more madeleine pictures

well, we wouldn't be good parents if we didn't insist on showing everyone pictures of our baby, so here are some more for your viewing pleasure.

randy already has madeleine on a strict music regime. the piano is still a little difficult for her, but she clearly has potential. we started her on mozart at the hospital and last night we had some jazz time. randy was teaching her how to swing. she is going to be a well rounded musician yet. she has already mastered the concept of the crescendo and demonstrated it in the form of a cry last night during some tummy-time.

seriously though, she does great with randy's piano playing, which is a relief. she can sleep while he plays, even when she was on the floor right next to him. this will be nice, seeing as randy's practice schedule would be severely limited if we had to wait for her to be awake.


so far (knock on wood), madeleine has been a great sleeper, too. we have kept her up from about 6:30-9:30 in the evenings and the last two nights, she has slept for five hours straight, been up to eat and look around for a couple hours, and then back to bed for at least three more hours. we are very grateful and haven't been completely exhausted during the day. i realize this could all change in an instant and at her whim...


this is her wild mass of hair from the back. it just kind of does it's own thing .

overall, we think she is perfect.

our perfect christmas gift

madeleine arrived on christmas day at 1:15 pm and was 21 inches long, 8 pounds, 2 ounces. i'll tell a little bit about the birth (don't worry, no gory details), but for those of you who would rather not hear it in that much detail, you can skip to the part below where we become proud first time parents and post a bunch of pictures of her.

on christmas morning, around 10:45, i was doing dishes in my parent's kitchen (fortunately we had already had a great christmas breakfast) and my water broke. because i was already dilated, we decided to head into the hospital right away. about five minutes later, i started having contractions. fortunately, we were going to be leaving to go down to a family christmas brunch, so randy was already in the middle of shoveling the snow out from around our car when my water broke.

we are poor planners and had to stop for gas before going to the hospital, and by the time we got gas, my contractions were about 3 or 4 minutes apart. randy raced like a skilled driver to the hospital, and by the time we arrived, my contractions were 2 minutes apart and i was getting pretty uncomfortable.

with it being christmas day, labor and delivery was really slow, so they put us straight into a room and got me all hooked up onto machines and got my i.v. going. they checked me right away and i was already at a 5. i wanted an epidural right away, but they were having a hard time getting a hold of the anesthesiologist (something about it being christmas). when he did finally arrive, i was already pushing, and they told me that it was kind of pointless to give me an epidural at that point, because by the time it kicked in, she would be out (oh, i was completely dilated within half an hour of being at a 5). having heard stories about women pushing for a long time before the baby came, and not wanting to remain in the pain that i was currently in (as comforting and sweet as randy was being, it wasn't enough) any longer, i was very glad when they suggested doing a spinal. within a minute, i was MUCH happier.

to make a short labor story even shorter, madeleine was born at 1:15pm. so, within 2 and a half hours of my water breaking, she was out. i really can't complain. short labor, no complications, and i still got my drugs. we were the last birth of the day (they had a couple others early in the morning), so we got plenty of attention and care.

she is absolutely adorable (no bias here) and we are so glad to have her as part of our family. some people may think that christmas is a rotten day to have a birthday, but we actually think that it's pretty fun and now have two wonderful births to celebrate. we look forward to the many adventures that she will bring into our lives.

now onto the pictures:

a handsome father and daughter duo
a less handsome picture (see, i am already making sacrifices for my child) of a worn out and puffy mom right after delivery.

madeleine in her gnome hat.
holding her dad's hand
getting cleaned up
she got a red and green bow to celebrate the holiday

a day late and a baby short

well, i'm officially a day past my due date and still no sign of madeleine. i can now say that i have reached the point where i am very ready for her to come out. randy's done with finals, we have everything for her that we need, and i get bigger and more uncomfortable every day. i'm just kind of waiting at this point. come out little girl!

anticipating madeleine's arrival

well, it's been a while since i've posted a general update on the pregnancy (this will probably be the last one since i am due in a week) and have had a few requests, so here we go.

it has been a busy past few weeks and i still have a bunch of things that i would like to do before madeleine arrives (this includes buying the child clothing), but the list is slowly whittling down and i'm feeling a little more prepared.

here are a couple pictures of the pregnancy profile.

i'm still feeling pretty good with the pregnancy, although i do feel a lot bigger. i've started to notice little things that weren't a problem even a couple weeks ago. for instance, all of a sudden i have a hard time looking over my shoulder when i'm driving because my body doesn't turn so well anymore. my ankles just barely started swelling last week, which i was hoping to avoid. i try to keep my feet up as much as possible, but it's not always possible with work. despite feeling big and having cankles, i still haven't hit the stage where i feel like i am dying to have her NOW and am counting the days. perhaps that is because i feel like i still have things to do and i'm hoping for randy to finish finals before she comes.

my aunt threw me a baby shower last weekend and it was great. we mostly just sat around, ate, and talked. my mother-in-law was even nice enough to come down for it. i got some great gifts and have to particularly brag about the beautiful quilts and bedding that i got. madeleine is blessed with two grandmas who know how to sew very well. here are some pictures from the shower, as well as a couple pictures of the quilts:

as soon as i got home from the shower, i made up the crib and it looks great.

for some reason, just having the crib made makes it feel more final that she really is coming. i think that randy noticed that as well - he walked into the room for the first time after i had made the crib and said, "wow, we're having a baby." i think that he's more anxious for her to come than i am, if that's possible. on sunday, he insisted that we pack the suitcase several times, although i've still managed to put it off. i really should get around to that...

i'm it?

apparently i've been "tagged" and am supposed to post five things about myself on my blog. i have to admit (no offense to nicole) that i feel like i'm suddenly involved in some chain letter type of activity. however, i enjoy reading other people's posts when they've been tagged and i wasn't warned that some child in china would die if i didn't keep the chain going, so i suppose that i will continue on.

1. we have alice in wonderland doorknobs in our house. sometimes i imagine them talking to me.

2. i've been to the police academy and i am a certified special functions officer. we're not just talking went on a tour of the police academy and got some cheesy certificate and a sticker. i attended for six weeks, met some "rigorous" requirements, and was sworn in with an oath ceremony as an officer. all of this was against my will.

3. my favorite movie is the sound of music. i really do get this exhilarating feeling every time the helicopter shot swoops down on julie andrews belting out "the hills are alive." they don't make 'em like they used to.

4. i know how to survive in the wilderness and it's all thanks to bear grylls. randy and i have a limited number of channels, but fortunately, one of them is the discovery channel. if we ever flip on the tv and man vs. wild is on, we can't help but watch. it is truly fascinating. the things this man does... if i ever find myself in the sahara desert with a dead camel, i know how to get food, drink, and shelter from the carcass. i'm prepared for anything.

5. one of the things that i miss most since becoming pregnant is sushi. my brother has already been commissioned to go get sushi as soon as i give birth and report directly to the hospital. this cannot happen soon enough.

back in the saddle...

i really have been meaning to post something for a while, but my computer is dying on me (it waited until right after the warranty ran out. how convenient) and randy's hasn't really been the pillar of reliability lately either, so what little time i've had at a computer has not been devoted to blogging. additionally, it means that we haven't downloaded any pictures, so once again, a post without pictures. sorry.

we had a busy november. i've spent a lot of time reading for my two book clubs and really enjoyed both books, which is good, seeing as i picked the book in both of of my book clubs this month. i'm not sure how i managed that one. for one, we read cat's cradle by kurt vonnegut, a great satire, and for the other, jane eyre by charlotte bronte. two very different books, but both were great. i had read jane eyre before in high school (my mom actually paid me to finish it), but didn't remember much. i got way more out of it at this stage of life than i did then. i hadn't read cat's cradle before, but randy loves it and got it for me for my birthday, so i figured that by selecting it, i would ensure that i would read it. since i was hosting both books, i had to make sure and finish each of them. normally, reading two books in a month wouldn't be that big of a deal, but with everything else we've had going on this month, it was a bit of a push. after a few late nights though, i pulled it off.

perhaps the biggest event of the month was beth's wedding (i will post pictures once we get them back). i actually have to admit that i really didn't do too much to help out with the wedding. my mom and audrey were really the ones who planned and executed the whole thing. mostly i just showed up where and when i was told to. it was a wonderful wedding though - great to spend time with family and great to add bruce to our family! i think that the most fun thing for me was to have my parents and all of my siblings together in the temple at once.

most recently, we got to go up to boise for thanksgiving. i have to say that i had been looking forward to this for a long time. all of randy's mom's family came into town and we had a great time. we got there tuesday night and didn't stop eating until we left on saturday. i'm just claiming that madeleine had a growth spurt over the weekend. randy's mom knows how to feed people. you can only imagine what thanksgiving dinner was like. i thoroughly enjoyed having the weekend off without the thought of impending finals looming over me. i really just got to relax and had a great time with randy's family. we don't get to see them nearly often enough!

that's our busy month. i'm sure that december will prove to be even busier with the holidays, randy's finals, and madeleine's arrival. hard to believe she's finally coming!

spider wars

although not a fan of spiders, i'm generally fine with killing them on my own. in fact, when they're small enough, i generally let them be.

so this morning, when i turned on the light in the bathroom and spotted a large, hairy spider about a foot away from me (i suppose that anywhere in our bathroom was about a foot away from me at that point, but i'm not complaining about the size of our bathroom...), i actually had no intention of waking randy up to make him "take care" of it. however, when i initially turned on the light and it crouched down into a defensive position, indicating that it wasn't going without a fight, i did groan out loud. before i knew it, randy was wandering into the bathroom, bleary eyed, to see if everything was okay. since he was up anyway, i asked, "do you want me to get you a shoe?"

despite randy's general difficulty in waking up prior to a morning shower, he became amazingly alert once i handed him a flip-flop and he actually went into what can only be described as an i-lived-in-the-jungles-of-the-philippines-for-two-years-and-of-necessity-became-a-spider-warrior stance. i've never seen him move that fast in the morning and when the flip-flop came down quickly on our intruder, the spider actually exploded and body parts flew around the bathroom. randy quickly cleaned them up and went back to bed and i proceeded with my morning routine.

what an exciting way to start the day.

the doctor is in

last night, randy and i went to jazz at the sheraton and saw javon jackson perform with dr. lonnie smith at the organ. i didn't have that high of expectations going into it, but came out with a new hero. dr. lonnie smith was awesome. it's hard to describe unless you've heard and seen him perform, so i'm not going to try to describe it really, but i included a bunch of pictures so that you get the idea.

i have never heard anyone handle the b-3 so effortlessly, and i have definitely never seen someone so animated when performing. he was so fun to watch. at one point, he actually got down off the bench and started walking the bass on the pedals with his hands. this was true entertainment.

when asked why he calls himself doctor, he replied that it is for the same reason that he wears a turban to all of his gigs: "no particular reason." it doesn't get much cooler than that.

performance hall envy

i don't think that i have ever been jealous of anything at the u of u. until now.

last night, randy and i went to see murray perahia perform a concert at the university of utah. the concert was held in the libby gardner hall, which i had never been in before, but randy has. after returning from the concert that he went to previously, he went on and on about how far superior the u's concert facilities were. i believed him, but didn't realize the extent of it until i had been in the libby gardner hall myself.

completely aside from any comparison with byu's facilities, the libby gardner hall is beautiful. it is bright, with gorgeous woodwork, and a great organ adorning the front of the hall. in addition to being visually pleasing, the accoustics are also fantastic. this is the best picture of the hall that i could find online:

it's small, but at least shows that the hall, on its own, is quite stunning. now, compare it to byu's de jong concert hall or the madsen recital hall and we're talking about the difference between a motel 6 and the ritz. this is the best picture i could find of the madsen:

no comment.

byu's web page describes the de jong as "a handsome, functional facility." i have to agree that the de jong, as well as the madsen, are quite functional. these facilities are constantly in use, and let's face it, byu is very practical in making sure that its facilities are well used. but perhaps we should leave out the handsome part.

byu needs some wealthy benefactor to come in and fund a complete overhaul of its concert and recital halls. in fact, while they're at it, completely razing the hfac and building a new fine arts building wouldn't be a bad idea. this is a call for anyone who loves byu, is one of those slightly crazies who can't handle that the u is better than byu at something, or someone who just loves the arts, with lots of extra money lying around to step forward. anyone?

as a side note to this rant, the concert was fantastic. we were late in buying tickets, so we were up in the choir seats, but besides it being slightly uncomfortable for me to sit on the benches without any seat back, it was fun to be so close. the music selection was great and randy and i both enjoyed his bach selection best, but madeleine really got going and was kicking throughout the chopin. so far, from concerts we've attended, we've determined that she really likes beethoven concertos, gets rather bored with holst, and has an affinity for chopin.

a fun-filled weekend

we had a great weekend this past weekend with lots of family time. randy's parents and his brother's family were in town for randy's uncle's wedding, as well as other extended family that also travelled here for the wedding.

we kicked off the wedding festivities with a wedding dinner for the family on thursday night, followed by ice skating at the olympic oval. i decided against ice skating, seeing as my balance isn't great even when i'm not pregnant, and the consequences of falling are a little more severe right now. randy looked great on the ice though, with his in-line skating skills from his elementary school and junior high years coming back to him quickly.

friday continued on with more wedding festivities and more time with family. we went to the sealing, which was wonderful, followed by pictures outside the temple, and then we headed up to the reception. unfortunately, about half way through the pictures, it started raining, which continued on throughout the night. fortunately, the reception venue was prepared for the rain and everything was still beautiful.

on saturday, randy and i were able to go to the saturday afternoon session of general conference with randy's parents. for some reason the rain seems to slow everything down, but we finally got in and in our seats and enjoyed actually being in the conference center to see the session.

randy and his dad stayed up in salt lake for the priesthood session and mom and i headed down to orem for a bridal shower that "i" was throwing for beth. i pretty much didn't do anything for it. my mom and audrey sent out the invitations and got the food ready, and my aunt was kind enough to host it at her house (since ours was a little small for the guest list) and also provide delicious food. i didn't even plan any games or activities. being the low-key host that i am, the shower pretty much just consisted of sitting around, eating really good food, and talking, which is all anyone really wants to do anyway, right?

we spent sunday at my parent's house watching conference and relaxing. randy's parents also came over and we had a big birthday dinner for randy. i must have gained 10 pounds this weekend with all of the food that we ate, but it was well worth it. fortunately, it all blends in with the baby (for now).

i was sad to see the weekend end. i love conference weekend and the opportunity to hear from the church leaders and be inspired to improve and strengthen my testimony of the savior. conference weekend never seems long enough. i was also sad to see family leave and to head back to our quiet little house in provo, where i have to do the cooking.

here are some pictures from the weekend:

randy getting ready to try some speed skating

calli and carston waiting outside the temple (with some mystery nymph child from the bride's side of the family)

okay, these next people actually had nothing to do with our wedding party, and i have no idea who they are, but i was fascinated with how large this groom's boutonniere was. i couldn't help but take a picture of it to preserve the memory. and trust me, the picture doesn't even do it justice. i couldn't seem to get the right angle, and i think that his bride was starting to get suspicious that some random woman was following her new husband around, taking pictures of him. this truly was the largest boutonniere i have ever seen.




kyle, dad, and randy

randy and me

bar results

i think that i know how people who get their mission calls feel. they get a letter in the mail, knowing that it is their call and that the most exciting part of the letter is contained in the first couple sentences where they tell you, "you are assigned to labor in the (insert geographic location here) mission." they open the letter, hands sweaty and shaking, and their eyes quickly scan to find the most desired information.

well, i received a letter from the utah bar association on saturday and i knew what it was, and i knew that the information that i wanted would be contained within the first couple sentences of the letter. and so, with high anticipation, although not so much sweating and shaking, i opened the letter. sure enough, the very first sentence was what i wanted to see.

i don't know that i've been that relieved in quite some time now. the rest of the letter was much less exciting, and mostly about how they are going to charge me a lot of money in licensing and registration fees to become an attorney, but the overall feeling was one of excitement. randy and i celebrated by going to the symphony. okay, actually, we were going to go to the symphony anyway, but with the impending licensing fees, we decided to call that our celebration.

andre watts played beethoven's emperor concerto and it was very impressive. he was a really fun performer to watch and you can't go wrong with a beethoven concerto!

ultrasounds

here are a couple of ultrasound pictures of the baby. the first one is a top-down shot of her head and hands. it was taken earlier, around 20 weeks. the second one is a more recent ultrasound, probably around 24 weeks. it is her profile. she's cute already!