June 22, 2012

Better late than never....

6 lbs 15 ounces , 19.5 inches long, Holly's eyes and nose (thank goodness!) and my fingers and toes :) + a cute dimple on her right cheek. I don't think we could have special ordered her any better.

I went into the office today (yes, this is Eric - the proud daddy) because I was scheduled for an employee benefit plan audit this week and the Partner told me quite clearly to go home!  So here I am, trying my second attempt at blogging while baby Aubree is sleeping.

What a fun ride, huh?  9 months seemed like it was never going to end for the two weeks prior to her birth, but once she got here, it all seemed like a blink of an eye.

Holly's Mom got here on Saturday the 12th of May and we were happy to see her!  We showed her around Anchorage a bit and and celebrated Mother's Day on Sunday. It's been great to have her here.  


We thought FOR SURE we were going to have Aubree early last week.  Holly had shown signs of progress in that direction at our doctor's appointment from the week before and she had made sure she hopped down every step each time she came down stairs in our town home, just for good measure.  We waited, and waited, and waited and my mind was anywhere but focused on work.  I kept expecting a call that her water had broke and we had to get to the hospital.  

(This was her due date)

We were bummed when we went to the doctor last Wednesday and he said that she was at the same spot she was the week before! We went on walks Holly hopped some more :) but despite our best efforts to persuade her to come, we ended up in Providence Hospital at 6:15 AM (we were supposed to be there at 6:00, but we were a little late - oops) on Friday morning for Holly's scheduled induction.  

(weird feeling walking into the hospital feeling great but knowing that we were about to have a baby)

We didn't get much sleep the night before so once we got all the paperwork out of the way and settled in our hospital room and the nurses got Holly set up with the Pitocin (which they also call "Pit" fyi, a little nurse slang) we both got a little shut eye. The morning went really slow.  Holly was having contractions, but they weren't really consistent and they weren't painful at all. Morning turned into afternoon (I went home and got some lunch) and finally things were starting to pick up.  I came back to the hospital with some games to play, but by that time Holly was feeling the contractions and was uncomfortable-the games went back into the bag and were never played :)
(we spent the morning watching ESPN....ok, Eric watched ESPN, i slept :) )

This is Holly now.  Eric saved this as a draft a month ago....I figured it was about time to finish it and finally post it.

At about 4:30ish i was REALLY uncomfortable and the contractions were getting strong.  I was dilated to a 5 and had been for a couple of hours.  I decided to get the epidural at about 5 (best decision ever).  Not only did i feel awesome, but it helped my body relax and everything went so quickly at this point.  I was dilated to a 7 shortly after and that went on to an 8, 9, and then at about 7:45/8:00 i was at a 10-Game time.  The nurse talked me into waiting another hour before pushing just to let the contractions do some of the work of getting her out before i started pushing.  A little after 9 i started pushing (a very exhausting process) and 45 minutes later our BEAUTIFUL baby girl was born.














Earlier in the day the nurses were talking to me about how small i looked and that i would most likely have a very small baby.  They talked about the extra tests that would have to be done if she were born less than 5 1/2 pounds etc... well, they weighed our baby girl and nobody in the room could believe she was as big as she was (even the doctor was very surprised).  6 pounds 15 ounces 19.5 inches long.  Perfect.
Holding our sweet little girl for the first time is something we will never forget.  We are so in love with our baby girl! We stayed over night at the hospital and left for home the next day.


At her 3 day appointment, Aubree had lost a few ounces and was down to 6 pounds 7 ounces.  Those ounces came right back up because she weighed in at 7 pounds 7 ounces at her 2 weeks appointment.  She is growing so fast! I seriously cannot believe that a month has already passed!
Life has never been better.  We are learning so much and are growing in love each day.

Some things about our little girl:
-She has the cutest dimple
-She has big beautiful blue eyes
-She has the cutest smile (still not an intentional smile, but it is adorable)
-She fake cries in her sleep (and it is soo funny)
-She puts her thumb in between her pointer and middle fingers
-She has long toes just like her dad (they curl over just like eric's)
-She sleeps 3-4 hours at a time at night (such a good baby)
-She has us both wrapped around her finger!
 I am sure i left a TON out, but that is the basic story.  We are loving life with our sweet "alaskan grown" baby girl!

April 25, 2012

baby shower



We are so blessed and lucky to live in an awesome ward.  A few ladies in the ward jumped at the opportunity to throw us a baby shower and it was awesome! Great company, great food, and this little girl was very spoiled :)
Here are a few pictures i managed to get with my phone. (Isn't that cake gorgeous...the top was gray, but it started to turn green...either way-it was BEAUTIFUL..and delicious)




Eric's work rented out the bowling alley one night.  We were able to go and meet some people and enjoy being out.  I opted out on bowling, Eric let me take one of his turns.  :)

And for baby news...we are now 37 weeks.  We had an ultrasound last week and everything looked great! He did some measurements and estimated her weighing about 5 3/4 pounds (i thought this was pretty good...she has a few more weeks to plump up some more :) This little girl could come any time now-crazy thought! We are finishing up putting all of her things together and are getting so excited to meet her!

April 12, 2012

birthday weekend.

This past weekend i was very spoiled. We celebrated my 22nd birthday on friday and it was a wonderful day! Eric surprised me with balloons and decorations and GREAT gifts (definitely spoiled me). He made this day a very special one!
I have been wanting to try the new "cake batter" oreos but unfortunately we haven't been able to find them here in Alaska. Eric, being the creative man he is, made some "homemade cake batter" oreos. He bought the frosting and sprinkles and made his own version. They were delicious. I love his creative mind!
For my birthday i wanted to use all of the birthday coupons that i received via email/mail for some "freebies." We started the morning off at IHOP. These delicious strawberry pancakes were wonderful...and free!
For dinner we went to our favorite...Red Robin. Huge burgers and delicious fries...all free!
And my favorite....Ice Cream. We went out for our free scoop of ice cream. It was divine.
It was a great birthday. I am so blessed with a WONDERFUL husband and with GREAT family. I love you all!
And just for good measure...here is our 35 week picture! Getting super excited to meet our little girl!

March 14, 2012

We have had a lot of fun these past couple of weeks with the many things going on in Anchorage. We went to the Iditarod "kick off" start a couple weeks ago (if you're like me and didn't know what the iditarod is...it is the dog sled race from anchorage to gnome alaska which is 1049 miles long. Pretty impressive). We were really surprised that they don't use huskies for their dogs. I guess that huskies don't have as good of endurance as these other dogs do? Something like that i guess. Eric LOVED this. He was having so much fun. Unfortunately i was ready to go before he was and he being the wonderful guy he is left without complaining. He's a keeper :)


We went out one night in hopes of seeing the northern lights but came home unsuccessful. We were bummed to hear that we missed them by like 20 minutes! Eric made a deal with me that if we saw the northern lights he would take me out for ice cream. I agreed, thinking we would see them FOR SURE. I was, of course, bummed for more than one reason when we didn't see the northern lights. Those of you that know me know that i LOVE my ice cream.

Last friday eric came home with tickets for the Alaska Aces hockey game. They are a semi-pro team and are pretty good. We had a fun time (pictures are on erics phone...)

And for the most exciting news.....
Baby Girl is doing great. The Dr says she is growing and is right on track. Everything looks and sounds great! We are so excited.
On sunday night we set up her little swing...we both get soo excited when we see it all set up. Only 2 more months!
And for the pictures...
I am now 31 weeks which means...we're in the single digit weekly countdown :)

These pictures don't do it justice...i AM growing i promise!
We love this little girl so much and are SO excited for her to come!

February 17, 2012

three...

THREE is a very exciting number for us today.

That would be because in THREE months we will have been married for THREE years and we will be a family of THREE!!!

We are SOO very excited!


THREE months and counting....

February 12, 2012

More Alaskan Adventures

Hi everyone J As promised, here are a few more Alaskan adventures and some updates from us. By the way, this is Eric. Yeah, weird right? I don’t usually get into the whole blog thing, but Holly told me that Tanner McD does it. If Tanner can do it, I think I can get away with it too.

Holly is 27 weeks along and is FINALLY starting to show. She’d never say it, but I think she thinks it’s fun to finally look pregnant. We are both really excited – May 17th!

It’s hard to believe that we’ve only lived here a month and a half. We feel like we’ve been able to see and do a lot already…

Met some important people…


Took in the exotic wildlife (yes, that is a painted wall. Cool, eh?)...

Sat on an ice throne...
Took a ride on the real 'polar' express...

Swam some laps at the local pool…

And seen more snow than we have ever seen in our entire lives!




...and shoveled our fair share of it :)

Since we first arrived here in Anchorage, we have kept an “Alaskan Bucket List” (things we want to definitely do while we are up here) and that list just keeps growing. Here is where we’re at thus far.

See the Northern Lights

Snowshoeing

Cross Country Skiing

Shoot a Moose

Shoot a Grizzly Bear

Catch every type of Salmon

Day cruise

Go through the 3 mile tunnel

Whale watching

Walk on a glacier

Take pictures of:

- Moose (bull, cow, and baby)

- Black Bear

- Grizzly Bear

- Lynx

- Bald Eagle

- Humpback Whale

- Killer Whale

- Caribou

- Wolves

Backcountry snowboard

Teach our little girl how to ski

So far we’ve only checked one off the list. This past week we went on a moose hunt here in Anchorage (just with the camera) and we got lucky! Take a look.

Moose # 1

Moose # 2

These first two we saw near a place called Kincaid Park which is only 10-15 minutes away from our house. We thought we got pretty lucky – moose hunt successful. We got home and were eating lunch in the kitchen of our townhome when believe it or not, a moose showed up RIGHT in our backyard. Here is the proof.

Moose #3, just right off of our back porch. I think this one counts as a baby…she was pretty young.

Pretty cool. This past week we took a picture of this next one….the door on the left is our neighbor’s front door.


Anyways…in other news, Holly took her Nursing Boards this past weekend! She has been studying quite a bit. She’s hoping like crazy that she passed – I am sure she did. That could be her last test EVER! From what we hear, Nurses are pretty high in demand up here so it might actually work out for Holly to get some experience in the field for a couple of months before the baby comes. We’ll see.

I however, am not so lucky. While she was taking her test, I swung by the office and picked up my study materials for the CPA Exam.


While we’re on the accounting subject, here is where I work. Pretty nice eh? You have got to love the grey cubicle. At least it’s got a name tag, right?

All in all, life is pretty good right now. People are outgoing and pretty laid back. We thought we would miss those Idaho sunsets, but this one is p-retty darn good. I did see a bag of potatoes at Walmart the other day that brought back a little nostalgia, but we're enjoying living up here.