Our Family is Flippin' Awesome

Ok, so I know that we shouldn't brag but we really have a fantastic family and I just have to let them know it. Also, I understand that when you have a 10-day old, you aren't supposed to be able to utter anything other than "I feel like a zombie" or something, but we had a really great week. First of all, Grandma Rose has been here since the day after Kennedy was born and she has been such a great blessing to us. She's sacrificed a good deal of sleep and energy to help us adjust to parenthood and we can't imagine how we would have survived this first while without her. We will really miss her when she leaves on Tuesday. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

To add to the amazing spoiling that Grandma Rose has been showering us with, Grandma Barb and Auntie Piglet came to visit on Thursday. They spoiled us rotten up until the very minute that they left today and we are really missing them now. We really enjoyed their company and their help and we seriously can't say enough about how awesomely thoughtful they are. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

So you'd think that we really couldn't have it any better, but you would be mistaken. Late Friday night (Saturday morning actually) Grandpa Jim flew in to San Antonio and surprised us! He could only stay for the morning but we were really happy to see him, Kennedy was talking about him all afternoon. Thank you for coming!

Kennedy is doing really well and she even lets us sleep for long stretches at night. She is so awesome, and makes me laugh all the time with the funny things she does. Everyone that came this week commented on how small she is. I guess our pictures make her look like a chunk, but she is quite petite, at least for now...

Thanks again to everybody that came to visit. We will be coming home in a couple weeks to see the rest of you.

Sunday Dress

                       

For Grandma Barb

My apologies for the poor lighting. I just figured out how to get the videos off the camera and compatible with the blog. More to come...

Welcome Kennedy

We are proud to present to you the newest member of the family:

Kennedy Rose Johnson.

She was born at 1:31pm Central Standard Time at St. Luke's Baptist Hospital. She weighed in at 8lbs 3oz, and measures 19.5 inches.


Kate did an absolutely amazing job, seriously, it was awesome. She went into labor at about 7:00am but wasn't sure if it was the real deal so she sent me to work. Two hours later, I was on my way back home. She labored at home for 45min before we had our doula come over. The doula checked kate and she was dialated to a 5 (she told us 3 so it wouldn't scare Kate) and we headed to the hospital post haste. Upon arrival, there were no rooms available, so she went through a few contractions in the lobby while they got a room ready. 15 minutes later, we were in triage and she was dialated to a 6. another 20 min later and we were in the delivery room. at that point Kate was checked again, and she was at a 10. They made a quick call to the doctor (who luckily is in the office building connected to the hospital) and got ready for delivery.


Not so fast, baby wasn't coming out just yet. Kate pushed like a champ for over an hour and baby finally arrived. Kate planned on, and accomplished her goal of an unmedicated birth and I am totally amazed at how tough she is.


After delivery, Kate had a somewhat shaky afternoon, she lost a pretty good amount of blood and wasn't able to go to the bathroom without fainting. So she is taking it really easy right now. I followed baby to the nursery and gave her a bath and now, a few hours later, we are finally catching our breath and enjoying time together as a family. It was a total whirlwind, and such a humbling, amazing experience. Thanks to all of our wonderful family and friends who have been such a great support to us!

Worthless Update

Unfortunately, there is nothing to update you with. Baby is a few days overdue now, despite what that countdown clock on the left says. We are going running tonight, then jumping on a trampoline, and maybe a jeep ride all whilst Kate downs a large jar of jalepenos and polishes it off with a gallon of castor oil.

Here are some recent belly shots for your viewing pleasure:

40 Weeks

                        

39 Weeks

                       

35 Weeks

                        

34 Weeks

                        

Texan Patriotism

Let's just get the fact that baby remains in the womb out of the way right now. We had a good 4th, albeit a little different than we are used to since we usually see a lot of family. We spent the morning at a flag raising and breakfast activity our ward held. It was nice and we got to know some member's of our ward better.

We hung out at the pool for awhile then, as a result of going to the ward activity, a nice family in the ward invited us to a delicious barbeque later on in the day. Topping off the evening, we went to an extremely crowded mall parking lot to watch a sub-par fireworks display put on by Six Flags.

                       

Maybe we were just spoiled seeing the Stadium of Fire show every year for the past few years, but the fireworks were not too impressive, especially with a Neiman Marcus building covering half the show.

On Saturday we headed up to Austin to see what there is to see.

We looked around at the State Capitol and that was pretty cool.

We drove around the University of Texas at Austin campus and marveled at it's hugeness, then had some barbeque at Iron Works. Good stuff.

Last but not least, we had to see the bats. If you haven't heard about the bats, go here. Sadly, we were a little late, and didn't get to see the mass exodus, but we still saw some lazy late comers flying out. We went down to the bridge and got a big whiff of the bat guano and while we were down by the lake, we took this picture of a cool looking building downtown.

                        

Still waiting

No baby yet. I can't imagine what could be taking so long. This bun has been ready to come out of the oven for weeks now. I don't want the bottom to burn, and in this heat, it just might. Kate on the other hand seems perfectly happy waiting another 9 months if necessary. How does she have the patience!?

To kill some time, we went tubing down the Comal River yesterday. It was pretty fun, and we were told that there would be lots of people drinking lots of... water. This is a picture of just the tubers entering in at one tube rental spot, but down another 100 yards the whole river is covered with tubers.

For those of you grandmothers who might be cringing at the thought of that cute little belly floating down a crowded river in a tube, she not only tubed down, but she went down the cool tube chute... twice! It was a lot of fun, and don't worry, we were very careful.

Here are some pictures from our quick trip to Fredericksburg for our anniversary. It's a cool little German town about an hour from here that is famous for bed and breakfasts. This B&B is called "A Place in Time." We really enjoyed it.

The main drag in town is a haven for all kinds of cutsie shops, most of which I had no interest in, except for the bakery. I had a German pretzel that kept me occupied while Kate had a fun time looking around.