Flashback: Christmas in Arizona!

Since we stayed in Utah for Thanksgiving, we went to stay with my parents in Arizona for Christmas. It was SO NICE! Utah gets pretty cold in the winter, so we hadn't even played outside in what seemed like forever. Then we get to Arizona and it felt like paradise in comparison. Occasionally we needed light jackets while outside. Henry was in complete heaven!! He loves being outside, so to be able to roam free without layers and gloves and hats and all that nonsense was perfection.

Now, for some pictures :)

hello, cutie

someone partied too hard on Christmas...

you know, just doing some important construction work

Grandpa and Henry had a blast playing with trucks

Christmas PJs. Sometimes this is the best picture you can get...

Obviously Christmas isn't just about presents, but oh my goodness it's cute to see reactions to presents :) Henry got seriously spoiled (thanks grandparents!) and LOVED all his new trucks and toys.

"present?"

George, always the happy camper, was content to just hang out. But don't worry, he was spoiled too!

baby George playing patty cake with monkey George

As fun and amazing as Christmas celebrations can be, it can really tire a person out. And someone (I'm not naming names...) may have had a little too much fun...

too! much! CHRISTMAS!

One of the highlights for Henry on the trip was the neighbors house. They are an older couple that is obsessed with Christmas. I've never seen anything like it. The lady even said that on her Christmas list she had asked for blue Christmas lights. That's dedication. They had lights everywhere, and played Christmas music outside from speakers. Their long driveway was paved with different light-up Christmas decor, just one after the other. Henry was amazed, and to be honest I was pretty impressed too. Henry kept yelling "lights! lights!" and pointing at each new thing. While we were looking at everything outside, the couple saw us and came out to say hi. Then they invited us inside to see the rest of their Christmas collection. So...I thought outside was intense. Every inch of their entryway, dining area, and living room was COVERED in Christmas. [[I took a ton of pictures, but lost them when I broke my phone a couple months ago :'( ]]. I think they had every sort of dancing/singing Christmas characters ever made... and they played every single one for Henry (they were so sweet to him!). There was even a life size Santa that sang, as well as a life size snowman that sang and danced (Henry was kind of scared of that one haha). Anyways, that was the Christmas house, and it was awesome. And yes, we visited more than once on our trip ;)

large mouth bass!

Of course my parents had to get into all sorts of shenanigans while we were there. They said they were going to play with Henry outside, and next thing I know I get this picture sent to my phone:

riding in style

When I went out to see where they were, I found them a couple houses away looking at horses. Yup, best trip ever!

sweet brothers

We had such a great time, and it was nice to get away to the warmer weather. I might just have to go live there for a few months every winter!! The summer there kills me, but I could definitely get used to the winter weather. Thank you so much Mom and Dad for letting us stay with you! It was a fabulous time, and made for some fun memories ♥

Flashback: Christmas preparations

In early December we had a church Christmas party that we attended. Santa was also in attendance. Last year Henry did not do well with Santa, so we were interested to see how he'd do this year. We tried to hype him up a bit and mentally prepare him ;) Unfortunately, that didn't really work...

Poor Santa ;)

George is so chill and happy that he was just looking around. Compared to Henry's experience, it was a cake walk for Santa. He almost seems bored in the pic...

I had to work on convincing Josh that we needed to put up Christmas decorations. Which is funny because it used to be the opposite: I was scrooge and Josh would have to talk me into doing anything Christmas-related. I think it comes along with the territory of having kids: now I want to have memory-making stuff for the kids, and Josh doesn't want to deal with the mess that comes with combining kids and decorations. In the end, we put up the tree and decorations! The ornaments on the tree almost made me lose my mind... because Henry thought it was the coolest thing ever to take the ornaments off and throw them on the ground. I'm just glad the tree didn't fall over. But man those ornaments were practically the death of me. By the end of the month Henry had gotten much better about leaving them alone, thank goodness.

the cutest present ever

kitteh?

Because Henry's birthday is December 15, the presents under the tree were both for Christmas and his birthday. Surprisingly Henry mostly left the presents alone. Every once in a while he would get curious, but we'd just ask him to put them back and he did a good job. Such a stud :)

Flashback: George's baby blessing

On November 3rd, George got blessed at church. It was not only a special occasion because of his blessing, but also because our friends and family came to visit. My parents drove up from Arizona, Josh's parents and sisters family drove down from up north, and our BFFs Jeff and Darci also drove down. It was a party! On Sunday our friends Ryan and Natalie also came to the blessing. The weekend was definitely a whirlwind, but we all had such a great time. There's not much better than being surrounded by your favorite people ♥

snuggling with Grandma

My mom made George's blessing outfit, and it had that cute vintage feel that I love. He was a major stud :)

always a happy camper

family picture! complete with Henry's shiner

with Mimi and Bear

with Grandma and Grandpa

the funniest face ever

We had a wonderful day and a fun-filled weekend. We're so grateful for all the sweet people in our lives who give so much love to our boys.  Thank you to our friends and family for being a part of our special day :) To our friends who couldn't make it because we now live super far away (sorry), we missed you! ♥

flashback: October fun

October was a fun month around here. George turned one month old. He was still in the newborn stage (sleep, eat, poop, repeat) until he was about 7 weeks old. He was such a fatty that I didn't have to worry about waking him up in the middle of the night to feed him. He would often sleep for 6 hour stretches overnight, which was awesome!! His 7th and 8th week were not quite as lovely, as he started to "wake up" and break away from the newborn stage. He got a bit more grumpy, especially at night before bedtime, and his naps were pretty short. Thankfully this grumpy stage only lasted about 2-3 weeks, and then he turned back into a sweet little angel (although naps didn't really get much longer...but at least he's such a happy baby that it makes it easy to handle).

The weather stayed pretty nice for October, and we would often take trips to the park on the weekends. George would get bundled in the Ergo, and we'd go chase Henry around the playground. Our favorite is Discovery Park, and here are some pictures from one of our many visits there:

cutie in action

this little bridge is his favorite--he runs back and forth over and over

heading to the toddler section of the park

boo!

king of the slide!

scary selfieeee ahhhhhh!! ;)

In October we went to church for the first time with George. We stayed away for a few weeks to avoid germs of course. He was about 6 weeks old, and I got him dressed up in an adorable outfit (lent to us from Darci, thanks girl!). He was so chunky that it was almost too small already, even though it was a 0-3 mo outfit.

looking dapper

Since George was born, I have LOVED seeing how Henry interacts with him. He is so sweet, and such a loving big brother. He gives him love and hugs alllllll the time. If he hears George crying (ex when he wakes up from a nap), he'll say "Oh nooo! Baby!" and then go with me to make sure he's ok. Sometimes at bedtime I'll put George in Henry's bed. Henry thinks it is the funniest/awesome-est thing ever. It really is adorable.

babies in bed

And how does George feel about all the attention? He loves it. He is constantly entertained by his brother, and never complains about the often occasional smothering love. ♥

George's Birth

Disclaimer: I'm being pretty thorough in this birthing story, so I remember everything. And I use words like dilated and stripped membranes. If that grosses you out, please don't continue reading :)


On Monday, September 9th, I was 41 weeks pregnant, and exhausted. I woke up feeling defeated, and like I just couldn't hold out anymore. I had my appointment with my midwife (Laurie) at 8am. Thankfully my mom was in town so she watched Henry while I went to my appointment. When my midwife checked me, she told me I was still a 3+ and 80/90% (I had been dilated/effaced for a month by this point). I started crying. She asked what I wanted to do, and she was very sensitive to my plan to have an unmedicated birth. I told her I still wanted to wait (vs getting induced), just to better my odds of having the natural birth that I wanted. She said ok, and scheduled an induction for Thursday. We agreed if he hadn't come by then, we'd just go ahead with the induction.

I pulled myself together and headed down to Labor & Delivery to get my stress test and ultrasound (since I was past my due date). For some reason I thought it would take about 20 minutes. Wrong...it lasted for over an hour in total. They had me hooked up to the monitors and I almost fell asleep in the hospital bed. Then they did the ultrasound to check to make sure there was enough fluid in there. After the ultrasound the nurse went to discuss the results with my midwife. Cue more waiting... When the nurse finally came back (I really was almost completely asleep at this point), she went over everything with me. There were variables in George's heart rate...the way they described it to me was that they knew everything was fine in the moment, but the presence of the variables could mean that something could go wrong. So my midwife recommended that we induce the same day, while we knew he was doing ok--and said there wasn't any reason to wait and we wouldn't want anything negative to happen before Thursday. I agreed and then it hit me that I was going to have a baby. Ahhhh! The phone calls and planning stages commenced.

I ran home before we started anything because I had Henry's carseat. I also grabbed my hospital bag, and stuffed my face with all the Italian bread we had left over from the previous nights dinner. I knew from experience I didn't want to be hungry going into labor, and that those meanies don't give you any food (although I really should have eaten even more than I did!!). Josh was figuring out his truck/work situation so he could leave, and my friend Natalie said she could take Henry (thank you, dear lifesaver!). I headed back to the hospital by myself, and once Henry had been picked up my mom and Josh would come join me.

First I went to my midwifes office (located in the hospital), and it was around 11AM. Laurie stripped my membranes. That was a little glimpse of how uncomfortable this whole natural birthing thing might be ;) After she did this, I had progressed to a 4+. Laurie felt great about the progress, and said that I was going into labor on my own. She said it would be an "augmented labor" vs "induced labor", which made me feel a bit more confident. She sent me down to Labor and Delivery to get all set up, with the instructions that she'd check on me a bit later. I got set up in my room and Josh and my mom joined me shortly. Then it was the waiting game. I had contractions (about 10 minutes apart), but nothing super crazy. They hooked my IV (I had Strep B so I was on antibiotics) on a rolling thingy so I could walk laps around the wing. It was a small wing, so all the nurses became pretty familiar with my beautiful face ;) I was lucky to have an amazing nurse, we'll call her K. She was funny, down to earth, supportive, and all around awesome. Which helped a lot.

off for a stroll!

After waiting around for things to happen for a couple hours, Laurie came in to check on me around 1PM. I was still a 4+ and my contractions hadn't picked up that much, so she decided to strip my membranes again and break my water. That was lovely....more discomfort, but nothing too terrible. After that I was a 5, and contractions started picking up a bit. I was using my hypnobirthing breathing, and everything was going pretty well. The contractions were uncomfortable, but manageable. Around 3PM or so (I think, but wasn't really keeping track), they checked me again and I was a 6. At 4PM they checked again and I was a 6+. I decided I wanted to try and hang out in the tub for a bit (all the labor rooms had jetted tubs in the bathroom). By 4:20 they had decided to start me on 1 milli-unit of Pitocin. Allegedly that dose is almost nothing, but they thought it might be enough to tell my body to get a move on. And let's just say my body got the message. Right after that the contractions were closer together, and getting stronger with every one. Being in the jetted tub was kind of helpful, at least in the fact that it was a tiny bit distracting. And sometimes the jets helped with the pain. Because at this point, the "discomfort" had elevated to pain. I was trying my hardest to focus on my breathing during every contraction, and occasionally remembered to tell myself I'm strong like a tiger and I can handle it.

My nurse, K, checked me one time in the tub and I was still a 6+, but she thought I was going up to an 8 during contractions. The baby would just need to move down a bit more for it to stay an 8. Right around 5PM she asked if I wanted to be checked again. Contractions were pretty intense by this point and I just shook my head and she said she'd wait for a little bit. One more contraction happened, and it was the worst yet. I kind of started hyperventilating and K talked me through it and told me to go to my happy place. In my head I was going "I'm a tiger! I was made for this! I'm a tiger!" hahaha (whatever works, right?). The next contraction came almost immediately afterwards and all of a sudden I felt the baby coming out. This is when I temporarily LOST. MY. MIND. It's a little hazy but I remember yelling and saying the baby was coming out. K was like "right now?!" and I was yelling "YES! HE'S COMING! AHHHH!!!"

Now...I was still in the tub at this point. And at this hospital it's against regulations to have water births (and to be honest, I didn't want to have one either). So that was a bit of a problem. K was telling me not to push, and was frantically trying to pull the drain while simultaneously trying to get help. I kept yelling...I just kept saying that the baby was coming, I was pushing and couldn't help it, and I couldn't get out of the tub. K sent Josh to the nurses station to get help, and soon there were two nurses telling me I needed to get out of the tub. All the while I kept yelling I couldn't get out. The nurses ended up pulling/helping me out of the tub, and somehow making it to the hospital bed. I have no idea how they did it, because I legitimately thought I would be giving birth in that tub.

In the midst of all this chaos, Laurie came running in, and asked me if I wanted to birth standing up or laying on the bed. I said (ok...I may have yelled it...oops) on the bed because there was no way I could stand up. So that was that. I was on the bed on my back, and the baby was on his way out. Laurie knew I wanted to "breath the baby down" (vs holding your breath and pushing), so she coached me along and let me do my thing. Which was a mixture of yelling and breathing. Haha. I definitely failed the hypnobirthing method in terms of how much noise I was making--in hypnobirthing they tell you that you don't need to make noise, you just need to relax and focus on your breathing, etc. I honestly tried to be quiet, and it was not happening. I even apologized a few times (in between contractions) for yelling, and finally Laurie said "If you apologize one more time I'm going to be mad at you!!!" I also still had my wet tank top and bra on from being in the tub, so while all this was going on, people were also trying to help me take them off so I wouldn't be all wet when George came out (to do skin-to-skin). This might be TMI (what about birth isn't, really? haha), but I remember Laurie telling Josh to take my bra off, because he should be able to do it easily. He was at a weird angle though and one of the clasps was giving him trouble, and it was pretty funny. I think I might have even laughed mid-contraction.

I don't think I did so great at the breathing him down technique, although Laurie and the nurses said I did. I say this because there was no way I could prevent my body from pushing. After a little bit, Laurie told me they could see his head, and to keep going. Around this time George's heart rate started to drop. Laurie calmly told me that I needed to get this baby out, because the cord was around his neck and he could be in trouble if we took too long. She said I had a minute or two if I wanted to keep doing what I was doing (breathing/yelling/sort of pushing?), but that I should just try and push my hardest so he could get out. I agreed. Someone (Laurie? K?) told me it would hurt worse than anything I've ever felt before, but to keep going and pushing harder where I felt the pain. The next contraction came and I pushed as hard as I could. They told me to look down and see my baby, to help me push harder. All I could see over my belly was a little tuft of hair and I exclaimed "he has hair!! I see it!" They laughed and said "Yes, good, now push him out!!! Push harder than you ever have, this will be the last time you need to push--just get him out!" So I pushed like a crazy person and yelled "Come on George!" and FINALLY his head came out and they unwrapped the cord from around his neck. I said "OH MY GOSH THAT FEELS SO MUCH BETTER!" because seriously, it did. I barely even felt the shoulders, the rest was easy as pie and he came right on out. I remember saying "I did it...I had a baby...!"  I had a moment where I just felt so immensely proud of myself for being able to do it [unmedicated], and was kind of in awe. George was born at 5:32PM!!! And it was amazing :)

After making sure George was alright, they put him on my chest to do skin-to-skin. I love that moment when they first put the baby on you. It just feels so magical. Then they did all the after stuff... the placenta came out easily and they pushed my abdomen and all that [not very] fun stuff. Because they knew that I hemorrhaged after Henry's delivery, they were very attentive to that and stayed on top of the bleeding.

I feel kind of obligated to say something about the pain of childbirth... Because in hypnobirthing they say you don't feel pain. You feel "pressure" and "discomfort", or some bologna like that. There was pain. To be completely honest (and graphic, sorry) it felt like everything in that region was covered in hemorrhoids, and they all exploded. That's my personal experience, but I got through it and it was totally fine. It didn't hurt like that the entire time, just when I was trying to push his head out. In hindsight I am glad I took the hypnobirthing class, because I do think it helped me to handle the contractions better.

we did it!!! and he looks just like Henry!

George and Grammy

I held him for about an hour and then they did all the stats, etc

look at all that hair!!

George Douglas was born at 5:32PM, weighed 8lbs 5oz, and was 20 inches long. He was born with lots of brown hair, and looked like Henry's twin (with darker/more hair). Josh and my mom were there the whole time, and were a wonderful support system. I am so happy they were both able to be there. ♥ Welcome to the world, George!!


Sorry that story was such a novel, but I wanted to write it all down so I can remember it. Plus I know some people are really interested in birth stories, so there you have it ;) I'll write about the rest of our stay in the hospital in another post.

due date shmue date

Yesterday was my due date, and George still hasn't shown his face to the world. I think that maybe he's waiting for all the Royal Baby hoopla to die down (since he stole his name, after all!).

40 weeks pregnant. silly pic with a silly kid :)

I just went to my midwife this morning, and I keep progressing slowly but surely. She asked if I wanted to be induced and I said no for now. If I make it to my next appointment on Monday then we'll do a stress test and ultrasound. But so far everything with George still seems to be going well.

I've gained five pounds in the past week, so now my total weight gain is 38 pounds. Just two more pounds and I'll be tied with my pregnancy-weight gain with Henry. I've been having Braxton Hicks contractions for about three weeks now. I never had that with Henry, I only started feeling mini contractions with him the day I went into labor. It's amazing how different each baby can be. I had it set in my mind that it would be so similar to Henry's birth, but the joke is on me so far. I thought George would be born three weeks ago!!

There really hasn't been a whole lot of other exciting news around here, we're all just waiting for George's arrival :) I will, however, be posting the winner of the Diamond Candle giveaway soon, so stay tuned!

pregnancy update: 36 weeks

Hello...is anyone still out there? Blogging slacker big time over here. Blogging when Henry is awake is impossible though since he thinks the only purpose of the computer being open is to watch Elmo, which means I'd have to blog during his naps or at night. Usually I nap when Henry naps, so that's out. And by night time I'm sort of lazy haha. Anyways, I have some time tonight and figured I'd fill you in on pregnancy so far.

36 weeks. Photobombed by the baby daddy.

I am 36 weeks pregnant now. It's gone by pretty fast, which is kind of nice. Since Henry was so early, we all have it in our heads that George will be early. But you never really know, so I'm trying to accept the fact that it could be longer. I still need to pull out all the baby clothes and everything to be ready for him, so I shouldn't try and rush anyways (who wants to come help?!).

Last week at my doctors appointment everything looked good. I'm going back this next Monday. I've gained 27 pounds this pregnancy. Which isn't a ton considering I gained about 40 pounds last time. Maybe all that exercise from chasing Henry around is contributing ;) I've been trying to go on walks, and last week we pulled out the exercise ball for me to sit on. Henry finds it very entertaining since it's a giant ball, so it's both a chair and a toy at the moment :)

I still haven't gotten any stretch marks (knock on wood!) (don't hate me!), which I contribute to my favorite pregnancy product OF ALL TIME: Earth Mama Angel Baby Natural Stretch Oil. You can find it HERE on Amazon. I used it when I was pregnant with Henry too, and never got a stretch mark. It's magical. It is an oil so it will stain fabric, but if you just wear something you don't care about to bed after you put it on, it's no big deal. It's all natural and it's amazing.

I also can't remember if I've talked about this before, but we took a hypnobirthing class that was offered at the hospital here. It was.......interesting.... to say the least. I like a lot of the general concepts, and I think the relaxation techniques will help me in labor. And I just tried to block out any weird stuff they said that I don't really agree with. Like that babies remember their birth, and it affects the way they turn out later in life. Umm...that's fine if you believe that, but I personally don't. At least not the way they were describing it. And in all the birth videos, the women looked like complete zombies the entire time. I don't want to be a zombie...except just during contractions? I don't know.. Anyways, there were some weird things like that, but overall I am glad I took the class and I do think it will be helpful. I'll update you afterwards ;)

baby bump update: 19 weeks

I haven't talked too much about my pregnancy yet on my blog. Probably because I've been so busy with work lately, and we had so many people visiting I had to blog about those first :) Yesterday marked 19 weeks pregnant. I got an ultrasound on Friday, and got to see little George--my midwife's office even called me yesterday to say they looked over all the ultrasound pictures and everything looked good. 

19 weeks. Pretty sure my pants are unbuttoned in this pic. I need Josh to find my maternity clothes soon.

So that's a big difference with my last pregnancy: this time I'm seeing a midwife. I went and saw an obgyn here in Cedar (w/decent google reviews), but didn't really get awesome vibes from him. Not knowing who else to go to in a new city, I decided to do a google search for midwives. I found an amazing one whose office is in the hospital, and she also delivers in the hospital. Once I found out she delivered in the hospital (I don't want to do any home birthing, that frightens me!), I was sold. On my first visit with her she chewed me out about my eating habits. I was feeling so sick that it was hard for me to eat, and I was popping Zofran twice a day. She talked to me about improving my diet and increasing my food intake, and explained how that could actually help my nausea. While she was very blunt/direct, it's what I needed to get my butt in gear. And since then, while I'm still somewhat nauseous, I've only had to take a Zofran once or twice in the past 2 weeks, and only threw up once. Gigantic improvement! While my morning sickness hasn't been as bad as with Henry (thank goodness!), I still was throwing up usually once a day.

"hello, mommy and daddy!"

sorry if 3d freaks you out, but here he is all smushed in there :)

Oh, I'm also planning on delivering without medication...... Ahh! While it makes me super anxious, I think it will be a better experience than my epidural experience with Henry. I'm going to take a hypnobirthing class starting in June. So wish me luck and send good thoughts my way when that time comes ;)

All in all, so far so good. While I've gone through specific food-obsessed phases, I haven't had any bizarre cravings. At my last appointment I had only gained 4 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight, but I'm sure it's increased since I've been forcing myself to eat more/better. I've already started having to get up in the middle of the night to pee, and have to pee a lot more often than when I was pregnant with Henry. It's funny/weird how even pregnancy can be different. We'll have to wait and see how different the actual children are from each other! We are so looking forward to getting to meet this sweet baby in person, and we're just about half way there. Thanks again for everyone's kindness :)