Joanna Cantrell

Wow, THREE months already?  Time is flying by faster than I ever imagined it would.  For the first month or two of your life you slept, and you slept A LOT.  Me and your daddy didn’t know what to do with ourselves with a baby that actually slept!  It definitely helped the transition to two easier at the start.  I try to keep notes in my phone for you and your sister about things y’all have done, special moments we’ve had, general information about what is going on with you, and also just things about your personality.  Here is a little bit about your first 3 months of life.

First off… here are some of your newborn pics …

 

Some things about you!

1 months- You got RSV from your sis.  It was one of the saddest things to see you so sick so young.  Your poor cough sounded like an adults cough and you were so stopped up that I hardly slept because I didn’t want to take my eyes off of you.  Your breathing was really rough for several nights, but thankfully you didn’t have to be hospitalized.  Since Kinsley had never really been sick until she was almost 2, it was scary for me to deal with you being so sick so young.  Thankfully you haven’t been sick since!

1.5 months- I know you’re still a newborn, but I gotta get you on some kind if loose sleep schedule. It seems like you sleep almost all day, which is nice cause I still get to spend alone time with your sis during this transition, but then you’re restless, grunty, and fidgety all night long. It can get exhausting because I don’t get much sleep. You sleep a lot in general, I just want to try to get your longest period of good sleep at night so I can get some also!  So thankful that you sleep so much better than your sister did though!

 

1.5 months- Your personality is really starting to emerge. You wake up smiling most mornings and have began to coo and “talk” to me. I love seeing your personality begin to develop!

 

2 months- your night sleeping has improved a lot and sometimes you go for longer periods at night. You’ll stay asleep without nursing some nights for about 3 hours. Other nights you still nurse about every two hours. I think it’s partially my fault because when you begin to fidget I wake up and still  half asleep shove it in your mouth afraid you’ll wake up completely.  My goal for the next month is to get you transitioned into the cradle full time. It is time for me and dada to reclaim our bed. : ) I love snuggling with you so much at night, but I just don’t get any sleep with all your snorting and squirming. It’s also hard for me to let go since I know you’re my last little baby that I’m going to get to snuggle with like this. I’m trying to savor it.

2 months- I don’t feel like I  getting to enjoy your baby stage near as much as I did Kinsley’s since I have a crazy 2 year old running around. I feel like I’m missing out on a lot and don’t get to have near as much interaction with you as I did your big sis when she was a baby. I know you’ll never remember it, but I will, and I want to be able to feel like I didn’t miss out on too much even though I’m sharing my time between two now.

 

2 months- you have much better head control than your sister had at this age. You also have a very stiff/strong torso and will fling yourself backwards if I’m not careful.

2.5 months- you have began to be so much more alert lately. You also have been “talking” up a storm. You’ll get excited and grin and coo like crazy. I love it! I also love seeing your sweet personality start to develop. You really are such a sweet little guy!

2.5 months- you are so smiley lately! You love it when people sing to you and will get a huge grin on your face. Makes my heart melt. You’re so stinking adorable.

2.5 months- I am working on slowly transitioning you I to the cradle. You spend about half the night in bed with me and half the night in the cradle. You just sleep so much better next to me I bed that its hard to transition you out.

 

2.5 months- You found your hands.  I laid you down on the play mat the other day and when I came back from making Kinsley’s lunch you were grabbing on one hand with the other.

3 month- so so so talkative lately! You will coo and coo and coo and coo.  You seem to love to hear your own voice. : )  Your personality just keeps emerging more and more.

3 months- you are so so smiley in the mornings, and really just in general. I was so lucky to be blessed with two very happy babies. You are such a sweet little thing too.  There is no better feeling than getting to cuddle with your sweet little face. I remember the feeling that Kinsley gave me when she was a baby that made me fall in love with the blessing of being a mom, and you have definitely refreshed that feeling. Something about holding such an innocent,  precious being makes you so thankful to God to have been given the opportunity to have you.  That is not saying that every day is perfect. In fact, most days aren’t and I’m left feeling like I’m running in circles never getting anywhere and left feeling like I’m failing you and your sister in some way as a parent. However, there is something about looking down at the precious creation that God gave me, and it makes it all worth it.  The trial and error as a parent, the sleepless nights (mainly cause of your sis, ha), and the lack of time to just chill out and take a break can weigh on a mom. I know this time is going to fly past though (I mean come on, you’re already THREE months old!!) and so I try to make sure I’m not missing out on these moments that I’ll never get back.   I already feel like I’m missing out on a lot more with you just cause of the hecticness of having two.

 

3 months- you are still an awesome sleeper.  You are awake much more now, but you still sleep way way way more than your sister ever did. Up until about 2 weeks ago you were still nursing about every 2hrs at night. Lately you have stretched that out to 3-4hr stretches. Yay! You also spend a lot of the night in the cradle now except for when I get lazy and fall asleep nursing and don’t end up moving you back out of the bed. I’m okay with it though, I love my Easton snuggle time. : )

 

I love you so much little man. I went through the same distant feeling with you after your birth as I did with Kinsley after hers. I was hoping it’d be different since I at least got to hear your first cry, but it really wasn’t. Something about being strapped to a table and having a baby cut out of you kind of ruins that.  Even if it didn’t hit immediately it doesn’t matter, because when that overwhelming feeling hits, it hits hard. I look at you and and am so in love.  Your coos, smiles, sleep smiles, and all the silly little faces you make when you’re asleep have me completely smitten. I feel so lucky that I was blessed with YOU. I am so excited for what the future brings and am excited watch you grow and your personality develop.

 

Some random pics…

 

I didn’t put much effort at all into Kinsley’s second birthday, but I figured I should at least make her a cake.  She has grown to love “The Bubble Guppies,” so there was no question what the theme would be.  Since Kinsley loves all the Guppies equally I chose which one I liked best to go on the cake.  Haha.  I could have done a couple of them, but I just didn’t have it in me to put that much effort into it considering I have a newborn and a 2 year old to chase around.  It was pretty simple, but Oona definitely was the biggest challenge for me.  She went together really well until I got to her face and then it was down hill from there.  I ended up doing the black that was on and around her eyes with a sharpie. Ha.  Don’t worry, we took it off before we served it. She looked a little cross eyed to me, but oh well, Kinsley loved it and that’s all that mattered. : )

 

My little goofball.  Love her SO much!!

In all honesty, Easton’s birth story starts months ago.  Actually, it starts shortly after Kinsley’s birth when I began my journey seeking a vbac. I spent hours and hours in medical research journals doing what I do best, reading and researching.  I knew it was the safest and best choice for us to go for a vbac. I strongly believe that the good Lord designed our bodies perfectly to birth babies and if we as women are patient and trust in His design, the large majority of the time all will turn out perfectly. With that being said, I am indeed now the mom of two cesarean births. For Kinsley’s birth story go here: http://kinsleycantrell.com/everyone-has-their-own-story/

It was Friday, February 8th, and me and Kinsley had gotten out of the house to go to SAMS and Walmart. It was time to do my big two weeks worth of meals shopping trip.  When we got home and I got everything inside I put away all the groceries and got everything organized. Ryan got home shortly later while I was stocking our bathrooms full of toilet paper out of the huge box I had just gotten from SAMS.  We decided to move the extra mattress we had just been given out to the shed until we needed it when company came into town and so I stopped and we carried that out there and got it out of the way. While we were out there we went ahead and grabbed the infant car seat since we would be needing to install it in the car in the next week or so.

Ryan went into the bedroom to get out of his work clothes, Kinsley was playing in the infant car seat buckling and unbuckling it, and I carried on putting toilet paper away.  I had run out of room in the bathrooms and decided to put the rest away in the shelf above our broom and mop closet so I did what I’ve always done and moved the bar stool over there and began making trips up the stool to put the rest of it away.  I guess this is where a personality trait of mine that I hadn’t ever really viewed as a negative trait became negative. The whole “nothing slows me down, I can do everything on my own” personality trait came back to bite me. As I climbed up on top of the bar stool I immediately realized I was off balance and was about to fall. I tried to push off with my feet so I had a chance to get them underneath me because otherwise I was going straight down, but there was no way. I landed on my bottom/lower back and then my head hit. Ryan came running into the room because of the loud noise asking what in the world just happened and said “please tell me that didn’t just happen, I could have put that away.”  My head was spinning and so I told him to give me a second and then that’s when I felt the warmth just start running out. My immediate thought was “oh no, my water must have broken” but then I stuck my hand underneath me and it came out with blood on it. I immediately hopped up grabbed my purse and said “We need to go to the hospital now” and went and climbed in the car. Ryan grabbed Kinsley and his wallet and took her out there and put her in her seat and so at about 5:30pm we were on our way to the hospital.  Each time I felt a little gush I became more and more frantic. I called 911 as we were pulling out and asked her what we should do and she said we were fine driving ourselves and to go to the nearest hospital if it was more than a regular period. It was, but I wanted to be at our hospital with providers I knew and trusted if something was seriously wrong and since luckily there wasn’t traffic we did. (Our hospital isn’t much further at all than the nearest one) After I hung up with 911 I called my hospital and begged them to give my midwife and the on call OB a heads up and told them what had happened. I’m sure they probably get a lot of false alarms from worried moms and didn’t really seem too worried until I got there and they saw my blood soaked skirt and the little trail I was leaving.

The trip waiting to get to the hospital was awful. I just sat there feeling blood continuing to gush every so often and visualizing my placenta detaching and his oxygen supply being cut off.  You know, imagining the worst possible thing happening because that’s what frantic, hormonal, bleeding, pregnant moms do.  I wanted them to be able to take him immediately if it was necessary when we got there because I was expecting the absolute worst. I kept poking at him to make him move. He actually stayed pretty active on the way, which helped keep me sane.  We got to the hospital and we pulled in an area right by the Women’s center door, but missed the pull through so I hopped out and told Ryan I was going in while he parked and got Kinsley out. Thankfully there was a nurse about to go through the interior door that you had to be beeped through and she let me in. The nurse could see how frantic I was, and the blood that was dripping from me as I very quickly walked down the hall towards the front desk and tried to calm me. Thankfully they sent me right into the L&D room straight across from the desk and had me change into a gown. I don’t know why, but I kept apologizing for the blood I was leaving on the floor and that I left all over the bathroom trying to get the gown on. After I got changed and in the bed the bleeding  had slowed down a lot, but I didn’t feel the smallest bit better until they got his heart rate up on the monitor. It was a little lower than normal, but it was steady and looked good. Shortly later the sonogram guy showed up and started doing all his diagnostic stuff making sure baby looked alright and trying to see any issues with the placenta or where the blood could be coming from. I kept asking him questions, but apparently they aren’t allowed to disclose that information. It’s up to the doctor. While he was doing the sonogram my midwife showed up which made me start crying for the first time. Before this point it was just a pure frantic feeling for his safety, now I also felt that worry coupled with the realization that I had done something so stupid that threw myself into the hands of another surgery I’d have to recover from. I wanted so badly for her to be the one to deliver this little guy and had been so excited to have her in my corner, and then I ruined it all by doing something so stupid.

The sonogram guy couldn’t see what could be causing the bleeding on the sonogram, but because sometimes issues with the placenta can’t be seen until they are actually in there, the only option to ensure his safety was was to do a c-section and get him out before his heart rate had a chance to look bad. So a mere hour and a half after my fall I was being prepped for surgery. I was so thankful that this go around I was administered a spinal and at least didn’t get knocked out with general anesthesia like with Kinsley’s birth and thankful that Ryan actually got to be in the room to experience the birth too this time.

At 7:58pm Easton Ryan Cantrell was born weighing 7 lbs 1 oz and 20in long. The NICU team was in the room to check him out and make sure he was okay, and then he was brought over for me to see. His APGAR scores were perfect and he was deemed a healthy little man. Ryan took him to the recovery room while they finished up with me and then I was wheeled in to join them. They did his bath and everything in the recovery room and then they took us to our hospital room. It was a good 24hrs before I could go to sleep at all because I was on such an adrenaline high. Thankfully the recovery process was just as quick as it was with Kinsley and he is such an awesome baby so far.

When you have spent so much time preparing for and hoping for a birth to just be somewhat normal, it can be hard to accept it when it is beyond completely opposite of what you had dreamed of.  When you have spent months and months visualizing and dreaming of your perfect birth and in two hours worth of time its gone, you’re left in almost a state of unbelief that it was just stripped away so quickly and that you’re once again laying there recovering from major surgery.  However, there is something about holding that perfect little creature in your arms and knowing that the end goal was indeed to bring them into this world healthy that washes away some of that disappointment you feel. When you look at them and that overwhelming love rushes over you it puts it in perspective that the disappointment you feel about the birth will ease and go away, but had anything happened to them, you’d never have been able to rid yourself of that loss. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I just wasn’t meant to have a normal birth. Ha. I’m almost thankful that we are stopping at two children simply because of the fact that my births seem to get a little more ridiculous with each one. No telling what in the world would happen with the next birth knowing my luck.

At the end of the day when I look at this amazing life I have I feel nothing but blessed and happy. I have way more than I could ever ask for and so thankful that I am able to stay home and raise these precious little blessings I’ve been given.

Here are some pics of my handsome little man. So happy our family is complete and that I have another precious little newborn in my arms to snuggle with!

 

The bedding ….

 

Thanks to mom for putting up with my indecisiveness while shopping for the fabrics!  The two bottom pics are the patterns I made and it all cut out and ready to go!  It didn’t end up being as time consuming as I feared, yay!

 

Putting it all together.  Another thanks goes out to Rhonda for doing the piping for me so it was ready to be sewn into the bumper.

All done!

 

The Dr. Seuss sign….

Here is the fun piece of fence that I found.  Thanks to mom for bringing down Dad’s circular saw so I could cut it up easier!

After I finished it the first time it fell off the wall and busted apart.  Soooo…. taking that into consideration, I don’t think it ended up looking too bad …

 

 

Here’s the rest of his nursery ….

Thanks for doing the curtains for me, mom!

 

This little sign was the first thing I made for the nursery, and my main inspiration!

 

The awesome pinwheels Rach made!

 

 

The awesome name letters that Ape made!

 

The other side of the room…

Since all of his family in the OK/TX area missed Hayden’s second birthday we decided to have a really small party back here for him.  Mom asked me to throw a cake together, and so I did.  Don’t pay any attention to how the cow’s noses look like horse noses.  We were too lazy to make some peach fondant to put on there. : )  Happy birthday sweet boy!! We  love you!

 

The cake didn’t make it very long “uninjured” with 3 small children in the house. : D

 

This cake was much more last minuted planned than I am used to, which makes me nervous because I like to have every little detail planned out so nothing can go wrong, but no major catastrophes happened. : P

New things:

-I played a little bit with gum paste.  It’s definitely not cheap to buy ready made, so I just bought the powder and mixed it up myself.  If I use it again in the future I want to find a from scratch recipe for it.  I make the marshmallow fondant, may as well make the gum paste, too.  I made the rocker on the top of the cake with the gum paste so it would harder and stand up straight, and part of the name plate is gum paste since I ran out of light blue fondant.  The next time I use gum paste I would love to make a 3D object.  How fun would that be?

-I learned that gray is not an easy color to make!  This part of the cake about gave this perfectionist a heart attack.  Just plain wilton black does not make gray.  It makes an ugly purplish looking color.  I played with it adding in yellows and greens to try to even out the purplish look, but I just couldn’t get it a shade of gray I liked so I turned to the good ol internet.  I saw the americolor brand reccomended several times and read that it had worked better for numerous people trying to make gray, so I googled a cake store and went and got me some.  I was much more pleased with the color, but it still had a purple tint to it that was driving me crazy.  After adding some leaf green and some yellow, I finally got rid of the tint.  Unfortunately I had gotten it much darker gray than I wanted, but as long as it wasn’t purplish, I was happy.  Sadly, after being on the cake for about 8 hrs a slight purple tint came back, but it wasn’t too bad.

-I’ve come to realize that it won’t matter how many cakes I’ve done, there will always be something new to learn.  Always.

Here’s some pics of the cake…

This was my first shot at trying to sculpt something.  I have very little artistic ability, so it’s surprising it turned out as decent as it did.  The hardest part was the weight of the little hockey man!  I had to toothpick him to death to keep him together, and then once I got him on the cake, he just sunk right in since it was just buttercream.  So the poor guy looks more like he’s snow plowing than skating.  Oh well, you live and you learn.

Sadly the cake came out looking more like a 15 year olds birthday cake than a 52 year olds.  I was just trying to celebrate her youth, right?  None-the-less I once again learned new things while making it!  I’ll be a pro by Kinsley’s next birthday, which is the reason I’m learning how to make cakes.  So I can make them for my kiddo’s birthdays!

Things I learned …

1. If you let fondant dry on a curved surface, it will stay curved!

2.  You can use fabric flower ideas on pinterest to make fondant flowers and it’s fun to experiment with!

3.  How to use a fondant/gum paste mold. (It’s ridiculously easy, not much learning involved.)

3. Always have planned out exactly what you want to put on the cake and what you want it to look like.  I had a basic idea in mind with this one, but mainly I winged it, and that made it a pain in the booty.  (Sorry it didn’t turn out near as cute as I wanted, mom!) I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the other cakes I’ve done, and it took much less time to make them when you are well planned.   I wanted to try out the new molds I got and so I made the front medalion with one of those.  It turned out pretty well.  I got it put on and the trim around the bottom put on and then I was stumped. Nothing else looked good on there with the trim and medalion and so I sat stumped for a couple of hours.  I hate wasting time like that when making a cake.  Finally I decided I needed something that added some dimension to it.  Something that stood off the cake a little bit, and so I made the flowers and layed them out on a curved piece of foam so they would stand off the cake a little.  I liked the way the turned out and stuck them on the cake.  I really wanted to be done, but it just looked so bare so I began to scour pinterest for flowers that I could try to make out of fondant.  I foud one I liked, but it wasn’t working, so I just started winging it.  I really liked the way the flower turned out, and will definitel use it again on a cake.  I think it would look really cool to put it on the side of the cake! I’ll have to try that next.

After finishing Emily’s baby shower cake I had a ton of fondant left and a decent little portion of butter-cream.  Instead of wasting it all, I decided to make Rhonda a b-day cake.  Cause she deserves it!  I have been wanting to try the “quilted” look on a cake for awhile, the opportunity just hadn’t yet arose.  I had fully planned on taking a ruler and lining it up and rolling on each line until I watched a cake show a few days ago and saw a much easier way to do it.  I will honestly admit that the bulk of what I know about cakes was learned from watching cake design shows on TV.  Sad, I know.  Instead, I took a square cutout tool, flipped it to look like a triangle, and pressed on each one.  I pushed it a little too deep in a couple areas and it cut through the fondant.  If I ever use the quilted look again, I will make very light impressions with the square cutout and then take my fondant rolling embosser tool and outline the rest with that.  I think it would give it a much better, and more even look.  I took a couple pictures with my iPhone but they are all blurry, just as they usually are.  I never learn my lesson.  USE YOUR NICE, EXPENSIVE, SLR, JOANNA. DUH! So, I ended up stealing the picture Rhonda took.  Thanks Rhonda!

It always seems like no matter how well I plan I have to adjust and adapt when doing a cake.  This cake took a lot of adjustments, but in the end I am decently pleased with the outcome.  I think my main problem is how much of a perfectionist I am.  I can’t just look at a cake I’ve done and see how it looks over all.  The flaws and things I don’t like just glare out at me.  The theme of the shower was decided from the nursery, and so I tried to make a cake that coincided with the shower and nursery.  Here it is ….

In progress…

 

Done!