Claire’s photo shoot

A couple of weeks ago, Claire and I did a photo shoot one morning.  She was three weeks old.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Claire Elise

Claire Elise was born last Sunday, October 24th, 2010 at 7:38pm.  She was 8 lbs. 5 oz. and 21 inches long.

We are so glad that she finally made it here (five days late)!  She is a sweet baby girl. 

Right off the bat we decided that she has Mom’s lips and Dad’s toes (long and skinny).  We are still undecided about who her other features belong to.

My water broke early Sunday morning (1:45 am) and we headed to the hospital.  They checked things out and then sent us off for a walk.  We did some good hospital exploring and saw basically no one besides the occasional security person.  At about 7 am they decided that it was time to help things along so they started giving me petocin.  By about 4 pm I was ready for an epidural.  It made life much more pleasant.  After about an hour and a half of pushing, Claire made it here safe and sound.  Mark even cut the umbilical cord.  It was so sweet to see him with his baby girl.

Mark’s parents were able to see her right after she was born and my mom spent most of the week at home with us.

We are so happy to have Claire in our family!

Catch Up

We have been super bad about blogging again, so here is a brief catch up on what you have missed.

Knee Surgery

On January 22 I had fun and exciting knee surgery (really it scared me to death.)  I had my ACL replaced (with some of my own hamstring) and had my meniscus cleaned up and tacked down.  Here is my knee after 10 days, it had been wrapped up until then.

 

 

 

 

 

Mark was great at taking care of me including being my human crutch (to get up stairs), wrapping my leg in a garbage bag so I could take a shower and being the cook.

I went to physical therapy three times a week for almost two months.  Now my knee is good to go.

Mark’s drawers

Our built-in entertainment center in the family room had lots of shelves.  Mark decided to make them into drawers so that they would be better suited for holding stuff.  After buying a few new tools (like a router) and lots of planning he went to work in the garage.

I think it turned out to be a bigger project than anticipated, but we now have 16 very nice drawers to store everything.

Nursery

At the beginning of the year we started our new calling…nursery.  It was a little overwhelming at first, but now we have the schedule down and enjoying being in with the kids (unless everyone decides to cry at the same time.)  It has been fun to be able to be in a calling together.

 

BABY!

On Feb. 20th, we discovered that we were going to have a baby!  Mark kept thinking that I was crazy, that I couldn’t really be pregnant yet, but when I showed him the test, he had to start thinking that I wasn’t completely nuts.  Even when we would tell people after that he would say “I don’t know how it happened” until I teased him enough that he stopped saying it quite that way.  Here is a picture of me (and my belly) at about 3 months (about the time morning sickness was ending!)

Here is our bean baby at 10 weeks.

In March we found out Mark’s sister Mary was also pregnant and due about a month after us.  Mary correctly predicted the sexes of both babies before ultrasound!

On May 25th, we found out that we are having a GIRL!!!  That is what I was guessing, but I think that Mark was guessing that it was going to be a boy.  According to the ultrasound the baby looks healthy and on schedule.

Here is baby’s whole body (head on the left side.)

And here is a silhouette of her face. You can see her left had too.

We got to do another quick ultrasound the following month so that they could look at her heart and spine better.  It was amazing to see how much she had changed in a month.

She is due to be here October 19th!

 

Uncle Blake

In March Mark’s Uncle Blake and his family came to Logan for a visit, so we went down for the weekend.  Here they are at the Fun Park skating.

Card Houses

For an FHE in May, Mark decided that we should build card houses and catapults to launch pennies at them to knock them down (card houses and rubber bands is a favorite Mark past time.)  It was kinda fun (especially because I won, though Mark’s catapult was a little more original than mine.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kristina’s Wedding

On Memorial Day weekend my good friend Kristina got married in Salt Lake.   We were able to go to the sealing and the reception.  It is the only live sealing that I have been to besides ours.  It was great to be there with them.  We hope that they are doing good and look forward to seeing them more when they move to Logan this summer.

 

Grammy’s house

After Kristina’s wedding we went to Vernal for the rest of the weekend to visit Grammy.  While we were there we decorated graves, went four-wheeling, got pizza, went to the Green river and skipped rocks (which Mark is much better at than me even though he is the one that taught me), and just visited and enjoyed one another.

 

Crib

I found a crib and changing table on Craig’s List for $25!  We jumped on the offer and went out and got it the next day.  I was excited to have a matching set.  I think they will work quite nicely.

A few weeks later I also found a nice bassinet for $5.  Yay for good deals!

 

Heber Valley Camp

The middle of July we went down to Utah to have a family reunion with Mark’s family (siblings and parents) at Heber Valley Camp (church owned, used for girl’s camp during the week and families on the weekends.)

We ate yummy food, went canoeing on their little “lake”, went for a hike and celebrated Clark’s birthday.

 

Maddie’s dance recital

That same weekend we got to go to Maddie’s dance recital.  She took jazz this year, it brings back memories.

 

Oregon

We went to Salem, Oregon to visit our friends the Olsen’s over the 4th of July weekend.  We went to Portland for a day and went out to dinner, went to the International Test Rose Garden, hiked in Forest Park and walked along the river.

 

We went to Silver Falls State Park and saw several waterfalls and we watched fireworks from their porch.

On Monday we went out to the coast.   We went through Lincoln City and stopped and played at the ocean (built sand structures, skipped rocks and wadded.)  Then we went down to New Port and went to the Yaquina Lighthouse.  We saw tide pools while we were there too.  It was Mark’s first tide pool experience (I even convinced him to touch a few things.)

Curtains

After buying fabric for curtains in January, I finally got around to making them.  We now have curtains in the family room and the front room.

Sawtooth’s

Mark went camping with his friend Kram in the Sawtooth Mountain Range (a couple of hours NE of Boise.)  They had some picture taking fun while they were there.

Wyoming

The next weekend we went to Mark’s Grandma’s cabin in Star Valley Ranch, Wyoming (a six hour drive) for a family reunion (Mark’s Grandma and her sibling and all of their kids.)  On the way out we stopped about half way at Lake Walcott and camped for the night.  We enjoyed the 18 hole disc golf course at Lake Walcott the next morning before going to Wyoming.

While we were in Wyoming we weren’t very good at taking pictures (as in we didn’t), but we did have fun.  We went swimming, floated the Salt River, met Mark’s brother’s (Kirk’s) girlfriend (Jessica) and socialized. 

Mark’s Birthday

Mark’s birthday was on the 18th.  We drove home from Wyoming that morning.  We finished reading The Hunger Games on the way back, it kept us entertained and awake.  A very good book.  Then we had yummy dinner (steak, potatoes, shrimp, scones, and salad.)  That was followed by German Chocolate cake.  Mark got a new game Puerto Rico, Beatles Rock Band and a bike “computer” so he can tell his speed and distance, etc.

Salisbury Shin-dig in Boise

Last weekend Mark’s whole family (except Brad :( ) came to our house.  It was especially exciting because I got to meet Mark’s sister Lisa and her kids (they have been back in New York so it has been awhile since most of the family had seen her, but they are now in Coeur D’Alene so hopefully we will get to see them more!)  We went to Roaring Springs (the water park in Boise), the MK Nature Center, floated the Boise River, played Rock Band, made ice cream, played Nintendo…..  It was fun to have everyone together and watch the cousins play together, even if it was a little chaotic at times with 17 people under one roof.