2010 in Rewind

2010 was a super busy year for us! Here are some of the highlights: 

• We bought our first house
• Erick and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary
• Colby was born
• I got a promotion at Spectrum Academy
• Erick started his second year in Pharmacy School at the U
• I started working on my bachelors degree in Hospitality Management through DeVry University, doing online classes
• We celebrated our first Christmas with Colby (pictures will probably come later once I can get them from my family). Colby actually liked Santa (this year) :)

We hope everyone had a great year! Next year will be even better!

All About Colby

School is finally over! Now I have time to show everyone how big Colby is getting!

This is Colby's first trip to temple square! We were able
to go with Erick's family who was visiting from out-of-state.

Thanks for the Blanket Jenny!
Kept Colby super warm!

Colby's first hair cut! He kept trying to see what
that buzzing noise was!

Colby is mobile now! His favorite thing is the piano,
now he has found the petals!

It's Almost Christmas Time

Six Months Old!

First trip to the pumpkin patch.

This pumpkin is as big as me!

Can I touch it?

He is super cute! I love that he can sit up and he will eat almost anything we put in his mouth! He is such a happy baby now. :)

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

I've cried a lot this month. My grandma passed way 3 weeks before Colby was born due to breast cancer. It is so fantastic so many organizations (like the NFL) are sporting pink to show their support for breast cancer awareness month, but it makes me miss my grandma even more.

Self-check, get checked. And if you find a lump and the doctor tells you it is nothing, don't accept that answer. DO NOT. Make them check and test and whatever else they need to do. Go to a different doctor if you have to. My grandma got mammograms regularly, but was stage 4 when the doctors figured out she had cancer.

She fought. She fought hard. And when that didn't work, she joined a case study to fight even harder.

I love you Grandma. I miss you Grandma. Thanks for the legacy you left.

Child Prodigy??

Look how big he's getting. I can't believe it.

Super Cute Song

Colby likes to watch TV. My mom found Seasame Street on cable. Sometimes as a treat, I YouTube Seasame Street for Colby to watch. I thought this was so cute! What a good message. The singer is Wil.I.Am from the Black Eyed Peas.

New Christmas Stockings

Since we have a new addition to our family, I need to get new stockings for Christmas (my grandma helped me the ones I have now... She's not here to help me make any more). I found these super cute stockings.

They are made out of scarfs! They are actually super easy to make.

Do you have any ideas on where to buy affordable winter (acrylic) scarfs?

Can you believe Christmas is in only THREE months?

http://www.marthastewart.com/article/scarf-stocking

Milestone

Colby is finally rolling from his back to his belly. And it's not on accident any more! He has decided he likes sleeping on his belly or side now. :) I can't believe he is five months old!

Hindsight is 20/20

My friend Jess posted this on her blog, and I thought it was beautiful. As a new mom, I can take a lot of this to heart.

BIG P, little p, What begins with p?

Pears, Peaches and Prune juice. P...p...P...

Colby LOVED prunes! It was so funny! He got so excited when I put the first spoonful in his mouth. And eventually he got mad because I wasn't getting it in his mouth fast enough.

He actually started licking the bib!

I was told to feed Colby fruit starting with "p". They will help him be less constipated.

Guess Who's Going Back to School...

You guessed it!

I have decided to go to DeVry University and get my bachelors in Hospitality Management. This will help me better plan all the fun events at Spectrum. I am so excited! After I was given a promotion last year and able to plan some events, I realized how much I enjoy doing it! So, after 4 months of looking for an event planning degrees I've finally found it!

I start on August 30.

A Message in Motherhood

My friend Jenny posted this on her blog! It made my day!

Silhouette Giveaway

I am trying to win a Silhouette. One of the ways to enter their contest is to blog about it.

A Silhouette is like a Circut, but better! You don't have a have any cartridges to make it work.

Here's the link to the giveaway. You should enter too! And if YOU win (instead of me), please let me borrow it! :)

Simmons Family Reunion

We had a great weekend! Erick's family came from Idaho for a family reunion! Everyone was so excited to see Colby! He got to meet a lot of family we don't get to see very often. It was a fun day, but Colby was so ready to get out of the heat and come home. Here are some of the fun pictures we took!

Here is Colby and me! I just got my hair cut and I love it! Colby likes to sit up and look around now.

Erick's cousin Kristy had Isabelle 6 months ago. She LOVED looking at Colby.

 

Deklin - 6 weeks, Isabelle - 6 months, & Colby - 3 months

Babies with their mommies!

All of Carol's grandkids under 2 - Colby, Isabelle, Indie, Linkin & Deklin.

Favorite Pic

Here's my favorite picture of Colby that my mom has taken! This is TOTALLY Colby!

Four Generations

We were able to take a four generation picture with my family! It was so neat! My grandpa and my dad both graduated from the University of Utah, and Erick is going to graduate from there in 3 years! Even Colby is wearing and U of U onsie and sucking on a "Ute Fan" binki!

While we were at it, we got a family picture in our U of U shirts! We look so cute!

Blessing

We blessed Colby in June. Colby was able to wear overall shorts that his Grandma Karen made for Erick 27 years ago! He looked so dang cute! I am so glad he was able to wear the same outfit as his daddy! I bet Karen was so happy.



Before Erick's mom, Karen, passed away, she had started a few baby quilts. For some reason or another, when we cleaned out her house we didn't end up with any of them. When I figured this out I was very upset about it.

Debbie Hone (long time family friend to Erick's family) finished this quilt that Karen had started and gave it to Colby the day he was blessed! I almost started bawling when I opened it. It's been kind of hard not having Karen around. She loved babies. We know she was able to play with Colby before he got here. It was so thoughtful of Debbie to keep those unfinished quilts and finished them for us so Colby could have something that Grandma Karen made.

SMILES

I love Colby's smiles. They make me happy!

Being a parent is the best thing ever! We are so blessed to have this cute little boy in our home. He has brought so much joy into our lives and the lives of our family.

Perianal Fistual

Yes, it sounds gross. My poor little baby had one! Click here if you want to read more about it.

Colby's surgery went well yesterday. The surgery took about 5 minutes! Colby came out of the anesthesia well, and we were able to go home after an hour in recovery.

The surgeon actually opened up the fistula (like a tunnel) and it's going to heal from the inside out. We have to put Colby's bum in the sink when we change him instead of using any sort of wet wipe. Good thing Colby actually LIKES that. We also cannot give him a bath. So today, Erick and I tried giving him a shower. He LIKED that too!

I have such a brave little boy. Hopefully he'll sleep in his crib tonight, though! I think the mattress may hurt his bum.

P.S. Don't google image this. Colby's bum DID NOT look like the pictures that come up. His bum was never that bad.

Baby Announcement

This is the baby announcement I made for Colby! I've been figuring out how to digital scrapbook, and I am very pleased with the end result!

Scariest Day EVER!

I am so grateful for:
- Erick's medical knowledge
- An awesome pediatricians office (Southpoint Peds)
- The knowledge of the staff at Primary Children's
- And the power of the priesthood

Colby had a diaper rash that started bleeding. The next day there was a purple bump on his bum about the size of my finger tip. Nothing I did (or my mom, or Erick, or anyone) did made it look any better.

Erick asked me to call our pediatrician. My mom had seen Colby's bum, and so had Erick's aunt and neither one of them mentioned the pediatrician. I called him the next morning, and the medical assistant at their office said to come in just to make sure it wasn't an infection.

Colby didn't have a fever, so I really didn't think anything of it. My pediatrician's schedule was full, so I saw another doc in their practice. He took one look at Colby's bottom and said I would need to go to Primary Children's to get the abscess lanced. He said a pediatric surgeon would get him all numbed up before they lanced it.

So my mom and I went to Primary Children's Emergency Department. Colby didn't wake up on the way to the hospital to be fed like I thought he would. My mom tried to feed him in the waiting room, and he wouldn't eat hardly anything. We were asked not to feed him until the doctors could figure out a treatment plan and know which meds he would be on. That was alright with Colby - and that scared me.

The longer we sat in the ER waiting for a room to be ready for us to be admitted, the worse Colby got. That morning he was fine, and that afternoon he slept through two feedings, was letting the doctors poke and prod him. The only times he really woke up were when the doctor squoze the abscess to get a culture and when he got an IV placed. He even slept through the nurse taking his temperature rectally.

Needless to say, I was freaked out. My poor baby was not his happy self.

We were taken to the Rapid Treatment Unit at PCMC where they treated him with IV antibiotics overnight.

Colby is home now, doing much better. I knew he was feeling better when he fought the nurse taking his temperature in his armpit. He's still not 100 %, but he is on the mends.

It is the worst feeling in the world to hold your baby and not know what was going to happen. To hold him as he continued to get worse and worse. I am so grateful Erick and my dad hold the priesthood and were able to give Colby a blessing.

Colby

Saturday night was TERRIBLE. I didn't sleep more than 3 hours and I just plain didn't feel good. We got up for church (I didn't want everyone to think I had the baby) and we went to sacrament meeting. I didn't feel good enough to stay, and we went home.

I still had a bunch of stuff I wanted to do in Colby's room before he was born. I started trying to do some of it. That's when I peed my pants! I was so upset with everything that I bawled. Erick
convinced me that I would feel better if I took a nap. After about 1/2 hour of sleeping, I rolled over to lay on Erick and I was convinced my water broke!

I got out of bed as fast as I could. Sat on the toilet. Then I talked myself out of thinking my water broke. I told Erick that I would just feel better going to the hospital for them to check me out, but I really wasn't convinced myself.

Yes. My water broke. 11 days before my due date.

I didn't have any contractions, so they put me on potoson to get my labor going. We got to the hospital at 2:30, started potoson around 3. Colby's heart rate dropped for about 15 minutes, so they stopped the potoson until we could get Colby stabilized. After that, they gave me a third of the dose of potoson and I was ready to push at 10:15 pm. I pushed for 20 minutes and had to stop to wait for my OB to get in my room. Once he got there, I pushed once and Colby was born!

April 11, 2010 at 11:02 pm. 6 lb 12 oz and 20 inches long.

We're doing great. Everyone is pretty healthy (I have to get his Bili Rubin checked tomorrow just to make sure it isn't getting any worse).

Erick has been amazing. He is an amazing dad. He was so worried about it, but Colby will eat more when Erick feeds him than when I do. Erick will get up in the night with me and help as much as he can. :)

Love Story

I'm listening to "Love Story meets Viva la Vida" by Jon Schmidt. If you haven't heard it, go YouTube it. It's amazing.

But it's also making me think.

It's making me think about all the Love Stories I have experienced or been witness to.

My grandma and grandpa are soul mates. Thinking about my grandma is still hard since she passed away less than 2 weeks ago, but listening to this song I just can't help it. They had the perfect simple love that I haven't seen very often. I can't tell you an particular story in situation, but all the little things put together. The day before my grandma passed away is the first time I could actually see how strong the bond they had made in their 59 years of marriage actually was. I watched my grandpa's heart break as he waited for my grandma's body to rest. I know his heart will not completely heal until he is with her again. Thank goodness for eternal families. I am so glad to know that they will be together again.

It also makes me think about my relationship with Erick. We're been married for 4 years, and we are still learning how to be married. We got married so young, not even really adults. We've grown up and learned how to be grown-ups together. It's been an amazing adventure, and it's going to change soon. We are starting out a new adventure with the birth of our little boy. I'm both excited and nervous to see where this new experience takes our relationship.

Lastly, I'm going to have a new "Love Story" start soon. My love story with our little boy. I'm excited, scared, thrilled, nerves, ... The list goes on. Anyone who has had a child knows what I'm going through.

Nursery

So, the nursery is not finished yet. Yes, I have less than 4 weeks until this baby gets here. Erick had spring break this week and painted the nursery! I had to post a picture here so you could see how it is coming. Besides paint, crib, and diaper pail, we're not ready. My dad is going to re-finish the dresser you can see. I will post a picture when we have everything the way we want.

I actually just wanted to brag about the paint job. Erick hasn't ever painted a horizontal stripe before and it turned out great (even though he would only do one). Enjoy!

Grandma

I cannot express how grateful I am for eternal families.

My grandmother passed away yesterday morning. She had fought stage 4 breast cancer for 2 1/2 years, and her body just couldn't do it any more. She was participating in a research study because the chemo was no longer fighting her cancer.

She wanted to be here until our baby was born. While she was at the hospital a week ago, all she would talk about to the nursing staff is that she needs to get better for her great-grandson. I went to visit her last Wednesday, and the nurse told me she had heard about me all day long. I only have 5 1/2 weeks left... I thought she could make it.

But Heavenly Father had different plans in mind. And while she did not get to see Colby here, I think she is probably playing with him right now.

I didn't realize how important families are to the church until I got married. Everything we do is get back to our family. I know my grandpa will be able to be with my grandma again (probably sooner than we think).

Obituary

Primary Children's

I volunteer at Primary Children's hosptial every Wednesday. I work on the Kids Crew. I get to do art projects with inpatients in the playroom.

I had to put in my notice. March 31 is my last day. I knew this was coming since the first week I started, but now that I only have 4 weeks left, I'm sad.

4 years and counting

Happy Anniversary! I can't wait to start our new adventure together!

We Moved!!

Hallelujah!

Right now we don't have the internet at our house. As soon as we do, I'll post some more updates.

Unpacking has not been the greatest. All I can say is I am so thankful I did not have to pack up all our stuff while I have been pregnant. Just unpacking it is kicking my butt. Erick has had 4 tests in the two weeks we've lived there. He is helping as much as he can, but most of the unpacking has been left up to me while he's been studying. It's hard when I would like to get more done but I'm too tired to do it.

Hopefully I'll have everything done in a week. That is my goal.

Maternity Pictures

I know some of you have been waiting for a picture of me pregnant. I wanted to get past that "Is she pregnant?" phase. So (Jessica....) here they are.