Halle

Dancing with Dad

I just think this is such a funny little face she's making :)

Yay for new babies!

My brother and his wife Marin just had there twins about a week and a half ago! Rhead and Brooke. They are SO cute and tiny! Halle is only 12 weeks but its crazy how quickly they change! Marin is a studette and did an amazing job during the delivery. We are so excited to meet the precious little ones at Christmas!

Pirate's Cove

We had so much fun last weekend at Pirate's Cove! Mike's work took a bunch of us there for a long weekend getaway. It is a private resort just outside of Vegas. It was a pretty incredible place! It was literally like spending 5 days inside the ride at Disneyland!! Here's just a few pictures:

Halle's first swim! :) She seriously loved it!!

Halloween

Ever since Halle was one day old she snorts when she doing a frustrated mad cry and its always made us laugh, so sometimes we call her our little piggy or piglet. So we decided she needed to be a pig for halloween :) We found a Piglet stuffed animal and Mike decided we should just take it apart and use the pieces to make her costume. SO We used the tummy and the hooves, then i sewed the face onto a little pink hoodie she already had. She was so cute! :)

This was just a cute little smile i captured

Halle and her blessing day

What a perfect day it was on Halle's blessing day! She looked adorable and Mike did a wonderful job! I'm so grateful for an amazing worthy husband and a big Thank You to Halle's uncles and grandpas who could be there! We sure missed uncle Sean who's on his mission!

Everyone

Oh she is so precious!! She changes so much! Halle has already graduated into size 1 diapers :) and sleeps between 5 and 7 hours straight every night, then feeds for like 40 minutes and goes back to sleep for another 2 hours which has made life so much better! She smiles ALL the time and OOOoooo i just love it so much!!! I feel like a real mommy now with a little buddy who loves me back and really really knows who i am and likes to play! Hopefully i'll get some more smiling pictures soon- she seems to get distracted when i pull the camera out and i can never get the split second right when she's smiling good!

So mike thinks its pretty cool that Halle is so "flexible", SO he loves to put her toe in her mouth because then she sucks on it! It actually is really hilarious! :) I think this is something only a dad would do

Driving the Alpine Loop right as the leaves began to change

Pictures

Just some cute pictures of the cutest little baby girl in the world!! :)

So, if you know my family, you know basketball is life for the boys! So we found this cute tiny shirt that says, "My Grandpa Rocks" that we put Halle in and took some pics with a basketball for her grandpa (and all her uncles and and her great grandpa would appreciate it too)

Napping with Daddy-- SO CUTE!

Photo shoot with mommy and Nana

First Family outing... a drive up to and walking around beautiful Sundance

Feeding

So i wanted some advice from current mommys... Halle is approaching her 3 week mark and i am having lots of pain still while breastfeeding. EVERYTHING i read in books and online about breastfeeding says it should not hurt, and the only reason it would hurt is because of improper latch on. However, i have watched many videos, read in my books and online, talked to many people and studied it a lot and i feel like we (me and Halle) are doing everything mentioned for proper latch on!! But it is still so painful. Very frustrating... i'm thinking about going to a lactation specialist to try and figure out what i'm doing wrong. Is this just part of feeding and i need to just wait it out? or is it really preventable like all the experts say? I want to call up these experts and ask if any of them have ever actually breastfed?? :) Advice please!!!

Baby Halle

Our new sweet baby girl is finally here! I am just posting the story quick from an email my mom sent my family, and a few pictures... we think she is the cutest little baby ever!!! :)

Ashley went to the hospital on Wednesday, August 26 at about noon only to discover she was only dilated to 2 so they sent her home disappointed.When I got her phone call I jumped on the first plane I could and arrived just in time to find out she was on her way home. We went out for some spicy Chinese food and walked around the mall. By 9:00pm she was hurting pretty bad. We went home and waited... more contractions... only 4-5 minutes apart. At 11:30pm we went back to the hospital. Unfortunately, after monitoring her for an hour she was still only dilated to a 2! Once again she went home disappointed.

After a pretty sleepless night for everyone her contractions were quite strong. But we didn't want to go to the hospital too soon again. We went for a long walk. Poor Ashley had to stop about every 4 minutes, grab Mike's arm, bend over and almost cry from the pain. But we kept walking. Finally she couldn't stand it anymore. We came home, showered, and now her contractions were just 3 minutes apart and she was in tears.

Back to the hospital… Thursday at 1:00pm in the afternoon. Good news: she was dilated to 4. They admitted her, hooked up her I.V. & epidural, and broke her water.

By 4:00pm we were told she had dilated to 7

By 6:30pm we were told she had dilated to 9 and it was about time to push! We were so excited. At 7:00 a new nurse came on shift, checked Ashley and said “She’s not a 9! She’s only dilated to 6, maybe a 7. I don’t know who told you she was at a 9.”

We were disappointed, devastated… confused. How could that happen? We told the nurse we wanted the doctor to come check her. No offense, but someone was obviously wrong.

7:30 The Doctor came to check and said she was about a 7½ or 8. He said "I’ll be back in about 2 hours to check you again and you’ll probably be ready to push then."

He came back at 9:30 to check and Ashley had not changed. She was still dilated to an 8.

He was concerned that she was “stalled”. You don’t want to be stuck and under the pressure of labor for too long. It’s dangerous for the baby and mother. The doctor said we should consider a C-Section. Ashley was still having lots of hard labor, but it seemed it wasn’t forcing her to dilate anymore. He said we could wait another hour and see if there was a change.

We waited for a little over another hour. Doctor came back and checked again. She hadn’t changed at all. He was very concerned and recommended we do the C-Section.

After lots of serious thought, contemplation, prayer and a sweet blessing from Mike & his Dad they decided to do the C-Section.

At 11:00pm they rolled her away to the O.R. I found the doors to the O.R. and could see part of them through the windows. I watched: as much as I could see anyway. At 11:27pm Halle was born! She was so adorable, despite a serious conehead. “That’s the head of a baby that was really trying to get out!” The doctor said. She was stuck in that canal for 8 hours! That produces quite the conehead. But she was beautiful! Thankfully coneheads go down after just 12 hours.

Ashley and Halle did great. They are doing great. Halle is so sweet and so beautiful. Did I say that already? She is nursing well. Ashley is feeling good. I’m so proud of her. It has been quite an emotional and exhausting 3 days. But we are so thankful that Halle is here and safe and healthy. And we are so thankful Ashley is well and healthy.

James' B-day celebration. Happy Birthday James!! (we had homemade ice cream thats why he's holding a strawberry with his candles :)

Cutest baby girl cousin Claire-- Baby Halle will be getting lots of cute cloths from Claire :) lucky us!!



Mike shooting a hoop across the pool from the slide

The boys getting pretty wild playing 21

Chelsey and I had a joint shower thrown by all the cute girls we work with. We had yummy homemade Cafe Rio salads and we got tons of fun and needed stuff! Thanks to everyone!!

28 Weeks!

Some pictures

So all these pictures are like a month old, but i need to post more often and i havent gotten any new pictures recently so i thought old was better than nothing! We planted a garden a few weeks ago (unfortunately it doesn't seem to be doing too well at this point).

I made this amazing looking cake-- sadly it looks better than it tasted!! :)

Me at 23 weeks! I will take more pictures this weekend and post them since I'm 28 weeks now! I'm so behind- Ahhh!

My Hubby

This post is dedicated to my amazing husband Michael Graham Smith! :) I just have to express that I feel so lucky to have him! He is out of town right now, has been for the last 2 weeks, and is coming home on Sunday! I couldnt be more excited!!! I have missed him so much! It totally stands true that you never realize what you have until its gone (even just out of town :)! It has been a good time to really notice and think about all the things I never realized I would miss about him- like songs that remind me of him, switching our toothbrush head for mine, just having someone to be with and hang out with all the time, giving me little compliments on how i look or something i've made, his smell, his excitement about little things, and the list goes on and on. I love the anticipation of waiting for his phone calls and getting so excited to talk to him. I love knowing that we are partners working together to be happy and live the gospel (even though we are far from perfect :). I love knowing that he will be the father of my children... i feel like i have so many faults that will effect how i am as a mother, i need to be so much more patient and gentle and just having charity in general, but when i look at him i am in awe at what a good dad i know he will make- He will be so cute holding our sweet new little baby, and then when she (and the rest of them when they come) will have so much fun playing with him as kids because he really is just a kid at heart, then when they get older he will know how to discipline firmly but still be so loving and not angry so they will want to follow him and because of his amazing example! He is always so positive and looks on the bright side of every situation, he always peace and is always the first one to say i'm sorry (i'm definitely trying to work on that!!!), and he is constantly making me laugh! I couldnt ask for a better best friend, husband, and partner! So thanks so much babe for always being there and loving me no matter what!! I was looking at some of our old pictures the other day and came across this one from our honeymoon at Disneyland- almost 3 years ago!!- and i could not stop laughing so this is the one i wanted to post even though he'll want to kill me for putting it up- he he heee!!!

Arizona

A couple weeks ago my family was here in Utah for their spring break and I decided to drive home to Arizona with them and spend the next week with them and my brother and sister-in-law and my little nephew who came down from Sacrament for their spring break. It was SO FUN!!! I loved spending time with brother and his cutest family that I havent seen in awhile. We ate at all the yummy restaurants, laid out in the sun, and enjoyed lots of time with all the family and friends in az. When I got home and was showing Mike all my fun pictures of my trip I realized I pretty much only took pictures of my nephew (and whoever was holding or playing with him at the time got to be in the picture too), who is the CUTEST boy in the world!!! :) Here are just a few.