More McKenna

So, I don't know if I'll ever be able to post about anything else now except McKenna. She pretty much runs our lives! My recovery is going well so far. I'm feeling a little bit stronger everyday. My mom has been a WONDERFUL help! Dan's also been able to take quite a bit of time off of work as well. It's so nice to make this transition together. We've also had many wonderful meals brought to us by ward members and so many awesome visitors!

Here are some highlights of the past week and a half with our new little one.

This is her first sink bath after her cord fell off. This is definitely a two-man job! Dan holds her while I scrub. She has peed and spit up every single bath... Nice work girlie! She actually quite enjoys getting her hair washed too. Daddy loves holding his girl.

Nice cross eyes (on the baby)

Who doesn't love this face?!?! Snuggles with mom
Grandma holding McKenna and look what she found all by herself...
To help me feel a little more energetic we took a walk around the Bountiful temple. One lap took 20 minutes! Like I said- I'm healing slowly but surely.

Both Dan and I have been pooped on.

We're even getting in the holiday spirit with our cute little pumpkin!

Grandma Kelly! SOOOOO helpful! What am I going to do when she has to leave?
Another sweet face!

She's here!!

After my last post I feel a little silly. I posted my frustration on Saturday- we had her on Sunday!! Here's a brief overview of the labor and delivery.

Sunday October 19th

6am-10am- I was having contractions that went from being 10 minutes apart to 5 minutes apart. In that time we were pretty sure this was it so we managed to eat breakfast, shower, and watch Music and the Spoken Word. All the while my contractions were getting closer together and more intense.

10:45am- We got to the hospital

11:15- They checked me and I was 3cm dialated and about 80-90%effaced (progress from Friday's check up!). We went for a few laps around the floor to see if we could help things progress so they wouldn't send us home. (At this point, I still don't have pain relief)

12:15- They check me again and I'm about the same. Maybe 3+cm. They decide since I'm was in a lot of pain they'll keep me another hour (with NO pain meds yet) to see if I'll keep progressing. In the mean time, we have called my Doctor, who is Dan's uncle. Bless that man!!

12:40-My doctor had called to speak to our nurse and told her to admit us, get me my epidural, and he was going to come in and break my water.

1:20- PAIN RELIEF!! I love epidurals!

1:40- I was now dialated to 4cm

2:00- Doctor came in to break my water (huge gush!) and put in internal monitors for the baby's heart and for my contractions. At this point, it was awesome to see the waves of contractions come and go and I didn't feel a thing!

4:00- I was dialted to 8cm. Keep in mind I haven't had any patocin to help speed things up. This progress is all on my own. :)

5:00- I was "complete" and ready to start pushing!

McKenna decided she wanted to be a little difficult and was face up (but still head down). So the doctor gave me an extra boost of the epidural, brought out the forceps, turned her, gave me a little episiotomy, and by 5:53pm she was OUT!! Pretty incredible! The whole thing took less than 12 hours. I'd do it all over again if I had to. But of course with an epidural!

Here are some shots of the day (taken with our NEW camera).

Getting ready to leave for the hospital. 40 weeks and 4 days.

There she is- long neck and all!

She weighed 7 lbs 11 oz, measuring 20.5 oz.What are you looking at?
She hated this part.Footprints in the nursery
Holding daddy's hand right before her hospital bath. First bath
She loved getting her hair brushed! (sorry, the picture won't stay rotated the right way)
All clean! Family photo!
Her close up. Isn't she gorgeous?!?! I'm her mom- I can say that!
Beautiful flowers from visitors
On our way home in her HUGE car seat.
There you have it! We'll post more later about all the wonderful visitors we have had.

Over-cooked

Hello all! We just wanted to give a quick update- No baby yet. :( She must have decided to settle in for the winter... Anyway, I had an appointment yesterday when I was 40 weeks and 2 days. I'm still 80-90% effaced and only about 1cm+ dialated (same as the week before). My (awesome) doctor informed me that the hospital has a rule where they won't even think about inducing first time moms until they are at least a full week overdue. (SIGH) So I have an induction date set up for next Thursday the 23rd! That still seems so far away! And I know it's better to wait and see if she'll come on her own- so I'll try my best to be patient.

The good news is, because she's coming late, we've had plenty of time to get/feel "ready". We've cleaned a bunch and bought pretty much all the essentials. Including this new CAMERA!! Yea! No more cell phone pictures! I got my hair trimmed and even had my visiting teachers come over for the month. We're pretty much just twiddling our thumbs now... We'll keep you posted.

P.S.- The discomforts of being 9 months pregnant are of course difficult. BUT- I'm trying to enjoy these last few days DAN and I have together- JUST US! He's so sweet to me and takes wonderful care of my aches and pains. He's even taken me for some long walks to try to get things moving along... He may be more anxious than I am at times. I love you DAN!

Baby Shower

Week 39! Ready (kind of) and waiting...

The last Saturday in September, the Webster/Nelson side of the family were so kind to throw a baby shower for our little girl. Special thanks to Dan's mom, sisters, and sister-in-law for putting it all together. It was BEAUTIFUL! The company was wonderful, food was delicious, favors and decor were quite pleasing to the taste buds and eyes, the games were so fun and entertaining, and of course the gifts were VERY generous! We truly felt "showered" with love! Our baby girl will certainly be well taken care of!

My dear friend Mary Delmege was kind enough to document the happy occasion! I thought I could load the pictures on here but something's not working right. So here's a link to the pictures. Her captions pretty well explain the events. Thanks Mare!

I have also had baby showers thrown by my co-workers and my ward. Once again, people are SO thoughtful and generous! Unfortunately no pictures taken. Out of all the wonderful gifts we've received and things that we've bought on our own, we only have a few larger items left to buy. I'm feeling MUCH more prepared now and kind of hope she comes ANY day! I just finished my parent-teacher conferences at school and am making great progress on getting my maternity leave substitute plans ready. Now it's also time for the THANK YOU NOTES!

Our church had it's Semi-anual General Conference this past weekend. We got to hear so many wonderful talks from prophets and apostles. We were inspired and uplifted and now feel like we have great improvements to make in our lives. In case you missed the talks, they'll be available at the previous link on the 9th.

Dan's work is going well and he recently passed his licensing test to become an official Social Service Worker. He doesn't think it was as awful as the bar exam his brother-in-law recently aced, but he says it sure seemed like it. In addition to being more marketable in the workforce in the future, he will be able to sign a couple of letters after his name...WOO HOO! Way to go Danny Boy!

p.s. 9 DAYS!! HOLY CRAP!!! -Dan

Two weeks? REALLY??

We have about two weeks left befor D-day (but probably more than that because I think she's going to come late). I'm feeling a little more prepared since I've had two baby showers and have started nesting more. Baby shower pictures will be coming later. She's my little basketball belly.

Here's our new nursery CHAIR! Super comfy- as you can tell. I'm just trying to break it in.

Dan, his brother Sam, and our four-year-old nephew Reed went to a Utes football game on Saturday while all the girls were at the Women's Relief Society broadcast. They spent WAY too much (of grandma's) $$$ on consession stand food, taught Reed how to do the wave, cheer for the UTES, and had a blast! What great uncles!

Next to update you all on- Here are some before pictures of our unfinished laundry room. Only half the room was dry walled before, but it was never painted and some of the existing old dry wall had some water damage. So here are the before pictures...

Dan worked so hard to putty, sand, putty, sand, prime, texture the ceiling, and paint (What color?- the same soft blue that's in our "master" bathroom). He put in a light fixture because there wasn't one before (just a bulb), and we're excited to put in some new shelves in the little nook you'll see below. THANK YOU HUSBAND! Enjoy!

Dan the man!

New light
Real Walls!
The nook
Another great WALL!

Less than a month and counting!

EIGHT months PG! Wow! Time flies. Yes, the horizontal stripes were probably a bad decision, but here's the latest belly shot. I'm feeling quite big these days and getting pretty uncomfortable. I've had pretty bad indigestion, back aches, more frequent braxton hicks contractions, much stronger baby kicks/pushes (less amniotic fluid), pregnancy nose congestion, and I don't sleep very well at night. I don't have a hard time getting to sleep at first. It's just that after I get up to go potty in the middle of the night I can't get BACK to sleep because my mind is racing about things that I still need to get done. I haven't had any major "nesting" tendencies yet and I think that's part of the problem why I still feel like I have SO much to do.

I guess the most important thing to remember is that whenever she does come into this world, early, on time, or late, she'll be welcomed with loving arms from her mom, dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, friends... We may not have cute curtains hanging or even all the nursery furniture yet, but that won't matter as long as her needs are met and she's LOVED unconditionally. I can't wait!

Things I have LOVED about being pregnant: knowing that my body is being used to fill the measure of its creation, feeling the baby move, all the attention from complete strangers giving me advice and guessing which gender it is by the way I'm carrying, doctors appointments to hear the babies heart beat and see how big I'm measuring, new clothes (in the form of "maternity" of course), counting down weeks/days until she gets here, reading and learning about the miracles of pregnancy and child birth, sharing ALL of these with DAN! :) I'm sure he has a list of things he's loved about the past 8 months... You'll have to ask him about it though.

When I said I was feeling quite big... I guess it could be worse- right?

Dan's way of "nesting" to get ready for this baby has been to do home improvement projects. We previously posted about our new bathroom sink, fixing leaks, and installing new lights. The most recent project was our new counter tops. These aren't the best pictures due to our lack of a REAL camera, but you get the idea. We had professionals make and install the counters. But my hunk of a husband, with all his bulging muscles, unhooked our sink and took out the old counter tops and carried them to the garage ALL BY HIMSELF! :) That little job saved us like $150! I'm so lucky to have him in my life.

Before

During

After

Since we knew we wouldn't be staying in this condo forever, and since the only way to have the counters be a "real estate upgrade" is with granite or quartz, we decided to save a BUNCH of money and go with laminate instead. We are quite pleased with the results!

Stay tuned for pictures of our soon-to-be finished laundry room as well, nursery chair, and baby showers! :)

Francis Webster

No, that's not the name for the baby. Francis Webster is the name of my great-great-great-grandfather (Here comes a history lesson).

This last weekend Cedar City decided to dedicate a statue in recognition of all that he did. He was a civic and church leader and did a lot to help Cedar grow into the thriving metropolis it is today :).

Francis Webster was also among the Martin-Willie Handcart Company. He had enough for he and his expecting wife to come to Salt Lake in a wagon, but instead sold the wagon which helped pay for 9 other families to come across the plains, thus leaving all of them to push handcarts. He said that at times he thought that he could push the handcart no further and that once he came to the next hill, he would give up. Francis would arrive at the hill, and then would have to look around to see who then began to help push the cart. He was sure that the angels began to help and has frequently been quoted by numerous church leaders. In defense of the decision to leave so late in the season, Francis said that "Every one of us came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives for we became acquainted with him in our extremities." What awesome faith and perspective our pioneer forefathers had!!

Shifting gears a little bit, he was also a sheep herder, and eventually a large plot of land up by Cedar Breaks was named after him. Pretty cool, huh? Here's a picture of us with the sign:

Pretty glorious stretch of land, eh?
Cedar Breaks
View from the Webster Flats sign of Zion's National Park, waaaaaaay in the distance.
What pioneer settler commemoration would be complete without a couple o' bag pipers.
The mayor of Cedar speaking just before they unveiled the statue.

They blocked off Main street for about 2 hours so we could have this event. Here's just a few of the cousins I never knew I had.
There he is! However, I don't think they got his skin pigmentation right.Here's us...it's about as close as we could get. Thanks to my Dad for making it possible for us to come with him to this great event. It really helped me see the positive impact that one person can have on generations of people. Hearing speeches from so many prominent people about how influential Francis was caused me to reevaluate the kind of "legacy" that I am leaving with my family and friends. Hopefully we will all take some time to reflect on the same.

-Dan