3 month cutie

we sure love this cute girl. can't believe she is 3 months already! we are so blessed to have her!

camping weekend.

This past weekend we took a little trip with some friends to Willow for an overnight camp-out.  We rented a little cabin and managed to fit 6 adults and 3 babies (the babies all did so good we even managed to get some sleep). It was a beautiful area over looking a beautiful lake.  The weather was absolutely perfect.  We really enjoyed ourselves (and i really enjoyed my shower once we were home).

and yes, aubree's bed was a laundry basket...it worked great :) 

aubree adele

I absolutely love being home with this little girl.  This past week Eric was working in Bethel Alaska.  Aubree and I decided it would be fun to spend some of our time having a little photo shoot and messing around with our camera a bit. Here are a few pictures we got:

 She was all smiles...but then she got a little tired of a big black thing in her face and me making silly noises and such to get her to smile.

This is how she tells me "no more" :)

But...I did manage to get a couple more out of her.  

She is such a beautiful little girl and we absolutely LOVE her!

Catchin' up

Where to start, where to start...

It's a Sunday afternoon and we're just hanging out and relaxing!  Holly is cozied up next to the fireplace to keep warm (it's not that cold, she just gets cold pretty easy + she's just adjusting from the temperatures she enjoyed/endured from the lower 48 last week), and baby Aubree is asleep in her swing with a big pink binkie in her mouth :)

I think our last post was a quick update after we had the baby.  That was an fun time.  It's hard to believe that that was only 2.5 months ago!  Geez...it seems like she's been with us forever.  Crazy how that works; I'm sure that resonates with a lot of ya'll.  Anyways, we got some great pics back from parents from May when they came up to see the new baby and we thought we'd use them to fill in the gaps of what we've been up to in the past little while.

Picking up Mom H from the airport.

 Mom and Dad O at Flat Top. 

Both Grandmas had a blast being grandmas.  My Dad loved playing grandpa too, but also had an Alaska agenda :)  We made sure we did a little fishing while he was here.  We took a halibut charter out of Whittier, AK in the Prince William Sound.  It had been poor weather all week long, but on Memorial Day (when we went out) the water was so glass we could have water skied.  It was awesome.

We limited out on Halibut, Yellow Eyed Rock Fish and caught a ton of Cod.  We ended up throwing back all of the Cod because the captain said that most of them in that area had worms...nasty. 

On the way back into Whittier, we got close enough to shore to see this guy.

You might have to click on the pic to get a better look, but it's a black bear.

My Dad couldn't believe that we didn't have TV at our place (we never signed up for Cable or Dish when we got up here).  We just learned to do without it and have found that there is plenty to do around here to keep us busy. That being said, the week after he left we had the idea to just hook up the cable cord and see if MAYBE we could pick up any channels...

haha...we'd lived here 6 months thinking we didn't have any TV.  Sorry Dad :)

We blessed baby Aubree in Utah on the 8th of July while we were there for Adam and Siera's wedding. We had tons of family and friend support.  Let me just say from a Dad perspective, that was an awesome experience.

My little football.

Matt's little football :)  We had a picture cut out of Elder Olson at Adam and Siera's wedding reception.

The happy married couple. We are very excited for these two to be married.  Congrats to them both.

More pictures of baby Aubree...

Holly's sister Ashley graduated form the medical assisting program and BYU-Idaho and Holly and Aubree got to go to her graduation. Congrats Ashley!  Hope Portland is fantastic. 

When we put Rexburg in our rearview mirror, we wondered if we would ever make it back...funny that it's only been 7 months and we're back already! I'll actually be back there in September for a recruiting trip for my work.

Speaking of business trips, I have been able to see some beautiful places up here in my audit travels.  Here are just a few.  (If it's not already obvious, this blog post has turned out to be much more work that I thought it would and I'm just wanting to be done now!  ...more pictures, less talk)

And...what would be a blog post from us without a picture of a moose for all our fam and friends in the lower 48? Holly got this pic a month or so ago...I guess he was romping around in the water at this park and having a grand time.

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!