Let the Good Times Roll

A little bit of our January

2012-01-27T19:44:00.000-08:00

Our little Mikey getting ready to go ice fishing. He got the hat, snow pants and snow boots for Christmas. He's been ice fishing more times than I have now!

This boy loves puzzles and he got this one from his cousins for Christmas. It only took him a week or so before he mastered it. Now he gets mad if anybody puts the pieces in the wrong space. He always wants it to match.

He also loves his baby sister. He is constantly giving her "hugs" but since she is usually lying down, it equates to doing a dog pile on her.

She's getting used to him lying on top of her by now, so she doesn't make too big of a fuss.

We found Mikey like this in his high chair one night for dinner. He kept saying "tuck, tuck" and we realized he meant "stuck."

And here's Ginny in an outfit we got from a friend of my parents in Brazil. Thanks, Ruth!

We are all doing well. I'm mentally gearing up to try to finish potty training Mikey soon. I checked out some books from the library and I'm realizing that Mikey is very ready, and is well prepared since I've been teaching him about the toilet since he was 8 months old. Anyway, he is very good at telling me when he has to go poop, and very rarely poops in his diaper now. We are going to work on the bladder control. It will be nice to get him out of diapers.

Ginny's update is that she is falling asleep for her naps easier right now than she has been for weeks. We can wrap her up and lie her down wide awake, leave the room, and she just goes to sleep. Hopefully it continues, but she has been anything but consistent when it comes to her sleep habits so far! She is getting bigger, getting much better at holding up her head, and still sleeping well at night. When she's awake, she gives the hugest smiles that just melt our hearts. We are so happy to have her in our family.

Kevin and I are working at the dental office... Although he works a few more hours than I do. I have started to go into the office two days a week for 3.5 hours each day to stay caught up with my work. A good friend of mine in Grand Junction watches the kids for me so I can get a lot done. It has been a fun little diversion from the daily grind. I'm also doing a few more things to get me out of the house and give me a break from full-time mothering. Tomorrow morning I'm going to a sewing class at Quilter's Corner in downtown GJ, and then next weekend I'm going bowling with some girlfriends after the kids go to sleep. Kevin has graciously agreed to babysit so I can still have time to myself occasionally. This has made me a very happy camper, and by that I mean, a very happy person who is sleeping in her warm bed every night and not camping.

My Babies

2012-01-02T14:35:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to make this post for a while. There are some kind of fun things that Mikey and Ginny have in common.

1. They were both born on a Saturday. (Cue Saturday's Warrior theme song... "Who are these children coming down... coming down like drops of rain through darkened skies?...") I know you all thought it too ;)
2. They were both named after other people: Michael is Kevin's middle name; Ginny is the name of a friend of mine from grad school and Kay is my mom's middle name.
3. They were also both named after places: Gannett is the tallest mountain in Wyoming, in our favorite Wind River range; Ginny is short for Virginia where Kevin and I met.
4. They were both share birthdays with another extended family member: Mikey shares Feb 20th with his cousin Savannah; Ginny shares Oct 8th with her aunt Autumn.
5. They are both freaking cute.
6. They were both born at home. :)

I might add to that list if I remember anything else. I had quite a long mental list going. Now here are some fun differences.

1. Mikey was a very frequent spitter-upper. We're talking 20+ times a day most days, until he was 6 months old when it started to taper off. Ginny spits up probably an average of twice a week.
2. Mikey was heavier and longer at birth, but Ginny has been gaining weight and growing in length at a much faster rate than Mikey so far. I wouldn't be surprised if she catches up to him at some point.
3. Mikey was an incredible sleeper - he started sleeping 12 hrs a night with one feeding at about the 8 hr mark when he was three months old! Ginny is also an incredible sleeper at times, but she is less consistent. She has slept through the night several times already (she's just under 3 months old) and very frequently sleeps a total of 12 hrs with one feeding in the middle somewhere.
4. Ginny's poops are WAY smellier! (She's gonna be really happy I mentioned that when she's a teenager.)
5. Mikey took almost 3 hours of pushing to be born, Ginny took about 3 seconds.

Answer to the Look-alike Quiz

2011-12-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

I was recently given a baby frame at a baby shower and it had a picture of a random baby inside (you know how frames have those cheesy pictures already in them). Anyway, as I was getting ready to open the frame and put a picture of one of my kids into it, I noticed that the baby picture that came with the frame actually closely resembled both of my kids at one point in their lives. If it weren't for the typing of the frame brand on the photo, I think I could have left the frame as it was and passed it off as one of my kids!

I want to see if any of you agree... The first time I asked Kevin to guess which baby was which, he got all three wrong. The second time he got it right. So, what do you think? There is one picture each of the frame baby, Ginny, and Mikey.

Let the guessing begin!

(Oh yeah, and by the way - I made these all black and white and cropped in close so that you couldn't cheat by telling which baby had pink or blue on.)

And the correct answer is: 1-Ginny, 2-Mikey, and 3-frame baby!

Congrats to Brittney, Annie, Nicea, Melissa and Cheryl for answering correctly! (Oh and my mom, she got it right but didn't comment.)

The rest of you proved my assertion that my babies' faces are generic and can easily be mistaken for other babies. Even Kevin had to guess twice before getting it right! ;)

We have kids now... WEIRD.

2011-12-15T15:11:00.000-08:00

One of the strangest things for me after Ginny was born was talking about my kids in plural. It sounded so weird to me rolling off the tongue... "kidS" as opposed to always just referring to my son or my child. The other weird thing was talking about my baby in feminine pronouns. "Is she hungry?" "Can you hold her for a minute?" "Where's her blanket?" etc. It sounded so foreign. I'm happy to report that a few short months later, I'm used to it. I love having kids, and I love having a boy AND a girl now. Here are some of our fun moments from the last two months, and plenty of pictures of the baby since I know at least one person has been going into withdrawals...

Mikey is loving his independence. This includes brushing his own teeth with whatever toothbrush he can get his hands on. More often than not it's mine.

Our sweetheart sleeping at 1 day old.

Our homegrown pumpkins. Kevin insisted we plant pumpkins and we ended up getting some giant ones out of it. Nana and Papa Lewis were in town to see our new baby and they took advantage of some of our homegrown tomatoes too. We had a good garden this year and are looking forward to planting another one next year.

Mom and 1-day-old Ginny

Here's Dad, complete with cowlick in hair.

2 days old

Mikey gets so excited to hold his sister. He feels so important to be the big brother! Ginny doesn't look thrilled about it in this shot.

My little angels. I love Mikey's expression in this one!

Mikey sitting on one of our three biggest pumpkins from the garden. It kinda looks like he's sitting on the john by his posture. I know you were thinking the same thing.

Kevin stood on a ladder to stack some food storage up on our high shelves and Mikey wanted to copy him. He actually climbed up two rungs unassisted. He is an incredibly capable climber.

First time in the carseat, on her way to the pediatrician for a well baby check up. She is 3 days old here.

Love her in this leopard print onesie! 4 days old.

5 days old

8 days old. I loved how she put her hands up by her face when she fell asleep.

11 days old. Already changing so much!

She joined Mikey in his toddler bed for a little photo shoot :) I LOVE this picture.

Mikey has had to find ways to entertain himself while I'm busy with the baby. I found him like this one day, reading a picture book upside down.

Sometimes he gets jealous of the baby's toys and accessories and he wants to pretend to be the baby again. I'm pretty sure he's surpassed the limits for this carseat.

A little family cuddle time. Kevin took these ones of us. Ginny is 3 weeks old here.

Ginny fell back asleep after a diaper change and didn't have a shirt on. Her position is just funny, and her daddy enjoyed some cuddling with his sweet daughter.

Mikey getting ready for some early trick-or-treating in downtown Grand Junction. Duncan and Liz and their daughter Mya were visiting too, along with my mom.

We took the kids downtown for trick-or-treating on Main Street. Mikey's bear costume was a Goodwill find, and was a tad bit too small for him, but that made it look even funnier. He loved the suckers more than any of the other treats.

Mya was the cutest cow you ever did see.

I also got Ginny's costume at Goodwill. She was a little Indian girl, or Sacajawea as my mom named her. She's in my sling in this picture, which is why she's so scrunched. She slept through the whole trick-or-treating outing.

Kevin and I finally carved our pumpkins on Halloween Day.

Here are the kids in their double stroller getting ready to go out trick-or-treating around our neighborhood.

Mikey loved going up to the doors and knocking. After a few houses, he started to reach into the candy bowls of the people at the door instead of waiting for them to give him candy. It is so much fun to take a toddler trick-or-treating!

Kevin manned his post while we were away, watching a Halloween movie on the laptop on the porch, surrounded by our jack-o-lanterns.

A witch, A.K.A. Shawn

A dragon

The Boogeyman from Nightmare Before Christmas

I just love to take pictures of funny sleeping positions. This was a good one. Ginny was 3 1/2 weeks old here, and gaining weight, as you can see! She has put on the pounds more quickly than Mikey ever did!

Mikey pretending to be the baby again.

Still 3 1/2 weeks

Spending a lot more time awake by now

My beautiful mom with my beautiful daughter :)

Mikey has also become quite the helper around the house. We were assembling these little shelves and Mikey kept asking me for the screws so he could put them in the holes like this. It was adorable.

Our little family on Ginny's blessing day, November 6th, 2011.

Mikey likes to wear my mom's reading glasses and walk around with them on. It's pretty cute.

This is a dress that Nana Lewis bought Ginny for her blessing. It was beautiful! the headband was from Liz, and the bracelet was a gift from my friend Katie.

I got these shoes on clearance at Target and they fit her perfectly! She has since grown out of them, so I'm glad we blessed her as early as we did.

These are just some of the many faces of Ginny...

Our Ginny at 1 month old.

Another new behavior of Mikey's is organizing things. He likes to play "put and take" as my grandma calls it, by taking objects from one place and moving them to another place. He also likes to take a bunch of similar objects and line them up in a row. This is what he did with a bunch of craft rings I had -- lined them up on the arm of my futon.

Another time, he took all the books from one section of his book shelf and lined them up along the outside edge of the ottoman. He then proceeded to walk around and read each book down the line.

This picture is from a fun outing I had with my mom, Nicea, Liz, Abby and Amanda at Gardner Village. It was their midnight madness sale, and we actually did stay out until midnight!

My wonderful husband watched my baby so I could enjoy a girls' night out. This same weekend we attended a birthday party for Kevin's grandma Jenks. It was her 85th. I stupidly forgot my camera so I don't have pictures from it. We got some family pictures taken by his sister Natalie, but I haven't posted those yet either. I might use one of those for a new blog header picture. We'll see.

One thing I did want to mention, speaking of Abby, is that she and I had baby girls within 4 days of each other. Her baby is named Nora, and she weighed 7 lbs. 6 oz and was 20 inches long. Ginny weighed 7 lbs. 6.5 oz and was also 20 inches long. Crazy, huh? Abby had her baby girl with her at Gardner Village. It was fun to meet baby Nora.

Ginny at 7 weeks

Kevin showing the first pike he ever caught, and a very large trout from a recent fishing trip. He fried these up and we got to eat them. They were quite tasty!

The Christmas presents I made for Duncan, Liz, and Mya this year. Family PJ pants! Hooray!

Here she is at almost 8 weeks.

She was really smiley one morning and I caught it on camera. She has been smiling and cooing so much more these past few weeks and it's been a lot of fun. She is really expressive!

Sorry they're sideways. I rotated them before I loaded them, but they flipped back for some reason.

Ginny at almost 2 months, Mikey at 21 months.

Giving baby sister kisses!

I caught them both smiling. It was amazing.

Kevin and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary on December 6th. He bought me this lovely bouquet. It continued to bloom for a week and a half!

We recently had a mini Christmas with my parents and Duncan and Liz and Mya. Liz crocheted this super cute bear hat for Mikey.

My mom bought pajamas for the little grandkids.

Mikey and Mya in their new jammies.

Mikey opening a gift with Grandpa.

Some of our best shots of the three grandkids in their pajamas...

And here's little Ginny in her cloth diapers we just started her in a few weeks ago. She is modeling the pink booties that Liz crocheted for her for Christmas. Liz did an awesome job. These are so cute!

Don't know why this picture got turned upside down.

And there you have it. I have FINALLY caught up on my blogging! Hooray! Stay tuned for a funny quiz that I've been meaning to post. I'll try to get it up in the next day or two. Goodbye for now.

Happy Birthday, Ginny Kay!

2011-10-08T17:35:00.000-07:00

Here are some of our favorite pictures from the birth. It was a whirlwind of a labor, but I am feeling so thankful and blessed that it was so fast! We are so happy to have our beautiful daughter, and grateful for her health. I wanted to write my birth story while it's still fresh, so here it is for those of you interested...

On Friday, October 7th, I woke up at 7 AM like usual and noticed I was having mild contractions. I was kind of excited and told Kevin about it, since I hadn't had more than 2-5 Braxton Hicks in a whole day before that time. Friday morning I was having them about 10-30 minutes apart for 5 hours. I went into the dental office with Kevin and he watched Mikey while I got caught up on work. I do part-time bookkeeping, and I was able to work 3 hours while having sporadic mild contractions. We called Kevin's parents to tell them we might be in early labor and they should plan to come into town Friday night or Saturday. My parents are in Brazil, so we didn't bother calling them yet... We didn't want to cry wolf. :)

After I finished at work, I was REALLY hungry since I missed "first lunch", which I usually eat at 10:30. We drove to Subway and got some lunch and then we all went home for a nice family afternoon nap. After sleeping for 1.5-2 hours, we were all refreshed and ready to go out and enjoy a Friday afternoon hike.

We went up to the Colorado National Monument around 3:30 PM and did the short hike to Devil's Kitchen. Mikey is quite the hiker and walked/jogged along side us at least half the time! I was a little disappointed because ever since I woke up from my nap, and all through the hike, I only had about three contractions. They seemed to be going away. I told Kevin we might not have her this weekend after all.

The next sign of labor was 9pm that night when my contractions started to pick up again. They were still mild, but were coming fairly regularly at 10-15 minute intervals. Kevin's parents arrived around 9:30, and we told them that the contractions were regular, but mild. I decided to try to get some sleep and decided to lie down in bed at around 10:00pm. In the next hour the contractions become stronger, and increased to 7-10 minutes apart. I realized I wouldn't be able to sleep, but I stayed in bed and relaxed as much as I could. By 1:00 am they were 5-7 minutes apart and strengthening, at which time I called the midwife and his assistant to come. I decided to get in the bath at that time to help relax, pass the time and relieve discomfort. I was listening to my hypnobirthing music while breathing through my surges. At 1:53 am I decided to check my own cervix, and was pleasantly surprised that I could reach it so easily. I was 3-4 cm dilated and 70% effaced. I also stripped my own membranes (Don't try this at home unless you have a degree and have practiced on many other delivering moms), since I had hoped my labor was further along.

Little did I realize stripping my membranes would be so effective! Holy mama! A few minutes later (2:00 am) the midwife's assistant, Andrea, arrived and helped me out of the tub. One thing led to another, and Ginny was breastfeeding like a champ. Just kidding, I'll give you the details on the events that transpired. Between 2:00 and 3:00 the surges intensified A LOT, and started to increase in duration. They were 3-5 minutes apart and I was still using my hypnobirthing to stay relaxed and maintain even breathing. At 3:00 am (6:00 am their time) I called my parents in Brazil to tell them I was in labor. 10 minutes later Bill my midwife arrived in his cheerful splendor. I was laboring on our bathroom floor because the cold linoleum felt good on my legs. The surges kept getting stronger, 3 minutes apart and lasting 60 seconds. I tried toilet seat, a birthball and side-lying in bed but none of these positions were helping me deal with the intense labor. Back to the linoleum floor. At 4:32 am I got sick and vomited a couple of times (first vomit from my mouth in 14 years). I HATE throwing up, but I new it was a good sign that my cervix was opening. I asked Bill to check me, which he did at 4:40, and to my utter delight I was 9.5 cm, 100% effaced with just a small anterior lip remaining. Ginny's head was still high enough that Bill's entire middle finger reached inside before touching her. He suggested I switch to my hands and knees to help her descend (good move). The surges were so overwhelmingly powerful I couldn't help but become vocal and bear down, which woke up Mikey. Kevin went in to put him down, thinking we still had some time. 3 Surges followed. At 4:45 am my water broke and was clear. On the next surge she descended all the way to crowning with two pushes. I reached my hand down to hold her head in and told Bill and Andrea to go get Kevin so he didn't miss the birth. At 4:53 am, Kevin hustled into the bathroom with a very confused Mikey to watch me deliver Ginny. I supported her head with my right hand while panting and letting her head inch slowly out. Bill helped deliver the shoulders and we brought her on top of my tummy. Kevin cried a little in a tender way, but not in the freaked out bawling father way he did with Mikey.

At 5:06 am my placenta came out cleanly with one push, and I lost only one cup of blood. It was an incredibly clean birth. Ginny Kay weighed 7lb 6.5oz and was 20 inches. As soon as I was cleaned up and back in bed, she was nursing with a strong latch. At 5:25 am Kevin was able to cut the umbilical cord and we've been living happily ever after.

Thanks to Kevin for being my scribe for this post while I nurse Ginny.

Labor Day Weekend and 18 month old Mikey

2011-09-11T07:04:00.000-07:00

We went to West Jordan for Labor Day weekend to spend time with friends and family. Vern and Cheryl were wonderful hosts to us, as usual, and even put up with the fact that I was sick all weekend and needed help with Mikey. (I have had a cough/sore throat and now allergies, too, for TWO weeks, but am finally starting to get better. This is the record for the longest lasting sickness I've had -- beside morning sickness.) On a happier note, we were lucky enough to be in Utah for my cousin Landon's baby blessing. He and his wife Kendra have a son, Logan, who's 2 months old and very cute. A lot of my extended family from the Glenn side was in town for the blessing and it was fun to see everyone on Sunday afternoon. The Glenns put on a delicious barbecue for everyone at their house after the blessing. I was not good with my camera this weekend, so I only have a few pictures. The picture above is Mikey and his cousin Mya playing with rocks in Landon's back yard. Don't worry, they had a good layer of sunscreen on before this. I like how Mikey's white skin glows next to Mya's tan. Ha ha. Kind of like I glow next to Liz (Mya's mom).

The only other pictures I took that weekend were a few of Mikey at this park in West Jordan. It's a really fun park with multi-level wooden structures that make it look like an old West town. He had a blast running through all the different corridors and climbing the stairs. He's getting to be quite the adept climber. I have found him standing on top of my piano, standing on top of the bathroom countertop, and even on our bed, which reaches up to his chin when he's standing next to it.

We love our little boy so much! He is such a source of joy in our lives. He recently turned 18 months and I have put off doing a post about it until now. I just wanted to write down some of the fun things Mikey does and says at this age.

In the picture below, I was packing for our trip to Utah last weekend and Mikey saw me pack his swimming trunks. He came up to me and took the shorts from me and held them out like he wanted me to put them on him. So, I did. Then I took off his other outfit and he grabbed the shorts he had on previously (with the Hawaiian print) and put them on his head and started running around and laughing! He is such a goofball!

When I am singing to him before his naps or bedtime, I like to sing Primary songs. One of the ones I sing to him is "I Know Heavenly Father Loves Me." When I get to the second verse, he hears the lines, "He gave me my eyes that I might see the color of butterfly wings. He gave me my ears that I might hear the magical sounds of things." At that point in the song, he always lifts his head from resting on my shoulder and looks at my face and points to my eyes when I sing about eyes, then points to my ears when I sing about ears. He proceeds to point to other parts of my face, so I can name them for him. When he's done, he puts his head back down on my shoulder and snuggles up to me again. It has become a ritual I think is really cute. In fact, we just started putting him in his toddler bed at night to sleep. Friday night, Kevin put him to bed and Mikey stayed in bed all night, without trying to get up once. Last night, I took my first turn putting him to bed. At first, he kept trying to roll over and get out of bed, but then I gave him some stuffed animals to hold on to and I put my face really close to his and he did the 'pointing to Mom's features' game again. Two of his favorite things to point to on me are the mole on the right side of my face, and my teeth. When he points to my teeth, I softly bite his finger, then he points to his own teeth and smiles. Anyway, that game seemed to calm him down and then I left his room, said goodnight, turned off the light and closed the door and he stayed in his bed all night again! We thought this was going to be a difficult transition getting him to sleep in the toddler bed, but he has made it SO easy so far! I think the naps will be much harder. We'll see.

Some of the words Mikey says right now are "mama", "dada", "papa" for grandpa, "nana" for grandma, "cuh-tuh" for cartoon, "boo" for blue, "shzz" for shoes, "choo choo" for train, "sish" for fish. When I ask him about what sounds animals make, the ones he gets right most of the time are dog: "nnn! nnn!" (he makes a barking sound with the n consonant), pig: "oik!", duck: "cack!", kitty: "neeun" (sounds similar to a meow), and horse: "NEIGH!" For some reason, when he makes the horse's sound, it's always louder than any other animal. :) And, with the word, "cuh-tuh" for cartoon, we have been showing him some cartoon episodes on our laptop from Netflix. This morning, I had the laptop out getting ready to make this blog post and Mikey came out of his bedroom, first thing in the morning, walked up to me at the computer and said, "cuh-tuh!" It was really cute.

He is very generous with hugs and kisses, like he always has been. He is learning about bribery, though, since when he wants something from you, like to sit on your lap, he will come up to you and kiss your leg until you lift him up. Also, if he hurts himself, even a minor thing like bumping his finger on a toy, he holds the injured part of his body (usually a hand) up to my face with an imploring look in his eyes, so I can kiss it better. Then he goes on his way.

He likes pretending to talk on the phone, and Kevin says when they play with his cell phone together, Mikey will sometimes shove Kevin's face to the side, kind of forcefully, then put the phone up to Kevin's ear so he can talk too.

Mikey loves to be outside. He also loves seeing animals. Whenever we walk past a dog in the neighborhood, if Mikey hears the dog barking, he will start barking back, "Nnn! nnn!" and Mikey always wants to pet the dogs when the owners are there with us. Mikey is also obsessed with rocks. He loves to pick them up from one place and put them in another. This is a game my grandma Sue calls "put and take." Mikey will often take the gravel from our neighbor's yard, one or two rocks at a time, and drop them down the storm drain in front of our house to hear the splash. My mom taught him that game a few months ago and he still loves it. If he's ever outside and there are rocks around, you will usually find Mikey holding or playing with one or more of them.

And that brings us to our last picture of the cousins. I like to think Mya is showing Mikey how to make fire by hitting two rocks together. :) I'm so happy Mikey has a cousin his age on the Glenn side to play with as they get older. They get along so well!

Return of the Belly Shots

2011-08-31T19:20:00.000-07:00

These, I have to admit were done rather hastily. Kevin was the photographer this time, and the top picture was one he took when I didn't know he was taking my picture. I was adjusting my wedding ring. But, of the six or so photos he took, I think it shows my belly size the best. And, you can tell how much whiter my tummy is than my arms -- we're coming off a really hot summer. I don't really tan much, but my tummy is whiter than the driven snow!

This second photo is one that I actually turned into a poster for Ginny's new room. There was a website having a special deal that expired tomorrow, so I had to take some pictures tonight and submit them to this website to get my screamin' deal. I ordered a 20"x13" poster for Ginny's room that has a pretty quote under this picture of my belly, saying something like, "Ah... Life grows lovely when you're around." I also got a cute, whimsical growth chart for Mikey's new room, which is personalized with a cute photo of him and his name. These two items would have cost me $43 at full price, but I got them for $3! Add $13.30 for shipping, and it still only averages out to just over $8 per item. I'm excited for them to arrive in the mail.

On a side note, yes I do have half an outie belly button. Kevin thinks it's funny. Just the top half sticks out. That is one difference with this pregnancy. My belly button is funny-looking! And, Ginny doesn't get the hiccups nearly as often as Mikey did. She has only had them three times that I can remember. Mikey would get them three times a day, it seemed. Ginny's head is also lower than Mikey's ever was before labor; I am having to pee way more often this last trimester than I did with Mikey. She is very active and can stretch out to strange places, like the under side of my ribs or the inner edges of my iliac crests (the curved upper portion of the hip bones). We are so excited to meet this sweet little girl! I keep telling people I have 6 weeks left; I think I'll keep saying that for the next two weeks so that I cover the chance of going past my due date. However, I will say that I have a lot more Braxton-Hicks (pre-labor "warm-up" contractions) with Ginny than I ever did with Mikey. I didn't get any with him until a week or so before he was born. I'm already having them with Ginny. Maybe she'll grace us with her presence a little sooner than we expect. Just in case, I'm going to start getting my birth supplies ready! Hooray for our baby girl! We LOVE YOU.

Nesting and Gardening

2011-08-15T18:13:00.000-07:00

Hooray! I finished another project in Mikey's new bedroom. These are the wall-mounted fabric book slings I found online and wanted to copy. A big shout-out to my friend Carol for helping me measure, level, and mount the curtain rod brackets for these three shelves. Had I done that by myself, it would have taken weeks (because I would have kept putting it off). And thanks also to Kevin for hand-screwing the screws into the studs when they were too hard for our drill and my weak arms to finish off. Carol helped me pick out the three fabrics two Saturdays ago when she was staying with me. We got fabrics with colors that coordinated with the stripes on Mikey's drawers (see them on the white bookshelf?). The sewing was the easy part... the pinning and ironing in between was annoying. I've never liked doing that very much! I think they turned out adorable, don't you?

The top two pictures in the collage are close-ups of the brackets and dowels so you can see how they're made. In the bottom two pictures, I did my best to get the whole wall in the shot, but you can see that Mikey's toddler bed is on the floor, not far from the wall. Just on the other side of his toddler bed (outside the pictured area) is a giant queen-sized loft bed frame. I haven't rearranged the furniture since my mom left, and the queen mattress is still on the floor. So I didn't have much room to stand and take the photo. The plan is to slide Mikey's bed on the floor underneath the loft bed, and the queen mattress would of course go on top of the loft bed frame. We're trying to figure out a way to make it more guest-friendly and accessible for grandparents when they come to visit. So, until we get that done, I can't take a picture of the whole room finished.

Here is what we worked on this Sunday. We picked tons of fresh produce from our garden! All the tomatoes in the top left picture are from our garden. This is after they had their skins removed for salsa-making. We have dozens more tomatoes and oodles more peppers where those came from... Just waiting for them to ripen and we will be making a LOT of salsa this summer and fall! The strawberries in the top right were picked fresh. We get about that many ripe ones every other day. They are delicious, and SO sweet compared to store-bought. The bottom left picture is of all the peppers from our garden: one red, one green, and one ivory bell pepper, along with several fresno chilis and anaheim peppers. Kevin roasted the anaheims on the BBQ and skinned them before we chopped everything up in the food processor for the salsa. This batch of salsa had a lot more kick than our first batch. The fresno chilis really add spice! And the final picture is our beautiful dinner of fried catfish (and trout from a previous fishing excursion), steamed veggies, mashed potatoes and corn on the cob. We were so proud of ourselves for having so many side dishes... we usually eat like college kids and just have a main dish with nothing on the side. And just so you know, this was my first time eating catfish and I REALLY enjoyed it! Kevin caught some yummy morsels for us from the Colorado River, and the flavor of the fish was so mild. The way he fried and seasoned them was perfect. I don't think I've enjoyed fish that much in a long time! Thanks, Hubby!

Here's Mikey looking at dinner before it got filleted and fried. Mikey normally eats fish really well, but we weren't able to interest him in the catfish last night. I think it was because he was still napping when it was hot and fresh. He took a long, late nap after church and wasn't too interested in eating when he woke up at 6 PM. He liked looking at the fish before they were cut up, and he kept pointing at them and talking in his cute jibberish language.

One more shot, just for fun. Sometimes when I tell Mikey that we are going outside, I say "Go find your shoes!" And more often than not, he finds some of mine or Kevin's and puts them on. Cute little guy. We love him. P.S. He turns 18 months in a few days, and he is now officially in nursery! What a happy time for Mom and Dad.

Summer Travels

2011-08-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy month for the Lewis family! When I finally got around to downloading my pictures from my digital camera, there were 175. So, it took me a while to put these ones on the blog and I accidentally started uploading them backwards... and a bunch of others randomly shuffled after I loaded them, so pardon the skipping around. We're going to take a trip back through time, but only a few weeks.

Let's start with last week, when we finally got home after our long trip(s). Mikey was playing outside with his daddy and got in the mud. He had a really funny Hitler mustache, and Kevin caught this priceless photo:

We made our first batch of homemade salsa from the tomatoes and peppers from our garden! We grew all of these pictured below, and added some store-bought cilantro, lemon and lime juice, and one onion. We have a lot more tomatoes and peppers that will be getting ripe in the next weeks or months so we're hoping to make a huge batch of salsa and can it. The first batch tasted great, but was very mild since we didn't have any of our hottest peppers ripe yet.

Here is a belly shot, since I haven't done one for a while. This is Ginny at 31 weeks and a few days; she is a mover and a shaker! One of the biggest differences between this pregnancy and Mikey's is that I can feel my bones shifting a lot more. My hips/pelvis can be really sore when I first get up in the morning, but it usually doesn't bother me too much throughout the rest of the day. Another difference is that I don't think Ginny has had hiccups yet, but Mikey used to get them all the time in the womb, sometimes multiple times a day! I have been nesting big time to get ready for Ginny and I have most of her wardrobe (from newborn to 2 years) already organized, washed, and put in her drawers and hanging in her closet. I also am making some changes to the guest room which will become Mikey's room once the baby comes. I'll take pictures when I get them done.

Mikey dancing with Grandma Shawn at my cousin Annie's wedding reception. That's my cousin Kathryn picking her nose in the background... j/k Kathryn! ;)

Beautiful table centerpieces/decor by my cousins Krista and Lauren. You girls are so chic.

This was the floral arrangement and centerpiece on the food table. I didn't take any pictures until it had started to rain and they took all the food inside. Oops.

This was an awesome hand-built backdrop for the receiving line. It was made from some rustic looking thick tree branches, hand-dyed fabric, and hanging tea lights inside mason jars. Very creative and artsy, I say. Again, props to Krista and Lauren, and Justin (their brother) for the construction thereof. My picture doesn't really do it justice. I waited too long and it was getting dark.

This shows the big tent that the dance floor was built under, and the hanging lanterns inside. The reception was held in the bride's parents' back yard. My aunt Nicea and uncle Fred did a fabulous job with grooming their house and yard to get ready for the event. Then again, their house and yard are always beautiful, so it was nothing new. :)

Annie and Ben had a short ring ceremony in the back yard before the reception so people who weren't able to attend the temple marriage could take part. It was sweet. They are such a cute couple!

This was the dance floor before the music even got going... the kids loved to run around on it, and Mikey was no exception. We got a cute video of him navigating the dance floor and narrowly escaping collisions with the bigger, faster kids.

One of my personal favorite things about this reception: No wedding cake, and instead -- COLDSTONE ice cream! This is Annie and Ben feeding each other ice cream instead of cutting the cake.

Another favorite thing of mine: the a capella version of "For the Longest Time" that Ben (the groom) sang to his bride. Backup singers included Annie's dad, Fred, and a father-in-law of Ben's brother... not sure who the third backup singer was. I loved that Ben was so nervous to sing to her, but he did a great job and we could tell he meant what he was singing.

Some family shots outside the temple as we waited for the couple to come out. I didn't get any pictures of the married couple, though. Oops. Here are my brothers Duncan and Loren, my mom and myself.

This is my lovely grandma Sue with three of her daughters and one daughter-in-law. From left to right, Nicea, Shawn, Coy, and Teresa. I think Nicea had to pick something from her fingernail.

My grandma sitting with all the kids in the family that were there for the weekend. It was a mini family reunion, with some families coming from as far as Texas, California, and Pennsylvania! It was so fun to see all the kids playing together. This is in the back yard with the wedding tent still up, the day after the reception.

Another picture from outside the temple: Bill, Andrea, Loren, me and Kathryn. Andrea and Kathryn are my cousins from Sacramento that we got to see a lot growing up. They are freaking awesome and really great friends of mine -- and Bill is pretty cool too, since he married Andrea.

Me with my mama, Aunt Coy, and Grandma.

The cute fishing pond that my grandma organized for the kids. Kathryn and Grace (the eldest great grandchild of Sue, daughter of Justin and Kitti) were behind the curtain attaching prizes to the fishing pole for the kids.

Mikey also hit the kiddie pool while hanging out at Nicea's on a non-wedding day. Mikey and I were in Utah the whole week leading up to the wedding weekend, staying in West Jordan with Grandma and Grandpa Lewis. We would drive down to Orem for a few hours each day to hang out with whoever was spending time at Nicea's house.

More pictures of the fishing pond. This was one of my cousin Abby's kids (Abby is a younger sister to bride Annie) catching a prize. Her name is Perry. She is adorable!

More shots of the kids hanging out under the reception tent in the back yard. The one making the funny face is P.J., my cousin Lauren's step-son. He is a hoot. We really like his fun personality, and he knows more about sports than many adults do. In the bottom right corner is my cousin Brian's son Peter, who is just two weeks apart from Mikey in age. This was the first time they had met each other, and it was fun to see them together.

This picture shows little Autumn (my cousin Jana's daughter) fishing and Kathryn and Grace hooking a prize for her. You can even see Kevin in the white shirt and hat behind Autumn. It's proof that he was actually there! I didn't get hardly any pictures of him at the wedding festivities. :(

Mikey swimming in his clothes. I didn't have a swim diaper for him, so we were risking it with him naked under his shorts. He did pee once on the sidewalk. It was funny to watch. The hat he's wearing is getting too small, but I keep forgetting to get a bigger one for him! Sorry, Mikey.

The weekend before Annie's wedding, we spent some time at this beautiful place in Idaho. It's called Red Fish Lake. It is a Lewis family tradition, and we were able to go for the first time since Kevin and I have been married. We were camping, staying in a tent (but sleeping on an air mattress!) near this beautiful lake. It was Mikey's first time camping in a tent and he did awesome. He LOVES the outdoors. Isn't it awesome to see a beautiful shoreline like this, with a mountain backdrop???

Another shot of the shoreline at Red Fish Lake. It is in the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho, near Stanley and Sun Valley. We spent a very short two days here, and I didn't even get to see this beach until the morning we were leaving. I walked down here and snapped a few pictures before we took off back to Utah.

The weather was so nice when we were there! It didn't get too hot during the days 80s to low 90s I think, and not too cold at nights either, upper 20s to mid 30s? I mean, look at that clear blue sky!

Mikey loves to play in the front seats of our car whenever he gets the chance. I accidentally put this picture in with his eyes closed, but I didn't feel like changing it out, since this is a ridiculously long blog post. He loves to push the hazard lights button, and click the overhead reading lights on and off.

This is in Vern and Cheryl Lewis's back yard. I left Mikey outside for a minute while I went inside to get my camera, and when I came back, I found him on top of this patio table! This guy is getting a little bit too good at climbing.

One of my favorite pics from the camping trip: Kevin and I were packing up the car and getting ready to leave, both too busy to keep a close eye on Mikey. I didn't know where he ran off, and when I looked in the tent, I found him doing this! I guess he was hungry. He took that box of cereal into the tent, opened it by himself, and started chowing down. Good to know he can thrive on his own if anything ever happens to his parents!

This is a cute jacket I just found for Mikey at a garage sale. I bought it for $1.00. He was wearing this one morning when it was still chilly outside. He had just woken up, as you can see by the cute wrinkles under his eyes.

He loved just walking around the campsites and exploring. There is no end to this child's curiosity!

Another pretty view -- this was what we saw when we were driving to a trailhead to do a leisurely family hike.

Mikey, after the hike, passed out in the back seat. He was such a good boy, but had to skip his nap in order to go on the hike. He wouldn't sleep while we were carrying him outside and he was so tired!

It was a hot day that day, in the low 90s I think. At the end of the hike, there was a shallow streambed that I let Mikey play in while the last of the hikers straggled in. He LOVES the water, and it felt especially good for him since we had been hiking in the hot sun for a few hours.

I keep forgetting to buy him a bigger hat... This is Mikey examining one of the pebbles. He is so fun to watch, and I always wonder what's going on in that brain of his.

Here I am toward the end of the hike. As you can see, there was not much to look at while we were walking.

Mikey rode part of the way in a backpack carrier we borrowed from Scott's family (ours wouldn't fit in our car when we packed in GJ.) and part of the way on his daddy's shoulders.

These pictures from the hike are all backwards. Sorry. This is a little bit earlier on, just after we had stopped for a potty break. I liked the look of little Mikey from behind, riding on Kevin's shoulders. They make a cute pair, don't you think?

Here's a little family photo from the beginning of the hike. It was really a glorious day, and such pretty surroundings! I can't wait to go back, and hopefully spend more time there next time.

Kevypoo steals a kiss...

I just wanted to chronicle some of our driving time on this trip. The Redfish Lake trip involved a total of 24 hours of driving (for Kevin, since he had to come from GJ and go all the way back to GJ) and a little over 48 hours of camping/vacation time. Whew. We are hoping not to have to make the trip so short again. It was a bad ratio of driving to relaxing.

I don't think the rest of these pictures need captions. These were some pictures of what you see as you're driving up to the campground. The rest are just more pictures of the camping, on the first day we woke up in Red Fish. We arrived at 1 AM so we didn't get to see these beautiful mountains until the next morning. All in all, it was a fabulous two weeks, but we are glad to be home and settled in again. One thing I didn't get pictures of was the day Kevin and I got to go fly fishing together, as a date. We left Mikey with his grandparents, who watched him for probably 6 hours or so, and took him on his first boating trip! There are some really cute pictures of Mikey in his life jacket that Cheryl has on her camera. I'll have to see if I can get a hold of those.

"Bye, bye!" Says Mikey. Until the next blog post. "Hope all of you have had as much fun this summer as I have." :)

Family Hike and Bargain of the Century

2011-07-03T17:01:00.000-07:00

We have been having VERY hot, dry days here in Grand Junction. Whenever that happens, we like to go up to the Mesa by our house and enjoy the same sunny weather with temperatures 15 to 20 degrees cooler.
Mikey had a grand ol' time in his backpack carrier, listening to us tell him about the flora and fauna as we hiked.

Here he is with Kevin on the trail. We would have done a longer hike, but about 20 minutes into it, we were being swarmed mercilessly by hungry mosquitoes and we didn't have our insect repellant.

Here's our boy, who is now 16 months old! Time is flying so fast. I watched a video today of him at 14 months and he looked so different.

Kevin bending over to look for frogs in the pond. Mikey had a pinecone in one hand and an aspen leaf in the other that I gave him. He held on to them for quite a while, examining them, before non-chalantly tossing them to the ground. If the mosquitoes weren't so bad, or we were equipped with repellant, we would have spent the afternoon up there, but it was still nice to get out and enjoy our nature walk.

Here is a picture of the bargain of the century (see post title). I joined a new group called Freecycle in which members post items that they no longer need, that are still usable, and other members can come pick them up for free. It saves room in the landfills and you can find all sorts of things on this: power tools, swimming pools, clothing, furniture, office equipment, landscaping materials, etc. This particular find was from a woman who advertized "misc. infant girl clothes" and I had no idea how much she would give me. I showed up at her house and she packed three garbage sacks full! I sorted through them and these were the items I decided to keep (one pile of tops, one pile of bottoms, one pile of PJs). I haven't counted, but I think there may be over one hundred individual items, and all in good condition! No stains, pet-free and smoke-free home, and just some fading on some of the clothes. Ginny is going to be all set for clothes. These range in size from newborn to 2T. I also hit a few garage sales and got three grocery sacks full of clothes for Ginny for free from a friend in my ward. I have a lot of clothes to wash and sort!

Here is one of the shirts that was stretched out and stained pretty badly... Kevin thought it looked like it would fit him, but I'll let you be the judge of that. Actually I think he pulled a muscle getting this shirt on. :)

And here is a 26 week belly shot. I learned a magic trick this morning. Put on a black shirt, and "Now I'm pregnant...."

"Now I'm not!" Ta da!

Hooray, I Found My Camera!

2011-06-26T18:20:00.000-07:00

I have been really slacking on the blogging. But, I'm very happy I found my camera. It was in the backpack/child carrier that we took on our last hike, which was in the garage. Anyway, a lot of changes have been happening around here, one of which is that Mikey has more teeth. He now has four and is working on his fifth! He is quite the entertainer these days.

The other day he found this reusable shopping bag and managed to get it around his neck. Then he proceeded to run around the house with the bag in front of him like this, just giggling away!

Here is a good shot I got of him with his 3-toothed smile. His second top tooth is almost to the same level as his first now. He is eating more and more of the food we eat, and learned last month how to hold his own spoon and eat with it. However, since he learned to hold a spoon, he has also discovered what a good drum stick it makes and usually just bangs it on stuff now. He will still eat pureed baby foods, which is mostly the only way we can get him to eat his veggies, since he doesn't like the texture of many of them raw or steamed.

These are the first two outfits I bought Ginny after we found out we were having a girl! They were on the clearance racks at Target. The onesie on the left says "Hi! I'm new here" and I think it was 1.08 on clearance! The other one was somewhere in the four to five dollar range, but also a significant deal. Since that outing, I have also inherited three grocery bags full of baby clothes from a good friend of mine, and bought another grocery bag full of cute clothes at a garage sale for $35. I am so excited to meet this little girl! She is moving a lot, and I think she likes to stretch her arms and legs at the same time because I felt her hitting my right hip at the same time she was almost hitting my left hip! (I'm 25 weeks, by the way, if you haven't seen the "tickers" at the top right of my blog.) She is very active at times and I can see her moving from the outside most of the time now!

Mikey had his first outing to the water park on June 10th. He is now 16 months old, but these were taken a few weeks ago. He LOVED it! It's called the splash pad, and just has a bunch of different water squirters that alternate going off and on. He loved to run around to the different things and splash in the water. I also thought his swim outfit and hat were adorable. We went from about 5:30 to 6:30 in the evening, when the temperature was still about 80, but Mikey played so long in the water and got so soaked, he was shivering like crazy by the end. But he wouldn't have stopped playing if I didn't grab him and dry him off! He was having too much fun to notice the goosebumps.

We also got to get Mikey together with ALL of his cousins from both sides of the family over the Father's Day weekend! Kevin's brother Stephen graduated from dental school recently and his family is moving to Colorado. Hooray! They used to live in Virginia because they went to the same dental school Kevin did (VCU), and Kevin's other siblings were both in town with their kids as well. We spent the weekend at Vern and Cheryl's house and the cousins had fun playing and using their imaginations in the back yard. Mikey had a blast with the toy car that was just his size. I didn't quite get pictures of every grandkid, but once again, I didn't have my camera with me all the time. Mikey and I also got to stop by and visit his one cousin on the Glenn side (Mya) and they had fun together. Mya was hilarious with how excited she got to see Mikey, and she kept waving and smiling and reaching out to touch him. It was a fun weekend and we were happy to have everyone together for a short time! Thanks so much to Vern and Cheryl for their ever-wonderful hospitality and for the wonderful grandparents that they are to Mikey and all their other grandkids!

Here is just an adorable father-son picture, from when Mikey was 15 months. In the next post, I hope to show you our garden, our grass, tree, and flowers. The yard has really come a long way in the past two years, thanks to our hard work! ...and the hard work of a professional who did our sprinkler system. We are already starting to see the fruits of our labor in the garden, with several tomatoes, peppers, and a few strawberries starting to bloom and grow. I'll try to remember to take a belly shot too, since I've been slacking on those as well.

FRUSTRATED!

2011-06-08T19:08:00.001-07:00

I have been searching high and low for my digital camera for about two weeks now and there is still no sign of it. There are blog posts that need to be done, and I can't do them! I have a sneaking suspicion that Mikey might have dropped my camera in the garbage can while I wasn't looking and we tossed it.

Alas, without pictures, I still need to record some things before I forget them:

We have finally put in our yard! Sod and a big garden are in place. We still have a tree, some other plants and gravel to put in. We planted the following items in our garden: strawberries, basil, several varieties of tomatoes and peppers, watermelon, pumpkin, cucumber, chives and a few kinds of onions.

Mikey is SO cute right now, even though he's suffering through teething. He has one tooth all the way through on top now, so his smile is very adorably asymmetrical. The next top tooth is about to poke through, but I really want to get pictures of him before that happens! We had his 15 month checkup a few weeks ago and he was 23 pounds and 31 inches tall, and hitting all his developmental milestones right on target! He also went poop and potty on the big toilet for the first time today, so I bought him a new potty seat that fits over our toilet. He went again tonight and I was so happy for him! The new potty seat even has a little step stool to help him get up to the toilet, since the seat is about rib-height when he's standing on the floor :) He likes to watch the water go down the toilet when we flush.

Ginny is growing and moving more and more. I went to Target today (to buy Mikey's potty seat) and bought her first two outfits from the clearance racks. Hooray! So excited to have our sweet little girl in the family.

I guess that's all for now.

It's A...

2011-05-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

GIRL!

Hooray! We are so excited to be numbered among the lucky ones who get one of each gender for their first two kids. Kevin was able to attend the first half of our ultrasound with me before he had to return to work. Turns out his first afternoon patient canceled on him so he would have been able to stay, but the good news is that he practically won't have missed anything since I have about 40 pictures and 8 videos for him to see! The ultrasound tech was not busy at all -- there were no other appointments waiting after me -- so she took her time really trying to get good pictures of our little girl. None of the 3D pictures are quite as clear as the ones we got with Mikey since our little girl had her face snuggled right up next to my placenta, and half the time the umbilical cord was also looped in front of her nose and mouth. I was thrilled, however that I got to spend about an hour in the room looking at these pictures and videos of my sweet little baby!

The ultrasound tech was the same lady we had when I was pregnant with Mikey. She is great, so nice, and loves her job. Anyway, she explained a lot of the things she was looking at and measuring. The measurements she took of the baby that estimate the age said she was 20 weeks and 5 days old, and her age based on my last period is 20 weeks and 4 days! You can't get much closer than that. She is growing right on target. She weighs about 14 oz. She was contorted into a bunch of crazy positions, which made getting the pictures more difficult at times. She had one or both of her feet up near her head for the first twenty minutes. Her arms are up near her head and face in a lot of the pictures below, and the videos. I'll just put a brief description by each one now.

And for those of you who haven't heard yet, we are naming her Ginny! I have known a few Ginnys in my life that I have absolutely loved and I know this Ginny will be no exception. :)

This is her head lying next to the placenta. The nose area was almost always blurry because of the portion of her umbilical cord that was between her face and the transducer, but the few times I saw her nose more clearly it was very cute :)

You can see the bridge of her nose a little bit in this picture, but I like the way you can see her lips. She had her mouth open like this for a while. She also yawned a few times during the ultrasound.

This picture shows her right forearm and hand coming across her body and up under her chin. She has the cutest, tiny fingers right now! Again, her face is blurred by the cord in front of it.

Here's our proof of the female parts... We looked between her legs several times and waited for her to get in a position for a clear picture. This picture is a little weird to see, but it's looking up at her bottom, the white arrow points to the part in question. Her legs were open and there was some other image between her knees behind the arrow, maybe a loop of cord or part of an arm. Not sure.

Last, but not least, a picture of her face that was a little more straight on, as in not smashed up against the placenta. Sadly, the umbilical cord was still wrapped in front of her nose and mouth so it made the whole things kinda blurry/bumpy.

These are just four of the videos we got saved. You can see flashes of body parts and of her face as they come in and out of focus. She was moving quite a bit throughout the whole thing, but never moved her face into full view. We could get much clearer pictures if we wanted to pay for a second ultrasound around 30 weeks, but I kinda doubt we'll do that. We'll just wait to see what she looks like when she comes out :) We love you, little Ginny! We're so excited for Mikey to meet his little sister!!!!

Pregnancy update

2011-05-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

Calling all gamblers! Calling all gamblers! Who wants to bet on which gender this child 'o' mine is? We only have one week left until our ultrasound, and all is revealed. I guess this is not really gambling since I'm not collecting money for a pool, nor am I handing out a prize other than the "good for you, you guessed right on a multiple choice question that you had 50:50 odds of getting correct" award. Kevin thinks it is a girl, so I am saying I think it's a boy. That way, one of us will be right. Unless it's a hermaphrodite, which I'm pretty sure will freak us out, but is highly unlikely.

Our appointment is next Thursday afternoon, so make your guesses before then. We are very excited and will let you know soon after we find out!

Also, for your entertainment, a funny story about my ditzy pregnancy brain: I was wearing a pair of sunglasses while out visiting the botanical gardens with a friend and her kids. We played in a little play area afterward, and as we were getting ready to leave, I realized I wasn't wearing my glasses anymore. I thought I must have left them in the play area, so I told my friend, "I think I lost my sunglasses." She replied, "You mean the ones on your head?" .... boy did I feel sheepish.

In other news, I have locked myself out of my car twice since I've been pregnant. One of the times, I was at a gas station and Mikey was locked inside and we were parked at the pump, so I had to wait for one of Kevin's co-workers to drive the other set of keys to me, meanwhile blocking anyone else from using that pump. The end.

Easter and Master Dunc-Meister

2011-05-19T08:50:00.000-07:00

Well this post is about a month late. I'm going to go ahead and blame it on the pregnancy. Other things I'm going to blame on the pregnancy: the lack of pictures I have taken in the past month, the lack of blogging I have done in the past month, and the fact that I don't have ANY pictures from my recent trip to California to visit my parents. It's not that I'm not feeling well, it's just that I'm VERY forgetful, so I've forgotten to bring my camera places, forgotten to charge it, and forgotten to blog in general. Oops! Anyway, we went to Orem and stayed with Auntie Neesh and Uncle Freddo during the Easter weekend. These first pictures were the few I got of the kids getting ready to do their egg hunt right before my camera battery died.

My cousin Abby's kids were hilarious. And very sweet. Her son performed numerous dance numbers for us one afternoon, and her daughter gave me a few hugs while I was there that just melted my heart. They are precious!

Mikey got to play with his cousin Mya. They play pretty well together, in the sense that neither one makes the other cry, and they don't gouge each other's eyes out anymore... mostly. Haha. She was so fun to hang out with!

I even got to rock her to sleep a few times while her parents were working hard cleaning their apartment to get ready for the big move to Bountiful. I'm excited to have a tiny baby of my own again to sleep in my arms. Mikey just doesn't do the napping in my lap anymore... sniff, sniff. He's growing up so fast!

Here I am with my little bro who is now a Master of Accountancy! Congratulations, bro-hah! We had a fun weekend and were happy to support Dunc in this big milestone. I celebrated my 28th birthday that Saturday and my hubby took me out to the movies and got me a gift card to Barnes and Noble. My parents and my in-laws also gave me birthday money, which I spent this past weekend in California! I got myself some maternity/nursing shirts and some shorts for summer. Hooray! I also bought a second hypnobirthing book from B&N with my gift card from Kevin.

I wanted to blog about my California trip, but I have no pictures... Suffice it to say, I had a blast. Mikey had tons of fun playing with his grandma and grandpa, but not as much fun as they had seeing him! We admired the newly renovated kitchen that my parents finished. My mom and I shopped and ate lunch out a few times, and just had fun hanging out and making each other laugh. I took Mikey for a walk to the park on the one day that was warm enough, and he learned how to go down a slide by himself! He's very brave. We were joking that the week was really hard on us because the TV was out of commission for two days, followed by the phone and internet being down for another two days. It was like we were pioneers again... or living in the dark ages... whichever is worse. All of those problems stemmed from my parents having their roof replaced, which was in and of itself a very noisy and almost apocalyptic experience. Ever heard of "the sky is falling"? Well, that's nothing compared to being in a house when a dozen men are ripping the roof off. Mikey was still able to take his naps on those days, though, so we were ok. Thanks to my mom and dad for their wonderful hospitality and for enjoying my baby! (It makes me feel good when other people are just as obsessed with him as I am.) Sadly, I will not see my parents in person again for a long time since they're moving to BRAZIL for a year! WAAAAAAAAHHHHH! I won't see my Dad until possibly Christmas time (if he passes through Utah, where we'll be) and I won't see my mom until the end of October when she comes to help out with the new baby. I love you guys and will miss you a lot!

Springtime Yard Work and Family Fun

2011-04-19T08:36:00.000-07:00

So, our soil in Grand Junction is probably as salty as the Salt Lake. You may remember we were doing yard work last year in the front yard, evacuating the crappy soil and replacing it with this lush, organic topsoil. We got a second order delivered recently and I started chipping away at it during the days when Kevin was at work.

I got about a fifth of it cleared and spread across the back yard before my brother Loren arrived and started helping me. (Kevin had a shoulder injury from ultimate frisbee that prevented him from shoveling for about a week.)

These are just some "before" pictures of the back yard, so you can see how much we accomplished when I post the "after"s. I forgot to rotate this picture of the storm drain, but it used to have these three haystacks around it. We built a retaining wall instead and filled in the dirt around it.

This is the other corner of our back yard. You can see our neighbor's yard and we don't have a fence up yet, but the nice topsoil is in now!

These two shots kind of show our progress throughout the week. I got about this far on my own and within a day...

Loren and I had gotten this far! It was much faster with two people. Thanks, Loren!!! We'll put more pictures of the yard up soon.

We got to visit my other brother's family (Duncan, Liz and Mya) when I got Loren from Provo to bring him to my house. Mya is so cute and growing up so fast. I loved it that I got to rock her to sleep for her nap. Makes me excited to have a little baby again! :)

Mya is still tiny, even though she's grown. Look at this itty bitty foot!!!

She's a big girl eating some solid foods now!

We also got to see Kevin's parents for a few days because he was working on a big dental case for his mom. They took us out to dinner (thanks, guys!) and also brought this toy from their house that Mikey LOVES. It's one of those fantastic marble chutes.

If I let Mikey play outside with me and don't watch him closely enough, he will put dirty rocks in his mouth and do other such boyish things. This particular time, he had a whole mouthful of potting soil. Disgusting! It looked like tar. We washed it out before he swallowed much of it... I think.

I'm thinking it's about time to get Mikey a bigger bed. He's filling this one out a little too much at times. He seems to like to fall asleep with his head against the bumper though, since I find him like that a lot when he's sleeping.

And finally, Mikey's haircuts. I've cut it twice in the last month. This is how I try to get him to cooperate: put him in the exersaucer, put the cape over him, and cut his hair as quickly as possible before he throws the cape off.

This was his hair before I cut it. It still grows unevenly with the longest pieces kind of running in a stripe down the top of his head. His temples still have mostly peach fuzz.

And we clean up the mess with my lint roller because his hair is so fine. We picked up some shavings of dad's hair with his from the last haircut... oops. But this was the only shot I could get of Mikey's clipped hair.

And for those of you who haven't heard through the grapevine...

2011-04-10T08:27:00.000-07:00

Baby #2 is in the oven!

Coming to Grand Junction, Colorado in late September to mid October. I'm 14 weeks now and feeling much better now that the first trimester is behind me. Kevin and I are very excited and Mikey has no idea what's going on yet, but we've still got 6 months. We are going to find out the gender at the end of May! Hooray!!!!

I've waited so long to officially announce this pregnancy that rumors have spread it all the way to Oklahoma already (not that I should have waited so long to tell my best friend anyway!). So, the cat's out of the bag!

BONK! and other happenings

2011-03-18T17:35:00.000-07:00

No, I don't abuse my child. He was playing a rousing game of "bar stool obstacle course" with himself when he stepped inside the bottom rung with both feet. His balance threw him backward and the stool landed on top of him. Mom was a little too slow to save him.

It actually looked the worst the first day, which is when I took these. All the swelling went down by the next morning, and you can hardly see it now. He looked like a little boxer for a day though. :)

Mikey gets bubble beards when he puts his face in the bath water to drink it. I know he shouldn't drink his bath water, but it's hard to stop him all the time. I can never get a picture of the first bubble beard, which is always the best and funniest looking. This one has been sort of washed away already.

Here he is trying to change the settings on our fridge. Where are his pants??? I just thought that was too cute of a photo op to pass up.

Kevin surprised us by bringing home a pike that was almost as big as Mikey last weekend! He was fishing with a friend who wasn't going to keep this fish, so Kevin took it off his hands. He had a blast learning to fillet a pike, and Mikey actually ate an entire fillet by himself! Our little boy likes fish, and his daddy couldn't be more proud.

Here's Kevin with the monster. Its gills were still moving when he plopped it on the foil on the counter. I was pretty freaked out and wanted him to get it cleaned and put away as quickly as possible. I don't like slimy, moving creatures on my counter tops!

And last but not least, a few random shots I took of Mikey on a few different mornings with the sun coming in through our east-facing window. He loves to play with our keys.

This one shows his two teeth really well. And his thin, wispy hair. We love this dude. He is constantly amazing us with how sweet and loving his personality is, and how his sense of humor is developing. We think the top teeth might be trying to come through, but neither of them have made an appearance yet.

A Project and a Hike

2011-03-08T09:33:00.000-08:00

I bought this dress on a clearance rack, but it was a little too short for my long body (and by a little, I mean 5 or 6 inches!) I actually bought it shortly after Christmas, so this project was long overdue.

The original hem of the dress ended where my fingers are holding (above) and the panel of fabric below that was the lining on the inside of the hem. I bought the brown cotton to add a ruffle at the bottom for even more length.

I decided I had to pleat the ruffle in order to sew the blue panel to the brown fabric more securely. If I did it again, I would make sure the pleats were more even. I wasn't very careful about that.

That's what the inside of the bottom panel looked like before I attached it to the dress.

This picture shows the whole dress with the bottom panel below (before pleating.)

And here's the finished product! I actually finished the sewing on this the morning before I wore it to church. One of the blessings of having church start at 11:30. So my dress is now modest. Even when I'm sitting it comes just past my knee. This alteration cost under $6 for fabric and thread.

This is where we went on Saturday. The weather wasn't bad, but the sun never really came out. When we got up to Delicate Arch, the wind was blowing and it was pretty cold so we snapped a few pictures and headed back down.

It was fun to have people comment on how cute Mikey was while on the hike. Mikey did great. He and I were mostly over our colds, but his nose kept running because it wasn't very warm outside.

A little family photo :)

Kevin carried Mikey the whole time, which I appreciated. After having been cooped up in the house all week, it felt really good to get outside. I wasn't back up to 100% as far as my energy level, so we took it easy with a nice slow pace. We love living so close to these fun National Parks!

Poor Mikey

2011-03-03T11:15:00.000-08:00

Mikey and I have both been down for the count the past week with bad head colds and ear infections. But there were a few bright spots in our not-so-great week. Since I had no energy, I spent a lot of time in bed or on the couch with the computer and I was able to compile and edit blog books for our personal history. I got everything caught up all the way to this post! There are two books, one of which I ordered and will arrive in a few weeks. The first is 114 pages or so, and the second, which covers Feb 2010 to Feb 2011 is 67 pages, I think. I'm so excited to see the finished products, and I can't believe how reasonable the cost was. These will be priceless mementos! The other good thing to happen was that Mikey took his first few steps yesterday while pushing a walker toy that my mom got him. He still hasn't taken any steps without holding on to anything, but this was a big move for him! He pushed his toy about six feet across the floor without my help. He also enjoyed a sucker that our friend Katie dropped off with a nice note. We're hoping to feel better very soon so we can get out and enjoy the spring weather! (Notice how I don't include pictures of myself sick. Somehow Mikey is just cuter. He will just come up to us and lay his head down on us because he's exhausted. He's also so much more cuddly when he's sick.)

I Need To Stop Getting Behind

2011-02-22T13:15:00.001-08:00

I think it's time for another "Good Idea, Bad Idea"... (extra credit for the first person to name the TV show that's from).

Good idea: Ice fishing in December. Bad idea: Ice fishing in December with a baby and no shelter. (We didn't last long before I got the little bugger back into the warm car!)

Good idea: growing teeth. Bad idea: biting Mommy with new teeth.

Good idea: buying a used piano from craigslist for $150. Bad idea: trying to move piano by myself to center it under the pictures on the wall.

Good idea: baking a blueberry cheesecake from scratch. Bad idea: sharing the cheesecake. j/k.

Good idea?: going for a walk in January in Colorado. Bad idea: going for a walk in January in Colorado. (Another outing that didn't last long. We're wimps in the cold.)

Good idea: going potty with Daddy. Bad idea: going potty ON Daddy. (Don't worry, he kept it in the bowl.)

Good idea: stopping by Provo to visit cousin Mya. Bad idea: only taking three pictures and this was the best one. Sorry Mya! We couldn't get you to look at the camera!

Good idea: doing a little knitting whilst on the potty chair. Bad idea: doing a little potty while in the knitting basket.

Good idea: putting a hand made in indonesia sticker on your head. Bad idea: putting a hand made in indonesia sticker in your mouth.

Good idea: getting Grandpa to give you rides. Bad idea: playing with Grandpa's toys like the nail gun.

Good idea: reading a book in Grandma's cozy chair by lamp light. Bad idea: reading a book in Grandma's toilet by the sound of rushing waters.

Good idea: being mighty as the Redwood in the front yard. Bad idea: planting a giant Redwood in a really small front yard... give it a hundred years and you'll see what I mean.

Good idea: green grass in February. Bad idea: living in Colorado where grass won't be green for three more months.

Good idea: taking pictures of beautiful California out a moving car window. Bad idea: dropping camera out of moving car window.

Good idea: playing with Grandma outside on the bricks. Bad idea: eating bricks.

Good idea: exploring your surroundings under supervision. Bad idea: exploring bugs by tasting them.

Good idea: sticking your tongue out like Michael Jordan. Bad idea: falling on your face while your tongue is sticking out.

Good idea: crawling on a playground in warm California. Bad idea: crawling on a playground in a volcano.

Good idea: making Kevin's birthday cake out of rice krispie treat. Bad idea: not eating more of said birthday treat before Kevin finished it off.

Good idea: bathing. Bad idea: bathing in rattlesnakes.

Good idea: strategically placed washcloths. Bad idea: strategically placed wolverines.

Good idea: climbing stairs in the condo at Crested Butte. Bad idea: climbing stairs in Crested Butte with your eyes closed in the dark.

Good idea: watching Mom take your picture. Bad idea: not taking enough pictures of Mikey.

Good idea: staying for free in Kevin's boss's condo for a weekend. Bad idea: staying for free in Kevin's boss's condo when the heat isn't working.

Good idea: bison. Bad idea: stuffed bison head staring at you while you have a romantic evening by the fireplace.

Good idea: trying ice fishing again now that we have a warm shelter and propane heater. Bad idea: trying ice fishing again before Mikey knows how to walk.

Good idea: feeding Mikey yellow fruit snacks while ice fishing. Bad idea: feeding Mikey yellow snow while ice fishing.

Good idea: mohawks in the bathtub. Bad idea: sharks in the bathtub.

Good idea: celebrating Mikey's first birthday at his grandparents' house in West Jordan. Bad idea: celebrating Mikey's first birthday next year.

Good idea: having your cake and eating it too. Bad idea: eating your bib because it has frosting on it.

Good idea: taking a video of Mikey on his first birthday. Bad idea: whoever made it so that loading videos onto Blogger takes hours for a two-minute video. (Or is it just my computer?)

Good idea: having a second cake at home on your real birthday. Bad idea: using frosting as a hair product.

Good idea: lighting a candle and blowing it out on your birthday. Bad idea: touching the flame because it's the shiniest thing in the room.

Good idea: sprinkles. Bad idea: wrinkles.

Whew! And that gets you pretty much caught up on our lives since Christmas. We're having a grand ol' time watching Mikey as he grows. He just had his one year check up with the pediatrician and he has officially hit the big 20 pounds, plus 1.5 ounces! We can turn his car seat forward. Hooray! He also measured in at 29 3/4 inches long. We love our little guy.

Merry Belated Christmas!

2011-01-02T19:25:00.000-08:00

So, my Christmas post is seriously lacking in pictures. My camera battery is dead and I haven't been able to find the charger for about a month. These two pictures of Mikey from Christmas morning are actually still shots I pulled from my video camera. The fishing pictures are from Christmas Eve when Kevin took my dad and brother Loren ice fishing. They did really well that day, and brought home 7 good-sized fish, which we ate over the next several days. It was a first for both my dad and Loren to go ice fishing and I think they had fun. Dad caught the most fish that day, beating Loren and Kevin combined. Loren won for the largest fish caught, a 21" lake trout. The pictures are from Kevin's camera and some of them were a little washed out because of the settings... oops!

Our Christmas was really fun. Mikey didn't understand the whole opening presents concept, but once his presents were opened for him, he LOVED all the new toys he got to play with! I wanted to thank our families (Lewises and Glenns) for a very wonderful Christmas. We were glad to get to see a lot of you in the month of December, including Kevin's brother Steve from Virginia! Thanks for all the wonderful gifts, but more importantly, thanks for the quality time and memories. We're excited for Mikey's first birthday coming up in less than 2 months. He is growing up so fast!

2010-12-09T16:08:00.000-08:00

Nine Months and Happy as Ever

2010-12-08T13:44:00.000-08:00

Our little boy is growing up... sniff, sniff. He is quite the explorer around the house. He loves to play chase and peekaboo, and still squeals with delight at the smallest provocation. We still like to call him our dinosaur/pterodactyl baby because his "I'm happy or excited" squeal is still very high-pitched like a sound effect from Jurassic Park. He is still working on getting his teeth to pop through, but no toothy smiles yet. He's learning to have a stronger opinion about which foods he does and doesn't like. We laugh at the faces he makes when we try to give him something he doesn't want (i.e. turkey and rice dinner pureed baby food). He is cruising around on anything he can reach while standing, and likes to travel from room to room to find new things, like the dryer (see above). I put him inside because he was having a hard time crawling into it. :)

He had his nine month checkup after we got back from California for Thanksgiving. He is still very light for his age, but we're working on getting some more meat on his little bones. He weighed 16 lbs 10.5 ounces and was 28 1/4 inches long. We ordered him a new carseat that converts to front-facing when he's old/big enough since he'll be too long for his current carseat soon. We are so grateful to be the parents of this sweet, happy boy! Everywhere we take him, we always hear "He's such a good baby!", "We have harldy ever heard him cry!", and "I can't believe how happy he is all the time!". It's true. Mikey is a happy, sweet, content baby. He hasn't gotten to be afraid of strangers or cling to his mommy yet, so we think he might skip that stage. He is a constant source of joy and smiles around our house and everywhere else he goes. I can't believe how fast time is going. We're excited to continue to watch him grow and develop. We are looking forward to a relaxed Christmas at home in Colorado (no planes, cars, or trains for us for a while!) and taking lots of pictures and videos of Mikey's first Christmas.

Here are a few pics from our California trip. This is our group waiting to welcome Loren home from his mission in Minnesota. (Mya's hiding under the nursing cover and my dad is taking the picture.) I didn't get many pictures that trip, although I do have some videos. It was so fun to see Loren again and kind of weird to realize how much he has grown/matured since I saw him last.

Mikey also got to see the beautiful redwoods in northern CA while on a road trip with me, Kevin and my mom. It was sprinkling rain when I took this, so Kevin jumped out of the car with Mikey and we stayed in the car and took the photo through the open window. Little Mikey, big tree.

Update

2010-11-16T06:22:00.000-08:00

Note to self: Cornbread is probably one of the messiest foods you can feed to Mikey. There were cornbread crumbs in his neck, his diaper, his ears, and in every crack of the high chair, but it made for really cute pictures!

This is how Mikey fell asleep one time. When we go to get him from his crib, we often hear muffled cries and we walk in to find him with his forehead/face buried in the mattress, his butt sticking up in the air, and his feet on the mattress with his legs extended. We have a yoga baby, what can I say? He has mastered the position of down dog.

In other news, we finally got topsoil for our yard. The soil that was already in our lot has WAY too much salt content for anything to grow, especially grass. So we had 10 cubic yards delivered to our house and dispersed it all with our own four hands. Shovel, wheelbarrow, rake. Sore muscles.

The almost finished product... See Mikey's high chair in the driveway/garage? He was watching us again, and eating Cheerios. He said we did alright.

Happy Belated Halloween

2010-11-13T09:22:00.000-08:00

This was Mikey's 1st Halloween (outside the womb) and he was the cutest penguin I've ever seen. I found this costume for him at a second-hand baby store in town and it was a screaming deal at $2.50. It was plenty warm for him too. We went to our ward's trunk or treat for about an hour and half. Kevin and I didn't go all out on costumes, but I made a pretty sweet mohawk, wore my only Halloween shirt (thanks, Mom!) and some fishnet stockings and tennis shoes. I guess I was kind of a punk rocker. Kevin fashioned some vampire fangs at work that actually fit over his real teeth. It looked kinda freaky, especially when he'd bare his fangs like in the picture above. No, he did not suck my blood that night! (Whew.)

Here we are at the trunk or treat. Mikey was having lots of fun watching all the people (especially the kids) go by in their costumes. I'm sure he was quite confused by the whole thing.

Mikey sat in my trunk by the candy bowl for a while, passing out treats. He didn't eat any candy, of course, but he liked to play with the wrappers because of the fun crinkling sound.

He stayed up about an hour and half past his bedtime. We found him like this on the floor shortly after we got home. Poor guy is just tuckered out. I love his little penguin tail!

8 Month Old Mikey and New Cousin Mya

2010-10-27T14:15:00.001-07:00

Here's my sweet little niece Mya on her second day of life. She timed that yawn perfectly for the camera. She's a genius.

Kevin happened to have a dental education course in Provo the very weekend after Mya was born so we were all in town anyway. Our trip to Provo was planned six months in advance and Mya made her entrance at just the right time-- you can't get much better than that! I loved holding her and Mikey seemed fascinated by her as well.

They are gonna be such good friends! I can't wait to see how they both grow and to watch them play together at reunions! I'm so happy for Dunc and Liz and I know they are very proud parents.

You know how I like to throw a bathtub shot in every once in a while. :) Mikey turned 8 months on Oct 20th. He is still a happy-go-lucky, mellow, and easy baby. I do have to watch him a little more closely to make sure he doesn't eat paper, pieces of the carpet, leaves, plastic game pieces and other inedible stuff that he can get into now. He still army crawls and occasionally climbs up on things that are fairly low to the ground. He can crawl over the top of me if I'm lying on the floor. He stands up if I put him on his feet and give him something to hold on to, but he's not pulling himself to a standing position yet. All in due time!

He still loves people, especially little ones like himself. He smiles at strangers all the time and I frequently hear how he's such a "happy baby" from all the passersby. He babbles to himself and is probably full of all sorts of good ideas and information, but I don't understand any of it yet. He's still got the same adorable toothless smile; I don't think his first teeth will come in for at least another month. I really don't mind! He eats lots of solids and feeds himself with his fingers. He likes the biter biscuits, Cheerios, Gerber puffs, yogurt melts, pickle spears, apple cores, bread, pizza crust, potatoes, pureed veggies and fruits, and pretty much anything I put in front of him.

Kevin babysat Mikey recently while I was hanging out with some girlfriends and this is what Mikey was wearing when I saw him again. It fits him perfectly right now. Isn't he just a little stud? He'll be a junior Jazz fan and take after his daddy, I'm sure.

Catching up again

2010-09-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

Here I am mailing off the last payment for my car. Oh happy day!

Mikey has been learning some new tricks, like how to get his toes in his mouth and how to blow spit bubbles. Both are pretty funny to watch.

He's eating more foods now, and seems to like pureed vegetables better than fruit. He's a good eater. He took to eating from a spoon like a natural. He's also had Cheerios and small bites of pizza crust, yogurt melts, and applesauce.

We took him for his 6 month checkup on Aug 23rd (my dad's b-day!) and these were his stats:

Height 27 inches, 74th %ile
Weight 15 lbs 1.5 oz, 11th %ile
I didn't get the head circumference this time, but it's growing too :) He's still a long and lean baby.

He has been preferring to sleep on his side or stomach ever since he got really good at rolling. Every time I set him in his crib now for a nap or bedtime, he immediately rolls on his side or stomach. I thought this was cute when he fell asleep holding his giraffe's face.

In mid August, we took our THIRD trip to California! This time we drove with my brother and sis in law, Duncan and Liz. We had very pleasant weather there. We all took a nap after church on Sunday on a blanket in the backyard.

One of the big things we did while visiting my parents was a 2 day trip to Monterey, and a visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This is where we ate lunch the first day, at a Mexican restaurant right on the Bay. There were sea lions and birds out on the rocks just outside our window. Pretty fun!

Grandma Glenn loved her Mikey time. Not that she hogged him at all... or fought over him with Duncan, Liz, and my dad. :)

We spent the night in a nearby hotel courtesy of my parents (THANKS!) and then we were off to see the aquarium. We had some fun on our lunch break burning off the calories from the sandwiches we ate. I look about two feet taller than Liz in this picture, but it's just the weird perspective. She was a hula hooping champ even with her 7 month pregnant belly!

There were so many cool, colorful creatures to see in the aquarium. I liked the complimentary colors of the orange jellyfish in the bright blue tank. They're also mesmerizing to watch, like a campfire or a lava lamp. I think I was hypnotized for a while. :)

This was the most exciting part of the trip. OK, not really, but close. We stopped at the Nestle Toll House Cafe for a decadent dessert. This is a create-your-own ice cream sandwich. Mine featured a chocolate chip toffee cookie and a snicker doodle surrounding chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. MMMMMMMMMMMM.....

My dad was there with us too, but he was the photographer on this shot.

Unkie Dunkie, Aunt Liz, and Mikey hangin' with the penguins.

Mikey was fascinated by all the colorful, attention-grabbing creatures on display. He had an awesome time!

We took a quick photo in the lobby with the giant Orca in the background. It was such a fun trip! I wish Kevin could have been with us, but alas, he had to work all week. Two weeks prior to this, Kevin was able to go backpacking in the Wind River Mountains and take some time off work. Hopefully we'll get some of those pictures up here soon too.

This is Mikey's first time in a baby swing at a park. We walked to this park near my parents' house when Mikey and I had a day home alone. My dad was at work and my mom, Dunc, and Liz were all at the temple.

What a cute little dude, huh?

The very next weekend after returning from California, Kevin, Mikey and I went to Bear Lake in Utah to spend some time with Kevin's family. We had a blast with his parents, his brother and sister, and their families. Mikey went swimming in his first ever lake. The water was cold, but not frigid and he put up with it. He was kicking his little feet in the water like crazy. He also liked to reach down with his hands, grab handfuls of sand from the ground, and then lift them out of the water and drop them. A fascinating new texture for him! I took my eyes off his hands for two seconds, though, and he ended up eating some sand. Yuck. So I was a little more vigilant after that.

Our nephew that is closest in age to Mikey was going to turn one year old in a few days, so we celebrated his birthday while we were there. We had some pretty good thunder storms overnight and sporadically through the days, but still had plenty of sunshine to play in as well.

Here are all the nieces and nephews in attendance (except our nephew who was gone for a few hours to play a soccer game), posing for a pajama picture on the last night. They are all so wonderful and have such distinct personalities. It has been fun to be an aunt to all these cuties. We are really missing our other two nieces who live in Virginia, but they have less than a year left until their dad graduates and moves back closer to the family. Hooray! Thanks for a fun time, Lewis family.

I took quite a few videos at the aquarium that were really cool too, but my computer or my version of blogger takes FOREVER to upload videos to my blog, so I wore myself out after these two. One is demonstrating the difficulty of getting 9 tired children to pose for a picture and all smile and look at the camera at the same time. It was pretty comical. The other is Mikey's swimming adventure. Enjoy!

4 Month Stats - Almost a month late!

2010-07-18T17:38:00.000-07:00

Mikey had a whirlwind month. He traveled by car from Grand Junction to Salt Lake and back one weekend, from GJ to SLC again the following weekend, then by train from SLC to Grandma and Grandpa Glenn's house in CA, then by car the following weekend to SLC again. The next day, we drove from SLC to Boise, and two days later, from Boise to Provo, and finally the next day from Provo back to GJ. Did you catch all that? He was quite the trooper, with very good behavior the entire time. When we got home, he finally let us know that he had had enough of being carted around and having his routine disrupted and did not sleep well for a few nights. He was back to his angel baby self by the end of the week, though. We love our little guy and it was fun to see so many family members during our travels. If you scroll down, there are three more fairly new posts that I've done over the last day or two. Don't miss 'em!

At his four month checkup, Mikey was:

12 pounds, 14 ounces -- 13th percentile.

26 1/2 inches long -- 90th percentile.

He was below the fifth percentile for height-to-weight ratio :) We started him on some rice cereal since then and I'm proud to report he has grown his first fat roll on each thigh, but only if he's extending his legs straight down.

Mikey is such a happy, smiley baby. Everyone that gets to hold him just gushes about how quickly and easily he smiles. Another funny thing about his personality is that he's pretty gun shy. Certain things really make him flinch. Kevin was changing Mikey's diaper at church in a bathroom, and one of the toilets flushed and Mikey jumped and then started to whimper. He is also scared of loud sneezes. He's cried after a few of Kevin's. If you play peek-a-boo with him, he giggles and smiles, but he flinches every time you say "Boo!" regardless of how long you've been playing with him. It's pretty funny. He's still developing his skills of speaking pterodactyl. You would think by listening to him talk that he was raised by dinosaurs. He has gotten really good at rolling from tummy to back, but still not from back to tummy. He loves playing with toys now and grabs at everything and puts it in his mouth. He is fascinated by voices of people coming through speakerphone on my phone. He turns and looks at the phone, probably wondering where the person is that's speaking, and tries to reach for the phone and take it out of my hands.

He loves being outside too. He's been on quite a few hikes now. Check out some of the other new posts below for some of the recent hikes we've done. He is truly a joy and we feel so blessed to be his parents.

Cousin It?

2010-07-18T17:18:00.000-07:00

I forgot that most of you, my dear readers, have still not seen my new look. I have been shedding hair like crazy since Mikey was born, and was getting fed up with the multitude of hairballs that seemed to follow me wherever I went, and cling to my clothing and everything I touched. Eww. I was like a 5'11" female version of Linus from Charlie Brown.

Anyway, here's my head of hair before the fateful day of chopping. I donated it to a good cause, and have been LOVING the new short 'do ever since.

Advantages of short hair I have already discovered:

1. When my hair falls out, it lands on the ground instead of getting stuck to my shirt, pants, pillow, or various pieces of furniture.

2. I can put on chapstick or lip gloss while in the car, roll the windows down, and my hair doesn't stick to my lips!

3. It takes me about two minutes to style my hair every day... Maybe five if I have to blowdry it.

3.5 My shampoo and conditioner consumption have drastically decreased.

4. Mikey doesn't get his fingers caught in my hair anymore (although now he'll grab at the skin on my neck and pinch like he's grabbing fabric... not sure which I like worse).

5. You get a lot of attention the first time you go back to your home ward -- everyone comes up to you and says, "I didn't recognize you! I was wondering, 'Who's that woman sitting next to Brother Lewis???' Your hair is so cute!"

6. I don't get headaches after a day of wearing my hair up due to the weight tugging at the back of my head.

7. I don't have to worry about my hair getting tangled. Ever. That might be one of the best things. You can ask Kevin, since he has encountered some pretty nasty snarls when brushing my hair for me. :)

I don't have a good picture of the back, but you get the picture. It's short. I'm free at last! Free at last!

Family Hike

2010-07-17T10:32:00.000-07:00

This is a short hike we did up by Brighton Ski Resort with some of Kevin's family. We got this Baby Bjorn from a woman in Murray for a good deal and it fits Mikey perfectly right now. He's also sporting our favorite hat of his. He loves hikes! He just looks around at the scenery and dozes on and off.

We stopped at Lake Mary and had to turn back to get Kevin's brother Stephen from the airport. The family was all arriving in town for Kevin's grandpa's funeral. Unfortunately, I don't have many other pictures from this weekend because I put my camera somewhere and forgot to bring it out again.

Daddy and son :)

The views from up there were gorgeous. There was still some snow on the ground, but the weather was beautiful and the mountain air felt so good in our lungs!

Hiking Grandeur Peak

2010-07-17T08:24:00.000-07:00

I think this was two days before Father's Day. We were in Utah, so we set aside some time to take our nephew (Mikey's cousin) Sam on a hike. Duncan and Liz had some time off too, so we asked them to join in the fun.

They were more than happy to oblige, and got a kick out of spending time with their favorite nephew.

It was beautiful and green up there! We made it to the almost-summit before hunger and tired legs encouraged us to turn around. Then we all ate at Apollo Burger. Something about red meat after a long hike is so satisfying. Mikey loved the hike, by the way. He took turns riding with Kevin and Uncle Duncle. Thanks, guys! We had a blast.

3 1/2 Months

2010-06-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

I set Mikey down on my bed while I went to shower. When I came back, he was asleep like this. He wasn't even close to the edge before I left him! I've learned my lesson and don't let him sleep on anything elevated anymore (unless it has rails). So, he's not crawling or rolling over yet, but he still manages to scoot and move somehow
.

Kevin and I took Mikey on his first hike up Mt. Garfield (small mountain in Grand Junction). It's a two mile hike one way with a 2000 ft elevation gain. Needless to say, it's STEEP. We started around 9:30 AM, but the forecast today is a high temp in the upper 90s. We only got just past a half mile up when I decided I was ready to turn around. Man, was it HOT... and HARD climbing up that steep slope. No switchbacks here, my friends, just straight up the mountainside like a stair-climber. Anyway, Mikey was in long sleeves, pants, and a hat because I didn't want him to get sunburned, so he was pretty dang hot. To help him cool off, we let him ride almost naked back home in the carseat. We just loved how cute he was when he fell asleep naked in the carseat, so we took a picture.

And finally, I took Mikey to the pool at our gym for the first time. His swim outfit is too big for him right now, so I had to safety-pin the waistband of his shorts, but he was so cute in the outfit! We got his swim outfit from Cindy Turner and Nicole Fuller at my baby shower in American Canyon. Funny how I remember which clothes came from whom, huh?

Here's the report on Mikey's first swimming adventure: he did really well, but didn't look like he was enjoying himself very much of the time. I think the water might have been a few degrees too cold for such a small baby, although it is a well-heated pool and it is indoors. He did officially survive one dunk under water. He didn't cry after going under, but he was blinking his eyes a lot when he came up and shaking his head back and forth like he wanted the water off his face. He never cried the whole 15-20 mins we were swimming, but he did have an expression on his face like, "What the heck is going on? I'm not sure if I'm liking this." I would hold him on his back on the surface of the water and do back floats with him and he was a little scared, especially when the water would go over his ears. He made a sour face whenever that happened. I think we'll let him get a little older before he swims again, and possibly try a little kiddie pool outside, after letting the water warm up in the sun for a while. We'll see. I think he really likes being in the water, but moreso when he's naked and the water's a bit warmer. He LOVES his baths, so I might need to let him swim in the bathtub for a while until he's older and can try the pool again.

My Favorite Sound

2010-06-03T08:33:00.000-07:00

Mikey in May

2010-05-28T08:19:00.000-07:00

"Look out. I throw a mean knuckle ball."

"If you could just plant two kisses right here, that would be great. Thanks. You're a doll."

"Mom and Dad took me for another hike, this time in Grand Junction. It was a little chilly that day, but there was plenty of sun. We saw some amazing views from up on top of the Monument."

"Let me concentrate... Hold on.... Yep, green eggs and ham. That's what dad ate for lunch. I can hear his belly complaining."

Buried Treasure

2010-05-28T07:15:00.000-07:00

This month we decided we needed some extra dough, so we started digging up our front yard to pan for gold. With Kevin wielding a pick axe, and both of us shoveling, we covered (or should I say uncovered?) a lot of ground in three days.

It's important to practice looking good while shoveling in case a car drives by. We have neighbors to impress, you know. After three days of searching for gold, we came up with something even better.

A piece of rebar, a bent steel I-beam, some wire mesh, a long screw with three nuts on it, some packing tape, a metal bracket and an assortment of weeds. I sure can't wait to see what treasures the rest of the yard has in store!

We tried to put Mikey to work, to earn his room and board, but as soon as we turned our backs, we found him sleeping on the job. I don't know, maybe three months is a little young for manual labor. We'll wait 'til he's at least six months before we make him mow the lawn.

Family Resemblance

2010-05-27T19:38:00.000-07:00

I think Mikey is a pretty good mixture of Glenn and Lewis. Ever since Mikey was born, he has reminded me of my baby brother Loren, especially in the eyes. Since I've seen Kevin's baby pictures, I can see a little bit of him in Mikey too. Mikey looks more like a Lewis when his eyes aren't all the way open, or his brow is furrowed. The picture above (left) is Mikey as a newborn. The middle one is Kevin, and the right one is Mikey at about two months old.

Here's Mikey (left) next to baby Loren (right). They have the EXACT same nose in these pictures, I think. You can also see why I think Mikey's eyes are like Loren's. Very similar shape, and often wide open. Something else they have in common is their light complexion and very light peach fuzz. You really can't see their eyebrow hair, which was not the case with baby Kevin.

Who do you think Mikey looks more like? Glenn or Lewis?

Funny Hats and Sleeping Positions

2010-04-29T09:27:00.000-07:00

We sure get a kick out of this little guy. He had his two month checkup on Tuesday and here are his stats:

Height: 24 1/2 inches: 94th percentile

Weight: 10 lbs 14 oz: 31st percentile

Head Circumference: 16 inches: 75th percentile

Brotherhood of the Traveling Mikey

2010-04-28T06:46:00.000-07:00

Mikey is one adventurous little dude. We've been carting him all over with us, and have just barely settled back down at home, which is why this blog post covers a span of about a month.

Unfortunately, it's been too long since I've blogged and I forgot to load the pictures in reverse order, so we are going back in time as you scroll down. These pictures are from our trip to California to see Grandma and Grandpa Glenn, April 12th-22nd.

The green hills were just beautiful! These pictures through the car window don't do them justice.

Grandma and Grandpa LOVED hanging out with their baby. He was spoiled for ten days straight. He liked to show off his most recent trick, of talking and cooing for them.

My dad is so silly around kids and babies. It reminded me of the funny thing he used to do when I was a kid. He loved to make faces and weird noises at Mikey to get him to smile.

Mikey also spent some time lounging outside in the grass, since we had very nice 70+ degree weather with just a slight breeze. He would lie on his back or tummy and just look around and listen to the birds and other sounds for several minutes at a time. I could even run inside to do something and come back out and he'd still be perfectly content. I think we have a little nature lover on our hands.

Mikey met his pseudo-cousins in American Canyon. These two girls belong to a friend of my mom's. They were her pretend grandchildren before Mikey came along.

The girls were really sweet and wanted to hold the baby and love him. Mikey seemed to really like them too.

Mikey had so much fun visiting the grandparents in CA! Thanks for letting us come, Mom and Dad! I know it was a sacrifice for you both, but you bore it well. And I have to give a big thank you to Kevin for letting us leave him behind in Grand Junction during our vacation.

This was one of the weekends we were in West Jordan in early April. Mikey was getting ready to take a bath in grandma and grandpa Lewis's bathroom sink. He looked like he was sitting in a hot tub. I just thought it was funny.

Me and Kevin at his parents' house, watching General Conference... Or should I say, me watching General Conference and Kevin "listening" to it.

Our nieces and nephews getting ready to go downstairs for the Easter egg hunt.

I just wanted to put a plug in here to thank Cheryl and Vern for their hospitality. As you can see, they had a LOT of company, and they let us stay at their house two weekends in a row. And Cheryl made some great meals for us, as usual! We had a blast.

While we were in Utah, we also got to visit my good friend Melissa, her husband Matt, and her baby Maddison in Orem. Maddie was born one week after Mikey. We thought they should meet each other, but we got there and they both wanted to sleep.

Maddie was so much smaller at birth than Mikey, but I think they look pretty similar size in this picture. This will be a fun one to show them when they're both older. Thanks, Matt and Melissa, for letting us come see you and your cute baby!

These last pictures are from the picnic we had after Mikey's baby blessing, March 28th. We grilled burgers and had sort of a potluck barbecue with everyone that came for the blessing. Here are Dunc and Liz, who paused from fighting over who got to hold Mikey to smile for a picture.

My dad and Kevin's brother Scott. Scott's family came all the way from Boise for Mikey's blessing. Kevin's parents and his sister's family from West Jordan also drove over. I didn't get pictures of everyone, but we were so grateful to have so many family members come support us!

Scott's wife Cherie and their youngest, Archie. Archie is the closest in age to Mikey on the Lewis side. He was born about 6 months before Mikey. We're excited that they will be buddies and be able to play together at family reunions.

Auntie Neesh and Uncle Freddo also made it out for the occasion. Thanks, guys! It was so fun to see everyone.

We couldn't have asked for better weather for our picnic either. The picnic area was in the Colorado National Monument, so the kids were able to go run around and explore on the rocks while the food was being prepared. The sun was really bright and I was one of the unfortunate ones who didn't remember her sunglasses, but with how warm it was, I couldn't complain. Kevin gave Mikey a beautiful blessing that morning in church. It was a fantastic weekend.

Silly Old Bear

2010-03-20T09:56:00.000-07:00

I love it that a baby can seem to have a completely different personality based on the clothes he's wearing. Case in point: Mikey is SO FUNNY in his bear suit. We've used this a couple of times now since it has been in the 30s when we've taken him outside to run errands. It's perfect for the carseat because it keeps his hands and feet so warm, but we can still buckle the strap between his legs without bunching it around a blanket. We have Natalie or Cheryl to thank for this little number (sorry I can't remember which Old Navy clothes came from which of you two!). I just giggle whenever I look at him in this outfit!

Here's a little photo shoot moment of the bear on the black futon. I changed it to sepia tones, so the futon looks brown too. I just can't get over how adorable he is.

And here's a picture from about a week ago; Mikey fell asleep with his hand suspended in mid air. It was an awesome trick. His hand was literally floating there for several minutes before he twitched again and it came down. It amazes me how deeply he can slumber sometimes.

Third Week Milestones

2010-03-13T16:36:00.000-08:00

Mikey's spending more time awake now. We love getting pictures of him with his eyes open.

He is now sleeping in his crib every night (as opposed to the bassinet in our bedroom). I like how tiny he looks for his MINI crib in the shot above. Where is he??

Oh, there he is.

He gets to take actual baths now instead of sponge baths since his umbilical cord finally fell off and his circumcision is all healed. I hope he forgives me for putting a naked picture of him up... but at least it's not a close-up, right? Look how small he is compared to his daddy! Mikey loves hanging out in the warm water.

Getting his shampoo rinsed off... happy as a clam. Today when Kevin and I were bathing him, we had to change the bath water three times because Mikey decided to pee and poop three times in the bath water! Little stinker. We didn't take pictures of that bath. :)

The only part of bathtime that Mikey doesn't like is getting out. That's when he starts to complain. Can't blame him. I hate getting out of a warm bath too.

First trip to a National Park! We took him to Canyonlands NP yesterday (Friday) and he loved it! Well, he slept 90% of the time in the car and at the park, but we could tell that the few times he opened his eyes, he was loving it! We can't wait until he can support the weight of his own head so we can take him on some longer hikes in a child carrier.

Father and son with a beautiful canyon backdrop.

This is how Mikey hikes right now. He rides in style. He loves that sling! He falls right to sleep when I put him in and start walking. There was still snow on the ground up there in a lot of places, but the weather was beautiful. The high was in the upper 50s and the sun was shining all day. Perfect hiking weather!

My hands-free bundle of joy. Notice I'm wearing my Chacos. That means spring is coming! Oh, it makes me so happy!

Last but not least, we just LOVED this photo. I'm considering making it into a baby announcement. What do you think?

The Long and Arduous Process of Waking Up

2010-03-11T17:11:00.000-08:00

If You're Happy and You Know It

2010-03-09T14:49:00.000-08:00

I have yet to catch him on the camera smiling with his eyes open...

Like a Weed

2010-03-09T12:21:00.000-08:00

Our little boy is getting too long for his newborn sleepers now, at the ripe age of 17 days. I'm taking him back to the pediatrician on Thursday to check how his circumcision is healing, but I don't think they'll measure his length then. We might not get him measured again until his 2 month checkup and shots. It seems to me he's growing long much faster than growing fat. Not only are his legs getting longer, his fingernails might be setting some kind of record!

Look at these freshly trimmed fingernails (from 2/27). I clipped them all the way down so there was no white showing. I just had to trim them again yesterday because he was scratching himself again! That's nine days. Will I have to trim his nails about every week?? It just seems like a lot. I don't have pictures from this week up yet, since they're still on my camera, but this shot below kind of exaggerates Mikey's length.

Last but not least, I had a sweet moment with Michael last night during our middle of the night feeding. I had just changed his diaper and he was pretty alert, getting ready to eat on the second side, and he was looking me right in the eyes. I smiled at him because he was so stinkin' cute, and HE SMILED BACK! Right on cue! It was like he was actually responding to my smile. And it was the cutest, widest toothless grin! It made me laugh out loud. Then he did it again a few seconds later. It seriously made my night. I haven't been able to get him to repeat the trick today, at least not like he did last night. The best I've gotten him to do is a half-smile, kind of like the one pictured below. That one I caught while he was asleep... must have been a good dream.

I want to load a video or two, but I make no promises as to when that will happen. Baby steps, my friends, baby steps. Oh yeah, and in other news, Mikey graduated from his bassinet to his crib last night and he did wonderfully. I also found that I get back to sleep a lot quicker because I don't hear every little whimper and noise he makes in is sleep. Kevin and I are still trying to finish decorating the walls in his nursery so I can post pictures of the finished product. We need to hang a heavy mirror, so I got a stud finder yesterday. We'll see how long it takes us to get the rest done... "baby steps." [Bonus: name that movie!]

Simon Says

2010-03-02T08:47:00.000-08:00

Touch your ear!

NEWS FLASH

2010-03-01T16:02:00.000-08:00

So, my midwife came today for my one-week postpartum visit, and to weigh Mikey and do the second half of his newborn screen. Well, to my surprise, when we weighed Mikey, he was 3560 grams, which is slightly lower than his birth weight, and when we converted it to pounds, it was 7 lbs 13 oz!

Is something not right with this picture? We thought Mikey was 7 lbs 12 oz at birth, and now he has lost some weight and he's 7 lbs 13 oz?? We went back to the birth record and recalculated his birth weight from grams to pounds and found out we made a mistake. Mikey's birth weight was 3630 grams, which is actually 8 POUNDS EVEN. I'm gonna go ahead and take credit for pushing out that extra 4 ounces. I'll go down and edit the weight in my other blog post too. But this is the official word:

Michael Gannett Lewis
Born 2/20/10 at 7:31 PM
8 pounds; 22 inches

Newborn Hearing Screen

2010-03-01T08:45:00.000-08:00

This was Michael's second adventure leaving the house. The first was his pediatrician visit on Tuesday, then to the hospital on Thursday to get his ears tested. He likes his carseat. Well, he slept through the whole trip, so I can only assume he liked it. He made a lot of funny faces while the hearing screen was being conducted. At times he looked really focused and other times he looked bothered or confused. It was entertaining for Mom and Grandma to see, since we are always having fun imagining what he's thinking based on his facial expression.

Mikey and Mommy

2010-03-01T08:31:00.000-08:00

This was taken on Mikey's one week birthday (the 27th). He almost smiled for the camera with me. I'm wearing a new shirt my mom got me. Kevin brushed and braided my hair after I got out of the shower. He also rubbed lotion on my legs. A little pampering can do a lot for a tired mother! I'm feeling in pretty tip-top shape. My mom also watched Mikey for a few hours while Kevin and I went on a lunch date and then got some groceries.

I like to take naps with my baby and feel his little chest rise and fall. I accidentally gave him an imprint of a button on his cheek in this picture because he fell asleep on top of one of the buttons on my shirt.

This is Michael trying out the sling for the first time. He fits as snug as a bug! I got this on clearance from Babies R Us for I think $17. (It was actually free with gift cards from my CA baby shower. :)

Look! No hands! I think I might name this sling Grandma, since it may be holding Mikey a lot when Grandma goes back to California. Or I might name my baby swing Grandma. Or the bouncy seat. Mikey's gonna have a lot of substitute grandmas.

Mikeypoo and Kevypoo

2010-03-01T08:15:00.000-08:00

I just love to see these two together. When Kevin holds Mikey, it emphasizes Mikey's teenieness even more. I'm finding that the more I look at Mikey, the more I see Kevin's face.

I also have a theory that Michael will grow some really dark hair when his non-newborn hair comes in. He has a few hairs on his head that are longer and darker than the rest. A sign of things to come?

Most of what Mikey does is sleep. He has two wakeful periods during the day, once between around 7 and 9 in the morning, and once around 7 to 9 PM. He's a really good nurser, and my "bottles" as my mom likes to call them, are feeling much better now. Almost no discomfort whatsoever when he feeds! I don't even need my Lansinoh anymore.

Kevin is a wonderful daddy. He never really changed a diaper in his life before his son was born, and it only took one tutorial from me and he is a natural! Good manual dexterity really helps when you're trying to secure a diaper on a wiggling newborn. I'm glad he's picked up on the skill so quickly because I can hand him off to Daddy for changes and not have to worry that he'll come back with a saggy, leaky diaper.

This looks like a game of "Leeeeeeettt's see who has the biggest head!" (Courtesy of Aunt Ceri). Kevin wins.

The Birth: Uncut

2010-02-27T09:50:00.000-08:00

My mom is seriously outdoing me in the blog posting since Michael's birth. This has to stop.

Ok, I don't really mind if she outdoes me. She's an excellent blogstress. Plus, you'd all be wondering if I was even still alive at this point if it weren't for her. Frankly, I wonder if I'd be alive (or sane) right now if it weren't for her help these past several days.

So here I sit, boobs on fire, ready to tell my birth story. (Can you say enGORGEment? I can. And I can be the picture in the encyclopedia. I keep trying to remind myself, "this too shall pass"...)

Let's start with Friday, Feb 19th. I went to Montrose to visit my midwife Bill for a prenatal appointment. 40 weeks and 1 day pregnant, having had only a few days worth of regular Braxton Hicks (painless early labor contractions). I asked Bill to check my cervix because I was curious if the BH had been effacing my cervix at all. He checked. He told me I was zero cm dilated and about 50% effaced. When he told my mom the news, she said something like, "So her cervix is tight? Tight like a drum?" And I later coined the phrase, "My cervix is tight like unto a dish." Bill sent me home with some evening primrose oil in gel capsules. I resolved to use one of the capsules that night since I pretty much thought my cervix was going to take another week or more to soften up and prepare for labor.

Friday evening around 11 PM:

Kevin helped me insert my EPO capsule just before we retired for a restful night's sleep...

NOT.

Saturday, February 20th, 1 AM:

I awoke with stronger contractions (about 5 times the strength of any of the Braxton Hicks I had previously felt) and couldn't sleep through them. Being the experienced midwife I am, I realized this was either very early labor or just a temporary effect from the EPO that could very well wear off in a few hours. I tried all my little tricks, drinking lots and lots of water and lying on my side to see if that would settle my uterus, taking a warm, candlelit bath and listening to my HypnoBirthing relaxation CD, making sure to keep my bladder empty, etc. Nothing was working to slow them down. They were coming about every 2-5 minutes.

4 AM:

I called Bill to tell him what was happening, and he agreed that it might be the effects of the EPO and that it could go away within a few more hours. We made a plan that I would try a few other things, and try to get some rest, and call him at 8 AM whether the contractions had gone or not and we could re-evaluate. I ended the phone call and crawled back into bed with Kevin, lying on my side and asked him to hold me. Somehow it made me more comfortable with the contractions and I felt myself starting to doze off...

5:38 AM:

I was awakened by a slight "pop" and then a small gush of fluid between my legs. Pretty unmistakably, my water had just broken. I told Kevin. He said, "Really? Do you need me to get a towel?" Luckily, my baby's head was low enough that I didn't lose more than maybe 1/2 cup of fluid initially, and I had a pad on anyway, so my amniotic fluid didn't even get on the bed. I called Bill to inform him of the news. My fluid had a light greenish hue, which comes from meconium or baby poop in the womb. It wasn't really a concern since it was light and there was no particulate matter in there. Kevin asked me how I was feeling, and I said, "Ready or not, here he comes!" My contractions were still the same as they were before I felt the water break, they felt strong enough to be doing something, but very bearable. I breathed through them and kept my body relaxed to allow my uterus to do its job. Bill offered to come up right away and stay til the birth, but I told him he could take his time coming over, since it was so early and I knew it would be a long day ahead. Kevin sent my mom a text saying my water had just broken. (My mom was asleep in the guest room down the hall.) She replied, "You better not be joking." Kevin had cried wolf a few times to play tricks on his family, so my mom wasn't sure she should trust him. A little while went by and I had Kevin run another bath for me and we hopped in our swimsuits and got in together. It was nice to have him supporting my back, and the water was soothing. We were still in the bath when Bill arrived, and I was still doing very well.

8:56 AM

Bill checked my cervix for the first time since the day before, when I was tight like unto a dish. I was so happy and proud to learn that I had made a lot of progress in a matter of less than 24 hours. Some of that, I'm sure, is credit to the evening primrose oil. The rest, to my champion of a uterus... jk :) Anyway, my cervix was now 3-4 cm dilated and 70% effaced, the baby was at a -1 station. I took a lot of encouragement from this since I knew I was starting active labor now. Kevin was by my side through the rest of my labor, pretty much my right hand man. I moved around a lot, walking through the house and pausing to do hanging squats from Kevin's neck whenever my contractions came. Laboring on the toilet, the bed, in the tub, etc. I kind of got into a groove and started moaning with each exhale when my contractions would come. Long, slow, deep inhales followed by a low-pitched "Ooooooooohhhhhhhhh...." as I exhaled. I knew active labor is slower with a first baby than it can be with subsequent ones, so I geared up mentally for a long day, but the time was honestly passing more quickly than normal. I remember looking at the clock once when I went out into the living room and it was after 10 AM and I thought to myself, "Hmm, it's mid-morning, not the middle of the night anymore. That's nice."

2:10 PM

Bill checked me again since I had seen quite a bit more bloody show and mucous the last few times I had gotten on the toilet. I was prepared to hear that I might be about 6 cm because I tried to check my own cervix twice when I was on the toilet, but could only reach the anterior side of it. (TMI?) There was still enough cervix in front that I could feel, I was sure I couldn't be much more than 6 cm. To my surprise and delight, I was 8-9 cm! I had only an anterior lip left on my cervix -- that means the back half of the cervix had already softened, opened, and slipped behind the baby's head. I was 95% effaced now and the baby was at a zero station, meaning he had come lower into my pelvis. The bones of his skull had started to mold to help him fit through the small space. I just have to say, there are few things in the world that compare to the joy of thinking you've only dilated to about 6 and finding out you're almost done with the first stage of labor. Wow. Pure joy. I tried to remain relaxed as the contractions continued, but the pressure from Mikey's head was making it harder to keep my breathing pattern and my muscles relaxed. Unfortunately, I would soon find out that Mikey's head was entering the birth canal at an angle. This would probably explain the difference I was feeling in my contractions. Instead of feeling them all over the lower segment of my uterus and abdomen, I started to get stronger sensations on the inside of my pelvis, specifically where Mikey's head was being pushed into my pubic bone, and making it difficult for the last bit of my cervix to open. The medical term for Michael's presentation is asynclitism. Instead of the "crown" or occiput of Michael's head being the first thing leading into the birth canal, it was a spot of the back of his skull just behind his left ear.

4:18 PM

I still had an anterior lip, which was now getting a little swollen from being wedged between my pubic bone and Michael's head. His head continued to mold, though, as all babies' heads do. I was feeling more pressure now with each contraction and started to have involuntary pushing urges at the end of my exhalations. Bill, Kevin, and my mom were all reminding me to try to stay relaxed and to let my body open and let the baby through. The four of us were in my bedroom now, and we got the plastic drop cloths laid out everywhere. I stayed in my room until the birth, changing positions as the labor progressed. It was so crazy to me to be the person in labor and not the labor supporter. As a midwife, I had helped so many women through the exact same intense part of labor, using many of the same words of encouragement that I was hearing now. I can honestly say that no matter what you yourself know is right to do in a situation, it still sounds good to be reminded. My mind would have a tendency to wander or I would let doubts creep in at times, and hearing the same encouraging words over and over is not only helpful, but necessary. At least, I found that to be the case. "Open for your baby" or "Slow, deep breaths" or "Breathe in, and then breathe your baby down" seemed to be things I heard a lot that kept me focused. I was definitely in another state of mind by this point. Labor and delivery people often call it "Labor Land" when a woman goes to another place mentally during labor and lets her instincts take over. There also happens to be a level of amnesia that accompanies this, which is a phenomenon I can't explain, even after having gone through it just a few days ago.

5:00 PM

I had started bearing down in earnest by now, with each contraction. The baby's head was at a zero station the last time Bill checked, and for those of you unfamiliar with station, the baby needs to get to a +3 station in order to be crowning. A -3 station is when the baby's head is still floating around in the amniotic fluid and not really engaged in the pelvis yet. So I was essentially half way through the progress I needed with the baby's descent. I was happy to be in the pushing stage since I had pretty much had enough of the breathing and relaxing and waiting for my cervix to open. I spent a lot of time in this hour pushing while in a kneeling position at the foot of my bed. I would lean my upper body over the edge of the bed to rest between contractions, and when I felt one coming on, I would lean back onto my haunches (I can't think of a better word) and sometimes swivel my hips. My mom and Bill were taking turn rubbing the lower part of my back and sacrum and Kevin was beside me supporting me. I spent the next two hours bearing down with most of my contractions (the ones that felt strong enough) and changing positions to try to facilitate the baby's descent. One of the funniest positions I tried is the one my mom posted on her blog. I was standing at the edge of my bed with my legs straight, bent forward at the waist and resting my arms below my shoulders on the bed. My arms were taking most of the weight of my upper body, so Kevin volunteered to help support my upper body by lying on his back on the bed underneath me and holding me under the armpits. It looked like he was doing a pushup with my upper body. Standing during the contractions and pushing was pretty good, I thought, since I was able to really swivel and sway at the hips. I had been pushing for two hours when I got the bad news from Bill that the baby's head still had not really descended more than a zero station. Remember how I said that finding out I was 8-9 cm was some of the best news ever? Well, finding out all my pushing and laboring for the past two hours had done essentially nothing was some of the worst news ever. I was starting to feel like I wouldn't be able to finish this. I was sad that Mikey's head was wedged crooked in my pelvis and all my movements weren't helping him turn his head. Mostly, I was exhausted.

7:00 PM

Bill left the room for a few minutes to call another midwife and consult with her about my situation. While Bill was in the other room, Kevin asked me if I wanted to say a prayer together or if I wanted a blessing. I was lying on my side in bed and he was sitting up, letting me lie in his lap. He prayed aloud for us, asking Heavenly Father to help the baby's head turn, to help me have the strength to push the baby out, and that both he and I would be healthy after the birth. Bill came back in the room and offered me some homeopathic remedies for helping the baby turn and helping with descent. I'm not really into alternative medicine, but I accepted any help I could get at this point. Bill wanted to try to manually rotate the baby's head, so I tried to get into a knee-chest position (F.Y.I. NOT an easy position to be in when you're this far in labor). I knelt on the floor, stuck my rear end straight up in the air, while simultaneously resting my chest and face flat on the floor. Can you picture it? Good thing I did yoga through my first 8 months of pregnancy! Bill tried to help the head rotate, but to no avail. After this, we decided I would get back on the birth stool because that was the position of all the ones I tried that felt like I could get the most power. While I was on the birth stool, with Bill and my mom sitting at my feet, and Kevin behind me letting me rest on his chest, we all had a chat. It was time to start considering the possibility that the head would not descend any further and that I may need to be transported to the hospital for "evaluation" which basically meant a C-section. Bill knew that I knew what my options were, so all he had to say was something along the lines of, "I guess you know that from here we only have two options. The one you and I both want is for you to get this baby out, but it needs to happen soon." I have to give Mikey credit here because he was a champion through my whole labor. His heart rate was always so strong and in the perfect range throughout active labor, and even during pushing, his decelerations would always resolve at the end of a contraction (a reassuring sign that he was getting plenty of oxygen). Kevin, my mom, and Bill all told me that I could do it; that I could push Mikey out and we could have this baby at home like I had planned. My mom gave me a great pep talk. Kevin told me I was his hero for all that I had gone through to this point, and that he knew I could do it.

All the encouragement,
plus the position I had on the birth stool,
plus a miracle from Heavenly Father,
plus a little someone I like to call "the wild woman within"
plus my mom and Kevin cheering me on and unconsciously pushing with me,
plus innumerable prayers being offered up by family and friends present and not,
plus the looming possibility of C-section driving me to find the strength to get my baby out...

equaled PROGRESS!!!

A baseball-sized portion of Mikey's head was now visible, and a few contractions and pushes later, his entire head turned the corner under my pelvic bone and emerged.

7:31 PM

It was intense pressure, but one of the most satisfying feelings I could imagine. As his head emerged, I stopped pushing and let him slowly slide out. Oh, the RELIEF! His shoulders and body followed easily within seconds and my baby boy was placed on my tummy. I cannot express the JOY I felt holding that little body next to mine for the first time. Kevin was bawling, and I'm sure just as relieved as I was that the birth was over. We dried him off and helped stimulate him to cry. We instantly saw how beautiful he was and gushed our love for him. I had the best adrenaline surge right after birth and at the moment we were doing our first bonding as a family, I was all smiles and I honestly didn't think once about the labor or difficulty I had during pushing. Bill checked me and told me that I only had a few small tears from the birth, and that they wouldn't need stitches. I was overjoyed about that. I had been wearing a nasal cannula for oxygen during the last half of my pushing, and I removed it and placed it near Mikey's nose and mouth to help him turn pink. The last 30 minutes of pushing were stressful for him, but he came around quickly like most newborns do. His 1-minute Apgar was 6 and his 5-minute Apgar was 8. He was a trooper through a 3-hour second stage and I was so happy that our prayers were answered and he came through the whole ordeal as healthy as could be.

7:43 PM

My placenta came out, Duncan side first (the side that attaches to the uterus, or "dirty" side). That's a little less common. So is a prolapsed uterus, which I was also blessed to experience. My uterus partially turned inside out and came part way into the birth canal following my placenta. Unfortunately, the solution for this is for the midwife to insert his entire hand and wrist inside me and push the uterus back up to its rightful position. (That wasn't very fun. I get a baby coming out, and then a man's fist going in.) Good news, my uterus stayed where it was put after that and cramped down just like it should. I lost about 500 ml, or half a liter of blood, which is normal. I could have lost a lot more given my prolapsed uterus, but it had a lot of muscle tone even after a long 3 hours of pushing, and my bleeding slowed WAY down rather quickly. I didn't need medications to help get my bleeding under control, and I'm thankful for that.

8:55 PM

I was all cleaned up and changed, comfortable in my bed. Michael had his first breastfeeding. He latched on immediately and fed for fifteen minutes on each side. Good boy! I was eating Honey Nut Chex Mix and drinking Gatorade like it was going out of style.

9:30 PM

Kevin's parents arrived to greet their new grandbaby. Pictures were snapped left and right, hugs and kisses and congratulations were exchanged.

11:00 PM

Exhausted new parents turned in for some well-deserved sleep.

Michael Gannett Lewis
Born Saturday, February 20th, 2010
at the Lewis home
with Kevin Lewis, Shawn Glenn, and Bill Dwelley in attendance
Weighing 8 pounds
22 inches long
PERFECT in every way :)

I am so happy that I was able to give birth at home. I can't say that it was exactly how I imagined it would be, since every birth is unpredictable, but I was so happy with the outcome. It was the hardest and most rewarding thing I've ever accomplished. I'm so thankful for the help and support that my sweet husband and mother gave me through the entire day. I'm thankful for the prayers that were offered in my behalf, and answered. I'm thankful for Bill, and for his support and encouragement. I'm convinced that my choice of provider and my choice to labor and birth at home were pivotal in allowing me a vaginal birth despite the circumstances of Michael's presentation. There are only good feelings for me as I look back on my birthing experience. I wouldn't have changed a thing.

Nope, not here yet.

2010-02-14T13:01:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I did the in-front-of-the-bathroom-door-belly-profile. He has been growing, that's for sure. For the past two weeks or so, every time I'm out in public, (grocery store, library, etc.) strangers have to ask me when I'm due. I know, I'm looking ready. That's a big belly I'm lugging around. My mom is coming to Grand Junction on Tuesday to stay with us until the baby comes, and a few weeks after. I'm so excited to have her visit! I was hoping to finish decorating walls in the nursery so I can post some pictures of his room. If I don't go into labor this week, that will be my goal. So, the next post will either be his nursery pictures or pictures of the new parents and baby, and grandparents. Yay!

All Showered Up

2010-02-11T14:16:00.000-08:00

That's right, folks. I'm finally getting around to documenting my baby showers... Thought I should get on that before the baby is actually born. I had two wonderful baby showers, one in California, the other in Colorado. The one in California was hosted by my sisters-in-law Autumn and Liz, and funded by the lovely and talented Mom. The one in Colorado was hosted by my friends from my ward, Cassa Fox and Lori Troxel. Boy, oh boy, did I make out like a bandit! Michael will be one well-clothed baby, I'll tell you that much! Here are a few pictures and some of my favorite things about the showers.

January 29, 2010 - Lewis Home - Grand Junction, CO

The cake for the Grand Junction shower was made by Lori Troxel. This shower was fishing-themed and Lori was in charge of the decorations. SO CUTE! The invitations were fabric fish with a cute rhyming note inside. Lori is actually starting a 'party in a box' business that furnishes all the decorations and plans for a party for the host/ess. Cassa was in charge of the food and games, which were also AMAZING. She made the cute fruit pizza you see in the pictures with the letter "M" on it. We played a birth trivia game and a "steal-the-clothespin-if-you-say-the-word-baby" game. One of my favorite things about this shower was the "pearls of wisdom" that we did at the end, after opening gifts. Each woman that came to my shower took a turn telling me a pearl of wisdom about being a mother or taking care of a baby, or any kind of good womanly advice. Each person strung a pearl bead onto a bracelet for me as they gave their advice, and at the end I had a cute bracelet to remind me of all the wise counsel. It was very touching.

You might notice a bunch of onesies pinned along a clothesline in the collage below. That was another activity at the shower. The ladies all decorated plain-colored onesies with whatever design they wanted, using permanent fabric markers. At the end, I chose a winner and I got to keep all the clothes for Michael!

December 29, 2009 - Glenn Home - American Canyon, CA

The California shower had a HUGE turnout. Wow, did I feel loved. We had a fun time running errands to get ready for the party, picking up food and balloons, making a table display for the food table, and decorating cookies. Michael got a lot of clothes from that shower too, which I absolutely LOVED, but also got some fun unique gifts like a fashionable labor gown from LaborLooks (my friend's company), a tooth-fairy box, a homemade nursing cover, and hand-crocheted hat and hand-warmers.

We made designs on the cookies (my favorite being the fishing pole, pictured below -- that one was for you, Kevin!) and there was a bunch of other yummy food like meatballs, cream puffs, and sweet bread (called senorita bread) from a Filipino bakery in Vallejo... My mouth still waters. Thanks so much everyone for all the help and support you've given me in preparing for motherhood!

I'm 39 weeks today, and not much of anything has been happening with my uterus, so don't expect an early baby! My mom is coming to Grand Junction to stay with me on Tuesday, so she'll make it in plenty of time. For anyone wondering, I'm still feeling A-O-K and I sleep 9-10 hours a night, mostly uninterrupted. Better enjoy that now, while I still can, huh?

Happy Birthday, Kevypoo!

2010-02-07T18:24:00.000-08:00

Look at the size of the smile on his face! I must have done something really great for him for his birthday. :) Actually, this is Kevin modeling some of our stocking stuffers from Mom and Dad Glenn. He is a silly boy, even at 31 years of age. In tribute to my Kevypoo, here are 31 reasons I count myself lucky to be married to this man:

1. He is the hottest dentist ever, and the only one I've ever ENJOYED having work on my teeth.
2. He is a wizard in the kitchen, whether as my souz chef or making a complete meal from scratch on his own.
3. He appreciates the beauty of a sunset more than anyone I've ever met, and comments aloud on them regularly.
4. He helps me put lotion on my legs, put my shoes and socks on, and clip my toenails so I don't have to bend over my pregnant belly.
5. He brushes my hair for me sometimes because he knows how much I like it.
6. He has a testimony of the gospel and tries to live righteously.
7. He looks really sexy in his glasses.
8. He is obsessed with the Wind River Mountains.
9. He catches fish for us and does all the work getting them ready for dinner: gut, filet, prepare, bake/fry. Yum!
10. He talks to Mikey through my stomach and pretends to have conversations with him, then translates for me afterward.
11. He plays addicting games on the internet with me.
12. He works hard to provide for our family.
13. He is always willing to help with work around the house, or give a hand to anyone who has a need.
14. He keeps track of the weather with almost religious fervor.
15. He tells me he loves me anywhere from once to fifty times a day.
16. He doesn't complain that I need about 6 pillows around/under/behind me now at night to stay comfortable, even though it makes it hard for us to cuddle.
17. He lets me and my friend Cassa watch Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice together on Thursday nights, while he sits in the living room by himself.
18. He likes his manly craft time, making fishing flies and sending them out to online buddies for fly swaps.
19. He is really, really strong and makes me feel safe and feminine next to him.
20. He opens doors for me regularly, a true gentleman.
21. He laughs with me.
22. He has integrity and always tries to do what's right, professionally and in his everyday life.
23. He loves his family and keeps in touch with them on a regular basis.
24. He loves my family too, and remembers to keep them in his prayers.
25. He has the best recipe for Toaster Strudel. ;)
26. He helps me prepare for the birth of our baby by guiding me through my relaxation exercises, learning massage techniques, and letting me give him lessons about what to expect.
27. He is my best friend.
28. He brings me my toothbrush with toothpaste on it when I'm in bed and too tired to get up for it.
29. He believes in me and always reminds me that I can do whatever I set my mind to.
30. He tells me I'm beautiful even when I feel I'm at my ugliest... and compliments my stretch marks. :)
31. He married me in the temple so I could spend the rest of eternity with him.

I love you, babe! Can't wait for Mikey to come meet his wonderful daddy!!!

34 Weeks

2010-01-10T15:01:00.001-08:00

There are few things in this world I find more beautiful than a pregnant belly. I was recently inspired by a prenatal photography ad, and wanted to capture this special time of my life in an artistic way. So, in the spirit of saving money, I set up a makeshift studio in my house and became my own photographer with the help of a handy thing called the 10-second self timer on my camera. These are my favorites after cropping and editing...

A few weeks ago, my linea nigra appeared. Linea nigra is Latin for "black line" and refers to the pigmented vertical line that runs down a pregnant woman's belly, intersecting the belly button. Mine is not very noticeable, but if you look very closely in the photo below, you can see it -- moreso beneath my belly button than above it. I love it.

I played with the tint on this last one and warmed it up a lot. I like the effect. It's my pregnancy glow. Pregnancy really has been joyful for me. I have helped so many other women through this stage of their lives, and now that it's my turn, I'm not taking any of it for granted.

I love you, Michael! And I love being your mother! I'm so excited for your birthday!

A Little Spoiling Never Hurt Anyone

2010-01-07T13:32:00.000-08:00

4 Glenn women + 4 Vietnamese women + 4 bottles of pretty nail polish + 4 massage chairs + 4 foot baths + 8 flimsy flip flops = 40 beautifully pedicured toes! Mama Glenn's treat to prepare for all our hard work of baby shower preparations :)

Here we are decorating sugar cookies. The shower Tuesday night, Dec 29th and was hosted by Autumn and Liz. We had an amazing turnout! Thanks, girls! Michael is going to be one spoiled baby with all the wonderful gifts we got from the shower.

Please notice the cookie I decorated specifically with Kevin in mind: in the center of the closer plate -- a fishing rod with a fish on it!

And here is the very important key piece of Mikey's nursery that I stumbled upon earlier this week. A cherry-colored mini crib that someone was selling on craigslist for a fantastic bargain! Thanks to Vern and Cheryl for giving us the money to buy a crib. This one came with this jungle themed bedding, two mattresses and a changing table pad. Kevin helped me assemble it, and after a good polish, the wood looks almost new! The scratches are hard to see unless you look really closely. I also just had to wash the bedding and get it all made up because it's so stinking cute! It goes perfectly with the stuffed monkey from Kris in Vallejo and the musical giraffe from my mom. :) I have the mattress set up at the highest height right now, but it can be lowered to three other positions as Michael grows. The nursery is still needing some organizing and decorating, so there are no sneak peeks of that yet, but I am getting so excited!

Reunited

2010-01-07T13:14:00.000-08:00

My hubby almost squeezed the baby right out of me when he finally got to see me again! We picked him up from the Oakland airport on Christmas Eve day, and boy were we happy to be together again. Can you tell? We met up with everyone in Emeryville that afternoon for lunch and some shopping.

This is everyone the next morning congregating at the top of the stairs getting ready to go down and open presents and check out our stockings. I like Autumn's fake sleepy face and the fact that Kevin has a sweet cowlick.

Here we are after all the gifts had been passed out, and before we started opening them...

No Christmas morning is complete without a fashion show. The three Glenn sisters in matching pajamas... and Autumn in her rain boots. My mom always does a great job making Christmas fun and special for us. We had a really great time in California! Thanks, Mom!

Christmas Time in The City

2010-01-07T13:01:00.000-08:00

A few days before Christmas, the family and I took a trip in to the city to get in the Christmas spirit. It only took us 20 or so minutes to find free parking, which is not the easiest thing to do in downtown SF. This was before Kevin joined us, so my dad is my date in this picture.

There are a couple of really big Christmas trees in San Francisco. The kind that would make Buddy the Elf go absolutely nuts. This first one is in Union Square, the one below it is in Neiman Marcus. The ornaments are bigger than our heads!

Sometimes funny things happen in Nike Town. Lebron James wanted to have a contest with me to see who could make the best monkey face. That lady in the background is voting for me, I think.

This was a fun sneak photo I caught of my dad. I think he was blending in well with the wall display, whether he knew it or not. They may not be wearing the same clothing, but they do have the same hairstyle... hehe.

2009-12-22T20:23:00.000-08:00

So, my wife left me for a week during the holiday season. I've tried not to cry and whine too much, but if the most wonderful person in the world left you all alone for a week you would be depressed as well. The absence of my wife coupled with the long standing absence of ESPN in my life (almost more than I can bear) has me in pretty bad shape. It makes me want to go fishing. What? No wife = no permission needed? SWEET! Me in Santa hat

Doing this

Turns into this

It makes me smile

So, some of the perch were still kicking after being out of the water for 4 hours, so I tried to revive them in our bathtub to see if I could keep them fresh for an extended period of time. Some of them were able to swim side ways, but after two hours of no improvement, I decided it was time to bust out the knife and fillet them. They were delicious. My buddy, Brian, and I caught over 50 by lunch. I caught 5 rainbows between 13-16 inches, and the rest were perch 8-11 inches. Twas a good day. Now, I'm missing my wife.

Jeebers, I love you! Oh, I did wash the tub.... :)

FHE activity

2009-12-11T07:13:00.000-08:00

Blank wooden ornaments from Michaels, on sale for about 20 cents each

Kevin gets his painting on...

Our first home, complete with house number 586. Isn't Kevin talented with a paintbrush?

All of our ornaments finished. Kevin also gets credit for the flames on the side of Santa's sled :)

Our first Christmas tree in our first house. Lots of firsts this year. Thanks to Cheryl for helping us get this bargain Black Friday tree. It was 70% off! And it's the perfect size for our small but growing ornament collection.

In tribute to last year's Christmas tree (see below), we used the same "star" at the top of our tree this year. A gold gift bow. Our tree is special to us, even if the decorations are a little ghetto... I mean eclectic.

Our live Christmas tree from last year. It even had a heartbeat and hair. Those kind are hard to find. :)

ONE YEAR!

2009-12-09T17:05:00.000-08:00

This is a little late, but on December 6th, Kevin and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. Since our anniversary was a Sunday, we wanted to do something special on Saturday. We headed up to the mesa with our snowshoes, only to find that there wasn't deep enough snow. But, we were there and we were NOT going to leave until we played in the snow, dangit.

Shortly after we found a place to wander, Kevin was walking in front of me and stopped and turned around with a really serious look on his face. "We are on a mission..." he said, "to find the perfect Christmas tree."
We did find a lot of pretty trees that were perfectly shaped, but way too tall to ever fit in a house. It was just something to distract us from the bitter cold wind, since we already have a tree and we didn't have a permit to cut a live one down anyway. We finally settled to take a family picture in front of this tree. Our Nalgene was our tripod for this photo, hence the worm's eye view. My coat is so puffy you really can't see Michael, which is a shame. I would have taken it off, but it was about 19 degrees outside, and probably close to zero with wind chill. Brrrr.

My head was hidden inside a beanie, scarf, sweatshirt hood, and my coat hood. That's a sweet combination if you're ever looking to completely wipe out your peripheral vision.

Here's my hubby-poo. I caught him with his eyes closed, but he's still super hot. This past year has really been the best year of my life... so far. Kevin is the love of my life and my best friend. We have such a good time together. I'm so grateful for everything he does for me. The snow was anywhere from a foot to two feet deep where we were hiking and Kevin went ahead of me to blaze a trail so I could walk in his footsteps. He always takes such good care of me.

If you want to know just how happy I was to be celebrating my anniversary with Kevin, just look at the joy... it's written all over my face, er eyes.

Nesting

2009-12-03T09:46:00.000-08:00

I've spent several hours this month working with a sewing machine, spray paint, exacto knives, duct tape, and good ol' fashioned creativity to make some serious headway on projects for Michael. I'm sick of how long it takes to upload individual pictures to the blog, so I'm catching up with collages. I had an outdated dresser and nightstand that a coworker from Montana gave me, which I purged of drawers, sanded and repainted, and created shelves and drawers for. The dresser will double as a changing table once everything's complete. I also inherited a free mirror with a gold frame from Kevin's grandma and it got spraypainted to match. The shelves and drawers are made from foam insulation, which was about $11 for a giant 4' by 8' sheet, and the fabric I used to cover the shelves was on 70% off clearance! I'm pretty proud of myself for the money I'm saving. Kevin helped me cut out the foam pieces and construct everything. You can see him in one of the pictures. The other project up there is a felt winter hat for Michael that I patterned after an existing hat. It was tricky to figure out how to sew all the pieces together in order to end up with a fully lined hat that had no unfinished seams showing. Kevin and I really love it and think it will look adorable on our little man. It reminds us of a court jester's hat, kinda funny. I'll be sure to get pictures of the finished nursery furniture up here later, but right now it's still in the garage and too heavy for me to move by myself.

Turkey Bowl

2009-12-03T09:45:00.000-08:00

Our Thanksgiving was spent in West Jordan this year with Kevin's parents. We had a delicious meal thanks to Cheryl and probably could have fed about 20 people with the food we had for the four of us. Kevin's brother and sister and their families were also in town and we got to go bowling to celebrate our nephew Caden's birthday. We have 11 nieces and nephews on Kevin's side, and all were there except the 2 girls that live in Virginia. It was so much fun to see them play with each other and bowl. Even our 2 year old nephew was bowling, although he was very independent and would just grab a ball and send it down a lane at the most random times. He had to have help after a few of his balls ran out of steam and were left sitting half way down the lane.

It was so nice to have the weekend to relax and spend time with family and eat. And eat. And eat some more. Kevin also took me to watch him play ultimate frisbee on Thanksgiving morning and I was able to meet a lot of his long-time Salt Lake buddies. They've had the tradition of playing ultimate on weekends for years, and Kevin was like a kid in a candy store to be back with his friends and playing one of his favorite sports. Good times.