Happy Birthday Ryan...

Today is my little brother's birthday. So I thought I'd take a minute to give him a shout out. Actually, he's really not so little anymore - he is 24 today. I can't even begin to tell you how proud I am of him. Ryan is 5 years younger than me, so I've always been the protective older sister and had high expectations for him. He has beyond exceeded them. One being who he married - we LOVE Libby! Way to go, Ry. He is driven, more of a perfectionist than he'd like to admit, and is an instant friend to everyone he meets. I really don't think he knows a stranger. He's always been that way.

The past 6 months have been really fun for Josh and I because it's the first time I've lived in the same place as Ryan since I was in high school. We love getting to see he and Libby on a regular basis, and we are selfishly praying that future jobs keep them here in Northwest Arkansas.

So, Happy Birthday Bud! Love you. Thanks for loving us even though Paige and I dressed you like this as a child...

Poor kid.

But wasn't he cute?

An oldie of Ryan and I.


Ryan and Libby. (Just so you know what he looks like today...he turned out okay, despite our torture.)

Update in Pics...

Seeing as I haven't done a good job of blogging this month, I figured I would do a quick Jake update in pictures - let's be honest, pictures are more fun. These are all from the past month (wish I would have taken more.) He's changing and growing so fast - ENJOY!

His daytime Halloween outfit. Thanks Aunt Paige for the "cutest monster" outfit.


Jake's first Halloween costume - sweet little monkey. He wore it for about 5 minutes before peeing all over it. :)

Not loving the monkey costume. Still cute though.


Dad thinks it's funny to put the pee-pee teepee on Jake's head instead of, well, you know where. :)


Liking bath time much more these days.


I decided I needed to start capturing more photos of him crying (well, screaming is the more appropriate term.) Seeing as this is what he does a good bit (we think he has mild colic), I will want to remember that little face someday. Hopefully he'll outgrow it soon, sweet buddy.

Yes he cries a lot, but he's also been smiling a lot more lately too. And his smile couldn't be any cuter. Warms my heart every time. And we have actually caught it on camera recently!

Another great smile (after eating). Full belly and naked - doesn't get much better.

Searcy Shower...

Well, this is long overdue (as usual). A few weeks ago, we made our first trip out of town since Jake's arrival down to Searcy for a baby shower some friends were throwing for us. It was slightly stressful, I admit, but it was totally worth it. Having a baby has just reminded Josh and I how blessed we are to have the friends and family that we do. Between our time at K-Seven, the Institute, K-Life, Fellowship Searcy, and now Fellowship NWA, we seriously feel like we have family everywhere. And Searcy is definitely one of those places. We've been gone from there for over 3 years now, and we still love going back to visit. The only problem is we can't possibly see everyone we want to in one weekend. Needless to say, it was such a blessing to have an afternoon to catch up with so many of those amazing women and young ladies - I miss them all so much. So thanks to all of you for coming out to love on us and for being extra encouraging while Jake screamed at us for most of the shower. :) Love you all!

A few pics from the shower...

Jake and I outside by the front door decoration. So cute.

Me with 2 of my small group girls (also hostesses) - Lex and Laura Beth (sad you weren't there Caleigh and Sarah Grace - missed you both!)

Me with the mom hostesses or as Kimber called you - the "bigger" women. Her words, not mine. :) Lisa, Kimber, me, and Rhonda - missing Susan and Stacy. Love you all!

The beautiful cake Stacy ordered. So yummy.

Fun cookies to go with it. Supposed to match the colors of Jake's room - well, when we get around to finishing his room, that is. :)

Me with the Scanlon girls. They finally got Jake to fall asleep after screaming for an hour and a half. Poor buddy. U of A is a great place if you want to transfer ladies! ;)

Me and Emily - one of my other amazing small group girls. Miss them all like crazy.


Opening gifts.

Speaking of pics and Searcy...we also had a newborn photoshoot done of Jake with our friend Kimber while we were there. Hopefully I'll be posting some of those soon. She captured some really great ones. :) Coming soon...

NWA Sip & See...

2 posts 2 days in a row - crazy, I know! (Truth is I did them both at the same time and scheduled this one for today.) Anyways, this past weekend, some sweet friends from our new church home threw us a Sip & See. It was wonderful!

I'll be honest, I was a nervous wreck going into it because Jake is still so unpredictable. He will be super calm and sweet one day and the next day be inconsolable at the exact same time of day. He's not exactly following a predictable pattern yet. I guess that's called being a newborn, right? But he did so well. He slept through the whole thing and let anyone hold him. Sweet buddy.

You would think moving to a new place shortly before having your first baby would be tough and kind of lonely, but we have seriously been so surrounded and loved since we got here. I guess that's the benefit of your husband being on staff at a church - you get an instant family. We are already so thankful to be a part of this community and cannot wait to form deeper relationships with all these folks. So thanks to all of you for the shower, for all the amazing gifts, for the meals, and for wrapping your arms around us so quickly. I could not be more excited about being back in NWA! :)

A few pics (I'm not great at remembering to take pictures, sorry.)

Before the Sip & See...I think he might have been pooping here. ;)

Looking sharp in his tie.

The food. So delicious...definitely ate too much.

Super cute owl cupcakes.

The hostesses - Kim Marquette, Mandy Baker, Leighann Rings, Alaina Shuler. So thankful for these women.

1 Month...and more!

Yep, it's official. Our blog has made the switch to a "mommy" blog. I almost apologized for this, but let's be honest...being a mommy is what I do all day everyday right now. It's all-consuming at the moment, so naturally that's what I have to talk about. So, no apologies.

Jake is one month old today! What in the world?!? So crazy how we have gone from counting in "weeks" to "months" now. I know every parent says this, but I have no idea where the last month has gone. Chalk it up to sleep deprivation, I don't know, but it's flying. It's such a battle right now finding the balance of cherishing these moments and yet, living in survival mode. More on those thoughts later.

But for now...a couple pics I took this morning. Yep, the classic one month shot. Tried to be creative, but let's be honest, any good idea I get comes from Pinterest. Gotta love it. ENJOY!

YAY for being one month old! Super cute onesie courtesy of my talented mother. This is one of several cute ones she's made. I'll have to post pics of the others soon. She's on a roll with creative ideas now. :)


After bathtime. Seriously the cutest in this towel - I could keep him wrapped up in it forever.

Can't leave this out...
October 26th is also a special day for 2 other reasons. One, it's one of my best friend's birthday - Brian Key. Brian was one of my best friends in college. He, Lana, and I were pretty much inseparable. He ended up marrying another amazing friend of mine, Kelly - so that worked out nice for me. I still take credit for setting them up, even though they didn't start dating until a year after putting the bug in their ear. I used to tell them separately they were going to get married and have the most beautiful children. And they do! Call it a gift, I don't know. Anyways, you should check out their blog. They have been through some really tough trials over the past 2 years with their precious daughter, Olivia, and Kelly does a beautiful job of writing about it. Their faith is unshakable. Seriously, they are heroes of mine. :)

This is on old pic of Lana, Brian, and I - courtesy of Lana's facebook page. I wanted to post an oldie of Brian, Kelly, and I, but I'd have to dig them out of a box and scan them in. Again, time is not my friend these days. Sorry, Kel!

October 26th is also special because Josh and I got engaged on this day 6 years ago. I would tell the story (for those who don't know it), but that would take too long and I have a newborn. Not happening. Short end of it, he totally surprised me (I really didn't have a clue), proposed at one of our favorite places in the whole world (K7), and told me he loved me for the first time. Needless to say, that day started the best 6 years of my life.

Where he proposed - old JK church at kamp. If you're a K7 alum, you'll know what that means. I think this was taken on our 1 year wedding anniversary. Crazy to think that was 4 1/2 years ago. Love him!

Favorite Reason...

Hello World

Well, he's here! And yes, we can now say HE. Jake Nathanial Dougherty was born last Monday, September 26th, weighing 6 lbs. 14 oz. and measuring 20 inches long. I know I'm super late on getting this posted on the blog and most all of you know all this through Facebook already, but I promised I would put more details and the full story up on the blog...so here it is. My guess is this post will take me several sittings - I'll let you guess why. :)

*For those of you who aren't interested in all these details, you can skip to the bottom for a few pics. I'll try to post the rest in an album on Facebook soon...

Anywho, I had a doctor's appointment on Friday the 23rd and as we expected, I still hadn't progressed. 0 cm, barely effaced. We were already discussing how far after my due date (the 29th) we would go before inducing. I was convinced (and had convinced everyone else) that this baby was going to have to be encouraged to come out. I was wrong.

Sunday night (well, technically Monday morning) at 3am, I started having what I assumed were contractions. (Reminder: never done this before, so how should I know?) I decided to get up and keep unpacking/organizing (another reminder: we had just moved into our rent house 4 days earlier...good thing we booked it and were almost unpacked.) The contractions were coming consistently, but were not spaced evenly at all. I would have one 5 minutes apart, then 8, then 4, then 9, etc. But they didn't stop.

When Josh woke up at 7, I told him I thought I might be in labor. He was obviously surprised and I told him what had been going on. At that point, they were getting a little stronger, and I was having to breathe through them, but they were definitely bearable. I called my friend (who also happens to be my OB's head nurse...she's AMAZING) at 8 and asked her what I should do. I really didn't want to go to the hospital and be sent home. And even though I was pretty sure I was in labor, I wanted to progress as much as possible at home and figured I had a ways to go.

She said to keep track of the contractions for the next couple hours and then she would schedule me an appt at the doctor's office to get checked rather than checking in to the hospital. Josh went to work (yes, I told him to) for a few hours, then we packed our bags (just in case) and headed to the doctor. When we saw the doctor at noon, I was between 4-5 cm dilated. He said "How do you feel about having a baby today?"

*Fun side note - We had to see a different doctor b/c my OB was on call - could timing have been more perfect?!? I had accepted that she probably wouldn't be the one to deliver the baby, but I really wanted her to...and she did! Did I mention she wasn't on call again for 2 weeks? I love God's timing!

We walked downstairs (yep, clinic is 2nd floor, hospital 1st...so convenient) and got checked in. I had an epidural around 2:00 and was b/w a 6 and 7 at that point. I was pretty proud of myself for laboring that far on my own. It really wasn't so terrible, though I never got to the really hard part.

You would think that as well as I was progressing, I would have had him sooner than 8:00. Well, this is where I'll add in the detail that made everything complicated. I was actually sick. I started feeling crummy on Sunday morning and as I progressed through labor, my throat was hurting, I was really achy, and I could tell I was running a fever. I was hoping this was just a random side effect of labor, though my gut told me it wasn't.
When I checked in, I was running a fever, so they kept monitoring me pretty closely so it didn't affect the baby. As the day went on, my fever continued to spike and I kept feeling worse. Skipping a few details, I was basically dilated to a 10 for about 2 hours before they would let me push. They were trying to pump me with antibiotics so they could get to the baby before he was born. I know that sounds crazy and impossible, but my epidural was working great. I definitely felt pressure, but it wasn't unbearable. By the end of that 2 hours though, I HAD to push.

Great part about that? Because he was so low for so long, I only pushed for 10 minutes and Jake was born. (And surprisingly, didn't have much of a conehead at all.) So really, the labor and delivery part were super smooth...it was just me being sick that threw a kink in the whole thing.

The really crummy part was that I couldn't hold him after he was born. They wanted to quickly run a flu test before I held him. When that came back negative, I could hold him but I had to wear a mask since they still didn't know what was wrong with me. So unfortunately, our first pictures together are of me in a mask. Oh well, it will be a story we will always tell. Poor guy, I'm sure he'll tire of hearing it.

The other really crummy part is that I am still sick. I'm on my 3rd dose of antibiotics and I think this stupid virus is FINALLY starting to subside some. I guess this is the "woe is me" part of my post, but I would sure appreciate any prayers. Adjusting to life with your first baby is difficult enough, not to mention being so sick. I've had some major meltdowns...not so much related to the baby as much as just not wanting to feel like this anymore.

Regardless of that, I am madly in love with this little guy. It was so fun to finally experience that instant love everyone talks about when you have a child. Josh and I are doing well. He is incredibly supportive and helpful. I've also never been more thankful for him.

YIKES, was that long enough for you? Thanks for reading if you did. I'll try to post again soon, but I make no promises. ;) I'm still an amateur at ALL this. In the meantime though, enjoy some pics. We'll be here, figuring out what it means to be parents and wholeheartedly relying on the Lord to teach us!

 
Proud Daddy. Holding Jake for the first time...letting me see him, though I couldn't hold him yet.


My first chance to hold him. If you skipped the story above, I explained the mask.


In love already.


First family pic. I took the mask off for 5 seconds for this one.


Our little Jake-bug. You can see the war wounds on his hands. They made him have extra blood work because I was so sick. Sorry buddy.


Still my favorite pic.


Coming home. Thank you Lord for letting us get in our rent house just in time!


Just one more because he's so stinkin' cute.