Today and Friday

Here are a bunch of pictures. Mostly from today at my parents house, but a few from when my Aunt Lynn, cousin Alysia and her daughter Braydee Lou were visiting from Idaho this past week. My parents had a BBQ at their house on Friday while they were here with my grandma and grandpa Empey. These pictures got way out of order when I was adding them, I don't know what I did?? So anyway, here they are...enjoy!

I'm still here!

Just checking in letting everyone know our Internet has been down, we can't figure out what's wrong with it. Steven thinks he might have cut a wire when he was up in the attic a few weeks ago installing a whole house fan. So I'm not sure when it will be back up. I'm at my parents house right now, checking everyone's blogs.
Just a little Ava update, I took her in for her two month well baby check-up this past week. She is 13lbs 2oz and 23 3/4 inches long! Big girl! She's in the 99th percentile for her weight and 95th percentile for her height! She is doing so great and smiling all the time now! I'll get a picture up as soon as I can.
Also, for those of you who don't know, I am starting a daycare...I'll be doing daycare out of our home, so our life has been consumed with a new baby and getting our house ready for daycare! I am getting licensed and as well as having a preschool program for kids of that age. We just had our house inspected this morning and we passed! So a week from Monday I'll be up and running. I'm excited to start even though I think I might go a little crazy! lol. It will be good for us, we really need me to still have an income, but I didn't want to have to go back to working out of the home after having Ava, so here we are. I'll be doing this for probably the next 5 years or so until Steven finishes school. So wish me luck!!
Well, that is an update of what is going on in our life! Hopefully up Internet will be up and running soon so I can be back to blogging more regularly!

Ava's Blessing

This past Sunday we had Ava blessed. It was such an amazing feeling to have Steven bless our daughter. I really can't explain it, but those of you who have already been through this experience probably know what I mean. The spirit was with me so strongly all day. It was such a great day!
Here are a just a few pictures we took of Ava, she is just so beautiful! I know some of these are kinda blurry, I don't know why I have such a hard time getting a clear picture, no one else seems to have this problem, I think I just have shaky hands or something.

The blanket was made by Ruth Wilder, a good friend of my family.

I love this picture of her and Steven! He didn't know I was taking this, I'm so glad I caught the moment! It shows how in love with her he is. Steven is an amazing father, I can't believe how well and how fast he transitioned into fatherhood. He has been so great since day one, I am so thankful for him and love him so much!!

New pictures of AJ

So here are a bunch of new pictures of Ava. I know it's been a while, I've been meaning to get on here and put these up I just haven't sat down and done it. But my dad told me that Linda has requested more pictures asap, so here you go :)
Also, we had her two week well baby check up last week (she was actually three weeks old, her Dr. couldn't get her in any sooner). She is now 9.4 lbs and 21 inches! I can't believe how much bigger she is! And as of yesterday she is no longer in new born diapers. It's crazy how fast babies grow!

She is definitely her daddy's daughter!

I love this pic because it looks like she is annoyed with me that I put that big ol' hat on her.

This was this morning before church, her first time going.

My dad is a baby hog, he won't let anyone else hold her when he has her, it's pretty funny!



She is such a sweaty baby! I don't know if all babies sweat this much, but the poor girl is always sweaty. You can see her shinny sweaty face here.

Napping on grandpas lap.

Introducing....

Ava Janae Astle

4/4/08

7lbs 8oz & 20.25"

8:37am

We are so happy to finally have her here!

Just getting ready to leave the hospital. Sorry for the bad picture of Steven.

She is a very happy content little girl, with big blue eyes and lots of dark hair that we think will probably fall out and grow back blond. So far, everyone is saying she looks a lot like Steven, she has most of his facial features.

She is a very loved little girl!

Birth Story...

For those of you who haven't heard, I'll give a little recap of the loooong labor/birth.

I went to the Dr. on the 31st to have my check up, one week over due. He decided to have me induced the next day. So Tuesday 4/1/08 we went to the hospital at 7:00am they put a little pill (I can't remember the name) on my cervix that is supposed to make it thin out and then cause me to start having contractions. When I got to the hospital I was only 2cm, 70% effaced. After a couple of hours the contractions started coming, not very strong, but slowly getting stronger and closer together. By mid afternoon, my contractions seemed to be progressing quite well, so we were pretty excited thinking that night we would have her here. But little Ava decided to pull and April fools joke on us. Around 4:30 everything started slowing down...eventually to almost nothing. So my Dr. decided at midnight to send me home to get some rest and eat some food. He told me to stay home all day Wednesday, hoping that I would go into labor and if not then to come back Thursday morning and they would induce me again. We decided to do this to try to avoid having to have a c section. So, nothing exciting happened all day Wednesday, just very light contractions about 30 min. apart. So on Thursday we were back at the hospital at 12:00pm. They checked me and I was 2.5 cm and 80% effaced. Not much progress at all. They put the pill on my cervix again, and again a couple of hours later the contractions started coming, but not very strong and still not very close together. And my body wasn't making much progress. So at 4:30 my Dr. broke my water and then shortly after that the contractions came on! I endured them for 2 hours (2 of the most painful hours of my life) They checked me after two hours of really good contractions and I was only 3 cm, 90% effaced! I thought I was gonna die! So I asked for the epidural, and then life was much better. I was in labor for 13 more hours!!! Thankfully not feeling the crazy contractions I was having. Finally after an hour of pushing and the Dr. having to help with the vacuum, she arrived at 8:37am!

It was a very long week! But so worth every minute of it!! And Steven has been so great through all of it! I couldn't have asked him to do anything better.

I think my dad has some better pictures on his camera, so as soon as he gets those to me, I'll post some more pictures.

4 days past due!

So this picture was taken of me on Easter Sunday, my actual due date. It's still weird for me to see pics of myself, I can't believe how big my belly is!
It's now 4 days past my due date, and I'm just waiting...I want to be done so bad!!! I'm so tired all the time and I just want her here! So hopefully she will be here sooner then later. If nothing happens over the next few days I go to the Dr. again on Monday to see if any progress has happened. But I'm crossing my fingers that there will be no need for that appointment! :)

Still not here....

Just a quick baby update...I am now two days past my due date! I went to the Dr. yesterday, he said I was just barely one cm dilated and my cervix was about 50% thinned. But, told me not to get excited because it's possible to stay that way for another few days to a week or more! I am soooo ready! He also told me that she is going to be a big baby, he is guessing around 8.5 to 9 lbs! I'm actually not freaking out about that too much, I don't know why but I kinda expected to have a big baby. So we'll see... I have a picture of my belly that we took on my due date, so I could document how big it is, but I don't have it loaded on my computer yet, I'll try to get it on here today sometime.
Hope all is well with everyone! After looking at all your blogs it looks like everyone had a great Easter!!

Two years ago today...

Happy Two Year Anniversary!!

I can't believe it's been two years since we got married!! It's crazy how fast time flies and how much can happen in two years! I love him more then ever and can't wait to see what new and exciting changes the next year will bring!
Happy two years to us!

P.S. Happy St. Patty's day!

Baby Shower!!

A couple of Saturdays ago, my mom and some of her friends threw me a baby shower! It was a lot of fun, with good food, and good friends!! I have a bunch of pictures from it, so I'll just go down the pictures and make comments on them to tell you a little about the shower. And for those of you who are my Kelly cousins and the wives of my Kelly cousins, yes this is at Grandpa Kelly's house. He has a lot more seating in his living room then my mom does, so she decided to have it over there...it worked out great and it was so nice of him to let us all take over his house for the morning!

This was the little sign in table. My moms friend made those sheets for everyone to sign and write a little note on, they fit perfectly in the scrap book she started for me. And then there were also some things pick-up for some of the games that we played.

It was a brunch, so we had some really yummy egg casseroles, fruit pizza and my Grandma Empey's homemade cinnamon rolls. It was all sooooo good!!

A couple of pictures of some of the people who were there.

The gift table.

Some pictures of me opening gifts. Sorry, I'm not really looking at the camera in any of them. And some of them are a little dark. (and I really should have taken my jacket off, it makes me look so wide in all the pics, oh well) :)

I'm telling you this little girl is going to be so well dressed!! I love baby girl clothes!!

All the gifts sitting on the floor in the baby's room. I can't believe how generous everyone was!! We were given some really nice gifts and almost everything we needed for the baby. We hardly have anything left for us to go buy! Thank you!!

My friend Carrie made this really cool diaper cake! Those are all diapers for us to use! Such a pretty way to give a gift of diapers! I don't want to take it apart!

I just had to take a picture of the crib set, I love it!! Isn't it so cute?! We are decorating the room in frogs and lady bugs, so far it's turning out really cute! I'm going to take pictures of it when it's all done.

I'm going to have to do a quilt/blanket show and tell blog, we've had so many hand made quilts/blankets given to us! I feel like they deserve a blog of their own, ha! And just another side note, I was soooo sick on the day of my shower! That was the only bummer, but thankfully there is no close-up pictures of me, I had big ol' circles under my eyes! I went home afterwards and crashed out for awhile!