A welcome back!

As I sit here at 11pm (continuing this post from last night) thinking about how fast time flies, it occurs to me that my last post was when Grant was born.  That was almost 7 months ago! I can't even explain how fast these 7 months flew by and man, so much has changed in the Gailey household. So beware, this will probably be a lenghty, wordy post. First of all, in less than a week, my baby boy will be 7 months. Did I mention that already? It just seems like yesterday that he was born.  That we were at the hospital anticipating his arrival - making bets on: whether we were going to have another son or if we were going to have our first girl and guessing how big numero dos was going to be. He has changed so much - going from babbling, to rolling over from back to belly, then belly to back, now he's sitting up on his own, doing the army crawl, and eating like a champ. And I would like to note, both of our boys eat us out of the house now, I can't imagine them when they are teenagers! So other than Grant getting bigger and growing up too fast, like usual, here is a run-down of what we have been up to the past...7 months!

I started to write what has happened to our family the last couple of months, but I decided I didnt want to bore you with a novel and will have posts of any big events from past months.  I figured that way I can include pictures and the post will be a little more exciting than just paragraphs. So to give everyone a quick update, the beginning of March we made the trek to SC- actually Greenville...permentantly.  Well I hope so, anyway. Even though Beau got out of the Army 4 years ago I feel like with all the moves we have made the past four years he should have stayed in! However, this is a good move, a tough one, but a good one.

Our U-hauls from the night we moved! I will do a full post on our move south.

I was playing with my Nikon trying to get a feel for the digital SLR world.  Here are some of my favorite pictures.

Grant at 6 months, 3 weeks.  I could eat him up!

Beau and Benton at Falls Park in Greenville.

 We were entertained by a young fellow playing his guitar and singing.

Keep tuned for more posts in the near future.

Baby #2

September 8, 2011 will be another date to remember in the Gailey calendar. The day that we found out we will be adding another son to our family.  Grant Milton was born at 7:08pm weighing in at 8 pounds, 1.4 ounces and measuring 19 3/4 inches long, only 1.5 ounces and 1/2 inch less than his older brother when Benton was born. Another precious Gailey. Another day I will never forget.

The story:

I was admitted to hospital after having another check-up appointment at the doctor's office. I was ordered to have a BPP (biophysical profile) to make sure that the baby was getting enough fluid and was still doing okay in the womb. The BPP said everything was still on track and that the baby was estimated to weigh around 7lbs, 8oz. We received a sonogram of the baby's face and man, did that baby have some cheeks! After the BPP, we waited in the waiting room for another 30 minutes to see the doctor. After a check of my blood pressure, the doctor finally saw us. He was still surprised that I was still pregnant, after his diagnosis of me going into labor over labor day weekend.  I did make some progress from my Tuesday's appointment...from 2cm to 4cm! I was having contractions, but they had been on for about 2 hours and then off for the rest of the day. However, it was time to meet the new addition. The doctor walked us over to the Labor and Delievry to get settled in the birthing room. We were going to meet baby #2 sometime that day. When we checked into our room and I got my nice hospital gown on, we started to inform our family and friends that baby #2 will be here soon.  When our nurse came in to get my hooked up to the IV, we had a lot more in common than we thought.  She attended Clemson during my time I was there for grad school.  Even though she was a chatter, she definitely made the labor experience not feel so over-whelming.  She kept us updated on everything as I progressed. Dr. Elliott, my ob/gyn, kept on checking on me as well. He came in around 5:30pm and broke my water. The contractions started to kick in front-gear about 5 minutes after that. I thought the contractions were going to increase gradually, however baby #2 had another plan and was ready to make his debut. I requested an epidural and it started to kick-in around 6:15pm, as the contraction pain started to decrease gradually. After the doctor left, the nurse was trying to insert a cathader and realized that baby was decending into the birthing canal quickly. She called Dr. Elliott and another nurse came in to set up all the labor "tools" for the doctor. The nurse had me push a couple of times to help the baby down the birthing canal. The doc came in the room at 6:55pm and I pushed a couple of times again and about 10 minutes later, a baby boy was in the world! He was born at 7:08pm, to be exact.  What a great addition to the family! We are so excited to welcome:

Grant Milton Gailey

born at 7:08pm

on September 8, 2011

8 pounds, 1.4 oz

19 3/4" long

The Stiers

My side of the family is big.  And big might be an understatement.  You don't find many families that consist of more than 2 other siblings.  I have 4.  Even though growing up I always thought people judge me for having a big family and I always thought we were different because I had 20+ cousins and we were different. Take my mom, for example, she is the oldest out of 7.  That was very common back in her day and now you don't hear many families having more than 3 kids. I'v always appreciated having a bigger family than the norm and I get more appreciated of it everyday.

Our family is fun.  We go from one extreme--deep conversation about politics to laughing about someone farting.  We don't hold back! Now that all the cousins (the Stier grandkids) are all grown-up and some of us are starting families of our own it is hard to see every cousin every year. It's kind of sad because no matter what holiday or event it was, the Stier family was always together. And now it's far and in-between for all the cousins to get together. 

Last weekend, as you know, we went down to Columbia.  It was one of my cousin's, Sara, wedding.  I was excited because I knew that I was going to see a good bit of all of my cousins.  It was great.  We were able to see little Luc, who is 2 months younger than Benton.  Luc's mom, Kristin, and I are only one year apart.  Kristin and I were able to see each other's first born and "discuss" motherhood.  We also caught up with my cousins: Hank and Michael; Pat and his wife, Melissa; Becky; Jan and her little ones, Matt and his new addition, Hayden, and all the aunts and uncles!  With any event that involves the Stiers, it always involves a family picture. Even though we didn't make the family picture this year since we left the wedding before it was taken, without any doubt we took as many as we could while we were there.  So here are a few pictures of the Stier family and what we get into when we all get together.

Sara and her husband, Phillip

Aunt Mary and Luc

The Hill Family

My mom with 2 out of her 3 girls.

The best we could do getting a family picture.

It's always difficult trying to round 30+ people to one spot.

A good part of the family.

The Cruz family.

Pat and Melissa ~ the newlyweds!

Welcome to the family, Melissa!

Uncle Jack and Uncle Jonathan.

Always got cigars in their hands.

The sisters: Mary, Christie (sister-in-law), Penny, Mom, Susan

Phillip, my brother, and Benton

Can you tell they are related in a way?

A boy and his ball

Benton loves ball.  Basketball.  He LOVES playing hoops.  Especially playing hoops with a hamper.  He literally entertained himself for a good 30 minutes putting the basketball inside the hamper, knocking the hamper down, crawling inside the hamper to retrieve the basketball and putting the hamper back up so he could repeat the cycle. 

Columbia bound

This past weekend we made the trip down to Columbia for my cousin's wedding.  We left early Friday morning and got into town around 5pm (we had some minor traffic issues).  Benton did great in the car and so did Luna.  By the end, they were both getting antsy from being in the car for almost 8 hours.  We stoppped at a Chick-fil-A for lunch. We ate inside and was able to let Benton run around in the playground for a bit.  We were all glad to finally get out of the car when we got to our destination---the grandparent's house. 

Friday night we headed out to Wild Wings for dinner.  My friend, Rebecca, her boyfriend, Nate, and one of her friends, Jenna, as well as my brother, Phillip, joined us.  We definitely did not plan to stay out late, but I have to say 11pm rolled came to quickly!  It was a blast.

Saturday was very quiet until about 2 hours before the wedding when everyone is scurring around getting ready.  The wedding ceremony and reception were both wonderful and beautiful and we had a terrific time hanging out with family and playing catch-up.  We were definitely exhausted by 8pm.  We left the reception by 9pm and we were so tired that we couldn't even stay awake to watch TV when we got home.

Saturday night was a different story.  For some reason Benton got up around 3am and wouldn't not fall back asleep.  Let's just say 2 hours later, he was finally cuddled in my arms and we were all back asleep.  We don't know what the cause of it was and definite can't say why, but we were glad when we were able to sleep in till 9am.  We think it might have been a combination of teething, maybe a stomach-ache, waking up in a strange place...who knows?  I can honestly say that night was way, way worse than when he was a newborn!

We had a yummy Sunday breakfast.  We had a swim date, but had to move it back to a later time due to some scheduling conflicts.  We went back over to my aunt's house for another swim lesson.  Benton did well and caught on quickly. Even though Benton was tired and hungry during his swim lesson, he was a little champ! We got some pointers for future lessons and then got ready to head back home, as in our VA home.  We finally got back to our house around 9pm and were so glad to crawl into our own bed and wake up in the morning knowing we were already home.

All-in-all, it was a good weekend. Short, but good.

Neighborhood Day

This past Saturday our civic association held a neighborhood day.  It was at the local elementary school just around the block from our house.  We walked over with our neighbors and enjoyed the afternoon in sun. THE. BLISTERING.SUN.. 2 coats of baby spf 50 sunscreen and Benton was still getting sunburn? How is it possible? Needless to say, he walked away more tan than me. How is that possible??

We first stopped by the face painting booth.  Caleb getting his face "camo"ed up.

Then we headed over to see the police car (and hopefully Benton will NOT be in the back of one of those) and the fire truck.

We enjoyed storytime with the local libarian.  Benton and Caleb (our neighbor's son) enjoyed this thoroughly.

After storytime, the boys headed to the playground for some much needed release of energy. 

Three o'clock rolled around to quickly.  It was time to head home and take a nap.  Being out in the sun drained all three of us! We had a great time at the neighborhood day.  Can't wait for next year.

Little Mower

Trip to Jackson

Here is our trip, in pictures, to Mississippi for Kyle's wedding. 


Waiting for the bus at the crack of dawn, so we could catch our flight.  I believe we utilize every kind of transportation available: subway, bus, airplane

On the flight:

At the rehersal dinner with the groom-to-be:

Daddy feeding Benton grits for breakfast:

This is what he is thinking: "Mom, don't you know what that means?

Well, I do because I know spanish!"

Beau watching Benton play:

Beau, Benton, and Kyle:

The beautiful ceremony:

I know pronouce you: Mr. and Mrs. White...

Trevor, Beau, Benton, and Travis:

(Trevor & Travis are Kyle's, the groom, brothers)

Getting ready to head to the reception:

The first dance:

The Gaileys with The Whites

*Sorry some of these pictures are blurring.  Our point and shoot camera did not take very good pictures due to the low light at the reception site.

Unfortuately we don't have any pictures of our trip back home since it was a very early, early trip back. We had a great time in Mississippi and so grateful that we were part of Kyle and Ashlea's day.  Congrats!