Laborly Weekend

Yet another year that Paul and I spend laboring about on Labor Day. One day we are going to HAVE to get out and go do something!! But it felt really nice to get stuff done around the house and have things looking like normal again.

My dad was home for the weekend and so to ensure everyone's attendance, we got together on Sunday for a sweet little BBQ. Unfortunately, it's still Labor Day weekend and so Kenny and Bronsynn were camping with Kenny's family and poor Sam is working 16 hour shifts every Saturday and Sunday while she is going to school to finish her degree so I have no idea when we will ever see her again.

My dad had come home the week of my due date and we all had big hopes that Asher would make his debut then...but we all know that he didn't and so at three weeks old this is the first time my dad was able to see his third grandson.

I love being able to eat and laugh out on the patio. It's my favorite. These dogs drive us all crazy running around knocking people down so we have to forbid them from coming onto the patio while we are there.

After dinner, we headed to the new baseball park and we had a little friendly game of softball. I love playing softball! The only thing I could do was stand out in the field with a mitt and hope the ball came toward me. And when I was up to bat I had to have a runner. My dad used to play softball in a league and he's still got it! That's dirt all over his clothes because he'd run for the ball and always end up on the ground. One time he tried to stop the ball from crossing the line by throwing his mitt at it on the ground. It was a 'had-to-be-there' moment:

My sister is a big jokester and made us laugh really hard on the short ride home. This is her...on the outside of the car:

And when we got back for Banana Splits, we slapped a bunch of candles on the gallon of ice cream and sang to my lovely mother who recently had a birthday :)

I love that Gaven provides his own kind of trick candle at the end.

Married!!!....Finally!

Warning: I have a buttload of pics in this post!!

YES!!! FINALLY!!

Paul's brother was married to his girlfriend of 8 years on August 27th up at the Legacy Lodge in Park City. It was a fantastic wedding...one that we've all been waiting for for a really long time!! Hilary and I started dating these handsome brothers the same year around the same exact time. Our friend, Judd, used to refer to me as 'Becky's friend with the Eternal Boyfriend' because Paul and I dated 4 years before marrying. Well, these two have us beat!! But they are now official.

They were married on the mountain at the top of the Ski Lift. The wedding was delayed shortly because of some thunder storms but when it was all safe, we all met as rehearsed and prepared for a truly great wedding!

B.J. with his brothers, Paul and Matt:

Add their little sister, Zoyie, into the mix:

My handsome man and I, only two weeks after our own 4 year wedding anniversary (and two weeks after our son was born!):

The entire wedding party and all guests attending the ceremony rode up by Ski Lift. We who were walking waited at the top and here is Paul GQ'in it up - such a stud:

It is EXTREMELY hot up on the mountain at this time of day. We melted the night before at the rehearsal and it was doubly bad this day. Waiting for the bride to arrive seemed to take forever with the heat but eventually we spotted her!

The bride, her parents, and brother:

She made a gorgeous bride. I loved her hair, her veil, the dress, the flowers and all the coordinating colors. It was magnificent!!

We walked down the aisle in pairs to traditional wedding music. B.J. was, of course, eagerly awaiting!:

They included their grandparents that have passed - there are four candles on top of the wood tower - one for Grandpa Budd and three for Hilary's grandparents who all passed in the last couple years:

And she made it down the aisle with her dad:

Giving Hilary away to her man:

The ceremony was very sweet and filled with laughs. It was totally great!:

And when it was over they walked away to the song "Say Hey (I Love You)". So cute!!

While all their guests made their way down to the Lodge, we had pictures done and I snapped away!

Hilary:

Zoyie with Antonio and Angelia (children of Paul's cousin):

The Budd family:

Hilary with her flower girls (so adorable!):

BJ and Hilary with their Best Men and Matron of Honor:

When pictures were done we headed down for Cocktail Hour while the Bride and Groom had their own pictures done. And how did everyone get down the mountain? Why the Alpine Slides of course!!! That lady up at the front on the right is Hilary's last grandparent and she rode down. She's seriously awesome. She's always walking around in her stylish outfits and heels!:

And yes, the bride and groom came down the same way. I don't have a picture because they were too far away to capture, but all of us on the deck of the Lodge had a view of them heading down the mountain and cheered them in!! Hilary's best friend bedazzled this garbage bag so that Hilary's dress would stay nice and contained!

Cocktail Hour was cut a little short because we were off schedule due to the rain. Everyone took their drinks inside to find their seating. It was so gorgeous! It was all set up so nice:

Then when we were all seated, B.J. and Hilary were announced and made their Grand Entrance as the new Mr. and Mrs. Budd!

We were served dinner and then toasts were made by both sets of parents, the Best Man (Paul), the Matron of Honor, Hilary's brother, and lastly Matt...which he was so scared to do a toast and politely declined giving one...and then the wedding coordinator misunderstood and gave Matt's name to the announcer and all of us (the family seating with each other) started laughing and turned to see Matt's face turn white! He did give a toast though and he did a good job!

The Groom's parents:

Paul as Best Man:

The Cake was cut soon after that!

Right after that they had their dance...which they took actual ballroom lessons for. They waltzed to At Last :

And then!!! The party began!! There was dancing and a whole lot of it the rest of the night! It was so much fun. I love this picture - B.J. has to dance WITH his drink:

Paul and I partyin' it up:

B.J. surprising us all with his dance moves...we had no idea he could dance!

And then the bouquet and garter was tossed, it was too dark in the building though for the videos that I shot. Soon after we lined up outside and lit sparkles and they ran down the sparklers into their horse-carriage and made their get-away (which was just to go around the parking lot and circle back around to their suite ha ha)!

It was about 11:30 by the time Paul and I left Park City to go and pick up Asher. My mom tended him for us for both nights. We were so exhausted and knew that we would need to take power naps at my mom's before we headed home. We woke up at 2 a.m. and went home. Paul gave Asher the rest of his bottle but he was zonked out - aren't they handsome??:

Yay for weddings!!! Such a fun night!!

Whoopsie Daisy

The family congregated to help my mom out with a little yard work and heavy lifting. A wedding reception was taking place later that week and besides that, she just wanted things to get done and look nice. Since my dad is out of town she needed help doing all the hard stuff. So after working outside a couple hours (I would have liked to, honestly, but alas I was put on task as the food maker), we all enjoyed fresh made BLT's with garden tomatoes (nearly the best thing on the planet).

It also happened to be Amanda's 35th birthday :) We didn't mention to her that we would be celebrating so we thought we'd try to make it a surprise. I had brownies in the oven and warmed them a little while she wasn't paying attention. Then I had Bronsynn take her outside so I could get the candles on and lit....but I only got as far as getting the candles on before Amanda came waltzing back inside. So I hurried and shoved the brownies back in the oven. While we were trying to get everyone gathered back in the kitchen, find a stupid lighter and light her stupid candles with her sitting right there the whole time, (and my mother was no help with this since everytime I tried to whisper something to her she would answer back really loud, for example "There should be a lighter on top of the fridge" or "You want me to do what?" Seriously. Does no one understand the concept of stealth??) the surprise was no longer a surprise. So I just brought the darn brownies out of the oven and then busted up laughing.

Earth to Maghann: putting brownies with candles in a warm oven results in melted candles.

But it looked very....festive, right?? Unique, even. In fact, I meant for that to happen. At least there was ice cream to compliment them :)

Silver Lake 'Hike'

The day before Paul went back to work, we decided to get out of the house and do something together before life got back to busy. I was looking forward to it very much since I would be trapped at home for the next couple weeks. We drove up Big Cottonwood to walk around the lake, or as I call it, the Swamp. It was nice walk on a nice night with very nice scenery I thought I would share :)

This has always been my favorite view:

Asher's Arrival

Look at me! I'm blogging about the birth of my child...one month after he's born!! Okay so I have to admit that sorting through all my photos was a bit daunting. And then there's the whole time factor. I knew that having a newborn baby was time consuming, but it is one thing to know it and another to experience it. Anyhooslebees, I'm blogging now so that's all that matters :)

On to the show!

Many people are asking me about 'my story' and how it all went down. It's not the craziest or most dramatic tale to tell but it was definitely different than what I expected to happen and I've been told by more than one person that I have the worst luck in the world. I agreed.

So everyone knows that I went around saying that my baby would come at the end of July. Asher was due on August 2nd but I wanted a July baby so bad. There's just too many birthdays and anniversaries and such happening in my family in August. Well, July went by and I was only dilated to a 2 so I was obviously having an August baby. I thought for sure he would come the week of his due date. It would interfere with several major things but better that week than the next week. But baby still wasn't listening to me and at 41 weeks I was scheduled to go in a be induced the day after my 4 year wedding anniversary. I was not happy.

Paul and I heading into the hospital Tuesday morning at 7:30 am, about to become parents...

...or so we thought.

Here I am in my gown - we signed papers, we answered questions, I had my IV put in and my monitors hooked up AND THEN I was told that my doctor was in a motorcycle accident and not only that but he was the on-call doctor as well.

We were sent home....to wait around....all day.

We were told to come back that night at 8 and then there would be someone to take his place as my doctor. So here we go again, new room, new gown, three more holes put in my body to get the new IV in, more signing papers and more waiting around.

Paul was an excellent picture taker during our stay at the hospital, which thankfully we were able to get down to four days instead of the five we were initially expecting. One such photo was to capture Asher's heart rate on the monitor! This was one of his better moments:

Let me explain. I was given medicine to thin me out a bit before they actually gave me the drip to start inducing. After that my contractions started. Late at night, or rather early in the morning, my nurse came in and put me on oxygen. Asher's heart rate was doing a dropping a little too low:

My contractions got worse and so did the Asher's heart rate. At four in the morning I received my epidural, which was awesome. I was getting mighty of sick of the never-ending contraction that lasted 45 minutes and all the poking and prodding didn't feel too good, either. We didn't sleep much since the nurses were in and out quite often to help me switch sides I was laying on. Asher didn't like me being on my left side too well though and I was constantly having to go back on my right side.

As the night progressed, I was told that I was thinning, but Asher's head wasn't coming down any further. I was only dilated to a 4 and when they broke my water, they discovered that Asher had has a bowel movement. I was put on more monitors to better watch his heart rate and my contractions. A little before noon on Wednesday I was told that if his heart rate didn't get better that I would have to have a C-Section. I digested this information and thought that everything would be okay because at the time, Asher's heart rate was doing okay. I talked to Paul about having a blessing but didn't even get to go that far because the nurse came right back in and said they were taking me in for the C-Section stat.

It felt weird - that I would be having a baby this way instead of the way I thought I would. And I was disappointed majorly at it. I tried really hard not to cry. At once they were getting Paul ready for the surgery, the anesthesiologist was there and the nurse was bustling about and I barely got a text off to my mom to let her know what was happening and before I knew it I was here:

My wonderful doctor was there to assist his partner (his accident was minor) one handed (since he had a shoulder injury). He said he wouldn't miss it for the world, which was nice. But the experience of being on an operating table for the first time in my life was not nice. I wasn't completely numb when I felt the knife, or anything else that they did. I could feel the tug and pull of everything they did only it wasn't just the pressure I was supposed to feel, it was pain and a whole lot of it. I pretty much felt like I was getting my guts ripped out, which I guess in a sense I was only I wasn't supposed to feel it. It was the worst experience of my life and I nearly threw up from the pain, except my anesthesiologist gave me something for that and the nausea went away. He, the anesthesiologist, was telling me it was almost over - the head was out, the body was out, etc. And then I heard my baby cry and it was surreal and out of this world because I didn't feel like I just had a baby. Paul went to take pictures of Asher and thankfully soon after that, I was able to be almost knocked out. As they sewed and stapled me shut, I could feel what they were doing but I was thankfully not in anymore pain. And then I was transferred back to my bed, my baby was put in my arms and I was wheeled back in my room only twenty minutes after I had left it.

I didn't feel an immediate connection to my baby...which I didn't like but I knew it wasn't completely abnormal. I felt too doped up and wiped out. I was upset with the C-section but Asher made it here safely and that's all that matters:

Weighing in at 8 lbs, 1 oz, 19.5 inches long.

Getting his footprints:

I had to be doped up more in my Labor and Deliver room because I was still in an incredible amount of pain when the nurse was checking things out. She said I shouldn't be feeling anything by that time but somehow I was. After that, Asher was put in my arms again and I was wheeled to my new room. We had a couple hours to ourselves but I was out of it for most of it by the time family arrived to meet him.

Paul went to give Asher his first bath:

And Asher's sucking on his hand which is something he does when he is hungry:

He apparently is a Ute fan already and half the family is NOT okay with that :) This was Amanda's doing and she also bought him a U onesie:

The worst part about surgery is the leg things. I itched and itched and itched. I had my mom and Paul take these off every 20 minutes or so and itch my legs as hard as they could. I was so happy when I was able to start walking around so that I could get these things off for good!:

VISITORS!

Kenny:

Paul's brother B.J. - first time Uncle!

My brother and sister, Asher is their 3rd nephew:

Hilary, B.J.'s fiance at the time - first time Aunt!:

My sister Amber, her first nephew!:

My mom and her mom:

My brother, Morgan and his wife, Sam:

The first time I really got to hold my baby and just be with him:

I love this picture. I love his hair...although he's lost most of it by now:

Like I said, we were able to go home a little earlier. We couldn't stand one more night in the hospital and I was ready to sleep in my own bed...which felt like Heaven after being in that hospital bed for so long. So we got him dressed up to go home:

And put in his carseat - can you tell how much he liked that??:

And off we went! Bringing him home felt good and strange. Strange to not be the only two people living in this house, dog not included. Strange to put a little tiny baby in his crib and watch him sleep. Strange to have your life turned around and not centered around yourself and your spouse anymore. But all of that is also very wonderful at the same time. After speaking with my doctor before we left, we found out that I have a very thin uterus and run the risk of rupturing during a regular delivery. Add that to the health risk my baby could have faced by going the normal way and that makes me very grateful for the way everything DID turn despite the fact that I hated every second of it. I guess I wasn't that unlucky after all.