Christmas 2009

This Christmas we had a lot of fun. We stayed here in Provo and celebrated with my family in Salt Lake. We got a bit of a late start on Christmas due to new babies and trying to finish finals/graduate, but we finally got a tree this year. It was beautiful (thanks to decorations I borrowed from my mom). I will definately be shopping all of the after Christmas sales for decorations for next year.

I just wanted to share some pictures with you that we've taken over the last week or two.

James teaching Baby mad gaming skills. :)

Lanora in one of her many darling outfits. I wish she wasn't growing so fast, she's outgrowing them before our eyes!

Happy girl in her Daddy's arms.

Sleeping, shhhh.

She loves making this face. Her lips pucker up into such a small "O."

Here we are Christmas Eve at Brooke's. We had a wonderful dinner as a family and enjoyed each others' company. Unfortunately this picture was taken after most everyone had left. However, I must point out the fantastic white tree behind us. I love Brooke's decorations!

This is about as excited as Lanora got on her first Christmas morning. Hopefully next year she will be a little more animated. It was fun all the same to have Santa drop off gifts for her.

We did the Nativity play Christmas evening with all of the little nieces and nephews. Ashton and Allison were Joseph and Mary and Hunter was a shepherd. Unsurprisingly Lanora played the part of Baby Jesus while her new bouncy seat was the manger. (Maybe next year we will be better with props).

Christmas night we realized that all of Lanie's pictures taken that day were of her wrapped up in a blanket. We finally got some pics of her in her Christmas clothes, but this was the best. What a chub already!

The day after Christmas I took her on a walk out in the cold. This cute snow outfit doesn't quite fit yet. "I can't put my arms down!"

Who can resist a cute face with a huge flowery bow?

The Many Faces of Lanora

Sorry it has been such a while since my last post. School, babies, and life have kept us so busy, but now that is over, somewhat and I can share with you these pictures chronicling this child's first 3 weeks of life. Here are the many faces of Lanora. (ok, most of them are of her sleeping, it's just so hard to catch her cute expressions when she is awake.)

Day 2 at the hospital

This is pretty much what she looks like after being fed. Happy Baby.

Here she is a week old with her Grandma Speirs who came to help us for a week after Lanora was born. Get a look at those cheeks!

My little burrito.

I just love this hat. My friend knit it for her.

And here she blends in with the environment. I just love
how much pink there is in the house now.

And a close up.

My (almost) 2 week old Gangsta

Today was cold, very cold, so this is what we dressed Lanora up in. Unfortunately this cute outfit is still a little large for her and she reminded me of a gangster. I have to say, she is the cutest gangsta ever!

Baby Lanora 3 Days old

Here are some pics that my sister-in-law Rachel took for us when Lanora was just 3 days old. Thanks Rach!

James is trying to wake her up in this pic, she sleeps so soundly (during the day) so all of these pics with her eyes open are quite a treasure.

The Arrival of Baby Lanora Lindsay

Hello everyone, James gave you a quick sneak peak at our little baby Lanora (Lanie) Lindsay and I thought that I would now give you a little more meat to the story for those who may be interested (otherwise you can scroll down and get to the good part -which are the pictures of course).

Baby Lanie was due Thursday (Thanksgiving Day). Though I had been feeling good I had started to have some contractions on Wednesday which got my hopes up. Unfortunately they seemed to completely stop by Thursday and I was worried I was going to have a very late baby as is common in my family. I had been to the midwife earlier this week and it was just not looking like Baby wanted to come. So needless to say I was rather disappointed as the days came and went with no sign of a baby.

I had been going on many walks trying to get something going but they didn't seem to do the trick either until Thursday night when we were watching football on TV and I decided James and I needed to walk up by the Provo Temple where there are some really good and steep hills. After a 45 min hike up those hills we finally decided to go home to bed.

I went to bed around midnight with very few contractions but then woke up about 2:20 am to moderate contractions which quickly progressed to stronger, more frequent, and longer lasting contractions. After a few hours of pacing, trying to distract myself, etc. I woke James and we got ready to head to the hospital and arrived at 7:00 am. There they put me in a triage room and a nurse came to check on me and found I was dilated to a 5 and they were going to keep me! (three days ago I was only a 1.5 and had been that way for about 2 weeks).

The hospital was wonderful and got anesthesia to me right away and I was so grateful for an epidural. It made everything so wonderful. Then my midwives Jana and Sarah came in and checked me to find that I was to 6+and so they also broke my water. All I had to do now was wait to get to a 10. James and I tried to rest at this point.

By 11:00 I was a 9.5 and we decided to start pushing at 12:00pm. The midwives were awesome and coached me through pushing. Unfortunately Baby Lanora had been swimming in tons of amniotic fluid and so she never quite properly engaged herself. When the water broke she kind of engaged her head a little to the side which made for a harder time of pushing her out. We had tried to rotate her but after an hour and a half we decided to stop and have me lay on my side for a while hoping that she would then rotate herself. I was feeling less comfortable at this point and was therefore so grateful for the epidural.

Baby did not rotate like we had hoped and so the midwives decided to call the doctor in for fear that a vaccuum was going to have to be used. Fortunately by the time he got here he decided to have me push a little more and it was finally at that point that Lanie decided to start cooperating and turned herself. The doctor and midwives were both wonderful in getting Lanie here.

Lanie was born at 2:58 pm and weighed 8 lbs 8 oz and was 21.5 inches long (which was surprising to me). In the pics she is a little bruised, especially on the side that she was trying to come out on.

This is a dark picture, but I'm glad I took it. This is what I looked like right before I went to bed on Thursday night. I never really posted any baby bump pictures so I thought I would include this one and the next one.


This is another baby bump picture of me about two days before Lanie was born. I like it because the lighting makes it almost hard to see how big I actually was. (Which of course was huge!)


Now for the good stuff. Here is our sweet little girl. This was soon after her first bath. She cleaned up very well. I just can't get over how little her mouth is and how chubby her cheeks are.

Here's another of her after her bath. Poor baby with a black eye. She really wedged herself.


Here she is getting her bath. As I was going through all the pics I realized that we hardly gave her any privacy so I won't show you her bath pics, but I figured this one at least wouldn't offend anyone. ;)

Baby is Here

Out little Lanora was born just one day late. The birth process started at about 2:30 a.m. and Lanora was born at about twelve hours later. I guess twelve hours is pretty common for a first time baby. Paula suffered through the contractions until about 7:00 a.m. before we even went to the hospital. Once we were there she had to suffer a bit more until about 8:00 a.m. when she got the epidural. The epidural was great and Paula didn't have to suffer any more for the rest of labor.

Anyway, enought talk, here are some pics.

Lanora, moments after birth.

Lanora after a bath.

We'll post more pictures soon I'm sure. Just wanted to get this out to all those who were waiting.

15 Days!

We are just 15 days away from my due date, though I think my ideal day for having this kid would be on the 23rd which is just 13 days from now, but definitely not any sooner than that. I think my classes would certainly suffer if she came earlier than that. I can't believe how busy life has been.

We finally smoothed out the texture on the walls and painted our living room. It looks so much better and I would post a picture if I wasn't up on campus. Thanks so much Catherine and April for dedicating your Friday night, supplies, and expertise. It was very needed.

I will try to post some pics, but if I don't get around to it soon I am sorry, it will probably be a while after this baby comes.