25 things about me

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app)


1. I cried when I read Chantels 25 things about me.

2. I'm a small town girl. I mean REALLY SMALL. In a census done in 2000 the population was 7,804. Thats probably the population of a neighborhood here in Chesterfield. When I tell people that I am from Wytheville they look at me like Im crazy.

3. With that being said, my graduating class had less than 100 people in it. I could name every single person I graduated with. And probably everyone in the few classes before me and after me. Its crazy how here people worry about what school district that they are in. At home EVERYONE went to the same school. HAHA.

4. I am the ONLY person in my family (extended included) to move away from there. CRAZY.

5. I am a MOMMY. So weird to say that, and I still dont think its sank in. OH and BTW I LOVE LOVE LOVE watching my little baby boy grow and change each day.

6. Im in a so called Mommys lunch Club. HaHa. I love my lunch dates with Jackie and Alix. And little LilyBug and P.

7. I have been married for almost 2 years. (the reason i moved here) My husband got wasted on our first date and passed out in my friends bathroom. Tell me again why I went on a 2nd date? haha. On our 2nd and 3rd and 4th and 5th and 6th and 7th date we stayed up until the sun came up just talking. We were married less than a year and half later.

8. CHAMPS is hands down by far the BEST bar that there is. Ask anyone who has been there. They will agree. I wish I could turn it into one of those pop up books we had as kids, so i can just make in appear anytime i want a good beer.

9. Speaking of beer. Its YUMMY. I love the taste, especially on the beach.

10. I think my Dad is SuperMan. In 2008 he had and defeated prostate cancer, had a mild heart attack and surgery to fix it, AND came so close to dying of a strand of pneumonia that even the doctors were baffled by it. And when I say came close...I mean close as in he was on a ventilator for a week and the doctors told us that they didnt know if he was going to make it. When he finally came off of it he told us that he saw these shadows and they told him that it just wasnt his time. SCARY.

11. Chantel Wells is probably one of the strongest individuals I know. She has a terminal illness but she takes it in stride and most of the time you wouldnt even know she was sick, except when she coughs all over everyone at the movie theatre. :)

12. I would like Chantel and Sean to have a child MORE THAN ANYTHING. So much that I have even researched surrogancy. Elias needs a friend :) and they would be AMAZING parents.

13. Sean is the one person that can drive me ABSOLUTELY crazy but at the same time absolutely love...he is an AWESOME uncle to Elias. soooo very sweet.

14. I have the BESTEST sister a girl could ever ask for. I wish she lived closer. Because of her I have my cute little nephew LANDYN TYLER COLLINS. I also have 4 step sisters and a step brother. 2 step nieces and 4 step nephews.

15. I read the What to Expect message boards a million times a day. Those ladies are what kept me sane during my pregnancy.

16. I graduated from Radford University but didnt walk because I wanted to see the boy I was dating at the time walk. that was stupid, i dont even know where that boy is now.

17. I am a TEXT WHORE. I send and receive THOUSANDS of texts each month. But I HATE HATE HATE talking on the phone. This drives my mother crazy.

18. My number 18 is the same as Tellys:) She is one of my bestest and closest friends. We have only been friends for a few short years, but in those years we know each other more than most...and we also know more than we ever should about each others hubbys. hahaha.

19. I love the beach. It relaxes me.

20. TARGET is AWESOME. I could go there everyday. And I often do. Sometimes I dont even buy anything. HAHA.

21. I love my HUGE flat screen TV. I love watching all my shows on it. OTH, GREYS, 90210, Criminal Minds...the list goes on and on and on. I watch a little too much TV. But what else would Telly and I have to gossip text about? HA HA.

22. My baby is so spoiled Im lucky to get a shower everyday let alone get out of my pjs. He is getting better. ha.

23. We have two dogs, Wilson and Xander. Most days I want to sell Xander to the chinese, but i love him. Its also crazy (and a little sad) how when you have a baby your dogs become "just dogs"

24. I went to church camp for 13 years. These days I havent seen the inside of a church except for a few weddings, including my own. I find this sad.

25. I love love love Japanese food. I could eat it every single day.

This was hard...not sure I like talking about myself. HaHa.

Wordless Wednesday

ahhhh....thats the spot.

a little video that i found of Elias' first bath at the hospital.

Wordless Wednesday

Poppyseed

My dad and stepmom finally came to Richmond to visit with their newest grandson. My dad has had a really bad cold for a few weeks and didnt wanna visit til he was better. He didnt want to expose Elias to a cold. Check out how teeny tiny monkey is compared to his "Poppyseed."
(When my nephew was born my dad chose to be called Papa C but when Landyn started talking it came out as Poppyseed. HA. So that is what he is. Their Poppyseed.) All the Collins men are HUGE. They are all over 6 ft and just tower over everyone. I have a feeling Elias is going to get those genes. Lets just hope it waits til like high school or later. I dont want to be looking up to him when he is in middle school. He will be saying, "NO YOU GO TO YOUR ROOM MOM!" HA.
Thanks for coming to visit Poppyseed and Mama C. We love you and cant wait to see you again!

Wordless Wednesday

Just because....

Isnt my husband a sweetie :)

First Family Picture

clique

Things are going well. Are we sleep deprived? YES. Would we like sleep? YES. Would we trade this for anything? NO. Its so amazing how your life changes after having a baby. I know thats so clique. But its true. There is this little person that you are now responsible for their well being and you just look at him in awe.

Wordless Wednesday

first professional pics (2 weeks old)

Happy New Years!

We spent the first part of the evening last night at B's Uncle Mike and Aunt Tammys house. We had yummy food (which included a chocolate fondue, YUMM) and just hung out with his family. Elias slept the WHOLE ENTIRE time. Sheesh. Ha. Then we went home, put Elias to bed and watch the ball drop together. WOW, we are exciting. Definitely a lot different from a few years ago when we were wondering where THE place to be for New Years Eve was. Most likely at a bar. I wouldnt trade it for the world though, because it was perfect.
Today Auntie Kyle and Uncle Wags came to visit Elias for the first time. He was pretty boring as usual. He slept pretty much the whole time, but Auntie Kyle did get to feed him and cuddle with him. And we even got Wags to hold him so he could get the baby fever! (we are anxiously waiting for them to give Elias some playmates :)
I'm super mad that I didnt get any pics. I got ONE of Wags holding him and ONE of him in his cute onesie that I got from Old Navy that says Happy New Years. But you cant even see what it says. BUMMER. Oh well. HAPPY 2009 EVERYONE!!!

Wordless Wednesday

ONE WEEK OLD!!!

Our little monkey is one week old and we are still alive :) He gained back the weight that he lost because of his jaundice so he is back to his birth weight and then some.

One week old.
8 lbs 4ozs
20 in long

(yes he shrunk an inch but pedi said thats normal because babies are all stretched out at birth so they can fit through birth canal)

Nothing like a trip to the ER on Christmas morning

Since Elias' bilirubin levels were not very good at his follow up pedi appt they decided he needed the bilirubin blanket, which also meant we had to visited by a home health care nurse each morning so she could prick his heal to check his levels. Well the one that came today thought he was breathing funny, which freaked us out. (EXACTLY what a first time parent of a 6 day old baby wants to hear!) She had us call the oncall pedi and see what they had to say. Well since the pedi couldnt see him over the phone she thought it would be better safe than sorry and take him to the pediatric er at Chippinham. Talk about FREAKED out. Sean and Chantel had just shown up at our house right when all this was happening so it was complete chaos. The home health care nurse was preparing us for the worst. She told us to pack a bag because we would probably have to stay over night to monitor him. Tears were streaming down my face and I could see B's eyes start to tear up. When we got to the ER they took us back right away. The pedi there came and looked at him and she said he was perfectly fine. She thinks that his full belly from eating was just pressing on his diaphram and thats what caused his funny breathing. She wanted to get us out of there as soon as possible and told us not to touch anything on the way out. She hated that we had a newborn baby at the ER during the middle of flu season. Ummmm....SO DID WE! After all that chaos, things calmed down and we had Christmas dinner at our house! Crazy. Our first hosted holiday dinner. (and maybe our first dinner that we had had people over!)It went pretty well. Wasnt anything fancy considering we had a newborn, but it was fun. We had planned on going to B's parents but we couldnt take our lil monkey away from his tail. AKA the bilirubin blanket. So they came to us. :) Hope everyone had an amazing holiday :)

Merry Christmas!!!
We got our present a little early :)

what's in a name?

Early on in the pregnancy we decided to keep his name a secret. Everyone already knew it was boy so we wanted to keep something a surprise. That and naming your child is definitely one of the hardest tasks I have come across in life. The whole time we were dating we were determined we were going to name our first boy Braedon. But as time went by it became a VERY popular name and we didnt want our baby to be one of 3 Braedons in his kindergarden class. When we found out we were prego we decided that we really liked biblical names. For quite a while we had narrowed the names down to Noah and Silas. But we were lost on middle names. Brendon really liked Knight, which was his moms maiden middle name, but Noah Knight didnt sound good together and I couldnt help but think of Silent Night every time i said Silas Knight. One day while we were driving back from an appointment Brendon said he really liked Elias. And although he had mentioned the name before, I saw it in a new light. So a name was born. Elias Knight Jewell.

Ps. I will say that I feel like I could never really be 100% sure on a name until I saw my babys face. When I met my baby for the first time, he just looked like an Elias Knight. :)

24 hour follow up

We had to take Elias for his first pedi visit for the 24 hour follow up. He still isnt up to his original birth weight yet but they think its because of his jaundice.
He weighed 7lbs 11oz. It was soooo cold out. So we bundled him up. Think we over did it? :)

HOMEBOUND

We are now at home as a family of 3 :)

a few pics from Elias' BIRTH day.

im a mommy! dont mind the just gave birth look :)

Uncle Seany and Auntie Telly :)

Uncle Seany and Elias' first meeting :)

Grandparents Jewell

Great Grandma Alice. She came five hours with Nana to see me!

Nurse Amy and Elias. We loved her!

Daddy and Elias :)

Nana and Gma (still havent decided what she will be called. ha)

First time Grandpa is meeting Elias. I love love love this pic. I just love the excitement on his face!

Auntie Telly has waited a long time for this!