Thanksgiving and Fun with Cousins!

So, for Thanksgiving this year we decided to head down to Bear Lake! It was Melody's first trip away from Boise, and we had a nice couple of relaxing days staying at Aunt Debbie's beach house with some of the family!

Aunt Debbie had the baby fever and was such a cute grandma! She wanted to feed and hold the 3 babies that came all of the time :)

We had such a nice time relaxing!

Melody and Greyson are 6 weeks apart, so we posed them together! They are such cute cousins!

I think it's cute that they have the same look on their faces here!

Melody got tuckered out from all the noise and fell asleep on her cousin's shoulder! We didn't pose this!! :)

All the cousins that were there!

Melody is 6 weeks old now and growing like crazy! I will post pictures of her soon! She grew from 4 lbs 9 oz (lost 2 oz in the hospital) to 7 lbs 8 oz in 1 month!! The doctor was blown away but we are happy with our little girl's growth! :) She is so sweet!

Got the camera and internet going so hopefully I will be able to post more soon!

Getting Christmas-y, and Melody fun videos!

So I thought it was time for a little blog update! I have some pics and videos but they are all from cell phones. lol. I need to upload some real pics, no? We decided this past weekend to decorate for Christmas!!! I was so excited; last year we did nothing :( I know, lame. So first we went to Fred Meyer and got a tree. The above picture is Dustin, quite obviously, with said tree. Below is what happens when we decorate! YAY! All those decorations came from our wedding, which was in December 2 years ago. Bonus for having a wedding in December. Dustin says it needs more color. I say it matches our living room. We'll have to get some color to appease my husband, lol.

There is NOTHING like setting up the tree to get you ready for the holidays. But since we have the house this year, Dustin went another step forward and got lights. My brother Joe came over and helped!

Dustin up on the roof with my Brother Joseph!

When it was done, it looked so cute!! I will have to get a picture of the finished product. We just did the outline I guess you could say, but for now it's all we can do :) Next year we will keep adding on more lights until we have one of the best looking houses in the neighborhood!! lol!

Then there is the matter of the 'princess' who is one month old. We have both been shocked at how much she is growing. She is chunking out. She is around 6 1/2 lbs at one month.

She is SUCH an amazing, calm baby. So frickin cute. She looks just like both of us, too. We brought out my baby pics and were shocked that she indeed looks like me...A LOT. But she also looks like Dustin as a baby, so we'll see!!

I love this picture of her, it's so cute!

So in this video I caught her hillarious quirk---she growls after every sneezing fit, and I am telling you it is sooo funny... I love her little quirks. Here it is, in living color!!

Here is my baby, smiling at her grandpa Jetsel. She did her first little laugh/chortle shortly after this. It was so cute to see her smiling so much for him. I don't always get her to do it, but for certain people she is all smiles; my dad is one of them!

Bath time!

So, first the funny story about Melody's umbilical cord...I was doing an emergency breastfeeding at Dustin's office (lol, awkward). I knew the cord was almost off, but I didn't expect when it would fall off...I had to take Melody's onesie off so she would wake up and finish eating. After she was done I noticed her cord was off! But where was it? We looked everywhere until it finally showed up...in my bra! Nasty!! But we were so happy to give our baby her first real bath!

The order of these is really wrong but enjoy!

In her red towel from Aunt Verna!

She surprisingly loved the bath. We take one now every night as part of our nightly routine to get her ready for bed! Just like mom, loves the bath!

Dad is always so helpful when it comes to washing her. He lifted her up so I could get her back clean :)

Just relaxing in the bath!!

I love that cute white hair, it's so sweet :)

Life with Melody/some cute videos!

I am so blessed and lucky to have such a sweet girl! Melody is a wonderful baby and very calm. She almost never cries and I am getting very good at figuring out her different cries when she does cry. She lets us sleep all night between feedings and is getting more and more alert. Here are some videos from the last couple days. Melody grew from 4 9 at birth (then lost 2 oz in the hospital) to 4 15! Almost 5 lbs now! We couldn't be more in love :)

Daddy burping the baby! Shows a bit of how tiny she is :)

She is starting to open those cute little eyes a little more! I love it when she does; she is so sweet when she looks up at me! She is such an angel!

Daddy doing the baby rap :) No babies were hurt in the making of this film! She is so cute, she lets dad play with her like this and doesn't seem to mind in the least! She is so fun to play with, but mommy likes to be gentle when playing with her!

Melody's 2 day old pics

These were taken while we were still in the hospital. She has grown to about 5 lbs since! We love her so much!

Welcome Melody!!! Birth posts/more pics to come!!

Most of you already know...we had our little girl last Tuesday morning (the 27th) at 7:01 pm after being in the hospital for 25 hours :-S!! I did get the epidural after 18 hours so that's good enough for me! My mom has all of the labor and delivery pics so I need to get in touch with her and then I will post a nice long blog for you all with the story!!! :) For now here is a couple of pics of our baby girl who came in to the world weighing 4 lbs 9 oz and was 17 inches long!!!

A cell phone pic of daddy holding Melody. You really can't get a feel for how small she is until you see her in person!

Our first family photo. Talk about immense happiness...:)

She is such an angel, mommy could not be more in love!

One of our hospital pic proofs! She's started to open those cute eyes a lot wider now and she's getting more alert!

My favorite picture taken during the photo shoot. She is on Dustin's arm and looks so happy!

Tomorrow...Tomorrow...

So it's officially Sunday!! lol...I am not able to sleep, already so excited! But tomorrow, Monday, I am having Melody. My doctor said, "Well, you could even have her Tuesday if your labor is long enough"...I just looked at her and smiled...if I have anything to say about it, there is no way I want to be in labor for 18 hours, no thanks!!! :) But it happens to some, hopefully not me!

Any way...:) I am DEFINITELY not opposed to the epidural if I need it, but I want to go as long as I can first. I'm really not certain how I will be, I don't consider myself to have a very high pain tolerance but I've surprised myself before too. So I'll let you all know how it goes! The next time you hear a blog post from us, it will be with pictures and the story of the birth of our baby girl!

So...the countdown of hours begins!!!!!!!!!!

I guess third time will be a charm :)

Once again, I write this with reluctance to say that these pictures do not lead up to having our little Melody. After last week, we were told that in a week we would come back, repeat the amnio and repeat the ultrasound and that most likely be having our baby. So, steps one and 2 were repeated. I had another amnio, though I hate to say that this one was definitely worse than before. The reason being that during the amnio I had my first big contraction. I've had light contractions now and lots of Braxton Hicks but this was my first major one, and it happened while they were extracting fluid. In response, the needle wouldn't take anymore fluid and the baby actually got in the way of the needle which scared us, but I don't think she touched it. So when they told me that they weren't sure if they got enough fluid and needed to do it again, I was not very happy :) Happily they didn't have to, but my poor Dustin's hand hurt from me squeezing it so bad during the contraction, I think he was worse off than me!! :)

This is me thinking we were on the way to have the baby. You are required after the amnio to have a non-stress test done on the baby, and we waited one hour for the results of her amnio.
It's kind of my thing now to drink apple juice in Labor and Delivery, it drives Melody crazy! I don't personally love apple juice but she seems to :) This is me looking all scary with my non-stress test gadgets on :).

So one hour later, they gave us the result. Her lungs were not ready by 4 points :(. And we were sent home once again. I was really sad about it, since I was looking forward to taking home a baby this time.

Luckily, my lovely nurse Danielle called with good news. If I don't go in to labor this week, then for SURE next Monday at 6 am I am getting induced!!! :) :) I will be 37 weeks so she won't be premature which will be wonderful. So for the next week I can get done what I wasn't able to, namely laundry, and focus on resting before the big day!!! You should see a post soon with pictures of the REAL event and our little girl!!

I also will hopefully be getting some pics so you can see my WONDERFUL baby shower that my sisters in law threw for me :) It was so fun and I was so grateful to have such wonderful family and friends to support me. Thank you so much ladies!!!

Maybe baby

Not what it seems...:) Not yet!!

At our last appointment, in a flurry of craziness we were told that Melody was not growing well. We expected this news but we did not expect that they would tell us that if her lungs were ready, they would induce me that night! I had only just started feeling a slight bit better after getting a nasty case of the flu and was shocked. I kept asking if they could wait until I felt better or more rested but I was getting looked at like I was crazy, lol.

But we had an amnio done to test Melody's lungs and waited in Labor and Delivery for the results while they monitored her heart beat and movement. She did a great job and the amnio showed that her lungs were not yet mature enough. So this means that there will be no baby this week. While we were in there though, we were pretty flustered and thought she might come so I had Dustin take a picture of me in the gown just in case and wrote him a list of things to get to pack the hospital bag.

But we have an appointment next week and we will find out then if her lungs are ready and if they are, we will get induced at that point. I am writing this to put everyone's minds at ease and let you know that she is healthy, just not thriving in the womb :) They don't know why but it's better not to take any risks, so it's better for her to come in to the world a little sooner!! We are not worried, and have felt at peace with everything. We have a lot of support and a lot of friends and family to help us out!

So we could be posting pictures of our little girl soon!!! We shall see! :) If not next Monday I am not sure when or if they will wait another week or what. But I will let y'all know!

A star is born

So now that we are moved in to our house, Dustin and I had been seeing these cute stars on people's homes in the neighborhood and decided we'd like one of our own! I was at the craft store and they were having a 50% off sale on only one item, so I grabbed the star and got it for half what I normally would! Our neighbor Caleb helped us by letting us use the bed of his truck for a ladder and putting it up!

We love our neighbors, everyone is so nice! We especially have become close to one set of neighbors. We have mowed each other's lawns, put cookies on each other's doorsteps and gone over to borrow things. It's awesome!! We love it! More to come :)

So my sister Chels was kind enough to take some maternity pictures for me. These are a few of them, the rest are on my facebook! We are 8 months now, just a few short weeks left to go. The words I have by the pictures are lyrics to a song that my mom used to sing for us as children. I am not sure who sings it, or the title of the song, but I always remember the words. I now dedicate it to my sweet Melody :) 

This is a story love, a story that's true. 

This is the story about you.. 

Of how we hoped to have you, 

and how we prayed you'd come 

in to our lives little one.

All of the love you could ever need is here in my heart. 

No matter what, you can always count on me. 

I'll never be far with all the love you could ever need.

This is a story love of the place you came from, 

And of your Heavenly Father's love. 

And how he must have held you before he let you go, 

hoping that somehow you'd know...

All of the love you could ever need is there in His arms. 

No matter what, you can always count on Him. 

He'll never be far with all the love you could ever need.

-------------------

And I just felt like writing a little something to my sweet girl...

   Melody, we are so excited to meet you in just a little while. I have dreamed of you since I was a little girl, and thought about what you would look like and sound like and smell like and whose personality and quirks you would carry. I love to feel you roll and kick and move in my belly and I love to talk and sing to you. It's hard for me to imagine not being this close to you physically forever, but I know that we will always be close in our hearts. There is a special bond that we have, that you are a part of me and I am a part of you, that no one can ever replace. No matter what happens with time, I treasure this time now with you and try to never complain about being pregnant because lately the scares we've had about you coming too soon or the idea that something could be wrong have made me appreciate the moments where everything is right and perfect more than ever before. This is the only time in our lives where I can always hold you close and keep you safe, and I am grateful for it. I hope I am a good mother to you, and I promise I will do my best and try my hardest to teach you about life and love and when to fight and when to let go. I feel like I still have a lot to learn, and with you being our oldest I know I will learn many of those lessons with you but I want you to know I am always trying my best for you and for our family. I love your dad very much and hope we can show you the way a loving relationship should be, full of laughter but also of sacrifice and honesty. I hope we never take for granted the small joys in life. You are already so loved and wanted and needed in our lives. I am so excited to meet you!!! Until then, I love you!

Love, Mom

A Mini Tour of our House :)

So first off, our camera isn't really working so I had to take some cell phone videos instead!! The bedrooms are still a work in progress, but we are going to be done with them SOON!! And then I will post videos and pictures of them. I will get the camera back here soon so you can see some pictures! 

I mightve said before, but our house is 3 beds, 2 baths, it's not super big but it's our first home and we are very proud of it!!

Here is walking in from the front door!

This is going in to the living/family room

Here is another view when you are IN the family room

This is one view of the kitchen!

This is a view of the kitchen from the dining room!

One last view...the hallway to the bedrooms and bathroom :)

More to come soon!!!!

Lately

So I thought I would write a quick blog about all we are up to lately! First things first..

• We are 27 weeks pregnant with Melody and everything is going well! I am little frightened at how big I will end up being, seeing as I still have like 13 weeks left, but I will be wearing the belly proudly :) Unfortunately, all the maternity shirts have me in despair, as my already big and growing knockers won't fit any of them :( Well, not any I have tried YET. If you know of any good brands let me know! I feel like I am still in the 'is she just fatter or pregnant' phase so hopefully in the next couple weeks it's gonna start being more obvious. I hope! I get asked a lot if I am feeling good, the answer is YES! I feel I have little to complain about. At 27 weeks I am 3 lbs below my start weight of being pregnant so I have not had swelling or much back pain. I DO have heartburn but it's cureable with a few TUMS. And I am sleeping better now that we are in the new house. I do pregnancy yoga daily and it is helping tremendously. I HIGHLY recommend it!!!
• We have our new house and we are all moved in! Organization, however, is a different story. Because of our circumstances we've had to live in 2 homes. Dustin's parents (to take care of it and their dogs) and ours. I have been sleeping in our new house and Dustin at his parents'. It is challenging and I often call him in tears because I want him with ME :) but it is worth it. I plan on finishing all my decorating and organizing this weekend and then we should have pictures up for you all to see.
• Life is great, we love it! We have great new neighbors at our new house, and it's been fun to sit on the front lawn and talk to our whole street as they come by. Our new ward is full of kids, which we are excited about!! Lots of new families just like us. My job is going very well, I have been able to take on 5 8's instead of 4 10's which has been very nice for me for right now. Dustin is doing so well at his job, and loves it. 

Overall we are doing awesome! I will try and be more consistent with everything and posting. The problem is, we are not big picture takers, so we don't update as much as we should.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Hello Fellow Blog Stalkers! :)

Well I know that this is not the kinds of pictures everyone wants to see, but while we are in the moving process I thought that this would be appropriate to post showing that we finally got our house and these were the pictures that we took by our "SOLD" sign.

More pictures to come!!!! Promise. Once things look good enough for Lyndsey to want to take pictures, and we find our camera, pictures will be up!

Saturday Smiles :)

First off, had a great birthday! Dustin and I spent the night at the Anniversary Inn, went to tablerock to watch the sunset, and had dinner at my favorite resturaunt, Asiago's (a local Italian place, soooooo good). The next day I had some quality time with my mom and when I got home Dustin had this cake for me: 

 It said, Happy Birthday Mom, love Dad and Melody :) It was my favorite, Brownie batter ice cream cake from Dairy Queen, mmmm :) 

Today we had a great day, spent a lot of wonderful time together. 

Duzzy played some hymns from the Children's songbook for us while Melody and I listened. We also sang for her and I pressed my belly against the piano so she could feel the vibrations of the instrument as well as hear the sounds. (She's been able to hear us for the last week or so!)

And the dogs just sat and enjoyed the music with us :) We hope Melody will have a love of music just like Dustin and I do, and we hope to begin her love of it early by singing for her and playing songs for her often! 

Hope everyone's having a great week!

23 :)

So, tomorrow I am going to be 23. It seems weird now to have birthdays when I am an adult. The year of being 22 was fabulous and one of the best of my life! I loved every minute! Now, being 23 will present a whole new life. It seems like a good age to be, a good age to have my first child, a good age to have my first home. I am happy. Though in other areas of my life, I have faced quite a bit of trials in the last year, I have still been extremely happy. 

Tonight we are headed to the Anniversary Inn!!! I love this place soo much! :) We are going to be staying in Sleeping Beauty's Castle room, which is one of the nicest rooms they have and is a two story room which is pretty awesome! If you've never been, I highly recommend this place!

www.anniversaryinn.com

You really get the royal treatment when you go, and every room we've stayed in is great! They have these hotels in Idaho and Utah, definitely go!!!

On another note, in 2 days I will be 20 weeks pregnant, half way done! My little girl is now as long as a banana, 10 inches from head to feet! She is not the most active (at least that I am able to feel yet) and usually requires a bit of prodding to get moving, but I can feel her little kicks now and Dustin too was able to feel her which was very cool! :) In her ultrasound Dustin said she kicks like a soccer player, I think he is having visions of his little girl being a soccer player like he is :) 

We will post pics soon! Found the camera, now just gotta charge it :)

My girly side coming out :)

Okay, so let me just say as a precursor that having a girl really has started to bring out the girly-ness in me :) I have made her bracelets from a little kit I bought about a year ago (you know, just in case) and my newest addiction, making headbands. The tricky cool part of these is that I will demonstrate how versatile they are! 

//Warning: These are all bad-quality cell phone pics!!! Sorry!!//

First, I bought a lot of silk flowers and took the tops off. I also purchased ribbon and got a crash course on making bows (you can see one or two below), which cost mucho mucho at the store or to buy already made but making them yourself is cheap! :) I also purchased alligator clips (you can get these from Sally's or even Walmart and they are also cheap). You can hot glue the flowers or bows you have made to these clips. 

Next, you can either make or buy lots of cute crochet headbands in various colors. I got mine off Ebay and got 20 of different colors for like 15 bucks. Not too shabby, but if you are good at crocheting I'm sure you can find out how to make them. I'm not good at crochet so I didn't tackle it. Also I want to add that these fit newborn to adult! They stretch but also bounce back to their original shape. So you can use them for a long time. 

Last, you can do hundreds of combinations of flower or bow plus headband (insert alligator clip in holes of headband) to match tons of different outfits. I have not yet had an outfit I couldn't match. Plus, you can save the flower clips and bows for when your little one has hair or for yourself. (I have been wearing the flower clips lately in my hair) I demonstrated the matching versatility with some outfits we received on Saturday..

Trickiest because of the gold emblem but I went with a white headband and pink flower

One of the bows I made (you can't tell but it matches some of the green threading in the shirt) and a pink headband to also compliment the colors in the shirt

This one worked really well, you just can't tell in the picture :) 

And who doesn't love purple with a cute white daisy?

Any way, so that's me on my soapbox for the day :) This girl is gonna be lookin' cute if I have anything to say about it!