Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving feast today. Justin did an amazing job on the turkey. In fact, it was the best turkey I ever tasted.
Besides baking for half the day, we've enjoyed playing games and chatting with each other. Justin's mom and brother are here with us. Toni came up from Utah and is staying with Mary, but we got to see her for awhile today. It's been fun to have family here.
Today, I am especially grateful for all my many blessings. I am so full of gratitude for my family, my health, and my little apartment home. I give thanks for the freedoms I enjoy and the opportunity I had for gaining an education. There are so many things to be grateful for, but I think what I am most grateful for is my Heavenly Father.

Blue Eyes

Katie is two weeks old today. Shes growing so fast and were starting to see more and more personality every day. We're so grateful to have her. One thing that she does that we think is pretty funny is that she will open one eye at a time. She will open one and then a few seconds later the other slowly opens. Sometimes she doesn't open the other eye at all. Its fun to watch. Also, her eyes are clearing up. They were dark blue for a while but now they are lightening up and since she has them open for longer periods of time now, we get to enjoy them more.
By the way, we're planning on blessing her on Sunday January 4th here in Rexburg.

Thankful Thursday

I have so much to be grateful for! The Lord has blessed me with so much, and I am filled with gratitude for all these wonderful blessings.

• My little family
• Not being pregnant anymore (oh, the joy of being able to bend over)
• such a speedy recovery
• window insulators
• sunshine in November
• scriptures
• time with Justin
• burp rags
  

Jill and Katie

I was looking at these pictures today and thinking about how blessed I am to have such a great wife. I feel really blessed to have Jill and I am so grateful that I dont have to worry at all about what kind of mom she will be to our children. I dont have to worry that she will be a bad example to them or teach them incorrect things. I also feel so blessed to have a beautiful daughter that is healthy and happy. I couldnt have asked for a better family.

Baby meets Gorilla

I knew these two would be best friends.

One Week Old

So here we are one week after little Katie was born. Its amazing how time flies but she is such a part of our lives its hard to believe that she's only been on the outside for a week. Thanks so much to everyone who has called, sent things, given gifts, meals, congratulations, and a good time playing Ticket to Ride and stuff like that. We're so grateful to have a beautiful and healthy daughter and were grateful to have such great family and friends.

Here are a few pictures we just took of her in her Sunday dress. Some of them she wasn't too happy to take...







Here's a video of her so that those of you who haven't met her yet can see her in action.

Oklahoma!

So my brother Garrett got his call to the Tulsa Oklahoma mission last night. He goes into the MTC february 4th. Were so proud of you Garrett. This is something youve been working toward for a long time, and now its about to start. We love you
ps: sorry, all we had was paint to superimpose your head onto this picture :)

Our Little Angel

Thankful Thursday

I have so much to be thankful for this week so this will be a rather lengthy post.

• First I am so thankful for my beautiful, healthy, happy little girl. She is such a joy to have in our home. I love taking care of her, and as you can see, we have way too much fun watching her little facial expressions. When I was pregnant, I would always think "Mom was out of her mind to do this twelve times" but now I can see why she did do it. In her own words "There's nothing in the world like a new baby." My greatest joy right now is snugling her and watching her do pretty much everything: breathe, eat, sleep...I think she is such a beautiful little miracle. Justin always says "she just keeps getting cuter" and I couldn't agree more.
• Justin as always is the biggest blessing in my life. He was so great during the whole labor and delivery. He really helped me calm down and handle my pre-epidural contractions. If it weren't for him, I think I would have died before the epidural came. And he has been such a great daddy. Katelyn loves to snuggle with him. He's so good at calming her down and making sure she's warm and happy. And he's got this diaper changing business down. He's also much better at burping Katie, and using the mucous sucker.
• I am so grateful for the hospital staff. First of all, the nurses were so kind and caring. I never felt like they were being nazis about how much Katie was eating or if I was burping her right or anything. all they seemed to care about was if baby and I were happy. I just can't get over how kind they were. Whenever I called for a nusre to ask a question or ask for anything I needed, they acted like it made their day to wait on me. In fact, sometimes it seemed like they were disappointed when I wouldn't let them get me anything. Second, the guy who did my epidural was like an angel sent from heaven. He was already at the hospital when I came in, and he was so speedy quick which was such a blessing. He was also very kind and considerate. Third, I have to saythat my labor and delivery nurse was pretty much the best ever. She was so encouraging and helpful. She has had a baby of her own, and it was nice to have her help coach me through things.
• I'm also really grateful for Abbey, my old roommate. She is such a dear. While we were at the hospital she let herself into our apartment, and not only baked us cookies but cleaned it for us. The bathroom was torn apart because Justin had been doing some home repairs, and it was also the scene of the pre-hospital labor war zone. And the living room was clutterly from all my blankets, pillows, waterbottles, etc that I also needed during my pre-hospital labor hours. I feel bad that she had to clean my nasty house, but it was so nice to come home from the hospital and have a clean apartment.
• I'm really grateful for Katie's pediatricians. The one that we saw yesterday at her first appointment was so kind. He was a good listener, and he treated my all my concerns or questions as if it was the msot natural thing in the world to be worried or concerned about those things. He didn't make me feel like I was over paranoid or inexperienced or anything. That means a lot to me because I can't stand it when people especially in the healthcare field treat me like I'm an inferior or that my fears are unreasonable.
• Thank goodness for Mom. I don't know how many times I have called her and asked "Is this normal?" or "This is what is happening, what do you think I should do?" Knowing the Mom has had twelve kids, and can say "Been there, done that" to pretty much everything related to children, is very comforting and helpful. I've really appreciated her counsel and reassurance. Not to mention now having gone through childbirth myself, I am so grateful she brought me into the world, and took such good care of me.
• Lastly, thanks to all our friends, family, and ward members who have helped us so much and taken such great care of us. Thank you for giving us so much baby stuff and being there to encourage and support us. We really appreciate all of you and everything you have done for us.

Well, there's so much more to be grateful for, but it's just about feeding time for Katelyn so I better get going. Stay in tune for more great baby pics...with Justin around, I'm sure there will be more to follow soon.

Katelyn Jill Day

So we finally landed on a name. The relatives can now set their hearts at ease. We're now at home and glad to be here. Katie is doing great and is looking very cute in her sleeper. Shes a good girl and usually only cries if she gets chilly or when she's hungry (which is all the time--she loves to eat we'll put it that way).

I expect that she'll be crying about many other things before long. For now I'll just be grateful for the way things are; we have a beautiful healthy baby and who could ask for more than that?


Here are a few more pictures. We hope you like them.

--Justin

It's a girl!

At about 5:25 AM this morning, our soon-to-be-named little girl was born. She weighed 8lbs, 2oz and was 20" long. She has blue eyes and wispy light brown hair. Shes pretty quiet and so very cute. we love her. Last night after a few hours of contractions, (and after being sent home earlier because she wasn't dilated enough) we checked into the hospital, where Jill was promptly hooked up with an epidural. In her own words, "after the epidural, it was a piece of cake". We're so excited and happy to have her with us. We'll post more updates as events unfold.

Thankful Thursday

Being that Thanksgiving is this month, I'm going to try to be really dedicated to Thankful Thursday entries...however with Baby coming on board here pretty soon, we'll see how my resolve holds up.

Today I am thnakful for:

• Prop 8 passing. No, I am not a CA resident, but I am so thankful that there are still so many out there who believe in traditional marriage. I believe that greatest happiness comes from families, and I'm glad that the majority in this country still support family morals and values.


• I'm so grateful for my own marriage. Justin and I are so happy together, and I don't know what I would do without him.


• Our car is still working. We found out what's wrong with it officially, and the good news is we'll be fine. So no worries about not having a car to transport me to the hospital.


• Sunshine: I have such a hrad time when it's cloudy for days in and days out. I need sunshine, and I'm thankful that it's been sunny the last few days.

Halloween

To celebrate Halloween, we did several things. A couple days before Halloween, our friends Ashley and Carlin came over to carve jack-o-lanterns with us. The face one is ours and the Lehi's dream one was Carlin and Ashley's pumpkin.

For lunch on Halloween, we made a jack-o-lantern pizza. We put the eyes too close together so it looked sort of asian, but we enjoyed it.

Then in the evening, we had friends over for a Halloween Party. Everyone came in costume which I thought was fun. Among the couples' costumes were Raggedy Ann and Andy, a WWII pilot, a football player, two cowboys, a punk skater boy, an opera singer, and a civil war soldier. Justin was one of the cowboys, and I was a cat.

We made caramel popcorn balls and played games. We had so much fun laughing. I laughed so hard I thought that I would put myself into labor.

Shooting

A couple weeks ago Justin took me shooting. Our friends Carlin and Ashley came with us. We only stayed for a little while, but we had fun. I don't think I hit a single target, but I was just learning how to hold the gun steady enough to see through the scope.