Utah, Family, and Growing Up!

My little Kate is growing up! I know I'll be saying that for the rest of my life, but she really decided to take off in the last couple of months! She's learning so much and we love watching her grow and discover new things around her!

Speaking of new things, Kate thoroughly enjoyed visiting Utah for the first time! She definitely had plenty of new experiences -- her first plane ride, first time in the mountains, first time at Bear Lake, first time at a parade, first time meeting a lot of her family... There were a lot of firsts!

Kate loved being the center of attention.

Good thing she loved cousin time too, because they sure love her!

Kate loved hiking!

For some reason we chose the highest mountain peak
as our first real hike with a baby. She's a natural-born
hiker though and did great!

Kate wasn't too sure about the cold Bear Lake water...

It was so much fun getting these new little cousins together!

Just doing a little light reading between flights. She was a trooper!

I obviously have a bajillion more pictures of our trip, but I'll constrain myself and stop here. Needless to say, we had a wonderful time!

Since we've been home Kate has decided to learn some new tricks like sitting up by herself and eating her toes! She loves songs about alligators (hopefully that's not a bad sign) and she's very interested in everything around her! She also started solid foods! So far her favorite is tomatoes!

This is definitely an alligator song grin!

It's really quite impressive that she can fold herself in half!

Tomatoes!!

We just love our Kate! We're having a blast and couldn't wish for a happier life!

Summer Adventures

Wow a lot has happened since I last posted! Kate turns 4 months tomorrow!! What?! How did that happen? I think I've somehow entered into a time warp! Kate has now been on two camping trips. On her first camping trip we decided to explore southern Alabama, which was a blast. We loved seeing different wildlife (alligators and armadillos), and Kate did awesome -- she even slept all night!

Sunset, beach, alligators... What more do you need in a camping trip?

Our little campsite

Our second camping trip was up in Tennessee with some friends. It was beautiful! There were big canyons with gorgeous waterfalls. Besides the fact that we needed a fan in our tent at night to stay cool, we felt a little more like we were camping in Utah. :)

One of the pretty waterfalls. I promise Kate was with us -- she's just hiding in her carrier.

Here she is!

Kate has also been privileged to meet some more family members in the last month or so. Her aunt Savannah and aunt Heather flew to Alabama to surprise me at the beginning of June! That was the biggest surprise EVER! Tanner had to come up with a whole string of lies for weeks to keep me out of the loop. He had elaborate back stories for everything because apparently I ask a lot of questions! But he's a better liar than I realized, and I never caught on!

Sister time at the zoo!

Kate loved playing with her aunts!

In addition to the awesome surprise sister trip, aunt Brittany and her family came for a visit over the 4th of July. We had a Lego party, Star Wars party, 4th of July party, and plenty of fun in between! Kate loved playing with her cousins. She's been bored with just me after everyone left!

Kate getting some cousin lovin'.

Hugs for Kate!

4th of July lunch with the whole crew.

In the midst of all the camping and family fun, Tanner and I got to go on two dates all by ourselves thanks to an awesome babysitter! It was super hard to leave Kate at home, but it was awesome to get out and spend some time together!

Tennis date!

Such an awesome show!

Life is so great! We're enjoying every adventure with our little family, and we know there are plenty more to come!

Kate!!!

I have obviously been a slacker with posting in this blog as I haven't even written about Kate being born yet! Little Miss Kate decided to make her arrival even more longed for by coming a few days late. She faked us out with contractions all week, but we ended up having to be induced Sunday evening (3 days after her due date) and had her Monday morning (4 days late)! 

My mom arrived in Alabama the Friday before we had Kate, so we got to leave her at our house when we left for the hospital Sunday evening. It was pretty surreal heading out the door, waving goodbye to my mom, and knowing that we were going to have a baby!

Last pregnancy picture!

I was only dilated to a 1 by Sunday so they were unable to just give me Pitocin and instead had to give me a cervical ripening agent 4 times throughout the night. This made for a LONG sleepless, painful night! After the 2nd dose at 10 o'clock, my contractions started getting stronger and closer together. Unfortunately I was stuck in bed hooked up to a million monitors and an IV so I couldn't get up and move around during the contractions. Instead I made up random breathing exercises and mind tricks to try to distract myself. By 6 a.m. I was dilated to about a 7 and was finally able to get an epidural, which made it so I could get some much needed sleep!

After getting the epidural my contractions slowed down a little so my nurse gave me some Pitocin. This ended up making Kate freak out a little and her heart rate suddenly dropped. Luckily it came right back up and the nurse stopped the Pitocin so it wouldn't happen again. It caused some excitement when her heart rate dropped though. I was suddenly being given an oxygen mask, three other nurses came hurrying in, and my doctor came rushing down to make sure everything was okay. Everything was fine by then, but I got to keep the oxygen mask on. :)

Of course Tanner only took a picture of the oxygen mask
after I'd fallen asleep again so it makes it look super serious!

By about 9:30 my water broke on its own. We started pushing at 10:30 and our little Kate was born at 11:17! It was the most wonderful, miraculous moment in my life! I can't even describe how happy I was, and the joy keeps growing every day I get to spend with my perfect little girl!

Since then life has just been one great adventure! My mom stayed with us for two weeks, which was wonderful! It was so much fun to get to spend time with my mom and my daughter! I didn't have to think about anything but Kate while my mom was here. She cooked every meal and helped me with everything! She even took Kate in the middle of the night when she thought I was becoming too incoherent... ;)

Grandma Laura and Baby Kate playtime!

Tanner's parents and sister and my dad came for the first week of April to be here for Kate's baby blessing, and that was so much fun! We loved showing Kate off and having our families here with us! 

Grandpa Mike and Baby Kate

Grandpa James, Grandma Paula, and Baby Kate

Aunt Taya and Baby Kate playtime!

Kate is super smiley now. She loves her rattles and will follow them with her eyes, but if she can see her mommy or daddy, she only has eyes for us and forgets about the rattle (I don't mind at all)! She's a champ at holding her head up and rolled over from her tummy to her back once and tries to do it again whenever she's having tummy time. She also keeps trying to roll from her back to her tummy, so I think we're going to have a mobile baby here soon! She's sleeping through the night great and only wakes up once to eat!

What a champ!

We go on a walk or a run every day, and Kate does really well in her stroller and in her carrier. She loves talking to us and we have daily conversations about anything and everything. I love watching her and Tanner together. Tanner is the best dad and Kate loves talking to him. They talk about proteins, DNA, CHIP analyses, and whatever else Tanner is working on in his lab. Kate and I on the other hand usually discuss the pretty plants outside and what we're going to cook for dinner. I think I might have to up my game when it comes to interesting conversations. :)

Mommy and Kate!

Kate adores her Daddy!

We're pretty much obsessed with our Little Miss Kate! She rules the roost, and we don't mind at all! Being a mom is the best job in the whole world, especially with Tanner as my partner in parenting! I'm so grateful for my little family!

Ready and Waiting!

Our little Miss Kate is almost here! We have only 16 days left until her due date, and we are so excited! Tanner gives her a little pep talk every day to let her know he's okay if she comes today. :) We have everything ready that was on our to-do list for before she came, so now we're just waiting!

A newbie parents picture -- reading the instruction manual as we install our car seat. :)

We haven't stopped having fun adventures while we wait for her though. Sometimes those adventures involve working around the house, which turns into Tanner working around the house and me standing there pretending to help...

Tanner and I tilling our garden. As in, Tanner tilled the garden and I took pictures!

Our one and only Valentine decoration. I actually did help with this one!

We had a lot of fun over Valentine's weekend and made every day a date night (since Tanner was sure Kate was going to come any day). The first night we went to Porky's Pride BBQ for some awesome southern barbecue then went grocery shopping and out to ice cream!

Unfortunately grocery shopping and ice cream aren't pictured, but dinner was wonderful!

Saturday Tanner had to work on some school stuff throughout the day, but it was such a pretty day that we couldn't stay inside for too long. We played catch with a baseball, and our neighbor saw us outside and gave us lilacs and daffodils to plant. So we were planting flowers in our yard in February! Crazy, but so much fun! We hope they'll all grow! That night we made little pizzas and s'mores -- Mmmm!

We got cuter pictures, but I think this one most accurately
described how we felt about the s'mores. Delicious!
(Also, I just love Tanner's marshmallow fangs!)

On the real Valentine's Day, Tanner and I took lots of pictures of pretty birds in our bird feeder, made a delicious candlelight dinner, and then made heart-shaped banana bread truffles!

Pretty birds at sunset.

Our beautiful table!

Super yummy heart shaped truffles!

Tanner making white chocolate polar bears with his "I Love Polar Bears" apron

We had a wonderful weekend, and are enjoying every day! We're so excited for Kate to get here -- then our adventures will be even better! As we read in a quote by President James E. Faust yesterday, "Happiness in marriage and parenthood can exceed a thousand times any other happiness." Marriage has been the best ever, and we're excited to become even happier as parents!

  

The New Year in Alabama!

I have not posted anything in a while! We were lucky enough to get to spend two full weeks in Utah with our families for Christmas and New Years. It was wonderful! We got to build snowmen and go sledding, Tanner went snowboarding, and we had tons of fun with our families! Since we got back to Alabama, time has just been flying by! We celebrated my 23rd birthday the week we got back, and Tanner spoiled me by making me a chocolate peanut butter cake and getting me flowers! He sure is sweet, and I am one lucky girl!

We got to watch Alabama win the football national championship, which was a lot of fun! I haven't ever really been into football, but this whole Crimson Tide thing is contagious!

Kate's showing her Bama pride too!

Sportin' our Bama shirts!

Last Saturday Tanner and I enjoyed attending the Lego Expo in Birmingham. Lego clubs (I didn't know they had Lego clubs before this weekend!) from all over came and displayed the nifty creations they made with Legos. There were some pretty great set-ups! I think my favorite part of the whole day though was when we gave the lady at the front our tickets she looked at me and raised her eyebrow skeptically before asking (in a thick southern accent), "Are you gonna make it?!" When I told her I wasn't due for another month and a half, she told me, "Girl, shut your mouth! You look like you're 'bout ready to deliver!" I think the poor lady thought I was going to have a baby right then and there! 

Here are some great pictures from the Expo:

An entire scene from Star Wars -- the Ewok battle scene
(Tanner said it was very accurate. Sorry you can't see all the detail here!)

Notice the large spaceship behind us?

A huge war ship made entirely from Legos!

The other great thing from this week was that Tanner built us some shelves for our garage! He had the day off on Monday, so we worked on getting them in and organizing our garage and other rooms. They turned out wonderfully! Now we don't have to move every bin to get to the one we want!

Tanner being tough and drilling boards to the concrete wall

The finished product!

And the newly organized shelves! They work great!

We're definitely enjoying life, and we are so excited for our baby girl to come in just a few short weeks! We'll keep ya'll posted!