A Few Exciting Weeks!

It's been a while, and we have a lot to update! I am a bit behind on the goings on around here, Josslyn and I both had a NASTY cold and are so happy to be over it! A few weeks ago was Josslyn's blessing, on March 4. I was SO happy to have so many family and friends there! Including my parents all the way from Maryland, they decided it was worth it and it totally was! It was so amazing to have so many of our family and friends show their support for Josslyn's special day and the day was so special. Here are some pics of our beautiful girl in her Blessing dress, which was also MY dress so many years ago!

I have a few more pictures of us together, but they are on Nate's computer, so I will post them soon.

Josslyn is now 3 1/2 months old, but I have a few pictures of her at about three months:

 

 She is getting so big! At 3 months she weighed 10 lbs. 3 oz. and was 23 inches long. We had to take her into the doctor at the end of last week because she has been having some stomach issues, which we think is a worsening case of some acid reflux. She had it went she was first born, but it seemed to go away. It's now come back with a vengeance. Poor thing burps like none other and we've since put her on some antacid that seems to help a little, so we'll see how she does.

The other GREAT news is that Josslyn rolled over for the first time today! It was so exciting and surprised us both! I had just put her down for some tummy time and she rolled right over. It was so cute. We are so proud of her and are happy to have her in our lives! I can't believe she is almost 4 months old! This week we are looking forward to her first conference this week and her first Easter next week. It's one of my favorite holidays! My mom and I always got new dresses for Easter and I am excited to dress her in something fluffy and pink for the occasion. We are looking forward to summer and a lot of fun outside activities.

Nate and I also celebrated our 5th anniversary! It's hard to believe that it's really been that long. In some ways it feels like we've known and been in each others lives forever, but in some ways it feels like it's flown by and it shouldn't be nearly that long! For our 5th anniversary (and my birthday, and probably Mother's Day and Christmas too) Nate bought me this beauty:

I love it. I love it a lot. Also I will probably never move again. It's heavy. The baby thinks I ignore her when I play it so she has to sit on my lap while I play. She stares at the music like "Mom, I don't get it." You will one day dear girl.

2 Months Old and My New Friend

Baby Josslyn is now 2 months old! At her last check-up she weighed 9 lbs. 6 oz. and was 21.5 inches long. She is on the petite side, but following her growth chart perfectly. We sure love our skinny mini!

She is learning how to hold things in her hands, like her binky and her toys. She loves to smile and talk and especially LOVES her bows! I could leave her here all day and she would be fine!

Obviously, this is the best gift I've ever been given.

Here are some pictures of our cute baby at 2 months old!

So far she is still in most of her newborn clothes, only just today have I taken a few things out of her drawer that don't fit anymore. She is talking more and more and is smiley and happy, except when I try to take of picture of this, is sick, or just got her first shots.

I hate shots. I know they are good for her to get, but so hard to watch her cry. She actually did pretty well getting the shots and calmed down pretty quick, but I think her leg was pretty sore for a day or so after because she was grumpy and mostly tried to sleep it off. It didn't help that this week we also experienced baby's first cold. Hearing her stuffy nose is so sad and you can hear her trying to take a deep breath and get stuck and then get mad. I wish there was more that I could do for her! I can blow my nose, I just have to make her MORE miserable trying to get the stuffy out.

Nate went out of town for work this week. He was in our room packing and came and got Josslyn from me and told me to come see he packed bag. This is what he did:

She just fits so perfect! That would be fun going through the line at the airport...uh, sir, you have a baby in your carry-on... I don't think she thought it was so fun.

Even though this meant Nate and I were not together for our first Valentine's since we've known each other, he did his best to make up for it...

This is my new friend! Woot! So excited to get my craft on!! I've kind of wanted my own sewing machine for a while, and almost got one at Wal-mart on Black Friday/Thursday night, but they went too fast. So I am WAY excited to try it out! It's even pink!

Baby Josslyn got a butterfly clock. So cute! Nate decided the baby is his little butterfly, which I think is so cute. And whenever I feed her in her room or we are in there for a while we are always wondering what time it is! Now we know!

Baby Pictures!

A BIG thank you to my awesome cousin at Pink Daffodil Photography who took these pictures for us. Warning! This post has a lot of pictures! Just wanted to show off my cute family!

 This one is just funny. No kisses dad!

 Love her cute toes sticking out!

Sure...now she wants kisses.

These were taken when she was two weeks old. She has already changed so much! Josslyn is SIX weeks old now. She is definitely going to be a talker. She loves to smile, but only when you aren't trying to take a picture of her doing so. If you're trying to catch her, she will just stare at you until you put it away, and then smile again. We love her so much and are loving being her parents, and can only hope we are doing everything right...or at least close to it...

...And Family

The holidays around our house were pretty quiet. Having a week old baby allows you to do nothing. It's pretty awesome. For Christmas we spent a lot of time with family and a lot of time at home with the baby and we loved it! Christmas Eve we spent at Nate's parents house with his side of the family, and baby Josslyn did NOT have a good time. I think it was just way too much excitement for her. We eventually got her to go to sleep and put her in a back bedroom and just let her go. This means mommy got to open all of her presents, but she mostly doesn't really care anyway.

 This was Josslyn's super cute outfit for Christmas Eve! I finally broke down and bought Christmas stuff for her. I was so afraid I would be super late and she would come after Christmas if I did buy anything, but I wanted to make sure she had it if she did come, and we are glad she was here!

On Christmas Day we went to church for the first time! Since there was just a Christmas program/sacrament meeting being held with all the wards in our building, we thought this was a good time to go to church.

 

Here is her Christmas dress, the tights are just a bit too big, but she looked cute anyway. She's quickly learning that if she stretches out her toes I can't get any shoes or socks on her feet!

After church, we came home and opened our presents from Santa, meaning Nate put stuff in the stockings while I wasn't looking. Sneaky.

 Baby in her cute First Christmas shirt! She's only going to wear it once, but that's okay. She only has one first Christmas!

 She obviously is VERY interested in the toys and Disney movies coming out of her stocking. Santa brought her Beauty and the Beast Christmas movie and she was so excited she slept through the whole thing.

 Baby with all her presents! She's like 10 days old and already has more presents than she knows what to do with. We are awesome parents.

 Mommy opening her presents.

Nate gave me an awesome present. He made me go shopping to finish up the Christmas gifts a few days after we came home from the hospital and while I was gone he got a whole bunch of pictures taken of him and Josslyn and made a cute collage of pictures. It was awesome and my new favorite gift ever!

Daddy opening his presents. He got PS3 games from Santa!

Christmas Day my parents flew into town. They didn't get to our house until about 11 pm but we were so happy to have them in our home for a few days to be with us and Josslyn for the holiday and to be able to spend some time with her. I know we enjoyed having them around and it was so nice to have an extra pair of hands to help out! It was a very relaxing week and I loved every minute!

 I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday. I know I did. Even though it was small and quiet, it was amazing to have our little baby in our home and made the holiday season that much more special! We were much less concerned with presents and more just with being able to be with the people we love and celebrate how much we love each other. Sappy, I know. But probably one of the best holidays I've had in a long time. Our favorite part of Christmas, and the reason for the title of this post was the Christmas cards. In the past they have always been addressed to Nate and Vicki or Mr. and Mrs. Laursen or something like that. But this year, all our Christmas cards have now changed to say Nate and Family or the Laursen Family. We are no longer just us, we are an "and family"! We LOVE it!

Josslyn is now THREE weeks old! She is starting to find her voice and we can hear here in her crib when she starts waking up just talking to herself. It's so cute, and so fun to watch her learn! She is a champ at tummy time and can hold her head up for a while before she gets much too tired. She lifts up her leg like she's trying to roll, my baby is a strong one! And she loves story time with Daddy!

I'm also super excited to get her newborn and FAMILY pictures back so we can share them with everyone. I love having a family to share!

The Baby Story

Baby Josslyn Noelle Laursen

December 13, 2011

9:24 p.m.

6 lbs. 14 oz.

Our beautiful baby girl is here! She's actually more than a week old now, but this is the first chance I've been able to sit down and write this super long post about it. So here is our baby story!

Starting Friday night the 9th I was having contractions, but they weren't super strong and they weren't close together at all. The closest they would get was at night and they would get to about 10 minutes apart. This went on for the whole weekend but since they weren't getting closer together I couldn't go in so I spent most of the weekend laying around pretending like I wasn't having contractions every 15 minutes. Sunday night was not fun and I packed all my stuff that night for my appointment Monday morning because I was convinced that with all the contractions I was having there was no way I was going to be sent home. 

We went in to our appointment Monday morning but I wasn't progressing, and was only at 1 centimeter and about 90% effaced. But because Josslyn was sitting so low into my pelvis, the doctor was having a hard time finding her heartbeat so he put me on a non-stress test to monitor her heartbeat for a little while. Luckily the nurse decided to monitor my contractions as well since I was having so many. When my doctor saw how consistent my contractions were he told me to go get something to eat and come back in a couple of hours to check me again. When we got back I still hadn't progressed anymore, but he could tell how disappointed and uncomfortable I was so he sent me upstairs to Labor and Delivery anyway to monitor me for a couple of hours.

After a couple of hours there they checked me again but I was only a 1.5, so they couldn't keep me and sent me home. Monday was also Nate's birthday, so we decided that maybe she didn't want to steal daddy's thunder and share birthdays. Nate said he didn't really want to share birthdays but by the end of the day we were both ready for her to be here and didn't really care what day it was anymore. 

Monday night was not a fun night. Contractions got closer and harder, but still not close enough for anything to happen. The closest they got was in the middle of the night at about 6 minutes apart and I was prepared to wake Nate up and go, but they started slowing down by morning. So I got up at around 8:30 a.m. to go to the bathroom and try and do something and right as I went into the bathroom my water broke! So I didn't have to wait long to be able to go back to the hospital! I called to Nate and we gathered all our stuff and went back. 

They admitted me and gave me some generic pain medication because my contractions were so hard, but because they hadn't gotten closer together and were still about 8 minutes apart, we didn't want to slow down the progress. When they got me admitted I was only about 2 centimeters, but was fully effaced and baby had been sitting really low for about two days. Since my body had been going through contractions for the fourth day, I was having a really hard time relaxing and letting my body push itself through the contractions so I decided to get an epidural and would just get some pitocin if this slowed down the contractions. Surprisingly, this was the easiest part! The doctor was really quick and efficient and I was grateful for his help. Soon I was able to relax. We did start me on pitocin as well just to get the contractions to speed up, since they still weren't very close together.

So then the waiting began. But it was much easier to relax than it had been the last three days. By this time, my body was so worn out and I hadn't even started the hard part yet. I got to 10 centimeters at about 5:30 p.m. They then do an hour of what they call "Rest and Descend" to let me rest up and get ready to push, and for the baby to finish descending to where she needed to be. At 6:30 p.m. I started pushing, and the nurse guessed we'd be at it for a while because baby has a very round head that was having a hard time getting past my pelvis. I would push and she would come a little and I would stop and her head would slip back in. 

After pushing for two hours, the doctor is called in and determines if we should keep pushing or if the baby needs help, or if we need to consider other options. Our doctor was actually off on Tuesday's, so the on call doctor, who was awesome, was coming in, she was a little later than the two hour limit, so I kept pushing and by the time she got there, baby was almost out, so we decided to keep going. It took about another 30 minutes when the doctor got there before baby came out. She came out at 9:24 p.m. with a full head of hair! We couldn't believe all her hair, I was so sure I was going to have a bald baby!

It was so amazing to hold the little bundle in my arms finally! She is a master pouter and her little lip sticking out just made me fall absolutely in love with her. Nate, of course, was obsessed with her as soon as he saw her. After getting us both cleaned up they moved us upstairs to the mother baby rooms and it was about 11 p.m. so we just went to sleep. 

The next day we had visits from lots of excited people! Nate left for a little bit to go to Tom and Nicole's sealing at the Logan Temple. I was sad I couldn't be there, but I was glad that Nate still got to go. And later Tom and Nicole came to visit us! They were all dressed up and the nurses were all wondering who they were here for.

You guys are amazing! I'm so glad you came to see us on your wedding day. We also got visits from Nate's parents, his brother Jason and family (Zoe and D'Jayden had to stay behind the glass), Dave and Hayley, Tim and Tara, and Nate's grandpa. We are so glad you all are just as excited about our little one as we are! 

After a week with baby Josslyn we can't imagine what we ever did without her. Our home is so much fuller and incredibly joyful. She already has smiles that she saves just for mom and dad, and I haven't been able to catch her at it yet! She is a champion sleeper and I usually only have to get up once or twice a night to feed her and still get good stretches of sleep. Nate is a good fetcher. Bring me baby, bring me a diaper, take baby back to bed. He couldn't be more amazing to his two girls and does everything for us. He is an awesome dad and loves her like crazy and I love seeing them together.

We are excited for my parents to come this weekend and meet their new granddaughter. I know my dad will LOVE snuggling her just as much as I do!

Thank you everyone for your love and support bringing this amazing little person home.

Full Term Baby!

By looking at our little countdown to the side, you can see that the baby is officially FULL TERM! Any time now baby!

Here is a pic of me at 37 weeks yesterday. I'm getting SUPER tired of being pregnant. Good news is the doctor confirmed today that the baby has dropped, but since it's my first, this can happen anywhere up to 4 weeks before I actually go into labor. Shoot.

Baby's room is not ready at all, it doesn't have anything on the walls, and looks very sad. I also don't have a chair, and the box with the stroller and car seat in it is holding the spot so I know what it looks like, but I'm ready for it to happen. If nothing else just so I can take a deep breath and walk without waddling again!

We are officially on alert! Come on out baby!

A Little Update

Just wanted to give the people a little update out there. Last weekend we moved from Millville to Hyrum. Not the most wanted move, but the house we were renting in Millville got sold and the people that bought it kind of wanted to move in, so we didn't really have a choice. But now that we are moved in and a little more settled, I think it will be okay. Plus, I finally got to decorate my house for something! We moved during the holidays last year and we were out of town for a lot of December and January, so I never decorated my house for the holidays. I forgot how cute my Thanksgiving decorations were! They made me so happy!

(For those of you wondering, I don't really decorate for Halloween. Don't have any decorations, plus I don't like Halloween...maybe next year when I have a 10 month old to dress up...)

Another plus for the new place is that we are in our own house, not sharing with anyone and so we celebrated by rocking out to 80's pop music while hanging things on the walls in our house. Yeah, we're cool. (Also, Nate would probably like me to also note that our new house has a two car garage that we can park the car in the very middle of.)

I don't have any pictures of the new place, but once I put the nursery together, maybe I'll take some pictures of everything else too.

As of today we only have 8 weeks to go! Woohoo! I'm so excited to meet our little girl, and Nate would like her to stay in as long as possible. I can tell she's getting squished in there by the little feet that she sticks in my ribs when she tries to stretch out. I think she's going to be a tall girl!

And just so you have ONE picture to look at, my latest belly photo, a week ago.

This is 31 weeks, 7 months! Only 2 more to go.