Big Smile!

So far I think this is my favorite part of being a mom! Seeing my little guy with a huge grin just for me is the most amazing feeling in the world! Times like these make up for all the crying and being difficult. :) Carter just has to remind his mommy every once in a while that he really does know who she is and loves her!

Once again I apologize for the quality. I didn't want to miss the moment by trying to find the camera! But my phone is always on hand. :)

Isn't he just the cutest little boy in the whole world??

After we had some fun together I put Carter in his bouncer for a nap and he still kept smiling at me. :)

After smiling for a minute he decided he was still hungry so I fed him a little more and then he fell fast asleep.

Look at those cheeks! We find out next Friday how much he weighs. I'm sure it's a ton! He's getting too heavy for his mommy!

We love our little Carter!

Devastating Tornadoes

On Friday, March 2nd, we had devastating tornadoes rip through Indiana and surrounding states. An F4 tornado hit just 15 miles north of our apartment. It was on the ground for 50 miles! Over 35 people have been confirmed dead in 4 states. There were 12 in Indiana and 21 in Kentucky. Luckily it was not much worse than that! The weather people are very good at getting the word out and I think it saved a lot of people's lives.

On Saturday Rory and I met with other people from our ward to put together sack lunches for the relief workers trying to start the clean up. Luckily Carter slept so I got to help put the lunches together!

Our ward normally meets at 11:30 on Sunday, but today we met at 9 and combined with another ward for Sacrament meeting. We just had the one meeting and then the sisters stayed to put together more sack lunches. We came home and Rory got ready to help at 12. Ward members were encouraged to meet at another meeting house at noon and then go with the Salvation Army to volunteer at different cities. Rory ended up in Marysville to help with the clean up. I wanted to go so bad! I really wanted to help, but I knew it wasn't safe to take Carter out there. Rory said he's surprised more people don't get hurt just trying to help clean up.

Below I have posted the pictures that Rory took while he was working on two different houses. I guess they were told to just head out and see how they could help.

This picture shows the foundation of where a house used to be.

At this house they just gathered together all the wood and metal and put them in two piles to be picked up later. That is one of the few houses that still looked like a house.

In the front of the picture you can see the foundation and then the house was picked up and thrown off to the side.

There used to be a second floor...

Rory was just glad the ceiling didn't collapse in on them.

This is the pile of things deemed salvageable.

This picture shows just how far the house was moved off the foundation.

These tornadoes were the worst ever recorded in March. The devastation is unbelievable! It will take weeks for these small towns to recover. Most of the towns are pretty much going to have to build for the ground up and start all over. The outpouring of help from everyone has been incredible. So much has been donated to help those with nothing. Everyone seems to come together in times of devastation. Hopefully these towns will recover. Rory and I are thankful that we safe and that we were not physically affected by the storm!

Cute Carter!

I've taken a bunch of pictures of Carter on my cell phone so I thought I'd post a few of them. :) They're not the best quality, but Carter is still a cutie!

When Carter isn't swaddled, he likes to sleep with his hands up by his face. Look at those chubby cheeks! :)

Carter spends a lot of time furrowing that little brow of his. It's adorable! :)

Doesn't Carter have the cutest little smile? He's still working on controlling it, but I've gotten a few pretty good grins out of him. I wasn't able to capture the big grin, but here's a little smile. :)

In his cute little Daddy's MVP outfit! Isn't he adorable?

Carter takes his morning nap in the swing. I still swaddle him though so he'll sleep a little longer. :) Half the time he gets his little hands out!

After one of his naps, Carter started making noises so I went in to see if he was awake. I undid the top of his swaddle to see if it would help him wake up faster. I love watching him try to wake up. It's so cute! As soon as I undid his swaddle his little arms went straight up over his head. :) And then he continued to sleep. :)

I need to be better about taking pictures, but I thought you'd all enjoy the few that I have! Even if they are off my phone. :) Rory and I have the cutest baby ever!

National Farm Machinery Show

I know what you're thinking....farm machinery?? But it was actually a really cool expo! Rory and I felt a little out of place without our work jeans and cowboy boots, but we didn't let that stop us. :) The whole time we thought of Boston, Rory's nephew. He would have been in heaven with all of the big tractors! We had to take lots of pictures for him. :)

There is a huge convention center by the airport in Louisville and they have big events almost every weekend. We wanted to go to the Championship Tractor Pull, but with Carter we didn't think we could pull that off yet. So we went went to the expo. There was huge farm machinery everywhere! I had never seen such big machines up that close! It was pretty cool to be able to climb up into the cabs and check them out! We took lots of pictures and had fun walking around. We even had some cookies and cream ice cream in a big waffle cone! Carter slept peacefully in his stroller the whole time!

One Month!

Carter was a month old on February 16th!

One month stats:

Weight: 11 lbs 7.5 ozs (90th percentile)

Length: 21.75 in (20th)

Head Circumference: 15.25 in (in between 25th-50th percentile)

He's growing so fast! He outgrew his newborn clothes a couple weeks ago and fits snugly into his 0-3 month clothes. He has the cutest little chubby cheeks!

We have the sweetest little bundle of joy! Once he turned a month old he decided he didn't want to sleep as much. Mommy loved that! It seems Carter takes after his mom and is not a morning person either. We have fun together in the morning. :) At least he seems to be sleeping well at night! I can usually get at least 4 or 5 hours of sleep and then feed him and get another 2 or 3 hours of sleep before he's up for the day. Carter is slowly getting on more of a schedule which makes things a little easier. If only we could figure out our mornings and get him to take a nap! :)

We are indoctrinating him young!

Carter loves his Daddy time when Rory gets home from work. I think he gets tired of looking at me all day. :) Rory is great with him! It's funny to watch when Rory will turn Carter around so he can look at the room and Carter will twist his head around trying to look at Dad. :) One night I was feeding Carter and Rory came and sat down by us on the couch and Carter pulled back trying to watch his Dad and keep eating at the same time! He did that for a few minutes! Rory has let me go to bed a couple nights and has stayed up with Carter until he finally settles down to sleep for the night. A little more sleep for me is great! I'm finally not feeling completely exhausted all the time and it is great! I might be able to do this after all. :)

Thanks for the cute outfit Jenny!

Carter and I still have a lot of things to figure out. But we're getting there! I love watching him sleep. He looks so peaceful! He is the cutest little boy in the world and we love him so much!

Carter Alpine Housley

Carter arrived 10 days early!

January 16th 2012

7:06 pm

7 lbs 4 oz

20 in long

Sorry this has taken me so long to get around to writing! It has been a crazy 3 and a half weeks. I finally feel like I'm not running completely on fumes. :) Besides trying to get used to taking care of our little guy I spent 3 days last week back in the hospital so it's been a little harder to adjust than expected. But I'll write about that later.

Rory and I were excited about the 16th because Rory had the day off for Martin Luther King's Day. We were going to use the day to wash our baby clothes and finish getting last minute things done before Carter came. We still had a little organizing to do and we really needed to clean our apartment. Plus we needed to get our hospital bags and stuff ready.

Well, around 5:30 that morning I woke up with pain in my abdomen and lower back. I tried to keep sleeping for a while, but it didn't go away so I got up to go to the bathroom. It kind of felt like cramps telling me I needed to go to the bathroom. That didn't help anything either. So around 6:30 I gave up trying to sleep and decided to read on the couch. About an hour later Rory came out and I think he was pretty surprised to see me up. (Rory knows how much I love me sleep.) He asked if I was alright and I said I thought I was having contractions, but I didn't know if they were real or Braxton Hicks. I had been keeping track of them for about an hour and they weren't consistent, but they were pretty frequent. I didn't go much more than 5 minutes ever before the next one hit. Around 9 I decided I should call my doctor because they weren't going away. She told me I should probably go to the hospital to get checked out because they

were so frequent. I decided to shower and eat something before we left. Showering is fun with contractions. :)

All this time I have been having contractions Rory has been trying to get things ready. He got all the baby's stuff for the hospital and put the car seat in the car. We both got our bags ready and around 10 we headed to the hospital. At this point it didn't feel real. Even when I was having

contractions my stomach muscles were not hardening like I thought they should. So I thought they had to be fake contractions. At 10:30 I was finally taken to the triage center to get checked before they admitted me if I was really in labor. As I talked to the nurse and explained how I felt it was clear she thought I was having fake contractions. That's what I'd been thinking so it wasn't a surprise. But it was 10:30 so I'd been having contractions for at least 5 hours by now and they weren't getting better. After asking me all her questions the nurse checked to see if I was dilated. Come to find out I'm 4 cm dilated and about 90% effaced! The nurse was like, maybe you're one of the lucky ones who gets through this easy.

Looks like I'm in labor! It's a pretty surreal feeling to think that we're actually having our baby. I'd been carrying him in me for almost 9 months and he was finally making his way out!

I was moved to a labor and delivery room. It was a pretty nice room. It was really big and we had it all to ourselves! I think we figured out later that a baby had been born early that morning, but we were the only other baby all day. So we had a lot of attention. :)

Once we were in the room I got my IV and they took my blood for testing. After I was all settled I finally called my mom and told her I was in labor. :) She was just as ready as we were for our baby to come so early. Luckily she was able to change her plane ticket for not too much so she could fly in the next day.

Rory and I settled in to wait after that. At 1:00 in the afternoon my doctor came by to check on me. I was still about 4 cm but I was almost completely effaced. My doctor broke my water and started me on a small amount of pitocin. Within minutes my contractions kicked it up a lot. At this point I decided I wanted an epidural. I called the nurse and said I wanted one. Shortly after, the anesthesiologist came and they kicked Rory out so they could set me up. It was about 1:30 at this point. Receiving the epidural was a piece of cake compared to the contractions. Except for the fact that it's hard to sit up through a contraction while they're trying to put it in. :) Once they were done I finally got to lay back down and Rory came back in. Within minutes my pain was gone! I turned to the nurse and asked if I was still having contractions. She was like, year you can't feel them at all? Yay! No pain! My legs felt really weird, but I got used to it and I'll take that any day over contractions!

After the pain was gone I tried to take a nap to save up my energy. It was not that easy to sleep when I knew our baby was on the way! At 3 the nurse came in to check on me. I was 9 cm dilated! That was quick! The nurse told me my doctor would come by after work to deliver our baby. She said it wouldn't hurt me to wait a little longer so that his head could drop further so that I didn't have to push so much. My doctor finally came around 5:30. Then the real fun began. :)

I think I ended up pushing for about an hour and a half. It might have been a little quicker without the epidural, but I'll take it over no pain. Besides my doctor I always had at least two nurses and Rory helping me push. :) I told you we had all the attention. :) Everyone was very encouraging and supportive. I'm pretty sure Carter's head started showing pretty quickly. They even let me feel the crown of his head at one point. That was kind of crazy. At the end my doctor said I was tearing and she said she was going to cut it a little more so we could get his head out. Once she did that Carter came out pretty fast. Carter was born at 7:06pm!

The next thing I knew little Carter was laying on my chest! The nurse cleaned him off as best she could while he was on my chest. What an amazing feeling! I could finally see and hold the little baby I'd been carrying around for 9 months! It was so much fun to see his big eyes as he looked at his new world. He was so alert for the first little while. I know I am biased, but he was the cutest baby I'd ever seen! Besides his funny shaped head he looked pretty much perfect! And his head rounded out pretty quick.

After an hour or so the nurse from the nursery came in to give Carter a bath. She washed him by the sink in our room so that I could kind of watch from my bed. As she bathed him she gave Rory instructions on how to bathe him when we got home. Once he was squeaky clean and I could feel my legs a little better we were moved to our recovery room.

What a day! I was in labor for about 13.5 hours. All in all it wasn't the worst experience ever. The epidural was definitely a life saver! It was all worth it to finally be able to hold Carter in my arms!

My little burrito!

48 hours later we were headed home!

What an experience! And then there were 3. :)