Our Baby Girl

Last Thursday afternoon (May 21st) I went in for my weekly non-stress test. The day before I had been having a bunch of contractions and it didn't dawn on me until right before my appointment, but her movements had gone down to almost nothing. With my history with Grant, I was slightly concerned, but glad to be going in for the NST. As they were monitoring her, her resting heart rate was looking good, but they also like to see an elevated heart rate when she is active. She was not wanting to be active though, which for her is unusual. We shocked her once and she kicked for a second, but then went back to sleep. After a few minutes we shocked her again and that really got her mad. But it was good to know that she was doing ok. Also during the NST it was showing that I was having some contractions. They were about 3-6 minutes apart. They weren't too strong, but her heart rate would drop just slightly with each contraction. I told the nurse my concerns with the lack of movement and how that was what happened with Grant and she said she would talk to the doctor and they would go over my NST. After a few minutes she came back in and told me that with my history, and with the slight decrease in heart rate with the contractions that they were going to go ahead and take the baby. She made a call to my OB/GYN and I made a call to Jeremy and we got set to have this little baby a few days early. It all happened really quick. Within about 2 1/2 hours from the time of my NST, I was prepped and she was out. She was born at 6:43pm. She weighed 8 lbs. 11 oz and was 20 inches long. Jeremy went with the nurses down to the nursery to get her all cleaned up while I was getting all stiched up. I sat an waited in recovery for what seemed like forever, and then they moved me down to my mother/baby room. I still hadn't heard much about the baby. Come to find out, her blood sugar was low at birth so they had to feed her a small bottle and make sure her blood sugar came up. So that was what delayed the process of getting her to me. After not being able to see Grant for 3 days after he was born, I might have been a little paranoid about waiting for an hour. Once they came up she was perfect! She had her eyes wide open and ready to take everything in. It took us a little over 24 hours to decide on a name. After all the disagreeing that we did over the last 9 months, I don't htink that's too bad. We finally came up with Hallie May Gallier. And just to clarify, it's pronounced hal-lee, not hay-lee. The May part of her name is kind of a family tradition. We all know my name is April, and Jeremy has a sister that is named January. So I thought it fit to use her birth month. If she was born in November or December or something like that, I would't have used that, but I think May fits and sounds cute.
Over the next few days in the hospital thing went really good. Her blood sugar continued to look good and we didn't have to worry about that any more. She is nursing like a champ, which is a big relief for me. Both Mikkele and Grant struggled with nursing. Her bilirubin levels were a little elevated so we had to have them checked the day after we got out of the hospital. Those results showed that she had doubled her levels and would need to go under lights for a bit. The night spent under the lights was horrible. She did not like being naked, unswaddled, and laying in a tanning bed of sorts. Thank goodness her levels came down enough the next day to get off the lights. Her levels are still coming down, but she is doing a lot better.
Thanks to all those who came to visit or called while we were in the hospital. When we got home, we were met with lots of pink ribbons and bows and some cute welcome home signs made by Alisha, Holly, Mikkele, Grant, Dillon, and Connor. It was really cute.
Life with a new baby has been a little challenging. Hallie is doing pretty good. She is doing better at night and staying awake more during the day. Grant has had the hardest time. He is used to being able to have his mommy just about whenever he wants, but with the new baby, and me having a c-section, I'm not able to hold or carry him as much as he would like. Hopefully he will adjust here soon. Mikkele is having a blast having a real live baby to play with. We already knew that she was an awesome big sister, but she has really stepped up even more. What would we do without our big sister! Speaking of people we can't live without...a HUGE shout out to all the people that have helped us out while we were in the hospital, and even now. Holly and Ryan and Glenn and Dorene helped with the kids while we were in the hospital, Alisha came into town for the first few days that we were home from the hospital, and my mom is here now helping for another week. You guys are all awesome, we would not be able to do this without you!!!

The Big 3-0...Better Late Than Never

So yes I know it has taken me FOREVER to post about my resent descent over the hill. It's not because I'm having trouble coping with the fact that I'm getting older. It's more because of, well...how did my darling child put it the other day....I'm SLOW! She has been very kind to point out my slowness lately. Whether it be physically or mentally. Don't you love children??? Anyway on to the big day, or actually I should say days because there was like 3 days of celebrating my oldness.

Thursday morning I woke up to my lawn being plastered with signs that said, "Over the Hill" and "30". Thank you Tina for announcing to the entire neighborhood how old I am.

The rest of Thursday was spent doing the regular day to day mom/wife/housekeeper stuff. We went to dinner at Winger's that night and came home and opened presents from my cute family. One of my presents was a spa foot bath thingy. Mikkele insisted on staying up late and giving me a pedicure. My poor pregnant feet have been looking really bad lately, so it felt good. I guess that makes up for all the "slow" comments lately.
Look at how swollen my legs, feet, and ankles are.

Friday night I was told that we had dinner plans with Tina and Lance and that we were going to PF Changs. When we were taken back to be seated the table was set for 16 rather than for 4. There had been a little party planning going on without me knowing. Over the next 30 minutes, our closest couples friends showed up. It was a fun surprise. Some of these people I've been friends with since I was really young and others more resently in the last couple of years. It was fun watching all of the different personalities come together. We had a great time. There were a lot of laughs. Thanks Tina and Alisha for putting together such a fun night, and thanks to everyone else that came, it really made the day memorable. Here are some pics of the night. I don't know why, but I think someone has their eyes closed in almost every picture. Oh well.

As the guests were arriving.

Some of the group.

More of the group.

Even more of the group.

Alisha and I cheesing it.

Me and Rachel. I was crying cause I was laughing so hard.

Alisha and my cheesy brother in law Albert.

My birthday cheesecake was amazing! It was huge too. Needless to say it got passed around for everyone to enjoy.

Sunday we got together with the Gallier family for cake and icecream and some games. Mikkele insisted on making my cake. She did a good job too. She is really enjoying learning how to cook lately. The only bad part of that night is that I lost our game of Ticket to Ride. Don't you people know that I'm supposed to win on my birthday??? Oh well, I guess I have to let other people win sometimes too.

Isn't she the cutest little baker?

A little quality control is a must when cooking.

Overall it was a fun weekend filled with friends and family. I definitely came away feeling very loved and actually not feeling too old. :)

Pregnant Mommies

I've said before how 3 of my best friends were pregnant and how the 4 of us are due withing 7 weeks of each other. I've really wanted to get a pic of the 4 of us together, but it just hasn't happened. We're never all together at the same time. Two of them have now delivered, so it's really not going to happen now. I got a pic at the scrapbook expo of Me, Tina and Michelle and now here's a couple pictures of Me, Tina and Jenny. You can really tell a difference in what a month can do when you're pregnant.

I liked this picture because you can't really tell how pregnant I am in the middle of Tina and Jenny, but then Alisha made us turn to the side. We joked that they were our mug shots. And I just noticed that Jenny's obnoxious husband is giving her bunny ears in this picture. Nice Aaron.

Now with this shot there's no hiding the fact that we are all pregnant.

Jenny ended up delivering 5 days after this picture was taken, and Tina delivered the day after that. Jeremy was starting to get a little freaked out that we were going to do this one right after the other, but I'm bound and determined to have this kid keep cooking for another 3 1/2 weeks.

Just to update everyone on how things are going with my pregnancy...I have now officially made it past the time when I had Grant. This is a big step for me to get past. I know that he wasn't really born that early (35 1/2 weeks), and that he had complications that caused him to be the way that he is, but I'm still happy to have made it past that point. Because of my history my doctor wants me to do non-stress tests. I went in for my first one this week. Everything is looking pretty good right now. My blood pressure continues to be great. I am always worried about my blood pressure because of how much water I am retaining in my legs, but every time I go in my blood pressure looks great. My amniotic fluid levels are looking good. I had 3 contractions during the 20 minutes that she was monitoring me. She seemed a little worried about this, but said as long as they don't remain consistent we're ok. I am still having some, but they aren't consistent enough to worry me, yet. We'll see how that goes over the next few weeks. Like I said...I'm bound and determined to have this baby on May 27th when we have it all scheduled, for my sanity and everyone else's sanity. I'll keep you updated.

Name Help

I think most people know that we have had a hard time trying to find a name for our little girl that is going to be here in less than 5 weeks. We can't agree on anything, well almost anything. There is one name that we do agree on, but the meaning of the name is ill-fated and unlucky. There are a couple other meanings that are stupid as well, but the French meaning is unlucky and Gallier is French. We have gone back and forth on the idea of it matters and no it doesn't matter. I guess the biggest reason that we think that it matters is because Mikkele and Grant have awesome meanings to their names. Can we go from awesome to unlucky??? So I'm putting the question out there to everyone that cares to answer. What would you do???

If you had a baby name that you liked, but then learned the meaning for the name meant unlucky, could you still name your child that?

Yes, name meanings don't matter to me.

No, that would be like cursing your child for ever.

ugg boot

Easter 2009

We had a busy Easter weekend. The Saturday before Easter we had a ward Easter activity. It was cold and rainy outside, so they moved all of the festivities inside. They had some crafts for the kids, then they did an Easter Egg Hunt for the kids.

Mikkele helping Grant do one of the crafts.

Grant during the hunt.

That afternoon we dyed eggs with Dillon and Connor. The kids had fun drawing silly things on the eggs, and making different color concoctions by dipping an egg into many different colors. A lot of our eggs turned out brown, instead of the bright colorful Easter colors.

Mikkele and Dillon

Connor, Mikkele, and Dillon

Easter morning I was in the shower and Mikkele comes in yelling "I got Bolt, I got Bolt, I got Bolt!" I didn't quite understand what she was saying at first. I thought she was hurt or something, but once she slowed down and turned down the volume of her voice I understood what she was saying. She had peeked in her basket and found out that she got the movie Bolt. She was just a little egg-cited I guess. :P (Yes, I know I'm a dork)

The baskets before they were torn into.

Mikkele finding a kite in her basket.

Mikkele and Sparkey helping Grant open his basket. This is a little light ball that the cat was going crazy about.

After opening their baskets, we hurried and got ready for church. My cousin Chase had his mission homecoming that day. So we spent the first part of our Easter up in Draper with the Jones side of the family. Chase did a good job on his talk and it was good to see him again after 2 years.

The kids in their Easter outfits.

Sunday afternoon we went over to our friends, the Sabin's. We enjoyed a nice meal, some Easter egg hunting, and some card games. Thanks for letting us come and spend Easter with you guys. We had a good time.

Daddy and Grant hunting for eggs.

Mikkele's loot.

Side note: There are a few posts from today, so keep scrolling down.
Also...Mikkele has finally updated her blog with 2 new posts. Check them out. If you have not been invited to see her blog and would like to, let me know.

Mikkele's 9th Birthday

For Mikkele's 9th Birthday she decided what she wanted to do and she planned the whole thing. All I had to do was show up to provide transportation and foot the bill. Not too shabby for this pregnant brain. For her family party, she wanted to go out to eat. She loves orange chicken, so she chose a local Chinese food restaurant. The poor owners of the restaurant probably thought we were going to burn down the place when Jeremy was lighting the candles on her cake. I bought a lighter to use, but that was getting too hot and burning his finger. So he took a chopstick and light it on fire and used that to light the rest of the candles. Needless to say our waiter was a little edgy and probaby really glad when we finally left.

For her friend party she wanted to go to the new Hannah Montana Movie that came out the day after her birthday. So she made some invitations out of her Hannah Montana stationary that she has and handed them out to the few friends she was able to invite. We headed to the movie Friday evening a little early to make sure we got a good seat. While in line, the girls played Uno, and talked really fast and all at the same time. The girls loved the movie. They totally got into it like they were at her concert instead of the movie. They were clapping and cheering and dancing along. When the movie was over and the credits were rolling they really started dancing. It was too funny. We got home from the movie, opened presents, had cake and ice cream, and then the girls that were able to stay went to bed. We had our ward Easter egg hunt early the next morning so there was no staying up late and sleeping in.

She had a really fun, exciting, awesome birthday (all her adjectives about her birthday). She got a lot of fun presents and a TON of money from family that she is still trying to decide what she is going to spend it on. Thanks to everyone that came out to celebrate with us. It helped add to the fun.

DISCLAIMER...I don't know why, but the slide show cut her head off in some of the pictures. I couldn't figure out how to fix it. I'm really not that bad of an aim when it comes to taking pictures. :)

Billy Mays...Eat Your Heart Out!

I have been slowly getting things ready for the new baby. The other day I got my 0-6 month stuff out of storage to wash and get ready. I was so excited for all the cute things that I can remember from when Mikkele was a baby. Then I started to pull the clothes out of the box and was reminded of how bad she had reflux. That kid puked so much until she was like 6 1/2 months old. All of the clothes had horrible yellow stains on them. I know that I didn't put them away like that, but over the last 9 years of sitting in storage the spots darkened. I was really upset about it. I was thinking that I was going to have to buy all new clothes, and then I remembered a recipe I got a few years ago, but have never used, for a wonder stain remover. I thought I would give it a try before I completely gave up and threw everything away. So I bought the stuff yesterday and put it all together and let the clothes soak overnight and washed and dried them today. I was AMAZED with the results. Everything either came out all the way or lightened enough that it's hardly noticeable. I really wish I would have taken before and after pictures, but let's face it...I'm pregnant and don't think that far ahead right now. So I know at this point the suspense has grown so much that you're like "Give me the recipe already!" So here you go....
1 C. Clorox 2 Powder
1 C. Cascade dish washing powder
Fill sink w/ hot water. Stack clothes in and soak over night. Ring out and wash in washing machine without soap. And Ta-Da! stains are gone.

Take that Billy Mays. Your cleaning products have nothing on this. Thanks Bonnie for the recipe!

Decades Day

This last week at school Mikkele has had school spirit week. Each day they got to dress up in a different way. Monday was crazy hat day, Tuesday was crazy sock day, Wednesday was crazy hair day, Thursday was sports day, and Friday was decades day. We had fun dressing her up each of these days, but I have to say the funnest day for me was decades day. We had originally wanted to do the 50's and have her wear a poodle skirt, but we couldn't find one. We ended up going with the 80's and I'm so glad that we did! I had so much fun reliving my childhood. We borrowed a shirt from Jeremy's aunt/cousin (Thanks Linda and Angie for your help!) , and then I let my memory take me back to the hideous decade of the 80's to accomplish the rest. I think it turned out great. She looked like a total 80's child.

Dont' you love the hair. Crimped hair, side ponytail, and the wave bangs...what more could you ask for. I tried to stack them and make them really tall, but she doesn't have enough bangs and they were a little long. I still think they turned out great.

The whole package. Did you ever make a spin paint shirt like this one? I remember having a book bag in the 6th grade that was similar. We didn't have one of those thingys that we used to put our shirts into, so we improvised with a hair elastic. I think it gives the same look. The skinny jeans that are coming back into style worked perfectly, although we could have just pegged her pants and it would have worked also. Yes, I know the socks don't even come close to matching, but that's the only pair of socks that we could find that weren't black or white. We had to have some color. Her skechers even look a little bit like the LA Gear shoes we used to have. We bought her some jelly bracelets at Wal-mart, but forgot to put them on for the picture. They really added quite a bit. The only thing we forgot was some big hoop earrings. That would have really been the finishing touch. But overall I think it turned out great.

The best thing is that Mikkele kept asking why we did the things that we did. "You really used to dress like this?" "You used to do your hair like this?" "You wore your socks like this?" "What is pegging your pants?" The questions went on and on. And the looks she gave me were priceless also. What a fun day to relive my childhood. Let's just not bring back the 80's. We really weren't cute.

Scrapbook Weekend

Last weekend was our semi-annual Scrapbook Expo weekend. The expo is something that we all look forward to for many reasons. 1) It's a chance to have a girls weekend. 2) Kids are not invited, at least for long periods of time. 3) My mom comes up to help with the kids and we get to spend some time with her. (Thanks mom you're the best!) 4) At this point in my life I am only scrapbooking at the expo's, so I actually get to scrapbook and get some pages done. I am so far behind (2005-pathetic, I know) but it is really hard to scrapbook with Grant on your lap.

The expo was a lot of fun. This year we decided that since 3 of us are 6-8 months pregnant we needed to devise a plan of how to win prizes without having to do a lot of running up to the center stage. So we had some t-shirts made. A big thanks to Amber and Cal for getting them done so quickly. They turned out great! We had SO many people come up to us and comment on how funny it was. I have to say that I don't think any of us were prepared for that kind of attention. The shirts said, "My husband said it was scrapbooking or him....So I took some pictures of him packing and made the cutest pages ever!"Me, Alisha, Tina, and Michelle-and the 3 baby bumps.

So they finally did they did the t-shirt contest on Saturday afternoon. Let me tell you it was so hard to wait patiently for the contest when we just knew we were going to win. Well the contest was pretty easy. The other people that had matching shirts just didn't have a chance, it was kinda sad. Yes we ended up in first place, but we won the LAMEST prize EVER! Anyway...our prize was a dozen assortment of mini cupcakes. We also go a gift certificate for another dozen. Whaoo :( Are you kidding me, cupcakes! We're at a scrapbook expo, give us scrapbooking stuff! And to top it all off they were giving out these same cupcakes outside the doors as you came in. So basically everyone got to have a cupcake that wanted one. That's just not a prize. Can you tell I'm still a little bitter about it a whole week later? And can you tell that my competative nature is a little dependant on cool prizes? Can you tell I'm almost 30? NO-not at all. Anyway we did at least walk away as the t-shirt contest winners and I guess knowing that we won should be good enough. Alisha did win a couple other prizes; one for the number game (you stand on a number and if your number is called you win a prize) and the other one was for a celebrity look alike contest. She claims that people have told her that she looks like Terri Hatcher. You decide.Alisha showing off her pearls that we got with our ticket into the expo.

Terri Hatcher showing off her Tanzanite ring.

My mom and the kids came over Friday evening to say goodnight, and while they were there they had a dance contest for the kids. The prize for winning this contest was a princess party. We thought that sounded cool, especially since Mikkele's birthday is coming up soon. So Mikkele decided to participate. She didn't win, but we decided it was ok, because the princess who was gonna come and do the princess party was some made up, cheesy looking princess. Mikkele still had fun dancing though.

We had a really good time at the expo. It was a little tough being 10 weeks from my due date and trying to cart around all my stuff, but it was definitely worth it. We're just trying to figure out how we can work out the expo in September with newborns. I'm sure we'll work it out.

I have a question....do you have an answer???

So I am wanting to publish my blog. Has anyone ever done that before? I have heard of a couple different websites, blurb.com and blog2print.com, but I 'm wondering which one is the best or if neither are the best and there is something better. The things I am looking at when defining "the best" are price, easy to use, quality of binding and printing, etc... Please let me know what you have used in the past and your thoughts on what you received once it was finished.