursery. We were hoping to get pictures like the next one, but instead, she decided to start acting up right after we got one good one. The nursery pictures came out alright, but they didn't show off how cute she really was. What you may or may not notice is that with that beautiful dress, Cristi let me put some white and pink Raider (the football team) booties on her. Of course, with her long skinny feet, they didn't really stay on very well.
Here are a few more pictures of her all dressed up, and then a shot of her as we walked out of the hospital. Yes, that's a Razorback hat she's got on.
This last group of pictures shows mom, dad and makenna on our way home. Then Raider got to meet Makenna first thing. He sniffed and sniffed, but I still don't think he's figure out what he's supposed to do with her. He will just walk up and sniff her every once in a while, otherwise, he leaves her alone. I don't even know if he hears her when she cries as it doesn't effect him at all. The last three pictures are from today. Makenna and me laid on the couch and watched the Razorbacks play and eventually, Raider wanted to join us. I was enjoying hanging out with the two of them, I decided to eat my dinner without moving too. 0 Comments - Leave one yourself
3/14/08
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Welcome to the world Makenna
On Thursday, March 13th at 6:50 PM, Makenna Nicole Walker was born into this world. She weighted 6lbs 10oz and was an amazing 19.5 inches long. Mom (aka Cristi) did an amazing job and had Makenna completely natural with no drugs or outside assistance whatsoever. We came home tonight at roughly 8:15 and Makenna is currently snoozing away as she is being passed from grandma to grandma. We were very blessed to have had all of our family at the hospital and everyone came back today to say hello to the most beautiful baby the world has ever seen. Between all of the cameras I have access to, I believe we might have close to 400 pictures. Over the next day or two, I'm going to go through and weed out some of the blurry and obscure ones and pick out the best. I'll have them on the website by the end of the weekend, assuming I get some sleep at some point.
I'm also going to try to post a bit more about the entire birth process and will try to get Cristi to write her view as well. This has been an amazing experience so far, and am simply waiting to see what's next. 1 Comments - Leave one yourself
12/18/07 - Introducing Makenna Nicole Walker, and other stuff
First things first, we have decided on a name for our baby girl. Makenna Nicole Walker. We spent quite a bit of time analyzing different names, different spellings and at the end of the day, that is what we liked.
Yesterday, we had a 4d ultrasound done at Baby Views in Little Rock. They have a website, but I can't be bothered to actually find it and hyperlink it. We were very happy to be able to have my mom, Cristi's mom and Aunt Bev be there for the event. It was really incredible to be able to see such amazing images of the baby. You'll see in a bit that I have included all 20 of the images they provided on a cd. They also give you a dvd, but I haven't looked at it yet to see what they put on it. Outside of finding out that it appears Makenna is going to have my facial features including my nose and cheeks (poor thing), we found out that everything is forming as expected, she's slightly larger than average in both weight and length and she's possibly the most beautiful baby anyone has ever seen (alright, those last few are my words, but can you blame me). As you can see in the pictures, she was very stubborn and refused to put her face where she was supposed to. There was about a 10 second period where she did look right at the "camera" and she did yawn good for us. But other than that, if she would look at the screen like in the last picture, she would cover her face wit her hand. My favorite picture is the 2nd to last with the split image. In that one, she has her eyes open and it is the clearest as far as I'm concerned.
So here are the pictures in order. I'll save the commentary on each of them but you can see that some are better than others. For a larger view, click on each one.
10/31/07 - Baby pictures...finally
I know they are nearly two weeks old, but without internet at home, it's difficult to get stuff like this posted. Here are the pictures from our last visit. and sorry about the formatting.
This is a very distorted view of the baby's face. You can somewhat makeout the eye sockets and a mouth. You might have to use your imagination. This picture was taken right after she got done yawning for us.
If I recall correctly, I believe this is a picture of her arm (possibly a leg).
I know for sure that this is a good shot of the baby's arm and it's little hand. During the ultrasound she was waving at us.
This is obviously a good shot of her profile and a little bitty hand in the background.
Another profile, just not quite as defined.
The two white lines next to the plus (+) in the middle is the solid proof that it's a baby girl.
Another somewhat blurry porfile picture.
A good shot of the baby's legs.
Here you can see the baby's belly, her face and once again the eyes.
9/5/07 - A heartbeat and Labor Day Weekend
So Cristi and I went to the doctor yesterday morning for our monthly checkup (actually, it's technically her monthly checkup, but I tag along anyways). This time we were hoping to hear the heartbeat, although if we didn't hear the heartbeat we were going to get another picture of the baby. However, within seconds of turning on the speaker system thing the doctor was using, our baby's heartbeat was definitely there. It makes me smile just thinking about it. Everyone has asked how fast it was, and quite frankly, the doctor did not tell us. It was pretty fast though, much faster than I though it would be. She did say that everything sounded wonderful so I have no reason to think any thing else. We go back in another month where I think we will just listen to the heartbeat again and have some blood work done.As everyone knows, this past weekend was Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer. As our family has grown and we have moved out (although we have now moved back home) we have started using federal holidays as a time for everyone to get together, eat, play basketball and just see each other. Monday was no different. All eight of us (my parents, wife, brothers and their girlfriends) got together, including the three dogs Raider (ours), Sidekick (my parents) and Lilly (my brothers). All together this is what we prepared, 8lbs of top sirloin, 10 hot dogs, 5lbs chicken, 2lbs grilled asparagus, 5lbs potatoes, two boxes macarnoi and cheese, half a tub (sam's sized tub) of pickles for fried pickles, two loaves of garlic bread, a wonderful cake my mom made and quite possibly a few things that I have forgotten. We had to use mine and my dad's grill for the steak and chicken and then once the chicken finished, another grill full for asparagus and hot dogs. I lost track on how much gatorade, coke and water was consumed, especially considering that Greg, Phillip and I played basketball for most of the afternoon and although cloudy, it was still very warm and humid. I do believe there is enough food left over though for us all to eat again at least two more times. The cake however was consumed that day.
Yesterday was the home inspection and it went great. There were only a few minor items to be addressed and the seller will probably be willing to repair them so there shouldn't be any problems there. We are still on schedule to close on the 14th which means that we should probably be mostly moved in by the end of the weekend.
Arkansas won this past weekend although if I were a betting man, I would have lost money because of the trash TD we gave up at the end of regulation. If anyone put money on Appalachian State, they probably didn't go to work on Tuesday and just called in the resignation. Next week starts NFL season so my sundays might start filling up with afternoons of football, hot dogs and a recliner. Of course, with NCAA football, my saturdays might be the same.
Cristi and I might have found our living room furniture this past weekend and have already started compiling a list of things we want to add to the new house, including a new TV, patio furniture and other odds and ends. Of course this is all a big dream right now because with the new one coming along, we have no idea what to budget for. 0 Comments - Leave one yourself
8/20/07 - New house?, baby news, Great book
As I've mentioned previously, we have been living with my parents for the last month or so and it has worked out pretty good. Having lived by ourselves for the last 4 years, there are times that it seems very cramped and just different living habits hvae clashed on occassion. Of course, we have been very grateful that they have allowed us to live there for the last bit. I'm sure it hasn't been easy on them. The big news is that we have found the house that we want. We will be making an offer on Wednesday. I'm not going to jinx it because there are still a few things that need to take place before we can finalize the deal, but I'm really excited. It's just about double the size of our last house and has a big backyard with an above ground pool already installed. Once we make the offer, I'll try to have some more information about it.Baby news - nothing new yet. I think we go back to the doctor in the next couple of weeks but so far, Cristi has had a fairly mild pregnancy. No serious cravings although she has been pretty nauseous here as of late and has had a very strange eating schedule. As the days go on, I get more and more excited, of course that feeling is pretty hard to put into words.
I just finished a book by Dean Koontz - Life Expectancy. The style of writing Koontz used in this book was without a doubt his best that I have read. Outside of having the great writing style, twists and turns, it is probably the only book that actually gave me chills when I read the last chapter. If you enjoy a simple good story, I highly recommend the book. It is not a real long book and reads very fast. There are only a few slow parts in the book so it is easy to get really involved in the story. 0 Comments - Leave one yourself
7/18/07 - HUGE NEWS!!! SERIOUSLY...THIS IS BIG!!!
So...I know there are several people who read my website that I don't talk to on a regular basis, so I feel this is a good place to do this. We don't have an exact date or anything, but sometime during the first few months of 2008, I will be a dad. Cristi found out that she is pregnant last week and I'm just now getting around to announcing it. We have no information other than that she is pregnant at this point.
Now, for those of you who read the blog and are religious or believe in a higher power, we request your prayers and thoughts. Several months ago, we were pregnant and lost the baby. For this reason, we are very paranoid about things going wrong. Please pray that the baby will be safe and that Cristi and I can stay sane during the next few months.
As time goes on, I'll make more updates about the progress of the baby and all that stuff. To continue with the update though, we got moved this past weekend. It's amazing how much stuff we have. Here's what it took to get us moved. 1997 Explorer, 1998 Accord, 1997 Tahoe, Xterra (not sure about the year), 1996 Pathfinder (two loads), 1996 Silverado, 2005 Tahoe (two loads, probably a 3rd), a 7'x20' trailer (not positive about those dimensions, but it's close), a 6'x12' trailer, and a 4'x6' trailer. We were able to fit about 80% of that in a 10'x20' storage unit and the rest is sitting at my parent's house either in the living room, dining room, garage or the bedroom we are using. I really think we should get rid of a lot of the stuff we had. Our pots and pans for example used probably 10 boxes, plus two rather large rubbermaid bins. There is no way we need that much stuff. I could be wrong, but I just don't see it.
Having been in the lawn care business now for a few months, I already see how running your own business can be so difficult. This month, I sent out 8 (if I remember correctly) invoices. Of those 8, one was paid late and I still have not received payment on two of them. I don't know if it is my customers, or if there are really that many people that are just late on all their payments. It's not nearly as big of a deal for me because I'm not trying to feed my family off this job, but for those that do this as their only source of income, that has got to be horrible.
Sunday, me and my dad put sides on my trailer to make it "enclosed". I've got a lock on the back gate now so all of my stuff is secure...enough. If someone really wanted my equipment, they could get it, but they would have to climb a 6 foot wall of plywood and to get the mower, they'd still have to lift a 600 pound pile of metal.
So I've been on this new website for a while now called Blubet.com. You basically make wagers on different bets that people make up. It's is all fake money and some of the bets are just silly. Whatever the case, I'm #2 in all time winnings and somehow only #6 in overall ranking. If you want to join, just click here --> Join BluBet. It's pretty easy to follow and you can even make up your own bets and stuff. I make no money from it, (although I do get an extra 500 blubet dollars for referring someone) I just really enjoy the website and wanted to share it.
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