Harper's Blessing

Since the majority of my siblings were home for Christmas, we thought it would be the best time to bless Harper. Evan gave the sweetest blessing and you could really feel the spirit. I love that we are able to share such a special experience with my family, and that we were able to have everyone together.  It was a spur of the moment decision to have her blessing in California, so we didn't even have a blessing dress. Going through my mom's hop chest we founda dress  that was made by my aunt Jean. My mom wore that dress for her baptism when she was a baby (she was baptized Lutheran), so it was special that she could wear a dress worn by my mom and made by my aunt who she's named after.

Christmas 2013

This Christmas season was full of lots of activities. We started out the season hiking our usual spot to find the perfect tree to cut down. This has turned into one of my favorite traditions. We might not always have the fullest/straightest/prettiest trees, but I love them. Evan and I both agree that this years tree is the best so far. We bundled up the girls, gathered a few friends and hit the snow. It was so much fun to tromp around and be outdoors. 

Our second family tradition is to go see the lights at Temple Square. Lucy loves anything to do with lights so this was probably her favorite. It was a bitter cold Sunday night. The temple was so beautiful in the foreground of all the lights. I am always in awe seeing how much work goes into lighting up all the trees. 

Christmas this year was in California. I loved that I packed all sandals and Evan wore shorts! The weather was perfect to spend some time outdoors. We kept ourselves busy by going to the beach and the SD Wild Animal Park. My sister had an open house for her wedding that took place a few months ago as well. 

Christmas morning my family always has a big breakfast then we do gifts. We spent most of the day relaxing and playing with everyone. All my siblings but one and his family were home this year so it was a lot of fun to all be in the same house. Lucy understood this year how to open presents so she opened everyone's while we were eating!

Life with two

It's been 4 weeks since Harper was born. So much has changed. Each days gets a little better and Lucy and I are still adjusting. The first week my mom was in town to help, which was. Huge blessing and so much fun to have my mom to hang out with. The second week I think was the hardest. I was still recovering and really stressed/ nervous to have two babies by myself during the day. Work was really busy for Evan so he had to put in a few extra hours each night at the office. 

Week three was a little better; other than Lucy threw her first tantrum. Like, on the floor kicking and screaming. She pounded her fists and kicked the wall for a good half hour. She still cries for no reason sometimes but nothing like that day. 

Week four I feel like I am getting the hang of things. It did help that Evan was off work for four days over thanksgiving weekend. Lucy is back on her schedule and Harper is sleeping better not being held. I can usually get them to nap at least one nap together a day which gives me time to fold laundry or do dishes. 

I love seeing Lucy with Harper. I know she loves her little sister. I think I say be gentle or be soft all day long; Lu just wants to hold her or poke at her all day. Lucy has started walking (while holding on to things) so Harper gets rides in her rock and play a lot!

Harper Jean

Since we have been asked a few times, here's the story of Harper's name:

Lucy is named after three grandmas (my paternal grandma, my maternal great-grandma, and Evan's maternal great-grandma). Lucy's middle name is my middle name- Nichole. We like the idea of family names, but couldn't find one that we felt right about. So, after a few months of thinking, I heard the name Harper somewhere. I told Evan and we started calling the little one Harper that day. It just felt right. We already had a middle name picked out (Jean after my mom's middle name and my great-aunts first name). We liked Harper because we were able to name her after both grandmas. Evan's mom is a professional harpist so we were able to name her in honor of her grandma Pack by using her beautiful talent. We love the idea that our girls are named after special people in our lives and their ancestors. 

Harper's birth story:

At 12:30 am on the 4th I woke up with awful stomach craps. I tried to go back to sleep but every couple of minutes I was rolled up in a ball (I now know they were contractions). I went out to the couch so I didn't wake Evan up and watched TV for about an hour. I took a bath to ease the pain and drank a ton of water hoping it would stop and I could sleep. After a while, I decided to start timing these "cramps". I was in pain for about a minute and a half every three minutes for 5 hours before I woke Evan up and told him that I think we should go get things checked out. He quickly jumped out of bed ready to go, but I hadn't packed a thing and really wanted to shower. So I showered and packed while Evan sat nervously kindly trying to get me to hurry. I pack a few things for Lucy for the day in case I wasn't coming home. Evan woke my sister up and have her the monitor and asked if she could watch Lucy until we found a sitter.

We arrived at the hospital around 6:30 am and they monitored me for about an hour. I progressed enough to be admitted. That's when things got real for me. Even though I was past my due date, I didn't expect to meet this little girl for a few more days. We moved from triage to the labor room and sat for a while. I was added to the list for the anesthesiologist. That was a slice of heaven! 

My OB was on call at the hospital all weekend so we missed him by half an hour (he was off at 6am) so I had the new on call doctor. I don't think we could have been luckier.  If I could have asked for a second choice doctor, it would be him. 

Dr Haskett came in around 2 pm and broke my water and contractions stopped. Like no movement on the screen. So the started pitocin around 3 and they picked up pretty quick. At 4:30 I was ready to push. I pushed for about 15 minutes and a nurse came in telling the doctor that he had an emergency in the next room. He left for a second, came back and told me to stop pushing! WHAT? He had to leave for an emergency c-section. He was gone for about a half an hour and I sat waiting. And waiting. And waiting. When he came back, three more pushes and Harper was born at 5:38 weighing 7 lb 6 oz and was 19 inches long. She had the cord wrapped around her neck a few times but the doctor said it wasn't really tight so her breathing was ok. We feel so blessed to have a safe and semi-easy labor.  She is healthy and perfect. 

She's One!

Weight- 

Height- 

Diaper Size- 3

Clothes Size- 9 months

I can't believe my baby is one. It's been a crazy year of figuring out this whole parenting thing. Lucy is the sweetest little girl I have ever know. She is kind hearted, sassy, tender, sweet, spunky, and so fun to be around. I'm so glad that I get to be her mom and to watch her grow up. I feel like she grew up overnight. She is one fast little crawler. She has shown no interest in walking, but can out crawl anyone. Lu has started standing and climbing. She also thinks its a fun game to laugh at us when we tell her "no". 

Painting

Since moving in our house I have painted three rooms. The first room I did was Lucy's. I added horizontal stripes to three walls and an accent wall of glitter paint behind her crib. 

The next room I pained was the guest room. This room was last on my list, but my baby sister asked to move in with us for a few months so I added a chevron wall behind the bed. I thought about doing it in a different color, but stuck with the gray family and used left over paint from Lucy's room. After a few precious nap hours of taping, I spent another nap time painting. It was a long project, but I think it's cute. 

The third room I painted was the new nursery. Evan said he wanted to add color to our gray/black/white house, so I went with pink!  I have fabric picked out for the bedding, so I matched the pink to one of the fabrics. I could decide on a design for a while because I didn't want classic flowers. I went with almost the same modern rose pattern that is one of the fabrics. This room has sat basically untouched for the last week. Hopefully I find some motivation or the whole nesting think kicks in soon because baby bean is coming soon...

One Year Photos

Over the weekend, we had Lucy's one year pictures taken. Since the baby can come any day now, we thought we would do them before she's here. She was so cute and hamed it up for the camera. Here are a few that I grabbed off of the cd. I'm going to print off a few this week to add to her 6 month pictures we have around the house.