Dear Santa,

I have been a very good boy. Please bring me lots of presents.

It doesn't hurt to ask twice.

(btw, isn't the top Santa the best Santa ever?)

Ice Skating Downtown

There is something very cool about an ice skating rink in the middle of downtown Los Angeles. I loved the views of the large buildings behind the ice rink.






About a month ago I was called into the Young Womens Presidency. I was excited to have something to do since I had been released from Primary a couple months earlier. For our activity this week we went to downtown Los Angeles to take the girls ice skating. In Utah I would never have wanted to go ice skating outside in the winter, but in the warm(ish) Southern California weather, it isn't too bad. The girls had a lot of fun and we had a lot of fun watching them. Drinking hot cocoa afterwards made it the perfect night. There was even another Young Women/Men group there. I guess ice skating must be the Mormon thing to do. (the other group had krispy kreme doughnuts, which made us all very jealous. And no, they didn't share.)

Bare feet or Bear feet?

Can you tell I get really bored?

All I Want For Christmas ...

... is time to blog, sew, bake, and clean.

Seriously, I really want to catch up on my blogging so that I can document Gavin's life while I remember all of the little things.

I have a bunch of gifts that I need to make, but probably won't have time to get to.

The Holidays are all about baking and I have a lot of pumpkin and peppermint recipes I need to get to (not together though.)

The apartment is a disaster, as always.

If only this baby would go down for a nap or entertain himself for even ten minutes a day. I am reading books and once we get home from holiday vacations, we are going to get him on a schedule and sleeping on his own. Right now he only takes naps during the day if I am holding him, and they only last for 10 - 30 minutes. At night he will sleep anywhere from 3 - 5 hours at a time (in our bed). I feel like he should be sleeping longer at night and that he should be taking 2 - 3 long naps during the day in his own crib. Any suggestions? (I know I just opened this up to a lot of differing opinions and ideas)

I am already dreaming of all the things I will get done during the day. Oh, and I have to go back to work (as long as I can find someone to watch him everyday ...)

But until then, these few pictures will have to hold you over.

1st month in review: Bath Time!

Splish Splash, Gavin's taking a bath!

This was Gavin's first bath at home. Here he is sleeping peacefully, not knowing what was about to happen.
He didn't really enjoy that first bath very much. Because we couldn't submerge him in water yet, he got cold really quickly. I don't think he really knew what to think about it!
I love his fluffy hair after we give him a bath.
We were excited when we could finally put him in a real bath. He seems peaceful here, but then it went downhill from there. He didn't like the big bathtub, so we now stick with the sink. He actually seems to really like his baths now.
He does always seem to have this very concerned look on his face after every bath.
And here it is again.

1st month in review: Life at Home

We have had a lot of fun adjusting to life at home with Gavin. We are learning a lot about him and figuring out what he likes and doesn't like. It's amazing how even though they are so young they already have such a strong personality.


Andrew was able to take three days off from work while we were in the hospital. But the day after we got home, he was back to work. Luckily my mom came to help me out so I wasn't alone.

The day after we brought him home he had his first doctor's appointment. I was so glad to have my mom there to help me get him in and out of the car and up to the doctor. He initially lost about 6 oz. but within a week he had gained it all back, plus some! Way to go!! We quickly learned that whenever his diaper is off, that is the time for him to pee. The nurse at the office also learned this as she put him on the table and he proceeded to decorate their table, wall and the framed picture behind him. She can't say that I didn't warn her! Here he is at the doctor's office.
Those first few weeks he slept a lot! He loved to sleep, which was nice for me. We learned that he loves his hands. He always wants them out and available to put in his mouth. So he does not like it when we swaddle him tight with his arms at his side. We still try to swaddle him with his arms out, but it just doesn't work as well. This is how he always sleeps. Andrew calls it the "touchdown pose."
I bought a sling to carry him around in. This is the first time I put him in it, and he fell right asleep. But now he refuses to go in the sling.
I've mentioned that he wants to be held ALL THE TIME! He does not like to be put down. I am really hoping he gets over that soon so I can get something done (and type with more than one hand!) In the meantime I continually try to put him in these things to try to steal a few minutes to shower, etc. He will go in this little chair for about 15 minutes. The vibrating part broke so we need to figure that out so maybe he will stay in for 20 minutes!
He only lasts about 5 minutes in the swing.
And he does not like to be on the love sac by himself.
Andrew is already trying to indoctrinate him. But he seems to like hanging out with dad whether they are watching football or whatever else.
He absolutely loves to go on walks. He will scream when I put him in his car seat but as soon as the stroller starts moving he calms right down. Here he is on his first stroller ride with Grandma.
So it has been a good month adjusting to this new life. Everyone's first question is "how is he sleeping?" And he is doing pretty good. At night he will sleep anywhere from 2-4 hours at a time. I obviously prefer 4 hours, but it seems like 2 is more common. During the day he will take short naps, but he will only sleep if I am holding him. He can be in a deep sleep, but as soon as I put him down he will wake up and cry. I pick him up again and he goes right back to sleep. It's exhausting, but I don't know what else to do at this point. I was surprised those first few weeks how exhausted I was. There were days that by about 5:00 I was so tired from the day that I couldn't do anything. The emotions were also really surprising. I would cry for absolutely no reason! I told Andrew that it was so frustrating because you have this beautiful new baby that you want to spend time with and enjoy those first few weeks, but you are so tired, sore, and emotional that it's difficult to really enjoy. But luckily you learn to adjust and slowly things fall into place. It's wonderful how quickly you love this new little person and embrace your new life.

Hospital Post Addendum

I forgot one funny story from the hospital that I wanted to make sure I had written down. They put little anklets on the babies that act as a "lojack" or anti-theft system. It's a great idea, but ....

One night I wanted to walk with Andrew to take Gavin to the nursery for the night. We were pushing him in the little tub things that they have them in. We walked to the nursery and I wanted to just walk down to the end of the hallway and then back. Well we got about half way there and suddenly a loud beeping alarm went off over the intercom and a voice saying "Turn around immediately. Babies are not allowed past this point. Turn around immediately." I was so incredibly embarrassed. I was just waiting for a bunch of security guys to come running around the corner to take me down. But we quickly turned around and finally the alarm went off. I was so incredibly embarrassed.

But at least we knew that this little one was safe!

1st month in review - The Hospital

I feel bad that I didn't post more during the first month of Gavin's life, but I have realized very quickly that there are a lot of things that I just no longer have the time (or energy) for. Well, actually I do "have the time," I am just not able to do them when I have a baby that demands that he be held 24/7.

Anyway, here is my attempt to catch-up. The first post in a series of "1st month in review."

Those first few days after Gavin was born were kind of a blur. There was so much happening and I think we were just trying to process what a big change our life was about to go through.

It was so nice to be in a hospital where there was always a nurse or doctor around to help us out if we needed it. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, so I really appreciated the support. We tried to get to know this new little person that we had in our life. We were busy figuring out what he needed and wanted, and how to give it to him. The hospital we were at was so nice and all of the nurses were wonderful. I loved ordering the free room service meals and I always made sure to order a little extra for Andrew to snack on.

I decided that I would take advantage of the chance I had to get as much sleep as I could, so at night, we sent him to the nursery (I know, we are horrible parents who didn't keep their baby with them all the time, oh well.) They brought him back to me every 3 hours at night to feed him, so it's not like we really got any sleep anyway.

He was a really good baby those first few days. He slept a lot, pretty much whenever he wasn't eating. He was also a good eater, which we were grateful for. There was one day that they were a little concerned about jaundice, but they just made sure I fed him frequently and by the next morning he was doing much better.

Gavin's first visitor's to the hospital were our friends the Devere's. They brought us a pizza to eat that first night, which was very much appreciated. Our next visitors were our friends Dave and Brittany. Dave is pretty much a doctor, so we felt safe letting him be around Gavin.

It was fun to interact with Gavin when he was awake, which wasn't often.
The first family photo:
I know they say they can't smile this early, but c'mon ... what do you call this?
Andrew was so helpful at the hospital. He was so great to stay overnight in the super uncomfortable cot that they have there. He always changed the diaper and did anything else I needed him to do.
We spent a lot of our time in the hospital trying to figure out what to name him. We had narrowed it down to a few choices, but just couldn't seem to agree on the final choice. I have always said that this was the scariest part, because their name is going to be with them forever! The last morning that we were there, we finally decided and we made it official. It's nice that he won't have to go by "little guy," "buddy," or "peanut" for the rest of his life.
After two days in the hospital they told us we were ready to go home. (Although I could have stayed there much much longer ... free food and child care? Really?)

We put him in his car seat and we were ready to go. He was so little and I felt like he was going to just fall out of the seat.
We drove home from the hospital and I just couldn't believe that we were actually taking this little guy home with us to stay. It was a very exciting and scary time.

1 month old!

He's one month old today! He now weighs 9 pounds 13 ounces. That's 3 pounds in one month. I can't believe he is growing so fast!

We decided we should do a photo shoot with the little guy. This is what we got:

Check out that double chin!

This is his thinking pose. I wonder what he is thinking about.
He has always loved to have his hands in his mouth. We can't keep them away!
I was messing with the settings on my camera because I didn't like the lighting. This setting is the "food" setting. (I never knew there was a setting to take pictures of food, but now I know that this camera was definitely made for me!) Apparently he looks better as food. I agree, those cheeks are so chubby I always want to snack on them!
And then he was done taking pictures. When he's done, he's done.
What better way to celebrate than cake mix cookies? He requested them so I had no choice but to make them, and because he can't eat them, I had to eat them for him. The sacrifices I make for this kid!

Public vs. Private - opinions needed!

I am debating about whether or not to make the blog private or to keep it public.

With the new little one here, we are a little more hesistant to keep it public (that's why we haven't posted his name here ... he does have a name ... if you haven't heard it then email me, or get on facebook!)

I would really like to keep it public. It's a lot easier for everyone to read and keep updated. But I don't know if I should be comfortable with putting information on here that I want to have here for journaling purposes. I don't want to have to use nicknames (although we do still call him peanut). I have a lot of friends that put all their information on their public blogs, and they are okay, right?

I worry about going private because I know I have a difficult time keeping up with friends' private blogs. If it's not on my google reader, then I don't think to even look at it. I also am not sure some of my family will be able to figure out how to get on a private blog (although I'm not sure how often those family members even look at it.)

So I am asking for two things here:

1. Your opinion. What do you think? For those of you that have a private blog, why did you go private and do you like it? For those of you that have a public blog, are you comfortable putting information on your blog?

2. If we do go private, and you want to be able to continue reading the blog, then leave a comment with your email address so I can invite you. I'm not sure yet if we will, but I figure that I should start collecting emails of those that want to be invited in case we do.

Also, while you click out of google reader to leave a comment, make sure you check out our new layout and header. Thanks to my friend Gail who designed the new look for me. She gave me lots of options, so you might see it changing every now and then.

Anyway, I would really love your opinions and advice!



This is how I feel when I think about going private.

(And why doesn't the hospital have newborn size diapers?
This was way too big!)

This ones for you, Grandpa!

On Monday my grandpa passed away and today was his funeral. Because it was in Utah, I obviously couldn't make it to the funeral. It was really hard for me to not be able to be there to say goodbye and to spend that time with my family. I decided that since I couldn't be there, that I would dedicate this post to him.

My grandpa, Andrew Johnson, was 93 years old. He was an incredible man that I looked up to and loved deeply. All growing up my grandparents only lived about 1/2 mile up the street. So we were able to visit them at least once a week and we spent a lot of time up at their home. They had a huge yard that we loved to play in. They used the old irrigation system to water their lawn. So I remember going up to their yard when they would open up the irrigation water and we would run around in our swim suits through the yard as the water soaked everything. We could come home covered in grass, but we loved it! My grandpa has a huge shop at his home. He continued to work in his shop for as long as he could. He is an incredible handyman and loved to do things on his own. He had a riding lawn mower that he loved using and in the winter he would use it to shovel the snow. Even this last winter he would get upset when someone would try to "help" him out and shovel his sidewalks for him. He was such a hard worker. He grew up in Tabiona, Utah and worked with his dad and brothers at the family saw mills. We spent a lot of time at these saw mills. They were a fun place to go camping and 4 wheeling. When he was 41 years old he went to work for the US Forest Service. He spent many years as a foreman working on different construction sites. He helped build Cascade Springs and Lodgepole, my families favorite camping spot.

My grandpa had an incredible sense of humor. He and my grandma were married for 68 years. But when you asked him how long they have been married he would always answer with "We're still trying to decide if it's going to work out or not." He loved his family and was always excited to see us when we would come and visit. He made every effort to come to all of our big events: baptisms, graduations, weddings, etc.

The last time I was in Utah I was able to spend a little bit of time with my grandparents.



This is a picture of one of my grandpa's many creations. He made these adorable birds out of shovels and other metal. People driving by would stop and ask how much he would charge them to make some for them.
My grandparents took a lot of pride in their yard. He had created this little fountain area with the "Cascade Springs" sign. Isn't it beautiful?

I will miss visiting with my grandpa. I will miss sitting next to him on the couch and talking to him. He was a great influence in my life and I will miss him. I am sad that he was not able to meet our new little guy, but I will make sure that he hears all about his Great Grandpa Johnson and what a great man he was.

We love you Grandpa!

On Sept. 21st ...

(Warning: For journaling purposes, this post has a lot of labor details! If you don't want to read them, then just scroll down to the pictures.)

Monday, Sept. 21st, I was lying in bed awake. It was about 3 a.m. I was half awake, thinking of all the things that I needed to get done that week. I had just finished my last official day of work the day before. I had decided to finish working 2 weeks before my due date. I thought that would give me plenty of time to get all of the last minute things done before the baby came. I was planning out my week. I had a lot to do.

I was going to:

• get my hair done on Tuesday
• go shopping for and buy a dresser for the babies room
• get a pedicure
• put away all of our files in our new filing cabinet
• finish organizing our living room after just rearranging the furniture
• write all the thank you notes from our baby showers
• update the blog so that I would be caught up and ready to post about the baby
• finalize everything for the primary program
• finish planning the sharing time that I was supposed to do that upcoming Sunday
• clean out the freezer and restock it with prepared frozen meals (extremely wishful thinking)
• pack our bag for the hospital
• Go to the L.A. County Fair (something I have always wanted to do since moving here)
• meet with the new swim coach that is covering my groups for me while I am gone
• figure out what to name the baby
• go through all of the baby supplies and organize everything
• finish buying all of the last minute items we need for the baby
• do laundry
• and most importantly ... sleep, sleep, and sleep some more.

While I was lying there thinking of all of these things ... my water broke.

Are. you. kidding me.

I laid there for a minute in complete shock. This wasn't supposed to be happening. I still had 2 weeks left. I wanted those 2 weeks. I needed those 2 weeks. But it was happening. I remember asking my doctor "what if my water breaks and I don't realize it." I now understand the crazy look he gave me in response. "You will know it." I knew it. In our labor class they told us that the water breaks in only 10% of births. Not a statistic I wanted to be a part of. But there I was, lying in bed, with my water broken. I leaned over to Andrew who was sleeping peacefully (and deeply), "Hey... hey .... HEY! My water just broke!" I gave him a couple of seconds for him to process what I said and then I told him that we needed to get up and go to the hospital.

I got up and was quickly grabbing all of the things that I thought we might need. (Remember that list of things I was going to do this week? Packing the hospital bag was one of those things.) I came back in the room and Andrew was taking a shower. Hmmm... okay, I guess we aren't in that big of a hurry. But then the contractions started. I had been having braxton-hicks contractions for a few weeks. They weren't that bad. These, well, they were bad. They were more intense than anything I had felt up to that point. The first two were 5 minutes apart, then 4 minutes, then 3 minutes, then they settled at 2 minutes apart. I decided I should eat something, but could only force down half of a granola bar. By the time we were ready to go, I was in so much pain I didn't even want to sit down in the car. I told him that I was going to walk there, but he made me get in the car. We put in my "Labor CD" that my friend Brittany had made for me and we quickly drove to the hospital.

We got to the hospital around 4:30. We checked in to triage and I found out that I was dilated to a 4. The contractions were getting stronger and more intense. They checked me in and we got settled in our room. Our nurse then started going through a huge stack of paper work that we needed to fill out. I was getting extremely annoyed by this paper work and the questions they kept asking me. Who do you think I want to be responsible to make decisions for me? Probably my husband, the only person that I brought to the hospital with me! They also made me sign a bunch of papers, not that my signature was legible at that point. I know that this stuff was required, but in the middle of intense labor I was not very accommodating. As the contractions continued I was trying to remain calm and remember all of the things that we had learned in our labor class. I tried to remember all of my "favorite" positions that were the most relaxing. The problem was that most of those involved sitting down, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. I then started getting really sick. Luckily I had only eaten half of the granola bar.

Then as I was hunched over in the bathroom, feeling like I might possibly die, the nurse came in and said "okay, you have to make a decision right now. The anesthesiologist has back to back surgeries all day, so if you want an epidural then you have to have it right now." Uh ... this wasn't the plan. I didn't want to be forced into this decision. For various reasons I wanted to wait until I was dilated to at least a 6 before I even thought about the epidural. I asked the nurse if she would check me and she said that she wouldn't. She didn't think that I was progressing that quickly to warrant being checked again. She then told me that it was 6:00 right then and that he might have time in between his surgeries at 7:30 to do an epidural. So I told her that we would wait until then.

So for the next hour and a half we somehow made it through all the contractions. We had brought a bunch of DVD's to watch, and I had brought all my booklets from labor class to read through. (I have heard so many stories of friends who just slept and watched TV through labor, I wanted to be prepared.) But again, that was the last thing I wanted at that point. Well, just after 7:00 we got a new nurse (thank goodness!) Our new nurse was great. She was a lot nicer and she even agreed to check me. I was dilated to a 7 and almost completely effaced. She said that she then understood while I was in so much pain. I was in "very active" labor and progressing really quickly. I guess at that point I should have decided that because I was going so quickly that I could make it through that last part without the epidural. That would have been the logical decision for me to make. But there was no logic left in me. They said that the anesthesiologist was available and I said "YES!!" So at 7:30 he came in and gave me the epidural. Nobody told me how painful it would be to have to sit through contractions and not move while they stuck a big needle in my back. But I made it through and I thought I would then be pain free and loving it. About 10 minutes after the epidural the nurse started to check the heart beat. She had me move positions and she was adjusting the heart rate monitor on the baby. She had a concerned look on her face and she called someone on her cell phone. This is the conversation I heard: "I need you to come into room 5 .... well, I NEED you to come into room 5 .... You NEED to come in here!" Andrew and I look at each other, a little concerned and the nurse just smiles at us. We then have about 5 nurses, along with my doctor come into the room all at once. They all start talking and moving me and the heart rate monitor and they throw an oxygen mask on my face and nobody says anything to either of us. I finally make eye contact with Dr. Matsuda and I'm sure he saw the panic in my eyes and he finally came over to me and said "The babies heart rate has just slowed down and it was difficult to find it. This is very common after an epidural when everything relaxes. It's okay. They will just keep oxygen on you for the remainder of the labor and delivery. You're doing okay." Okay, that's all you needed to say! THANK YOU! All I could think was "I knew I shouldn't have had the epidural! What have I done??" But everything seemed to calm down after that.

Okay, I have the epidural, now it's time to relax and sleep, right? Well, although the intense pain was gone, I could still feel all of the pressure from every contraction. So unless you count the 60 seconds of rest in between contractions, there was no sleep to be had. It was still pretty uncomfortable, but I was okay with it. I still had complete movement in my legs which I liked as well. Over the next hour the pressure of the contractions became a little greater. And then I just began feeling all of the pressure and I really felt like I needed to push. I waited for a little while, but then I couldn't wait any more. We called the nurse in and while you could tell that she didn't really think that it had progressed to that point, she checked me and said "well, you are definitely ready to have this baby!" She recognized that the epidural was very light at this point and said that I could choose to increase the meds so that I wouldn't feel it, but if I could hold off then it would be better so that I could feel the contractions and know exactly when to push. Since I had felt it the whole time I decided not to increase the epidural. So at 9:15 I began to push.

Andrew was a huge support through everything. He was perfect and did everything I needed. We continued pushing and I think Dr. Matsuda came in just after 10:00. We continued pushing and finally at 10:35, the baby was born. It was the craziest thing I have ever done!! We knew from the ultrasound that his cord was wrapped loosely around his neck. Even though they said this was fairly normal, I was still worried about it. But when his head first came out they were able to quickly unwrap the cord and then he was fine. We quickly knew that he had a great set of lungs as he screamed loudly. I was completely exhausted, but relieved to have him here and that he was healthy.

He weighed in at 6 lbs. 12 oz. The Doctor had predicted that if he went full term he would be about 7 lbs. and if he came early then just under. I guess he was right! Andrew had me so worried that I was going to have a huge baby (his siblings were all big babies) but I had faith that wouldn't happen!
Who says newborns aren't cute?
The proud Dad!
And the exhausted mom.After 7 1/2 hours of crazy intense labor, this is what we got:

So as I was lying there in bed, on Sept. 21st at 3:00 a.m., thinking of all of the things that I needed to get done, I didn't realize that none of that stuff mattered, because today would be one of the happiest days of my life. And it was.