Holidays 2010!

This year for Thanksgiving, we went to Rigby to my Grandma Stowell's. It was a lot of fun. It is always good to be with family and eat lots of food!

If you look closely Ava is sitting at the end of the huge table, haha.

*******************

Christmas is my favorite holiday! I love everything about it! The music, the family, the snow, presents, and just a break from everything!

We went to Idaho for Christmas, of course. We woke up Christmas morning and opened presents at my parents. We got a sweet keyboard piano! Oakley got clothes and a BUMBO from us! She looks so cute in it. Then we went to Jon's parents and ate brunch and opened MORE presents! Then we went to an indoor soccer game that Jon was playing in.

That night we had dinner at my parents for my little sister's birthday dinner. Christmas is in the day then it is strictly Bri's birthday.

Looking so cute in her new BUMBO

She'd rather eat her presents than open them.

Our first Christmas as a family of THREE! (I found out last Christmas time that we were going to have a baby! Christmas time will always be that much more special:))

The day after Christmas we went snowboarding. Oakley hung out in the lodge with my parents while we hit the slopes. Oh boy. I just have to say that I have a hard time snowboarding. I am too big of a scardy cat. Last year I fell really hard on my head and my goggles hat and gloves just flew off of me. Ever since then, I've just been way too scared of falling.

Here's a good story, probably not that great but it was kind of funny:

Bri was ahead of us on the lift and she decided to get off at the halfway spot. Me and Jon were not planning on doing this so we weren't paying attention. Well, I was telling Jon what I thought would be funny if you forgot to lift your board up at the half way and it dug into the snow and dragged you off the lift and made you faceplant (the things I think sometimes, jeeze). Well while I was saying this Bri yelled "I GOT OFF!!!" So I freaked, I don't know what I was thinking, but I practically jumped off the lift...OUCH! At least I didn't have to freak myself out about getting off the lift! I fell pretty hard, no fun! Well at least Jon and Brianna had fun, haha.

The 28th was my mom's birthday so we went to lunch and then later we went up to Heise and met Brianna, Maija-Liisa and Jared (who went snowboarding that day) and we had pizza for my mom's birthday dinner. After dinner we went to the hot springs and went swimming. Oakley LOVED the hot tub. She was so chill the whole time:)

We came back to Utah on New Year's Eve. We met Maija-Liisa, Jared and Ava at Sugarhouse parker to go sledding. Oakley looked so cute in the snow outfit she was wearing. We went down the hill once with Oakley and I think she was cold, cause she wasn't having it. We went home and played some Wii, made spaghetti for dinner, and played more Wii. After my sister left we just hung around the house hoping Oakley would go to sleep, but she wanted to stay up to bring in the new year. She barely didn't make it and fell asleep around 11:30. If she went to bed earlier, I wanted to head straight to bed. But since there was only 30 minutes left we stayed up to watch the ball drop and drink some Martinelli's. We went to bed right after! It was a very fun new year's eve:)

This year has been awesome and I am hoping to have an even better year 2011! I can't wait to see what brings out little family. And I am so excited to watch Oakley grow!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

LOVE, KJIRSTIN, JON, & OAKLEY

Oakley is 4 months old!

It is so crazy how time flies! I can't believe Oakley is four months old already! We are so in love with this little girl. She is such a joy in our lives. She is growing up so fast and is doing new things every day!

At her two month appointment she was in the 25th percentile for height, weight, and head. Perfectly proportioned:) She weighed 12 pounds at an appointment we went to at the end of November for a cold she had. Her four month appointment is on Monday so new stats are to come in the near future.

Oakley is the happiest baby ever! She loves to smile. She is starting to laugh more and more at her ridiculous and weird mom. She will get so excited sometimes that she tenses up her whole body. It is so funny. Everything she does is "cute". That's what we say about everything! Well she is the cutest baby ever!

She loves high pitched singing, (one of the weird things her weird mom does). She loves to stand, her legs are so strong. She LOVES polka dots. The inside of her carseat cover is polka dots and she will just stare forever. Anything polka dot she will stare at.

She has rolled over a couple times. The first time she did it was the beginning of December. I didn't get to witness it though:( She rolled from her back to her stomach which is pretty impressive. And she rolled from her stomach to back a few weeks after that. She has kind of given up on the rolling over stuff for now.

Her hair is growing growing growing! And it is a very light blonde. Sometimes we can see a little bit of red. And she also has very pale skin, but it is so adorable!

We are so lucky to have such and amazing little girl in our lives! She makes us so happy and we wouldn't have our life going any other way!

Family pictures (1 month)

Daddy's soccer game in AZ (2 months)

Blessing Day (3 months)

Playing in the blankets:) (4 months)

A New Addition

I know this is totally old news but...Oakley has arrived!

I thought maybe I'd jot down a little bit about the day she came. The best day of mine and Jon's life!

So Oakley was a stubborn little girl and decided she wanted to come fashionably late:) She probably got that from me, I'm terrible at being on time! We went to my doctors appointment on her due date the 25th of August. I wasn't progressed very much at all, in fact I was not as far along as I was the week before. I was very discouraged but we were given an induction date if she didn't show up within the next week. I was happy to know I didn't have to wait any longer then the 1st of September for our sweet little thing:)

Well, she never came! So September 1st I had to call labor and delivery bright and early at 5 AM and hey told me to call back at 7. They said I could come in right away and get things started, but Jon had class till 9 so they told me to call back to see if they could still get me in. I was so nervous that I would have to wait another day! But I called and they still could get me in!

We got to the hospital and checked in and they hooked me up to an iv right away. They started me on pitocin around 10ish and after awhile they broke my water. Before they broke my water I couldn't really even feel the contractions. Once they broke the water though..ooohh boy! I was hurting. So I got an epidural and everything was wonderful. I could see how strong and close together my contractions were but couldn't feel a thing, it was awesome. They had to turn the pitocin off a couple times cause I was progressing so much on my own. The epidural helped me relax the whole day, I was able to nap and rest. I had to flip from one side to the other a lot though, so the epidural would spread evenly. Everything had gone great, so far.

I had an awesome nurse at the beginning that got me started. We got to know each other and she was so helpful and I learned a lot with what was happening and she helped me understand everything that was being done. Well, at 7 pm her shift was over and she had to leave. She said my new nurse would be right in to check on me. Well right after my first nurse left, I started to feel my contractions and I was in so much pain! My new nurse didn't come in for almost an hour! I told her how much pain I was in and that I had pressed the epidural for the medicine and I didn't seem to be working. So she had the anesthesiologist come in and put some of the medicine straight into me instead of through the little catheter in my back. That didn't seem to work either! I was hurting more and more..I do not handle pain well AT ALL! And to make matters worse, I have restless leg syndrome and I happen to start getting fidgety in my right leg, which had seem to have gotten all the numbing medicine. So I couldn't move my right leg at all and I was seriously going crazy!

I felt the need to push so they went to call my doctor. So to add on to all the craziness, my doctor happen to have the flu!!!! So another doctor that he works with ended up coming in. This lady seriously took her time! She went to get changed and after what seemed like forever she came in asking for these stupid boot things and her hospital uses for like c sections or something..Also she had never delivered at this hospital so she was asking where everything was! Yikes! I knew I would be fine though. All while the doctor was getting ready and getting things found that she needed, I really needed to push. So my nurse and Jon were helping me out, Jon mostly, since I couldn't feel my right leg at all, let alone lift it! While I was pushing they kept putting oxygen on me which made me very mad! I did not feel like it was giving me oxygen, it felt like it was suffocating me! I don't really remember how long I was pushing but when she started to come we found out she was face up! I guess it is a lot harder for the baby to come out that way. So the doctor screamed at me, "if you don't get her out in these next few pushes we will have to do a c section". Uh, no thank you lady. That freaked me out and made me cry even more then I already was (remember, my epidural was not helping with the pain, so I was feeling it all) The doctor used a vacuum to get her out and she finally came! No, c section thank goodness!

I laid there so happy it was finally over! They laid her on me, only for a second while Jon cut the umbilical cord. They had to take her right away because of the dramatic ordeal of her coming. They had to make sure she was okay. I remember just telling Jon to go take lots of pictures!

After I had been in the delivery room for a little while my legs came back to normal, they took me to the post delivery rooms where we stayed for a few days. Let me tell you, that hospital food was SO delicious! I seriously didn't want to leave because of the food! I got to order from a menu everyday, breakfast, lunch and dinner! YUM!

Oakley was 6 pounds 14 ounces 22 inches long! She had a major cone head and her head was super purple from bruising from the vacuum, poor girl. But that went down within a day or so and now her head is perfect:)

She slept so great when we got home! We only woke up a couple times a night and went straight back to sleep after we changed and fed her! She was such and awesome newborn. We are so lucky to have this sweet little girl!

Playing the waiting game

The delivery room was huge!

Holding my baby for the first time...wow I look good, ha!

She loved her first bath

Precious little baby.

Family of THREE!

Finally going home!

Nesting?..COME ON BABY, Let's get here already!

Today, out of no where I have just been wanting things to be DONE! I cleaned out the cabinets in the bathroom and organized it all. Jon helped me hang up a shelf and we hung up some vinyl stuff on the wall. One wall is officially done in the nursery:) I had some picture frames for the wall but no pictures really to put in them, since well there's no baby yet! So I did what I do best (haha not), made myself some of my own artwork to put in the frames. They turned out pretty good..Now I am beading away so I can hang sparkly beads on a chandelier that my mom got for the room (something I have been wanting since I found out I got to decorate a nursery). Searching for a cheap chandelier is soo hard. They are all like 100+ dollars! So my mom went to a thrift store and found one for like 3 bucks! She painted it black and it is now hanging in the babys room:) I just need sparkle now:)! Can't wait for it to be done.

So that is really all that has been done today.. The room is really almost done! And when it is all done I will for sure post pictures! Hopefully pictures of baby too:) CROSS YOUR FINGERS SHE COMES SOON!!!!

Baby bedding!!

Here are some photos of baby's crib bedding that my mom made! The blanket is just one of the quilts my mom made. I wanted a fluffy cozy one and also a normal crib quilt. She isn't done with that one yet, but it is soooo cute! I love it. She did such an amazing job! I am so lucky to have such a talented mom! Thanks mom!

BIG belly

Here is the first picture I've posted of me pregnant...There, I did it..haha This is me at about 32 weeks. My sister took a bunch of pictures of me and she did so good. I might post some more of me throughout the pregnancy..we'll see;)

Baby Update

OOH Baby!

This baby might be the death of me! I am about a million times better sickness wise, but oh man am I in pain. I have had the problem of the pinched sciatic nerve since the very beginning and it only grows worse as baby grows bigger. With that said, she is most definitely getting bigger and stronger by the day. I can feel her even when I'm not paying attention to trying to feel her. Her jabs are now in my ribs, which doesn't feel so great. I feel her mostly at night and in the morning. When I am on my side she pushes so hard it sometimes makes me cringe. It is like she is trying to get out of me the wrong way, through my ribs and out my side! It makes me happy to know, even with all the pain, that she is strong and healthy! I love this baby girl so much already and I am so happy when I feel her moving around. I miss her when she is still.

We still don't have a name.... She is just baby for now, and whatever silly name Jon thinks of for the moment that he is talking to her. We hope to decide soon, I think she very much wants a name soon!

We can't wait for her to come! Only 3 more months from today! I am officially 27 weeks. It is a very exciting time in our lives. We can't wait to meet our little baby girl:)