2 Months Old

Today Kaylor is 2 months old. It has gone by so fast. She has grown quite a bit, and is staying awake a lot longer now. My favorite thing about her right now is that she totally smiles and coos at us. It's so dang cute, I can't get enought of it. In fact we took our first video of her today. She put on a good show too, she cooed and smiled for the camera. Happy 2 months sweetie!

Dinner with Daddy

So in my last post I mentioned that Jeff is in charge of feeding Kaylor her bottle at night. Well this is the way I found Jeff feeding her the other night. Only daddy would find a way to multi-task this way. He makes me laugh.

Highlights from the first 2 months

First Thanksgiving

First photo shoot
First Halloween (Broomfield Volleyball Player)
Kaylor with all the Great-Grandparents

Baby Blessing

First story time with Dad

1 Week Old (also first volleyball game)

First Bath

I can't believe that Kaylor is almost 2 months old. Time has gone by so fast. I'm sure it's just going to go faster and faster. These last 2 months have been fun, stressful, painful, relaxing, and just downright wonderful! I love being a mom. I love taking care of my little girl. I have chosen the breast feeding route. Breast feeding is by far one of the most painful things I have ever done aside from child birth. Child birth was just one day, getting used to breast feeding took me a good two weeks. I can't even count how many times I cried because it hurt so bad. I would cringe when it was time for her to eat again. Now all is well. My toes don't curl every time I need to feed her. I can enjoy our time together now. In fact we've reached the point where we can give her a bottle too. We bottle feed her once a day (right before bed), so that she will be used to it when I go back to work. It's Jeff's job to feed her the bottle while I pump. He gets to be the one to put her to bed when I go back to work. Right now it's the hardest part of our day. We'll start the bedtime process around 9 or 10 and she won't fall asleep until 12 or 1. She gets so fussy and will not fall asleep after she eats like she does during the day. It's getting a little better. I don't really mind her going to sleep that late because it usually means she's going to sleep until 7:30. Sometimes she'll sleep until 9! I love that she sleeps through the night now. I love my sleep, so it makes it a little easier on me.

In the past two months she has experienced so much. She had her first Halloween and her first Thanksgiving. She has met all of her cousins, great-grandparents, and her Larsen side aunts and one uncle. She hasn't met uncle Josh yet because he had to work on Thanksgiving. She has also received her baby blessing. Her she was blessed by her Dad. It was a beautiful blessing, and we were fortunate enough to jot most of it down. It'll be nice for her to have when she's older. We look forward to the next 2 months with her. Her first Christmas will be in Utah with my family. Then she'll get to meet her other two uncles for the first time. They are anxious to meet her. She is their first niece.

Kaylor Lynn Larsen

Born October 15th at 6:16pm
Weighing 7lbs 15oz
21 inches long

Sneek Peek

Check out Kelli's blog for maternity picture previews. These are the last of the maternity pictures. I am 39 weeks in these pictures. She took these pictures on October 13th, Kaylor was born on the 15th. Talk about close call! These turned out great, I can't wait to see the rest, and for her to take Kaylor's newborn pictures. Thanks Kelli, you are so talented!

She's here!

WARNING VERY LONG POST!

So finally after not blogging ANYTHING for 4 months I've got something very exciting to blog about. Our little girl decided she wanted to come early. Kaylor Lynn Larsen was born October 15th at 6:16pm. She weighed 7lbs and 15oz, and was 21 inches long. She has a FULL head of blond hair, it is so adorable! She already has us all wrapped around her little finger. She is such a precious gift from our Heavenly Father and we feel so lucky to be her parents. Jeff and I are excited that she is here. We were both hoping that she would either come on her due date or soon after it. I know weird. Most people want to be done with pregnancy way before the due date. I could not have asked for a better pregnancy, so I wasn't really to the point of wanting to be done. The main reason we wanted her to wait was because it's volleyball season again and this next week (Oct. 19th-23rd) is our last week of the regular season. Jeff and I are both coaching volleyball for Broomfield High School this year, so we have been very busy with that for the past 3 months. This next week my team (the freshman team) has 3 games, and Jeff's has two. Luckily we (the coaching staff) planned ahead and made sure I had a co-coach at the beginning of the season. So she will be taking over for me for the last week. I'm a little sad I don't get to finish the season, but I'm sure I'll get over it real quick. Jeff on the other hand will still be able to finish his last week. In fact the night after Kaylor was born he was already back to coaching.

Kaylor's timing was quite a surprise for us. My water broke at 2:45am and we were checked into the hospital at 4am. Contractions hadn't started yet, so they told me that they will need to start me on Pitocin if they don't start on their own after 6 hours of my water breaking. I started getting some contractions, but they were in no way consistent. So 8:30 rolls around and they decided that it's time to start the Pitocin. I REALLY didn't want to have Pitocin, but I knew that I was pretty much stuck with getting it, so I sucked it up and let them start me on it. They started me on a very low dose, and less than 30 minutes later contractions started. The contractions started out mild, and got progressively worse. They turned up the dose of Pitocin and they got stronger. After about 2 hours I wanted to see how much I had progressed. I came into the hospital dilated to a 3 so I was hoping to be a least to a 5 or 6 by then. Well the nurse checked and said that I was still the same. I told her that I needed something for the pain then, because there was no way I was going to make it to a 10 if I haven't even progressed. She left the room and came back, she apologized and said that she thought I was at a 6 previously so that's why she said I was the same. So really I had gone from a 3 to a 6 in about 2 hours. I felt much better about that. One of my goals was to get to a 6 and then labor in the tub for an hour. So I sat in the tub, Jeff sat next to me, for a full 2 hours. I had no concept of time once I was in there. Contractions were very consistent coming every 3-4 minutes and lasting for about a minute. Jeff was keeping track. He pretty much knew when I was going to turn to him to get me through the next contraction. That was the best part of my whole labor. It was still painful, but I was so relaxed in the tub, that after every contraction I pretty much would fall asleep until the next one came. After 2 hours I began to feel pressure. I had to get out of the tub so they could check me. They said I was at an 8. I labored for another hour out of the tub, I asked them to give me some Fentynal to try and take the edge off the pain (it did NOTHING). After "screaming and spitting" in Jeff's face (according to Jeff), I decided I was done. Even though I had made it to an 8-9, I just couldn't do it anymore. I said just give me the epidural, screw this trying to do it natural crap. Jeff was so relieved that I had chosen the epidural, he actually cried in relief. I didn't see him do that, which is a good thing, because I probably would have thought he was sad that I had woosed out. I was very relieved too. They had the Anesthesiologist in there in record time, he gave me the "fast acting" spinal first, then the epidural after that. Life was GOOD after that. It was just in time too. Jeff's mom and my mom showed up shortly after that. I was glad they didn't have to see me screaming and spitting in Jeff's face. 2 hours later I was ready to push. I pushed for 45 minutes (it didn't feel that long at all), and she joined us at 6:16pm. She is perfect in every way, and now we get to enjoy her at home.

So far the adventures of motherhood have been exciting, wonderful, hard, frustrating, painful, and just all around joyful. I'm loving every minute of it.

Baby Larsen

20 Week Ultrasound

20 weeks profile shot

Happy Daddy to Be!


Today (June 9th)was a very anticipated day for us. We were anxiously awaiting for today to come so that we could find out what we are having. We'll be welcoming BABY GIRL Larsen on October 22nd. Jeff and are so excited. Jeff was mildly disappointed but that changed half way through the ultrasound. He enjoyed every minuted of watching her move on the screen. He was asking a bunch of questions about the measurements, and stuff like that. So cute, already a concerned daddy! The ultrasound showed that everything looked perfect. That's all could ask for. A healthy baby. I'm really excited to finally be able to shop gender specific. It's really hard to shop for a baby when you don't know what the sex is. I have to apologize for the ultrasound picture. Once again it's a picture of a picture. It turns out that they don't offer digital copies at my doctor's office, and I don't have a scanner at home. However one of the perks of working at a hospital and more specifically the Radiology department, you know all the Ultrasound techs pretty well. Jeff and I stopped by there today to spread the good news and I mentioned to them that if they needed anyone to practice OB ultrasounds on that they could use me. Well it turns out that they have a couple of new students that need the experience. They also said that I could burn the images onto a disk. So clearer ultrasound pictures to come!

Half Way There!

I can't believe that I'm already half way through my first pregnancy. It's gone by so fast. I honestly don't even feel pregnant right now. I just feel fat. Maybe I'll feel more prego when I feel the baby kicking or something. There have only been a few things that my body has told me that "Yes you are for sure pregnant". For the sake of journaling I'll share what those things are:

• I have only thrown up once. This is a huge plus for me, I HATE throwing up. Because of this my mom thinks we are having a girl, because she never got sick with me. Well we'll see mom. Jeff is really hoping for a boy, but will be happy with either.
• I get tired easily. If you ask Jeff this isn't anything new, I can pretty much sleep anytime, anywhere.
• I don't have any weird food cravings. It's mostly been food turn offs. There have been several times where any kind of food just didn't sound good, but I was starving so I would eat a bowl of cereal and be satisfied. Does that count as a craving, even though I don't "crave" it?
• I'm just now having to look into wearing larger clothing. I'm not really at the point of wearing maternity clothes just yet, they'll just look like mumus, but past the point of feeling comfortable in my own clothes.
• To Jeff's relief I haven't had any hormonal mood swings.

That's pretty much it. I guess it's more of a list of things that AREN'T going on with me. It hasn't been too different yet. As long as everything continues to go well, and the baby is healthy, I couldn't ask for more. I'll be sure to post pictures of the baby bump soon.

Night Owl

I have officially become a night owl. I've always known that I was more of a night owl than an early bird. I hate waking up to an alarm in the mornings. For the last 5 years I've had to wake up between 3am and 7am to get to work. Those 4am shifts are killer! For those of you who don't know, I work as a Phlebotomist (one who draws blood) at a Hospital in Lafayette. Hospitals are open 24/7 so therefore we are drawing blood at all hours of the day/night. I recently switch over to the night shift. I LOVE WORKING THIS SHIFT! When I tell people what new my shift is, most of them give me this look like "I could never do that", or "Oh I'm sorry for you". Well if you are thinking that right now, STOP!. This is the shift for me. These are the reasons why:
#1- I get to spend so much more time with my husband! I work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Jeff works Saturday, Sunday, and Monday days. Jeff is gone at work while I need to sleep. Then we get to enjoy the next 4 days off together. Before we didn't have any days off together because I was M-F, while he worked the weekends.

#2- Like I said, I hate alarm clocks. It really sucks having to drag your body out of bed when your half awake. Then, having to shove contacts into half open eyes is always a challenge: it really burns sometimes. With the night shift I'm already awake, I do try to squeeze a nap in before I go, but even if I don't get one I still make it through the night.

# 3- I have no problems sleeping during the day. This is another area that people tell me they would struggle with. Well, that's where hanging a dark blanket up over the window comes in really handy. I can pretty much sleep anytime, anywhere. Oh, and being pregnant really helps in this area too!

#4- I would do a 12hr night shift over a 8hr day shift ANY DAY! The night shifts go by so fast for me. Especially because the last 3 1/2 hours of the shift are the busiest part, so it makes it go by even faster. The day shift just DRAGS on, and looking at the clock every hour wondering how much longer until I get to go home gets really old. I LOVE how fast my 3 night shifts go by.

#5- Last but not least, Less hours for more pay. 'Nuff said.

Do you still feel sorry for me? I didn't think so.

Telling the Parents

This was so priceless! My dad's reaction was so funny. He didn't get it at first but then it clicks. A very memorable moment for all of us! Enjoy the video.

Hawaii

We were very excited to be going to Hawaii

Cam and I in Hilo

Dorks in a Banyan tree

Totally random picture.

Jeff pretending to "Snot Rocket" the waterfall...so gross!

Dorky tourists!

Akaka Falls


The last stop on our long drive...What a way to end the day!

Dorks in front of the Thurston Lava Tubes

More dorks at Volcano National Park

Cam and I at Black Sand Beach

Making our way around the island

This was a bull with HUGE horns that we saw while taking a drive around the island.

The girls did a session at the Kona Temple.

One of MANY turtles that we saw.

Grandma Foster and I

Jeff being a dorky tourist! Haha love you honey!

Jeff and I were able to go to Hawaii a couple of weeks ago. We had an absolute blast! Most of my family was there with us which made it all the more fun. There were many highlights of this trip to make it a memorable one, but two that stand out the most. #1 is that we told my parents that they were going to be first time grandparents. We got this on video and it's priceless. I'll be posting that next. #2 happened the second night we were there. Jeff, my dad, my little brother Cameron, my mom and I all went on a night dive/snorkel with Manta rays. My dad and Cameron were the scuba divers, and Jeff, myself, and my mom were the snorkelers. We were told that the night before there were about 20 Manta rays that showed up, so we were pretty much guaranteed to see at least one. Well we weren't disappointed. After about 5 minutes of being in the water we were approached by a huge Manta. We were holding flashlights which attracted plankton, which the Manta's were feeding on. The Manta's were swimming right up to us. We literally had them coming as close as a few inches of us. If we had reached out to touch them we could have, but that's a big no no so we didn't. However there were a few that were bouncing off my dad and Cameron. There were at least 20 Manta's that showed up that night. We got a video of that night, it was soooooooo amazing! One to remember forever, and to defiantly do again! I recommend it to anyone looking to go to Hawaii and that likes to scuba dive or snorkel. We had many more memories to last a lifetime, what a great trip!

Seattle

The week after getting back from California, Jeff and I were able to go to Seattle and visit Jeff's youngest sister JoEllen and her husband Sean, and of course our new little nephew Noah. We had such a good time with them. It was our first time to Seattle so they showed us a lot of the hot tourist spots, some great shopping, and of course awesome food. We weren't sure if we would be coming back since they will be leaving in May to move to Boise for the next 2 years and then who knows where after that. So Jeff and I took advantage of the time we had with them in Seattle. We went to the top of the Space Needle, on a very clear day surprisingly. We went to the famous Pike's Place Market and watched some fish tossing. We did the Underground tour of Seattle, which by the way was a very cool way to see Seattle. If you go there, that is one thing I would recommend doing. We went to Gasworks park, the locks, and even saw the troll under the bridge. Since Jeff's birthday was on the 24th we decided to celebrate a little early and go out to dinner to a nice sea food restaurant "Ivers"...umm yum! Thanks Jo and Sean! We had a great time, we look forward to our next vacation with you!