Crazy Summer

This summer has been crazy. Its been busy, its been life changing, its been crazy. I was thinking about it today and there have been only 2 weekends since before Sage was born that we haven't either had family here, or been somewhere with family. After the events that have happened this summer, though, I couldn't be more grateful for that. Here is a quick recap of our summer so far...

Nic's family has been down to SLC several times in the last few months for a variety of reasons. We have loved spending time with them. One of the weekends they came down we decided to head to the Gateway during the Sidewalk Chalk festival. There was music, art, and of course the splash pad. Mason loves the splash pad.

Nic and Mason admiring the sidewalk art from afar.


This is what Sage did most of the time.


The splash pad was crazy busy, but the kids had a blast.


And nothing ends the day like a little ice cream.


During one of those weekend visits to SLC, Ali and Chase decided to move their wedding date up from July 23rd to June 26th. This resulted in a mad rush to finish planning the wedding and all the things that goes with it. My hat goes off to Victoria and Ali for making it happen. As for us, it meant a couple of crazy days and a nearly 2 week visit to Idaho Falls.

Nic's sister Lindsey and I threw Ali a bridal shower 2 days before her wedding. We didn't have much time to plan it, but I think it turned out really well. Lindsey is super creative and that coupled with some of Ali's friends made for a fun evening.

Grandpa Hall took Mason out in his "race car" while the women decended upon my mom's house (where we held the shower). Yes I let my child ride in the car like this and yes you can/should call child protective services on me.


Cute Lindsey


Cute Ali.

Friday night, before the wedding, my mom was playing with her band at the country club. So we headed out to support her and eat some good food.

Sage just hanging out listening to Grandma rock out.

Saturday was the wedding. Everything about it was beautiful. The ceremony, the luncheon, everything. I have very tender memories of Nic and his siblings as they spoke about Ali at the luncheon. It was really wonderful.

Note that we only have one child pictured in this photo. The other one was too interested in some bugs that were out of the range of the lens. Oh well.

Oh- did I mention that we had also planned Shay's baby shower on the 26th of June? Well...we did. So I left the luncheon early and drove to Idaho Falls (the wedding was in Rexburg) for Shay's baby shower. My mom and Shayna did an awesome job planning it.

Other than some morbid pictures of the fondant baby cake topper, this is the only picture I got. Minus my mom, its all the girls.

After the baby shower was the wedding reception. One word: beautiful.

I love this picture of Mason. Such a studly little guy.

Okay, so after the bridal shower-band performance-wedding-luncheon-baby shower-wedding reception-all in 72 hours weekend, we had a few days to relax before our family reunion. As I was going through pictures to post on here of the reunion I found that I didn't really want to post any of them. I can't even really look at them. They were all, obviously, taken before the accident, but they still take me back to that day. I don't need extra help reliving that day. I did find one though that I want to keep.

My dad and Penni with my kids (and a diet coke).

After coming back from the reunion, I ended up staying a few extra days in Idaho Falls. Nic was on call at home and I wasn't really in the state of mind to be alone. So we stayed and took Mason to the zoo.

Finally after almost 2 weeks we returned home where we resumed life.

We took another trip to the splash pad (after seeing Toy Story 3) with Camille, Paul and Jackson.

Mason took 2 weeks of swimming lessons (and this is the only picture I got).

We went to the farmer's market.

And we again had family visit for Sage's blessing. Post to come.

So thats it. Summer so far. Like I said, life changing in so many ways. During it all, however, we have been surrounded by those we love and who love us. I will always have some very tender memories of this summer. From the birth of my own baby girl, to Ali's wedding, to the events surrounding Max's death, there is so much to learn from and be grateful for. And the summer isn't over yet.

Seven years...

...and not even itchy.

Happy Anniversary sweetheart. I love you.

I know that I have been severely neglecting this blog lately, and I do have a lot of things I want to blog about (i.e. family trips, our growing little Sage, etc. etc.). However, I don't feel that its proper (nor can I bring myself to do it) to write about all these happenings without first mentioning my cousin's little family and the tragedy they have had to face. Their son Max passed away following a boating accident at our family reunion a week and a half ago. Needless to say this has shaken everyone who was present (and countless others) to the core. A moment doesn't pass when I don't think about Max and his family. I pray for them constantly and ask you to remember them in your thoughts and prayers also. Ryan, Leanne, and the entire family have shown incredible strength through such a horrific time and I admire them more than words can express. Visit their blog to see an example of what I mean harrisbeachbums.blogspot.com.

Our entire family has been talking a lot lately about what we have learned from this, and I have spent a lot of time pondering this very question. It seems that everyone has gathered bits of life changing knowledge following such a terrible incident, and I think that will be a part of Max's legacy. As for me, I have learned to never take things for granted and do my best to enjoy every moment of my children's life. This may sound cliche but you really never do know when life might be cut short and, as Leanne put it in her letter, I want to "drink" in as much of my children as I can. I've also learned a valuable lesson in our Heavenly Father's timing and his overall plan for us. After much thought and prayer and I can now say that I have no doubt that this was Max's time. And all I can say to that is that he must be one special little boy to only have to spend such a short amount of time on earth. I am so grateful for a Heavenly Father who loves us and is mindful of us. My prayers continue to go out to all my family, especially to Ryan, Leanne and their families. Love you all. Thank you for being examples beyond measure to me.

Baby Girl

I am having a hard time believing/accepting that my baby girl is going to be 1 month old tomorrow. These last few weeks have flown by and although its been an adjustment for us all, I wouldn't trade a moment of it. (Okay, there are a few moments I would trade, but all in all its been pretty great.) So since I haven't posted in over a month, I thought I'd catch you up on- oh- the whole month of may. But for those of you who just want to know the basics (aka the "guy" version) here it is. We had a baby. Its a girl.

Now for the girl version:

I'm pretty sure that when I was pregnant with Mason I had pictures of my belly up every few weeks. I guess that was because my whole family lived across the country and wanted to see. Now that we live closer to them I think they all were able to partake in my largeness. Just for posterity sake though, here are a few pics of me about a week before delivering.



The few weeks before Sage was born I felt a little sad about Mason no longer being our only child. I know that might sound evil, and I am so in love with our little girl and glad she is here, but I still felt like I was losing that special "its you and me" relationship I had with Mason. I think we are both still adjusting to that change.

In an effort to make the best of the few weeks we had left where it was just us, we tried to do some fun things. I don't have pictures of all of our activities, but here is one of our trips to boondocks with Jackson and Camille.

(Note the tongue. He's the Michael Jordan of bowling.)

The boys LOVE the kiddie cove.

So now its time for the labor story. Again for those of you not interested, please feel free to scroll past. For the rest of you, here is the story...

I had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday (the 19th) morning where my wonderful, love her to death doctor stripped my membranes (hey- I warned you. If you don't want to know then stop reading). The rest of the day was spent feeling mildly to moderately uncomfortable with contractions still irregular but increasingly painful. Luckily I knew I was going to have my membranes stripped (I know, again with the strippage) so we planned to have my mom come down on Wednesday just in case I went into labor. Nic got home around 6ish and by then I was having contractions every 8-10 minutes. So Nic decided to mow the lawn. (Always thinking ahead that guy.) By the time he was finished and we had Mason in bed, my contractions were coming every 6-8 minutes and increasingly painful. At this point I was pretty sure this was "it", but I also knew that these things could peter out and it could end up, in fact, not being "it". So we waited patiently. We even tried to go to bed. I dozed off between contractions for a little bit, but then found that sleeping wasn't happening. Nic had said he wanted to shower before we went in, if we went in, so to let him know. After about an hour of hard contractions I told Nic he better get in the shower. He wanted to time more contractions and after about 15 more minutes of that I stood up and demanded that he get in the shower. While he showered my contractions were coming every 3 minutes and I was finally convinced that this was it. So we got the bags and headed up to the hospital (again- so nice having my mom there so we didn't have to wake Mason). Despite the gas light coming on and getting detoured due to "night time construction" we made it to the hospital. We pulled up to the front where the valet parking is and the guy at the desk just stared at us. After several minutes of this (by now I'm out of the car leaning on the hood having a major contraction), he came out to ask if we were coming in to the hospital. I wanted to say, "No, I'm just fat and like to lean on the hood of my car breathing heavily while I hang out outside of hospitals at 3 am." I didn't though and through entirely too much discussion he and Nic finally worked out the car situation. At that point Nic tried to put me in a wheelchair, which I refused so we walked into labor and delivery. The only problem is that neither of us were entirely sure where labor and delivery was. So after some questioning we finally found the door that led there. The only issue here was that you have to push a button and then wait to be admitted. The sign next to the button says to be patient, but neither of us realized that being "patient" meant waiting like 10 minutes for them to let you in. Now 10 minutes might not seem like a long time, but thats 3 good contractions. So finally they let me in, and determined through the tears in my eyes, checking my cervix, and a quick ultra sound that I was indeed in labor. With that I was admitted. About 2 hours later I had my epidural, and an hour or two after that it was tweaked just right so it was working beautifully. Nic and I were then able to get a little sleep. At about 9 am they decided I wasn't progressing quite as quickly as they would like (I had been dilated to a 6 for quite some time), so they decided to start me on a little pitocen to get things going. They waited about an hour to do so though, because my doctor was in surgery and they wanted to wait for her to get out before I delivered. So at about 10:30 they started the pitocen and by 11:24 I was ready to push. (They did get a little worried about her heart rate toward the end, but turns out she was just ready to come out and there wasn't anything to worry about.) So when the time came my doctor kept saying, "a few pushes and we'll have her out". After pushing for over 3 hours with Mason, though, I was gearing up for the long haul. Sure enough though, after one push Nic leaned over and said, "she's almost here." Then two more pushes and she was out. Fantastic. She came out crying, the sound you love to hear. They put her up on my belly and I was actually able to hold her for about an hour before they even took her away to weigh her. She was beautiful. She had lots of dark hair and long eyelashes. I thought at the time she looked like Mason, and she does, but not as much as I initially thought. She was so sweet and hungry! Two things that haven't changed much in the last few weeks. So after all of that we were wheeled into a nice room and got to have some alone time with Sage. Later that evening my mom brough Mason up and he got to meet his new baby sister. He was so cute with her and just kept smiling and checking her out. Then Marci brought up Seth and Ellen and they go to see her too. Nic went home with Mason that night and got him ready for bed, then came back up and stayed the night with us in the hospital. The next day I was feeling pretty good (and Nic was feeling pretty anxious to get home), so we asked if we could be discharged. Everything went so smoothly, and Sage and I were doing well, so they agreed and we went home after being in the hopsital for only about 36 hours.

Whew. So that was it. Glad you survived. Now here is the fun part. The pictures.

This smile is brought to you by my epidural.

Here she is!

7 lbs 12 oz. 20 inches long.

Big brother meets her for the first time.

First family photo about 5 hours after she was born.

Daddy and the burrito.

Going home!

First few days at home...

First bath.

The flowers Nic had waiting for me when I got home. Love him.

Pretty girl.

Nell Nell loves her.

A little more Nell love.

Daddy coming home is by far the highlight of the day.

Study buddies.

Tummy time with Mason can be dangerous. We are still working on helping him understand that he can't wrestle with her.

Our first outing to the park.

Love this girl!

To help channel some of his energy, we bought Mason a trampoline. And don't worry, Nic's coworkers have given him enough crap for us buying out 2 year old a trampoline (including x-rays of broken legs from trampoline accidents). He's tough, though, and he loves it and we are careful.

My first attempt to take them for a walk. It actually ended poorly and now we walk with Sage in the Ergo and Mason in the stroller (or walking).

Check out those lashes.

So there you have it. Again I apologize for the lateness (and therefore lengthiness) of this post. Life should start calming down now, right? Right??

time flies...

I know our baby is 3 weeks old now and I have yet to make a post regarding her birth. In my defense, our computer has issues with pictures at the moment so I've been waiting until I can upload pictures. So stay with me here and give me a few days. You'll be glad you did. Or at least I think you will.