The Coolest Gift!

One of the sweet ladies at our church gave us this awesome gift for Angelyn last week. Check it out!! It's a personalized plate...but so much more personal than I have ever seen before...


Date and city of birth...


Name on the crib...


Time (including pm) and weight at birth...


Isn't that just the coolest thing? If interested, she found it here.

Generations Apart

Last week, we took the girls to go visit Nana - Reuben's paternal grandmother - who lives in a nursing home here in Cumberland. It was her first meeting with Angelyn and the two of them hit it off perfectly.




Kallie wasn't so thrilled about having her picture made. She was having a fine time playing around in Nana's room and did not want to stop for a photo op.


Sidenote to our family: Nana looked great the other morning! She had just been to the "beauty parlor" and said she was feeling better than she had lately. Reuben and I agreed that it was the best we had seen her look in a long time.

Birthday Wishes

Just wanted to thank my sister-in-law and her family for the beautiful birthday flowers for Angelyn!! Jenny, they are absolutely gorgeous and smell soooo good!! Thank you so much for such a sweet gift!

One Week Down

After 40+ weeks, she finally arrived!!! Here's a quick rundown of delivery day:

6:30 am - Arrive at hospital

7:15 am - Wth paperwork finished and a short doctor visit, pitocin is started to induce labor

1:30 pm - Ater enjoying a pretty easy day of very bearable contractions, my doctor arrives to break my water

1:35 pm - What in the world!?!! Are my contractions supposed to be this strong right after he breaks my water?!?! Okay...I can hold off until 2:30 to get the epidural.

2:15 pm - Okay...I've held off as long as I can. GIVE ME DRUGS!!!!

2:35 pm (or so...who's looking at the clock now??) - Okay...that's a little more tolerable, but I don't remember the epidural with Kallie being so painful.

5:00 pm - Nurse: "If you start feeling alot of pressure, let us know."

5:10 pm - Me: "Ummm...I'm feeling alot of pressure now!!!!!! Get this baby out!!!!" Note: I am not pushing at this point. And the last time they checked me, I wasn't ready to push yet.

5:11 pm - Me" "GET THIS BABY OUT!!!!!"

That thought continued to be voiced. Well, that and, "I can't do this...just leave her there!!!"

5:28 pm - Dr. Wolford: "Congratulations...it's a girl!"

And so she was born. It was unbelievably fast...which made it unbelievably overwhelming...but it was over :)

Several people have asked about her name, which was not final until the morning I went into the hospital. Anyone who knows Reuben knows he has a penchant for the unusual. This goes for names as well. He didn't want anything too common...I didn't want anything too weird. We threw a couple of names around before she was born, but couldn't ever really agree on anything.

So a couple of weeks ago, Reuben suggested Angelyn. He had never heard the name and just came up with it on his on. He didn't know, however, that it was my grandmother's middle name as well - so it was pretty special. Still, I wasn't really sure. I like to shorten names (which, thinking about it, you can't really do with Kallie either...) and I didn't want to shorten it to Angie or Angel, but we couldn't think of anything else that we liked. And then, when she got here, I couldn't think of anything else that would have fit her. It's just perfect for her.

Rose...yeah - no special meaning. We just thought they were pretty together.

Anyway, here's a video of pictures of her from the first couple of days. On a side note, Kallie is doing REALLY well with Angelyn. She loves to get diapers and blankets for us and loves to give Angelyn her pacifier (and has only given it to her bear a couple of times!!). We think she's going to make a great big sister :)

Introducing...

Angelyn Rose Rinker

Born Tuesday, August 5, 2008
5:28 p.m.

8 lbs. 6.2 oz.
18 1/2" long



Will post more later when the hospital has worn off :)

The Big Day!!!

Today is the day the new one is supposed to be here!! Has she arrived? No. I got so excited when the day came around that Kallie was born (wow...how to explain this...) - she was born almost 3 weeks early - so when that date came around for this baby, I woke up thinking, "Yeah!!! Gonna have a baby today!!!" Kallie really spoiled me like that. Does this mean they are going to be complete opposites?

So I've been thinking - mainly so I can have pity :) - what is the best way to describe how pregnant I am?

9 months?

No.

40 weeks?

Well, that's better...it sounds longer!

But then I thought of the winner!

240 days!!!! Now I realize that in the long course of things, that's not that long. HOWEVER, out of 365 days in a year, 240 days is pretty impressive, right??

My biggest fear at this moment is having the baby and the doctor saying, "Congratulations!! You have a little boy!!!"

And now (because the blog looks a little plain with no picture), here is Kallie the day after she was born.