It's been forever!!

So, It's been forever since I've posted. There has been A LOT going on. And after we move (in three days) and get settled (probably 3 months)....I'll give you a nice long recap about what has been going on in our life. Here's the gist:

-Our Girls are growing like crazy

-We're super busy packing, moving and cleaning

-We're EXHAUSTED!!


That's our life right now!! More to come in a few weeks!

The End is in Sight!

Hello!

It feels like it's been FOREVER since I've blogged. SO much has been going on. We've been very busy over the last few weeks, so I'll try and recap to catch you up. Sorry the pictures are blurry. I am using cell phone pictures since I don't have access to my computer.

We've been enjoying a fun summer as a family. Andrew finished his online class and we are enjoying a few weeks of down time before fall starts. This fall he will be taking 11 credits, working full time, and refereeing highschool and optimist football. Busy. Busy. Busy. So, when we have time as a family we try to make the most of it. At the end of July we celebrated Andrew's 24th birthday. Yep. That means I'm 2 weeks older than he is, and yes this is probably surprising as most people think Andrew is a few years older than 24. :-)

We decided to bless Amielia at the end of July, and we were happy to find out that LOTS of family would be in town that same weekend! We took up 7 long rows in our ward. We probably doubled our wards sacrament meeting. The blessing was amazing, and it was a lot of fun to see cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents! I got a cute picture of some of the kids. Beth, Linkoln, Alivia (all cousins and born within 8 weeks of eachother) and David, my cousin and our toddler entertainer! 

And this is my cousin Megan, she is amazing with the kids! My kids both love her!

Ami is getting bigger and bigger every day! She was 10lbs at about 6 weeks old. She is a happy baby most of the time. And she loves to smile!

The picture above is from her blessing day. My mom made a dress for her that was similar to mine. We blessed Beth in my dress, so, Beth and Ami's dresses will look alike. My mom did a wonderful job! 

Beth has been spending a lot of time at Dawnie's (my mom). She loves to go see Max and Annie. I took this picture a week or so ago, and had to share it. Max thinks that the right side of the couch is his. Not on the cushion. But on the back of the couch. So Beth had to copy him.

I think the most exciting news of this blog post is that after 4 months of looking, and rejected offers on 4 other houses, our offer was accepted on a house in Nampa! After 5 years of renting the end is in sight! The house is 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, bonus room, 2 car finished garage, and almost 1600 square feet! Nothing is official until we have keys in our hands, but we are very hopeful. We have plans to replace carpet and repaint and I can't wait to start decorating our home. It exciting and overwhelming at the same time. This has been a crazy process, but we are so grateful for such a wonderful Realtor and friend! My best friend Kristin has kept us informed the whole way, and we couldn't have asked for anyone better to help us find our first home. 

We are going to have a busy couple of weeks, but we are very excited! I'm also happy to say that Jana and Jake will be moving back to Boise in a week or so! They found a sales opportunity up here and could not say no. So, I will have my sister by my side helping me decide on decoration for my house! AND, I'm going to be an Auntie again! Jackie and Eric are expecting their first baby, due on VALENTINE'S DAY! I've already named the baby "Baby Love"....there are lots of exciting things going on and I can't wait to tell you guys more! Hopefully I can post again in a few weeks! Till then....

Happy Blogging!

Playing Catch Up

Well...it's been a few weeks since I've done a real blog update. I have LOTS of pictures to show you, and really they do tell the story of the last few weeks quite well. Most of you prefer pictures to my ranting and raving right? So here you go!!

Beth's 2nd Birthday: We celebrated by going to see Rio in the theater. Beth did really well. It was a fun movie and we all enjoyed it!

After the movie we did some shopping and found Beth a cool new toy. It interacts with the TV and she can learn about numbers, colors, math, etc. She loves to play the "star" game!

We celebrated her birthday with my family a few weeks before her actual birthday. And we celebrated with Andrew's family a week or so after her birthday. She was very eager to blow out her candles, but I covered her mouth and made her wait till we were done singing. When I removed my hand she said "Hap Birday!"....

At 2 years old, Beth is 27lbs and 34in tall. She knows LOTS of words and phrases, but her favorites are:

"No Way"

"Word World" (or some variation)

"Baby it's O-Tay"

"Sorry" (which sounds like Sh-are-y)

"Picture"

and "Come here" (which sounds like mirror)

She is very smart and helpful. It's amazing how much she's grown and learned in just a few short months.

A few days later we celebrated the 4th of July. At this point I had run out of adrenaline. The long nights, and busy days were starting to wear me out. So when the 4th came along, I wasn't sure if I was up to going anywhere. Beth wasn't in a very good mood all day. But, we decided to go for it. After much deliberation we ended up down at the train depot. Beth enjoyed the fireworks, although she didn't enjoy how loud they were. She made Andrew hold his hand on her ear the entire show.

We celebrated my 24th birthday about a week later. We really didn't have much planned, but I told Andrew I wanted to go to Five Guys and get a good burger for lunch. It was delicious.

Speaking of eating healthy....i've started a new "program" I guess you can call it. I've named it the KC Incentive Program. The name is after my best friend Kristin. She came up with the genius idea of getting rewards for working out. So, when I work out for a certain amount of days, I earn a prize. My workouts can be various things, so I don't get sick of one thing. And I also have goals for weight loss. I'm very excited!!

The last few weeks have FLOWN by. Ami is almost 5 weeks old, and changing every day. When we went to the doctor for her 2 week appt (which due to the 4th, was closer to 3 weeks), she weighed 8lbs 7ounces, WOW! And was 21.5 inches tall. She had gained 20 ounces and 1 whole inch in only 1 WEEK! She continues to grow fast, and is now outgrowing most of her newborn clothes. I feel a little sad about it, but we have plenty of cute 3 month clothes, and we can't wait to see more of her personality come out. We finally caught a partial smile in a picture! She has the biggest smile, but I never have a camera handy for those.

 Beth tries really hard to be mom's helper, even though sometimes, she's not that helpful. She loves to wear an apron and try to help me cook. She also loves carrying her baby around in my front pack.

I'm re-learning how to balance my home responsibilities, now with 2 kids, but still only 2 hands and 1 husband. :-) Sometimes when Andrew gets home at night, I have no patience or energy left to even talk to him. Poor guy. There have been a few days and nights where I feel like everything is out of control. Luckily, I have great family and friends who I can turn to for help and advice. I have a few friends who recently have had babies, and I LOVE talking to them about frustrations and triumphs! I'm starting to feel like I can handle this crazy thing called life, and one day, eventually, I will have time for everything....maybe? :-). All in all, It's been a wonderful few weeks, and we feel very blessed!

I will probably be without a computer for another few weeks, but I'm sure my dedicated readers (eyeroll) will find other worthwhile things to do with their time till I can blog again. Right. I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer!

Happy Blogging!

Update?

Well....kinda....I have been computer less for almost a week....it decided to stop turning on....and once we realized that it was an operator's error (I swear I tried everything)....and my brother stopped laughing at me, we turned the computer back on, and the monitors weren't working. HA HA, who's laughing now Rico? (Yeah, I call my brother Eric, Rico, and I call Jana, Bo. I'm weird).

Anyway, he has my computer at his house in "Critical Care" trying to figure out what is going on. I stole my dad's laptop for a few days, but I will need to return it soon. I will try and get a blog update in before that. On the list to blog about:

-Beth's birthday
-4th of July
-My birthday
-My almost 1 MONTH OLD
-My awesome friends
-The KC Incentive Program
And MUCH more!

Stay tuned for more details! At least I got my music on the blog updated....:-)

Happy Blogging....

In Other News....

So, the last blog post had everything about our newest addition....but I do need to backtrack about 2-3 weeks to cover all the other exciting things going on!

June 13th: When Bo (Jana) got into town we decided to do maternity pictures. I never did this with Beth...I don't really enjoy documenting my massive belly....but I decided they'd be nice to have, to look back on,....at least that's what I told myself. Jana is an AWESOME photographer, so I knew she had a good vision for these pictures. They turned out REALLY great. I was SO anti-bare-belly-pictures....but when we were trying to get Beth to "kiss baby Ami"....it was the ONLY way she would. From about 35 weeks on Beth loved to sit and talk to her sister, but would only do it if she could see my skin. So, I only allowed this in my living room, blinds closed :-). But when we "needed" the shot, I took one for the team.

June 18th: I was SO happy because my mom helped me finish the quiet book for Beth's 2nd birthday! It's no where close to perfect, but I love it, mostly because I put so much work into it! My mom did the embroidery on the front, BY HAND. And she was the mastermind behind the cover. THANKS MOM! I added a note on the inside of the front cover....Here are a few pictures of some of the pages.

So, skipping to AFTER Amielia arrived, we had a LOT of photo shoots! We did a newborn photo shoot when Ami was 48 hours old, and I will be posting more of those pictures when they are edited. We did a 2 year old photo shoot for Beth, and a updated picture of the 4 Bassett grandkids. Here are just a few of the pictures, and my favorite of Beth so far, is one that we took BEFORE the actual 2 year photo shoot.

We've had SO much fun with family and friends the past few weeks! Here are a few pictures of our good times!

Andrew's parents having fun getting to know their newest (and 10th) grandchild.

Beth and Jess are best buds....and Beth shows her love by wrapping Jess up in mint waxed floss (didn't get a picture before Jana "saved him")

Jana and Eric couldn't see the floss go to waste....so they used it. Weirdos. 

 

My gorgeous, skinny, tan, sister in law Jackie! My girls LOVE her!

Jess is a WHIZ at the WII. He can start the game and play all by himself, at 2 years old! This is a picture of him playing the airplane game. He even knows how to intentionally crash in the water, when he feels like it. I'm amazed at how smart he is!

Here are some of my other favorite pictures. One of Ami with her Oma and Opa (Jana's inlaws). They are some of our favorite people! Ami with my Bassett Grandparents and My beautiful mom with Ami.

Beth loves holding her little sister, and Ami gave us a contemplative look when we gave her a bath!

Well things have definitely been busy around here! Andrew is back to work, so we are starting to get back into a routine. Ami is a great baby and usually sleeps and eats well, Although it's been an adjustment, having 2 little girls has been wonderful. Beth is turning 2 at the beginning of July, and Andrew and I have birthdays that follow shortly after. We are excited to see what the next few weeks hold!

I hope everyone is doing well!

Happy Blogging!

Amielia Is Here!!

Hello Everyone! It's been tough finding time to do anything the last few days. Blog entries, laundry, showering, sleeping....they've all gone on the back burner....Just kidding, my laundry is ALL done *eyeroll*.... Really, I've just been doing the minimum around here and enjoying my little family. It feels great.

For those of you that want to know the details of Amielia's arrival, keep reading. If you don't wish to know the details, just skip around and look at pictures. Warning: The birth story is LONG. I mean REALLY LONG.

If you read my blog post immediately prior to this one, you know that we already had an all too real "false" alarm on June 10th. On Tuesday, the 14th, we went to my doctor for an appt. He was pretty surprised to see me still pregnant. He checked me and I was still at 5cm, 100% effaced. The baby was lower than Friday, which was great news. I talked to him about my concern in regards to not receiving the adequate amount of antibiotics for Group B Strep during delivery. He was confident that if I received 1 dose, things would be good. But I had recently learned from the hospital, that if I didn't receive 2 doses of Clindamyacin (I'm allergic to Penicillin), 8 hours apart, Ami would need to stay at least 48 hours. I knew that once my labor started again, it would go fast. When doing our research and preparation for this birth, I learned a valuable lesson. If there is something you can do to make your labor better for you and for the baby, DO IT. So, with confidence, we decided to be induced. This may surprise some of you, as I wanted to go "natural"....it surprised me. But it felt right. I knew that I was doing my best to make sure that I could receive the antibiotics and have the labor and delivery I wanted. My concerns with inductions were tied with the diagnosis of "Failure to progress", but since I was already at 5cm/100% I felt that my body just needed a kick start, and it would take over.

We scheduled the induction for Friday, when I would be 39w 1d. My doctor wanted to induce right at 39, but they didn't have anything available. We scheduled another appt for Thursday, for him to check me and the baby again. His Nurse, Jen, who we LOVE, said she'd keep trying to get me in Thursday. We went about our day to day things on Wednesday, and I got a call later that afternoon saying that she had gotten me in on Thursday at 7am, but that I could be bumped if they had too many "actual" labors come in. So, we got instructions to call Thursday morning at 6am to see if they still had room. We didn't tell many people about the induction, as we didn't know if it really was going to happen. At 6am I made the call and we were good to go! We dropped off Beth at my mom's (who didn't go back to sleep, sorry mom) and headed to the hospital.

We got checked in, and they started my antibiotics right away, hoping to get a head start. We met our wonderful L&D nurse, Tia, and things got underway. My Pitocin was started around 7:45am, at a dose of 1,  and I started having mild contractions about 20 minutes later. My contractions were about 3-4 minutes apart, and completely manageable. Although I needed to be on the monitors because of the pitocin, I could bounce on the ball, stand, lean, and even WALK, thanks to a wireless unit. I was happy with how I was doing, and for almost 5 hours things were wonderful! Tia brought me a "mixed drink" (sprite and cranberry juice) and we laughed about how we didn't drink, but could appreciate a good virgin mixed drink. Around 12:30pm my doctor checked me and I was still only 5cm. He said the head was perfectly engaged, and he wanted to break my water. He hoped that by doing this, my body would take over, and they could turn off the pitocin. This was music to my ears. I know how dangerous high levels of pitocin can be for the baby, and I didn't want to continue upping the dose if we had an alternative. At this point I was at a 22 for the pitocin. 

So, Dr. Davis broke my water. He asked if I planned on getting an epidural and I said "Nope"....he said that was perfectly fine as long as I could stay in control and calm. At first I was offended, it's MY labor, I can do what I want....but then I realized just how important his advice was. If I was NOT in control and calm, it would effect me, the baby and the experience. So, I took it as a challenge. About 5 minutes after he broke my water things got harder. Much harder. The contractions were coming every 2 minutes. They were strong, and very difficult to get through. I still could relax in between the contractions, but during them, I was drowning. I relied on Andrew and Jana to support me through them. Tia, was great, she noticed that with all my moving we weren't getting a strong heart tone on Ami. So, she took off the belt that held the monitor on, and held the monitor by hand through the next hour. She told me to do whatever I needed to, and don't worry about her.

After an hour of these contractions, Tia offered to check me. I was 6.5-7cm. This was great. But I started to panic. I didn't know if I could make it through another contraction, let alone 10, 15 or more. This was exactly what I was told NOT to do. Don't think about how difficult it is, just take it one contraction at a time. But I didn't.  I had tried EVERYTHING to deal with the contractions. Every trick in my bag was used. Unfortunately, I felt my body tensing up with every contraction, and I knew this would get me nowhere. So, about 3 contractions later, I decided I wanted an epidural. Did I lose the battle? Yes. But I wouldn't lose the War. I learned something at that moment that I will always remember. I was in control. I was making the decisions. And that's exactly what I wanted. So, at 2pm I got the epidural and didn't look back.When Tia asked how I was doing, my odd response was "this is better than a mixed drink!"

My dad had texted Jana asking how I was doing, and I remembered that I completely forgot to ask for a priesthood blessing before we went to the hospital. So, after I was comfortable in bed, my dad came and gave me a blessing with Andrew. It was wonderful. About 45 minutes later Tia came in and said she wanted to check me. I declined, thinking it had only been 45 minutes, really how much could I have progressed? She said she'd check back. At 3pm (about 15 minutes later) she insisted on checking me. After she checked me she said "You're 10cm, ready to push?"....I was shocked. I had gone from 6.5-10cm in 1 hour. Relaxation is amazing, my body could do what it needed. But I was still worried about pushing. Beth took 2 hours of pushing, and she was a vacuum assisted delivery. So, I was nervous. Luckily, my epidural only numbed pain, (not like Beth's where my legs had no feeling at all!).  So, I could still move my legs and body efficiently. I didn't really feel the need to push yet, so Tia prepped my 2nd round of antibiotics. 

At 3:30pm as she was putting in the antibiotics, I felt the need to push. So, we started what I thought would be a LONG process. After 2-3 contractions, she could see the head, and decided to call the doctor. The pushing process was pain free, but I could feel the progress and could work with my body. Once her head and arms were out, my doctor told Andrew and I to reach down and finish delivering our daughter. We gingerly grabbed her and put her on my stomach. At 3:55pm, after only 25 minutes of pushing, my beautiful little girl came into the world. She had a head full of dark hair, and was wide eyed. She was 7lbs 3oz, 20 in long, which is just a bit smaller than Beth. 

She was checked over, and given back to me, and we had alone time for about an hour. It was a precious time for us. After that we were moved upstairs, and she got to meet everyone else that was waiting for her arrival. Including her "Big" sister Beth. 

All in all, it was a GREAT experience. My recovery has been amazing. Because things were going well and we were able to have both rounds of antibiotics, (BARELY, since my labor was 8 hours 10 minutes), we were able to be discharged after 24 hours with a perfect bill of health. It's been such an amazing experience the 2nd time around. I got to make decisions based on what was best for me, not because of fear or being forced. I had a wonderful team, Andrew and Jana, and nurse, Tia, who did an amazing job taking care of me. Tia sent me a congratulations card that read "I'm glad I could facilitate something that was better than mixed drinks." It made us smile! We are SO happy to have this precious little girl in our family.

So much is going on for us right now, but this post is already SO long. I will update you on other fun parts of our life soon! A BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG THANKS goes out to my sister Bo (Jana), for all of the pictures and for being part of our special day. We love you Bo.

Happy Blogging!