Awwwww

Here is your daily dose of Chloe Jo. No story behind these pictures, just ridiculous cuteness.

Chloe's First Bath

So, Monday we decided to give Chloe her first bath, since she had pooped peed all over herself, her clothes and us :) For some reason we skipped the usual sponge bath and went right for the tub. Babies are slippery! It went pretty well and she enjoyed her hooded towel very much.



Again, please comment and let us know how you feel about the Flickr slide show format if you get a chance.

Bringing Baby Home #2

I know that Dan posted a bit about coming home, but I wanted to add some pictures. Here are some shots of all of us coming home last Sunday, November 16. Notice that once we got home, I couldn't stop crying! All is well here, days are short and nights are long, but both are magical and awesome. Thanks to everyone for cards, gifts, food, phone calls, texts, e-mails and LOVE. We appreciate each and every gesture even if we haven't had time to acknowledge it.

Click below to see a slide show. You can press play and run through it on its own, or go through them one by one. You can also view them full screen.






We haven't totally figured out this photostreaming yet, so I know the pictures aren't in chronological order, which is annoying. Let us know which format you prefer, the slideshow or posting individual pictures.

Coming Home

Today Chloe came home for the first time. Kristi already had her first freak out (as all good moms do) about the health of our baby and after a few phone calls it was confirmed that Chloe is just fine. Tonight should be interesting as we are now officially on our own and do not have any nurses to fall back on. By the way, the nurses at Elmbrook were awesome! They were all a great bunch of friendly and helpful people. Kristi, Chloe, and I would like to thank all of you who came and visited us in the hospital to celebrate Chloe's birth; we appriciated it greatly. Also, we have yet to see it but Megan's (Kristi's sister) finance Morgan was interviewed on FOX's morning show the day after Chloe was born and he recognized his future niece on air. Thanks Morgan, that was very thoughtful - what a way to be greeted into this world! Anyway, enough blogging I know most of you really want to see pictures. Sarah Heideman and Kristi's sister Megan posted some pictures on the Kodak site - the links are below (thanks girls). Sarah also made the sign pictured above - thanks Sarah.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=3ufzxymx.4jkiuaj5&x=0&y=l2bep8&localeid=en_US

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=wvdq3vu.5te4kr3y&x=0&y=8cp9t2&localeid=en_US

Introducing Chloe Jo Simek

We'll write more later but today was the big day. Chloe Jo Simek was born at 12:27 pm on 11/12/08 via C-section. She weighed 5 pounds and 0.08 ounce and was 19 and a quarter inches. Mom and baby are doing well.

8 months!

So, officially tomorrow I am 8 months pregnant, but I felt cute today, so we took the pictures. I've been feeing MUCH bigger this last week or so and the pictures confirm it.

You can also see my cute, updated "Mom haircut" in this picuture. I like it, but it's a little short.

7 Months Pregnant and 1 Year Married!

So, before I was put on bedrest, Dan and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary on October 6. Who would have thought that I would be 7 months pregnant! First we went to see "our tree." I had it planted in a park close to our house. It's a sugar maple and we'll visit it every year to see how much it's grown on every anniversary!

Dan by our tree
Me by the tree

The happy married couple

Here is the official 7 month belly shot

Here is Dan's belly shot of the night. We went to Mr. B's steakhouse for dinner. If you know Dan at all, believe that he licked his plate clean of a HUGE porterhouse. He was a good sport in showing off his "steak belly."


Somehow we still had room for the wedding cake that my parents had so graciously frozen for us. It tasted pretty good!

On the bedrest front, everything is the same, which is good news. My blood pressure is still elevated and I officially have Gestational Hypertension. But the bedrest appears to be working and nothing is getting worse. If all stays good, it looks like they will induce labor in 3-5 weeks. We will keep you updated. Thank you for all of the thoughts, prayers, e-mails, and phone calls. Our family and friends are wonderful and are making this challenging time a bit easier. Don't forget about us when the baby comes and we need casseroles! :)

Bedrest with Baby

Well, this is a post I didn't think I would have to do. I'm officially on bedrest until the baby comes. Let me give you the back story.

Late last weekend, I started having really itchy soles of my feet. I checked out some stuff online and was alarmed to find that there is a rare liver condition. So I called our nurse practitioner/doula, Karen, to ask her what to do. She told me to come in for some blood work and a NonStress Test (NST) on Monday just to calm my fears.

So, after a weekend of trying to figure out how to make the itching go away (it's really bad at night!) I went in early Monday morning. One of the things they do every time we go is take my blood pressure and this time it was kind of high. We did the blood tests (which ended up coming back normal later in the week) and then the NST. It's kind of cool. They put a heart rate monitor on my belly and I push a button when I feel the baby move. They want to make sure that the placenta is supplying enough oxygen to baby and look at how the heart rate peaks when the baby moves. They went just fine and then they wanted to take my blood pressure again to see what it was....and it was way high. So, my doctor immediately told me that I was done working and on bedrest until further notice. WHAT?!!!?

Dan and I were shocked and I left the hospital crying. I had heard about preeclampisa and knew that it's scary condition in pregnancy that I definitely didn't want to deal with.

I followed doctors orders with the help of my WONDERFUL husband and awesome friends and family. Dan's 30th birthday passed with as much celebration as was allowed and I tried to pass the time.

Thursday we went back to the doctor for another blood pressure test and NST. We were hopeful as Dan's mom had dropped off a blood pressure cuff (thanks Donna!) and it was lower than at the doctor's office. But... when they actually took it at the office, it was still high. I was really disappointed. We had another NST test and the good news is that even though I'm not doing great, the baby is doing fantastic. She's very active and we think she's going to be sassy the way she's giving her momma a hard time.

So, I'm still on bedrest and currently at Mom and Dad's with my sister taking care of me. Dan's in West Virginia this weekend for his brother's wedding. He'll be back Monday afternoon so I'll be spending the weekend for the most part at the Shemanske house.

It's not so bad yet. The worst part is laying around and worrying and thinking about everything that could happen and getting anxious... which I'm sure isn't great for my blood pressure. I'll be having appointments every Monday and Thursday until the baby comes to monitor blood pressure and protein spilling into the urine. (Right now I'm collecting my pee for 24 hours to get a better picture of whether or not this is happening... so I get to carry around a jug of my own urine... weird). It looks like if I can hang in there, they will induce labor around 36 or 37 weeks as this condition doesn't get "cured" unless you deliver the baby. Hopefully I can spend the next few weeks at home instead of in the hospital.

Please pray for us. This sudden shift in mindset has been hard on me and maybe harder for Dan as he feels so helpless. I believe that we will all be OK, I just hope we have the strength to make it through, regardless of how tough it is.

I also have 7 month belly pictures to post, but they are on a different computer so stay tuned! I will update the blog with any new info.

Baby Shower

Here is the update you've all been waiting for... pictures from the baby shower! We had a wonderful shower thrown by our family and friends at my parents house on August 31. It was a bit warm (and we all know how much I like the heat), but everyone was so generous and we are so grateful they could all be there. Our little girl is so lucky to have so many people that love her already!

The future Mommy and Daddy

All the presents from our guests for Baby Girl Simek

The "kids" supporting the Brew Crew. Chuckles was very excited to be at the party!

Starting to open our gifts.

Our good friend Melissa Schuett knitted us this adorable hat.

Dan likes fuzzy presents.

A beautiful counted cross stitch that our friend Melissa Reske made for the baby's room.

This was our favorite surprise of the day. My former roommate from college, Jennie, had remembered how much a stuffed animal named Drooper had meant to me. Drooper had been given to me when I was born and had followed me everywhere I went throughout childhood, college and even adulthood. She searched for a Drooper look alike for our little girl to have and found almost an exact replica! This is my reaction to a truly thoughtful and amazing gift from a true friend.

Ultimately, after the laughter there was crying. All those pregnancy hormones really did me in. (They are not in the pictures, but my mom and sister were crying too.)

This is the little guy who caused so much excitement.

Some of our favorite gifts were preparing the baby to support our favorite teams. Go Big Red!

Another of our favorite "Bucky" gifts. These were Game Day Overalls from my sister... she's going to be the baby's godmother!

The Simek side of the family

The Shemanske side of the family

Cupcakes that the new Grandpa Shemanske frosted in honor of his granddaughter... yum!

Thanks everyone for making it such a special day. If you did not get your photo fix, you may go to http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=ziijsey.3k3dzj7q&x=0&y=-7eula0&localeid=en_US and see all of the pictures that Sarah Heideman took for us.

Thanks, Sare!

6 months

It's that time again... for 6 month belly pictures! I'm not officially six months pregnant for another 3 days, but I really liked the dress I was wearing today :) It was also the first day of school and probably the most peppy I will look all week so I wanted Dan to take the picture before the kids took their toll. Stay posted for baby shower pictures... COMING SOON!

Kristi's Hair

Holy Cow, a whole post just on Kristi's hair! How many of you actually believe it only takes Kristi 30 minutes to do her hair!?

Getting ready for baby... with a new haircut

So if you know me at all, you know that my hair is a bit of an obsession. I have had the Kristi Jo trademark "flippy" hair since before the Sydney Olympics. As we get closer to the arrival of our little peanut, Dan has reminded me many times that 30 minutes spent flipping and curling my hair in the morning is just not realistic. The bummer is, with my old haircut, just blow drying and leaving it gives me a good ol' Wisconsin mullet.

So I bit the bullet, and with the help of my wonderful hair stylist, Jamie at Hair Central, we decided to give me "mom" cut. This isn't the final cut, the final one will be shorter in the back... a la Posh Spice, but it works for right now.... my hair only took 5 minutes today!

I can still flip it out, but I now have this look too. I'm soooo happy with the results and my new "grown up" haircut. I've only had one casualty - a nasty burn on my cheek the first day I used my new large barrel curling iron. See you if you can pick it out under my makeup in the last picture.

Please feel free to comment, though, my fragile hair-esteem needs all the positive feedback it can get.

And for those of you that are NOT as hair obsessed as me. Thank you for reading to the bottom of my post. Happy Weekend!

New Beginnings

This is my first official post on our family blog, so y'all need to be caught up to speed. Dan and I were married on October 6, 2007 on a beautiful, warm fall day.

We already had a house that we love with a big back yard so Dan can roam.

Soon after, we decided to expand our family. It didn't take too long. On March 27 at 4:30 am we took a pregnancy test and discovered that I was pregnant! Then we took another test... just to confirm. Can you see both lines!?!?

We were shocked and excited and nervous and ecstatic and lots of other emotions that all seemed to hit at once. The doctor confirmed and told us that our due date would be December 5, 2008.

Here I am at 4 months pregnant.

A few days after this we had our first ultrasound and found out that we were having a girl! I had a strong feeling already that it was a girl... don't girls make their mommies puke a lot? And Dan kind of wanted a girl. We also got some pictures of our healthy little peanut.

Here is her pretty little profile with her little "ski jump" nose. For those of you that are ultrasonically challenged- she is on her back, facing up and looking up.

Here are her itty bitty tootsies - destined to wear many pairs of cute shoes if her mommy has anything to say about it.

Another profile shot, but with her hand up by her mouth. Think she'll be a thumb sucker... let's hope not. Mom and Dad can't afford braces right now.


Now I am about 5 months and 1 week along (or 23 weeks as the prego books say). Here is a picture of my growing belly for those who enjoy tummy pics.

We'll keep you posted as new things pop up!