For Ashley

Here is Lily's birth story: part of it you know since you were there:
It all started with my baby shower. I had always said once I had my baby shower that Lily could come. Little did I know she was going to take me seriously. My shower was on a thursday night and my sister came from northern california for it. My mother in law sister in law and some other family members came from bakersfield. It was fun and crazy and in the end I came home with tons of stuff, but no newborn or preemie clothes. (didn't think I needed them since both seth and i were eight pound babies)

The next morning I woke up and my contractions were different, I could tell these were real and they were steady. I called seth (who worked 30 minutes away) and told him I was heading to the hospital. At the hospital they told me she was in position and I was 70 percent thinned but not at all dilated. The nurse said that it could be 2 weeks or a couple of hours, but then we I left I heard her telling another nurse she thought she'd see me sooner than later.
At this point I had nothing ready in Lily's room. I had only gotten her car seat the day before and of course it wasn't installed because seth had the car and I had the truck. So I went home and washed all of Lily's clothes, bought newborn diapers, set up the diaper champ etc etc... contractions kept coming but they weren't very hard. Somehow I just knew she was coming.
I called seth and told him I thought i'd go into labor that night. He didn't believe me. I called my mom (who was on the way to a family reunion) and told her to turn around. She didn't believe me. That night I loaded the car seat into the car (since seth was tired and didn't believe me he just wanted to wait) I made sure I had everything ready and finally went to sleep around 10 with seth.(I'll leave out one part for the sake of all of you)
I woke up around 2:40 because I could feel stronger contractions. I planned on waiting them out on the couch, so I settled in and turned on the tv and waited. Within 5 minutes i felt my water start to break and ran to the bathroom where it continued to break. I ran to tell seth. It took me saying his name half a dozen times before he woke up which is weird because he is a light sleeper (he now says it was the best night of sleep he had ever gotten until I woke him up)
We got to the hospital at around 3:15. The night nurses were chatting away as I stumbled in with contractions only about 2 minutes apart. They didn't even offer help. They took forever to get me in my room and check me and when they did the nurse said "hun I don't think your water broke, you just peed yourself". I told her to go check my bathroom floor, it wasn't pee. She even checked my fluid before she would believe me. She was so rude. Then she told me I was only at a one and I wanted to kill her. So I labored for awhile and then asked for pain killers. They started me on IVs first, because apparently august 11th was a popular day to give birth. 5 other women were already in line before me for an epidural. Both IV meds they gave me made me vomit and shake vilently, but barely touched the pain. Finally around 6 in the morning I got my epidural and got to rest for awhile.
Then the epidural started wearing off on my left side. They added more but nothing helped. I was back in some pain but not as bad as before. I was dilating at a rate of 1 to 2 cms an hour.
I had a fever that kept increasing with time so I was put on an antibiotic through IV. Lily's heart rate kept racing with each contraction, so they put a monitor on her head. (in the end she had the cord wrapped around her neck 3 times... guess i shouldn't have boogy boarded the week before.. oops)
At 12:15 I started pushing. I remember we were watching the story about the miners being trapped in a mine in utah and they were waiting to talk to a spokesman about it. Someone stated that we would have Lily out before the miners were out or something on the sort. They were right but only because they never got those miners out.
My epidural ran out completely before lily was born 3 hours and 29 minutes later. She weighed 6 pound 5 ounces and was 18 and a half inches long.
She had a slight fever and I still had a high fever. So the nurses decided to check on us every hour through the night. That night was horrible. The Philippino Nazis (as they were nicknamed by the day nurses) told seth than if we didn't feed Lily every 1-2 hours she would be brain damage. So between that and getting checked on every hour we didn't sleep at all. Luckily they let us go the next night instead of keeping us for an extra day as was planned. We left healthy and happy the next afternoon.

This last week

A week ago monday Lily had her last bottle. I had put it off long enough so she went cold turkey. This means naps are rare and Lily goes to bed late, but she is eating better and alot happier. She only asked for a bottle a few times a day the first few days and then after a few days she wouldn't even get mad when i said no. I don't think she even asked for one today.

Saturday morning we had a flood; to be more exact we had a septic backup into our kitchen and bathroom. It was only water but still it was gross. This all happened after Lily went to bed at 11 the night before and then woke up at 7. Seth was in the shower and had to work that day and I had sewer water all over my house. We called the owner and he got a plumber over to the house by 10 and got the clog fixed (it was nothing we did, just big trees in the front yard that according to the owner block the pipes often). So I put Lily fighting and screaming in her crib and mopped up the water then got ready for a birthday party. She took a short nap and we went to the party. When I got home I mopped the floors with bleach and washed every item it touched.
Sunday night I left the fridge open all night. So i got to walk to walgreens the next morning and get milk and something for lunch for lily and I. The high was 100 that day. Fun times.
On Tuesday we went to the store and got Lily a swing. It was 8 at night and she was already tired, so she clung to that swing and screamed anytime anyone touched her because she was afraid we were going to take it from her. She even insisted upon holding it on her lap in the car. We got home and set it up and realied the ropes were so short that it is about 4 feet off the ground. She still loves it and asks for it first thing in the morning.
Luckily life has been decently uneventful since then. Its been hot, but this weekend the highs are only in the 80s. This is great because we have some friends coming to visit from california for the weekend.
Anyway here are some cute pics of my cute girl.

baby gliders

We got to hold them last night. We have one boy and one girl. I only took pictures of the girl because I didn't want to take them both out at once. They are so tiny and cute.

its twins!

No not me, but my sugar gliders! they came out of pouch on friday while mom was here. ( in the marsupial world this is their birthday) We only saw one baby for the first few days, but today I got to see both. I tried to take a picture of our new additions but Chubs is a good daddy and stood in my way. So here is a picture of my Chubs. I'm also adding a picture of our passion flower that is in bloom right now.

Easter

We had a great Easter weekend. It started with my mom coming on friday. Lily was so excited to see her granny that she sat hugged her and kissed her for 10 minutes straight. Friday night Mom and I went to the Mesa Pageant again. we got there an hour early and it took us a good 20 minutes to find 2 seats. It was so packed, but it was wonderful.
Saturday it rained all day. This was the first time in 52 days that we got rain, so that kind of messed with our ward easter egg hunt, but Lily still had a blast. She took it very seriously.
Sunday we went to church and then came home and hid eggs in the backyard. Lily loved this hunt even more. (she didn't have to fight with 40 other kids for eggs) She spent the rest of the day carrying around her basket, taking eggs out, placing them on the floor and then picking them back up and putting them back in the basket. She even insisted upon taking the basket with her to a friends house for dinner.
While at our "Easter dinner" (it was enchiladas)Lily got knocked down really hard by their very large American bulldog. She wouldn't stop crying for a good 20 minutes so we were really worried about her. She everntually calmed down and seemed fine for the rest of the night, until she got tired and cried hard again and then threw up. She will be ok, but we were really scared for awhile and of course we are watching her closely tonight. (btw no she did not hit her head so we aren't concerned about letting her sleep)It was a really scary experience and from now on the dog goes in the bedroom until he calms down when we are at their house.
Overall it was a really good weekend. here are some pictures of my cute girl in the easter dress from her granny.

beautiful spring

we have had the most wonderful weather since we moved here. Today the high is 75 and thats how most days have been since we got here. We have only had a handful of days over 80 and its already april! I am pleasantly suprised. I will have to take advantage of it now because I know the summer will be hot.
On another note I got two callings this week. I am now on the ward enrichment committee and the stake enrichment committee. I had meetings for both yesterday. I had to walk about a mile to my ward meeting and of course the stroller got a flat, so i was really late. To top it off yesterday was one of those days above 80 (it was 90), but the meeting went really well.
The stake meeting did not go as well. None of us knew eachother so we weren't very comfortable with talking to eachother. The event that was planned was also way too complicated and to tell you the truth if I weren't incharge of it I wouldn't go. Oh well I hope some people enjoy it and I will do my best to make it good. Now I better go and take Lily in our backyard while the weather is nice.

scorpians

I Hate scorpians.
When Seth and I were dating we discussed what pets we would have and I told him that I had 3 rules. Nothing that could kill my children- meaning nothing poisionous or so large it could eat them. No Trantulas and no Scorpians even if they are not posionous. I have been scoprian hunting and I am still very frightened of them. Anyway there is the background to this story...
It all began when I was sweeping my kitchen floor and I found a scorpian on the floor. Luckily Lily was sitting in her high chair so I was able to kill it without her as a distraction. That night Seth took a black light out in our backyard and found and killed 2 more scorpians but 2 more got away. Since then Seth has found at least 8 more in our yard and a couple of them got away. So now I am very paranoid. Anyone know a good way to get rid of them? this area is really bad for scorpians, so I will have to just be aware but not afraid, but I would love for them all to simply disapear. Maybe the new house (cross our fingers that we get it) doesn't have such a bad problem. wish us luck.

The mesa pageant

We had the chance to go to the mesa Easter pageant on Wednesday. I must admit that I didn't want to go. We had to miss Lost. I was worried about how lily would do that late, with that many people. I didn't allow her to take a nap that day in hopes that she would fall asleep there, but then it took me 20 minutes to find parking, so of course she fell asleep in the car. By the time i found Seth in the sea of chairs I was pretty certain this wasn't going to go well.
But then the show started and Lily LOVED it! She watched very intently and identified every animal on stage. I really enjoyed myself. She even said the crowd has gotten so big that they now set up almost the whole field with chairs. I heard someone say that they expect about 30 thousand people to come each night. Another cool side note is that the lady who wrote most of the songs was sitting right behind us. It was a really good spiritual experience to get us in the Easter spirit and I was really glad I was able to go.