Blessing Day

Our little girl was given a name and a blessing on November 13th!  It was a beautiful day spent with a lot of family members on both sides that were able to come.

 

Amelia-Jayne wore the same blessing dress and shoes that I was blessed in.  My Grandma Parrish bought it when my mom was pregnant with my oldest brother and had to wait 11 years for a girl to be born to wear it!    My mom and I did some minor repairs to it the night before and I made her bow and bracelet to update it. 

…Getting her ready…

This bonnet was made by my Great-Grandma for my Grandma and was also worn by my mom and myself.  That’s 4 Generations of baby girls in this bonnet!  With her large head and the fact that she was older when we blessed her-it would barely fit on her head…

 

It was a beautiful blessing given through Jordan.  The big group did such a good job bouncing her (it was like an NCA cheer basket toss), she was happy and making soft noises.  I am so grateful for the gospel and for our opportunity to have eternal families.  I’m also so grateful for righteous priesthood holders and especially blessed that I have one as the patriarch in our home. 

Better pictures of this day are on their way!

xoxo

Christmas Gift…

This week my family received a Christmas gift of the happiest sort.

A little background story-  My family has been affected entirely too much by cancer.  My Grandpa died from Lymphoma and I witnessed my Mom struggle with a very late stage breast cancer.  I remember on multiple occasions walking in her room and seeing her so sick and lifeless that I thought she had died.  Thankfully, she fought hard and beat it.

With that said, we were scared when we found out last summer that my Dad had Prostate cancer.  We waited for a while and last week Dad finally had his radical prostate removal surgery (where they go through your abdomen) at UCLA medical center and had it removed.  We heard back today from UCLA that his Pathology report came back with clear margins and with clean lymph nodes!

I couldn’t think of a better gift this Christmas than to know that the people we love are healthy and blessed.

   

Way to kick cancer in the butt, Dad! Amelia-Jayne is so lucky to have you as her “Pappi!”

We love you!

How lovely are your branches…

During our Hurricane/St. George visit, Amelia-Jayne and I got to go to the Jubilee of trees with Nani!  It was beautiful and got me all excited to go home and decorate our house for the holidays- especially our Christmas tree!

Babycakes met Mr. Clause for the first time…He was so sweet with her.

   

After seeing Santa, babycakes checked out and ensured her spot on that day’s very “nice” list. :)

 

Before leaving George town, I had to get the supplies to do up our tree (because there was nada at our Wal-Mart)…then we came home and baby and J helped put up our tree. It’s a bird/peacock themed tree that goes with the other Jewel tones in our living room (ignore the cabin wall:)  We want a star on it, but I’m waiting to get a sweet one and a few more things to load it up at the after Christmas sales!

 

I think she likes it!

And here’s just a few of my very happy Christmas girl!

   

In other news, I had a size mishap with her black Mary janes (one was a size one and the other shoe was a size two…wah, wah).  So, without anywhere to get them in time in V-town, I decided to make them…and spent WAY too long doing so…only to find out that I made them too small and they may only fit her this week.  Crud.

 

Cheery Holidays! xoxo

Butterball Turkey Day

We went to Hurricane for Amelia-Jayne’s blessing the second week of November and ended up staying until after Thanksgiving!  It was a long, but fun trip and extra special because Nani (my mom) and I got to play in St. George while our hard working husbands went back to work the week after the blessing…then Nani had to go home, J got off work and came down and we had Thanksgiving at Grandma Hastings’ house. 

The weather was gorgeous that day and we traded family pictures with Sierra and her family.  I love how round Amelia-Jayne looks in this picture…our own little butterball.

  J and Sierra’s husband, Bryn, were super excited to go hunting a few times during the visit and kept teasing us about having rabbits and squirrels for T-day dinner.  Luckily, that didn’t happen!

 

 

Dinner was wonderful and there was SO much food!  Babycakes even got her first little piece of dinner with sweet-potatoes…she wasn’t quite sure what to do with them, but she kept licking and sucking on the spoon.

 

We all ate so much, our pants felt a little like hers after…

 

xoxo

Dunk

Amelia-Jayne got her first big girl bath in a real tub.  Yup, it was getting so that when I bathed her in the sink, she would barely fit and she could push herself over…plus, when she sat up the water level only covered her little bum cheeks…brrr! 

 

It was practically a swimming pool for her. She seemed to really like her first bath…

until we thought it would be good for her to learn to love the water and dunk her.  The first one didn’t bother her, but the second was a little much.  Anyways, I really want to find a mommy and me swimming class in town, I think she’d love it!  I hope little old Vernal has one!

3 Little Pumpkins…

This year I loved my pumpkins!  Jordan got a few we didn’t end up carving from some roofing customers…but they were pretty on my porch…the cute chunky one is my favorite. ;)

  

  

I wanted to do something different than carve pumpkins this year, so I got the idea for a pumpkin family from “All You” magazine and this is what I came up with…

Happy Autumn from Us!

xoxo

Black Water

AKA: poopy water, reak-fest, feces where you don’t want it to be…

is in my basement.

  Yup, a sewage drain backed up this week and I found the foul smelling loveliness on my way to the nursery one night.  No problemo though, thanks to a pro neighbor and a call to our insurance… now it’s been gutted, dried, sanitized and looks like this:

        

Not pretty…but definitely no longer a poop fest.

 

The culprit is under this toilet. Dang this drain and sewage line.

Turns out it might actually be a huge blessing, as it pretty much just flooded the part of the basement that we were going to renovate when we had the money anyways…and if the claim goes well and the drain gets roto-rutored alright, it might contribute enough to do some of the renovating we wanted to do anyways!  I might just love the sweeter side of this black water…one day….but probably not today.

Hastings’ Cupcakery…

Look what we made!

We got to do costumes family-style for the first time this year…and what else would our little BabyCakes be besides the most delicious Cupcake ever?!

Naturally, we were the Baker Baby-Makers.

Nani and Poppi sent her cupcake costume and we had most of our costumes on hand.  I just had to make my hat and cover up the Chef Boyardee logo on J’s hat with a cupcake.  It was a really fun Halloween.  We got to go to Salt Lake and Provo for a family trunk-or-treat and fun weekend, then come back late on Monday to pass out candy and visit with friends.  It was pretty much our first “grown up” Halloween.

We got pretty excited thinking about next year when we can take her trick-or-treating (She’ll still be pretty young…we’ll have to go in a big group to feel validated and not seem like those high school seniors that show up with their pillowcases :) But we are not missing it!)

 

Happy Halloween!

             

xoxo

2 Months...

Guess who had their 2 month shots today and didn't like them?

This little pumpkin. I don't blame her. Have you seen the size of those needles?!  They're like 3 inches long...for a baby! 

Here's our little trouper!

 

STATS:

Weight- 13 lbs 13 1/2 oz (97%)  Yup...that's right.  The doc said that that's a normal weight for a 4 or 5 month old.  I guess we should stop slipping her ice cream.  ;)

Height- 23 1/2 (90%)

Head Circumference- Officially off the charts.  I immediately thought, I've known that since Delivering her!

My favorite development this month is how she interacts with us.  She will start cooing, wait for you to respond and coo back, play on the floor more and smile and coo when you come home or when she wakes up (that's my favorite!).  She still has a little colic in the evening, but she slept through the night for the first time two nights ago.  Let's hope it wasn't just due to a growth spurt and becomes a habit.  She's getting stronger by the day and tried to roll over in the sink during her bath.

Aunt Who?!

Thought I’d share a funny little story about my favorite little 2 year old that turned 3 last week.

This is Andrew.  Aka, the Drewski.

Every one of my nieces and nephews knows me as “Aunt Mimi” in our family.  It started out with my 1st nephew, Josh, not being able to say Miranda when he was a baby…and that’s what he came up with.  What a trendsetter, that Joshy.

Anyways, one night shortly after we moved back from China I came in from the rain with my hood on.  Mom and Dad said, “look who’s here, Andrew!”  Andrew looked up and yelled out “JESUS!” as he ran over to me. 

At the time we figured it was probably the long hair sticking out of my hood and the fact that I was kind of backlit when I came in.

However, it didn’t stop there.  My parents have each couple’s wedding picture on the wall going down our staircase.  So, it’s tradition for Andrew to name the people in the pictures every time he comes down the stairs…. “Nathan, Jen, Jon, Kim, Daddy, Mommy, Jordan and….Jesus.”

I guess if I’m going to be mistaken as a man, Jesus is a pretty good one to be mistaken for.  :)

Happy Birthday, Drewski.

xoxo, Aunt Mimi

Six Weeks…

It’s been six weeks since this little one was born and I can’t believe it.

 

(Babycake’s 1st Piggy Back Ride and rocking with mommy…sorry about the quality, they’re from my phone)

As you know, I’ve been pretty sad about her growing out of her tiny newborn self…but she’s starting to interact and do all of these new tricks that make her even more fun!  Lately she’s been smiling for us a lot.  She seems to recognize when Jordan and I are near and loves to smile and kick her arms and legs when we play with her. I like how she used to have to go through a million different facial expressions to find her smile muscles…but now she can go straight to the smiles!

      

     

In the last two weeks, she’s also been sleeping a little longer at night, thanks to swaddling.  I wouldn’t call it a schedule just yet, but she’s been consistently sleeping at least 4 hours at a time at night, which makes me SO happy. :)  We’re shooting for 10 next month.  Just kidding.  OK, not really.That would be heavenly.  She’s a very happy baby all day until evening time when she gets a little colicky...but we ordered a swing and hopefully that will alleviate the need for the constant movement that makes her tummy feel better.  She’s a talker and is starting to coo and discover her vocal chords.  My favorite is when she does her little girly snores when she sleeps.

And as for me, I’m feeling pretty good considering how much I tore.  But, what’s more exciting is that I can now start an exercise schedule.  I gained a reasonable amount of weight with this pregnancy (28 lbs) but for some reason after I came home from the hospital I was only 3 lbs less than when I went in!  What. the. heck. How does that work with an almost 9 pound kid and “the biggest placenta” my doc’s ever seen?!? TMI.  I guess some people have an allergic reaction to epidurals and swell up like a balloon…and I was one of those lucky people.  Anywho, now I have 10 more to go. So, today I decided to celebrate the beginning of the end of fun eating with a side by side taste test of all 6 of the Private Selection ice cream flavors in my freezer (thanks, Sierra!). Don’t judge.  If you have not tried this ice cream from Smith’s, you have not lived. And the verdict is…

I couldn’t decide.  But I might just have more to lose by tomorrow.  Whoops. ;)