Graduvacation

That's right.  I'm going to be updating you on graduation and our Christmas vacation.  Thus...Graduvacation.  Life has been so great over the last month or so.  I finally figured Eden out and found things that help her to sleep well and be a happier baby.  She now sleeps about 6-7 hours straight at night and will then go back to sleep for another 3.  It has been absolutely blissful. Here are some (many) pictures to update you all on the last few weeks of our lives here in Rexburg. 

 Eden's blessing dress.  She was blessed at about 3 weeks old so that we could make sure our family could come and be part of it with us.  She wore my blessing dress and looked so beautiful.  E was really fussy that morning and I was so worried that she would be loud during the blessing, but she was a little angel.  I shouldn't have worried.  Church is her favorite place.  Literally.  She just sits quietly the whole time every single sunday.  Sometimes I wish I could go to church everyday.

 Grandma and Grandpa Doutre with little E.  At this point she was really fussy and cried for all of the pictures.  Of course!

                                    Papa D and Grandma K-haha!  Look at her screaming her lungs out.

 After church we had everyone over to our house for Hawaiian Haystacks and some good time.  Here is the Williams side.

                              The Doutre side-they came clear from Washington for the blessing. 

 The night of my commencement.  Eden went to Tanya and Logan Binghams to play with her kids and one of my bestie roommates watched her while we went.  Here we are in the BYU-I Center with Austin and Cami, Nathan's bother and sister who go to school here as well.

 This is the next morning after my convocation.  Eden came with us and was a little angel.  She is such a blessing and it took a lot of faith to have her when I wasn't sure if I would be able to graduate while having a baby.  She came early, but it all worked out.  WE DID IT!

 My mom and dad were able to come up for my graduation and I loved it.  Thanks for coming moma and pops.

 I just love this picture so I had to add it in.  This is a yawn, not a smile.  She started smiling the next week.

 After graduation, we headed down to my house for Christmas.  This is one of my favorite moments of the whole vacation.  My mom and I were talking in the family room and looked over to find ALL of the men in the house laying underneath our kitched table trying to fix the moving grooves.  They were all watching a different part of the table to make sure it was working.  Dad is on one end, Nathan on the other and Blake and Ty on either side.  CLASSIC. McKay, Clark, and Kyson weren't there yet or I'm sure they would've been in on it as well.  Later that week the boys dry walled one of our bedrooms.  Sadly, I failed to get any pictures.

                     Tyler holding Kyson.  Kyson holding Eden.  Eden screaming her head off. 

 Christmas Eve and Great Grandma Williams' house.  Grandma K fed Eden a bottle before her big performance so that she would be happy. Eden takes a bottle really well which is such a blessing when I have to go somewhere or when we're in public.  She can down a bottle in about 7 minutes and it takes her 35 minutes to nurse.  So when time is an issue, bottle it is.

 Eden's biggest moment to date...Being Baby Jesus in our  family Christmas Eve Pageant. Tanayea  was Mary and did such a good job keeping her happy.

 Christmas morning.  Here is our little family on our first Christmas together.  Eden got onesies and some rattles from Santa.  She squirms a lot before she falls asleep.  That is why her face is covered in the blanket.  Don't worry, I am not suffocating my child. 

 A few days after Chrismas we went to a jumping gym.  It was a blast!  I got some really great videos of Blake, Ty, and McKay doing awesome dunks, but this post was long enough without videos so I left them out.

 These are just some cute pictures of Eden at 2 months old.  She smiles and coos like crazy and is our joy and happiness.  She has beautiful bluish/grey eyes and still has long dark hair.  Although, the roots are going blonde.

                    Had to show off the hair.  I love it.  And it can fit easily in pigtails.  That's my girl. In the back it hangs about an inch over her shirt.  It looks like a little mullet.  Levi would be SO proud.

Our little one.  Sorry it's so blurry.  She never holds still and my camera isn't the best.

The Wee One

Here I sit at my dinner table at 2:56pm on a Friday afternoon.  It feels strange and yet somehow perfect to be sitting without any deadlines, uploading pictures from my camera and waiting until my ticking time bomb awakens to be fed.  The last three weeks have been a blur as Nathan and I have been learning how to be parents and playing hostess to the multitude of family that has come to help, visit for the holidays, and come for the baby blessing.  Although, I must admit that my playing hostess consists of my company making dinner and getting up with said child during the night.  A pretty sweet deal if I do say so myself.


Eden is such a little angel and has stolen Nathan and my hearts completely.  She hasn't done too bad with the rest of the family either.  Her dark blue eyes, hysterical facial expressions, and long, thick, black hair are enough to melt anyone's heart.  She makes the greatests faces when she is waking up or thinking about crying and it just makes me giggle while I'm holding her to imagine what she's thinking.  Sometimes when I'm talking to her, she makes a face that goes so perfectly with what I'm saying and I laugh out loud because it's almost as if she understands what I'm saying.  Almost.

For the first week and a half of her life, she was a sweet and quiet as anyone can imagine, hardly making a peep and only really crying about three times.  Suddenly, this changed and she was crying...hard, after each feeding with a pained look on her face.  We couldn't calm her down and I would cry along with her because it hurt me so badly to see my baby in so much pain.  We would finally get her calmed down and asleep and then it would be feeding time again.  So for the last few weeks, my wee one has either been crying, feeding, or sleeping.  Literally.  I must admit that I looked at babies that were awake and interacting happily with whoever was holding them with a bit of jealousy as I never got to see my baby's eyes without her crying.  It absolutely broke my heart and I was drained emotionally.  She wouldn't sleep if I set her down so I hadn't had any sleep night or day, unless my blessed help was holding her for me. 

Nathan helps out so much, but he is so busy with work and school, I don't have the heart to wake him up unless I am literally at the end of my rope.  Finally, I turned to other sources, what was happening with her, was she okay?  After doing some research, I believe that she has GER which means that she gets severe stomach pain after eating.  There are however, things we can do to help with this.  I noticed that she had less of a problem at night and realized that she isn't as frantic for her feedings because she is so relaxed.  I assumed that she probably swallowed less air when she wasn't so worried about trying to get food.  It's not like I hold her off in the day time, as soon as she awakens, I feed her.  But she's hungry by then.  So I've started waking her up and feeding her about every 2 hours so she doesn't get to the point that she is starving.  The two days I've been doing this have brought about great results. 

I am also very careful to keep her upright for at least 30 minutes after each feeding.  This is much more time consuming than burping the baby and being done with it, but it is totally worth the happiness that is on her face instead of the pain.  She still cries a bit, but it isn't the crazy stuff that was happening before.  It could just be a coinsidence seeing as it's only been two days, but I sure hope that it's helping.  The other thing we've been doing is putting her to bed earlier in the day.  We have a routine that we start every day at 9pm.  We'll move this up, but she has been up until midnight each night.  Hopefully having a schedule and helping her stick with that will help her to feel more secure and understand when it is time to sleep and when it is time to be awake.

 Grandma Doutre with E.  I realized after my mom left that I never got a picture of her with the little one, but I'm so grateful to both of them for their help.

 Classic.  Not much needs to be said here once you know that she doesn't sleep without being held. 

        Yes, she did fall asleep WHILE I was washing her hair.  She loves her some warm water bath time.

This is her version of the spa.  Look how relaxed she is-I love it.  I discovered that bathing at bed time gets me an extra hour between feedings that first shift and I've been milking that one for all it's worth.  No pun intended there.


All in all, we love our Little E and are so excited to keep watching her grow.

Eden Ann Doutre

Our beautiful little Eden was born on November 10, 2011 at 8:30pm.   That means that my little baby is already two weeks old today on her very first Thanksgiving.  It's crazy to think that she is already two weeks old while at the same time, it seems like we have always had her.

This is me having my hard contractions 1 minute apart and insisting that I didn't think I was in labor so we should wait to go to the hospital. 

I was a 7 by the time I got the epidural and this is me right after it started kicking in.  I told Nathan that I hadn't felt this good in months.  I loved it.

                                         The first time I held my little Eden.  She is my happiness.

                                                                Frog legged little one

                                                      Nathan holding Eden for the first time. 

                                             About 2 a.m. when we got to the recovery room.

                                               Eden right after we got home from the hospital.

                                         My little sister, Lauren, holding Lauren for the first time.

                                                Eden with Papa D, Grandma K, and Lauren.

 

I went in to check on Eden and found her looking like this, fast asleep.  SO CUTE.  I got the tendency to take pictures of sleeping babies in funny positions from my mom and I love it.

Thoughts of a stressed, to-be mother

Well, here we are, week 38 of pregnancy.  I have my final two weeks of student teaching ahead of me and with that comes a few big projects and presentations before boards of people to prove that I am a competent teacher.  The only problem is...slowly, the stress of it all coming together and the "what if's" of it all are starting to pile on and I wonder, will I even be able to talk in a complete sentence when I have to defend my work?  Is it possible to explode from thinking about things too much?  I keep thinking, that's okay if she comes early, then I would actually have time to finish everything when I'm just at home with her.  HA!  I don't think so.  I'm now beginning to see that I will be even more exhausted then than I am now.

I've been so blessed to do so well and have most everything finished that I need to have done already, but reality hits fast and all the worrying about being a good mother and labor with everything that comes with it are somehow making everything else in my life seem like a bigger deal than normal.  Maybe it's the fact that I wake up in the morning thinking, "she could come today."  And all day I'm thinking, "okay, if my water breaks while I am doing this, how will I handle it?" or, "she can't come today!  I'm being observed today!" 

My doctor laughs at me because most women at this point are grabbing his lab coat and insisting he hooks them up this instant to get the child out now.  I, on the other hand, ask him with worry at each visit, "it'll still be awhile, right?"  "I need her to stay in."  At this point, she only needs to stay in until this next Friday, the 11th.  But that wouldn't really be ideal because my panel is the next Tuesday.  So maybe Tuesday night would be the best.  Either way, I am SO looking forward for my panel to be done and have everything turned in so that this churning in my stomach will stop.  It would be so wonderful to just let the baby come when she's ready and not have to stress about how I could possibly get everything else done.

Before I began student teaching, I was so worried about having the energy and strength to do all that I needed to do.  Nathan gave me a priesthood blessing that I think back to whenever my thoughts run wild like they are today.  My Heavenly Father is very aware of me and of our little girl.  He knows the right time for her to come into this world and she will come when it is right for her.  I have had the strength to do all that is asked of me and more.  Considering that I am 9 months pregnant, I am feeling wonderful physically and have a great attitude about lugging my belly around with me.  I really have loved being pregnant and will so miss our little lady's movements inside me when she is out.  I'm trying to savor this time when she is a part of me and make sure to soak up every bit of happiness it brings me.  And along with that, I find comfort in knowing that whenever she decides to come, everything else will work out just fine because Heavenly Father is in charge and he has a plan for my life. 

Signing off for now-hopefully the next time I write I'm either finished with school or I have a bundle of healthy fussiness and joy in my arms.  Preferably BOTH!

Pregnancy Update and Mud Relay

As I was looking at the pictures on my camera, I realized that I have TONS of pictures that I haven't put on the blog at all.  So, the following will update you on my pregnancy and a mud relay that Nathan participated in.

 This is the day we found out we were pregnant.  Oh the blissful, ignorant days when it was all excitement with absolutely no sickness or discomfort.  We were on our way to Guitars Unplugged on campus and we were both grinning from ear to ear the entire time. 

 This is cute little me, thinking that I had a belly.  I believe I was about 10 weeks along in this picture.  I made Nathan take a picture, insisting that my stomach was HUGE!  At this same time, our house was flooded with sewage and we had no kitchen or bathroom for a whole month.  This was not the most blissful time of my life, but I learned so much about the Savior's love for me and about what it means to love a little person more than myself. 

 20 weeks along.  We found out we are having a little baby girl and were thrilled about it.  I had been feeling like it was a girl so neither of us were very surprised when the doctor gave us the news.  The most amazing thing to me was that I was so much more concerned with making sure that she was healthy and strong rather than finding out if she was a girl or boy.  I went in to the appointment so excited to find out and found myself on the table beaming at each little body part that was there.  As I saw her little heart pounding on the screen I found tears rolling down my cheeks.  I had said so many prayers for this little one, that she would grow correctly and that I would be able to take care of my body the way I needed to in order to protect her.  Seeing her little body kicking and her heart beating made all those hours huddled over the toilet bowl worth it.  And it was in this moment that I realized I would do it again whenever the Lord sees fit to bless us with another.  (Before this point I told Nathan that he was not allowed to talk about having more children because I honestly couldn't handle that emotionally.  The thought of being this sick again made me want to cry.)

This is me today.  34 weeks along, a mere 6 to go.  (Although I have a feeling that these last 6 weeks will be much more difficult than I envision them to be right now.)  If it looks like I may topple over the front, you are right.  I may do that sometime soon.  Luckily, my third graders are keeping me on my toes and moving pretty fast.  Currently I am still playing the games at PE with them and squatting at their desks to help them with math problems.  It's a good thing that I have Karen Williams' genes in me or I may not be able to do it.  I figure if the women crossing the plains could walk all day, then I can certainly walk around my warm classroom and get up and down from Indian style on the floor with the kids. 

Still no cravings of any sort, yet another blessing from my wonderful mother.  I'm sleeping pretty good still, although turning over in bed proves to be rather difficult with a watermelon belly.  The only time I roll over is when I get up to use the rest room.  When I get back, I make sure to sleep on the opposite side so that I don't start getting bed sores or something.  I honestly wake up in the EXACT same position as I fell asleep in (a feat that may seem incredible to any who have had to share a room with me).  I guess my body just figures it's not worth the work.

 This is Nathan participating in the mud relay that BYU-Idaho put on a few weeks ago.  He, his friend Ben, and his sister Cami formed a team to compete against others.  This is Nathan slip'n slidding into the mud pile...

 Where he then army crawled under ropes (and discovered that crawling was a lot faster than army crawling).  He was going so fast that a everyone watching was saying things like, "Wow.  Who is that kid?!" To which I proudly replied, "oh that's my husband."

 Here he is running along 2X4s buried in the mud

 After his leg, he had to jump on Ben's back and be carried around 10 cones.  Ben was not very happy at having to carry Nathan through ankle deep mud.  Classic.

 Nathan after his leg was finished.

 It's a good look.  Don't you think?

 The very last thing the team had to do was leap frog over each other to get to the finish line.  Here is Nathan jumping over Cami.

The team at the finish line.  All-in-all a pretty fun day.  If I had known there wasn't much running involved, I would've been on the team too.  The posters made it sound like you were going to run 3 miles in the mud and we need the child to stay in me as long as possible so that I can finish my student teaching so I decided not to do it.  Oh well, I guess there's next year.

OH BABY!!

Happy of Happies, Nathan and I are expecting a baby.  I'm 14 weeks along and am finally feeling a little better.  Feeling a little better is a relative term.  I still feel a constant need to be close to a garbage can or toilet because sometimes it comes really suddenly, but for the most part I am feeling so much better.  It's the greatest feeling to feel like I can get up and do things because I feel good enough to. 

I've gotten so frustrated because I feel so sick, but I teach school or have class early every morning and I work late at nights.  This means that I don't get very much sleep and I'm absolutely exhausted all the time.  But...the kids just got out of school so I have a day off tomorrow.  WONDERFUL!!!  I get to just sleep until my body feels like getting up and then I can clean my house and exercise and relax. 

I'm due November 22 which happens to be the very day that I finish student teaching.  Here's hoping that baby will cooperate and help me out a little bit here.  I've been asking nicely for 3 months already and bribing baby with it's very own room and lots of cuddle time, so I hope it works out.

I'm so excited to start looking pregnant instead of just bigger.  I did get a little bit of confidence when I told my first graders yesterday that I'm having a baby and one of them said "I knew it because I've been watching your stomach get fat."  Well, thank you.  I wasn't sure exactly how to take that seeing as right now it is just bigger, but not necessarily a baby bump.  You have to love the honesty of 6 year olds. 

Speaking of which, one day the boys took an extra long time in the bathroom.  When they got back, I said, "Boys, were you doing what is right in the bathroom?"  They all responded in unison, "No!" To which I inquired what they were doing.  "We put soap on the floor and went ice-skating!!"  We then had to talk about how sometimes things are fun, but they aren't the right things to do and that there are always consequences when we make  choices.   So then I sent one of them down to get the janitor so that he could supervise them while they cleaned up their mess.  But I just laughed all day about that.  I love that they didn't even think about lying.  They were, however, very quick to point out the person whose idea it was and who had done it first.  I had to explain that it doesn't matter whose ideas it was, if you participated, then you're to blame too.  Classic.

Also.  Our lives are finally getting put back together.  The construction workers finally finished all of their work.  Which means that after a whole month, we have a bathroom, kitchen, doors on our rooms, and a place to put all of our things.  It has been kind of annoying to always have workers in our home because I get home from school and I'm throwing up and I have to go to work in an hour.  ALL I want to do is take a nap, but Nathan is at work, and I feel so awkward sleeping with no doors while a bunch of men are working on my house.  So, I go to work still feeling really sick and I spend my hour at home crying out of frustration.  But now, they are done.  Just as I'm starting to feel a little bit better:)

All in all, life is great and amazing and crazy and happy and overwhelming and joyful.  We are loving every minute of preparing for the next phase of our life and relishing any time we get to spend together.

Long Time, No Type

                                                     This picture accurately depicts how I'm feeling about school at this moment in time.

Yesterday was a very momentous moment in my life.  I registered for my last two classes.  EVER.  Well, at least for now.  There may be a time in the long future when a masters will be coming.  But for now, bring on that Bachelor's degree teaching certification K-8 goodness.  I am SO ready to be done.  This summer I will be doing my senior practicum (which is like a mini student teaching.  3 days a week instead of 5) and an assessment and evaluation class.  This helps me know what tests are appropriate for different kinds of children and how they learn.  I'll be done with that by July 23 and then have 5 weeks of relaxation before the wonderous and much looked forward to student teaching.

I'm just so excited to get into the classroom.  It's so much more fun to prepare lesson plans when you are thinking of your class and what they need.  You know what works for them and what will get them engaged.  I'm so done with making 13 page lesson plans that I'm only turning in for the teacher to grade all of my research based activities and never to be seen by young children.  Done.  It's okay I tell myself, a few more and then I'll be there.  Five more weeks of fakies and then the real thing.  (You're worried that I just used the  word fakies when I'm going to be teaching your children?  No worries.  They will know how to spell all sorts of made-up words with my guidance.)  Believe it or not, spelling made-up words actually helps children to become better readers and writers.  Dr. Seuss was really onto something when he started that whole thing.  It raises their phonemic awareness and phonics skills. Your children are in good hands.

I have had a huge case of Senioritis called I HATE GETTING UP IN THE MORNING to do homework before 8:00am class.  If Nathan wasn't there I think I would just go ahead and sleep through the whole thing.  This is why my momentous "last time registering" was not really mine.  Nathan was the one to wake up at 5:30am, hook up the computer, get onto the site and devise a whole system to make sure I got the teacher I wanted (who only had 5 seats in his class).  He patiently sat beside me as I slept all the way through it until he said, "Bec!  We got it!"  at which point I was very grateful and then promptly fell back asleep.  I am seriously so grateful for that because everyone else trying to get in at 6am couldn't because it was so backlogged.  This makes me sound like a terrible wife.  I tried to get up.  Really.  I think I must have a condition called "can'twakeupitis".  This is the very top on my "To Work On" list.

P.S. I just got called to be the Primary 2 Counselor.  Classic.  We live in a student ward so Primary= 1 sunbeam, 4 little girls and 3 little boys in nursery and about 4 ready to come in this summer.  So  pretty much we just play with toys and have a short lesson and music time.  SO FUN! The kids are so adorable.