Update

So, I first just wanted to thank everyone for all your kind comments and for the immense amount of help we have received since little Andrew was born. I am so overwhelmed by how wonderful everyone has been with dinners and just coming by to visit! Thank you sooo much, it means a lot to Mike and I!

Well, I wanted to write a little and just say how much I am LOVING being a new mom. I also wanted to say that it is so fun seeing Mike as a daddy...he is a natural and he so patient and loving to Andrew...possibly one of the sweetests things I have ever seen. I also think I am possibly the luckiest new mom in the world because Andrew is such a good baby. Here are the reasons why:

1) He sleeps practically through the whole night! I'm not joking!!!! Typically he goes to bed at about 11 and wont wake up until arounf 5 or 6 am! Now...I (on the other hand) am still a bit paranoid so I will often wake up and feed him anyway but, if I left it up to him...he would sleep all night! (Ehem...here is a little caviot: I know that he may grow out of this but right now it is shere bliss)

2) He never cries...unless naked! Yep...he will wimper if he's hungry and fuss if he is gassy but once those problems are fixed he is content and happy. Now...if I take off his clothes to change his diaper or give him bath he will definately scream (but even then, it's not like a raging cry...more like and angry "Why would you do this to me" kind of thing). But really...not bad at all!

3) He is cute, cute, cute! Those who know me have heard me say that often, new borns can be sort of alienish in their appearance. I did not think it would be any different with my little man but I was wrong (at least in my mind). He had NO conehead, no bruising...just a little squishy face wich has since started to fill out and seriously (I know I'm his mom but...) he is adorable!

4) He cuddles--I know that this is a trait for all newborns but, man, is there anything better?!

5) He eats great---So I was extremely nervous about breast feeding but it has been great. Aside from the infection I just got over, it hasn't hurt and Andrew it a spectacular eater. He will usually eat about 3-4 ounces every 2-3 hours and he stays very happy. (He will most likely become a chubber, but...hey it's more to live and cuddle)

Anyway, those are a few of the reasons why I think he is the greatest!

Mike and I are doing great and I am feeling better and better as the days go by. Labor was not too bad. I did have two false alarms (meaning I went to the hospital twice and they sent me home) but third time was the charm and I was able to stay. Once I was admitted it only took about 6 hours until he came (and only 4 contractions to push him out). All in all I feel so extremely blessed that everything as went as well as it did. I know it's not like this all the time and I am so grateful for the ease it has been thus far (although I know it will most likely get harder). I love being a mom and Mike loves being a dad...it is a great time!!!!

Above are some pictures for your veiwng pleasure :-)

Andrew's first day

Andrew Paul West was born on Thursday April 24th at 3.30 pm. He weighed 6.6 lbs and was 18 inches tall.

OH BABY!

I thought I would take a few minutes and write about the “joys of motherhood”. Well…I should actually be a little more specific and say the “joys of pregnancy” seeing as I haven’t actually had the cute little sucker yet. So here is the deal. I am now 39 ½ weeks pregnant which means I am approximately 8.94 months along (what…not that I’m really counting). Therefore as I’m sure you have tabulated this means that I am a mere 5 days away from the date of no return…the DUE DATE. Well…being this close to greeting our little boy has really made me start contemplating this journey known as pregnancy and so I thought I’d reflect a little and impart some of the things I have gained a better perspective on.

First let me say that pregnancy as a whole really hasn’t been that bad. At first I did experience the whole nauseous, vomiting and so emotional that I border line Brittany Spears in an “episode”, but fortunately that didn’t last too long and I then settled nicely into months 4-7. For me these were great months…months where I felt relatively normal—I was able to eat chicken and chocolate, I was able to talk with Mike without bursting into a hormonal rage and I once again had enough energy to do things other than come home at the end of work and sit for hours watching TV. In fact, I would say that these months were spectacular. Sometimes the only reminder I had of being pregnant was the fact that my waistline was (and still is) ever expanding. I would even say that during those blissful months pregnancy was, dare I say, FUN!

Well…unfortunately now that I have 8.94 months under my belt (literally) I have to be honest and say that it is NOT so fun anymore. Don’t get me wrong I love my little unborn boy and I love that I will soon get to meet him but seriously….the kid is getting huge and I personally believe he finds it hilarious to play new in-utero games such as, “I’m going to try and see if it’s possible to push mommy’s ribs out of place” or “let’s bounce on the bladder”. Sure, he probably thinks it’s cute and maybe I did too…at first. BUT now that abdominal room is extremely scarce the “cuteness” (if that’s what I can even call it) has worn off and I find that I am beginning to resort back to my early pregnancy days of emotional drain and intense discomfort (side note about that to my co-workers: Andrea & Rachel…I apologize). However, I know that the end is near (that’s right kids…I have even been having contractions. Not the “real” kind of course, but signs that things are coming. You know…the false labor stuff that’s just enough to make you extremely ornery and uncomfortable but not enough to actually make you go to the hospital), and I am very grateful and excited to become a Mom! In fact, I was speaking to my mother the other day and she pointed out that this year Mike and I will actually get join the ranks of parenthood this Mother’s and Father’s day. That one threw me for a little loop but I really am so excited! Although pregnancy has been a learning experience I am very grateful for it, I know what a blessing it is and I can’t wait to meet little Andrew Paul West.

A Little Something on the Blog for Mike

Well, I recently learned how to change our blog design (thanks again, Laura, for that helpful link) and so I had a lot of fun figuring out what patterns I wanted and which colors/graphics go together. Now anyone who knows me knows that I have high ambitions but I am really not a very scrapbooky kind of girl. For example, a finished product for a "cute" scrapbooking page in my book would normally consist of a piece of white computer paper embellished with a picture in the middle and a heart drawn in crayola crayon. Hey...I might even get fancy and add a star or two. Anyway, so when I learned how to make fancy the blog, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it and that it actually turned out pretty cute (not as cute as some...Becka, Erin, Laura, Morgan you guys put me to shame) but I was satisfied none the less. Anyway, so about a week ago after I was pleased with the complete project I proudly showed it to Mike, expecting him to admire the pretty pastel colors and butterfly accents. Well...that didn't really happen (and really, how could I be surprised by this reaction) instead he was sweet and said something like, "It looks nice..." and then when we further inspected it he said, "Why is there a butterfly on it?" Well...darn it, I don't know, it's cute...isn't that what cute is supposed to be--little butterflies, fun colors, happy puppies...? Whatever, he just didn't understand. But then after he shrugged his shoulders and went back to doing his business it made me think. Mike is a great guy, and this blog should reflect him too, you know?! So...here is my new feature. On the side bar I added a slide show of cool guy things...you know things Mike would like such as basketball, Wayne Rooney and crazy sports injuries. So here you go, honey, this is for you...hopefully you will find it a little more appropriate for your manhood, but...the butterfly stays!

The Tale of the Naively Stained, Yet Satisfyingly Finished Crib!

WOW! I am absolutely the worst at updating this thing...a problem I will try and fix. I thought since it had been a couple months I would divulge all the on-goings of our little lives over the last few weeks. Probably the biggest thing is that we have finally...yes FINALLY...finished our crib for little junior. For those of you who may not know my parents offered us their old crib. Initially Mike and I thought this was great! The crib is classically old, extremely sturdy and beautiful. Not to mention it is made from Maple wood and would look amazing with the right stain. The only problem was that years ago it was painted white and the paint had since faded to a dirty, yellow spackle and so we thought (famous last words right here) "No problem, we'll just strip the paint and finish it!" Awwww...to be young and naïve! Well, two months ago we took the crib back to our place and made a trip to Walmart and bought the necessities (so we thought) consisting of paint stripper, wood wash and a small can of stain. We went home and the next day and began working.

It probably only took us about 10 minutes to realize that when we thought we had bought the necessities, we had really only bought the bare minimum and I mean the barest!!! So we went to Honk's (Always an Adventure...Always!) and got a few more paint brushes, some paint scraping tools and a bit of sandpaper. Things got a bit better from that point on and we were able to scrape a good amount off. However...let me point this out...when I say we were able to scrape a good amount off that really only included one side of one of the four panels! YIKES!!!! This was going to take a lot longer than we thought! Well, after about 4-5 hours that first day we threw down our $1 scrapers and called it good! We thought, "Well, we are just learning and we did have to make a detour to buy more supplies. I bet we'll get this done next Saturday when we have a little more time." HAH!!! Notice the naiveness going on here? Well, what followed soon after was NOT one magical Saturday of laughing, working together and ending with a beautifully finished Maple crib...N-O-O-O-O...what followed were a couple more repeated Saturdays of gooping on chemicals, scraping it off, sanding down imperfections, and hunching my off-centered, wobbly, pregnant woman body over those hunks of wood for hours on end. I could feel the disks herniating!

Anyway... after these first few Saturdays reality did come and bite us in the you-know-where and we realized what a beast of a project we had undertaken. In fact things got bad and we soon found ourselves coveting cribs (the kind of coveting like unto when David witnessed good ol’ Bathsheba) as we made our repeated trips to Walmart in order to replenish our supply of paint stripper (no, dummy, one can is NOT enough!). Well, as I said, the reality was fast open us and our hopes of getting this crib done and looking good were beginning to dwindle. The worst part probably came when we began trying to get the paint off the skinny, delicately carved slats on the long panels of the crib. Hey folks, these are a beautiful feature, but when you try and take paint off of them they soon begin to mirror the spikes from Satan’s pitch fork. Well, over the course of those Saturdays we had acquired a few tools from my parents including two electric sanders and a dremmel tool which proved useful for getting the paint out of the little crevices in the skinny slats. However, on one of these Saturdays, it gave up the ghost and burned out. What we were going to do?! It was the only tool that would work! So…we made another trip to Walmart and bought a new one. Not too bad, but with all the expenses we had thus incurred we went a little cheap and bought the most inexpensive kind. Well…we soon learned that cheap does not equal good quality when comes to dremmel tools and our newly purchased equipment would only work for about 10 minutes before the battery would die. Well, clearly this wouldn’t do and so we made our 42^nd trip to Walmart (they sure better appreciate our business) and bought a better tool which proved to be magnificently more powerful but it would actually burn the wood when we used it. Whatever, to heck with it, we figured we could cover the little burn marks with the stain so we plunged on. Eventually the day came when we began to stain. I was thrilled…finally we could see what the finished product was to look like. BUT let me tell you when we put on that first coat of stain instead of hiding all the burned marks and scrapes, it MAGNIFIED them! How could this be?!?! Needless to say at that point I went completely hormonally-imbalanced-pregnant-woman on my dear husband and in tears declared that we were either going to buy one right then or paint this beast back to white!!! I was serious too…if Mike hadn’t been able to sweetly calm me down and help me see reason I would have gone to the store and spent all our savings to get a new crib! Well…as you can see I could easily continue expounding upon all the minute details of this process which, to me, were now beginning to rival labor but I won’t. It took us another few Saturdays and then to our everlasting joy and triumph yesterday at approximately 12 noon we finished it! Sound the bells and call up “Motab” to begin the Hallelujah chorus! We finished, we finished, we finished and as of yesterday we put it up in the baby’s room and adorned it with all the bumper pads, blankets and sheets we had bought and it looks WONDERFUL! Sure, if you look closely you’ll find plenty of imperfections…bits of paint, scrapes, burn marks and uneven stains but to me it is simply heaven. It’s true when “they” say that in the end hard work pays off. In this case it really does…I can’t remember the last time I felt so satisfied! All in all what a great lesson to learn and albeit hard, it was a good experience. That kid of ours better know how much he love him!

Conclusion: I do just want to get a little sentimental for the moment and thank my cute husband, Mike, because he really did the bulk of this project. In fact, he worked so hard on it the last few days that he threw his back out…he really did! He is currently sleeping (it’s 9 am on a Sunday morning) because he couldn’t sleep last night it hurt him so bad! He is pretty stupendous and I’m so extremely grateful that he pushed me to get it done.

HALLELUJAH!!!

Some pictures of the final project...it's okay you can ooohhh and awwww all you want. :-)

Below are the finished "Devils pitchfork" slats. :-)

Our trip to jolly ol' England

Well...another few weeks have gone by and there is still nothing exciting to report so I thought that I would share the adventures we encountered this last Christmas.

Mike and I decided last summer that Christmas would be a great time to go visit his parents. So we saved up, bought some tickets and planned the whole trip out. We were scheduled to leave on December 23 and arrive in Manchester the following day (Christmas eve) at 8am. When we left on the 23rd it all seemed to be going as planned until we started nearing our connecting flight destination in Chicago. The weather was really bad and so we ended up landing in the O'Hare airport a half hour late. This meant that we had 45 minutes to reach our connecting flight to Manchester...normally you'd think 45 minutes would be fine but for any of you who have been to the Chicago, O'Hare airport knows better. It's HUGE and you have to take little trains in order to get to different terminals. Well, it was just our luck that the connecting flight was in terminal 3-- the farthest from where we were. So we ran as fast as we could and found the train station then hoped on the next train that came by. Unfortunately it was almost a 20 minute ride to the terminal so time was getting even shorter. However we met about 6 others all trying to reach the same flight as us. As soon as the train stopped we had about 15 minutes to make it to our gate and so our little group bolted out the doors and rushed to the customs line. However, it was too late by the time we got there. The woman at the gate said they had already boarded our plane and we would have to find another way. After this news our little crew of 8 (I was the only American) made it's way to the Scandinavian airlines desk(we were told they were the ones who would most likely be able to get us there the fastest) and tried to work something out. We ended up staying there for three hours until eventually we learned that the quickest we could make it to Manchester was to get there at 8pm on Christmas eve. Well...it was the best option at that point so we took it. The only catch was that we now had to fly from Chicago to Denmark and the from Denmark to Switzerland and then from Switzerland to Manchester. It was crazy!!!!!

Well...it ended up working out really good in the end and here is why. On the long flight (9 hours from Chicago to Denmark) it was so empty that we all got to have our own row. That's right...our own row which meant we could lay out and sleep across the seats. Additionally, the service was great! Seriously if any of you ever need to fly to Copenhagen, Scandinavian Air is the way to go. Anyway, probably the coolest thing was that Mike and I got to meet a neat guy named Ben. At first we were a bit annoyed because we were sitting next to each other in our own row with plenty of empty seats available and right before take off some guy comes running on coughing and hacking up a storm and he took a seat right next to me. Why?! There were empty seats everywhere?! Anyway, he was super friendly and he started chatting to me even before take off. Well, right away he found out I was from Utah and he immediately asked if I was a Mormon, I told him I was and he started asking all kinds of questions. Seriously....I have never had an experience like this before and I could tell by the questions he was asking that he had heard of the Church. Through the course of the conversation I eventually learned that his girlfriend is a Mormon and that she had been inactive but had recently been trying to go back. This was causing some strain on their relationship because Ben was a firm agnostic. We ended up talking for almost 5 hours about his beliefs and our beliefs and it eventually ended with him saying that he would try and find out more from his girlfriend and the missionaries (who happened to live next door to him). I wonder what happened with that and I hope the absolute best for Ben...but it was a great experience for me and helped Mike and I both realize the importance of always being prepared for missionary experiences.

Well, after that we ended up making the rest of our connecting flights (although we almost didn't in Switzerland...fortunately we were lucky) and we arrived in Machester at 8pm on Christmas Eve. Mikes parents were waiting for us and it was wonderful...so wonderful to see them and to be on solid ground after 24 hours of flying. We then made a nice four hour trip back to their house in Northumblerland and slept for what seemed like days. The rest of our time in England was fantastic! We got to see some great sights including the castle they use as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies and some cool roman ruins (Hadrians wall). The best thing, however, was just spending time with the family and enjoying the beautiful countryside. Seriously...it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been and all in all it was such a blessing to go!

I have posted some pictures and I can't figure out how do make a caption for each one so I'll first apologize by saying please disregard our clothes. With all the crazy flights we had to take, our luggage was lost for about 5 days so half the trip we were wearing the same things. I know...GROSS! Anyway, the pictures show Mike, myself and his parents visiting some castles and some roman ruins as well as some pretty pictures of the countryside. :-)

Oops!

One more thing I forgot to mention. I have gotten a lot of people asking me about how the baby is coming along so I thought I'd quickly mention that things are going really well. I am now in my 7th month in getting bigger and bigger by the day! I must admit that I am excited for when I get my body back and I'm really looking forward to meeting our little boy. We still aren't set on a name but we have narrowed down the choices to the following (all of which include the middle name of Paul):
Jonathan (nickname: J or Jon)
Ethan (no nickname)
William (nickname: Will)
Benjamin (nickname: Ben)

We like the idea of being able to call him by a shortened version of his name. If any of you have suggestions please feel free to post what you think...I'd love the in-put!

It's been awhlile...

Well, it has been awhile and so I thought it would be good to update this thing on what's been going one lately and, predictably, the answer is not a whole lot. Mike and I are settled down into a pretty predictable routine of school, work and weekends and there really isn't a lot of new or exciting news. However, we did do a couple things out of the ordinary this week. On Thursday we celebrated Valentines day and it was very nice. Mike and I both had to be gone until later that evening so we celebrated it in the morning. Here's the story: I alternate days of when I have to go in early (6am) to work and usually on Thursdays I don't have to be in until later. However, I lied to Mike and told him that I had to go in early on Thursday so that I could get up and decorate the apartment without him suspecting it. At first it started out well but then for some unknown reason at about 6am I heard someone moving around and then Mike's voice at the top of the stairs asking if I was still here. Luckily Mike was still pretty dazed from sleeping so I rushed to the stairs and told him it was 5:30 and that we needed to go back to bed. He seemed pretty confused but after a little scuffle (I accidentally pushed him over in his stupor :-) ) I got him back to bed and then finished my little Valentines surprise. When he finally woke up at about 7:30 he came down and the apartment was decorated and breakfast was made and Mike was still surprised! So all in all it was a success! I also need to mention that Mike was very sweet and bought me a necklace. Most people who know me know that I don't really wear jewelry but I secretly love fun necklaces. Mike was right on and he bought me a really pretty necklace (not too fancy, just right) and every time I have worn it I get lots of compliments. Thanks Mike!!!

The other fun thing we thing we got to do was go to the BYU vs. UNLV basketball game on Friday night. Mike got a bunch of free tickets and so we went with some friends and had a fun time. At first I was a little worried because our seats were in the "nose beed" section but it turned out really well and we had a great view of the action. It was also pretty cool because BYU killed UNLV and beat them by about 20 points. Go cougars!

Baby Update

(PICTURES: 5 months down, about 4 more to go...)

This last week has been pretty exciting because Mike and I learned the gender of our little "it". We just found out that we are having a....(imagine a drumroll here)......BOY!!!! YAY! Now we just need to find a name. We have a few that we like: Paul, Ethan, Andrew, Jonathan...but we still aren't sure yet. We will happily take any suggestions, so feel free to let us know what you think!!

(A little side note: The day after we learned the gender of out little man, Mike and I decided we could finally look at some baby things. So, went to Target and had a lot of fun checking out the little boy clothes and toys but then we made a HUGE mistake and started calculating the costs of strollers, high chairs, cribs, diabers, clothes, toys, etc. etc... At that point we both started to get a little freaked out and shell shocked so we decided to quit while we were ahead and went home without buying anything. However, a little later that afternoon my mom brought us a bag of goodies containing some very adorable baby boy clothes and toys. This made us feel a little better....thank heavens for wonderful gradparents!)

Random Holloween Pictures

I know this is a little late in coming but I wanted to post some pictures of the Halloween party that we had with our friends. (1-Becca & Colby Gage as Shrek and Fiona...looking good 2-Jeremy and April Leatham won the best costume vote. They dressed up as a border patrol officer and a fugative. Little Talmage was a pirate. 3-We tried to make a nice block of ice in the shape of a hand to go in the punch but...some of the fingers broke off, yikes!)

Joining the Blogging World

Well...at the encouragement of many friends and family we have decided to create a blog. I'm still learning how to use this thing and I hope that I get the hang of it soon.Mike and I are still living in Provo, UT right across the Provo library in an ungly-on-the-outside but cute-on-the-inside apartment. I graduated from BYU in April and am working two jobs, one at BYU Independent Study and the other at the Utah County Health Department. It keeps me really busy but that is a good thing and I continue to learn a ton! Mike is still going to school and he is doing great. He currently works with the BYU women's soccer team doing sports medicine and he really has a nack for it. He never stops amazing me by all that he can get done with such a limited amount of time....and he does so well in everything!

The most exciting thing going in our lives at the moment is the continued expansion of my waistline. Yep, for those of you who may not yet know, Mike and I are expecting a baby the end of April (April 27 to be exact). We are super excited but also a little nervous as the reality creeps closer and closer. Right now I am at the stage where people are probably thinking, "hmmm it looks like that Emily should trade in the twinkies for some carrot sticks" but for the most part I'm really enjoying it. Hey...it's the only time of my life where I don't have to care about getting "fat". Anyway, I have my ultrasound scheduled for exactly two weeks from today and should be able find out the gender. I'll keep everyone updated but until then, we are excited to be joining the blogging world!