Braelyn's Pre-Blessing Photo Shoot

Braelyn's sweet Grandma Harris offered to make her blessing dress and we were excited (she made Dal's blessing outfit and it was very cute.) We had no idea what it looked like and she sent it to us in the mail the other day and we were so thrilled. We think she did an amazing job and that the dress in beautiful. She also made a super cute coat and hat to go with it. We are planning on blessing her on March 1st but we couldn't wait until then to take some pictures and post a few. Moments like these we wish we had better lighting, my sister-in-law Ashlie's camera and photography skills, and the time and skills necessary to edit them good. So these are the a'natural pics from our home photo shoot. At least we had a cute kid to work with ;) We had put her hat on wrong for the pics but we think she still looked cute:) We'll probably post more pics from the actual blessing day and of the family that comes, etc, but until then...

Happy 2009

I can't believe it's already 2009! It's been a while since I posted so I thought I would post a few more pics of Braelyn and some of our Christmas and Dal's birthday in Montana.

Braelyn has been growing so much and is just so cute. She is such a calm and good baby. She loves to eat, sleep, be held and talked to and she loves her swing.

This picture pretty much sums up Dal and Braelyn's relationship at this point. He is just so cute and sweet with her! He loves to talk to her and show her toys, give her hugs and kisses and he is amazingly gentle with her. When I went to take her to her first Dr appointment he asked where I was going and I told him and he said "No! Don't take her back. I want to keep her!" It was pretty cute. I reassured him that we would be keeping her.
We spent Christmas up in Montana with most of my family. We played a lot of games (including the Wii that Collin & Tiffany brought), volleyball and various card and board games. Since I had plenty of time sitting and feeding the baby I also started reading the Twilight series (which I am now finished with. I thought it was an intriguing story.)

We spent Christmas Eve at my grandparents house and Chase entertained us with some neat Christmas songs that he sang, played the piano and guitar with.On Christmas morning Dal & Braelyn wore matching pjs that Gradma Harris made for them

As if there wasn't enough exciting things happening we also got to have a birthday party for Dalyn because he turned 3 on the 29th! He had a pretty cool Kung Fu Panda birthday cake. It was fun to celebrate his birthday with so much family there.

Our Little Angel

We now have a beautiful and healthy baby girl!

She was born Monday December 1st at 4:03 pm and was just a cute little one weighing in at 6 lbs 11 oz and was 19 inches long.

Her name is Braelyn Rachel

Braelyn is pronounced (BRAY-lin) This is the name that we had picked out all along and felt good about but then at the last minute I started second guessing and we had to take a couple days of being with her to once again realize that this was her name. We also liked the name Braylee and decided that in naming her Braelyn we could call her Braely for short if we wanted to and that she could have the option of going by Braely or Braelyn. So in talking about her on our blog sometimes I might call her Braelyn, Braely, Braely Rae or whatever else :)

One cool thing is that on the website pickbabynames.com you type in a name and it tells you the name origin and meaning. We found out that Braelyn is an American name and it means "Beautiful". How fitting :)

I will explain the significance of her middle name but first let me start from the beginning...

So we went in to the hospital first thing Monday morning so that the doctor could turn her. I was nervous about this but tried to relax. The doctor put a bunch of ultrasound gel on me and I took a few deep breaths and Dr dug in and turned and turned and within about 10 seconds she had done a flip! I was so relieved! I felt some pressure but it went so fast and it wasn't bad at all. Good girl Braelyn!

Then they induced me and we began the waiting process of slowly upping the dose of pitocin and getting my labor going. It seemed like things were going pretty slow and the contractions weren't too bad but after the Dr broke my water the contractions were quite a bit harder. Not long after that I had a lovely epidural. Still things weren't progressing as fast as I wanted :) (You know how when the nurse comes in to check and your hoping that you will have jumped 3 centimeters and be almost there and find that you're still at a 3) Then it was crazy because I had finally gotten to a 5 and then I think within half hour or less I was fully dilated and ready to go! She finally decided she was ready to get out of there and then she didn't waste any time! I only had to push for a couple minutes and then she was here! It was such a relief to see my cute baby girl finally here and crying and healthy and to not be in labor anymore! Everything went pretty smoothly and fast considering that we started out the morning with her head up by my ribs.

We felt so blessed and grateful that everything went so well. Thank you for your comments and prayers!

Her daddy got to help give her her fist bath. Here she is after her bath with her first bow in her hair.

A little while later Dalyn came to meet his baby sister. He was pretty fascinated looking at her and said "Her hands are so small!" "She doesn't have any teeth!"

Then he decided to play a little game of Peekaboo with her (that's my mom holding her)

We also did a little gift exchange between the new brother and sister. Dal had picked out a little pig squeaky toy from the Dollar store so here he was showing it to her. He was excited to give it to her. Then we gave him a present from her (a Cranky the Crane set from Thomas the Train to go with his train tracks and trains) He was sooo excited! He kept saying "Thank you baby sister, thank you!"

Thus far Dal has been a pretty cute big brother. He likes to look at her and hold her sometimes, give her kisses, help give her her pacifier, and whenever she fusses he says "It's okay baby sister, it's okay" The other day he was holding her and she started sticking her tongue out looking for food and Dalyn starting laughing and said "She's trying to lick me!"

Here she is in her car seat on the way home from the hospital. She looked so tiny in that big car seat. Although this pictures makes her look bigger than she really is.

Before I finish this long post I wanted to explain the significance of the name Rachel. I have known for a long time that her middle name would be Rachel. In the October 2007 General Conference there was a talk given by Elder Spencer J. Condie entitled "Claim the Exceeding Great and Precious Promises". At this time in my life I had 6 months previously had a miscarriage and had wanted to get pregnant ever since then. In this talk he talked about Rachel from the Bible who wanted to bear children but was unable to get pregnant. Then he said this:

"The Apostle Peter testified that “the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering” toward us (2 Peter 3:9). In this age of one-hour dry cleaning and one-minute fast-food franchises, it may at times seem to us as though a loving Heavenly Father has misplaced our precious promises or He has put them on hold or filed them under the wrong name. Such were the feelings of Rachel.
But with the passage of time, we encounter four of the most beautiful words in holy writ: “And God remembered Rachel” (Genesis 30:22). And she was blessed with the birth of Joseph and later the birth of Benjamin. There are millions on earth today who are descendants of Joseph who have embraced the Abrahamic promise that through their efforts “shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal” (Abraham 2:11).
When heaven’s promises sometimes seem afar off, I pray that each of us will embrace these exceeding great and precious promises and never let go. And just as God remembered Rachel, God will remember you. I so testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

This talk really touched me deeply and I felt the spirit so strong. I knew that I had to be patient but I felt a great sense of peace that when the time was right we would be blessed with another child. That just as God remembered Rachel, he would remember me. And he did. Five months later I got pregnant. When we found out that we were pregnant with a girl, I knew that her middle name would be Rachel.

Well there you have it. We feel so happy, tired and blessed to have our sweet little Braelyn Rachel in our lives.

Baby Update

So time is winding down and we are getting very excited to meet our baby girl. One problem is that she is still breech. I guess she just likes sitting there head up instead of being upside down--makes sense to me :) So the Monday after Thanksgiving, December 1st, we have an external cephalic version scheduled, or in other words my doctor is going to try to manually turn her from the outside. (I know, sounds like fun...yikes, I'm a little nervous. If anyone has ever had that done and has advice, let me know). If it works (there is a better than 50% chance) then she will induce me and we will have our little girl on December 1st. If it doesn't work then she will schedule a c-section for later in that week. Probably either December 4th or 5th. So either way she is coming a little early and we are very nervous and excited on how everything will turn out. Whatever happens we just want her to get here safe and healthy! So please keep us in your prayers.

Fun Fall & Halloween Festivities

Fall here has been so beautiful. I love Fall. We have gone on a lot of walks and I love seeing all of the leaves changing color and walking through them on the sidewalks. Every time Dalyn and I walk through them he says "crunch, crunch, crunch". It seems our past couple weeks have been packed with fun Fall and Halloween festivities.

Chase came up to see us and we went to a corn maze that had a giant stack of hay bales to play on and in. Dalyn loved the hay bale fort but wasn't as fond of the corn maze.

We also went to the annual pumpkin walk, which is a really fun community tradition. People put together displays that fit the yearly them and are made out of pumpkins or a related member of the squash family. This years theme was heroes.

One of my favorites was a Noah's Ark display. The animals were awesome and so cute!

We also went to a Halloween activity at out small local zoo here. Dalyn decided that he wanted to wear his Winnie the Pooh costume again this year. It was a little too small, but a couple other options that may have fit better (a little too big) were "too scary". Maybe next year:)

Dal got to play on some little gymnastics equipment and he even did a rolling back flip with the help of the instructor.


Dal also got to play other games, get a pumpkin painted on his hand and dig through a pile of leaves to find a baseball toy to take home. Good times!

On Halloween we went trick-or-treating at a grocery store, to the downtown businesses and we went to the ward trunk or treat. It was a fun day and Dalyn though it was pretty cool to have so many people give him a piece of candy. I was excited every time I saw something chocolaty going into his pumpkin bucket because he doesn't care much for chocolate and right now I do:)

To finish off Halloween when we got home Dal decided that he wanted to wear around his Tigger costume around the house and he wanted daddy to wear Winnie the Pooh, which he did and I caught a picture of it:)

So there you have it. We have been pretty busy playing, Jake has been really busy with school, and our baby girl has been busy growing. We can't believe how fast time is going and how soon she will be here. Dalyn even dug through our costume bag and found a small one that "baby sister can wear" (next year:)

Oh the Adventures!

We have had an eventful last couple of weeks. Jake started school again and has a very tough load this semester. We are hardly ever going to see him, hence it's going to be a long semester. Once it's done though we'll have a new baby girl and he'll have three weeks off which will be really nice.
Also we went up to Montana for Labor Day weekend because my baby brother Chase just got home from his mission to South Korea. It's been two years and it was so wonderful to see him. That same weekend was my 10 year high school reunion (I can't believe it's already been 10 years!) It was fun to see people from high school, many of whom I haven't seen since high school.
Along with all of that adventure we have been working on potty training the last couple of weeks. It has been quite an experience. Actually Dalyn has done pretty well. He doesn't have very many accidents and he's very excited to wear his big boy underwear....it's just that he doesn't ever tell me when he has to go and he doesn't just voluntarily go on his own so I have to be on potty patrol all of the time and watch for the "potty dance" or other signs that he really needs to go. Thankfully he's good at holding it until we can get to the potty and I can make some kind of a bargain with him to get him to sit down and go. Our bargains range anywhere from getting to go outside to play with the kids to a dum dum sucker. I'm hoping that sometime soon he will decide to just go on his own. That will be a joyous occasion!

I think this is the first time Dal has actually posed for a picture. He was even saying "cheese" and everything. Maybe it was the standing on his Spider Man scooter that put him in the mood to get his picture taken or something. Who knows but it was fun to take pictures of him and have him looking at the camera instead of me chasing him around trying to get a shot of his face.

Dal got in his little sled with some stuffed animals and then wanted us to surround him with all of the others that he could see. Once he was all cuddled in, he wanted me to read them all a story. It was pretty cute.

The trying on costumes continued beyond the alligator costume and moved on to the Tigger costume. What a cute little Tigger eating breakfast! He also loved to bounce around like Tigger which was really cute as well.

My cute little brother Chase and I a couple days after he returned home from his mission. I just love that kid and it will be so fun to have him around and get to call him and hear about his fun BYU adventures.

More Summer Adventures

Dalyn and I took a little trip to see my good friend and cousin BreAnne (who I haven't seen for years) and her family. They were on their way to Montana so we met them on their way there so we could hang out for a couple of hours. It was so fun to get to see her, Britny, and Bre's 5 adorable kids. Dalyn loved playing with the kids.

Me, Dal, Holland, Logan, Anniston, Bre, Landon & Londyn
Britny & I

The other day Dal got out some Halloween costumes and enjoyed wearing around his alligator costume. I think we put it in and took it off about 5 times that day.

He even got into character with a mean alligator face :)

It was a little too quiet in our house the other day so I went to see what Dal was up to and discovered that he had done some pen and ink artwork on his chest and legs.

He was quite disappointed when I took the pen away and explained that we don't draw on ourselves. I got him some paper to draw on but obviously that wasn't near as fun.

I was putting in a load of laundry when I heard the water in the bathroom come on and heard Dalyn singing the ABC's while he washed his hands and feet. I was a little surprised to find that he had managed to climb up onto the counter, but not too much I guess because when it comes to playing with water Dalyn will find a way.

Running through the sprinklers is always fun