Alivia's Baby Blessing

We blessed Alivia on February 20, 2011.

Dress was made by Great Grandma Muirhead.
It is beautiful! Thanks Grandma!

After church we all headed over to our house for a lunch of soups, salad, bread, drink, cookies and cake. We ended up with 33 people at our house afterwards. It was crowded but so fun.

Thank you to everyone who was able to make it.
It was a great day!

A football fan in the making

Alivia and Ryan hung out for quite a while like this watching the Pro Bowl on Sunday. I think Ryan is pretty excited about having a football watching buddy.

Alivia Joy Ward

Alivia joined our family January 20 at 11:06 am. She was 7 pounds and 18 1/2 inches long.

We got to the hospital about 7:40 that morning and were waiting for the doctor to come break my water.  She came and got feeling around in there and could tell something just didn't feel right. She was feeling for the sutchers (sp?) on the head and was not finding anything but softness.  I've been told for weeks that my baby had flipped and was head down by several different doctors.  So it was possible that maybe she had flipped back over.  She did an ultrasound and sure enough, her head was not down.

This would not have been a big problem had she not just broke my water and my contractions were already getting harder.  She called the on-call doctor and he came in. It was decided that in trying to avoid a C-Section, they would give me an epidural (which I've never had before) and try to turn the little stinker so that I could deliver normally.  After the epidural and a long, agonizing time of them working on trying to turn her, they determined that she for some reason would not turn.  Then we had a choice of going with a breech vaginal birth or with a C-Section.  After talking with Ryan and a few tears shed, we decided not to risk it and to just go with the C-Section.

They turned up the epidural and shortly had me prepped and ready for surgery.  What a strange sensation it was. I was told exactly what they were doing as they were doing it. They were talking and joking the whole time, which made me more relaxed I guess.  They even asked what names we had to choose from and took votes.  The procedure went really well and seemed really quick and then I was holding my beautiful baby girl.  They said that the umbilical cord was kindof wrapped behind her shoulder and that was probably what was keeping her from turning.  So I'm glad we opted for the C-Section because that potentially could have caused problems with the breech birth.

After several hours in the surgery recovery room, we were moved to a regular mother/baby suite.  It took forever, it seemed to get feeling back in my legs and feet, but man once that wore off, I realized the pain.  I hurt more from them trying to turn her than from the actual incision.  I am so thankful she is here and safely. She sure is precious and we all love her so much.  She seems to be a pretty content baby and we're sure gonna enjoy her...especially once I get to where I can move again.

Ryan's big fish

This past weekend, Ryan took the scouts on a winter campout to Island Park Reservoir. Saturday morning, they got up and did some ice fishing. Although fishing really wasn't great, he did manage to catch this beauty.  He was pretty darn excited about it because these fish just don't get this big.

It is a Kokanee Salmon, 19 1/2 inches and 3 pounds. Isn't it a beauty!

Bo's new glasses

Last week the kids got their eyes checked at school. We were informed that Bo's eyes were not up to par.  We took him to the eye doc and sure enough, he has an astigmatism so he got his glasses today.  He looks so much more grown up with them.

Honey do list

We have had a busy couple of weeks doing some home improvements before the baby comes.  Here are some pics of what we've been up to.

We painted the baby's room

Raegan "helping" paint the closet doors

Ryan painting the aqua color.  It scared us a little at first, but is much better now.

Both colors - aqua and dark brown

Bo being a big helper

Bad picture.  The room actually turned out really cute, especially once we got the chair-rail up.

We built shelves in our storage room after nearly 9 years of living in our house.  I'm so excited to fill them up. They turned out so good.

My husband bought a roll end of carpet for really cheap so we ripped the carpet out of our upstair living room and replaced the pad and the carpet.  We are loving it!

Ryan pulling up the old carpet



Raegan thought it was great pulling up the pad



Starting to install the new carpet

We also had to buy a new crib because ours was on the recall list. Luckily Walmart took it back and gave us a full refund so we bought a new one and spent time figuring out how to put it together.

Ryan also built a few shelves along the top front of our garage for coolers and such.

It's been a busy couple of weeks, but so worth it.

Raegan strikes again!

It's been quite a while since I've done a Raegan post.  Well, she was on a roll the other day. Unfortunately, I only got pictures of one of the mischievious deeds from that day.

We had gone to the store the day before and somehow she talked us into buying some purple fingernail polish.  Purple is her color of choice these days.  I, being the ding-dong I am, put the polish on the counter instead of locking it away in a safe.

When she came downstairs with her hands and feet painted purple, we knew things were not good.

We went upstairs to find this mess.  Fortunately since it was pretty fresh, it came of fairly easily. I'm just glad it was in the kitchen on the tile and not in her bedroom on the carpet or somewhere like that.

What a little stinker we are raising!