One Month Old!!

I can't believe Isabelle is one month old!! She is so cute and so much fun! My sister just got a new camera, so we were trying our best at being photographers. We took about two hundred pictures and these are the four that she wasn't screaming in... no, not really... She did cry a lot, but that's just our Isabelle! My mom was worried Izzy was getting cold, and Jody and I were doing our best at being artistic... the whole ordeal was hilarious!! Isabelle is allready learning at a young age that she is going to have to be patient with me!!

Maycee Jane

Isabelle has a new best friend!! My friend Sally had her baby... Maycee Jane Anderson on May 21st. I am so excited for these girls to grow up together! I can only hope they can have as much fun together as Sally and I have... without causing as much trouble :)

Here's the girls all together! Sally is such a cute mom! We were able to see her right after she had the baby and it was so fun. Thank goodness for Marin or I could never have made it to visit Sally! Poor Marin had to carry Izzy for me and I'm sure that the car seat weighs as much as Marin does!! Just wait until Marin has a little one come along and then the the kids will really cause havoc together! Congrats Sally and KC... we love you!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Happy Mother's Day to all you Mom's out there. What a great chance to celebrate the women who mean the most to us!!

This is a picture of my mom with Isabelle. She is such a great mom and Grandma! I am so grateful for my mom, she's the best! She is always helping me with something, and especially since Izzy was born- she has totally put her life on hold to be with us. My mom and I have always been super close and I love spending time with her! She's so much fun and I love her tons!

This is a picture of another great mom in our lives. This is Ryan's mom with Isabelle. She is so excited about being a grandma and is so sweet to Izzy! She's so good to us and we love her tons!

I am so grateful to have Isabelle in my life and that she made me a mom!! She is so amazing and I love her so much. We had such a great day together- Ryan got us out of the house for the first time and I think we all needed it. I will always remember my first mother's day!

Izzy!!

Our little girl... she is so precious to us!! This is her hanging out in the hospital. It is so hard to see your little baby like this!! I just hated all of the poke-marks all over her body from all the needles! I wanted to hold her all the time but it depended on the nurse... some let us hold her and some wouldn't. But even when we could hold her it was only for a couple minutes so they could keep monitoring her and so that she could use all of her energy to get better! So most of the time we just would sit right next to her and stare at her, wondering how lucky we were to have her!! They never let her have a real full-on bath, so one night Ryan and a super nice nurse snuck and cleaned her up a little. And yes, they did try and give Izzy a fo-hawk!

This is one of the times I got to hold Isabelle. I was so scared that Isabelle wouldn't be bonded to me because I didn't get to be with her after she was born. I didn't get to see her until about eight hours after she was born, and didn't get to hold her until the next day-- let me tell you, that is the most heartbreaking thing for a mom!! Well I shouldn't have worried because the first time I held her, I started talking to her and she opened her eyes and just looked right up at me! My heart melted... I just started crying because I knew that my baby knew me!!

Here's Isabelle (exhausted from getting dressed for the first time!) She's six days old and getting ready to go home from the hospital... Finally!

Ahhh... it feels good to be home! I'm pretty sure we all felt like this when we got home... Ryan was so sick of being cooped up in that Hospital he was about to go crazy!! I, on the other hand, was pretty nervous to leave all of the machines and nurses that had been monitoring my baby. I really wanted to take some of them home with me! I missed them so much in fact, that the first night home (at 2am) we had to make a trip back to the hospital to see one of our favorite nurses... Izzy was giving me a little scare, by turning blue, so we ran her over. It wasn't anything serious, but we are sure glad we'd made friends with the NICU nurses! We are so grateful for all the people that helped us with Isabelle... nurses, doctors, and especially family and friends. We are so grateful for a happy and healthy baby- we feel so blessed that everything is working out well and that Isabelle has overcome her rough start! She is such a joy in our lives and we feel lucky every day to have her!!

She is finally here!!!

Okay...so this is Caryn's friend, Abbey, posting this...but Caryn and Ryan wanted to give everyone a little update on the baby.

Isabelle Blanche Reese was born Monday, April 28th. She weighed 6 lbs. 11 oz. and was 19 inches long. The delivery was a hard one. At first they found out that the baby was breech and had to make the decison to do a C-section. It actually turned out to be a huge blessing that a C-section was done because when they got in there to get the baby they found out that the cord was wrapped around her neck and body. The doctor later told Ryan that he only sees 2 or 3 babies a year with the cord as tight as it was. So the baby had to be put into Intensive Care on a all sorts of machines to help her. Ryan was such a good daddy and he barely left her side for three days. There was also some concern about Isabelle's red blood cells that the doctors were watching closely. Isabelle stayed in NICU until Saturday afternoon, when Caryn and Ryan got to try having her in a room with them to see how she did... a NICU nurse would come in every hour to check on them. After they could see she was stable, Isabelle was able to come home Sunday afternoon. She is doing so much better and Caryn and Ryan are so glad to have her home. Because of the stressful delivery and other issues, Isabelle's little immune system is very weak right now, so she probably will not be making any appearances for a few weeks. But Caryn and Ryan wanted to thank everyone for all their love and support and look forward to seeing you soon and showing off the little one...but in the meantime enjoy a few photos!