Kyndal's First Christmas

We hope everyone back home had a wonderful Christmas and a very happy new year!!
Here's a short video Ken took of Kyndal Christmas morning.

And another

She's a pro at it now. After just 4 days she's got it down. Even seems to bore her now..haha. : )

Another Video

She's rolling over even better today!!

Holidays and Kyndal

Hello everyone! Time for an update.
Well since our last blog we've had two birthdays and an anniversary. Ken celebrated his 26th birthday on the 28th of October. A couple of weeks later on the 11th of November we celebrated 3 years of marriage which was the first anniversary we've actually been able to spend together since Ken was deployed to Iraq for the first two. We celebrated by going out to dinner at a restaurant here on base called Jack's Place. It was pretty good. It was one of those places where they cook in front of you. We left Kyndal with a babysitter for the first time ever that night and it was traumatic for both her and mommy. Needless to say when we called to check on her she didn't sound too happy in the background. : ) Good thing I waited until after we had finished dinner to call otherwise I wouldn't have enjoyed it knowing she was crying. Thankfully we were only a few minutes away so I could get back to her quickly. Had to leave her again though a couple weeks later so that we could attend another military ball. At least I wasn't 7 months pregnant this time!
We forgot our camera so my friend (our babysitter) had to take some pictures in her livingroom when we picked up Kyndal. Who did a little better that night than before by the way. Still hard on mommy though to leave her even for a short amount of time. I celebrated my 25th birthday that following weekend after the ball.
(Me and Kyndal on my birthday about to head to church.)
Thanksgiving we spent with some of Ken's co-workers. Wasn't as good as back home but at least we had a meal. : ) So now we're just getting ready for Christmas and looking forward to our first one in Japan and with our baby girl. As much as we're going to miss spending it with family, we're blessed to be together as just our little family. Kyndal lights up our lives every day and we can't believe how fast she's growing. She's already three months old! She rolled over for the first time yesterday!!! We're so proud! I got a video of her doing it too so check it out at the bottom. Here are some pictures too while I'm at it. : )

She only likes sleeping this way when she's on daddyKyndal at Alligator Steps on Halloween

Just ready for a day out
Playing!
Giving Mommy attitude already! hahaKyndal on her first ThanksgivingKyndal and Santa meet...I don't think she will be inviting him to lunch any time soon.haha

In front of our Christmas tree.
Well, I guess that's about it for now. We will try to keep this thing updated better with more pictures. We hope everyone back home has a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We miss and love you all!!
Love,
Ken, Angela & Kyndal

check out the video of Kyndal rolling over.. I'm a proud momma : ) This was taken the day after she did it for the first time.

Life with Our Baby Girl

Well it's been awhile so figured it's time for an update. Of course our precious Kyndal is keeping us busy so it's hard to find time to sit down and think of interesting things to blog about. Right now she's chilling in her giraffe bouncer so I am typing as I bounce her with my foot. I've learned that motherhood is A LOT of multi-tasking. That's especially true now that Ken is back at work and I don't have his help. It seems like the 30 days that he was off and home with us came and went by so fast. We miss him while he's at work.
Kyndal is almost 2 months old now!! Hard to believe. She's been going through her 6 week growth spurt this week so she's really been keeping me busy by eating all the time. Last time we weighed her she was 10 pounds so she's definitely growing! She's not sleeping through the night just yet, but we have had a few nights where she has slept 5 or 6 hours which is pretty good for her. She coo's and grins at us now when we talk to her and loves to just sit and stare at her daddy. : ) She has some of the funniest faces too. She already has a puppy dog face where she sticks out her bottom lip so I'm sure she will use that to her advantage when she's older.
Last week I started taking her to a class here called Alligator Steps which is a parent and me program where we get to sing and play and get to know other mommies and babies. We've only been to one class so far but Kyndal seemed to like it. She didn't cry at least..haha. I've been trying to get out of the house some with her but it's SO hard going places with a baby. I'm sure any mother would agree. I can't just run to the store anymore when I need to pick up a few things. We've learned a lot just in the few weeks that we've been parents and continue to learn new things each day. We just feel so blessed to have this beautiful, healthy baby girl . We're still waiting to get Kyndal's passport in the mail so she can travel back to the states eventually to meet the rest of her family. We can't wait for everyone to meet her and fall in love with her. : ) We fall more in love with her each day. Other than adjusting to the joys of parenthood, not much else is new here in Japan. It's still warm here. I miss the cool Tennessee fall weather. It doesn't get very cool here apparently. It will probably still be 80 degrees on Halloween here. Kyndal and I are still trying to think of something to do for Daddy for his birthday coming up soon. Ken and Kim will be 26 soon!! Happy early birthday Aunt Kim!! : )
Hope everyone back home is doing well. We love and miss you all!!! Gotta run..the bouncy chair is no longer entertaining. : )

Ken, Angela & Kyndal

just a few pictures

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28196396@N06/sets/72157622392017126/

Also some photos we had taken by a friend of mine here..same girl who took our maternity pics.

Pics

Kyndal Olivia's Birth Story

Well we're sure everyone knows by now, but Kyndal Olivia Freeman arrived September 1,2009 at 11:33am (Japan time) She was 7lbs. 4oz. 20 inches long.

In case anyone is wondering how it all happened...here goes....

What started out as a typical Monday on August 31st turned into a very interesting next 24 hours. Monday morning I had a doctor's appointment just for a check up. Well, turns out my blood pressure was slightly elevated so my OB sent me down to labor and delivery to be checked out. About an hour later, they decided just to go ahead and admit me to be induced being I was only 3 days from my due date and had borderline pre-eclampsia. I was excited but nervous and felt somewhat unprepared. I didn't have my bags with me or anything. I called Ken to come to the hospital since he was at work. Around 4pm that Monday afternoon they started me on pitocin and about an hour later they went ahead and broke my water. Thank goodness for the epidural is all I can say! : ) We knew we were in for a long night and I tried to sleep when I could but probably all together got maybe an hour of sleep over a 28 hour period. Around 10am or so Tuesday morning they had me start pushing. Kyndal wasn't exactly in the perfect position to be born but the pushing moved her into place. It seemed like I was pushing FOREVER. But finally at 11:33am she was born. It was such a sureal feeling to see this little baby crying and realize that it's yours. Ken and I were pretty much in shock I think. I was so tired though I barely remember most of it. They took us down to recovery where Kyndal and I napped while Ken ran home to take a shower and post some pictures on facebook.

When he got back to the hospital, about an hour or so later they came in to check Kyndal's blood sugar level. Next thing I know, a nurse comes in and takes my baby girl from my arms saying they have to take her to the nursery. I thought the lady was just being mean to me. Again, I was so tired I barely could think clearly. All I knew was something was wrong and I couldn't do anything about it. They took Kyndal to the nursery and did some tests on her. They came back in the room and said that her blood sugar was very low and she was having some trouble breathing and would need to be admitted to the NICU. They brought her back in for a second so I could see her and she had an oxygen tank attached to her little cradle. That was hard to see. It was even harder when we walked down to the NICU and seeing her and she had all kinds of wires attached to her and was on oxygen. It's extremely difficult to try and hold your baby with all these things attached to her. If you move her the wrong way machines go off, and once when I was trying to hold her, the IV that was in her foot came out and she bled all over me. That was traumatic for me. Anyway, Tuesday night the pediatrician came and talked to us and told us that a chest xray showed that she had some patches on her lungs. They weren't sure if it was from her aspirating miconium (baby poop) while she was inside of me, pneumonia, or if her little lungs just didn't transition well after she was born. So they started her on antibiotics and kept her on oxygen for a couple of days but she was weaned off the oxygen by Thursday and was breathing perfectly fine on her own by that night. They did a couple of repeat xrays and it seemed that the antibiotic worked in clearing up the patches. But Thursday afternoon, she started showing signs of jaundice. She was under the lights for a couple of days to bring her bilirubin level down.


FINALLY on Saturday afternoon we were able to bring her home. It's so amazing. Exhausting...but amazing. : ) The three of us are doing great. Kyndal smiles all the time and we're always laughing at the different faces that she makes. It's indescribable how much we love her already. We can't wait to see how she grows and changes. Thank you everyone for your prayers and support. We wish that we could be there to share this precious little girl with everyone and have her meet her family. But until then we will try and keep everyone up to date on here and facebook of course. She's only been home a week and we've taken probably a hundred pictures. : ) Here are just a few.....
Love,
Ken, Angela & Kyndal

Just Waiting....

Well, not much to update cause we haven't been doing much lately. We're kind of just relaxing and waiting on baby to arrive! We haven't really been getting out much on the weekends and Ken has been working a lot. I went to the hospital a few weeks ago for what I thought was abnormal swelling and come to find out was having contractions every 3-4 minutes. So for a little while there we thought baby girl was going to be making an early appearance. But everything is fine now and we're still on track for an early September birthday...or late August, whenever she decides she's ready. The contractions were just due to dehydration so I've just been taking it easy and trying to drink lots and lots of water. At least a gallon a day they tell me is necessary. It's very hot and humid here so it's easy to get dehydrated, another reason why we haven't been doing much. In the air conditioning is where I wanna be.
Even though baby girl Freeman is due to arrive soon, we have been back and forth with deciding on the perfect name for her. It's such a hard decision to make and one we know will stick with her for the rest of her life. We think we have figured it out but nothing is definite until it's on the birth certificate. I'm sure when we see her we will just know. And we can't wait to see her! We're praying for a problem free labor and healthy baby. Keep us in your prayers for the next few weeks! Thanks! And be sure to be on the lookout for pictures of our little one to come soon!

Here are a few random pictures for now....nothing spectacular since we haven't been doing any site seeing.

A gecko outside our window...not as scary looking as the huge spiders here! (and he can save you money on your car insurance..haha)

Ken and his "battle wounds" from a training day of paintball. He had a pretty big welt on his forehead, the picture doesn't do it justice.

He got hit in the side of his head as well.
Nasty bruise on his side from a paintball...36 weeks pregnant picture...I don't think I can stretch anymore! : )

Been here 3 months!

Well let's see what's been going on lately with us?

It's been a little while so it's kind of hard to remember what all we've been up to. Nothing exciting really. Just been trying to stay cool and staying indoors with the air conditioning. We go to a lot of movies...pretty much like we did back in the states. Normally we just go to the movie theater here on base but last weekend we went to a Japanese movie theater so that was a different experience. Ken was wanting to see Transformer's 2 when it came out and since they don't get the new release movies here on base as quickly as they do off, we decided to try out a theater off base. The tickets are a little more expensive, 1,600 yen a person. Which is roughly $16 a ticket in US dollars. When we went to purchase our tickets, the man at the window pointed to a paper with seats and asked where we would like to sit in the theater, at least that's what we thought he was asking us..ha. It was kind of like at a sporting event where your ticket price is based on the seats you want to purchase. So after we bought our tickets, we went inside. We checked out the concession stand, cause pregnant ladies like to eat ya know, and that was very different as well. Not only did they sell "taco rice" which is exactly what it sounds like. White rice with everything you would eat on a taco on top of it and also very popular here. But they also sold beer and hot dogs...yes at a movie theater concession stand. I myself went with a carmel popcorn and this icy type drink. So we found our seats in the theater and watched the previews which were in Japanese but thankfully the movie we were seeing was in English just with Japanese subtitles. We will probably only go to that theater when it's a movie that we really want to see but don't want to wait the extra month or so for it to come to the base theater.

What else have we done? We've been working on getting Gabriella's room all ready for her arrival in a couple of months. Stocking up on diapers and other things. We're so anxious to see her and have her here. Despite the constant heartburn, back pain and weight gain I've experienced I know it will all be worth it soon. I'm nearing 32 weeks pregnant and she is growing and moving around more each day. Lately she has however decided to camp out in my side below my ribs, not too comfortable for mommy but must be comfortable for her. She's running out of room in there I guess. For Father's Day I surprised Ken with 4D pictures of her. They didn't turn out that great but we can definitely see some chubby baby cheeks there! We can't wait to see what she looks like. Or should I say "who" she looks like. : )


We missed hanging out with family for the 4th of July but hope everyone had a nice Independence Day. A lot of people have asked if they celebrate 4th of July in Japan and the answer is yes. American's do at least. Here on base they had what was called AmeriFest that we went to last night. Basically it was music, food and fireworks. Although we spent more time stuck in traffic going to and from than actually enjoying the festivities. Oh well. We got to see some fireworks and heard a little bit of Gary Sinise and the Lt. Dan Band (the dude from Forrest Gump) and it gave us something to do. Thankfully the weather was nice.Other than that, not much is new here. Ken recently started working in a different battery where he is basically his own boss. Never a bad thing. He seems to like it more.We had an unexpected visitor in our shower the other morning that I wasn't too happy to come across...see picture below. I don't much care for the "wildlife" here. It's fine if they stay outside where they belong. We went walking the other night and had a bat fly over our head. The bats are huge here. We tried a green Pepsi the other day. It's still in the fridge because neither one of us cares for it too much but wanted to try it. It's like a cinnamon flavored carbonated beverage...uh no thank you.


Oh we had maternity pictures taken at the beach the other day. The photographer isn't quiet done editing them all but has sent me a link for some of them if you all would like to check them out, at least what we have so far. As soon as I get the finished CD from her I will be sure to share them with everyone. The link may or may not work but it's worth a try. Keep in mind these are just the proofs for now.

http://flickr.com/gp/28196396@N06/3icgw8

Well, unless there is anything else that Ken would like to add, I guess that's about it for now. We love and miss everyone! Feel free to come visit us any time! : )

Love,
Ken, Angela and Baby girl Gabriella

Army Ball, baby, sushi and random Ken pictures

Hey everyone!

Figured it was time for an update. Not much is going on really. It's Sunday evening here in Okinawa and Ken and I are just relaxing. We have a different form of relaxing though. He's on the XBox shooting at stuff, and I'm laying on the couch. I am finally getting around to scrap booking pictures from our baby shower/farewell party and pregnancy pictures. But I'm also kind of saving that for the next month or so when I'm not able to move around as much and the temperature outside keeps me near an air conditioner at all times. I'll need something to do indoors, free of the heat and humidity. We've had a lot of rain here the past few days and when it rains here, it's nasty afterwards. We can't even see out the windows of our home because they fog up so bad when it rains. But it is typhoon season so rain is something we will probably have to get used to. Typhoon season unfortunatly is June to Novemeber here. But hopefully we will have a pretty calm summer.

Last weekend we went to the Army Birthday Ball. It was the celebration of the Army's 234th birthday. It was okay. We got to dress up and had a decent dinner. I would have enjoyed it more probably if I had been more comfortable. I had a difficult time finding something to wear. If only they had maternity stores here.
This past week Ken has been helping a new soldier out who just arrived here. We've only been here a couple of months and Ken is already a sponsor for another soldier. We had a sponsor when we arrived as well. A sponsor is basically someone who takes you the places you have to go to get in processed and helps you in getting settled on the island. Since we don't know a lot of places to go yet, there wasn't much that Ken could show him.

Baby girl Freeman is growing more and more! So much that my belly button is sticking out now! (eww) I'm 28 weeks now so every day I have to do kick counts to monitor how much she's moving which I don't mind because I love feeling and watching her kick. I'm pretty sure she had her first case of the hiccups a little while ago. : ) We can't wait to meet her soon!

After being here for over two months, we finally went to eat at a Japanese restaurant recently. We went to eat at a place called Yoshihachi Sushi Bar. It was pretty interesting. In one part there are tables where you have to take your shoes off and sit on the floor. But we were seated at the sushi bar so we got to see the people at work. Ken got a plate of different kinds of sushi, and I got stuff that was cooked since I can't eat the raw stuff. Overall it was pretty good. It seems to be a very popular place to eat here because it was very busy.Well, since there isn't much else to update on, I'll just post some pictures...here are some of Ken "embracing the culture". We miss everyone! Feel free to leave comments!