video taken Nov. 5.

Brennan Lee Phelps

He made his debut into the world Friday, September 2, 2011 at 6:10 am. He was 6 lb and 3 oz and was 18 inches long.

His timing was actually pretty great. As I mentioned before, Bryan has been called and was serving on jury duty for a case that began Aug. 29 (the Steven Strate case). I was so scared that I would go into labor while Bryan was in trial and I wouldn’t be able to get a hold of him. Due to scheduling with the court system Bryan didn’t have to go to jury duty on Thursday or Friday (they have Thursdays and Fridays set aside each week for different kinds of trials (family, civil, etc.). I was very happy about that because I had my 38 week appointment scheduled with my doctor on Thursday at 2:20 and really liked to have Bryan there with me. He was able to come home from work and go to the appointment with me (even though he hadn’t been at work all week because of jury duty … Thanks MonaVie and Alex for being so understanding and working around our schedules!).

At the appointment my doctor, Dr. Jones (with Legacy OBGYN in American Fork, whom I highly recommend. He is absolutely fantastic)  asked how I was feeling and if there was anything new going on in life. We quickly told him about Bryan’s jury duty and joked a bit that we this baby might be popping into the world without Dad present.

Dr. Jones checked all the important things they like to check at a 38 week appointment and settled back down onto his chair to chat for a minute. He told me, you look great. You are dilated to a 3 and are good and ready that this baby could come any minute. The baby is in a great position and you’re full term. Your strep B is negative and you have no high blood pressure issues…  Do you want to have this baby tonight?

Thinking he was joking, I agreed that having the baby that night would be great.

He told me that he could help the whole process along and strip my membranes (TMI for a blog, maybe, but its my record keeping process and you choose to read a post about the birth of my baby so you get to deal. :)). He said that doing so would give me a 50/50 chance of starting labor tonight. He told me that he was on call all night, so he would be there to deliver the baby for sure (which I really wanted, because with James he was off and another doctor delivered James. It was fine, but I really like Dr. Jones and wanted him to deliver the baby).

We were a little bit worried about doing it and wondered if it didn’t start labor tonight, if it would speed up the process and I would end up going into labor some time next week, earlier than my due date and while Bryan really couldn’t be there. He told us it would either start or not start. He left us alone for a little while to family council it and decide what we wanted to do.

I liked the idea of having the baby and then having the whole weekend with Bryan home before he had to go back to jury duty. I also liked the idea of not having the worry in my head about the possibility of going into labor and not being able to get a hold of Bryan. I couldn’t decide what to do. I told Bryan it was up to him and he reminded me it wasn’t at all up to him, and it was up to me (being my body and all). Finally I decided that I was going to do it. I either would have a baby that night, or be in a some additional pain and not have a baby. Having a baby and no longer being pregnant won. I was so ready to not be pregnant.

Dr. Jones came back and we chatted a bit more about the whole process, he did what he needed to do and we were off for the day.

I wasn’t really sure what to think. I really wanted it to work and start labor, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up and be disappointed. So I started to make a list of things that I wanted to do just in case labor did start.

After we got home, we at dinner and watched Big Brother (its out summer tv guilty pleasure. such a stupid show, but so entertaining). Then I picked up a couple of rooms but didn’t actually do all the things on my list. Then, after putting James to sleep, we thought we should warn/ask Kevin if he would come up to our house and stay with James if we did go into labor that night. He was great and said he would.

Instead of going to bed and getting some sleep, Bryan and I stayed up and played Ticket to Ride (Looking back now, I realize I should have just gone to bed. I ended up only getting about 20 minutes of sleep). We climbed into bed around 11:30. Throughout the evening I had been feeling a few small contractions here and there, but nothing consistent and they weren’t getting more painful. As soon as I relaxed and tried to go to sleep, that’s when I really started to feel the contractions.

Around 1:30 they were consistently 7 minutes apart and getting more painful. I tried to get a little bit of sleep through them but to no avail, so I got up, washed my face and brushed my teeth. I put a few last minute things into my hospital bag and woke Bryan up at 2:30.

He had told me earlier that he didn’t think it was actually going to happen that night. So when I woke him up I made sure to tell him he lost the bet and we were having a baby. He woke up and called Kevin. We got a few more things ready for to leave while we waited for Kevin. He came, we got him some things to help take care of James when he woke up and were off.

The drive to the hospital was surprisingly calm. Bryan joked about taking me all the way into Provo to the hospital instead of American Fork. We talked about how I could have totally driven myself to the hospital and when we got there, I just had him park and we chatted about how nice of a night it was as we strolled through the parking lot to the front doors. We even stopped at the front door to document our arrival at the hospital with a picture.

We're Ready!

It was amazing how much more calm I was with this baby than with James. The contractions were 4 minutes apart, but weren’t crazy painful. I felt like I knew what to expect and was totally ready to have this baby. I had no fears of lack of preparation or not enough socks.

We got settled into the triage room around 3:40 so they could monitor me and make sure I was progressing before officially checking me in. Bryan and I played Words with Friends and Hanging with Friends back and forth for most of the hour. Then the contractions started to get more painful.

At 4:40 I had dilated to a 6 and they officially checked me into the hospital. They moved me into a labor and delivery room and called the anesthesiologist. I was so ready for my epidural.

My contractions hadn’t moved much closer together, but were more painful, so Dr. Jones came in, broke my water and put me on a pitocin IV to help the contractions move closer. John the anesthesiologist came in and we were on the way. I felt the epidural start down my left leg and into my toes. Then felt it move its way very very very slowly up my right leg, starting with my toes. It was 5 am.

The contractions were getting much closer together and much more painful. And the epidural had stopped making its way up my right leg. I could feel how painful the contractions were getting in just one little spot next to my right hip.

It hurt.

I cried.

I screamed.

We pushed the button to get me more of the epidural, but it wasn’t moving any farther up my right leg. She brought in Dr. Jones and explained that I had a “hot spot” that the epidural wasn’t hitting. He checked me, and I was dilated to an 8. They decided to go a head with the catheter and Dr. Jones told me he was going to get some water boiling and to get ready for a baby. The nurse then went to bring back the anesthesiologist to have him check to see if there was something wrong.

After Dr. Jones and the nurse left and the catheter was in place, the hot spot disappeared and I could feel the contractions radiating pain around both of my hips, back and down both legs. The epidural wasn’t working.

It hurt.

I cried.

I screamed.

Poor Bryan had no idea what to do to help me. I remember clinging to the railing of the bed and just shaking because of the pain. This wasn’t exactly how I had calmly remembered labor.

Dr. Jones and the nurse came back in and I was still only dilated to an 8, but Dr. Jones said the baby was coming and he was coming now. He calmly told me that I needed to push. I not so calmly told him there was no way I was pushing without the epidural working.

They had everything ready and told me to start pushing. I screamed. I kept telling them over and over that I couldn’t do it without an epidural that was working and I didn’t want to. I screamed and told them I wasn’t going to push. I could feel myself having a panic attack and I couldn’t breathe. The nurse and Dr. Jones told me to breathe and to push. If I would just push, the pain would go away. Everything would be better if I would just push. Dr. Jones told me I could do it. I couldn’t understand why the pain wouldn’t go away and I couldn’t understand why the baby was trying to come if I wasn’t even dilated to a 10 yet. He couldn’t come yet, my body wasn’t ready. I was breathing out short small bursts of air or holding my breathe trying to make the pain go away. I looked over at Bryan while I was screaming and crying. He looked terrified.The cute nurse was trying to get me to calm down and just breathe. I remember thinking to myself, “You are having a panic attack. You need to calm down and breathe.” but it didn’t happen. I had no control.

Amazingly though, during my panic attack and freak out, my body knew exactly what it needed to do and was pushing anyway. As I was telling Dr. Jones no, my body was doing exactly what he said to do and what it knew it needed to do.

At one point, I remember the nurse telling me to hold my legs. I told her I didn’t want to, put my feet in the holders and pushed away from the dr and nurse.

After two really hard pushes, he was here. I leaned over and looked, and there he was… my beautiful baby boy.

Here at last!

It was 6:10 a.m.

It took him a minute to cry and I looked at him and said, “cry, baby. cry.” Dr. Jones assured me that the baby was okay and soon the baby took his first breath and cried. It was beautiful to hear. Dr. Jones had Bryan cut the cord and they took the baby to clean him up a bit.

After a little bit, I could feel Dr. Jones stitching me up. I asked him what he was doing down there and if I had torn. He told me that during the part where I was “climbing up the table” I was going to tear so he just gave me a little more room so I didn’t tear (TMI again, but it’s my blog).

He was 6 pounds and 3 oz and 18 inches long. After cleaning him up a little bit and testing his breathing and everything, they let me know that he wasn’t breathing very well and needed to be placed on a breathing machine for an hour. But before they wisked him down to the nursery, they let me snuggle with him for a little bit. But then had to take him to the second floor. I told Bryan that I was okay and to stay with the baby.

After everything was over, I apologized over and over to the nurse and Dr. Jones for all my screaming and freaking out. They told me I was fine and that I did great. I still felt horrible and wanted everyone to know how sorry I was that I was so difficult and screamed so much. I still feel a little embarrassed, but I had no idea that I would have so little control over what my body was doing. It was like I was there, and inside, but couldn’t control it.

I know that because the epidural kind of worked, I didn’t feel everything that I’m sure I would have felt if I had a natural birth, but what I did feel was crazy painful. When I was younger, I had a few warts on my feet that I had frozen off. I remember it was pretty painful. I cried and screamed. Then suddenly in the middle of the process, I couldn’t feel anything anymore. My whole body had gone numb and I just looked at my mom. The doctor was quite confused and told my mom that I should be hurting a lot right now. Then everything turned back on and I was screaming again. I guess my body had just had too much and had shut down. I had always kind of hoped that something like that would happen during labor. Guess not.

Everyone had left the room and I was alone. Bryan and the baby were down on the second floor for the baby’s breathing treatment, the Dr. and nurses had left to let me relax and calm down a bit. I was so shaky. I couldn’t decide if I was cold or shaking because of everything that just happened. I sent out a couple of texts telling my family the baby was there. Called my mom and let her know the baby had come (she was getting ready to come down, but because he came so quickly, so completely missed it). Then, I got a phone call. It was 6:30 in the morning and it was a number I didn’t recognize. I’m not sure why I answered it, but I did. It was a good thing I did because it was my older brother.

We had a really nice chat he told me how much he loved me and how proud of me he was. I was pretty surprised by his call because it was 5:30 in LA. I didn’t think my brother’s body could actually function at that time (he normally doesn’t go to bed until at least 3 am and doesn’t get up until past noon). He was wonderfully sweet and it was so great to talk to him. We haven’t always gotten along, but I am so thankful that as we have gotten older we have become closer.

Bryan came up and showed me some pictures of the baby and I realized how much I missed him and wanted them to bring my baby back to me. But he was hooked up:

After an hour, the nurses shift had changed and my new nurse came in to let me know that there was no room for me on the Mother/Baby floor and that I would have to stay in labor and delivery for a while. I was okay with that, because the labor and delivery room are really nice and so much bigger. She asked if she could get anything for me and I told her I really missed my baby. And she set off to find him and bring him back to me. It was wonderful to have him in my arms again. The breathing treatment they gave him worked and he was breathing really well on his own and his lungs had expanded and everything was good.

Around this time, we got a message from Kevin telling us that James wasn’t too excited about mom and dad not being home when he woke up.

Where's my mom and dad?

He loves his uncle Kevin and aunt Aubrey though, and warmed right up to them. They were so great for watching him and bringing him to the hospital later (with the help of Lindsay and her car seat) (and capturing the sweetest moment of the day on camera… more on that in a minute).

We were finally able to move down to the mother/baby floor and get settled into our room. After lunch time, Kevin, Aubrey and Lindsay brought James to the hospital to meet his new brother.  I was a little bit worried about how James would react to the new baby. Bryan went out in the hall to get James and bring him in. He set him on the bed with me and the baby and I leaned over and told James that this was his new brother. He looked at the baby for a second then reached up and patted his head. I moved the baby a little closer to James and without any prompting or any of us saying anything, James leaned over and gave Brennan a kiss.

Their first meeting

(How is that for great camera timing? Thanks guys for having the camera ready!)

It was so sweet. I melted my heart. They definitely knew each other in Heaven and James was excited to see his brother again. He loves having the baby home and wants to always see him and be by him (he’s getting a little too excited about the baby and hitting him, but we’re working on it).

We had a hard time deciding on a name and didn’t settle on one until right before we went home and had to fill in the paperwork for a birth certificate. Because it took us so long to figure out his name, I had a hard time calling him Brennan at first. I called him Bennett and Benson and Braden so often. I think Brennan is perfect though and it suits him so well.

After just a day in the hospital, I was good and ready to come home and get started with our new life as a family of four. So far the adjustment has been good. We are getting into the swing of things and with the help of some Dr. Pepper, I am actually getting stuff done. Hooray!

(congratulations on making it to the end of this post!)

P.S. It turns out that Bryan sat through the whole trial, but ended up being an alternate juror  and when it was time for the deliberations they sent him home. I guess they do that a lot with trials. They have 10 jurors listen to the case, but only need 8 to actually decide the case. Learn something new every day.

I have an app on my phone that keeps telling me to write down a pregnancy memory. And today, I felt like writing down how it all felt this time around. So you all get to read it.

Just for Good Measure... The Belly: 38 Weeks

This pregnancy has been so different than my pregnancy with James. I have had heartburn to the point that I have to take a pill every morning just to make it through the day and TUMS don’t make a dent in the pain. I wasn’t nearly as sick with this little one as I was with James. There were only a few times that I had to make a mad dash for the bathroom. Also, this time, I don’t have any indications of high blood pressure and will probably not have to be put on bed rest (except by my own instructions).

(I do have to admit though, last week at my 37 week appointment, I freaked out a little bit, worried that they would tell me I had high blood pressure again and send me to the hospital or put me on bed rest. It was my 37 week appointment with James that all the craziness happened, so I was so worried. I packed my hospital bag and a bag for James and was a total mess the whole morning before we went in. Poor Bryan. I don’t think he knew why I was being a crazy. He’s deals with me so well though.)

This little guy moves so much more than James did. In the evenings he is especially wiggly. Some nights I will sit in bed and just watch my stomach move back and forth, back and forth. One night Bryan and I sat and watched my belly more for a good 20 minutes. It was crazy.

Really though, one of the biggest differences between this pregnancy and the last, is this pregnancy I have James to chase around. I have no idea how people with children have more children. Chasing around my 16-month-old is exhausting with this big belly to lug around too. I’m truly thankful that he can walk though. If he were a late walker, I’m not sure I could ever go anywhere. When we go shopping or out of the house, I only have to pick him up to get him in and out of the car. Besides that, he’s really good to hold my hand and walk along side me until we get where we are going or get to a cart to put him in. Carrying him wears me out so quickly. Thank goodness he was so determined to be mobile (sometimes, little tiny things like these strengthen my testimony so much and remind me that my Heavenly Father is watching out for me and has a plan for me. I know it seems so small, but James walking has been such a blessing).

James is becoming so independent and learning so much every day. It’s so fun to watch him grow, but so frightening to think of how he is going to be when little baby B joins the family. The transition scares me a little bit, but I know that I will have Dr. Pepper to help me through it. :)

I had a conversation with Bryan the other day about how I am so tired lately, I just want the baby to come. He reminded me that after the baby comes, I’ll still be just as tired because he will wake up during the night…Yes, I responded, but I wake up just as many times during the night right now to go to the bathroom, or because the baby is kicking me or I’m having Braxton Hicks. But after the baby comes, I can have Dr. Pepper again to help me make it through the day until I get used to the new schedule. (I don’t like drinking caffeine during pregnancy for all those good health reasons, but also with this pregnancy it gives me CRAZY restless legs when I do have a sip or two, so I have had to cut it out COMPLETELY.)

We haven’t picked out a name for Baby B yet, but we know that it is going to start with the letter B (hence calling him, Baby B). With James we knew we wanted to name him after his two grandpas. James for Bryan’s dad and Edward for my dad. With Baby B, we weren’t sure what we wanted. We went through other grandpa and family names, and weren’t sold on any of them. We did know that we wanted him to have the same middle name as Bryan, but we didn’t want to name him Bryan Jr. Then we thought of giving him the same initials as Bryan and carrying on Bryan’s name in that way. So since we made that decision, we have narrowed it down to a handful of B names and are just waiting to see if one jumps ahead of the others. What do you think?

• Bennett
• Benson
• Brayden

Bryan suggested the other night that we just name him Blue. I ruled that one out.

Jury Letter

Bryan received a letter in the mail a while ago informing him that he had been summoned for jury duty. He would have to go down to the county building in Provo twice during August for jury selection. If selected to serve on the jury they would inform him of the dates and times of the trail.

Monday was the second day of jury selection. They had kept him from the first day as a possible juror. Monday they decided that he still would be a good candidate for a possible juror and called him back for a third day of jury selection (yesterday morning). Turns out, having a pregnant wife isn’t a good excuse to get out of jury duty. Around 10 am Bryan sent me a text that he had been selected and the trial would begin immediately. (I should have seen it coming. Bryan’s not an extremest of any kind and is so much the “guy-next-door” that it really was only obvious they would choose him.)

I had been a little bit worried about being home alone during the day and going into labor. I had a plan all worked out that I would call Bryan at work and start to get myself and James in the car. If I couldn’t get a hold of Bryan at work, he gave me other people in his department’s numbers so I could call them and they could find him for me. I would drive myself to the hospital while Bryan made his way to AF from 106 South. On the way I would drop James off somewhere or call Mel or Tyler to meet me at the hospital and get James (they both work in AF and would be able to get away from their jobs pretty easily). I also had some backup plans of people to call just in case I couldn’t drive myself because the pain was too much (my mother-in-law thought that would be the case).

Now that Bryan is in trail all day, I won’t be able to get a hold of him any time. He did give me a number for the court room that I would be able to call, and they didn’t ask him to turn off his cell phone so I could still call and text, but I’m pretty sure that it will take him longer to get to AF from Provo than it would have taken him to get from 106 to AF — crazy construction. And I’m not really sure if they would let him get up and leave in the middle of the trail. Plus, Mel and Tyler are out of town, so there goes my James contingency.

I know that I have have enough family and friends who love me and would drop everything they could to come and help me should I go into labor. (My dad works at BYU, and I know that if I were to call him, he would be at the AF hospital within 15 minutes…not a lot of driving laws would be followed, but he would be there for me.) It just throws off my whole groove to have my plans change like this at the last minute; I like to be prepared. I know that everything is going to be okay, but every little contraction I feel kind of sends me into panic/stress mood.

My solution?

Do absolutely nothing that may help bring labor on faster — so, do absolutely nothing. Basically, I sit on the couch and tend to the needs of James and do nothing else. Good excuse to be lazy, yes? Maybe it won’t actually help, but it makes me feel better so that’s what I’m going with. They expect the trial to be finished by the end of Wednesday next week, so I’m only shirking my household responsibilities for those couple of days (until we need clean unmentionables, I don’t think I can ignore that responsibility).

So if you want to do absolutely nothing and feel like you are still helping a friend in need, come on over. I’ll be sitting on the couch in a pair of pajama pants watching reruns of America’s Next Top Model.

So we visited the Living Planet Aquarium. James thought it was pretty great.

Looking at the fish

Tall like a Penguin

Too many things to see to stop and smile with mom

This frog was too cool

Climbing on things

While he enjoyed looking at the fish and other animals, his favorite thing about the aquarium was the fake rocks to climb on (other kids used them to see the fish better) and the buttons. I knew that he would really enjoy buttons (when you push the button, it makes the sound the animal would make), so I had avoided showing them to him until we were just about ready to go.

the BUTTONS!

What animal makes that noise?

Bryan held James up to play with those buttons for a good 20+ minutes and when we decided it was time to go, he threw a great fit. Good thing I saved the buttons for the very end of the visit.

It was a lot of fun though and we’ll definitely visit again.

Our Wedding Day

Five years seems like such a long time, but it still seems like it was just yesterday that we entered the temple together and made sacred covenants and changed our lives forever.

As I was reading through the Ensign this last week and with the thought in my mind that our anniversary was coming up, I reread Elder Richard G. Scott’s talk from the Sunday afternoon session of this last General Conference, The Eternal Blessings of Marriage. As I read the talk and thought about my own feelings about the blessing that marriage is in my life, I was touched with something he said.

I have no power to describe the peace and serenity that come from the assurance that as I continue to live worthily, I will be able to be with my beloved Jeanene and our children forever beacuse of that sacred ordinance performed with the proper priesthood authority in the house of the Lord.

I echo Elder Scott’s feelings and know that words can’t fully describe how wonderful it is to know that our family can be forever. I feel so thankful to know that I can be with Bryan for all eternity. As we sit together on the couch and talk about the mundane things that happened during the day, I am filled with such a peace and wonder knowing that as we live worthy, these simple yet joyful moments never have to end.

I love Bryan more today than I ever have, and know that our love can continue to grow in the many many more years we will spend together.

The temple sealing has greater meaning as life unfolds. It will help you draw ever closer together and find greater joy and fulfillment.

-Elder Richard G. Scott

(Okay, the 3D image that they showed us did not quite look beautiful, it looked like my baby’s face will be made of oatmeal, but I know he’ll come out beautiful. (I’m not a fan of the 3D images… at least not this early in the pregnancy.))

We are excited. James is going to have a best friend to be with and help him make messes and pull everything out of every drawer in the house. They are going to be the best friends and I’m sure the worst enemies. Now we’ll have two tornadoes crashing through our house instead of just one. I’m sure they’re going to have so much fun together.

While we were in the ultrasound office the tech showed us a lot of different things that I don’t remember seeing with James, so it was pretty cool. She asked if we had any feelings about what gender the baby was and Bryan and I both kind of felt like it would be a girl (the lack of crazy morning sickness had me wondering if a different gender was brewing in my belly). So she stopped and had us look at the screen. “Well, can you tell what it is?” she asked.

I looked and there it was: a little boy.

After she showed us a few more pictures to make sure we were seeing what we thought we were seeing. James was going to have a little brother. Bryan pointed to the screen and told James to look and he looked up and clapped.

It was so cute. I guess he knew all along and is excited for his friend from heaven to come and join him. :)

It’s going to be a great adventure.

We will be going back around week 34 to get another ultrasound to check something on me that could have a possibility of complicating labor, but nothing to worry about.

We looked into shows in Las Vegas and thought about other places we could go.

Or… We could stay around here and celebrate by going to dinner or something and buy a new mattress.

In the end, after many long debates, we decided to get a new mattress. We found on last Saturday and decided to get it now. We upgraded from a queen to a king and it is WONDERFUL!

The first night we slept in it, Bryan climbed in bed and asked where I was. He reached over and touched my arm and said, “oh, there you are, at arms length away, just where I like you.” I laughed and laughed. We are not cuddly sleepers, we have to have our own space. The king bed does that so well we can both stretch out as much as we like and he still won’t be in my foot or elbow space…both of which are very important for me to have in order to sleep.

Our big problem is that we don’t have any bedding (we just bought a set of sheets and are using various blankets for right now).

I fell in love with this bedding that I saw on Apartment Therapy:

The post said that it is available at Bed, Bath and Beyond in stores but not online. So I looked in the stores here in Utah valley and had no success. I’ve checked online and it is nowhere to be found so now i have to decide if I should wait and hold out for the bedding that I know I love, or should I just go out looking for something else that I can love and buy that for our bedding instead?

Hmmm.

What do you think? I’m kind of picky about things like bedding, so it might be better for me to hold out. Technically, the whole bedding set is going to be my mothers day gift, so I would love to have it before mothers day.

Hmmm.

At the beginning of the year, I was pregnant, and huge and uncomfortable.

Finding a comfortable way to sit at work for eight hours a day really brought out the creativity in me… In the picture above, please note, there are two different chairs in my cubical (I had two others in the empty cubical next to me that I swapped with too), there is a can of Easy Cheese on the floor next to me (no wonder I gained so much weight), I am sitting on the floor, propped up by a padded stool, my shoes are on the floor next to the Easy Cheese, and yes, that is a life vest (who doesn’t have life vests in their cubicles at work?).

We traveled to California to get family pictures taken before Joseph left.

The happy McFamily clan…

My favorite little brother, joined the ranks of missionaries in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He left to go serve and teach the people in Cusco, Peru on March 19.

Our Sweet Baby James joined our family in April. Becoming the 3rd member of our Phelps family; the 12th to the Sue and Sherm Phelps family (we added 11th a few months before, with cute Maddy and 13th three months later with Aubrey); the 11th to the Ed and Kenna McCracken Family; and the 81st to the Kent and LouJean Walker family.

He also completed five generations…

Bottom from Left to Right: James Edward Phelps, Afton Bullock, Katie Phelps. Top from Left to Right: Kent S. Walker, Kenna L. McCraken. This is my mom’s dad, and his mom.

Then when James was two weeks old, we packed up and moved.

We actually closed on the house three days before James was born while I was on bed rest (the people were so nice and came and let us sign all the documents at our house, so I could stay in bed, well, close to the bed), received the keys the day before James was born (and I wanted to go walk through our house with our own set of keys and kind of broke the bed rest… James decided to come later that night. I wonder if I pushed myself into labor?)

Moving with a 2-week-old really wasn’t that bad. I didn’t really have to do anything. ha ha ha!

We were called to be nursery workers in our new ward.

I quit my job of three years at Henry Schein Practice Solutions and said good-bye to my cubical friend, BJ for the last time.

He was our department dummy. Now I stay home and play with James all day. In Aug. I also began babysitting my friend, Ian’s, little girl, Leyla.

Bryan quit his job at OrangeSoda and started a new job at MonaVie.

We sadly said good-bye to Teddy.

After moving to a house without grass and no fence, Teddy started having a lot of accidents and running away a lot. We realized he deserved something better and we found it for him. A cute family from Payson had one Shiz-tsu and wanted another one to be their 11-year-old son’s dog. They wanted a dog that their son could play with and sleep with and call his own. They had a big fenced yard with lots of grass and had a doggie door so Teddy could come and go as he pleased. I cried and cried. I still miss him sometimes. But I know he’s much happier with a yard and grass.

James was a tiger for Halloween.

And one time when we went to show off his cute costume, I forgot the jacket. The second time he wore it, he had a blow-out all over it. So he didn’t really do a lot of Halloween celebrating in it, but he sure looked cute.

James loved Thanksgiving because of all the mashed potatoes and small pieces of ham he got.

We celebrated our first Christmas as a family and it was wonderful.

2010 was a really great year.

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