Ariel's Photo Shoot

Ariel took some great pictures of Anastyn 9 days old. They turned out awesome. Here are a few:

4 Down, None to Go!

All 4 babies are finally here! It was quite a challenge to get them all to cooperate for a picture but we did the best we could. Thanks Ariel for taking such great pictures!

Anastyn - 9 days, McCoy - 2 months, Alayna - 6 weeks, Bryce - 2 months

Such a cute little bunch!

One Week Old

Anastyn Elaine is now 1 week old. It took us until the Monday following her birth (the 21st) to give her a name. I was totally convinced I was having a boy so naming her was a problem. We were deciding between Tess, Raegan, and Adelaide. Anastyn was on the list but I had first heard the name from our friends The Allreds. I didn't want to use their name but nothing else seemed fitting so we broke down and stole it. Thanks guys for not hating us, and for coming up with such a great name.

Overall, it has been a good week. I had the baby Tuesday afternoon, and stayed at the hospital until Thursday afternoon. Garrick and Kelly and my Mom and Dad were so great, they took Taeya while I was in the hospital and they even brought us dinner the night I came home. Don't know what I would have done without them. The recovery from this delivery has been a million times better, I don't know why, but I'm not complaining.

The first night home wasn't so fun. She woke up at least every hour. She acted like she wanted to suck and suck, but of course the binki wouldn't stay in! Thank goodness Gordon was home to take care of the girls in the morning so I could get at least 2 hours of uninterupted sleep. Each night since we have been home gets a little better and she goes a little longer in between feedings. As of one week she is about every 2-3 hours, so hopefully we can only improve!! She really is a good baby. For the most part she just cries when she is hungry. She grunts the rest of the time.

Here are some photos of her first week:

1st Family Photo, minus Taeya of course. Anastyn was only a few minutes old! Delivery was quick and not too painful, thanks to an epidural! Like I mentioned above, I was totally shocked that she was a girl. It made it such a fun suprise and I am so happy to have 2 little girls.

Anastyn and Mom at the hospital. 1 1/2 days old! (Of course we were referring to her as "baby" at the time).

Proud Dad and Anastyn, 1 1/2 days old. Gordon stayed with me at the hospital. He was a big help in the night and I liked having him there.

Me and my girls! Taeya was so funny in the hospital. She came and saw the baby the night she was born and she was so sweet and gentle with her. She wanted to examine her fingers and toes. I don't know why the doctors and nurses have to bother you all night and morning long, but it was funny after about the 4th interrunption she said, "who's going to come in next?" I thought that was funny, and it summed up the whole hospital stay.

We called my mom the morning after I had the baby and I said, "Taeya do you want to come and see the baby today," and she said "not for 15 weeks!" So she obviously had a great time at Papa and Nana's.

During my pregnancy we kept telling Taeya that the babies name was Calloway, which is what it was going to be if she was a he, so she was so confused and couldn't remember the babies name. She wanted us to name her "Emily."

This picture wouldn't turn, but I had to show how little they look in the car seat. (Although my car seat is smaller than some, so she doesn't look quite so big in there!) 2 days old and ready to go home!

3 days old, and snoozing in the swing.

3 1/2 days old, 1st bath. Of course she cried through the whole thing. Taeya enjoyed helping! She is always by my side when I give the baby baths.

All nice and warm in Daddy's arms.

Sleeping beauty, 4 days old.

Still sleeping, 5 days old.

7 days old, with big sister Taeya. Already at 1 week old, Taeya has taken her off the bed once, and carried her across the room twice, almost giving me heart attacks all three times. I thought I was keeping a good eye on her, but obviously I need to try harder. When I asked Taeya what she thought of her new baby sister she said, "I think it's great!" I don't know if she really thinks is't so great, she has been a lot more emotional. I am trying to give her a lot of attention, but I think I still must fall short. A common phrase around our household this past week has been, "as soon as I'm done feeding the baby!"

Nursing has gone pretty well. She has latched on and was a great sucker in the hospital. But now she has become a great eater in the night-time, and a little snacker in the day. So she wants to eat all of the time during the day. Hopefully we get that figured out quickly!

We sure do love our little girl and we are so grateful she has joined our family.

Utah Lake

Saturday, September 19th, we celebrated Cassidy's birthday. Frank (Gordon's brother) rented a few wave runners and we hung out at Utah Lake for the afternoon. Gordon and Taeya were just going to go, but Gord talked me into going also. I just hung out in the shade all afternoon and fed the baby in the car. It was actually quite relaxing. Taeya and her cousins, or her "friends" as she calls them, enjoyed playing in the sand, eating Dora cupcakes, and doing a little water skiing. It is amazing to me how much fun kids can have with a few buckets, sand, and water. They are entertained for hours!

Taeya and Laeklan eating their Dora cupcakes.

Baby Anastyn sleeping in the car. She dodged the wind storm that came up shortly after I moved her to the car. The window was down a little bit and she ended up with sand all over her, I felt bad but she didn't seem to mind.

Taeya and Dad

Getting ready to go skiing. Gordon had rented a wave runner the weekend before so Taeya could go skiing again this season, and I forgot the camera. She tried a few times without getting up and Gordon told her she could be done trying, and she said "one more time," (holding up her finger to show the #1) and she got right up. I am so glad she enjoys it now!

It's a........

Baby Girl!

We are so excited to have another girl. Taeya is already loving her.

She was born September 15, 2009 at 4:18 pm

8 lbs. 1 oz., 18 inches

More pictures to follow!

Pregnancy, Labor and Delivery

I found out I was pregnant in January of 2009 and determined that my due date was September 24th. Gordon and I were both excited. I was probably a little more nervous than excited. It sounded like a lot of work to have 2 kids. I have really enjoyed having these 3 years with just one little girl and Taeya was getting so much easier.

For the most part this pregnancy wasn't too much different than the first. I did feel a little more nauseous with the 2nd baby than I did with the first. I didn't actually throw-up this time though. The sickness didn't last very long, only a month or so. I felt the baby move a lot sooner, maybe I just knew what I was feeling, but it was fun to fill those little "butterflies" and know that something was growning inside of me! I felt a lot bigger sooner this time around. My clothes were already getting pretty tight by 20 weeks.

I had decided that I didn't want to find out the gender of our second baby. Gordon gladly agreed. When it got to the day of the ultrasound it was a little tempting to tell the technician that we wanted to know. She asked us right off, and we said "no." She threw us off though because I distinctly remembering her saying "he" and I thought I saw a male body part in the unltrasound, so all along we really thought we were having a boy. We had pretty much even decided his name was going to be Calloway. Taeya even referred to the baby as "baby Calloway."

6-3-09 24 weeks pregnant

8-27-09 36 weeks pregnant

Dr. Jones checked me the day of my 36 week appointment. I was pleasantly suprised that I was already dialated to a 3 and 50% thinned. By this point I was feeling huge. I had gained about 35 pounds and was reading into everyones question, "When are you due?" To me that was saying, "you are huge, I can't believe you haven't delivered that baby yet!" For the most part I was still feeling good. My back would hurt from standing, and it was hard for me to hold Taeya, and I was quite swollen.

Things started getting a little discouraging when I wasn't more dialated at my 37, or 38 week appointments. The nurse told me I was a turkey. I had reached my "done" point because I was measuring 40 weeks pregnant at the 38 week appointment. That is just what every pregnant women wants to hear. I was getting a little worried and Dr. Jones was talking about inducing me, we had the induction date set for September 18th.

I thought it would be really cool to have the baby on 09-09-09, and I got excited when I started having contraction on the morning of September 8th. I had them consistently for about 2 hours, than they stopped. On September 9th I bought some Castor Oil and was tempted to drink some. I didn't, but I did try pumping, it didn't work either. Same thing happened pretty much every night when I got done working, I would have contractions for a few hours, than they would stop. Gordon and I would walk up and down the streets at night, I even tried jogging a few times. It wasn't that I was so uncomfortable that I woud do anything to have the baby, I think it was just that I wanted the un-known to be over. I still had clients scheduled through September 16th.

I worked a long 7 hours on Monday, September 14th. When I got home that night I had the usual contractions. Each time I have these contractions I find myself thinking, "maybe this is it?" But of course a few hours later they would stop. On September 15th at about 4:30 am I woke up to pretty strong contractions, these ones were the real thing, much more crampy then the others. I started timing them, and they were anywhere from 3 minutes to 10 minutes apart. They would be 3 minutes apart for 4-5 contractions, than they would be 5 minutes apart for 4-5 contractions and so on. I figured this was it, but I still needed to get Taeya to school at 10:00 am, and I had a doctors appointment scheduled for 10:20 am. So Gordon went to work, on standby, and I got up and got ready for the day as usual, taking extra care to pack a bag for Taeya just in case.

At around 9:30 am, the contractions slowed down considerably. They were around 20 minutes apart, and I kind of stopped timing them feeling a little frustrated. In the back of my mind, I still figured that Doctor Jones would send me over to the hospital. I knew he was on call so I got my bags ready just in case. I called Kelly and let her know the situation and she was ready to pick Taeya up from school if I needed her to.

At the doctors appointment they told me that Doctor Jones was delivering a baby and the nurse was going to just talk to me. I told her that I wanted to talk to the doctor about being induced so she had me wait for him to finish delivering the baby. I didn't have to wait long. When he came in I told him what was going on and talked to him about my concerns with being induced. Then he checked me and discovered that I was dialated to a 5 and about 90% thinned. That was a little shocking. He said he was worried that my water would break at any time, so he encouraged me to just go to the hospital.

09-15-09 Delivery Day!

38 1/2 weeks

Instead of going straight to the hospital I called Gordon and met him at home. I needed to get a few extra things for Taeya and get my house in order a little more. I met Lawni and Alyson outside and told them the update. Gordon met me home at about 11:45 am and we headed for the hospital. I was admitted around 12:00 pm. Dr. Jones came in around 12:30 and broke my water, and I got my epidural shortly after. It was a little odd to be in the hospital, not feeling too much pain, just chatting with Gordon. It was then that Gordon became a little skeptical as to the gender of our unborn child. We had started thinking about girl names, I really liked Adelaide, but he thought it was cheesy. I still thought it was a boy so I didn't worry too much about a girl name. We read through some weird baby name book and flipped through the channels on the TV before the nurse came back in to check me. She came in at 4:00 pm, checked me and said I was totally ready. She called the Doctor. He arrived around 4:10 pm, I pushed through 3 contractions, and SHE was born!! As I was pushing, he said "she" a few times (At about 37 weeks I discovered that Dr. Jones knew the gender of the baby because they technician had written it down). Finally as the head came out I said, "is it a girl?" He looked at me and smiled, pulled the baby all the way out and said, "it's a girl!" I got a little emotional as I was in shock over my new baby girl! I couldn't believe I had another girl. I love girls, I couldn't be more excited. It was so fun to call all our family and friends and tell them the exciting news.

Me (looking really swollen), baby GIRL, Gordon and Dr. Jones

Me all ready and waiting!

Now the hard part was coming up with a name. We had a few in mind: Tess, Raegan, Adelaide. Those were the top 3. Taeya kept calling the baby Tess (at least that is what Kelly said), and Tess and Taeya would be cute together, but it just didn't seem right. She looked kind of like a Raegan, but I didn't know if I would like that name in the future. I really liked Adelaide, but Gordon was worried about naming our daughter after his mission. We asked the family for opinions, and that just made is worse!

We left the hospital on Thursday afternoon with no name, against the wishes of the nurses, with a promise to call first thing Monday morning with the name. We fretted over the name all weekend, without getting too much closer to making a decision. All along I have loved the name Anistyn. Our good friends, The Allred's, named their daughter that 3 years ago, and I have loved it ever since. It was the name we both really loved, so we finally broke down and called them and asked if we could "steal" their name. They agreed of course, and now we have our little Anastyn. I stressed over the spelling of corse. I didn't want to spell it Anistyn because that is the way the Allreds spell it and I didn't want her nickname to be Annie, I like Anna better. So then do you spell is Annastyn, Annastin, or Anastyn? We obviously decided on Anastyn. She probably won't get her name spelled correctly in the future, but hopefully they will pronounce it right. We are so greatful for her health and for the sweet little girl she is. We love her so much and couldn't be more thrilled to have another little GIRL!

1st Day of School

Taeya's first day of Preschool was September 8th. She has been so excited to go all summer long. She goes to the Funshine Preschool in Pleasant Grove on Tuesday's and Thursday's from 10-12. So far she loves it.

Her teachers name is Miss Amber.

She is such a big girl and I know she is really going to have a great year at school!