Blogging + Lyla update

For the last little while I have kept thinking "oh I should write on my blog," and my next thought is "why?"So I thought about why I should blog. No, I don't aspire to be a famous "mommy blogger," nor do I particularly care to share every aspect of my personal life with the world, but I do care that I have some form of documentation of what went on my life with my husband, and sweet little Lyla. I love looking back at what few posts that I do have and remembering those memories and feelings at different times in my life. Now that I am a mother I feel a responsibility to record and document the life of Lyla so that one day she will be able to look back at her childhood and know how much her mom and dad loved her. Do I live a very eventful life? Not really. Would I change anything about my life currently? No. I am doing exactly what I want to be doing with my life and what I have always dreamed of; being a wife and a mother. What I hope to document are glances into our simple everyday life, which on some days, like today, consist of hardly leaving the house. So this is my vow to be better at blogging. Anyway, these are my thoughts about blogging. I hope that one day my children will be grateful for my pathetic  attempt to blog and document their lives, as well as my own.

Also, since I have not blogged since Lyla was born 10 months ago I thought I should do a little update on her. Lyla is so full of life. She loves to explore, and "find treasures" as we call it. Her favorite toys are anything in cupboards, drawers, and closets. She finds a treasure, walks around with it for a minute, drops it and is off to find another treasure. More often than not she is finding something that she should not be playing with. I feel bad constantly taking things away from her and closing doors on her as she tries to play in the toilet or pull things out of the trash, but I don't have a better option. She does not like if I am out of sight, in fact she gets stressed and hurries to try to find me. Even if she is playing in the family room right by the kitchen and I get up to go into the kitchen, she drops her toys and follows me. Part of me secretly loves that she wants to be by me and wants to do what I am doing, but the other part of me wishes she could just play with her toys for a little bit while I cook dinner, or switch the laundry. Although I do not like to take my eyes off her for very long because she usually is finding something to eat that she shouldn't or getting into something she shouldn't. Lyla is a complete busy body! The girl does not stop moving, in fact sometimes I catch her just walking in circles because she has to be moving but doesn't know what to do. Most of all, Lyla is happy. She giggles and smiles all day long. Her smile is contagious and I can't help but smile every time I see her smile. Same with her little giggle. I love watching her personality develop more and more each day. Yesterday while I was feeding her she kept vibrating her lips so the food would splat everywhere and then burst with laughter. Although I was little bugged I was covered in splattered baby food I couldn't help but laugh at how funny she thought she was! I love that she picks up anything that slightly resembles a phone and holds it up to her ear as if she is talking on the phone. Anytime you say "hello" to her she puts her hand up to her ear like a phone. She is a very good sleeper at night, but a not so great napper. In fact today I rocked her for 45 minutes just so that she would get somewhat of a nap. I secretly loved being able to cuddle her because she NEVER lets me hold her or cuddle. She is teething, hence the rough nap. But more often than not her naps a somewhat of a battle. At night she goes straight to bed, no problem and sleeps a straight 12-13 hours. Lyla brings so much joy, laughter, and love into our home. As well as a lot of messes!! I wouldn't have it any other way though. I love that that she is constantly learning, exploring, and discovering! I am also loving her open mouth kisses! Here are just a few of the random, no purpose pictures I snap everyday. 

The Birth Story

Well, I do realize this may be a bit anticlimactic since I had Lyla almost a month ago but I mostly wanted to record it for myself. So here it is; the birth story.

I woke up early Tuesday morning April 2nd, around 4:00 am. I couldn't sleep because I was having a real sharp pain in my back about every ten minutes. I was having the same pain sporadically throughout the day before.  I thought they might have been contractions, but I wasn't sure since most people describe contractions being in your belly and that wasn't so much the case. Turns out I was having back labor and it continued that way the whole time. So I got up and read and started timing the contractions until about 7. At 7:00 am my contractions were about 5 minutes apart so I got up, showered, and put last minute items in my hospital bag. Just as we were getting ready to leave for the hospital my contractions slowed down, and I really didn't want to be sent home from the hospital again (I had already been twice on two different days for various reasons, both times, of course it was nothing). So we sat down and watched some TV while we waited. I had my weekly checkup with my doctor that morning at 9:30 so we decided that we would wait and go to that to see what the doctor said. At the doctor he checked to see if I was dilated, I was. Which was a sign itself because I was completely closed just the day before. He guessed that I was around a 2, I say guessed because I was squirming too much for him to get an accurate reading. Right after the check he said, "You're planning on getting an epidural right?" I assured him I was planning on getting it as soon as possible. Back to the story, the doctor said to go over to the hospital and have them monitor me for an hour to see if I was making progress and really in labor.  In that hour I had gone from a 2 to a 4 so they admitted me and we got settled into our room around 12:30 pm.

After about another hour of contractions I said that I was ready for the epidural. The epidural was a piece of cake, and literally did not hurt more than a pinch. I was on cloud 9 now. My Doctor was leaving town right after his appointments that morning, so I was a little discouraged and nervous about having a different doctor that I had never met delivery the baby. The other doctor came in and broke my water to speed things up a little. But things actually slowed down a little bit, they think it was from the epidural. I was at a standstill at a 6. They gave me a little bit of pitocin to get the contractions going a little quicker. And it sure did get things going. I mentioned to my nurse that I was still in a little bit of pain and could feel the contractions pretty strongly. She suggested getting an extra dose of epidural which I was reluctant to at first because I didn't want to be so numb that I couldn't feel anything. Although after being so uncomfortable I opted for the extra dose. The nurse checked to see what I was dilated to so she could tell the anesthesiologist. Surprisingly, she said I was at a 10. There was about a 20 minute time span from when she last checked and I was at a 6. So I dilated really fast. They decided to give me a faster acting medicine since the epidural wasn't keeping up with me. It was what they give girls for c-sections because it is faster acting but doesn't last as long. Then I "rested and descended" (a new thing they are doing for first time mom's, I guess) for an hour. It is supposed to reduce pushing time and tearing. Before my hour was up, I told the nurse that I couldn't stand it any longer and really felt like I needed to push. So at 5:20 they started prepping for delivery and I started pushing. By now my medicine was starting to wear off and I was feeling my contractions.  Right around this time, my real doctor called the nurse to check on my progress and she said that I had just started pushing. Turns out the tires on his trailer popped on his way out of town so instead of sitting and waiting at Discount Tire, he decided to come delivery a baby! Not that the other doctor wouldn't have been great, but I was so relieved and happy that he could come! Anyway, after just about an hour of pushing I wasn't making a lot of progress. After every push the baby's head would go back to where it was before the push. I was really hurting and started to think that this baby was NEVER coming out.  My doctor came in and did an episiotimy and maybe 3 pushes later baby Lyla was out! She was born at 6:40 pm.

I have never experienced to many emotions at one time. I went from being in the most pain I had ever been in, to complete joy and was overwhelmed with love in a matter of seconds. Watching Rob look at our sweet baby and seeing his love for her made me fall in love with him all over again. She wasn't really breathing great at first and I was being stitched up for what felt like years, so it was a little bit before I got to hold her. But when they finally put her in my arms it was the most amazing feeling/ moment. It is impossible to even try to describe in words what that moment is like. It's a little bit of heaven on earth. Lyla is such a blessing in our lives and we are so grateful that she has made us parents.  She has been very patient with us as we have tried to figure this whole parenting thing out. We are slowly but surely learning. 

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Lyla's Nursery

Once I found out we were having a girl I started thinking about how I wanted to decorate her nursery. Of course I turned to Pinterest for ideas and color schemes. At first I loved the really elegant and all white nurseries. Then I decided that might be a little hard to pull off and it's not totally my style. After a little more searching I found a nursery that I wanted to use as my inspiration. The main thing I loved was the color scheme, white, coral, and aqua. I also fell in love with the focal wall and knew I had to recreate it somehow. I bought a stencil off Etsy and put Rob to work. ;) I am partly kidding. We both started off painting and painted the rest of the room a really pale pink. Once we got to the stencil part, i started off helping and got about half way, then the beautiful pregnancy symptoms (backache, nausea from the paint, heatstroke, etc) hit me. So my wonderful husband finished it for me! When he got done he instantly said "this babes better be a girl." He is not about to repaint that wall anytime soon... I LOVE the way it all came together and as much work as it was to paint that wall, it was so worth it! So here it is!! (Not that I think too many people will really care, but just incase you are curious I will give a brief rundown of where we got things)

*Frames - Target and I painted them blue
*Crib - Amazon I think it is called the DaVinvi Jayden crib

*Chair - Down to Earth

*Bedding - Serena and Lily (Punch Basics)

*Dresser - My mom and dad ( it was brown but we spray painted it white)

*Pom poms - I made these out of styrofoam balls and fabric ( cut tons of little circles, fold in fourths, and pin)

 *Blanket - My mom's crochet work at it's finest. 

*Curtains & Bookshelf - IKEA

*Rug - Target

After baby Lyla arrives I plan to get some newborn pictures taken and make a gallery wall above the dresser. I will move the pom pom balls into the corner left of the bookshelf. I also haven't decided what else to put on top of the bookshelf. I am thinking maybe some letter blocks with her name or something like that!

Baby Shower Love

The last two weeks I have had my two baby showers! They were both wonderful and lots of fun. We definitely got spoiled with tons of great baby gifts! Thanks to my mom and sisters for hosting the first one and making it so special. These girls put a lot of work into making it such a great event. We did a children's book theme and it was so much fun! Being an Elementary Ed major I grew to love all types of children's books, and I learned how important and beneficial they are for young children. Ever since my Children's Literature class at BYU I have been determined to always read to my kids and help them develop a love for books and reading. There are so many children's books that have such great messages and lessons. Anyway, I mentioned the idea to my sisters about a book theme for the shower and they made it happen! I LOVED getting all the books and Baby L now has a full bookcase. :)

Isn't that diaper cake my sister made so cute?

 The hosts :) 

Handmade baby blanket from Grandma Teri! 

My friends Hailey and Jordynn also threw me a wonderful shower! It was so nice of them and I am grateful for such great friends! Unfortunately I didn't get too many pictures at this one, but it was a lot of fun, and I got tons of cute things!

We have the same due date! 

(Don't mind the fact that I am twice her size..)

The hosts :) 

Thanks again to all those who came and especially to those who helped make them happen!!