Here We GROW Again (haha)

We recently added Hunter to the family, now we've added another. This one's much cuter though, my niece, Elise! (Denise's niece, Elise. Say that 3 times real fast!)

Anyway, Kenzie needs some time to get back on her feet and get things together, so Elise will be staying with us for a while. We don't know for how long, but we are happy she's here and happy to know that she's in a safe place and that Kenzie can concentrate on doing what she needs to do for now. So, I'm remembering what middle of the night feedings, car seats, diaper bags, and poopy diapers are like.

The kids are so excited to have her here too, (for now!) but they've been a big help. Regan is such a little mama, and likes to help with changing and feeding and bath time! Well, that's our news for now. I'm on the hunt now for a stroller and walker and some things for her to play with. As much as I would love to hold her all day, that's just not feasible for me!

Family Visit!

Family visit time! Dad and Cathy came down from Dallas, and Kenzie came with the kids, and David smoked a brisket! Riley was at Sea Cadets, so we missed him, but we spent the day visiting and catching up. The kids are a handful, that's for sure! They're cute though, but Elise only wants to be held by momma, and Eli was a mini-Riley, running all over the place, and getting into everything. He was having a good time playing with the dogs and cat though.

Mimi was out of town, but Papa came over for dinner, and we got to talk and hang out for a bit. Then when Kenzie headed back to her neck of the woods, we went to the Domain with Dad and Cathy for tea and Creme Brulee. Yum.

On Sunday, after church, we went to lunch with everyone at Threadgill's. Regan enjoyed getting her picture taken on the old tractors in the back. It was fun, and it was good to see everyone. Have to do it again soon when Mimi and Riley can be there too!

Not much to Report

Not a lot going on these days. Regan has one more week in both casts, then one comes off and one gets replaced with a short cast. She's very happy about that but I have to brag on her a little bit. She's handled this whole thing so well. I know I would be Captain Complainer if it were me, but she hasn't once complained about it. She gets irritated with herself for not being as independent as she used to be, but she's had such a great attitude with the whole thing. Very proud of her for that.

Hunter is getting huge and is quite the handful. He just roams the house seeking what he can devour (sound familiar, um, like SATAN?) He's not on my good list right now. But, we found out he LOVES the water hose, so I take him out back and spray him down, he loves it. And it's getting hot enough these days I might hose myself down with him.

Riley is off to drill weekend right now. It's inspection this weekend, so he's not looking forward to it. Time to get the head shaved again, make sure all the uniforms are ironed the right way and shoes are shined to perfection, patches sewed on in exactly the correct spot. The military is pretty particular about that kind of thing, who knew?

David has been going to a chiropractor friend from church and is feeling MUCH better. Which is good because we have so much to do around the house! He got a job offer today which is great news, but he's holding out a little bit for a different job that he really wants, so we are praying they offer him something soon, or he will take this other one. Either way it means more money which is an answer to prayer!

Kenzie and the kids came by one day to pick up mail, and it was good to see Eli. Hadn't seen him in a long time, so of course, took some pictures. It was hard cause he's a mini-Riley and didn't want to stay still for longer than about .02 seconds.

And I'm just the grease in the wheels that make all this go 'round. I'm just counting down the days till our phone contract is up and I can get an iPhone (10 more days!) That's the highlight of my life right now. Don't hate :)

Kenzie and Elise

I got to see Kenzie and Elise today! It's been a while, and a long story, but for now, I will just share pictures. Elise is the cuddliest, sweetest, chunky little thing! So adorable.

Elise Brielle Aldridge

Kenzie was scheduled to have a c-section on Monday, July 9th, so Regan and I met Grandpa Don and Cathy (Khaki) at the hospital for the birth. I got to go in with her again, so I had to "scrub in"! Good thing there's that big blue sheet separating me from all the blood! And her doctor was nice and funny, so it was a little weird sitting there making jokes while he was cutting her open. Eeeww. Anyway, Elise Brielle was born at 1:00 in the afternoon, and up until that morning, she didn't have a name! I am proud to say I got to have a little hand in naming her! As we were checking in, I saw the name Elise in a baby book and we were like, hmm, that's it! She's precious, and she was perfect!

Tammy's Farm!

I usually stop in at Tammy's, or in this case, spend the night at Tammy's, when I have to go get Regan from Camp Texlake. She lives about 5 minutes from Camp, and it's over an hour from my house, and since I had to get Regan at 9am, I spent the night! Kenzie rode with me to drop Regan off at camp, and then we went to check out Tammy's farm, and then I went back Friday night since the guys were out of town on a deep sea fishing trip, so Regan and I spent the day helping her milk the goats and feed the menagerie!

Chuck

I got to watch Eli for a bit, I'm calling him Chuck :) He's so cute. This is just a picture update.

Charles Elijah

Charles Elijah

What a roller coaster the last few days have been! On Sunday, after church, I took the kids to the outlet mall to get some new shoes, and it was sweltering hot. We hurried, rushed home and met Kenzie and Joe at the pool, and wouldn't you know it, a cold front came in just as we got to the pool, it dropped 20 degrees! The kids still jumped in, but after swimming about an hour, we were all freezing and turning blue, so we left.

When we got home, Kenzie told me she thought she had been leaking amniotic fluid for a few days. I was concerned about that and told her to call the doctor immediately and see what they say about it. Well, they told her to go ahead and pack her bags just in case, and come on in, but no rush. So, she went home and packed her bags and came back here and I drove her to the hospital. Well, they got her checked out and sure enough, it was amniotic fluid so they decided to hook her up to a pitocin drip right away to get contractions started.

I went home and changed clothes (it was freezing in there and I will still in my "hot" clothes) so took Regan back up there with me where we sat and waited. And waited. And waited! She was around 1cm for hours. They got the pitocin up as high as they would go and left it there most of the night, and while she was having regular contractions, they just weren't productive.

So, on Monday afternoon, I went home, cleaned up, took a nap, and then headed back up there Monday evening. The doctor finally said they could increase the pitocin by double the amount, and so that started climbing, the contractions got worse, and much more painful, and finally, about 27 hours in, Kenzie asked for an epidural. It was horrible, I know she was so hungry, and tired and worn out, and in so much pain at that point, that even I, a staunch epidural-opponent, was like, get that needle in here STAT!!

Well, that made contractions stop completely, so they upped the pitocin again, but that made Eli's heart rate drop off the charts, so they would stop pitocin, then the contractions would stop, so they would start pitocin again, and then his heart would drop again, it was a long back and forth, back and forth. Finally, they realized, she was still just barely at 5cm, and this was not going anywhere, so they decided to do an emergency c-section. They said she could bring one person with her, she pointed at me, they gave me some lovely paper scrubs, and away we went. I was nervous, I don't handle blood well AT ALL. Mine is fine, anyone else's and I get light headed.

So, within minutes, I find myself at her head, desperately trying not to see anything, and just freaking out over the whole c-section process. They were very aggressive at that point, and it was just all so surreal. But in a matter of minutes, we see little Eli, and come to find out, the cord was wrapped tightly around his little neck, and it took him a while to breathe and start making noises. But finally he started making some little sounds, and they wrapped him up, showed him to Kenzie, then me and Eli left for the nursery while they put her back together.

He was perfect, so cute and a head full of black hair!! He was born at 12:58am on May 3rd. He weighed in at 7lbs 12 oz, and that's a pretty good size for being 3 weeks early! He was 20.5 inches long, head was 14.5 inches. He was in the nursery for a couple of hours for observation, but then they brought us back to Kenzie's room where she finally got to hold him. We stayed there for a couple of hours, getting our stuff together to move to a different room, and finally got moved over around 6am. It was a long, hard night!

So, here are some pictures of Charles Elijah, and some of his visitors. He's been really good, sleeping for 3 hours at a time, waking up to nurse, he's taken to breastfeeding almost immediately, and he's just so darn cute! Kenzie is finally up and around, and should be able to leave the hospital tomorrow.

Kenzie's Baby Shower

It's getting close!! We had Kenzie's baby shower at her new house with her roommate, Fonda. It was a really nice day. We had a lot of old friends show up (not OLD friends, just friends we hadn't seen in a while!) and it was a lot of fun. I got the cutest cake from a friend of one of my Girl Scout mom's and it was delish. Tammy made a cute diaper cake with the jungle theme too. And we played a few low key games, I'm not one for shower games, but these weren't bad. One game, you have a huge bowl full of baby socks and you have 30 seconds to make as many matches as you can. It was fun. Regan was my little "helper" and boy did she! Afterward, we sat around and talked for several hours, and then Tammy and I dropped Regan off at home and went for a pedicure and dinner! And Kenzie got a good haul, I think she's pretty set, and now we just sit back and wait for Elijah to make his appearance.

Happy New Years!

We were going to have another big shindig like Christmas Eve, but with everyone going out of town, or having made other plans, we ended up having a simple night, which was SO much fun! Kenzie came over, and then Daniel and his girlfriend Nikki and we rocked the Rock Band for a while. It was a lot of fun. We ordered pizza, I made guacamole and queso, and then the guys played some Fight Night, and we all laughed at their expense. It was fun. I got to give my boy Riley a big smooch for New Years, I don't think he appreciates that tradition yet, but David was playing a game, and in deep. Pam and Dave even stopped by with their leftovers from Buca's, tiramasu, YUM!

Here's wishing everyone a happy and healthy new year!

Mooyah, Zilker, Amy's...Oh, My!

Zilker Gardens

Since the weather has been absolutely gorgeous lately and David had to work, so our day trip to Waco is postponed yet again, we picked up Daniel and Kenzie and headed to Mooyah Burgers for lunch, yum. They have some really yummy burgers and the kids loved inserting the term "mooyah" into every sentence. Regan said as we left, "They should call it 'Horse-yah' cause Horses are better!" Not to eat dear, not to eat.

Then we headed to Zilker Gardens to see the Dinosaurs! That was a lot of fun, they had life size dinos all over the place, and of course, a day with the Aldridge siblings is never dull. The woman at the gift shop told us to be on the lookout for the extra dinosaurs, so Daniel was trying to take pictures of the little gray haired ladies that he saw on the trail (even saying they were out of their natural habitat, the Bridge Club!) Guess you had to be there. Anyway, it was fun, they had some really neat dinos, and of couse, we all had a laugh at the Japanese Gardens (think Airplane!) and by that time it had warmed up quite a bit so we decided to cool off at, where else, Amy's Ice Cream.

So we headed to our favorite location, next to Phil's so the kids could play. They had the coolest cow, a skeleton cow, but they covered and moved it before I could get a good picture, bummer. But Daniel and Riley played a rousing game of Shuffleboard, and we enjoyed pumpkin (or as Regan said 'punkin') ice cream.

We had a great day and can't wait to hang again you guys, I always have a blast with them too. We're on a mission now to get our big brother Donnie down here for Thanksgiving so we can have the whole family together again for the first time in over 10 years!!

Kenzie!

I feel like a Mama Hen, and all my little baby chicks are doing good right now. I know they are my siblings, and they probably don't like my referring to them as my baby chicks, but until they are flying on their own, they're gonna be my baby chicks! So here are some pictures of Kenzie doing praise and worship at her church in Sugar Land this weekend! I heard through a friend that she was awesome!!

She's making all A's and B's in school, and she'll be coming back to Austin to get a job over the summer, so we're looking forward to having her back in our family.

Kenzie's Self Portraits

Phil's and Amy's

HAD to take Kenzie to the famous Phil's Ice House! Best burgers in town!! It was kind of chilly and they had their doors all open so we were trying to eat fast, but man, those burgers are the best. Then went next door to Amy's, the kids had gotten $5 from Mimi, so I let them buy their own ice cream, they thought that was so neat, to pick out their own and pay for it themselves. Regan got a scoop of Sweet Cream with Nutter Butter's crunched on top, and Riley just had a scoop of coffee which was gone before he walked out the door practically. We sat outside and watched the kids play on the playground while we ate (froze) and I meant to take pictures, but it didn't happen. We were in a hurry to go pick Tristan up from school, and because we were so cold!! Kenzie liked it though. Yummy!!

Travis County Jail

Kenzie and I went to visit Daniel, in Travis County Jail. I hadn't seen him in over 4 years, and Kenzie hadn't seen him in over 5 years. He looks really good, he's in jail for tampering with evidence I think, apparently he had drugs on him when he was stopped by police and he tried to swallow them. He said he has a weak case and he might end up spending 2 years in jail this time. But he will at least be off the streets and warm. We had a good visit, typical Aldridge family visit, cracking jokes and laughing, I think the people around us thought we were odd that we were having such a good time! But we were so happy to see him, and see him looking so good. He looks older, hard to believe he's a 30 year old man and not my baby brother anymore! He's talking about going to the Dream Center in LA when he does get out, which would be awesome, so we're trying to see if we can get something worked out. But if anyone wants to see him, you don't have to be on a list, his day is Monday, from 6-9, and I think you can go on weekends, but not sure the times, but weekends are contact visits. And you can write him also, so if you want to write to him, email me for his inmate number, and DOB, that has to be on all correspondence.

Horton Hears A Who

We went to see Horton Hears A Who and it is SO funny!! It had all of us laughing, and I highly recommend it, I don't know who enjoyed it more, me or the kids. Okay, probably me. It was great! I will definitely be buying it the day it comes out on DVD.

Kenzie's Home!

Kenzie came home for a visit for spring break. We were gonna go to Houston to see her for a few days, but since her break is this week, we decided to put her on a Greyhound and have her come up here for the week. She got in late Friday night, we headed to Kerbey Lane for some loud, live SXSW music and pancakes!!

Riley and Regan spent the night at Tristan's house, and they had tons of fun! I think Riley got a little homesick since he called us about a million times while he was gone, but Regan, she had a blast with Tristan's little sister Megan. I don't think they wanted to come home, but they were glad to see Kenzie when they got here!