PAUSE V

Today I paused and grabbed a photo of Evelyn on the couch. I want to remember how extra smiley she is when she first wakes up and how calm she stays when Weston is yelling normal conversation at the top of his lungs (sorry downstairs neighbors).  

PAUSE IV

We are just coming out of the winter months here in Rexburg and our whole family is itching to get outside. This last winter we spent A LOT of time inside. Something about being huge pregnant and getting a toddler bundled up to waddle around the front yard in 15 degree weather just didn't seem SUPER fun. But guess what, that cute baby was born and the snow has melted! I hope we can fill our Spring days with more walks to the park, playing in the backyard and chalking on the sidewalk.

PAUSE III

Thank you to whoever invented play dough. It is one of the few things that will hold the attention of my toddler. And we all know how valuable that is. When we play with play dough Wes asks/demands that I make him a "man-may" (aka, a snowman) a thousand times, just so he can take it apart and smash it. I'll happily make man mays in exchange for 15 minutes of (general) stillness at the table.

PAUSE II

Odds are this photo means nothing to you, but it reminds me of how lucky I am. One sandwich for our growing todddler who is eating ALL THE TIME. One sandwich for Chris, who gets to come home for lunch most days because his work is less than a mile away from home. And one sandwich for me. It also reminds me of how much I prefer simplicity in my day. Can you beat the easiness of a PB&J?

New Series: PAUSE

My sister has inspired me to pick up my camera again. So here I am. My day is heavily influenced by my toddler and baby so I thought I would let this series reflect that. I've titled the series "PAUSE" because I hope to stop and capture moments that I would normally look over. (Isn't that kind of the point of photography?) I took this first photo earlier today. You would think that I staged it. NOPE. My living room literally looks like I live with an army of toddlers, even though there is only one. It's amazing how little effort it takes for him to do this. Impressive in a way. So many pieces of this photo makes me laugh and cringe. I cut a little hole in that orange balloon A LONG time ago and it's taking forever to deflate but I can't get myself to throw it away because Weston loves the thing. I find colored popsicle sticks everywhere. In the tv stand cabinet, between book pages and in the couch. Evelyn's outfit is on the floor which makes me wonder what she was wearing when I was taking the photo.... Oh and the (not empty) smashed yogurt covered raisin box. That's great.      

"If you are still in the process of raising children, be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly clean surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled will disappear all too soon and that you will - to your surprise - miss them profoundly."

- Thomas S. Monson -

I hope this project will help me appreciate, laugh at and cope with my day to day.

Did you pause today?

Evelyn's Arrival

DECEMBER 29th, 2015

5:00am - I woke up with some Braxton hicks and wasn't able to go back to sleep. They were strong enough where I had to stand and walk through them. They weren't painful, just uncomfortable. 

I continued to have BH all day long. 1-2 every hour. They didn't seem to get stronger or even increase so I didn't think too much of it. (We were two weeks out from her due date)

5:30pm - We went to Costa Vida for dinner. At one point I left the table mid conversation to sway through a contraction in the bathroom. I had another as we were leaving, still nothing too painful, but they were getting a little closer.

Afterwards we went to Walmart and grabbed some last minute things, ya know,in case baby girl came that weekend or something...haha

7:00pm - The doula we were planning on going with gave us the assignment to pre register at the hospital before our next meeting so we did that before heading home. 

We did our normal bedtime routine. I took a bath to see if the BH would go away, they didn't. We finished packing our hospital bags and watched some Office episodes.

10:30pm - When we got into bed my BH started wrapping around my back and getting more intense. I was worried the contractions were going to keep me up all night and I wouldn't have enough energy for the next day with Weston so I asked Chris for a blessing of comfort. See how I still wasn't convinced I was in LABOR?! 

11:00pm - I walked back and forth through our kitchen and living room. I told Chris we might need to call someone to watch Wes tonight just in case I was in labor. The third family we called answered and so kindly agreed to let Wes spend the night last minute. They saved our booties. 

DECEMBER 30th, 2015

12:30am - I was (very) vocal at this point and contractions were about 4 1/2 minutes apart. I realized that they progressively got closer while I walked so I knelt on the ground and let my upper body lay on the couch..... Because I thought that would slow labor to a stop and I could get back into bed and go to sleep.  I stayed in that position for about 10-15 minutes and had to stand up. Chris asked if he needed to call the doula (we were pretty late in the doula game and had only had one consutation with her) but I couldn't think about anything so the question was just left unanswered...

12:50am - Chris left to drop Wes off. 

During the 10-15 minutes Chris was gone my contractions went from 4 1/2 minutes apart to 1 1/2. I started to semi panick that I would have a car baby. I drug(literally) our hospital bags to the garage door so right when Chris walked in we could leave. 

1:00am - We were on the road to the hospital! When we got into the car I could hardly speak through the contractions but I said to Chris "no lights" trying to communicate that I wanted him to not stop for any red lights.... I should have said something like "no stop" because Chris took me very literal and avoided all the stop lights to get us to the hospital, haha. Luckily Rexburg is tiny and it was the middle of the night so we still made it there quickly.

When we pulled up I had one contraction between the car door and the hospital doors. 

Aka: we stood in the -10 degree night air for a minute while I screamed through a contraction. 

1:20ish - The first question we were asked was "Are you wanting an epidural?" I said a confident " YES." With Weston's birth I didn't plan on getting an epidural, but I did. The break was REALLY nice but I didn't like how I felt overall. So for Evelyn's birth I had the no epidural goal again, but the break from contractions was sounding really nice. 

The nurse checked me and announced I was at a 7. She said by the time the epidural kicked in we would already have a baby. So it looked like I was getting the labor I wanted whether I wanted it or not, haha. I was in the strangest haze/mindset. Even though the contractions were extremely strong(the nurse told me to stop yelling at one point) and I was obviously in labor, I still thought in the back of my mind that the labor would slow down enough for us to be sent back home. I was delirious. Clearly.

Since we were the only ones there that night we had four nurses all to ourselves. They were AMAZING. After they got the IV all hooked up they helped me labor on the ground in the shower with the yoga ball, it might sound strange but it helped a great deal. The night called on a lot of involvement from Chris and he was the bomb. He stayed calm and did what I needed. He was even nice to me when I was bratty and in pain. The man has patience. I love him.

2:20ish - Chris and the nurses helped me back in bed, Dr. Codd arrived and it was time to push.

2:52am - Evelyn was born. 5 pounds 7 ounces. Our itty bitty baby was here!

I'm so glad we had the experience we did. I'm also glad we got there too late for the epidural, the recovery was much more forgiving this time around.  

A card from Grandma Meik

Painting by Joyce Meik

The other day while I was dejunking.... okay in reality I was just rearranging all my junk (please tell me I'm not the only one who has such a hard time throwing things away) I found a Valentine's Day card. It was from my Grandma Meik. Growing up I was always able to count on getting a homemade card from my Grandma on holidays. The cards were only officially from her on birthdays, but I always knew where the others were coming from. Example: The St. Patrick's Day cards were always from a leprechaun.... yet the return address was the same town as my Grandma's.....fishy.

When I opened the Valentine's Day card inside it said "from ?" That's when I remembered the moment I opened the card for the first time. I was a freshman in college living in a cold, new place. It was 2010. Opening the card and seeing a two dollar bill(something she always included in her cards) provoked some major crying. It wasn't that I needed just two more dollars at the time, it was because her consistency and love made me feel at home when I was far from it. I like how she tried to add some mystery to my 18 year old Valentine's Day by signing the card with a question mark.

I love the example my Grandma set in thinking of others. In her dining room, next to her calendar, she had a list of all the family birthdays happening in the current month. She was excellent at sending birthday cards. Another way she would show her thoughtfulness is through saving newspaper clippings/ magazine articles she thought you would be interested in. When I declared myself an Art History major and word got to Grandma I was sent a newspaper clipping about a local art historian in her area within a month. I can't remember what the article was about but I remember feeling loved and thought of. When my family would visit her when I was even younger she would sometimes have a magazine clipping of a perfume sample to give to me and Randee. I thought it was so fancy. Womanly-smelling piece of paper. She knew how to make people feel special.

I'm grateful to have had such a great Grandma in my life. 

And I'm grateful for my pack rat behaviors. If they were not part of me I probably would not have fallen upon a card with a question mark in it and been reminded of my Grandma's love that day.

Saving things can be a good thing.

Please don't quote me on that when you are on hoarders.

..... and please don't throw that in my face when I'm on hoarders.

A moody kitchen

This week our toilet stopped working. Then our shower. Then our kitchen sink. 

It was great. Woof.

To remember the humble beginnings of 2014 I took some moody B&W photos of our dysfunctional kitchen. For everyone's sake I won't take moody photos of the bathroom. I hope that someday I will look at these photos and laugh at "the time I was 33 weeks pregnant and our toilet stopped working so Chris had to drive me to the grocery store just to use the bathroom."

My Christmas Party Fortune

The other night we went to our church Christmas Dinner Party. 

Tamales, Chinese food, jello pudding, potato salad and desserts were served. I can honestly say I've never had mashed potatoes in the same serving as a tamale. It wasn't too bad. I finished off my dinner with my fortune cookie. I wish every meal was finished with a fortune cookie. A yummy little cookie and some words to leave you thinking for the next few minutes/hours/days. Sounds perfect to me.

I really appreciated this fortune.
The time is always right to do what is right.

Whether we are alone or in a large group of people, whether it's night or day, whether we are young or old... it's always correct to do what is right. It may be kind of a stretch but this fortune reminded me of Dallin H. Oaks' talk "Good, Better, Best." In the talk he says, "Consider how we use our time in the choices we make in viewing television, playing video games, surfing the Internet, or reading books or magazines. Of course it is good to view wholesome entertainment or to obtain interesting information. But not everything of that sort is worth the portion of our life we give to obtain it. Some things are better, and others are best. When the Lord told us to seek learning, He said, “Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom” (D&C 88:118)

I like the simplicity of the fortune, to do what is right, but I feel like we can push ourselves even farther and do what is best. 

You can read the rest of "Good, Better, Best" HERE.

Happy Monday

An old photo

This photo always cracks me up. The woman in the back, on the far right, is my Great-Grandma.
I wonder if the photographer snuck up on the women and snapped the photo as they were coming around the corner. Or if they were all ready to take a photo and then the photographer said something shocking to get the reaction. Who knows, I just like it. 

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend was spent camping with friends.

The weekend reminded me to love where I live and to take advantage of it more. 

I'm so excited to return to this location as the leaves continue to change. 

Fall is coming!