Baby Mckay

It's funny how I thought right when we had our little guy I would be much better at updating this thing because I would have cute pictures and fun things to talk about... I guess it doesn't work that way for me, but I will keep trying. Well, we now have a cute, adorable, precious baby boy in our home with us and he is now almost 6 weeks old. That's crazy.

Anyways, some people have asked how the delivery went so I will talk about that a little bit. All in all it was a lot easier than I expected. Actually to the annoyance of many mothers I feel like the labor and delivery, nursing, staying up at night, and starting to exercise again has been a lot easier than I expected. But I give all the credit to Mckay because he is such a calm, easy baby.

The day he was born I started having labor pains around 6 in the morning and they came every 25 minutes or so. However, they only lasted about 20 seconds-ish and really just felt like I was having cramps. I kept sleeping until about 8:30 and would wake up a little every time they came but that's about it. Jake left for work and I told him the contractions were happening regularly so today was probably the day. He packed a bag quick before he left and i went about my day getting ready, cleaning the house, and studying. I called jake to come home at about 10:30 because the contractions were getting more painful and were 5-10 minutes apart (I would describe them like cramps times 10, but still not unbearable or causing tears or anything). We got to the hospital around noon. I had only had 1 contraction on our 25 minute drive over and was afraid they wouldn't admit us. I feel like they thought they wouldn't admit us either because I wasn't really in much pain between contractions when i checked in. However, I was dilated to a 6 at that point (is that too much info? sorry) and we got the last delivery room available. There was literally a line of women in labor waiting for a room. We were so lucky.

I ended up getting an epidural a lot earlier than I would have liked. The anesthesiologist came in and said he was super busy today and if he didn't give it now he wouldn't be back for at least 3 hours. That was kind of disappointing because I didn't feel like I was able to experience the "pains of labor" which I kind of wanted to at least for a bit. He gave me the lowest dose he could so I could still feel and move my legs and could kind of tell when I was having a contraction. Well about 3 hours after the epidural I started to deliver. There was one scary moment when I had a 4 minute long contraction which stressed out Mckay. His heart rate went down and they put me on oxygen. They acted like it wasn't a big deal but I knew it could easily go bad and I was worried. But we waited a few minutes and everything looked fine so we kept going. At 6:01 pm on November 28th, Mckay was born. It was so great to finally be able to meet him and hold him and it has been great ever since.

Now at 6 weeks old he is an awesome sleeper (5-6 hours before he wakes me up to eat), he loves laying on his tummy (if he is squirmy I lay him down either on a blanket or the boppy and he will hang out for about 10 minutes by himself and longer if I am playing with him), he loves baths but seems kind of confused about what's going on, he is smiling a lot lately, and loves playing and dancing with his dad (gangnam style, much to my dismay). He is growing up so fast. Today I put him down for a nap on a blanket unswaddled (silly me) and was in another room cleaning when I heard him crying and went in to find him off the blanket and onto his stomach. I don't really know how that happened because I know he isn't rolling yet. My best guess is a noise scared him and his fast moving arms propelled him off the blanket. haha. He seemed very traumatized, but it was quite funny.
It has really been so rewarding and fun having him in our home and our family, we are so blessed to have a beautiful, healthy, happy baby.

Here are some of my favorite pictures over the past 6 weeks. The quality of some of them is quite poor due to our ipod camera. Sorry!

This is about an hour after he was born. 

It's funny how unlike himself he looked the first few days after he was born. This picture is so funny

Here are some bath pictures taken a few weeks ago

 Mckay's 1st Christmas in a 3 month size Santa suit that is much too large on him

And here are some random photos I love. The left was when he was about 2.5 weeks old and looking very angry and very alien-ish. He has been smiling a lot more now and I love it, he even poses for pictures. 

Here is my life the past 6 weeks. Hanging out with this cute guy at home and taking pictures all day.

Growing up

I guess now that we are going to have a baby it's time we grow up. Jake has taken that advice to heart and graduated with his Bachelor's degree in Accounting from UVU. He just started working this week at his uncle's accounting firm in Salt Lake. He is really liking it! It is really laid back, he is working there with a friend he grew up with, and they get to go golfing a lot. Pretty much the life for him.

As for me last week I took my last physical therapy test, and started my last internship of physical therapy school. After this semester all the physical therapy I will be doing will actually be for money! That is just crazy to think about. I am now interning with a therapist doing vestibular and balance rehab at Performance West PT in Bountiful.

 Here are some pictures of us biking about a month or so ago at Sun Valley and at Bear Lake. Those pictures won't be coming anymore this summer though because I have finally decided to hang up my helmet for the season (much later than my mom would have liked).

 Our last ride in Sun Valley we went on the 18 mile Fisher-Creek trail. It was super fun but I am not going to lie after 7 miles of straight uphill I was feeling very pregnant and very distraught. Nothing fruit snacks couldn't solve though.

 Here we are at our condo in Sun Valley. We were going to go up with my whole family but then last minute no one else could go and my mom couldn't get a refund. Thus we had to go by ourselves to the fully paid beautiful condo. My mom told us happy Baby-moon.

 After biking in Sun Valley we went to the most beautiful lake we had ever seen. Red Fish Lake near Stanley, Idaho. We loved hanging out there on the beach and swimming and will be going back in the near future.

 Here we are biking in Logan Canyon while we were at Bear Lake with Jake's family. It's weird how I have started liking the uphill a lot better than the downhill lately just because I go so slow downhill that it's not all that fun.

How Jake has been going up to Bear Lake every summer for the past 24 years and never heard of Bloomington Lake astounds me. This place is on the Idaho side of the lake up a canyon, and is SO pretty. As you can see it also has an awesome rope swing. It looked way fun but I figured I probably should be smart and motherly and not do it.

It was a ton of fun there but started pouring rain on us. We still stayed for quite a while but then we saw lightning and thought we'd better head.

And finally, here I am at 25 weeks. Have you heard of the maternity belly band? Best thing ever. It's a band that goes over your old pants (that you can't zip up any more) and up over your belly and holds your pants in place. That way you don't have to 1-spend a bunch of money on cute maternity pants or 2-wear ugly maternity pants. It's that black thing I am wearing in the picture and just looks like a tank top. Brilliant!

I am now 26 weeks pregnant and still doing really well. Even though Jake doesn't have a biking buddy anymore I am still going to the gym a couple times a week after work and running/biking a couple of miles. I'm feeling the baby kick all the time. People tell me that how active they are before there born is a good indication of how they will be afterwards. If that is true this little guy is gonna be all over the place. I think we have decided on the name Mckay but now the question is should the "K" be capitalized or not? Jake says yes because he thinks it looks cool, but I am not sure if that makes it girly or more difficult. Not that it is really that big of a deal but I thought I would try to get other's opinions. 

I'm Back! And with a Boy!

So I have decided it's time to come back to the blogging world. But for a good reason. Jake and I are having a baby! A cute little boy to be exact, and we are so excited! We got to see him for the first time yesterday and thought it would be fun to let you see.

Here he is!

Apparently he doesn't like to be bothered...

Here is a cute profile of him with his hand near his mouth.

I loved this shot. He's already got a great looking brain. Maybe he will have a "photographic memory" like his dad. (Jake likes to think he does anyways)

For all of you who keep asking for a photo of me, and although I feel very strange taking these profile shots, here it is. When I took this I thought I was 19 1/2 weeks, but after the Dr's visit apparently I am only 17 1/2 weeks. Bummer. But actually it is great news for me because I will probably be able to finish my entire last semester Physical Therapy internship before he is born. That way I will be able to graduate on time! My new due date is December 3 and my clinical rotation will end around November 16 because I will be starting it a week early. Hopefully I can keep going strong until then!

Here are the names we like best and semi-favorite order: Bentley, McKay, Tyler, and Mason. Feel free to comment on them or give suggestions!

Busy being a PT

Turns out I haven't posted anything in probably over a month. I guess working 40 hours a week but not getting paid makes me tired or something at night? Who knows. Yeah, that's right, I am now working full time as a (student) Physical Therapist. I have been working at Orem Pediatric Physical Therapy and it has been amazing. I have learned so much, and it is crazy how different physical therapy is when you are working with kids vs adults.

Some of the things I have learned as a pediatric student PT
1. If adults have a weak trunk, they slouch and it is fixed by doing sit-ups, planks, etc. If kids have a weak trunk they w-sit (sit on their knees with their feet out wide, which looks very painful) and to fix it we bounce them up and down on a therapy ball pretending we are on a pirate ship and we can't fall on the hot lava.

2. If you have a baby that always have their head rotated one way or tilted one way when they are playing, sleeping, etc, go to the doctor! Their muscle on one side of their neck is probably tighter than the other and if you don't do anything about it they will stay tilted their whole life, have vision problems, probably have a flat spot on the side of their head, and their facial features might be uneven. Also if they have a flat spot go to the dr before they are close to a year old, because then it's basically to late to give them a helmet or anything.

3. I hope my children have great imaginations. It makes life so much fun. I was working with one girl who had a pet monkey we had to take through the jungle (running outside in the long grass) and a pet spider we had to build a tunnel for it to crawl through (her doing bridges on her back). It was so much fun

4. The parent's of children with disabilities are without a doubt the strongest people I will ever meet. Just to give you an idea, the kids I have worked with have diagnoses ranging from cerebral palsy to autism, muscular dystrophy to hydrocephalus, torticollis to hemophilia. The parents for these children never cease to amaze me. Whether the children are able to walk, only crawl, just stay in their wheelchair, have already passed away or will pass soon, the dedication and the tears that have gone in to making these children's lives the best they can be, are phenomenal.

5. As much as I love working as a physical therapist, I feel very lucky to be a woman instead of a man. Working part time as a physical therapist sounds so much more appealing than working full. time. for. the. rest. of. my. life.

6. I now notice that I have really had a lack of children in my life. Without any nieces or nephews, and being 6 when my youngest brother was born, I haven't really had the opportunity to interact with babies. Having this internship has been so good for me not only to learn important things about enhancing child development, but it has also been great for me to just be able to play with babies. Hopefully Jake will learn how to play with babies too. It's probably not a great sign when he says "Ages 2 and up, I am golden; but any younger than that are boring because they don't really do anything." Haha.


Here are a few things I have learned in the last month that aren't physical therapy related, but equally important:

1. It's not a great idea to go to sacrament meeting 1 minute late when you are in a small chapel and have 2 baby blessings that day. Because then you have to sit in the choir seats and on your way up there you might trip over one of the steps and fall on your face in front of the whole congregation. Good thing I didn't fall on my face, but it was way too close for comfort.

2. Pinterest is a great place to find awesome new recipes. Such as: homemade wingers sticky fingers, homemade cafe rio pork salad, homemade butterfingers (world's best and easiest treat), banana oatmeal smoothie, buffalo chicken grilled cheese, PF changs mongolian beef, salsa chicken, etc. All SOO good.

3. The new Draper Flow trail is a new favorite addition to our Northern Utah repertoire of mountain biking trails. But I guess any trail that you do after a one month break, when the leaves are changing, and with an awesome view of the Draper temple will easily be put on that list.

4. A fun and easy relief society activity (if you are the one that has to put it on), is a service auction. All you have to do is print out papers for each sister to fill out and get points (points are awarded for if you went to the temple in the past month, read your scriptures that day, did your visiting teaching for that month, bottled jam recently, showered before noon that day, etc). Then you bid on services people have brought or written down (homemade raisin bread, free hair cut, free interior design appointment, babysitting for a date night, desserts, etc). It was so fun!

5. Training for the Provo Halloween Half-Marathon with my friend Shauna has been a lot more fun and a lot less difficult than I would have thought. Hopefully the earlier and colder nights don't put a damper on things.

Well I think that is all I've learned in the last month, or at least all I want to write down right now.

Only one minute left in my brain.

When I'm not working 12 hour days at my internship without getting paid, eating dinner, cooking dinner for tomorrow, or cleaning, I am watching this. Ahoy dehoy!

Bryce vs The Grand

Last week Jake and I went camping/biking/hiking at Bryce Canyon for a couple days, followed by the Grand Canyon for a couple days. It was a lot of fun, and although I have wanted to go to the Grand Canyon my whole life, I have to admit our Bryce adventure was more fun. (However I do  know that backpacking rim to rim or going to Havasupai would trump both. I just have yet to experience that).

Here were some of the good and bad about our Bryce Canyon experience
-Our campsite was awesome. Bright red rocks surrounded us right when we stepped out of the tent.
-we got kicked out of our awesome campsite because it was a double site and we only paid for a single. The next night we got stuck in a site right next to the road and outhouse with no trees. Complain, complain.
-Biking Thunder Mountain trail was, yet again, one of the best rides I've ever been on.
-We spent $2 for a hot shower (which was so worth it) and it shutting off when Jake was covered in soap.
-"The best 3-mile hike in the world" really is the best 3-mile hike in the world.
-We were always so surprised when we walked by someone that actually spoke English. The entire time we were at Bryce, maybe 5 families were American.
-I saw so many I heart NY or I heart SF or I heart HK. I thought of a new one. I heart HSWW. (.....hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry....)

Good and Bad of Grand Canyon
-We got to stay in Jacob Lake Campground. Next to Jacob Lake Inn where Jake used his credit card that said Jacob Lynn Layton and they thought it was a company card. Jake went along with it.
-Both nights families decided to pick the campsite and set up their tent literally 10 yards away from us, when they had probably 45 other sites to choose from. That site didn't even have shade.
-We made the ultimate smore's. A layer of peanut butter under the chocolate + my fine roasting skills = the best s'more you will EVER taste. "Peanut Butter makes the world go round" -Jake
-We made friends with some Spaniards on our bike trail. Jake fell in love with them and talked with them about European soccer for like 20 minutes (so they thought we were pretty cool). Than they gave us the t advice to start hiking Grand Canyon later, like 10, so when you come back up it will be like 4 and be really shady and nice.
-We followed their advice and started at 10. The only problem is, apparently we hike a lot faster than them because we were hiking back up at noon. Lets just say that wasn't the best 5-mile hike in the world.

Biking Failures

So the past THREE times I have tried to go mountain biking I have failed in some way or another.

Last Friday: My little sister came down to Provo to go on a great trail in American Fork Canyon with us but we had a series of unfortunate events. We woke up late, had to stop at the ATM to get 1 more dollar in cash to pay the entrance fee, didn't know the construction up the canyon would give us a 30 minute detour, and our car was almost out of gas. So by the time we got halfway up we had to turn back around because we didn't want to run out of gas and Jake was going to be late to work. Instead we went on a smaller, but still fun trail, where my sister had to sit down for 10 minutes because she was so dizzy/dehydrated. We failed.

Last Saturday: We went to Snow Basin Resort and paid for a day pass to go up the lifts and ride down the biking trails. It was fun, but a lot more rocky and less flowing than we had expected. Also on the last ride down only my sister and I went, and my bike got a flat tire. We soon figured out that my extra tube had the wrong type of valve; good thing Rachel had a spare. Although my bike failed and the flow failed, we still had a  grand time.

Today: Jake and I tried to go BACK up American Fork canyon to the trail we tried last week. We had no setbacks until we got onto the trail. 100 yards up our tires, chains, and brakes were so caked in mud that our wheels wouldn't turn. I guess it poured up there last night without our knowledge. We had to carry our bikes back to the car, and spend 30 minutes de-mudding them.

I wonder if I should just quit trying. Hopefully tomorrow in Park City will be more successful.