Pictures and Update... :)

Where has the time gone?? I can't believe that my smiley little boy is almost 6 months old!!! There are a bunch of pictures I have on my camera that I haven't even shown anybody! I am going to start working on a photo book so I can have it done by his first birthday!!

As some of you know, I attempted a "natural" birth.. Free of drugs or many interventions. It is crazy how plans can change!! Good thing I am a pretty flexible person. I started having contractions on Tuesday 8/6( my due date), after my appointment for 40 week check up. My doctor did an ultrasound to check on the Baby, and noticed that my amniotic fluid levels were low, and so he thought it would be best to induce me on Friday(8/9/13) if labor hadn't started naturally. We gave this some thought, I really didn't want to be induced because I knew the rate for C-sections would increase a lot, but we decided that it was probably the right choice. However, on Thursday night, my contractions were so strong that I couldn't sleep and so we decided to head to the hospital since they were going to induce me in the morning anyway. When we got there, they decided to just get the induction process started so they started my IV pitocin at about 1:00 am. I labored naturally for 10 hours ( until about 11:30) and at that point I was SO exhausted, Ryan was exhausted ( because we hadn't slept in about 36 hours) and so I just decided to get the epidural so that we could rest until the baby was ready to come! BEST DECISION EVER. My epidural went so smoothly, ended up being mild enough that i could feel my legs through the entire labor process, and that 2 hour nap really was just what my body needed to get ready to give birth. (Ryan sure appreciated the nap as well). I had the BEST nurses in L&D. They were so awesome and really did a great job helping me labor naturally, and then didn't hesitate to call that anesthesiologist when I said I wanted that epidural. 

Finally about 4:00 I felt some pressure and had the nurse check, and sure enough I was fully dilated!  An hour later our little Scotty was born. ( I was sure glad when he came out that he ended up being a boy- I kept having nightmares that after all our planning, naming, etc. that he would end up being a girl. haha) Ryan's Mom, my Mom and Dad were all there in the room for his birth, which was really special. I hadn't planned on it being that way, but really appreciated the extra cheering section. :) 

  Ryan and his Mom had a very emotional moment when the baby was born, and so my Mom was actually the one who cut the cord! Pretty Neat!! I'm glad that they could all be there to share that special moment with us.

Born 8/9/13 at 5:14 PM 6lb 12 oz. our little Scott Ivan Olsen

Proud Daddy

Has Mama's eyes.. and big hands and feet! Gonna be a Tall Boy!

Pictures that were taken by the hospital photographers, BellaBaby

Grandma and Scotty

I love that precious, perfect, round little head!

Hated his Carseat from day one...

With cousins Eliza and Delaney

The first of many naps with Daddy. 

Loves with Grandpa Olsen

First bath at home... " MOM.. What I don't think i like this???" ( now he LOVES bath time)

Like father.. Like son

With Aunt Crissy on his blessing day 9/1/13

Scott is named after his Uncle Scott Olsen. Scott passed away on July 2, 2013... about a month before little Scotty was born. While we were in the hospital, Ryan and I both had strong impressions that we should name our little boy after Scott. Crissy( Scott's wife) gave her blessing to use his name, and that is how our little Scotty got his name!! He now has many nicknames... including "Biscotti"..." Scit Scott".... "Booger".... "Scotty Boo Boo"...

Not  so happy... but at least he is wearing the right colors!!!

I  LOVE those bright blue eyes!!!

Pretty sure i have the Smiliest baby ever!! Loved that bouncy seat until he outgrew it at about 4 months.. he still loves to bounce though! Now he bounces in his "saucer".

I call this one... "Crazy Eyes..."

Big boy in his Big Boy highchair!! Someone eats oatmeal cereal now!!

Scotty LOVES his Woody and Bullseye he got for Christmas!

Look who is sitting up!!!!

Little guy loves his "saucer"

Little guy loves being NAKED!!! I couldn't resist taking this.... ( 1/23/13)

A Realization

           I realize I never finished my pregnancy post... And let's be honest... I'm not so sure it will ever get finished. We had some pretty rough times in the last 2 months of my pregnancy... And I want to focus on the happy things. New year, Fresh outlook on life!

         One of the things I find most interesting with becoming a parent is the advice that people are so eager to give... Many times it's very appreciated and useful advice, but some pieces of "advice" that people choose to share can be condescending or make me feel like I'm a bad Mom! It took me a few months to realize that since I am the one raising my sweet baby, what really matters is what I feel is right .
           We are "blessed" with one of those stubborn babies who does NOT like to sleep. He is so alert and involved in what's around him, that he doesn't want to miss out so to him, sleeping doesn't seem like fun! I read 4 books on sleep training... Different methods, tips and tricks, etc. Looking for any insight I could to help my baby( and me) get some much needed sleep. I asked so many people "HOW did you get your baby to sleep??" What surprised me the most is that for so many parents out there, sleep never was a problem for their baby! They have little angels that sleep well, and they never really had to do sleep training, or put much effort into coaxing their little one to sleep. This made me so frustrated! I am such a busy Mom... I work ( full time at the moment) and am in my last semester of nursing school. My husband also works full time, which means that we both have been so sleep deprived and emotionally drained that our lives outside our home have pretty much disappeared.

         
                After over a month of severe sleep deprivation , things have FINALLY started to get better. We have finally started to see progress in sleeping habits of Scotty... Not by following any of these "sleep plans", not by strictly letting our baby cry.. But by a unique method which is driven by the instinct of his parents! The books on the subject were very useful, as were many pieces of advice given by multiple friends and family members. However, the most useful insight in this situation was my own instinct and knowledge of my baby's personality! No, things aren't perfect yet, but getting 4-5 straight hours of sleep inbetween waking is a HUGE step for us.  And what's even better, Scotty is learning to fall asleep on his own. No more endless rocking, shushing, and pacifiers to get him to sleep( only to have him wake when I try to put him in the crib). As I speak, he is down for a nap that he 1. Didn't take endless rocking to fall asleep.  2. Was put into the crib awake and calmed himself to sleep!
         
          I guess my point is, there are so many different aspects of parenting, and thanks to social media, all we see are these "perfect" babies and parents. It is easy to feel like a bad Mom! But I know that nothing is perfect, raising a child is HARD, and this is just the beginning!! I feel like my baby is healthy, growing physically and mentally, and that makes me the BEST mom I can be!!! I love this little guy so much!

Adventures in Pregnancy...

It's hard to believe that I am already 31 weeks pregnant! The time sure flies! I feel very blessed that so far into the pregnancy, there have been essentially no complications!  There is nothing else in the world that is quite like housing another person inside you.. It amazes me how much love I have for this little boy already! I can't wait to meet him and see how his personality develops and how he grows up!

Especially after suffering a miscarriage, I have been a little nervous throughout this pregnancy. I have taken special care to make sure I take care of myself the best I can and keep my stress levels down so that I can have a healthy pregnancy. Also, this time around, we waited a while longer to tell anyone we were pregnant, even our immediate family! I didn't want to have to go through the heartache of telling everyone if we suffered another miscarriage. I wanted to wait a full 12 weeks to tell anyone we were pregnant, but it was too hard to resist telling our immediate family on Christmas !! So we decided to spill the beans at 8 weeks pregnant.

We decided it would be kind of funny to buy some t shirts that cleverly said we were pregnant and kind of just wait and see how long it took someone to notice what the shirt said. We were with my family first, and had been there for quite a while before anyone noticed what our shirts actually said. I was sitting on my sisters lap and she looked at my shirt and all of a sudden she looked at me and said" is this for real?" . And then everyone else figured it out. It was pretty funny. I don't really like announcing things like that or being the center of attention so this way worked perfect for us.  Later on that evening when we were with Ryan's family, it was pretty much the same reaction only one of Ryan's aunts figured it out very quickly!!
          I had pretty bad morning sickness with this pregnancy. I did a lot of vomiting, and really couldn't eat much because there wasn't much that sounded good to me or would settle well in my stomach. Eventually I ended up getting on some anti nausea medication because it was so hard to even function!! Luckily, I was out of school during most of the nausea period, and by the time school started again I had my nausea meds that made it so I could handle school.  By about week 16, my morning sickness had mostly subsided an I started to feel an energy boost!
    This semester in school was fun because we had OB/GYN class and clinical. It was fun to learn everything as I was actually experiencing it in my own body. My clinical instructor was awesome and even did an ultrasound to show the class what an ultrasound was like.


To be continued...

Back in Utah!!

It seems like the time in St. Louis was long, long ago! Yet here we are, back in Utah... and hopefully to stay! Ryan didn't end up needing to participate in the second half of his program, and so we decided to come back home so he can get everything started for his business in Dog Training.
              I am all set to start Nursing school at SLCC in January 2013, so this year is going to be a year of working and saving up money before it's time to go back to school! Right now, i am waiting on getting a job. I have applied pretty much everywhere: IHC, St. Mark's Hospital, and the U hospital too. I haven't heard a whole lot yet but i am attributing that to the busy holiday time and hope to have a job soon!
            Ryan is doing a good job of getting things started. He is so great with dogs and it has been so fun to see the difference he can make. We are excited for his reputation to grow so he can have more work to do and be able to eventually move on to bigger dreams and ambitions in the dog training area.
                  Here is the fun picture that Ryan put on his Resume.

I love the Christmas season and how it brings our minds to Christ, his life, and all the blessings that we have.  I think it goes hand in hand with new years resolutions, and causes us to realize the things we should change and move towards in the next year. I am going to try to become a little bit of a better blogger, so hopefully there will be more posts on this blog next year than there were this year. (and hopefully more pictures too... we are going to work on taking more fun pictures, so that we can save some more memories of the fun times that we have!)
          We were so glad to spend Christmas at home with our family!! Here are a couple of Christmas pictures!

Decorating the Gingerbread house

 

Making Schlieferlies

Adventures!!

We have been so busy the last few weeks, it hardly seems real that we are here! After lots of hard work and stress, we managed to get all moved into our apartment in St. Louis! Today was the official end of moving in, as we unpacked the last box!! We are so grateful to Mom and Dad Olsen for helping us drive all our stuff... It was a bit scary sometimes traveling with that big trailer. They are Superstars and we love them!!! It was a great help to have them here with us, not only for their physical work, but to help us feel more comfortable in our neighborhood and our new ward. 

Our drive out here was a little stressful because we found out that the highway taking us into Missouri on our route was closed due to river flooding. So we had to do a little re-routing, and ended up doing a lot of driving through some Nebraska farmland. Thank goodness for our GPS systems, or else it would have been a lot more difficult to make it here!!

       After arriving here in St. Louis, we spent 4 hours unpacking and then finished in time to take a quick swim in our new pool! it felt great to relax and have fun. However, our apartment didn't have any hot water(Until this morning), and so the cold showers haven't been very fun. I am looking forward to my first hot shower here.

       On Saturday returned the trailer and did some shopping for groceries and for some other basic needs for our new home. We spent the rest of the day working on more unpacking and organizing.  

      It was great to go to church on Sunday! We are so lucky that our ward is very close to our apartment. Its about 3 miles away. The minute we sat down in the chapel, we had a bunch of people come right up to us and talk to us and get to know who we are. I guess they have a lot of medical students in that area, and so they have had a lot of new families lately. I am so glad to live in an area where the people are so friendly and accepting.  After church, we had some lunch and then we went to downtown St. Louis and did some sight seeing!

Gateway Arch

This Statue is NOT supposed to be under water...

At the Temple

( the temple is really quite close to us too, between 10-15 minutes )

Here is the virtual Tour of our apartment! As you walk in the door, you see our living room

To the left is the dining area and the Kitchen

 Our awesome brick wall. I love this part of our apartment. :)

 Down the hall leads to our bathroom, bedroom, and the study area/ doggie bedroom

 And that's it!! :)