All Amie

This post is just a little update about Amelie Josephine and some pictures. (I should have posted this first-now no one will read down to the next post!) She's just under 8 weeks now, and 8 1/2 pounds. Finally, the size of a normal newborn. :) She just barely outgrew her first two premie outfits, haha. I even put a size 1 diaper on her today! It's a little big, but they do the job and I'm out of newborn size. We've taken to calling her Amie in play, and I love it, because that means "friend" in French-it's even the feminine version! I didn't even see that coming when we picked it!

Our Amie Jo has been busy! She can already hold her head up, turn over from front to back and has had a large barrage of big, real smiles! It is the most adorable thing you've ever seen, of course. She is so strong, everyone comments on it. Still little, but steadily gaining weight. She's trying valiantly to chub up, and it's working fairly well, but she keeps growing longer, too, and can't keep up!
To my delight, Amelie is sleeping at nights, now, too. She doesn't sleep all the way through the night, but hey-I have NO problem with a 3am feeding, if that's when I'm waking up and then we go back to bed!

Here are some of the cutest photos of Amelie.


LOVES that binkie!

At Daddy's graduation, being a good, quiet girl.

Love those tights!

Only gets her sleeping half of the time, darn it.

She hates this chair.

With hat and tennies, ready to go!

Even on the floor, she'll just curl right up.

I know Jeff hates this picture, but I think it's so adorable, the way she's snuggling up to him! She loves Daddy.

This is her favorite place to be.

Graduation and Thanksgiving!

It's been a full month since my last post, now, and you can thank my adorable daughter. I'll probably need a few posts to really catch up. Here's the first.

Jeff is now officially an officer with Salt Lake City PD. His graduation ceremony was Nov. 26th, and he is now in Field Training. (He'll be rotating through different shifts and departments for the next few months.) The Mayor spoke at the ceremony, along with Chief Burbank (whom I love!) and then I got to pin Jeff's badge on him. It was on the news a few times and in the paper-there's a great big close up picture of Jeff standing at attention during the ceremony. Afterward, we went out to lunch at Jeff's choice, Olive Garden, to celebrate. It was a good time.


Jeff's in the middle.

Our family!

With Chief Burbank and the official certificate.

The next day-Thanksgiving! We got up way too early to go down to my parents house in Eagle Mountain (so we could watch the parade that started at 9.) At my house, we always start the feasting early-this year with chocolate and peanut butter chip pancakes, bacon and eggs. YUM! It was a good thing, too, cause dinner took longer than expected. After the parade, us "kids" headed to a nearby park to have our own Turkey Bowl-ultimate frisbee style. It was super-awesome, except that there was a HEINOUS wind that day, so we only lasted til a score of 4-3 or something like that (We played girls against boys and I may or may not have gotten kinda competitive. I just cant help it!) We headed back to the house and I helped cook-something I love to do every day of the week. We put on a gorgeous spread, and the meal was aMAZing as always! That's how it goes when you come from a family of good cooks. Later in the day, my aunt Teri and her crew came down for leftovers and games, which is always a good time. We played Body Boggle-a sweet game that is kinda like Twister with words. I dominated, I can't lie.

Taking a breather after the game.

The beautiful location where we played.

The big spread!

Body Boggle-everyone should own this game. Even my mom got down on the floor with me!

Finally, of course, we watched the Holy War on that Saturday. At my house, I was outnumbered by BYU fans (my family all came over after we went to see Twilight,) but in the end it didn't matter! The Utes not only prevailed, but kicked their trash! And a note-Amie was wearing a nice red U! (I just failed to get a picture of it before she spit all over it.) GO UTES!

Life at home

Let's start with Jeff this week. He is now 2 weeks away from graduating the Academy (again) and couldn't be happier! Although he's enjoyed the time there, he's really ready to just get out on the streets. The ceremony is Nov. 26th, then he has the whole Thanksgiving weekend off! Woohoo! Then, the next Monday, he starts field training. He'll have different blocks, and so far his training schedule already has a mix of graves/days, weekdays/weekends, units and locations. He has done excellent-his scores are always passing, no problem. His latest workdays include ASP/baton training, vice, Active Shooter, and coming up, he has a lot of final tests and Fight for your Life. (Yeah-a real fight with giant police officers.) The potential problem here comes from Jeff's out-of-work antics. Last Saturday, Jeff went to play football with the buddies, and lo and behold-last play of the game, he dives for a touchdown and... breaks his wrist. It's a small fracture, really, but it's still giving him lots of trouble. He only has it in a splint-if he had a cast, he would have to go on light duty at work, and that would be most horrible timing. Eesh.

My life, of course, is just Amelie right now, though I do have a few sweet announcements. (Not new, but never made it to the blog in all the other excitement.) I received word from the Registrar's Office-everything is good to go, and my status is finally officially graduated. I won't get my diploma, though, until the fall batch goes out. No complaints here, though! I'm really glad I stuck with that decision. The extra time and money would have been a big burden. The other exciting non-baby thing is that I took the exam for Recreation Therapist certification and licensure and whipped it! On the exam, they allow extra testlets if you are sketchy in any sections, but I didn't need any, thank you very much! So, though I don't have a job (or a hardcopy degree) I can officially say that I am a Rec. Therapist. (Jeff particularly likes to tell people that I'm a therapist.) Other than that, you pretty much know the drill of my life. Take care of Amelie all the time, never sleep at night, continue recovery and hate having a messy house. All in all, it's a great place to be (but that's only because I know it's temporary. :)) Plus, Jeff gives me a break on weekends, taking the long, tough shifts when he doesn't have to be in to work early. Thanks dude!

Amelie is now about 6 1/2 lbs. She was born 5 14, then got down to 5 4 in the hospital, so she's doing really well. In spite of her great growing, though, she only has a few outfits that fit! She's still just so little. She's super strong, though. She kicks, lifts her head and can turn herself a full 180 during tummy time. Also, her umbilical cord finally fell completely off-it had some healing problem and she was bleeding a bit from it til a few days ago.
The funny thing about Amelie not sleeping at night, is that she USED to, but got worse! My mom first said I was so spoiled with her, now I'm just going a tiny bit insane. Last night, she was up, feeding and fussy from 11-4:30. Well, I got in bed at 4:30. She woke again at 5:20, but I told Jeff he had to do it, I was dying. (You know, it seems like if I just had the baby a few years ago, there would have been no problem-I was all about staying up that late during my first round of college!) Overall, though, she is a really good baby. She really doesn't cry much at all and she is easily pacified. And, everyone says she is the cutest baby! She didn't come out with any puffiness, conehead, or other funny stuff. She's just adorable, especially when she smiles-which is a lot, even though it's probably accidental.

Here are a few pictures of our Amie post-hospital. We've got her in her bassinet, her first day at church, and our Halloween fun.

Oops.

So, obviously, the first 5 photos uploaded in reverse from what I planned. Just use your brain to rearrange the captions. :)

Amelie-The WHOLE story

Soooo, even though I still haven't hit my due date, I've had my darling baby here for 2 weeks now. I'm sure many of you will already know the details, but of course, I have to blog the story of labor.

You should know that I was already dilated weeks before Amelie was due. My doctor and I jokingly decided that Monday (the 20th) would be a fabulous arrival day for everyone’s schedule, but I really didn’t think we’d go even that early. Well, it just so happens, that it was when I was at the computer typing my previous blog Friday the 17th post that my water broke. (I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I definitely felt a new sensation in the lower abdomen area.) I got up from the computer to go to the bathroom, and lo and behold-I just wouldn’t stop going to the bathroom! I waited a bit to make sure, but it was most definitely my broken water. It also JUST so happens that Jeff got off super-early from work that day and we had no plans, so we were all set and ready to head off to the hospital. We went in, and despite my wearing protection, I was water-ing down the front of my pants by the time we got to the hospital. (At the labor and delivery desk, they apparently always ask if you’re sure it was your water or was it possibly urine. However, they just took a look at me and gave me a room.) We got settled in there by about 5 (water broke about 4) and all exammed, prepped and waiting by 6 or 6:30. Well, by this time, I was still not having any kind of pain or sensation with contractions. We decided to wait a bit longer to see if I could get them going, as I was still dilating on my own (then about a 4-5, I believe.) So, almost aaaallllllllllll the family showed up by this point or another. (It was really nice to be able to see everyone and hang out in the beginning, but it did become sort of stressful by the time I was really laboring.)
Amelie kept having sketchy read-outs of her heartbeat, so I had to lay in specific positions, and eventually we had to put an internal monitor on her. (Her heart rate kept dropping during contractions, so I had to wear an oxygen mask throughout.) Anyway, after a few laps around the L&D and still not an ounce of pain in my contractions (I know, don’t hate me ladies) I started the Pitocin IV just after 8pm. From there, it was almost instantaneous-I started feeling those things right away! And it picked up really quickly, too. It was less than an hour later that I asked for the epidural. Well, actually my mother and Jeff asked for it when they saw me tearing up with contractions. (They knew because this was the only time during the whole process that I wasn’t making jokes and laughing with them.) The anesthesiologist took awhile, and I have to say that he was my least favorite hospital person of the entire experience. The epidural was also not the most pleasant thing, but I think it was mostly trying to deal with the painful contractions while holding the awkward positions and getting tubed in my back. It took a bit longer than normal for the epidural to kick in, but after I gave it an extra shot, it was smooth sailing from there on out. Really quick, too, actually. The only snag to slow me up was discovered when another nurse came in to place the internal heart monitor. Turns out that I was supposed to get a catheter with my epidural, but this happened right at shift change, so I never got one. This other nurse noticed, drained me (A TON) and then, it was like magic-all of a sudden, she was moving that head down! Not long after I was feeling good again, I started feeling lots of pressure, and I called in the nurse. She checked me out and said I was dilated to 8, so she prepped the delivery table and all that stuff. Once she left the room, it was only about 10 minutes more when I called her back in for super amounts of pressure. She checked me out and said I was 9+, time to call the doctor. She wasn’t at the hospital at the time, so she had to be called in. We tried pushing once to make sure I’d be ready to go when the doctor came, but the nurse instantly stopped me and said we were totally ready. That short time waiting for the doctor seemed like forever where I could feel her just pushing her way insistently out. The doctor finally arrived and we got right to work. (She said she would have been quicker, but she was behind a cop all the way here. Darn cops.) Once I began pushing, it was only 4 contractions before she was out! And the surprise we got at that time might explain why-she was only 5lbs. 14oz. I couldn’t believe it! Between Jeff and me, I thought she’d be huge. It was so strange and surreal to see her.
I’m not sure how, but everyone outside was notified and started pouring in the room. Having such a large audience was NOT my favorite, as I hadn’t delivered the placenta yet and still needed to be stitched up. My lovely husband then had the guts to usher everyone outside until my personal business was taken care of.
Amelie was checked out, and didn’t have any problems. Aside from a few precautions because of her small size, she was all healthy! While we were in the hospital, she had to have her blood sugar monitored pretty closely, since she preferred sleeping to anything, including eating, but she was a natural nurser and was good to go by the time we went home.
I have since been saying that if I didn’t have to go through the recovery, I’d deliver 100 babies! It really was nowhere near as unpleasant as I was anticipating. (I do get that it was pretty darn easy as labors go, though.) So, overall, I’m not sure how long you’d say I was in labor. If you count from water breaking to delivery, it was 9.5 hours, if you count from contractions to delivery, it was 5.5 hrs, and if you count the painful parts, I only had a blessed hour and a half or so. As for the recovery, I am 2 weeks past now, and still taking medicine and can’t be out more than an hour or so without super pain. But, I do feel human and wear regular clothes now.

Amelie is now awake, so I will have to come back with more pictures since the hospital. As for these, I don't even know who took them all, they're just on my camera!

I'm feeling good!


Woo-lots of oxygen.


OK, this is starting to hurt a little.


That is my baby!


Such a little thing.


Momma and Amelie both cleaned up and together at last.

Progress and Shower

First, a baby update. (Warning: if you don't like graphic info, you may want to skip this paragraph. Translation: Most males want to skip this paragraph. Which reminds me-why do women LOVE to talk about pregnancy?!?) My appointment this week was good again, but not overly good. I am now dilated to "3+" (official term my doctor used) and 60% effaced (from 50% last week.) So... not TOO much movement, but steadily in the right direction. My wonderful OB also told me that I'm getting softer, and she felt the baby's head... from inside, not through my belly. (THAT'S why that exam was so uncomfortable, to say the least.) She did say, however, that head was still a bit high, so no action 'til Amelie decides to move in downstairs. I've been given every piece of advice about walking, bouncing, sexing, and anything else that might encourage her to move down more quickly. I am quite excited and anxious, but not in a rush until it comes to November. (Although I will confess that this past week we did make very sure things were ready at home and packed for the hospital.) My doctor, Jeff and I all agree that early next week, like Monday or Tuesday, would be the perfect day for our schedules, so that's what we are all shooting for. :) (At this rate, though, I'm having my doubts.) Still NO pain in contractions or anything. We'll see!!!

As far as life goes, I had my first baby shower this past week-end. It was a pink open house thrown by my 2 sisters in law and my mother in law. It was so sweet-thanks guys! The food was great, turnout was great, and I had a lot of fun, not to mention all the adorable and practical presents I got. We're now only missing a few things for Amelie's arrival. (Like a crib mattress and some bottles-can you believe we have ZERO bottles? Or a breast pump and bath stuff if you're looking for ideas. (; ) I am having another shower tomorrow, thrown by my sisters and mom. I'm excited to see how it goes! My sisters are really fun about coming up with games and awesome embarrassing things to do. Showers are the best invention ever! Sincere thanks to all who planned, attended and have given gifts-everything has been really great!

As for Jeff, he's been doing some fun stuff at work lately. He's gotten to clear abandoned buildings downtown, watched protesters at conference. One day learning ground fighting techniques, his partner sprained Jeff's shoulder and they sent him to the hospital. Yesterday, he came home with a bruised nose, and today they practiced with paintball guns. He always does great at anything to do with shooting. (Runs in his blood, I think.) And then, of course, the rest of his life besides work and baby consist of football games, Jazz and his own Wednesday night ballin. Below is the best picture I could get before my camera died.



And me, well, I am basically inseparable from baby news-reading up, crocheting stuff and preparing things here keeps me quite busy. Here's a photo of the blanket I just finished for Amelie. Yay!

Wha...?!

So, today I had the first of my once-a-week doctor appointments. This time also began the resurgence of regular manual exams (as in doctor's hand up in my grill.) Well, the first thing I heard was "Baby's measurements are perfect." Great, I think to myself. The second thing I heard (after some squishing of my belly) was "She's head down!" Even better! I am so not wanting a c-section, so that greatly lowers the chances. Then, my doctor asks if I've been having contractions, and I say "Maybe?" I mean I've had some occasional pain or discomfort, but nothing severe and not what I imagined contractions to feel like. Well, once she does her business, she says "Well, looks like you've been having contractions-I'd guess you are dilated to 2.5 or 3."

"WHAT?!" I think in my head. Doesn't that mean I should be moving in, then? I mean, active labor starts at 4 centimeters, right? She says "no guarantees, but this is a great sign she'll be on time." Yeah, I hope so-dilated for 6 weeks? Can that be normal? I don't know the total deal, but she just proceeded to give me all the instructions about when to come in and what to do, not alarmed at all. It majorly caught me off guard-I mean, you need real contractions to dilate!

I thought this quite an interesting development. I would not be sad if Amelie came early, but 4 weeks seems a little scary. On the other hand, we are trying not to get our hopes up and end up having to wait until mid-November, ugh. You can be sure you'll get updates here!

FHE and Belly

Last night for FHE, Jeff decided to humor me and we went to have a fire up Millcreek Canyon. I've been wanting to do this for awhile, and it's only getting colder! We prepped for cold weather and brought food. We had dinner there (hot dogs roasted on sticks and potatoes from foil packs) plus hot cocoa and I brought some sweet rolls I made. We had so much fun and the setting was gorgeous-even the weather was nice! For our "lesson" we each listed 10 reasons our lives are better now that we are married. It was a fabulous night-please, feel free to steal the idea for yourselves!

Here's my sweet boyscout of a husband making a great fire.


It worked wonderfully!


A little woods action




And finally, the latest belly photo. Oh my word! When I looked back through older belly pics, I couldn't believe I even thought I was big! Less than a month now, and I can't wait!

Still no photos... Devoted readers only.

So, I had my final meeting with my Master’s Committee this past week and everything was, passed, approved and signed. The paperwork has now been sent to the Graduation office with a nice letter about counting retroactively. Their approval is the only step left… and I have NO idea how long that will take to find out. I feel good about it, though. My committee really worked with me after it all went to pieces. It feels good to have my part of it behind me, and to know that I did what I could in the process.

Now that that’s out of the way, we are getting SO excited fro baby Amelie to come-we are only 33 days away now!! One month, really-that just makes me so happy. I definitely now understand the hype about rib-kicking, being uncomfortable and not being able to breathe. (I was asked to sing at a Stake Relief Society function on October 21st… yeah, that’s not gonna happen!) It’s funny – I can’t tell if everyone thinks I am supposed to be bigger or smaller. Almost my entire pregnancy, people kept telling me how small I was and that I didn’t really even look pregnant until I was like 6 months along! Now, it’s also the opposite. The other night, some woman I don’t even know told me that she NEVER got as big as me, even through the end of all her pregnancies. Ew! Some people have no concept of boundaries. Either way, my doctor has consistently said I am exactly on track with measurements and weight the entire time, so Neener Neener to all of you who have commented on the outrageousness of my size, either way! :) No matter what you’ve been thinking, though, my belly is now undeniably large and in charge! Promise I’ll try to get a good picture up soon.

We’re very excited for this week-end. My cousin’s wedding open house is tonight, followed by Jeff’s mission reunion, then tomorrow we’re doing a sweet conference breakfast, of course. (Jeff has to run out during one of those times to go study protestors with the Academy. Funny!) Then, all of conference and dad’s birthday celebration. I hope your week-ends are going to be just as great!

Meanwhile, we’ve kinda got some serious spider action at our house. Any tips, anyone? Besides paying the exterminator, of course. We’ll get to that when we can…

How about that Utah game, eh? Go Utes!

Nothing much.

So, there really hasn't been a ton of news, but I feel the need to add to the blog since it's been a few weeks.

The biggest drama in my life right now has to do with graduation. Yeah, that was supposed to be awhile ago, right? I wanted to wait to expel all the glorious details until I was closer to resolution, but it still appears as if that may be awhile. At any rate, I hate talking about it, so here's the short version. Basically, through lack of communication (vastly not my fault) we missed the paperwork deadlines for summer graduation. I was not even aware of this until my Master's Committee Chair called me an hour and a half before the tuition and class add deadline for fall, asking if I was registered. (Apparently you must be registered for a minimum of 3 hrs in your last semester.) Let's not forget to mention that 3 hours (of nothing) would cost me $1200. Needless to say I was quite taken off guard, upset, and not to mention unable to produce $1200 in an hour. He apparently wanted me to apply then, and when I said I couldn't he said to apply for a leave of absence and do it in Spring. Also not really an option for me. After many phone calls and emails and meetings and discussion of options, I have my final meeting set for next week to sign papers, and then we appeal that my paperwork count retroactively for summer. I am so grateful this is where I am at the moment... Although there is no guarantee it'll happen. But enough about that, I don't like thinking about it.

Jeff has been getting worked to death, most of it fun, not always. He spent a week at the shooting range in Park City doing firearms, then a week at the EVO course by Camp Williams (emergancy vehicle operation??) driving cars and doing pursuits. I think it was nice for him to get a break from the classroom routine, but it's killing our gas bill! He'll now go shooting for training one day a week. Of course, they still do lots of defensive tactics, physical training and legal junk. He's now past the half-way mark, and currently graduation is set for November 26th. (Although this changes to various dates in November almost weekly.) Either way, he's only got about 8 or 9 weeks left! Then, he'll move to Field training, where he'll train with all different departments and different shifts. That should wreak havoc on his sleep schedule. :) Finally, in April (after the grand tour) he'll be off and in his own car... who knows what area or shift?

As for Amelie, she's quite the active little girl and still seems to be developing exactly according to schedule. If all keeps going well, she'll be here in under 7 weeks! I can't believe we're finally getting closer. It has seemed long, but I never thought the day would come! Her bedroom is pretty much ready for her, too. (We have been generously stocked with furniture and clothing from all sorts of sources!) We did a registry for the shower because there are so many things we don't really need. Really the things left missing are a crib mattress, high chair, diaper genie (I wish,) and bottles... diapers... a pedicure for mom... :) Just kidding. We've been really REALLY blessed to have so much come our way-if it was left all to our budget, she'd be sleeping in a drawer, wearing onesies made out of my old t-shirts!

Thanks to all who have helped us out with buying/gathering baby stuff!!
Stay tuned for some more exciting news.

Anniversary and other stuffs

Jeff and I went to Denver for our Anniversary weekend. Why Denver, you ask? We say why not? We needed to go somewhere close, as I can no longer fly, and found a great deal there. All it takes is a bit of research and anywhere is my favorite vacation spot. We had a great time!
We left super-early on Saturday morning (by car,) stopping at Winter Park on our way there (for mini-golf, human maze, scenic chairlift rides, Alpine slides.) After our mountain fun, we grabbed lunch at Chedd's-it's a gourmet grilled cheese restaurant, and it was amazing! Then, we went to the Denver temple, but Jeff left his recommend, of course. So, we settled for a few pictures outside before finally heading to our hotel. We went for a nice swim and had the pool to ourselves. After a much-needed nap, we went to this restaurant, Texas de Brasil, it's like Rodizio or Braza, though slightly more upscale. Well, since they have a set dinner price, there is no menu. I wanted to ask about the price, but never did. Well, we ate and enjoyed it thoroughly. They had all the unlimited skewered meats, as well as a bar of sides. This one also happened to have an amazing cheese bar that was very French and very delicious. When it came check time, we were quiet unpleasantly surprised by the price of our dinner-it was MORE THAN DOUBLE what we had planned! (It happened to include $13 worth of drinks... the waitress conveniently refilled our drinks without telling us that EVERY refill cost extra.) I hate to say it, but that was one of the worst tips I ever gave. It would have been a great tip on what we expected to pay for dinner. Sad experience.
Sunday, we went to church, then the zoo. It was a great zoo and we had a great time, but I was SO hot, it completely wiped me out big time. We had to go home for another nap after that. That night, we ate at the Aquarium Restaurant (luckily this one was less than we planned.) It was a really fun place surrounded by huge aquariums with giant fish, sharks, barracuda. Food was delicious, too. The next morning, we took our time getting up, eating and heading out. We took a more scenic route home via I70 and US6, which was worth it I think. We listened to 2 books on tape during the drive, and I worked on a blanket for Amelie. Jeff was such a trooper-he did all the driving both ways! Thanks, bud!

Denver temple... from the outside, of course.

Jeff spent lots of time hanging with the gorillas at the zoo, so I made him squish in for a picture.

Denver Aquarium

At the Aquarium Restaurant... Which took a bit of time to find... (check out my zoo sunburn.)

We drive a slightly longer route to get the beautiful scenery. (8 hrs through Wyoming is torture.)

Jeff got me a third ring to go with my bridal set-it's gorgeous! (I know you can't really see it.)

Winter Park, the pretty Colorado Ski Resort we visited.

Havin a blast!

The scenic chairlift ride.
The beautiful view from 10,000 feet up.


A couple of weeks ago, we had a nieces and nephews sleepover at our house, with all the kids from both sides (2 and up, that is.) It was really fun, but it made me glad that I don't have 8 kids between 2 and 9. We made pizzas and ice cream sundaes, Jeff took them out to play hide and seek, watched movies, and slept slayed across the living room (I was in my bed, of course.) Then the morning held chocolate chip pancakes and EARLY pick up. :)

New inseperable buddies.

Enthused? She slept the most.

Yay for the swing set-it doesn't get much use from Jeff and me.

Chocolate chip pancakes... on faces


And more swing set. Thank goodness Jeff had the energy to play with them outside-they couldn't get enough!