Friday, August 31, 2007

Kaitlynn Elizabeth Cast

Friday, August 31, 2007

Our little one made her entrance on August 25, 2007 at 9:59am. She weighed 8 pounds 3.8 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches long. She is doing well, and we are home now! Check out her pictures!!!! Dahrran and MacKenzie are doing GREAT with her, and love her up!

Thursday, August 23, 2007

38 Week Check up - Kaitlynn

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Went in for our check up yesterday. Surgery is all set up and ready for me. The hospital even called yesterday to set up my blood work and such! YAY!!!! Didn't gain any weight, just bloated to high hell! Babe's heart rate was 148 so still looking good. Didn't measure big, actually measured an inch smaller than last week, so he thinks baby has dropped some! YAY! But not much else to report! We got in for our next appointment on Monday, and my blood work at the hospital! So the next update will probably been in a couple weeks when we're home and settled with the baby!!!!

Thursday, August 2, 2007

PR Friendly Blog

Among the Mess enjoys learning about new products & is willing to do reviews and/or giveaways for our readers & friends. We will accept & keep free samples from organizations & companies who agree to work with us as a sponsor, however, we will maintain an honest & truthful review of our experience with each product.

We love to showcase baby/family friendly products including Cloth Diapers, Educational Toys, Green products, & anything else that can be considered Family Friendly. If you don't fall in this catagory & still thing our blog would be the perfect fit for your review, please don't hesitate to contact us as well. We will look over all reviews & see if they're a fit for our blog.

If we are working with a sponsor on a giveaway, we ask that the sponsor provide a sample for both myself (to review) &  for our giveaway winner, as well as the shipping costs to the winner. If the sponsor would prefer to have a discount code, rather than a sample, given to our readers, that is something we can discuss as well.

If you would like to work with us, please do not hesitate to contact Amanda at amongthemess@aol.com. We look forward to working with you & providing our readers with information about the many great products that are available.

Among the Mess is a personal blog written solely by Amanda and anyone I give strict permission to. Posts & reviews are honest & true to my thoughts & feelings. At this time, I do not accept paid advertising or sponsorship, however, I'd like to keep that door open, so my policy may change.

Thank you so much!

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

All about Us

Welcome to Among the Mess. We’re glad you decided to stop by, & wanted to know more about us!

Meet Amanda

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Hello, first let me say welcome. I’m the writer here at Among the Mess. I started this blog back in 2008 after our youngest daughter, Kaitlynn, had surgery for Craniosynostosis (more on that later). I was having a hard time updating family while we were in Texas for each trip. The calls were long, and it was much easier to update in one place. It became a regular place for me to write and journal about our lives.

I’m a Stay-at-home mom to three beautiful children, and wife to Joel. We live in a super small town, but I wouldn’t have it any other way…that is unless we were on our own patch of land out in the country. Someday. For now, this is where we are. I’m not a perfect housekeeper by any means, so if you stop by to see us and the house is amuck, please don’t look. As one of our AWESOME neighbors tells me “I’m not here to see your house, I’m here to see you.” I love her! :)

I enjoy reading a good book, sewing, crocheting, dabbling in graphic design (but know nothing about it!) and any thing baking. I LOVE to bake cookies. We probably bake at least one batch of cookies a week. I also love hearing from readers and getting in touch with mom’s that are like me!! Feel free to email me anytime!

 

Meet Joel

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Joel is Daddy, and lover of cows. He works full time for a Hog confinement operation about 30 miles from our home. But his true dream is to stay home and be a full time farmer/rancher. He would love to be able to have our cattle support us. Together we own 6 cow/calf pairs and have a heifer to add to the heard as well as a bull that will be put on a bull sale in March. You can read more about our cattle at his blog Cast Gelbvieh.


Meet Dahrran

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Dahrran is our first born child. He is almost 7 years old. It’s hard to believe that a few short years ago his daddy and I welcomed him into the world. He wasn’t planned, but we wouldn’t change him for the world. Dahrran is a spitting image of his daddy when he was younger. Everyone comments how much they look alike. He also has his daddy’s love of all things farm. Unfortunately though him and daddy disagree on which color tractor is the best. Dahrran’s room is full of green tractors and EVERY type of accessory that could go along on a farm. Dahrran also loves his sisters and will do anything for them. He can be the biggest sweetheart, but at the same time is getting to the “don’t kiss me on the lips” phase. He’s growing up too fast.

 

Meet MacKenzie

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MacKenzie is our first daughter. She is almost 5 going on 15. She is such a drama queen. Stubs her toe, and you’d think she was dying. She is our farm girl though. From day one hasn’t minded getting dirty, and to this day would rather play in the dirt than stay in the house. She can be found right behind daddy on any given day doing chores. Loves all things Hannah Montana, Taylor Swift, Demi Lavato, Selena Gomez…see what I mean bout going on 15. Can sing all the words to most of Taylor’s songs as well as the opening song of Phineas and Ferb. She is quite the joy, but quite the handful. Be prepared to have your ear talked off if you take her ANYWHERE!

Meet Kaitlynn

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Kaitlynn is our youngest daughter at 2 1/2. She is quiet but don’t let that fool you. This girl is smart! Smarter than we give her credit for. She’s talking more and more each day. As well as telling people off. If you do something she doesn’t like, usually she will tell you all about it. She likes the farm, but prefers to just play. She loves her babies, and would make a great big sister. Someday, that is if God has it in our plan.

Kaitlynn was born with a condition called Craniosynostosis (Cranio-Sin-no-so-toe-sis) which basically means the plates in her head were fused together and leaving no soft spot on the top of her head. After an amazing endoscopic surgery, at the University of Texas at San Antonio with Dr. David Jimenez & Dr. Constance Barone, at the age of 4 months old Kaitlynn has no lasting effects of Cranio. She did have to wear plastic helmets for about a year to help in the reshaping process, but now you wouldn’t know any different.  If your little one is suffering from Crainio, please feel free to email us as well as search our blog for all the Cranio posts!! We love to share our experience!