Family Movie Night

Jennika loves to sit and watch all of her Disney movies... so far she has/loves Cinderella, Lion King, Tangled and Little Mermaid. She does so well being calm and watching them! It's a real lifesaver sometimes!

I thought this was a good sign that she would also love Frozen! I've been hearing great things about it so Thursday night we went to see it after dinner! We decided to stop off at Target first to pick up some candy to eat during the movie and let Jennika run around for a bit. We hoped it would help her wind down for the movie.

She was like a kid in a candy aisle!

We headed off to the movie with high hopes that Jennika would love the movie and sit through it with no problems. She did absolutely great for 20 whole minutes! Haha! After that she wanted to move! Luckily she was pretty quiet, so we didn't need to leave. But she was walking up and down the 4 stairs right by us and getting in and out of the empty chair by me; it was a little exhausting! She liked sitting on the [gross] stairs, so we spent a good portion of our time watching the movie from there. :) Overall, she held up like you would expect any 16 month old to during a movie. 

Dane and I loved the movie! It was really funny and the music was good. It's another movie that we decided we wouldn't mind having to watch 100 times in a row in the future for Jennika (when she realizes she actually LOVES it like us). It was a fun night and even though Jennika wasn't cooperating the whole time, it was still worth it to go!

Let Me In! Let Me In!

We got home from our hike in Zion and it was time for Jennika's bath. This girl LOVES bath time! She gets a little a lot impatient waiting for the water to warm up so she tries to find any way she can just to get in! Points for creativity!

New Year's Day Hike

Aaaaaaaand.... we're back! Here goes my goal of keeping up with our family blog a little bit better!

It's New Year's Day and it's Dane's last day off of work for Christmas vacation. He really wanted to do something fun today so we decided to see if we could find anyone to join us for a hike in Zion. Hiking usually isn't my favorite thing (and by that I mean - I loathe it), but I was up for it today because I knew how much Jennika would love it. Also because Dane deserves to have some fun every now and then! So off we went!

Dane's parents joined us (with their free admission passes, SCORE!) and so did Ryan and Anisa and their boys. We went and did a short hike to see the Emerald Pools. It was really cold since we were in the shade the whole time and the paved (thank goodness!) trail was covered in snow, ice and mud. We all slipped a few times, but it was still pretty fun! Jennika had fun eating her goldfish and getting pushed along in her stroller. What a life she has! The boys all love to try and make her smile and push her along. It's cute! She had a great time!

After that hike we went a little further into the canyon to try out another one. Everyone decided though that it was too cold so we didn't start it.  We headed to the Zion Lodge Gift Shop to check out their cool stuff and to get warm for a minute.

Then, we headed to Oscar's for some dinner with Ryan, Anisa and their boys. The food was super yummy (slash expensive)! We decided not to order a kid's meal for Jennika and instead just share our dinner with her. Her cousins shared their French Fries with her and she dipped them in our beans and scarfed them up! I'm telling you, she loves her black beans! I'm not sure how I feel about that!

It was a great day. I'm glad we got out to do something fun the last day of our vacation!

Happy New Year!

No More Pregnancy Posts... She's Here!!!

** This post was written the second week of September **

Can you believe that our baby girl is here!?

Jennika was born on Tuesday, August 28th at 8:38pm.
Weight: 6 lbs 3 oz
Height: 20 inches

She was 2 1/2 weeks early. We're still not to our official due date yet! So crazy! She came only 2 days after my 37 week pregnancy log post. We were a little completely surprised she came when she did.

The story:

I was scheduled for my weekly doctor appointment the morning of the 28th. We were excited to go and she how far I had progressed from the week before. I had been doing a lot of walking and exercising and was hoping it was all doing something. I hadn't been feeling any contractions, braxton hicks or anything like that... just felt normal.

I picked up Dane from his office and we went to our appointment as usual. Dr. Winward said that I had progressed from 50% effaced to 80% and was at 1+ cm dilated. She measured my belly and it has always measured a little bit on the small side. She wanted to do an ultrasound to make sure everything was ok with baby.

We had an ultrasound the week before to check on baby and her amniotic fluid level was at 8 amniotic fluid units... haha (I don't know how they are measured). Doc said that 8 is on the low side, but nothing to worry about yet. Well, our ultrasound this time showed that the amniotic fluid was barely at 5. Dr. Winward said that the placenta was pretty much done working for me and not replenishing fluid so she said it was time to meet our baby!! Whaaaat!

I said, "So I'll get induced sometime this week?"
She looked at poor, naive me and said "Oh honey! We're going to induce you today!"

She left to go call L&D and let them know I was coming. Dane and I stayed in the exam room and were in complete SHOCK! We did not expect to meet our baby so soon! It wasn't even September yet!

They told us L&D would call us in a couple of hours to let us know when to show up. I took Dane back to work so he could wrap up some stuff there and I went home and started frantically packing our bags. If I didn't have a list printed out of what to pack I wouldn't have been able to pack anything... I was a mess! So, 45 minutes after I get home I get a call from L&D and they tell me to be there within an hour. Things were going too fast! We were freaking out. But, we made it.

It was 10:45am when I got all changed into my hospital gown and got my IV in my hand. They started me on pitocin to get my contractions started. I was so nervous to feel a contraction. I was worried it was going to hurt super bad. The first hour or two wasn't bad at all. I could handle it and still talk and smile. My dad came to give me a blessing with Dane and my mom came and visited and hung out with us for a while. We watched a movie and chatted.

By 3ish that afternoon I decided I had had enough and wanted to get my epidural. The contractions still weren't too bad but I didn't want to wait around for them to get bad before I asked for it. And I didn't want to feel them check my progress down there again because that was SUPER painful. I hated that. Anyways... tmi. The nurse and anesthesiologist were great and made me feel really good about my decision. They were so helpful and fun. I was grateful I had such amazing people around.

The epidural was freaking HEAVEN!!!!!! I felt nothing. NOTHING. I was so happy haha!

They checked me every couple of hours and I was progressing about 1-2 cm each hour. At 8:10pm they checked me and I was fully dilated and ready to go! It was pretty surprising since I hadn't felt any contractions or pressure. But I was pumped! Dane and I were so excited that it was finally time! Dane had a smile on the whole time. It was pretty cute seeing him so excited. The nurse had me practice pushing once or twice and told me to STOP! Baby was coming too fast! So they hurried and called Dr. Winward. She got there at 8:30. Four pushes and 8 minutes later Jennika was here!

All Dane and I could say was that she was so beautiful and so perfect. We were instantly in love. Dane got to cut the cord and be with her while she got cleaned up. He brought her over to me and we cuddled her and loved on her for a while before we let family come in and see her. It was the best, most wonderful feeling in the whole world holding her and feeling like a family. There is no feeling I can compare it to, just complete peace and happiness.

We are so grateful that everything went so smoothly with my labor and delivery and that Jennika was born without any complications. We feel so blessed.

She is now two weeks old today and it has been so amazing having her in our home. We are more tired than ever! But there is also more love in our home than ever before.