Baby #2 due TWO MONTHS FROM TODAY

Ok, I haven't blogged in forever and a day. A whole heck of a lot has happened. We found out we were expecting on March 7th. And I am going to be delivering her in just 2 months on November 7th. We have the name Katherine Grace picked out. I can't wait to be a mommy of two sweet girls in just two short months! I DON'T have gestational diabetes this time. We found that out today and I was shocked because I thought I for sure had it. It's a big load off my mind. Oh...I have a home business now! I sell Pink Zebra home fragrance products and it is going splendidly! It's a little extra money on the side, which is always helpful. I have a vendor event tomorrow and I'm hoping to make a little cash to pay for our double stroller without using the credit card! How awesome would that be...We'll see how it goes. Ok, that's the quick update on the past few months! Gotta run.

Overdue

An update is way overdue. So much has been going on in our day to day lives. I am fully recovered from my many illnesses and back to loving life. Audrey is growing so fast! She's almost 6 months old and developing more and more everyday. She is so awesome and has the best personality. She loves to talk, play on her play mat, jump in her jumperoo and learning new things. We are currently trying to get her to sit up on her own. She can hold her bottle now. She stands really well with a tiny bit of support from us. There is so many new and wonderful things to discover with her.

What have I been up to? Tending to things I have been wanting to do at home. I've been couponing and building my stockpile. I have been working on a home makeover as well. We painted in the living room and the dining room. We have plans to paint Audrey's room and our bedroom. We are getting ready to go home for Christmas, then go to Ohio! I am sooo excited for everyone to see Audrey again and her to have her first Christmas. It's going to be so awesome. I'm excited about buying her some awesome toys to help her develop and grow. We had a great first Thanksgiving as a family together. She loved all the people and different faces to see and "talk" to.

Paul is doing well. He graduated with an Associate's Degree. He is being promoted to Senior Airman. We are looking at new opportunities for where to live and where we might want to move to. That's up to the Air Force, though, so we will see what happens.

Welp, that's the update on these Baloughs.

Hard Knock Life

Things have been so crazy. I'll spare tons of details, because those of you who are friends with me in real life or on facebook know what has gone. Needless to say, 2 surgeries (kidney and gallbladder) and a week and a half hospital stay later, I am alive. I am very grateful to be on the mend. It has been the hardest few weeks of my life, for sure, and I still have a long recovery ahead of me unfortunately. I have to go back to all the doctors that saw me in the hospital for follow up appointments, plus get 2 kidney stones zapped and my stint taken out of my kidney still. I will be so happy when all this is over. I'm exhausted and I have yet to get my energy back.

Do you know how hard it is to take care of a 4 month old when you are recovering from surgeries and have no energy? It's not easy. For this reason, we came back home with Mom so that I could have some help with Audie. Paul is on 12's again, so it would be impossible for me to recover AND take on 24 hour infant care. Some days I just cannot do it all. My muscles are still weak from being in a hospital bed for 9 days. I'm tired constantly. I'm so thankful I came home and can get the help I need. I miss Paul terribly though, as usual. And Audrey misses her Daddy. It will be nice to get back to normal and get back to La. In the meantime, I'm resting, taking care of my sweet baby who is growing way too fast, resting some more, sleeping alot eating occasionally.

Audrey is as wonderful as ever. She gets more and more beautiful every single day and I am so in love with my sweet daughter. She has recently started laughing and it is such a precious sound!! It makes my heart melt. She is enjoying time with Granmommy and T-pop and aunt becca and uncle chris. Everyone loves her so much!!

Ok, I'm not feeling too great so I need to get my daughter and myself ready for bed.

We live!!!

Things have been so crazy lately and Audrey has kept me on my toes. I've been busy making new friends, hanging out with our babies and having playdates. I am getting ready to start MOPS next Monday. It's a Mother's of Preschoolers program at my church. I am looking forward to meeting more mom's and going to those meetings! It should be fun. My mom is flying out on September 27th and we are driving back to Tennessee on the 29th. I will be in Tennessee for a few weeks. I am looking forward to visiting with family and friends and having Audie be with extended family...grandparents and aunts and uncle.

So...my favorite part of the day is when I put Audrey in bed with me at 6am. We cuddle and sleep for 4 more hours and it is a wonderful bonding time for us! I absolutely love to look over and see my baby sleeping peacefully right beside me. Heaven! Everything is going well. She is eating us out of a house and home! No joke. This girl makes us fly through the formula, unfortunately. And it's way expensive so there's really no money for anything else. Student loans are piling up and it's getting hard to keep up, making money even tighter...but we work with what we have. Hopefully we will figure finances out and get back on our feet, so to speak. Audrey is a great sleeper. She still sleeps a lot and it's nice to be able to get things done occasionally. She is in 0-3 month clothes right now. It took forever for her to be able to fit into them, but now she is in them comfortably. Some are slightly big, still. She is 3 months old in 9 days!!! Time flies. She's smiling ALOT and such a happy baby!! She thinks I'm a funny girl :-) I can't wait till she starts laughing and giggling.

We have alot of unspoken prayer requests right now. Things are kind of uncertain and I would be lying if I say I wasn't worried about finances and our near future. Just keep us in your prayers!!

Busier than ever.

I thought just being a stay at home wife and keeping the house clean was hard. Ha! A clean house is almost impossible with a baby. There are those rare moments when most of the house is clean for like 2 seconds...then it's back to the way it was. I'm ok with it though. Having baby stuff everywhere gives my home character and the feeling of family. I love my little Audie bee and I love taking care of and nurturing her. I love the way she looks up into my eyes adoringly when I'm feeding her. I love her grunts and squeaks when she's sleeping...or even awake. And I even LOVE having to pick her up and hold her because the only place she's happy is my arms. It brings me the greatest joy to be her Mommy. She's generally a happy baby. She loves to be held, but what baby doesn't? She has days where she cries if I put her down and I tend to hold her through those days. But she also has plenty of days where she is perfectly content in her swing, bouncy, or sleeping in her pack n play.

An update on me: I'm doing well. I'm over the baby blues part of post partum. It wasn't bad. It only lasted a couple weeks and I was back to normal. I spend most of my free time...what little I do have running around the house, cleaning, washing bottles, doing laundry, surfing the internet for good coupon deals, all to start over again in the routine of taking care of Audie. I am beyond exhausted most days, but that's normal and Audrey keeps me on my toes. Sometimes it seems like everything is just one reeeeeallly long, big day. No separate days because they all run together! lol. Especially when sleep is more like just a nap. All in the name of love for my baby :-) Life is good.

Finally getting the hang of it.

So I am finally getting the hang of being a new Mom. At first, if it wasn't one thing it was another: breastfeeding, pumping, formula, normal bowel movements for her, finding the right bottle and nipple combo to bottle feed her...shew! Hard work and stressful trying to figure everything out. I feel like I can finally relax and breathe a little now. We are settled into formula feeding. Everything is going great!

Can you believe that...my daughter has almost outgrown her newborn clothes?!?! Who would have thought that would happen at 2 months old. lol. She's a tiny girl, that Audrey. I love her so much.

We survived our first rough growth spurt. Of course, it happened while Paul was at work all week. Fussy baby that NEVER slept, but sure could cry with the best of them. It was a ROUGH week and I wanted to gouge my eyes out with a spoon at times and bang my head against the wall. It's hard having no one to help out. I don't know how single moms do it. Thanks to the bouncy seat, swing, car seat, and lots of cuddles...we survived. Now to gear up for the next one. And teething! ahhh!!

Paul and I finally figured out a schedule so that we could both get decent sleep throughout the week. We swap nights getting up with Audrey and it works pretty well. Of course, Audrey only really wakes up once in the night...but when she does, it takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to get her fed, burped, happy and back to sleep. So it's a couple hours of lost sleep. Sometimes I'll put her in bed with me if I'm really tired and cuddle her until she falls back asleep. That way I can rest..while bonding with Audie. I get up around 10:30 for the day with Audrey (she eats at 6ish and 10ish am) Then for the rest of the day, we just go with the flow. I feed her when she is truly hungry, talk to her, sing to her and play with her till she needs a nap. Sometimes her naps are only 30 minutes, sometimes several hours. It's touch and go and Audrey has DEFINITELY taught me to be more go with the flow. There's some things you really just can't control no matter what.

I am so excited for Audrey's next pediatrician appointment. I want to see how much she weighs and ask a few questions about bottle feeding, formula, etc. Lots of questions. I can't wait. August 18th is her appointment. Oh...she gets shots too. Excitement gone. I'm going to cry.

Being a Mom

Being a Mom is one of the greatest things I have ever experienced. For real. It brings me SUCH joy..to where even waking up in the middle of the night does not bother me one bit. I love feeding Audie and giving her lots of cuddles and snuggles. She is such a sweetheart. Feedings are going really well. Formula seems to be working out for Audie, as well as breastmilk. I pump 3 times a day to keep building my milk supply with Audie's growing nutritional needs. For all other feedings I use formula. The greatest thing about switching to formula is that God has totally provided for the financial expense of it and I know He will continue to provide. I have been able to use couponing to our advantage in stocking up on formula when it's on sale, as well as buying really cheap from other Moms who aren't using the formula they have. It has worked out perfectly and we have a big stock of formula now, 5 tubs, 8 cans, and 2 quart bottles to be exact. I also have tons of coupons for future formula purchases. So...life with a baby is pretty much perfect. No worries here. Well, I gotta get back to baby care. That's the update for now.