Nathan fun

We must have had a long day. He just couldn't seem to make it to the bed.

This video sums up Nathan's interaction with Alison. As quickly as he wanted to spend time with her was also as quickly as he wanted to get rid of her:

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

A Great Man

George Standage

A great man left us this afternoon.

My Grandpa Standage was a giant among men. He was a sweet soul who was with us for eight eight years. He served in the Arizona Temple presidency as well as a personal mission and two missions with his wife including Switzerland and Washington D.C. He was a temple sealer who performed sealings up until the final year of his life. He married most if not all of his grandchildren (which is alot!)

He always had a great disposition and a willingness to serve. I will be left with great memories of him, and I am grateful that I have this picture of him with Caitlyn when she was a baby.

Although it can be hard to say goodbye it is always comforting to know that the pain has ended and that he is with family members on the otherside looking over us.

He will be missed

One Week Old

Everybody reading this will probably be sick of pictures, but for documentary purposes... Here is Alison - One Week Old

enjoyment

I am just fully enjoying my time with little Alison. She has been a joy so far. Its funny to say, but I am already missing the newborn phase. I can just remember how fast it goes and I dont want to miss a thing. I wish I could freeze time with her being so small to enjoy it longer.

and four became five

Alison O'Loughlin

Saturday September 12, 2009

5:25 a.m.

8 lbs 6 oz

21 inches long

We were so happy to make it to September 12th instead of the 11th (for obvious reasons). We got to the hospital and started pitocin at 7:30 p.m. My doctor came into our room at 9 p.m. and said that he could break my water to get things rolling faster. I declined. This was one labor I was okay with having for an extra few hours.

I finally got my epidural at 12:30 and all was well. The worst part hit me around 3 in the morning. The epidural was working too well and my legs felt like 500 lbs of dead weight. I couldnt move or lift them with my arms. It was a weird feeling that I didnt remember from before. It made me anxious and clostrophobic. I just had to lay in bed and talk myself through it so I didnt freak out. By 4:15 a.m. I was fully dialated. My epidural was now working great. I could move my legs a bit and I could feel the contractions coming, but didnt have the pain.
The doctor got there about 5 a.m. and Alison was born at 5:25. In the process he said a few comments about her broad shoulders and how they were giving him problems. I was thinking "great- this is going to be a horrible recovery". Lets just say the me + labor

(she came out flapping her tongue around. She is definitely a contender for the longest tongue in our family)

dont always go well. Caitlyn and

Nathan both did a number on me. I had the worst... how do I put this lightly... I had the worst "war wound" you could have from normal delivery. It took me weeks to fully recover. After the doctors comments I thought I was doomed again. I was over the moon when he said that I had not torn and that I didnt need a stitch. I was shocked actually. Chad later informed me that he used tons of mineral oil during the process of the delivery. Thank you, Dr. Dowswell!

The hat I brought for her was too big, but still a pretty cute photo op.

Going home

Caitlyn was busting from the seams all weekend waiting to have her chance to see Alison. She got all dressed up to greet her when she got home.

Nathan said "hello" to her, posed for a picture and was off. He stops on occasion to acknowledge her.

Caitlyn immediately got to work. She picked out a flower to go in her hair and got her Tigger book to read to her. Funny thing is - Alison actually looked interested.

Okay - so if you have made it to the end of this monsterous post then you deserve to know how we decided on spelling Alison with one L.
Chad sold it to me for a hundred bucks.
Best money I ever spent.

How you shouldnt start your holiday weekend.... but you can turn in around

Okay, yesterday morning was eventful. Lets just say when trying to reach an item on the top shelf of a closet coupled with the fact that you are over nine months pregnant and have gained 'X' amount of pounds it is not a good idea to try to catapult yourself upwards by getting a boost from a low shelf. Expecially when that low shelf is made of particle board.
It could possibly result in a broken shelf and the pregnant girls fall being broken by a higher shelf catching the nine month mass in front of her.

It didnt feel good.

I tried to laugh it off at first. I called my sister and Chad to tell of my tale and how I the wound on my stomach really hurt. Then it started to REALLY hurt. I thought of the possibility of actually hurting the baby. After all, the result of my poor judgement hit right where the baby's head is. When cramping started to increase, so did my worry. I called my doctor and was told that somebody would call me back (which by the way did not happen until 4 o'clock). Chad was worried and instructed me to go the hospital. By that time I was at Walmart with Sarah, so she promptly chauffered me to hospital to be checked out.

Enter hospital room. (After being chastised for not pre-registering) The monitors are on, and contractions are definitely present. Some not so great. We went through and ultrasound to make sure there wasnt an abruption to the placenta. All is well. The contractions were not strong enough for them to keep me there, there were no beds anyway, and my doctor informed me that he has somewhere to be at 5. So away we were sent. Walk of shame? I dont consider it to be. Better safe than sorry. I really did mess up my stomach and this picture does not do it justice.

(If you can see past the blinding white skin... I roughed it up pretty good. This is below my belly button.)

No sense in pouting at home. We headed to Olive Garden with Ben and Sarah. Then we were off to Sportsman's. Why you ask? Well, the guys like to go there, and I really wanted some pictures of the kids with the small shopping carts. They are so cute.

After Sportsman's we got some frozen yogurt at Ocean Blue. Kids can come up with some interesting concoctions, but they seem to always end with sprinkles on top.


This is my "Yikes what am I still doing here pregnant" face.

Wasn't this morning awesome! We were up at 6:15 - outside riding bikes. We couldnt pass up the good weather so we decided to take a bike ride. Well, Caitlyn rode a bike and Nathan prefered the more royal treatment of being pulled in a wagon.
We made our way to Albertsons for a healthy breakfast of donuts and juice. Kids were still in their pajamas of course. That made it more fun.

Zoom in on Nathan's face in this one. Its completely priceless.

We then made our way to the park to enjoy our breakfast and for some fun in the soon-to-be rain.

As the clouds were getting thicker we decided it was time to head home. As soon as we set off, raindrops the size of eggs were hitting the ground. We ran to the nearest ramada to wait it out. It didnt take long and then we were back on our way.

So, the moral of this story is: if I had gone into labor yesterday we would not have been able to enjoy this morning. We had a great time that will definitely be remembered.

For Melissa

Here are pictures of the new girl's room. I have had it done for a while and have been promising to post pictures so Melissa can see. I have been reluctant because it doesnt have all of the finishing touches that I would like to have completed. Then I thought... maybe people can give me ideas! So - feel free to share if anything strikes you. All of the big stuff is done. I just need help with little details to make it feel complete. Ya know - stuff for shelves and things.

Oh - and if anybody has an idea of how to make a cupcake clock - please share :)

Caitlyn's side of the room

I was so happy that the doll house I made for Christmas matched the dark pink the bedding.

You cant see it very well, but the pink vase is holding all different kinds of wooden cooking utencils. ( I put an upclose picture of it below) The lamp is Caitlyn's old lamp, but I made a new cover for it out of scrapbook paper and ribbon. I just accordian folded the paper and then tied it around the old shade. It worked out great! Kudos to Sarah for the idea.

My cool stenciled canvas says "Stay Calm and Have a Cupcake". I have now realized how much I dont like stenciling. It is not for the perfectionist. It took me so long to do!

Got to love the big letters. I was lucky enough to find scrapbook paper that looked identical to the material that I used to make aprons for the girls. (pictured below on the crib). Sarah gave me this great shelf and I thought that pictures of different cupcakes would be entirely appropriate.

Caitlyn loves art. She loves to display art too. I knew we needed some place designated just for that, so I made magnet boards out of cookie sheets. (I put an upclose picture of the magnets below). They are really easy to make if you are ever looking for a fun craft idea.

Here's a better close up of Caitlyn's bedside table set up.

The crib side. Okay - the ribbon on my drapes needs to be fixed. I know. I made them in about an hour. I am not entirely pleased with them, but it does the job for now and I think they go with the room?

I got some help with the aprons from my mom. They are a really cute vintage - flare style apron.

I totally lucked out finding this bedding on sale at Ross for 29.99. That is what the room was based around because seriously, who could pass up that deal? It was even better when we found Caitlyn's bedding on sale at target for $42.99. I love it when you can find a good deal for something that you actually looking for. It makes the experience so much more enjoyable.

All I did to it was add some rinestones to some of the circles to bring in some pink. At some point I plan on adding a big pink ribbon to the bottom the crib skirt as well.

This is not a glamorous shot, but I am just so happy to have an organization system in the closet. I would really like to get the clothes into labeled buckets at some point, but for now I am totally happy with this.

upclose for the sake of design

bedside lamp that has been recovered with scrapbook paper

Its amazing what you can find at the dollar store. Packs of 4 cooking utencils, cookie sheets...

I love it!

the magnets

cute aprons

I am so glad that the pink fan blades that we painted a while back still match. It would have been a pain to have to repaint those.

Okay - so this is a shelf I need help with. I would lov to do some thing with the theme here. Currently it is in a sad state. I am thinking about velcroing some curtains on the inside and tie them with ribbon off to the side of the shelves just to make it more girly - but as for decorations - I'm drawing a blank.

Oh - one more idea I have had.... to hang chalkboards from the closet doors. Ya know - bakery style. I would want them to be the size of the cheap framed mirrors at walmart (long retangular) but I'm not sure how to turn those into chalkboards. Its still a work in progress.

As you can see any ideas would be helpful :)

Milestones

The excitement was palpable.

Caitlyn tied her shoes for the first time by herself.

As a proud parent I immediatly, and silently praised Chad and I for the assistance in teaching this new found skill, but my praise was short lived when she informed me that she just remembered the steps from "Special Agent Oso".

Great.

Traditions passed on

When Caitlyn was a baby we started her off in pink Converse All Stars. We are now on our fifth pair progressively increasing in sizes. As Chad and I walked around the mall last night (trying to induce labor) we contemplated what shoes to start for this baby, then we passed the Vans store.

Her official shoe will be

checkered Vans slip ons.

I dont know why we do it. We didnt do it for Nathan. Its for the girls of the family, but we have fun giving them a signature shoe.

So here is the first of many pairs to come.