Christmas in Claresholm

So in the past I never really cared very much for Christmas, I do have good memories of Christmas as a child, but I also have hard memories and I think thats why I never cared much. But this year I was losing sleep with anticipation, I don't know what it was. Maybe the fact that we now have a little baby to establish traditions and excitement with or perhaps I didn't feel overwhelmed with the thought of buying presents that people wouldn't like. I also spent almost the whole month before Christmas arrived listening to music and think about our Saviour and the true meaning of Christmas, we also had the missionaries over like 3 times in the month before Christmas to remind us of what we should be focusing on at Christmas.

The missionaries were saying that during the week around Christmas they hardly have any appointments, with or without members of the church, which surprised me. We always had the missionaries in our home around Christmas when we were growing up, they just help bring the right spirit into the home. I love the sacrifice missionaries make for two years, it never ceases to impress me.

This year Jared and I kept it simple, no big gifts, I just got a few things for our stocking and that was all the money we really spent other than presents for the siblings we drew in our family. We didn't even get anything for Mr.Magoo, we figured we just bought him a package of diapers before Christmas, and the Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles would cover the rest just fine.

We spent Christmas with Jared's family this year, and it was great, it has been a little overwhelming at times with a one month old who seemed to have gotten very fussy since being here (thank goodness for patient grandparents!) plus ALOT of noisy nieces and nephews. My best present this year I think has truly been that I could spend so much time with family. Yes, it is not home and things aren't always ideal, but look I have time to write a blog post while Far Mor (Scandinavian for Grandma) keeps my fussy boy content, some what.

Little Mr.Magoo really got spoiled even though he didn't receive anything from his cheap parents. Lots of clothes and toys and books. And his parents got pretty spoiled too even though they were not expecting it. Gift cards and sweaters along with a couple other things, plus things for their little guy which really makes me most happy.

Here are just a couple pictures of Christmas morning. I wish we would have taken a few more but we are bad at remembering to take pictures.


Me with sleeping Magoo, and Jared's sister and her (now) fiance, they just got engaged last night! Yay for weddings.

Mr.Magoo in his Christmas PJ's that Far Mor got for him, and I think they are so cute on him, I do love him in green.

So we will head to my parents house for New Years, wish us luck in the drive, hopefully we get Sleepy Magoo for the drive and not Fussy Magoo. I am so excited to see and spend time with my side of the family, I think that since having a baby I have felt so cooped up and somewhat isolated just cause I think going very many places for long periods of a time doesn't seem like that much of an option, or they just take a lot of extra planning.

I hope everyone else had an excellent Christmas with fond memories, I know this one will be one to for the good memory bank for me.

Photo Shoot Fun

First of all can I just say that I think it's crazy that this:


came outta this:



So I got photos taken of me when I was about 37 weeks or so, and we got pictures of Mr.Magoo when he was just about 2 weeks old and I thought I would share a few of our little guys shoot.


Jared is such and awesome Dad, although I kinda saw it coming long before he became one, I guess that's one reason I married my hunk of burning love...

Yes, I am putting up a picture of my baby crying. It is so heartbreaking to hear and see your baby cry, but so precious and innocent all at the same time.


I just love my new little family. It's funny that before we had our little guy it felt like we were a couple, and now it feels like we are a real family, and an awesome little family at that.

p.s. if you are wondering who took our pictures you can check out her website here. We loved having her do our shoot and would recommend her to any one, she is not only really talented at what she does but she is a lot of fun while she does it.

The day my life changed...

So there have been a few requests for me to get this post up, but it is crazy how your time seems to be consumed when you are a new mom and still trying to establish some sort of routine. And even as I write this I am hoping that I can finish before my little guy wakes up and wants to eat... again...

So I guess I better get started.

My due date was November 11 and by November 20 we decided to go for an induction. After a very sleepless night we got to the hospital at 8am on Saturday (the 20th) to start the process. I was put on the monitor for a half hour and then was checked and had to have cervidel (sp?) to "ripen things"...

If while you read this and there are thing you don't understand what I am talking about, go look it up. I don't plan to go into great detail about certain things.

So I had to stay at the hospital I was free to walk around but had to be back every hour to be put back on the monitor to see how my baby was doing. I had small contractions during this time but really nothing special. My mom got the hospital around 3pm, it was really nice that she was able to come, I really appreciated her being there.

At 5:30pm or so my doctor checked me again and said that I had gotten to the point where they could rupture my membranes. And then she told me she didn't know if they would be able to cause there were a few women already in labour and they didn't know if they had enough nursing staff. But they decided to go ahead with it, which I was glad for cause I really didn't want to wait through the night. After they ruptured my membranes well thats when the party really got started. I just want to say that having your membranes ruptured is probably one of the most disgusting things ever, at least to me it was. It was sick and stank. So when they said I could finally get in the shower I was so grateful. The shower was awesome for me, it helped with contraction and had this cleansing effect... it was glorious. I spent quite a bit of time in the shower.

By 8pm or so I hadn't progressed very much so the stared me on pitocin (a.k.a. "the drip) and that really kicked my contractions into high gear. I had really bad back labour. And as they increased the pitocin I slowly felt like the pain in my back would cripple me. It's hard to really explain the feelings you go through when your in labour, but for me it was horrible. I laboured on a birthing ball for most of the time after they stared me on pitocin, it seemed to help keep the baby's heart rate normal. By 10pm I was at the full dose for pitocin and in between contractions I was so exhausted it took all my strength to stay on the ball, and it seemed like there was no position I could get in during contractions to ease the pain. I was in so much pain and so tired and Jared could tell I was not doing well.

Jared eventually suggested that maybe I get an epidural. I did not take that very well, I was pretty upset that he even suggested it after everything we had talked about during my pregnancy. After I had said no the nurse decided to point out that if I was not able to relax and progress that chances were I would end up needing a c-section, and I would end up having to get one anyways. So then I decided to consider it, and I eventually decided to get one, which was really hard on me, I just felt like a failure. The process of getting the epidural was so stupid, the guy who put it in had to do it THREE TIMES! Thats right 3! It does't really hurt, there is just a lot of pressure, but the whole thing where you have to sit in a stupid uncomfortable position through contractions while some guy puts a needle in your back is really difficult since they expect you to relax.

Once it was in though the medication could not kick in fast enough, I was begging for relief. Once it did kick in though I was able to take little cat naps in between contractions and went from 4cm to fully dilated in a half hour or so.

We thought that we would be having a baby on the 20th which just so happened to be my sister Robyn's birthday as well, but they decided I could start pushing a little after midnight, so we missed Robyn's birthday just by a couple hours.

Once I started pushing things were going well and I was progressing well until the very end. My little boy really did not want to come out. The doctor could see the head and everything but it seemed like after a certain point he just would not come down any further, so they decided that it was a cord complication, although they knew it wasn't around the neck, so they thought it was around the torso or a limb. So we decided to use the vacuum to try to assist the process, after try pushes with the vacuum we were still having some difficulty and by this point there was so much pressure and I desperately wanted him out. So we decided to go with an episiotomy and the vacuum and after a couple more times he finally came out! Yay, it was so relieving.

He was born at 1:55am on November 21. He weighed 7 pounds 6 ounces and was 20 1/8 inches long. I'm not going to put what his name is. For the blog purpose I will be calling him "Mr. Magoo" as I have kinda nicknamed him that at home. If you would like to know his name and you know me personally you can email me.


This was taken last week, it's my favourite picture of him so far.

This was taken just on Tuesday, and this is his classic look, very serious.

I have had some complications which I will have to post about another day, especially in the breast feeding department, but we are working on them and they will hopefully improve completely sooner than later.