Six weeks at-a-glance

How do you seriously summarize the BEST and FASTEST six weeks of one's life? Not too sure, but I'll give it a shot. 

On July 23, 2011 after 30 hours of labor and an emergency C-Section, we welcomed our beautiful daughter, Catherine Grace, into this world.  Even after the trials of her delivery, the labor and birth of Catie Grace was a beautiful example of the Lord's sovereignty and is truly a very special memory. 

After 4 days in the hospital, we came home and settled into life as the new "Rexroat family".  :)  Once we found out we were expecting, Kelly made the sweet decision to not use any of his vacation days during the summer like we usually do for a trip to Florida, but instead he saved his vacation days, and Catie and I were blessed with our Kelly being able to be at home for the first 4 weeks of Catie's life. 

Kelly proved to be a HUGE help during the first weeks.  Kelly's first diaper-changing experience was in the hospital and after just a few days he became a PRO!  We soon developed a mutually rewarding agreement and system when it comes to Catie- Kelly deals with what comes out and I deal with what goes in. And after almost 6 weeks of this arrangement, Kelly has now perfected changing a diaper in his sleep.  Oh, what a blessing it is to have a husband who truly has a servant's heart. 

Oh and there should be no need to tell you, but YES, Catie is a HUGE daddy's girl.  (And I wouldn't want it any other way). 

Most of y'all know about the small zoo (ha) that we run from our home and I could not be more pleased with the way the furry members of the Rexroat home have adjusted to little Catie.  The cats were the first to meet Catie Grace and we can honestly say that their opinion of her is pretty chill.   If someone new comes into the home without the intention of either feeding or loving on them, then the cats really don't care about you, so Catie is at the bottom of their worries.  Our three dogs, Moose, Panda and Foxy, have been enjoying a long-term sleepover at my parent's house and we have slowly introduced them to Catie individually.  Moose (the Flat-Coated Retriever in the above picture) proved to be very gentle with Catie and is now very protective of 'his girl'.  Foxy (our red-merle border collie) was also very gentle and a little less concerned with her.  Foxy just saw Catie as another member of the pack, but poor Panda, he still doesn't know what to do with Catie.  Panda (our border collie/papillon mix who has a diagnosed mental disorder ((don't ask)) ) wants to love on Catie the way he loves on us, and he is getting better but still is a little too excited around Catie Grace.  It is nothing that we can't work on and just in the few weeks we've been working with him, he has gotten leaps and bounds better! We have just had to establish new habits and he is always the last of our dogs to catch onto new things.  But over all, we are so glad that our new human addition and our furry family members are going to be able to live in peace and harmony :)

I know there have been so many people who have been so good and gracious to us these past 6 weeks; from preparing food, to buying us diapers, and even offering free babysitting and we are so grateful for the precious family and friends we have been blessed with.  I know this summary would be much more detailed if I had been on-top of my game and had started this blog months ago, but I promise to be much more diligent from here on out and keep y'all updated on us and Catie as we attempt to raise her to be a God-honoring woman after the Lord's own heart.