Missing Daddy

12 hour days are super long. Four 12 hour days are really really long. But we're at the end and I made it. Matt's new work schedule is going to be interesting. But we've made it through two weeks.
Here's the three of us hanging out at a good moment today.

Bathtime Fun

We have a princess problem in the house. Both mommy and daughter are obsessed with princesses. Daughter more than mommy, but we're both guilty. More about that one another time. Onto the bath fun. So we've done bathtime paint before and it was a blast, but recently my little princess wanted to "paint the stars" like in Disney's Tangled. So last night we did it. I got the recipe for the paint from a book (The Everything Toddler Activities Book) but it's so simple. 1 part cornstarch, 2 parts soap (I just use the baby shampoo/soap that we always use in baths) and a drop of food coloring. I only make a little at a time because she uses all of what I give her in one bath usually. I was very proud of her painting. I think its the first time she's made something purposeful artistically. Usually she just plays with whatever material we're using.




And because the little one is so fun. Here's a picture of him right now. (In the back is the princess watching "Brave." I told you we have a problem.)
I just weighed him and my little three and a half month old weighs about 17 and a half pounds. His big recent achievement is he can roll over, both front to back and back to front.

I think I want to blog again. I have too many blog-type things in my head and I finally have the great desire to get them out somewhere. So I think I will try it again.
Just an update on my life - I have a second child. Little boy. Love him. Being a mom of two is a lot of fun. And tons of work. And most of you know about that one.

Previously my blog has been just the family scrapbook type thing, but one reason I want to blog again is to get out my social/political thoughts. I should probably start a new blog, but I'm just going to do it here. So it will be me, good and bad.

So my political thought for the day was inspired by a letter to the editor in our paper today. The author mentions an experience actually asking at an insta-care how much the care, prescriptions, etc. was going to cost. The author is insured, but wanted to know to help keep costs down. She said the staff responded as though she was crazy.

Healthcare is an interesting thing in that in my experience you never see a price tag up front. You just get your bill and get interestingly surprised by how much things cost. Many people with insurance never even look at that bill. You pay your co-pay/co-insurance/deductible and don't think too much about it.

But it is interesting. My sister-in-law recently commented that when reviewing her hospital bill she noticed that they charged $20+ dollars for ibuprofen. If we were given a sticker cost when given said pill, at the time she may have declined and had my brother go get her a whole bottle at the store for $3. Now as a commenter said, she's not only paying for her ibuprofen but several other peoples as well. But she should still have the option.

Heathcare is the only business I can think of where we don't get at least an estimate up front. And I have to wonder why? I have been without insurance several times in my life and I made different choices based on costs of things. Why would it be so difficult to give an up front estimate of what things would cost. And we'd all know it was an estimate. In home improvement, construction and car repair they give estimates. Sometimes it ends up being more, sometimes less, but they at least give you an estimate before you begin something.

We all talk about the expense of healthcare, what if we could much more easily shop around. More people would realize how much cheaper an instacare is than the emergency room. I think that we would make different decisions. Not necessarily ones that would harm our health, but that would cost insurance a lot less money. Just my little thoughts.

And as a side note, it is interesting with two children in one room. While I was writing this post my little girl had a bad dream (I assume) and started crying and woke my baby. Little girl is back asleep. Baby is having more trouble. I don't know how to work this one. Guess I'll learn with time.

Family

So many of our moments in life are about family. Family creates home. Family shares love. Family creates laughter. Family is Forever.

Which is why this last weekend make me so happy. For Easter weekend we got to go witness the baptism of a nephew and visit all of my husband's family. Its the last time that we will all be together for a while, as many of us are headed on journeys far away (or not so far, but at least farther). What a joy it is to be adopted into such a great family. Its amazing how quickly you can feel like a part of something. There's so many jokes about in-laws, but I'll tell you they didn't get mine.

Also, I did get to visit with my Mom, Dad and Brother. Even got to drive my brother to ask his first little prom date. So much fun to try and be a part of each siblings lives as much as I can. This family is already all spread out. We currently have siblings living in 4 different states, soon to be 5 (including Utah). But we still try to keep in contact. Lots of joy with my own family too.

Finally, I'm so grateful families are forever. That is thanks to our Savior, and the resurrection that we celebrated this weekend, we get to live with our families forever. Just as they are here, but not with the far away part. I'm grateful for my Savior for providing that way.

I thought this picture was a fitting representation of what we can become. My little daughter is perfect and Christlike right now. I hope that she will see the Savior always in her life, always right beside her, just like this picture.

Back to Blogging

So, If you notice its been almost exactly a year since I have posted on this blog. And now officially I reenter the blog world. It was something I determined was not what I wanted to spend my time on. But now I think it is.

Year in review:

Matt - went to the police academy, graduated as the valedictorian of his class, spent forever looking for a job, did lots of temp work and whatever to keep us afloat, finally actually got his old job back and just a few weeks ago landed a police job in Rock Springs, WY. He starts in two weeks.

Me - Piano studio began booming. Had up to 22 students at one time. Also started teaching preschool music class. Love it! Learning to be a mom. Love that too, except when child should be sleeping and isn't. That happens often. But I really truly love my daughter and watching her grow. Moving and sad to leave my studio. Also, had the new years resolution to eat something different for dinner everyday of the year. 3 months in and I've done it. May not be able to keep it up with the move.

Annalee - Grows and loves and is happy. Had a severe skin condition, which we discovered was food allergies. Lots of issues with that. Now she doesn't eat wheat, eggs, soy, peanuts or other nuts and she is much better. She loves stuffed animals and making animal sounds. She also loves sesame street, curious george, and backyardigans. She loves playing in the backyard and most of all she loves being with mommy as much as possible.

I will write more another time, but there's my year sum up and I've started. Anna is awake now, so off I go to be Mommy.

Adventures

Annalee and the rest of us have been on several adventures lately:

Delivering scouting-for-food bags with the cub scouts.

General conference at Grandma Walkers. We also went to a fun birthday party at Aunt Sharla's.

More bundling for cub scouts. This time we played basketball.

All dressed up for Relief Society at a care center on Tuesday. Anna loved the old ladies.

Don't look at me. This is all moby-ed up for housework.

And helping in the kitchen. She can hold on to things now.

Exercising with mommy in the lovely April snow.

Lots of adventures.

Talking

I hope to have a whole slew of posts coming soon because I'm really really really behind. But at least I have pictures and stuff to say. I'll get it done eventually.

This is just a fun video. Ignore me on the video please. Anna has started "talking." A little more like babbling and cooing, but its super fun. She's just adorable and I like that we can play with her more. There is nothing like the look she gives me when I'm completely focused on her. Also, as Anna has started to talk I realize that I'm a horrible baby-talker. I used to be 100% anti-baby talk and then I came around to the fact that using a different voice for babies is important for their vocal development (thanks school) plus it lets them know they are the one you're talking to. Now I use bad grammar and don't pronounce "th" or "r's" correctly. Maybe I'll fix it. So, here's the video of Annalee.

One Month

Squeaker is now a month old! We've all learned so much in the first month, but mostly mom and dad have learned a lot. We've learned that she does not like to be cold at all, and thus does not like her clothes off. Or bath time. Or diaper changes. She does like to snuggle especially again our chest. She absolutely loves to swing! And most of the time she likes to be held. She's a good eater and weighed in yesterday at 11 pounds 1 ounce and 22 inches long. We're all making the adjustment fairly well. Enough that mom has started teaching piano. Dad is going back to school to be a police officer and for the moment being a substitute teacher until we can find a more permanent job that works with his school schedule.

I know what everyone really wants to see is pictures of the cutie. So just for the record I have difficulty figuring out how to work with pictures on blogger, so I'm going to deal with them in the order that they decided to be put in here. Hopefully it makes some sense.

Daddy said that she looked like a koala bear in this outfit, snuggled on mom's chest.

The cub scouts made paper bag hats this week and so we decided to make a paper bag hat for Squeaker as well.

Her outfit 2 Sundays ago, I thought she looked beautiful in the yellow dress. This was the second time we'd gone to sacrament meeting.

Mom just taking pictures while Anna models.

More pictures, this one with her name that we had carved this summer at Peach Days.

Our first outing outside, just walking around the yard.

Ain't I cute :)

Not edited, but a sample of the pictures my sister took for us just recently. I love my baby!!

Squeaker

Just a few words about my little girl in her first couple weeks of life. She is a very good eater and mostly a really good sleeper. When they first handed her to me it made me laugh. She was sticking her tongue out and moving it around. Genetic trait, my dad's story about my birth always included that I did that. I knew she was actually my daughter. I'm also amazed that she actually had hair, I expected a bald baby. I didn't know that she would come out with furry ears. No one had ever mentioned that to me with a different baby, but they are just a little furry :) She likes to lift her head up and when she's on her tummy now, she can lift it and change which side her head is turned to.

From the beginning, she squeaked. In fact after her first day it took her a while to get her cry back. The first couple of days home she just squeaked when she cried - it sounded like she was hoarse. She continues to squeak frequently, when we're playing, when she's sleeping, after she's finished eating. So her first nickname has been "Squeaks" or "Squeaker."

Mom and Dad both love spending time with her and holding her. She's sure precious. I have to admit that I've always found newborns a little bit boring and was worried about how I would feel about my own. Thank goodness, I never began to think that being Anna's mom would be as much fun as it is. It's fun to watch her personality develop, to figure things out and to just snuggle with her.

January 4th

January 4th is one of the biggest days of my life now: the wonderful day I became a mother. Also the day that I slept the least out of probably my whole life. The night before we went swimming with Matt's sister, brother and his wife and their kids. It was lots of fun and so nice for my huge pregnant body to be in water. So we came home that night and went to bed. I woke up just a few hours later at 1:30 a.m. because my water had broken. We left for the hospital. I got there and they hooked me up to monitors. I had regular, not too strong contractions but strong enough to keep me awake until the normal morning hours. At this point they slowed and almost stopped. To keep this from being forever long I think I will just list the memorable events from this point forward.

- I went in not wanting to have an epidural. Not 100% sure why, but I just didn't want it.

- All morning some of the equipment in my room wasn't working, so I had this I.T. guy popping in and out all morning. Somewhat awkward.

- About 10:00 am they started me on pitocin. Thank goodness, I wanted to get things moving. I'd already been there too long for me.

- Early afternoon I decided to get pain medication through the I.V. which was a bad plan. It made me excessively dizzy and nauseous. After that I decided that the pain from the contractions was much better than the pain medication.

- Anna was posterior, I think was the term they used, I had to work to get her forward, part of what took so long.

- About 5:00 pm after now 16 hours I was completely exhausted and about ready to go ahead and get the epidural. Luckily the nurse that came in at this point was really helpful and coached me a little to help me manage the pain and get things moving. I managed to stay natural which I was happy about :).

- The last centimeter or so took forever. She was turned sideways and wouldn't turn the right way. Later we found out that the reason was probably because she had the cord wrapped around her neck.

- Pushing was such a relief. I much preferred this part because I was actually doing something. I finally started pushing just before 7:00 and Annalee made her appearance at 7:29.

I felt so relieved. I was tired enough that I think I mostly just had complete disbelief that she was actually here after waiting so long. But it was amazing holding her. She weighed in at 8 pounds and half an ounce, but sure didn't look that big. Before weighing her, everyone guessed she'd be 7 something. She measured at 20.5 inches. And now she's here. It's great.

Annalee

I'm currently holding my beautiful brand new baby which means this will not have very much text because I don't have the patience to type much one-handed. So here's some pictures in no particular order of our sweetheart, with more of the story to come.

Friends

I just have to say that I don't know how, but I got blessed with the most amazing group of high school friends ever. We've managed to keep in decent contact thanks to blogs and Facebook over the years (now almost 8). Now many live out of state, in fact of six of us girls we live in five different states right now. But the track record is amazing. Everyone either has a college degree, or are in the last stages of finishing their degree. Everyone has gotten married in the temple.

So these said amazing friends have come up twice recently. The first was just over a week ago. I came home from a family Christmas party to a giant box on my doorstep. Unable to really get together, one of my friends still organized a baby shower. Here it is.

I had balloons, treats, a diaper cake, confetti, gifts, and cards all stuck in this box. They went in on the crib set I'd picked out for the room that matches the border. And this was my happy surprise. It was so much fun.

Also recently, the largest group of these friends got together for breakfast. Its sort of an annual tradition to get together for breakfast shortly after Christmas. This year more people came than have in a long time. We were only missed a couple. It was fun to see people's families and hear where everyone is right now. We forgot to take pictures before a couple of people left, but here's the picture when we did take it.

Just the girls (and kids) Everyone left and families

Pregnancy

Just so I get all my tummy pictures on here, a recap of pregnancy. I feel like I've been pregnant for a very long time. It was funny, because for so long I would get comments on how tiny I was. No longer. I'm not tiny. But its fun to see the growth. So here is my collection of me pregnant. Hopefully not too much longer.

Pretending to look pregnant at three months Four and a half months, not much better.

My Halloween costume and Anna's first costume as a basketball. 6 1/2 months along.

Not quite sure exactly when, but getting big. Something like 8 months.

And just before Christmas (Dec 23) almost 9 months.

So baby is big and I'm big and now its time for this belly to disappear :) I have to say, I've never put this many pictures of myself anywhere, its a little unnerving. One funny thing I find is ladies that I talk to who mention they miss being pregnant. Although there are some upsides to it, mostly I can't imagine ever missing my entire body being out of whack. Come on little Annalee, its time to come meet mommy :)

Anna's Room

I haven't been good at this but I did want to share our big project of recent weeks. We have turned Matt's old bedroom into our little Annalee's room. Last week we finally finished the floor and moved what stuff we have in. I have to say that it just makes me happy. I'm at about 30 weeks now and looking forward to these last 10 weeks being done. Luckily the holidays are upon us making this all a little more fun.

Here's my chair that we've had for a long time and a few of the big butterflies.
The corner with the bassinet that we have right now and the butterflies going up the wall. My husband did each and everyone of the stenciled butterflies and designed it. So amazing. Also, I have to draw attention to the items in the bassinet. The pillow was made by Matt's mom. The quilt was sent to me from Texas and is absolutely amazing!
Detail around the door and light switch.

And I realized none of the pictures showed the awesome floor. I'm too lazy to go take one right now, but here's an idea, although this is before we refinished it. It looks the same only clean and shiny and the trim is now pink.

So that's been our big project and its fun to see it done.