We are Alive

It has been FAR too long since I've blogged. For the few of you who read this, here are the updates of Brooklyn's 6 months of life so far how I record it.

I just can't believe how fast time is flying with this little one. It makes me so sad, yet I am loving every stage she's been in so far. We are working on sleep training right now and she is doing awesome! She is napping in her crib (even if it takes forever to fall asleep and then the nap doesn't last long...but she falls asleep on her own!). The last 2 nights she has slept for 10-11 hours. I haven't had a full night's sleep in 7 months, so I'm one happy momma!! Keep it up, baby girl! We love you!!

Introducing Brooklyn Jane!

Brooklyn joined our family on Wednesday, July 10th. Labor was nothing at all what I thought it would be...it was much better! I guess that's the good thing about freaking yourself out about it beforehand. Here's the story:

I went to the doctor on my due date, July 9th. The doctor stripped my membranes and said come back on Thursday and he'd do it again. If she still didn't come, he'd induce me the next week. I was so bummed when I left. I just wanted to be done. I wasn't super uncomfortably big, but I had pregnancy hives that were driving me CRAZY!!! And I wanted to meet my little girl, of course. :)

After the appointment, Dane and I went and did everything we knew to try to start labor. We walked the mall twice, we had the spiciest lettuce wraps possible at PF Changs, we drove up the canyon on bumpy roads, I bounced on a gym ball for a long time, we went for another walk outside, etc. I started feeling some contractions by that night, but they didn't hurt.

I woke up around 6 am with a few contractions. By 7 they started to get super painful and were every 5, 4, 3 minutes apart. Dane had physical therapy at 8 and I told him I'd be fine and he could still go. I didn't believe I was actually in labor. After a couple more contractions I told him never mind, we're going to the hospital. I showered while he finished packing and got the car ready. We were on our way by 8:15. By 8:30, I was changed and hurting.

I was dilated to a 4 at that point (yeah, I must be a wimp because it hurt really bad). I got back to my delivery room and the doctor came to break my water around 10:00. That was a weird feeling! Turns out meconium came out too. (Baby had a bowel movement in the womb.) So they got a tube up real quick and flushed it out with water. This also meant a respiratory therapist and another special nurse would be in for the delivery and take the baby right away to check to make sure everything was okay. That was fine...I just wanted her to be okay!

At that point I was dilated to a 6. I told the nurse that my mom and sisters have quick labors and so she made sure the anesthesiologist got there quick. I got that epidural and life was good! I thought I could be in labor all day and just be peachy! (One reason labor was different than expected...I had no idea it would take away ALL pain...I thought it would just lessen it.)

At this point, it was just the waiting game to dilate all the way. By 11:00 I was an 8. By 12:00 I was a 10. In the meantime, we laughed and joked and texted family to let them know the updates. Life was good!

A little after 1:00 the nurse had me start pushing. We pushed and pushed for an hour and a half and my little baby girl was finally here!! What an amazing feeling to see a healthy baby that was all mine. Miracles. Everything with the meconium turned out fine. She didn't swallow any and they got her all cleaned up quick.

The doctor and all the nurses thought for sure she was a red head. But after he bath we discovered it was actually a pretty brown! But she has a full head of hair! I love it.

Holding her for the first time was amazing. Amazing. Amazing. So surreal!!

Dane was such a good dad from the second he became a dad. He is so gentle and loving with his baby girl.

When Brooklyn was 30 minutes old, she was sucking her thumb (confession...I was a thumb sucker, too). We knew then that she would love to suck and that's so true. I call her my little barracuda.

We ordered some food as soon as we could. I guess I'm a kid at heart because all I wanted was grilled cheese, french fries, and grapes. And of course Dane added a milkshake to the order when he called. I was grateful for that. :)

Dane went with Brooklyn for her bath and shots. I had to wait for my epidural to wear off before I could go down to my recovery room. Brooklyn did NOT love her bath, but she liked getting her hair washed!

That night we had lots of visitors. It was fun to show off our little baby even though my percocet made me kind of loopy. The next day it actually made me sick so I got off it quickly. No more of that nasty stuff for me!!

Family photos the first day of Brooklyn's life. I apologize for my awful appearance. No one told me I had mascara everywhere and looked quite scary!!

The next day we had even more visitors! My poor grandparents came right in the middle of my throwing up adventure on percocet. But they loved me enough to stay and help out. :)

On Friday, we were allowed to leave! We got all discharged a little after 12:00 (we got one last meal before heading home).

Brooklyn did NOT like getting in her car seat, but she was fine after she was all buckled in!

We were home for a few minutes before more visitors came!

My mom flew in that morning to stay and help for the week. She was a life saver and Brooklyn just loves her! My dad's family had a reunion planned for the week after Brooklyn was born, so we were lucky enough for my whole family to come into town! They all loved meeting her as they came to visit.

When Brooklyn was 3 days old, we did a little photo shoot at our house. Aunt Britt is such a talented photographer and spent many hours working to get some amazing shots! Thanks, Britt!

The next week was full of parties. Hagen birthday party for my mom and Robbie, Sucher family reunion Friday and Saturday. We were busy, but Brooklyn did great! We went to a couple activities each day and stayed inside resting the rest of the time. She is a sweetheart and we love her so much already! Being a parent is amazing, stressful, overwhelming, and oh so joyful!

Thanks for all your love and support. We are very grateful for this new blessing in our lives!

Nursery!

Our nursery is finally pretty much complete! (Minus the baby, of course) I fell in love with pink, navy, and white from the start. I searched and searched for bedding and couldn't find anything I loved. So I made a rag quilt using those 3 colors and based the rest of the room off of that! Thankfully, we already had a lot of furniture we could use...Dane just had to paint it white. We bought a new crib and got a changing table from an online yard sale for cheap. We decided to paint an accent wall navy blue, so if we ever have a boy (or if we are surprised and this unborn child ends up being a boy), we can still use the nursery. I love the room and can't wait to have a baby in there!!

The 4 corners of the room:

Dane and I as babies. The "Who will she look like??" is not on the wall...I added it on the picture. :)

 Lots of headbands and jewelry ready for the little one!

 Dresser and bows

 A random frame I had and mod podged paper on it. Not in love with it, but it will do. There are Dr. Seuss quotes in each frame. And space above if I want to add baby pictures in there, too.

 The messy changing table. I try to be organized, but it just doesn't look that great. :)

We are very excited for our little girl to join our family! I'm 'trying' to lay low for a bit while Dane recovers from his shoulder surgery. But really, I'm getting done with this stage of feeling huge and not easily walking. So grateful I'm not working anymore!! And so grateful for the chance to be a mom to our little one! :) Bring on the baby!

Super Hero Birthday

Dane turned 32 on Friday! Every 32 year old needs a super hero birthday, right?? Actually, I just got the idea with all the super hero movies coming out this summer. He really wants to see Star Trek and since that doesn't come out until NEXT weekend, I thought I'd theme his birthday around super heroes and we'd go see Star Trek later. Here's his oh so exciting birthday:

Super Man Shirt and new socks:

 Frame from Baby, Iron Man notepad, Iron Man pen

 Groupon for a massage (his shoulder is pretty messed up right now), cream and massage "scraper" for his shoulder

 Star Trek (the most recent one), Iron Man 1, movie theater gift card, some candy and popcorn

 Some tool he picked out. :) And he got a mitre saw, although that was too big to wrap

 A gift certificate to get one of his bikes tuned up

A hero food kit with some of his favorite foods

 The presents all ready for him after work on Friday!

We both took the afternoon off on Friday for Dane's friend's wedding. The wedding wasn't until 3:00 so we were able to open presents and celebrate before heading off for wedding events the rest of the day! Here's my cheeser of a husband with some of his gifts:

In other news, Dane graduated from USU with his Masters in School Counseling! I am so proud of him and it was so fun to go up and see him graduate (actually, it was quite a long day and my feet/ankles were quite large by the end, but it was still cool. :) I am so grateful for my fun, loving, caring, goofy, smart, hard working husband!!

Spring Break

For Spring Break this year,  Dane and I (or really just me) decided to take our last big trip without kids! I have been wanting to take Dane back east to show him my old "stomping grounds." So we planned to fly into Baltimore and stay for a few days, and then head up to NYC to adventure around there! It was a fun, exhausting trip and we were excited to be home by the end, but I'm SO glad we went! Here are some highlights:

Ellicott City (where I was raised from ages 7-16):

My childhood home, the house I STILL dream about when I'm home. I was kind of sad the yard looked gross (we walked around the side of the house) and the basketball hoop is getting a little rusted, but that's ok. MANY wonderful memories were made here as a kid!

 Howard High School: Home of the Lions! They have added on a lot since I left, but the entrance still looks just as old and ghetto as I remember! Love this place.

 Ellicott Mills Middle School. This is actually the NEW school. The one I went to was at the same place, but they tore it down after my 7th grade year and built this one. When I was there, the art room was a bomb shelter in the basement from the war...that's how old it was.

 Worthington Elementary School. I went to school here from 2-5 grades. We were the Worthington Winners. I love telling people about my mascot being kids holding balloons that were all winners. Sadly, now they are the Worthington Wildcats! Oh well. :)

Baltimore:

The Water Taxi we rode around to get from place to place in Baltimore. It was a great way to get around, even though it was pretty cold!!

 Fells Point. A cute old town that we had fun walking around.

 Fort McHenry has a really cool visitor's center they opened on the 200th anniversary of the Star Spangled Banner being written. It started with a really neat 10 minute movie that ended with the screen going up while the National Anthem was playing and you see the statue of Francis Scott Key looking out at the flag waving in the fort. So neat!

 We didn't go out to the actual fort (that's what cost money...the visitor's center was free :) ) but here's a picture from a distance!

 Dane at Hard Rock Cafe in Inner Harbor. It was yummy and fun to eat at a Hard Rock!

 Camden Yards from the car. I went to many an Orioles game as a kid (back in the Cal Ripken, Jr. era) and have lots of good memories there!

Washington, D.C.:

Air & Space Museum

 American Indian Museum

 Natural History Museum...this was my favorite! I remember going here as a kid on field trips and whenever people came to visit. It didn't disappoint!

Lincoln Memorial

 The White House from a distance...thank goodness for a good camera lense. :)

 National Monument

 The Capitol Building

 Jefferson Memorial from across the river

WWII Memorial

Arlington Cemetary

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier...we were there for the Changing of the Guards and that was really neat!

 The Eternal Flame...JFK's grave

 It was amazing the number of graves and how nice and neat all the rows and gardening was. It was a chilly, but beautiful day!

We went to the DC Temple one night and I left my camera at home, so this is just from my iPod. But it is still such a beautiful Temple!!

New York City:

Dane with our luggage on the subway. We rode a train up to NYC and then got on the subway to Harlem, where we stayed with my dear friend, Deb. It was kind of nerve wracking for 2 Utah kids navigating around NYC with all of our luggage, but we made it! :) And Dane was a really good sport.

 The new World Trade Center, still under construction

 Dane and I at the 9/11 Memorial

 This is where one of the Twin Towers stood. They have one of these big fountain pools in the place of both of the towers.

The tree that survived the attacks on 9/11

Dane eating a yummy waffle

 Us on the Brooklyn Bridge

With our wonderful tour guide, Deb, in Central Park!

Waiting for Newsies to start. We put our names in the lottery and I won! $30 tickets, SO worth it. I LOVED this show, every second of it!

 A dark, blurry picture of us waiting for Peter and the Starcatcher to start. We bought day-of tickets for this show so they were cheaper. It was a fun show, but I preferred Newsies. :)

Across from the Manhattan Temple. So neat that it is right downtown!!

We took a 2 hour cruise of the city one day and I took WAY too many pictures. Here are a few:

Overall, the trip was WONDERFUL and really made me grateful for the slower life we lead in Pleasant Grove, Utah. We are plenty busy, but definitely don't have to run everywhere we go to catch a bus or subway, don't have to get stuck in DC traffic every day at rush hour, and we don't get lost as often with the roads Utah has built. :) BUT we are very grateful for opportunities to travel and learn more about different parts of our country!