6 Months Old And Counting!

Wow, we can't believe our baby girl is over 6 months old already.  She makes us so happy and it is hard to imagine life without her.  Riley rolls over, scoots a bit and sits all by herself.  She makes us laugh all the time.  Riley has the same sleep pattern as me, but today she slept passed noon!  She loves to watch Monsters Inc. and Ratatouille, but now she gets way excited for Mickey Mouse Club House and Little Einstein's.  She is definitely like her mother.  Life is great right now and we hope you are all doing well too!

She's Here!!!

We were expecting our little baby to come at any second, but could still not fathom the actual going to the hospital and having the baby. Saturday started with General Conference and I was having a bad cough, so Jeff went to Walgreen's to get me some pregnant cough drops (yeah, you need to buy Cepacol, not your normal cough drops). After getting my throat feeling better, my worst dream came true. I wasn't in labor, but started having kidney pains. After doing an Easter Egg Hunt in Riverton I was at wits end, the pain in my kidney was becoming unbearable. My sister Jenny massaged my swollen dumbo feet using a reflexology chart to pinpoint kidney alleviation that I got from my Opa. What I was thinking would help my kidney troubles would only make it worse and eventually lead to the doctors inducing me. We were hoping they would induce me, so I tried not to sound too desparate when they asked "are you okay if we start induction." I said, "yes," but my heart screamed, "DO IT NOW!!!"

Once I got the epidural and they started running some petocin through me, I progressed slowly all night. Epidurals are almost as good as a cold Diet Cherry Coke on a very hot day!!! After a long night, I didn't sleep at all, I was fully dilated at about 6:30a.m. and ready to push. Jeff was so good to encourage me and get my ice chips between contractions. The ice chips motivated me to push harder because they were so soothing and took my mind off the pain. After pushing for a little over an hour I was ready for delivery and our beautiful baby Riley Noel was out in three sets of pushes. Our little princess did not pink up like they would like, and I was in a bit of a mess myself bleeding but Jeff and I couldn't be happier! Little Riley was 8 pounds, 4 ounces...good thing I didn't last until my actual due date or I would have had a 10 pound ginormous baby. Just as a little side note on her name, she is named after both of our middle names. Her first name "Riley" has Jeff's middle name "Ile" in the middle of it. Her middle name is just my middle name, "Noel." She has been such a sweetheart and a joy to us. She is becoming a daddy's girl, she won't fuss when Jeff holds her. They must have bonded when he bathed her :) Thanks for every one's love and support, we love you all!!!

February Fun...

We got a house!! We are so excited. Planning on closing March 5th and hopefully be ready to move in by the next week.

These are the beautiful roses Jeff surprised me with for Valentines. I love it when he surprises me. He love-a me!

We had a yummy dinner and desert at my moms house in Riverton. It was so much fun.

Skousens find any reason to party or eat :)

My cousin Katie Strong got married to her sweetie Robby Welling in the Salt Lake Temple on the 6th. It was my first wedding to attend in the Temple and I absolutely loved it!

While we waited for the couple to come out from the Temple we took pictures of us pregnant sisters.

The real prego sisters...

Real pregos plus Jenny and Missy that are NOT prego on the ends :) They are nerds.

Jenny took some pics of me at my house. We were just hanging out until Katies reception. We took some pretty gay ones like this.

It was really nice to see Jenny, Ben and Carter. It had been a long time. We had lots of fun.

In April Amy will be home from her Texas mission and everyone is planning to be there for her homecoming on the 19th. My original due date was the 12th of April, but at my check-up this week I was measuring 2 weeks early. My Dr. said everything looks good and if the baby were to come anytime between right now and when the baby actually comes, he won't prevent it. That is a huge comfort. I started having some painful braxton hicks (false labor). We are so excited to have our little one (or not so little) join our family! Love you all!

26 Weeks and Counting!

I am about 26 weeks along and doing great! I feel the baby every day at least 3 times. My cousin Tricia explained the feeling well. She said it feels like a tiny rolling pin in your belly. My baby moves very low in my abdomen. I am pretty sure it had the hiccups once. It made me laugh. It's normal for me to laugh to myself, by myself. I am cool like that. I miss working at Paramount, but know that staying home was the best choice for our baby. I get a little stir crazy sometimes, but if you know me, you know I am such a home-body and love it.

We had a great time celebrating my birthday and Christmas in December. I got a lot of fun things for my birthday and we got to eat out at some fun places like Red Robin and Tepanyaki. My big gift was a glider. Jeff secretly got it for me back in August! It is so comfy and relaxing. It will be so nice to hold the baby in it. For now we just pretend.

For Christmas Eve, we went with my family and watched our traditional videos that each family makes. It was a lot of fun and we ate yummy German food for dinner. My mom makes these hats for all of us to wear with our pajamas. Next year we will get a mini version for our baby.

On Christmas Day we planned to go to Kamas and see Jeff's Grandparents, but the giant snow storm stopped us. I thought I was going to have the baby from all the trauma I was feeling in the storm. People were crashed and had slid off in the white-out. Jeff did great getting us safely back home to Salt Lake. We spent the rest of the day at Jeff's parents instead. We got more fun gifts. Jeff got a lot of sports gear. Mostly BYU, and he decided to wear them on top of his other clothes. I used to do that all the time. We are so much alike it is crazy! It ended up being a really fun day. Next year will be even more fun with our 8 month old. It should be crawling and be cute and chubby!

Over Half Way There!

FYI we don't like to add new posts on our blog because we both own Macs and can't figure out an easy way to add pictures etc. It is so annoying. Well, all 3 of us are doing pretty good right now. Heidi is finally over some painful infections and hemorrhages. She decided to pass a kidney stone while she was at it too. The baby is growing normal and Heidi has started showing! Jeff took Heidi on a surprise date to see the Disney on Ice show. It was so much fun and Heidi believes she felt the baby moving during the show. Hasn't felt it since though. We are slowly starting to put up our Christmas tree and decorations. Heidi is home all day and can't wait any longer to decorate. We already had a "Fakesgiving" dinner with the Skousens and will try to go to Kamas for the Bethers Thanksgiving. Hope you all have a great time with your families and know we love you too!
Heidi's brother Matt, his wife Lauren and their almost 3 month old Mattison visited Utah for a few days. If was so fun to see them and play with Mattie.
The Skousen "Fakesgiving" had great food and many people. The family is growing so much!
The beautiful castle in Disney on Ice. This was such a fun surprise. Totally recommend seeing it.
Here is a picture of our baby sucking on it's hand. It was moving so much and kept rubbing it's eyes, sucking on it's hand and crossed it's feet like it was just chillin'.

Party Like You're 90!

This was Grandma Skousen's 90th Birthday party on August 29th. We told my family that I was pregnant when we were there. My mom was talking about how many great-grandkids Grandma would have by next April and I told her she was missing one...mine! It was a ton of fun to see cousins and have a good time. Grandma is so sweet and we are so happy she is in our lives!

Evening at the ol' Skousen Cabin

Jeff made his first trip to the remote Skousen cabin last month and boy oh boy was it fun!

Here we are sitting inside on the KOZY 106.5 couches!

Matt And Lauren with her preggo hoody!

God built a mountain in the front yard, so beautiful.

Dan putting out the fire, you should have seen what he was doing to put it out before we came.

The happy couple, awwwwe.......