Vacation in October... that's new!!

So we took a little vacation near the beginning of October. It is weird to go on a vacation in the middle of the school year... but now that the school year has absolutely no impact on us anymore (aside from my tutoring gig.. luckily we went during fall break and we didn't even plan to), we decided why not go in october! It was good because Jere had a couple slow weeks at work so they said it was a good time to peace out for a week.


We started the vacation out by driving down to Parowan UT to visit with my grandparents and stay with them for a night. They have become quite the gardeners and gave us plenty of produce to disperse to our family on the rest of our trip! Thanks!! It was so fun to visit with them and I feel like the older I get, the more meaningful our visits become. I love just chatting with them and it was so fun to see them with Nora. They are the greatest!

Then we continued our drive to sin city. Both my parents were raised in Las Vegas, so we have a lot of family we can visit down there. We stayed with Darren and Angie and the boys and we were able to see most of my family. (We missed Christy's family and Dave's family) We spent a day with Auntie Brenda who spoiled little miss Nora by getting her a couple new outfits and took us to lunch. Thanks so much it was a great day! Nora got to meet a lot of new people and I think she did pretty well.

From Vegas, we flew to Richland WA where my dad, brother, and sister all live. My dad's bday was the monday before we flew up so we decided to surprise my dad for his birthday. He had no idea we were coming... Surprise=success!! It was so fun to see all of my family. It was the first time Jerilyn and Zack had seen Nora. We hung around, chatted, and ate good food. On saturday the boys went golfing and the girls got pedicures. Sunday dad smoked some awesome ribs and we played games all day. So fun!!!

Waiting to leave the airport in Vegas

Nora and Dad were watching the BYU game on Saturday. 

Waiting at the airport in WA

The seat next to us was empty on the way back from WA so Nora took a little snooze on her own seat! 

 What's going on? 

Oh... now I'm happy! 

Monday we flew back to Vegas! Nora did so great on he plane going there and back. She just got a little fussy when she was hungry but other than that she did awesome!

The only pic we got of Nana and Grandpa with Nora...

My mom also moved to Vegas that weekend so monday we helped her unload the moving truck.

Nora, Grandma Amber, and Ollie dog

Then we drove home on Tuesday. It was a lot packed into one trip, but we had lots of fun and it was so good to see so much family...

Until our next vacation...

Getting Big!!

Nora turned 4 months old on October 22. Crazy how fast it has gone (I know...every mom says that!) She is such a doll and we love love love having her in our lives.

Her 4 month check up was yesterday (which means bruises today). She had to get 4 shots and one oral medicine. Poor thing! :( She has done pretty well though. Yay for baby Tylenol! She had the cutest little pink camo bandaids.

Her stats:

Weight: 13 lbs 8.5 oz (36th percentile)
Height: 25.15 inches (79th percentile)
Head: 16.25 inches (70th percentile)

The dr said she is growing perfectly and she is really healthy. We are so happy that she is doing well.

What she's up to:

Rolling over like a champ. She has rolling from her tummy to her back down like its nothing. She can go from her back to tummy, but this takes a bit more effort. She hasn't done it that much so I don't think she has quite figured out how to do it yet.

Slobber queen. This girl can drool! She always soaks her shirts!

She loves to grab toys and immediately stick them in her mouth. She chews on everything (including her thumbs... gasp)!! It's really fun to see her interacting with her toys more. She loves her musical monkey and her colorful ball. If she is really upset, we can push the button on the monkey and the music calms her down. The only downside is that the music only lasts for 5 seconds then you have to push the button again... so we have to sit and push the button over and over..

She is in size 0-6 month clothes.. haha. She can still fit in her 0-3 month clothes but also wears 3-6 month stuff too. I think I will mostly be putting her in the 3-6 mo stuff because her 0-3 stuff is summery.

She likes to giggle and smile. She smiles almost all the time when she sees us, but giggles take a bit more work on our part. She changes her mind everyday on what will make her giggle. One day it was me saying "hey" in a really low voice, or one day it was making kissy noises, or once when she was sitting on her daddy's tummy. So we have some videos that I sound really funny in, but it's worth it to hear her laugh!!

She still loves her bath. Now she likes to lay down in the water and kick around.

She is a pretty good sleeper. She will wake up once or twice in the middle of the night (unless something seems to be bothering her... like the other day). She does ok with her naps. I wish they would last a little longer so I could get some more done in the day (our apartment is constantly a mess).
She takes about 5 twenty minute naps. One of the might be 40 minutes if I'm lucky. Is it just me, or shouldn't a few of her naps be at least an hour?

She is such a joy! I couldn't imagine life without her! I also wanted to document some of the things we call her before I forget...

Punkin punkin (this is a recent one. I don't know where it came from... fall maybe?)
punkin girl
Nora bug
bug
bug-a-bug
cuddle bug
snuggle bug
snuggles
sweet pea
missy missy (I don't know why I always say things twice. Sometimes I go on with this one... I'll say missy like 5 times.)
little miss
So basically we call her anything but Nora... haha. Funny how that happens. Here are some pics of our little one. I have most of them on the nice camera and I'm too lazy to go through them right now so her are the snapshots.

I love waking up to that face!! 

Going for a walk on a chilly day. Her nose was a little red! 

Love the huge flower!!

Oh and i did this....

Two Months!

Nora just had her two month check up today. She is nine weeks old... time really flies and I know every mom says that, but it is so true!!

So her stats are:

Height: 23.25 inches --  85th percentile
Weight: 10 lbs 15.5 oz -- 44th percentile
Head: 15.25 in.  -- 69th percentile

She did so great with her shots.She had to get 3 shots and take some stuff orally.  It was so sad for me to see her cry, but she took 'em like a champ. She is definitely growing! She is so much fun to have around! Everyone just loves her!

Some fun things that Nora is doing now..

She is definitely smiling and cooing a lot. She will just lay on her blanket on the floor and tell me all sorts of stories! I have no clue what she is saying, but she is just blabbing away!

She loves to lay on her blanket and kick. Only when she is on her back though...

She is no longer a fan of tummy time... she will only be content there lifting her head for about 2 minutes then she starts screaming.. or she will:

Roll Over!!! It is so fun to see her roll from her tummy to her back. She has done it a few times, but now she seems to be camera shy because she won't let me get it on video. I will get it eventually though!

She LOVES the bath! She has a little mesh bath lounger chair that she absolutely loves to sit in. She always hangs her feet over the edge so she can kick in the water.

She doesn't like her crib nearly as much as her bassinet, but I think she is getting more used to it. She used to sleep "through the night" in her bassinet (she would wake up around 5:30 or 6), but once we moved her into her crib, she started waking up at 2 or 3 again and 5 or 6. But last night she didn't get up again until 5:15 so I think we are making progress. She seems to do better in it. Her naps are getting longer again too (closer to an hour than to 15 minutes). She is a good sleeper though, I can't complain too much! :)

She is liking her car seat better too. We had a little car seat liner in there when she was smaller, but the past little while she would cry whenever she was sitting in the car seat and the car wasn't moving. We would stop at a stop light and she would instantly cry. But we took that out of the car seat so she seems to be doing much better. She still won't stay in it for very long when she is not in the car though. She would much rather be held.

She loves to sit on our laps when we are eating. This is not super convenient, but she seems more content so we just go with it.

She is so stinking cute!!! I'm not very good at putting bows in her hair, but she is such a doll when I do. I don't know who she looks like. I think she looks more like Jeremy... What do you think?

We went my mom's a couple weeks ago and cleaned out one of her toy closets. Ollie watched over Nora while we were working. It was so cute. He just came up and laid right next to her. 

Love this face!!! 

First time in footie pajamas. She really liked them! 

She typically sleeps when she is in someone's arms

Nora with daddy and Uncle Matt. 

We have had a lot of visitors too. I will be doing a post on all our company soon! Thanks for reading!

Haley

Nora's Blessing

We blessed Nora on August 5th. It was a really nice day and she looked so cute.

Jeremy gave a really good blessing... i think. Nora cried through the whole thing ( the one thing I DIDN'T want to happen!). She did so great before and after the blessing, but I think she just didn't like being held out away from someone. She is such a cuddle bug!! I really wish we would have given her a paci. Dang it.. now I know for the next kiddo.  I felt really bad because I was so focused on Nora crying (praying that she would stop) that I forgot to listen to what Jeremy was saying! Half way through, I realized I wasn't listening to Jere to I tried to focus on him more than Nora's cries. I wish we would have had someone take notes or record it (I didn't even know that was allowed), but anyway, the part I heard was really beautiful. So here are some pics from Nora's big day...

Nora and I before church... She is so stinkin' cute!!! 

Janica and Cale came down for the blessing. I was so happy to have them here.

Grandma and Jake

Grandma Stevenson and Nora

Jeremy's sister, Katie. We were so glad that their little family could be here for the blessing and that we got to spend time with them for a couple weeks! 

Jeremy's mom painted a beautiful picture for Nora. It is currently hanging in her room and fits perfectly with our colors (Go Debbie!!) 

Grandpa Stevenson and Uncle Matt 

Here are some pics of our little family that Jere's sister, Katie took for us. Thanks Katie!!

She was blowing bubbles!

I'm pretty sure Nora slept the whole day besides when she was crying through the blessing. She slept through ALL of church. That's a first! :)

Well until next time... and we are still working on Nora's room. I have some killer ideas of what to do, but I am just a little slow at actually doing them. Haha. I want to post pics of it as soon as I get it done.

Peace!

Haley

Love our Little Nora

Being a mom is a lot busier than I ever imagined. It is so time consuming... so I have begun to neglect our house.... I should be cleaning it right now but I'm not. I feel like I constantly have Nora in my arms because she is such a cuddle bug. I love it though! We snuggle pretty much all day. My favorite is when she curls up on me and falls asleep on my chest. She just fits so perfectly in my arms!

So I just wanted to post a couple things that have been going on in our lives... mostly Nora.

My mom was here at the end of June to help us adjust to parenthood (ps there is a tv show called parenthood that I just finished watching and they named their daughter Nora on the show... I don't know why that bothered me but it did. I feel like I stole it from them even though I named my daughter Nora before I even watched it...anyways) It was so fun to have her here! She was so helpful especially with dishes!! I didn't wash one single dish for over a week! Awesome! We are going to go visit her next weekend so that will be fun to see her again.

This was her the first week. She was wearing a premie onesie! 

We also had Jeremy's Winter family reunion last week. It was really fun to be with his family. We had the Winter Summer olympic games and pioneer day while we were there! It was really great to just hang out with the gang. I think my favorite part was when pretty much the whole Stevenson clan was upstairs just sitting around on the bed chatting. It was so great!

Nora has been growing like a weed! I feel like she is so big but everyone keeps telling me how tiny she is. She is almost 6 weeks old and I just wanted to make note of a few funny things that she does.

She will not poo in a wet diaper... no, she will wait for you to change her wet diaper and then immediately poo in the nice clean diaper. She especially liked to do this when we used to swaddle her. She would wait until we got her all swaddled up and then poo... I'm pretty sure she did it on purpose. It was her own special game she was playing....

Nora used to hate taking a bath when she had to get sponge baths, but once she could lounge in her little chair in the tub she loves taking a bath. Last week, she was so relaxed in the tub that she poo'd... so we cleaned it all out, filled it back up, put her back in and within 5 minutes she poo'd again. The little stinker! But third time was the charm. We successfully gave her a bath.

She also likes to pull her hair. It is so sad when she does it because she just screams and screams but she won't let go because she can't realize that she is the one causing the pain. It is awful to try to get her to let go of her hair. The other day I had to put something in the oven really quick so I laid her down in her crib for less than 30 seconds and when I came back she was screaming and I could see the skin pulling away from her skull. It made me so sad!

My two favorite people

Proof that she cries!

She is such a cuddle bug! She loves to be held. It doesn't really matter who by. She just loves to be held close to someone.

Nora with Gma Stevenson

Nora is now in size 1 diapers. After a couple blowouts I called it quits on the newborn diapers. She can also wear 3 month onesies because she is so long, but she can only wear newborn shorts or skirts... she has a small bum I guess.

Also we bought her a crib! We found a great deal on KSL and we got a crib and mattress, changing table and mattress, diaper genie and boppy for a killer price. And they are so nice. The crib is made out of maple so it is a great wood. The only thing is that it is a drop side crib, but we contacted the manufacturers and they are sending us the conversion kit to fix that. I'll post pictures later when I finish the entire nursery. It is kinda crazy in there right now...

We also bought a camera from Jere's sister so we've had fun playing around with that! Thanks again Katie!!

Katie took this pic though... not us! And the next one..

So that is our little update. We are blessing Nora on Sunday and we are excited about that. I think Jere is a little nervous but I know he will do great. We just bought her an adorable blessing dress so she will look so cute... obviously :) !

Sorry this is crooked! But isn't she just so adorable!!!

Our Little Addition: Nora's Birth Novel

 I wanted to make sure to record my birth story novel. So here is goes:

I kept telling Jeremy that I wished my water would break so I would know for sure that we need to go to the hospital. Well my wish came true! So our story begins:

Once upon a time on a Thursday afternoon (about 2:30) I took a shower (I had been pretty slow going in the mornings since I didn’t have much else going on). When I was stepping out of the shower, I noticed that a small drop of something came out of my body... it was a clear substance. I wasn’t sure if I peed a little without realizing it (not too uncommon during my pregnancy haha ..sorry if that is an overshare) or if I was still dripping wet from taking a shower or if my water had broken. So I read somewhere that you should smell it. If it is amniotic fluid it will have a sweet smell. So I smelled it... but it didn’t really smell like anything. I also read that if your water has broken, then it will leak out more if you lay down because the baby’s head is not stopping the flow. So I got dressed (I now realize that I shouldn’t have done this) and laid down on our bed. Nothing happened so I went to get up to fix my hair and then it came. As I sat up a big gush came out and soaked my pants. Hmmm... time to call the doctor. I was trying not to freak out but I knew that my water was broken! I was still a week early and didn’t think she would be coming so soon. When I called the Dr. I had to leave a message for the nurses that sounded something like this “Um hi... I think my water is broken so if you could call me back as soon as possible that would be great.” I decided to pack the hospital bags while I waited for the nurse to return my call....40 minutes later she called and told me to go to the hospital right away. Jeremy was at work, so I called him and told him that he should come home because we need to go to the hospital ( I didn’t call him until now because I didn’t want to freak him out). 

            We got to the hospital about 3:45 and they had to do a couple tests to make sure that my water really had broken. These tests were one of the most painful parts of the whole labor... but not the most painful. I’m getting there. So turns out my water had in fact broken! I was going to have a baby!! So they got me hooked up to an iv. I am positive for a bacteria called Group B strep so I had to have penicillin go through my iv 3 times (This was the most painful part of the whole labor!!!!!) When the penicillin went into my arm it burned so so so so so bad!! I wanted to rip my arm off. I’m not trying to be dramatic but you can ask Jeremy about my reaction to the nasty stuff... I was balling so hard! Anyways... now that you all think I am a wuss let me continue on with my story....

            I didn’t ever go into labor on my own so at 5:30 I was started on Pitocin. By 7:30 I was really feeling the contractions and decided that I wanted to be done feeling them. At 8:00 I got my epidural. They gave me a local and then put in the epidural, but as the anesthesiologist turned around to grab the tape to tape it up, his finger caught the epidural tube and pulled it out! Ha! So he had to give me the epidural again. Good thing I didn’t look at the huge needle because I might not have wanted to get it again. He felt really bad but I wasn’t that worried since I was numb where the needle went in anyway. I also got a cathedar... I was nervous about this, but then I remembered I couldn’t feel anything anyway!

            9:15 I was almost a 4 and got another painful dose of penicillin... Yikes!

            11:15 almost a 6

            1:30 am. I was fully dilated. So they called the doctor and I was ready for her to come. I got another painful dose of penicillin (the epidural did nothing for the pain in my arm, dang it!) I also got a fever at this point. I was also shaking uncontrollably from labor and then I threw up to top it all off! Plus I hadn’t eaten anything since noon so I didn’t really have much to throw up so it was kind of painful too. They put me on oxygen because of... I don’t know why, but they did. I was also really thirsty. All I wanted was to down a thing of water but the nurse told me that it would make me more sick so I voted against it.

            1:40 am. The baby’s heart rate dropped. The nurse kept moving me from side to side to back to try to bring the heart rate back up. I could tell she was trying not to freak out, but she was a little nervous. She had the nurses call the dr and told her to get there stat (which I know means right now! From watching Grey’s anatomy). So I was getting really worried that the heart rate wouldn’t come back up and I would have to have an emergency c-section. Luckily, the nurse was able to find a position that the baby was happy with and the heart rate came back up to normal after just a few minutes.

            2:00 The nurse told me that the dr wanted me to “rest and descend”. She said they wanted the baby to work her way down on her own for a bit before I started pushing. I thought that this would be like a 15-20 minute process... well an hour later...

            The nurse came back in to take my temp. It was up to 102.5! They were worried about what was causing the fever but it was about time to push.

            3:15 am. We were about to start pushing. The nurse wiped me down and I felt it! I panicked for a second... I was worried that since I felt that I would feel EVERTHING when I was pushing. I was worried that my epidural wore off. But I just pushed the button again and hoped that it would work quickly! I started pushing and pushed for about 6 or 7 contractions (pushing is tough work, I tell you) and then the nurse said that we weren’t going to push anymore and we were just going to wait for the doctor to come in. It was like 3:30 at this point and baby girl’s head was out a good few inches. As I had contractions I could feel her wiggle and push even further out on her own. She was ready to come!!

            The dr. had 2 patients that had their water break within an hour of each other so we were racing to see who would deliver first. The other girl went first... hence why I had to wait for the doctor to come. She was busy stitching up the other girl! Crazy right! What are the odds!

            3:42 am. The doctor comes in and I push through one more contraction.

            3:43 am. Baby girl is born!!!

Nora Lynn Stevenson was 6 lb 9 oz and was 19 inches long.  She was perfect!! They cleaned her up and handed her to Jeremy while the doctor stitched me up. I only tore a little bit and I had one stitch that was wrapped around a couple times. Overall, it was a good experience... despite my long post and nit-pickiness about the details. I really couldn’t have imagined it going any better (ok I could have done without the penicillin, but still)!

            Recovery wasn’t that bad except I was EXHAUSTED!!! I also had to keep my IV in until Saturday at noon because I had to be on antibiotics from the fever. Which was quite obnoxious. My first iv, in my wrist, started leaking, so the nurses decided that I needed a new one at 1:30 in the morning on Saturday so I’m running on like zero sleep at this point. They chose the veins in my hands. I’m pretty sure the nurse sticking me hadn’t ever done an iv, ever! She stuck the first vein and dug around for a while with no luck, the vein collapsed. It hurt so bad and I was so exhausted that I just started crying again! She says “wow, I’ve never made anyone cry doing an iv before”. Well I’m glad I could be her first!! Gee! So the nurses left me alone for a couple hours and came back to try again... She stuck another vein in my left hand... no luck. It also collapsed. Finally on the third try, they were able to get a vein in my right hand. So my hands were a little tender.

            In between all of these glorious visits (I know they were just doing their job and I’m not mad at them), I had to feed Nora. So I felt like I got absolutely no sleep. Then the nurses came back at 5 because I needed to get my blood drawn... of course! So the same nurse decided that she still liked the veins in my hands better than the veins in my arms so she stuck me in the same vein in my left hand... and dug around for a while again. And guess what! Yep. It collapsed again! She decided she was sick of failing so she got another nurse to come draw my blood. The other girl came in stuck my arm in two seconds and was done. It was fabulous. (Side note: I am not afraid of needles. Never really have been. I am actually quite tough when it comes to needles. I have had to get my blood drawn every hour for 4 hours and didn’t have a problem with it. I just don’t particularly love to be mistaken for a pin cushion especially when running on no sleep).

            But recovery wasn’t that bad other than this one incident. I healed pretty quickly and was up walking around on Friday night. I think overall the whole delivery went great! (I know I have focused on the 2 bad things that happened)

            Nora is perfect! We love her so much! She had a couple rough nights when we first got home, but we are working on getting her to sleep at night and not so much during the day. She is a breast feeding champ! I’m not so much, but she does great! I’m a little sore, but it is getting better. She weighed 6 lbs when we left the hospital but at her dr. appointment on Tuesday, June 26, she was back up to 6 lb 6 oz. The dr said she is doing great! She is really healthy.

We love our little peanut! She is so fun!! So here are some pictures! 

She makes some of the funniest faces!

my friend Hilary Briscoe took these newborn pics for us (the rest of the pics are from her).She did such a great job! Thanks Hilary!   

This girl loves her paci!!

Nora's signature hat! I made this for her and all the nurses couldn't stop talking about it. Nora was the talk of the hospital! When I got a new nurse, she said how cute the hat was. When she found out I made it, she said that she heard about the hat from other nurses but didn't know it was me that made it. Ha ha... I just watched You tube and did what a lady was doing... it wasn't that hard! 

So there you have it. Thanks for reading if you stuck around this long. Sorry it was such a long post, I just wanted to make sure I got it all down! Until next time!