Baby's First Thanksgiving

We celebrated Sadie's first Thanksgiving with Logan's family this year.  Alicia's family had dinner with us, and it was so great spending a whole afternoon with them and their silly kids.
Sadie basically thought the food was totally uneventful, and slept through the whole dinner.  However, she sure does love going to Grandma Deana's because she gets passed around the whole time.  She's a social butterfly and loves to snuggle, smile, and talk to everyone around her.  The food was great, but the company was even better!

We had a game and pie night at Grandma Belnap's later that evening, which was super fun.  As long as I can remember, PIE has been the big to do at Thanksgiving with the Belnaps...not turkey...it's all about the pie, and there are always close to a dozen varieties to choose from.  It was fun to be able to see both sides of our family on that day.  I LOVE OUR FAMILY!!!

As we sat down for dinner, I leaned over to Logan and asked him if last year at Thanksgiving dinner he thought we would be parents by the next year.  We thought maybe we might be pregnant, or still even trying to get pregnant by the next holiday season, but we didn't think that she would already be here!  I am so glad she came when she did, because she is the best thing in our lives.

I am so grateful for my sweet husband and for the wonderful job he has to provide for us.  I am grateful for the opportunities we have had to get us through school almost debt free.  I am grateful for our apartment we live in, for the shelter it provides, and the loving landlords we have upstairs.  I am grateful for our neighborhood and the friendships we have made since living there.  I am grateful that we have a running car that has good gas mileage, and has been so great for our little family.  I am grateful that I have been able to continue teaching dance after having Sadie, my boss is amazing and so supportive of me.  I am so grateful that we have all of our family so close so we can visit them often.  I am grateful that Sadie will grow up knowing her family and being close to her cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.  Most of all, I am grateful that I have the gospel in my life, for the joy and peace it brings, and the knowledge that I can be sealed to my family forever.  I am so grateful for my Savior, Jesus Christ, and for the love he has for me, individually.  I know he knows who I am, and that he loves me, and I love him.

We are so incredibly blessed, and I am so grateful for the life I am living, and all of the wonderful things in it.

Blessing Day

November 6, 2011 Sadie had her baby blessing.  Her daddy gave a wonderful blessing, and Sadie was so well behaved during the blessing.  It was a sweet day, especially for me, because ALL of my family was there to support her--my family, my birthmom and her family, my birthdad and his family, and all of my in laws.  I am still just blown away at how many people love and spoil this little girl of mine.  She is so blessed!!

My super talented mommy made her gorgeous blessing dress, hair bow, and blanket for her big day.  The dress is so beautiful, with beading to add "bling" around the bottom, and lace, ribbons, and flowers galore.  Super girly, and I LOVE it. (We couldn't get a good picture of the details of the dress...when we put her in it, she just kick-kick-kicks away at the skirt and all the pictures are super blurry! Haha!)  She was so beautiful in the dress, it made me a little emotional--I will blink and she will be in her white baptism dress--then I will blink again and she will be in her white wedding dress.

She is just so sweet, we are just soaking in every moment.  I am so incredibly blessed to be this baby girl's mommy.  I am so grateful she chose to come to our family!

To My Sweet 2 Month Old Baby Girl

My Sweet Sadiebug,

You are two months old.  When did this happen?  Half of me feels like we've had you forever and ever, and half of me feels like just ten minutes ago I was feeling you move around in my tummy.

This month you started to smile real, honest to goodness smiles, and you talk to us a little.  You are starting to get more on a schedule, which I am loving because I can predict your day a bit better than I could at the beginning.  You wake up around 7:30, eat, get a diaper change, and then we play.  You usually take 2 shorter naps in the morning, and then one longer and one shorter nap in the afternoon.  We pick up Daddy from work at 7, and you are so nice to stay awake and play with him until around 8:30, and then you go to sleep for the night.  You usually sleep until about 2 or 3, which means I am getting more sleep too (thank you), but I am still just awaiting the day you decide to sleep through the night.

You are so friendly and love to be held, talked to, and played with.  Last week Grandma Deana gave you a toy rattle and you actually held on to it, and cooed with delight.  You love the bouncer seat with the toy bar above it, and you love to bat at the little toy animals that hang down.  You talk to them too, like they are your friends.  You have started to sit up in your Bumbo, and love to sit in that while I cook dinner, watching me walk all around the kitchen.  This month you also discovered the Minnie Mouse magnet on our fridge, and love to sit close to her and look at her.  This, sweet Sadie, makes me so happy.  You may look like your daddy, but perhaps you have my personality in there, and with it a deep love for all things Disney.

Speaking of Disney, you were dressed up as Tinkerbell for Halloween, and you were the darn cutest little fairy I have ever seen.  I wish I could have bottled up your cuteness that day, because it made me extra giddy seeing you in your little costume.

You are holding your head up so good.  I seriously can't believe how strong you are getting!!  You always like to look around, checking the place out, and already do not like being held laying down because I don't think you can see as much.  When you are tired, and I'm holding you over my shoulder, you love to lift your head up, look around the room, and then snuggle your little head on my shoulder for a little rest.  I melt every single time you do this.  It never gets old.

You had your baby blessing this past Sunday.  Grandma Ilene made your blessing dress, and you were so gorgeous in it.  You were so good for the blessing, didn't make a peep the whole time.  Your daddy was nervous to give you his first blessing, but he did a wonderful job, and the spirit was so strong.  All eight of your grandparents came for the blessing, along with all your aunts, uncles, and cousins.  You are so loved by so many people, you lucky duck baby girl.

You got your two month shots yesterday afternoon, and I cried in the doctor's office longer than you did.  You got poked, and did a very loud scream, and I started to bawl.  By the time I picked you up and snuggled you, you had stopped crying, but it wasn't until after I had fed you, gotten you dressed, and back in your car seat that I finally stopped crying myself.  Later that night, though, was a different story.  You broke out in a fever, and cried hysterically for two hours straight.  It was no fun to watch you not feel well, knowing there wasn't anything I could do to take the pain away from you.  I snuggled with you all evening, hoping that maybe it would make you more comfortable and help you not feel alone.  When I am sick, I still want my mommy, so I wanted to be there for you. Just so you know, I will always be there for you, no matter what.

You are the most perfect little girl I could have ever asked for to be my daughter.  You have such a strong, sweet, and loving spirit.  Your personality is starting to show, and I can't wait to get to know you better this month.  I love you one billion percent, my sweet angel!

Love,
Mommy

Halloween...first holiday with a baby!

Honestly, I'm not the most festive person when it comes to Halloween.  I love the idea of being festive, but I'm just not.  I have no big traditions for the holiday, but I would love to adopt a few.  I love dressing up in costumes, but I hate trying to figure out what to be, and then getting the costume together--yeah right.  I especially love the idea of forcing convincing Logan to do a cutesy couple-y costume with me, but I'm too lazy to put in the effort.


Logan did get in a bit of the spirit and dressed as a Pharmacy Tech who is a dad...complete with Smith-Rexall scrubs and spit up all down his chest, courteous of our most favorite baby.  Woo, party with the Spences', I know.

I think it will become more fun as Sadie gets older and gets excited about more than milk and fresh diapers.  When I have someone to be festive for, I think it will be more exciting to decorate the whole house, figure out her costumes, and go trick or treating, so I have not given up on the holiday quite yet.

My parents bought Sadie this adorable costume in Disneyland.  I love Disney, I love my baby, and I love having my baby dressed up as a Disney character.

I always think she is cute, but I literally squealed, giggled, and squished her little cheeks about one million times after dressing her in this.  I mean, come on, isn't she the cutest little Tinkerbell you have EVER seen?

The costume even came with wings that velcro on and off, you know, for car seat purposes.

We trick or treated to Grandmas' houses, then went home to watch "Young Frankenstein," a movie I had forgotten was so funny.  

A pretty boring holiday, but dang we had one cutie patootie baby to dress up.  I just love her to pieces.

To My Sweet 1 Month Old Baby Girl

My Sweet Sadie,

One month ago I became your mommy.  This month has been seriously the fastest month of my life!!  Half of me feels like we've had you forever, and I can hardly remember what my life was like before you, but the other half of me feels like you were just born 10 minutes ago, and the thought that you are already a month old boggles my brains.

You are still the sweetest, most precious baby EVER.  You love to cuddle.  You love to be talked to.  You love being around people, and get lonely if you're in your bassinet or in a room by yourself.  You might have smiled your first smile yesterday, but I'm not sure.

You sometimes sleep 4-5 hours in a row at night, and I love that.  However, sometimes you sleep for only 2 hours in a row at night, and I don't so much love that.  You have had a few rough days this month with baby gas.  Sometimes you fart and scare yourself awake, and cry and cry and cry.  I'm not going to lie, your daddy and I laugh a little, but we snuggle you until you feel better so you don't think we're mean.

You are more awake now, and like to look around.  You love to wiggle your little legs and arms all over the place, like you're figuring out how to work your body.  You love your binky, but only if Daddy or I hold in in for you.  You love sitting up against our tummies and checking the place out.  You love getting passed around the family and getting snuggly loves from everyone.  You are so girly already and love getting primped and pampered--you love taking baths, getting your hair washed, and having your nails clipped.  You hate having your diaper changed, or having shirts pulled over your head.  You also hate being put down, which makes it hard for me to get things done around the house, but luckily you love your baby sling, so we do our chores together with you snuggled against my chest.  You  make so many little grunts and squeaks.  You snore when you sleep, but you sound like a little puppy.  It's basically the most adorable thing ever.

You already weigh 8 lbs. 2 oz. and are 22 inches long.  85% for height, 25% for weight--you are our tall and skinny girl.  No surprise there, your daddy is also very tall and skinny!

I am so excited that it is starting to get chilly, you have so many cute Fall and Halloween clothing, I love dressing you up every day.  You are my real life dolly.  I don't even really mind when you blow out your diaper or spit up all over yourself, because then I get to dress you up all over again!!

Thank you so much for choosing me as your mommy.  I'm learning, and you are patient, and for that I am grateful.  On a scale from 1 to 10, I love you one billion.

Love,
Mommy

The Day I Became "Mommy"

Do you see this face?

This is the most precious, beautiful, sweet face I have ever seen.

 My heart is so full of love for this little girl, and it has only been 16 days since I laid eyes on her.  I can't believe how lucky and blessed I am to be her mommy.

Last week was my due date, but I am so glad she decided to come a bit early.  She is so much more fun on the outside than in! 

Our little adventure to get that sweet little girl here started Friday, September 2, 2011.  I had been experiencing a few contractions here and there for a few days, but nothing to be really concerned about.  Logan and I had been telling our nephew, Braxton, that we would have him over for a sleepover sometime that summer before the baby was born.  All of the sudden, September was here, and we decided we BETTER have that sleepover quick, because we were hoping that by the next weekend I would be in the hospital delivering our sweet little girl.  That day I guess Braxtie wasn't feeling so well, and wanted to stay home from school, but his mommy told him if he did, he would miss the sleepover, so he sucked it up and went.  That evening when we picked him up, he seemed his normal, energetic, happy self.  Before we left, his parents gave him some cough syrup to help him sleep through the night without coughing, and we took off to our little apartment. 

While watching "Over the Hedge" and baking brownies, Braxton said he felt like he was getting "all hot like a fever."  We gave him a half a Tylenol, wrapped things up, and got him all set up on the couch.  Nighty Night, Braxtie...

I wasn't sleeping well anyway, between contractions and having to go to the bathroom every hour or so.  Around 3:30 a.m. Braxton started to whimper, and the cough, and then cry.  Logan and I went to go check on him, and we found him curled up in a ball coughing so dang hard, lips turning blue because he wasn't able to breathe in really well with out coughing it all back out, and crying that his throat and head were hurting really bad.  He was burning up with a fever, and just shaking.  We called his parents, told him we were bringing him back, and Logan wrapped him up in a blanket really tight while I gathered all his things.  We got him home, laid him back down to sleep, and Logan and his dad gave him a Priesthood Blessing to help him through the night.  We got home a little before 5, and I was too awake to get back to sleep.

Later that morning, Logan was playing tennis with his friend Wyatt.  We headed to the park, where I was set up to watch with my camping chair, reading book, water, etc.  I was talking to my mom on the phone while they were playing, when a pretty strong contraction hit.  Afterwards, I felt a gush...and started wondering if my water had broken.  I told my mom I had to go, called my sister in law Brynn to see if she thought maybe I might be going into labor, and then decided maybe we should go to the hospital just to make sure.  I called over the boys, and told them they had to cut their set short (and that I was sorry).

We headed over to the hospital, they hooked me up, and we waited an hour.  My contractions were picking up, and we started to get excited that maybe we could be meeting our little girl that weekend.  They checked my progress, and I had gone from a 2.5 to a 3, so they wanted me to walk to see if I could progress enough for them to keep me.  So we walked for an hour.  Labor and Delivery at my hospital isn't that big, we must have done about 4 million laps around that place, all while some teen mom going natural was pushing in Rm. 9, screaming her head off, and freaking me out.  At the end of my hour, I was checked again.  Almost to a 4, and definitely in early labor, but they didn't want to keep me yet, so they sent me home to labor, and told me to come back "when it hurt so bad I couldn't breathe well."  (yikes)

We went home to pack our bags...our little girl was coming within the next few days!!  I finally was tired enough to fall asleep (kind of) for a few hours, and then we headed up to visit my parents, and to be closer to the hospital, you know, just in case.  We walked around the neighborhood a LOT, and my contractions were coming every 2 minutes, and they were starting to hurt pretty bad, so we thought maybe we should head back to the hospital.  We went back to my parents' house, and as I sat on the couch to catch my breath, my contractions STOPPED.  Not spread out, not get less painful, FULL ON STOPPED.  I cried.  We went back home to get some rest, and hope that maybe we'd have to go back to the hospital sooner rather than later.

The next morning we got ready for church, went, taught our lesson in primary, and went back home.  Nothing.  No more contractions, and I was frustrated.  We decided to visit Logan's parents and walk laps around the park behind their house to see if maybe we could get things started up again.  3 miles later, I suddenly had the worst back pressure of my life.  I was hurting so bad it was hard to breathe...hooray!!  And off to the hospital we went.

They checked me again, but whoops, she felt a "hand" and went to go get an ultrasound machine to check the situation out.  The plan was to break my water, push the hand back behind the head, and I would deliver like normal.  However, once they checked me with the ultrasound, it was not our little girl's hand, but her FOOT.  We had thought she had been head down this whole time, but it turns out every time they checked my progress and felt her "head," it was actually her little bum.  Not only were her feet down, but her umbilical cord had also pooled up at the bottom of my uterus, which could be a bad sign--if my water were to break, the cord would be flushed out, followed by a foot, which would pinch her oxygen supply off.

My doctor came and checked me out too, and gave me my options of where to go from there.  He thought maybe we could do an external aversion, where they turn the baby around by pushing on her on the outside, or I could have a c-section that night and get her out, or we could wait a few days and see if she would flip on her own.  However, after seeing that I was already dialated to 4 centimeters, "waiting it out" was off the table, as was an external aversion, since the chances of my water breaking were too high, and I would have to be put under for a panicked emergency c-section.  My only option to make sure our baby got here safely was to go through with the c-section.  Out of all of this, I will never forget how kind and loving my doctor was towards Logan and me.  I remember asking him, "If I was your daughter, what would you have me do?"  He assured me that they would keep both me and my baby safe, and that this was for the best.  (To my sister in laws--thank you for sending me Dr. Liddle's way, he really is the best)

My whole pregnancy I was scared of getting an episiotomy, and here I was facing a much larger, much deeper cut through my abdomen.  I was terrified!!  I called my daddy, and had him come down to the hospital to help Logan give me a priesthood blessing.  Amidst all this, Logan filled his parents in on the plan, and they also came down to the hospital.  There were twins being delivered before me, so we had about an hour to chat and try to calm down. 

At 11:40 p.m., Sadie Marie came into this world.  Logan, who had previously said he did not want to watch her come out, stood up and looked over the blue curtain thing and watched them pull her out of me.  I remember looking up at his face, and he was in complete awe.  He was smiling from ear to ear when he first laid eyes on her.  After she was out, he did not leave her side until she was back with me in my room.  He was already so protective and watchful over her.

Welcoming our Sweet Sadie into the world

Our first family picture

Our hospital stay after that was a bit of a blur.  Visitors came in and out, nurses checked my vitals probably about a billion times, and I was in quite a bit of pain from the c-section.  But I could not get enough of my little girl.  I could not stop looking at her, holding her, kissing her, snuggling her, loving on her.

On Thursday, September 8, we brought our baby girl home.  She is the sweetest, most precious and perfect thing I have ever seen.  Logan and I are so in love with her we can hardly stand it.  I knew I would love my child, but I did not understand HOW MUCH I would love her.  It is like a glimpse into how God must feel about us--I think Sadie is so amazing, smart, beautiful, and full of so much wonderful potential--I know God feels this way about us too, only to a much larger extent that I can not comprehend.

I love being a mommy.  I love waking up to her sweet face.  I love doing all that I can to make sure she is comfortable and happy.  I love watching her daddy with her.  I am trying my best to soak in all of the moments, to snuggle her and try to remember everything I can, because I'm going to blink and she'll be all grown up.  But really, there's not much I can do about that, so I am enjoying every moment.

36 and 38 Weeks Baby Bump

I haven't been as dedicated at taking "Bump Pics" as I thought I would be. No real reason why...except laziness, and extreme pregnancy brain, where I forget EVERYTHING. I can't believe how much I stick out when I look at these. My body is stretch marked, sore, and exhausted from being pregnant, but I know this little girl will be totally worth it. I bet she's growing all cute in there. I'm almost done...I'm almost done...I'm almost done...

And then I start on Phase II, PARENTHOOD. Which I'm sure is going to be one heck of a ride!

36 Weeks
38 Weeks