Celebrating Christmas

** This was supposed to be posted BEFORE Christmas....  Oops :/

December has gone by so quick because Thanksgiving was so late this year! Here are a few of the ways we celebrated Christmas this year.

We prepped Christmas cards the week of Thanksgiving so we could get them out early.
Linda took some adorable pictures for us and the picture with Maylee's cute face was what made it special!

5 Months

Our baby is 5 months old!

In the past month Maylee....

Happy Thanksgiving!

Swimming!

There's a pool about 5 minutes from where we live -

the other day our neighbors, Paige and Ivie, ventured to the pool with us.

The babies had SO MUCH FUN!

We'll have to take them again when it's too cold to go on a walk :)

Update

I've been so bad at keeping up on our blog! 

I don't think I ever put on here that Nick got a job working for an insurance company, so we moved to Northern Utah in July.  Nick is loving his new job, and we're enjoying living in "the city". 

We're living right downtown and we've been able to do so many fun things!

Here's a little update of what our family has been up to the last few months....

Happy Halloween!

Maylee's Halloween consisted of wearing a wig and going to see her dad at work :) 

We dressed her as a cabbage patch doll (her wig was simply yarn tied to a beanie I crocheted). 

She seemed to be pretty happy to wear it, so it was a win-win!

 

 

4 Months!

Maylee is 4 months old :)  She's getting SO big and continues to get cuter and cuter every day.

Maylee....

Fall Pictures

Fall

One of our favorite places to go downtown is Memory Grove - it's the perfect little quiet park located right in the city! Memory Grove is a fun place to walk and it's so pretty! The park was packed today and everyone had their camera out.

Maylee didn't cooperate by smiling in pictures with us... But she looks cute regardless so we aren't too upset :)

Little May

Our baby is getting so big! Maylee is almost 4 months and she's so much fun! 

Today I took a few pictures of her and she smiled and jabbered during the whole thing! Cute lil' girl!

 

"Throwback Thursday" - Wedding Crashers

I'm preparing a talk for church in our new ward and I get to introduce our family.  

As I was thinking of how I could introduce us, I immediately thought about Nick and I when we first started dating... and the "wedding crashers" came to mind.  

We tried to always meet up to attend our friends' wedding receptions and it became fun to add another picture to the collection.  

Since it's "Throwback Thursday", I'm going to post these awesome photos.

Night 1: Three wedding receptions fell on one night.... we went to them all.  Plus one more.

Jake and Maria

On Motherhood

This morning I looked in the mirror, smiled, and felt like myself again. Part of it may be due to the fact that I'm wearing pre-pregnancy pants... But overall I can say that I feel good emotionally, spiritually, and physically. The last few months were a roller coaster, and I needed to get to the point that I could unstrap myself, jump off the ride, and wave goodbye to the ups and downs.

Three Months

Our sweet Maylee is now three months old! 

She becomes more and more fun each day and she's growing so fast! 

Maylee....

Blessing Day

Maylee was blessed today in our new ward!  

Nick did such a good job on her blessing and she was so well behaved :)  

A HUGE thanks for our families and friends for their support and their help in making today special for us.

We love you all!

2 Months!

Time flies when you're having fun!  

Our sweet little Maylee is two months old!  

She has been such a joy to our family and we love her so much!

At two months Maylee....

continues to be so snuggly!  She is a cuddly little thing and we love to let her fall asleep on us!

has started to smile at us when we talk to her!

coos and makes all sorts of noise - I love those adorable baby noises :)

has started to eat a lot more - and if she is cut short she is not happy...

continues to love her binkie!

is sleeping better - she usually gets a long stretch at first (5-6 hours) with a shorter second stretch (2-3 hours).  In the middle of the night she goes right back to bed after she eats most of the time.

loves to be outside!

enjoys listening to the "rockabyebaby" pandora station.

wears size 1 diapers and 0-3 month clothes.

We went to Maylee's 2 month appointment on September 6th - her weight was 10 pounds 7 ounces and she was 22 3/4 inches long! Our girl is growing!

 

Our Anniversary

Nick and I just celebrated our 3rd anniversary! We had a low key day and decided to go out to dinner to celebrate. We went to the Blue Lemon and spent the evening at City Creek. 

What a fun night! It was nice to have a good reason to go out to eat!

It's been a great three years! I love you Nick!

One Month

In her first month of life, Maylee...

Loves to sleep on her side. We lay her on her back and she immediately changes her position so she's on her side. At first it freaked me out, but she sleeps so much better on her side/tummy so we have lots of naps with her during the day. 

Stares at our picture of the Salt Lake temple multiple times a day. I know she's still developing her sight, so I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but it's pretty funny!

Loves to be outside! If she's fussy (which isn't too often), we can usually calm her down by going outside.

Sleeps a good 4 hour stretch at night. THANK YOU MAYLEE!

Is so content! She doesn't fuss much and she spends lots of time just hanging out!

Loves her NUK binkies. She didn't want a binkie too often at first, but she really started to like them when we got home from the hospital. She does the "Maggie Simpson" suck often and it cracks us up!

Likes to ride in the car with the radio on. That's a given. But she really likes it when the radio is on!

Is so snugly! She loves to snuggle up to your chest and fall asleep!

Still wears newborn diapers and clothes - although we can tell she won't for long!

Just a few more things...

Maylee's hair is lightening up, her eyebrows have darkened, and her eyslashes have grown at least 5x.

She is squirmy! During the night sometimes she'll squirm so much she does a 90 degree turn and wakes up all squished (she's sleeping in a cradle).

During tummy time, she rolled from her tummy to her side. 

We can't figure out if she sleeps better with her arms swaddled or not - we swaddle her whole body tight sometimes and other times we leave her arms out - both seem to work alright. If she's not going to bed quickly, we switch up how she's swaddled and it usually fixes the wide eyes.

She's a good little eater. During the day she usually eats every 2-3 hours.

Maylee has changed so much during her first month - not only has she started to look different, but you can just tell that she is learning and taking in so much.  She sure is cute and we're having lots of fun with her!

Maylee's Newborn Pictures

Linda came to Cedar to take pictures of Maylee when she was 5 days old. 

They turned out so cute! 

Here are a couple of the pictures she took!

Motherhood

Over the past three weeks I've learned a lot about being a mom. Maylee has been such a good baby - she really only fusses when she's hungry or needs a diaper change (I know this could quickly change, but as if now we're counting our blessings), she sleeps well, and she is really happy and content when she's awake. 

Last Thursday Maylee had a rough time eating before bed. When I got up with her a few hours later, she had a hard time again. After I tried to get her to eat for over an hour, I decided to lay her back down and attempt to feed her an hour or so later. She wasn't interested in going back to bed, and she started to cry... Big, long, loud cries...

A few hours later we were both exhausted and both in tears. We had a pajama party day, and I tried to calm her down the best I could. I checked her temperature, read her books, took her outside... nothing was helping. After a long long day, Nick and I began to discuss what could have been bothering her all day. 

Then it hit me. We had Cafe Rio for dinner! I didn't even think about how thy meal could affect Maylee's food and mood.

It's kind of funny now, although it was a hard day at the time... But this is what it looks like when you baby has a sweet pork salad. 

Not good. I've still got a lot to learn about parenthood. Thank goodness I now know how much what I eat affects my baby! I won't be doing that again!

Luckily after 24 hours our happy, content baby is back :)

Maylee's Birth

We went in for my 38 week appointment, and I'm so glad Nick was able to come with me.
Our little baby decided she didn't want to stay head down like she had been for the past little while....
Silly girl.  No wonder I was feeling so sore a few days before, she was somersaulting around in there!

My doctor explained that due to my fluid levels and how far along I was, it was very unlikely for her to turn head down again.
Who knows how she changed her position in the first place....
He said he'd do a version if I wanted to go that route, but after he explained some of the risks I wasn't sure how comfortable I felt with trying to get her to turn.

We decided to wait until the following Tuesday, June 25th, to see if she flipped back.
If not, we were going to move forward with having a C-section on June 27th.

She hadn't flipped back, so we were able to make plans to have her on the 27th.

39 weeks

We got to the hospital at 5:00 am - neither of us slept much the night before since we were so excited!

The C-section was scheduled for 7:00 am, so we had a couple hours to get prepped and hang out.
They wheeled me to the operating room at 6:45 and gave me a spinal block.
The next thing I knew, Nick was in there and within a matter of minutes we heard a few coughs and a little baby cry.  

Maylee Ann Shober was born at 7:09 am and was 6 pounds 7 ounces and 18 inches long.

Nick went over to see her while they finished putting me back together.

Our parents were all able to be with Nick in the nursery when she was bathed, weighed, etc.  

Before long, Maylee was wheeled into my room and we all took turns loving on her.
Nick and I spent 4 days at the hospital, and we made our way home on Sunday afternoon.

Maylee had lots guests during her first week and was able to spend lots of time with her grandparents.
We were so lucky to have my mom come spend the week with us and we were so spoiled!
Linda was also able to come down and take a few cute baby pictures.
We've had a good week at home and are getting adjusted to taking care of our sweet little Maylee.
Nick and I are so grateful to be parents to Maylee and we're loving spending time together as a family :)
What a wonderful week it's been!
I can't even explain how blessed we feel and how much love we have for Maylee.

4 more!

 

Just another weekly photo.... :)

Update

I have been awful lately at taking pictures of all the things Nick and I have been up to....

I kept thinking we'd have more time when they semester ended to do fun things and stay up on blogging, but somehow the weeks are flying by without me even realizing it.

Here's a 32 week picture -

 I've definitely been getting more tired, and I'm exhausted when I get home from work.

We went up to Salt Lake in the middle of May for a baby shower, and we had a really fun weekend!  

My sister-in-law Bree and and I took some pictures, but neither of us were thrilled with how we looked in them..... It's fun that we're due at the same time though and we're excited for our girls to be friends! 

 We were definitely spoiled at the baby shower and were given so many cute things for our baby!

It was fun to hang out with our families and make one last trip up before the baby comes.

Here's a picture from 34 weeks.... it was taken at night, after the exhaustion had kicked in 

(if you can't tell by the look on my face!)

Nick and I had a nice Memorial Day weekend in Cedar City and we were able to catch up on a few projects and lots of sleep.  It's always nice to have a 3 day weekend and no firm plans to occupy your time!

We took a little picnic, enjoyed some frozen lemonade, and tried to give our legs a little color thanks to the warm weather.

Other than that, we haven't been up to much!

GRADUATION!

What a fun weekend we just had :)

Tyler graduated with his pharmacy degree and I graduated with my MPA. 

It feels good to know that I'm never going back to school again...

We were able to go up to Tyler's graduation on Friday and it was pretty cool to see him complete such an awesome program.

That night, Linda took some great pictures of us in our "flattering" graduation regalia...

What an exciting time!

I'm so grateful for Nick and his encouragement to finish my degree quicker than I originally planned.
We had a long semester, but it's over and we made it!
I'm not sure that I would have been excited to complete it all if I didn't have Nick cheering me on!
And a big thanks to our families for all of their support -

We are so grateful for all you do for us!

10 weeks left!

I'm looking a lot bigger than I'm feeling (didn't see that one coming!)... :D

29 weeks

SLC

Last weekend, we headed up to Salt Lake.  Saturday was packed - we went to breakfast with Bree and Nick, dropped by the mall (can't do that in Cedar!), got bread at Stone Ground bakery, went to the Train concert with my parents, did initiatories at the SLC temple, and went to dinner and The Impossible.  We (maybe it was just me) were exhausted by bedtime, but we had a ton of fun!

Sunday we celebrated Grandma Hussey's 80th Birthday!

Lots of the family was able to come and it was a fun little party!

Oh yes, and last week I hit the 28 week mark :)  Hello third trimester!

Conference

Conference weekend is always a treat!  

We were able to sit down and watch each session of conference, which was really nice!

So many of the talks helped us with questions we were hoping for answers to.

Nick and I have been wanting to make a conference tradition (something we do EVERY conference as a family) and Nick suggested that we make homemade cinnamon rolls.  

I was a little nervous (something about using yeast just makes me a little hesitant sometimes),
but they turned out great! 

I was actually surprised at how easy the recipe was...
plus it used 'normal' ingredients so I didn't have to run to the store
for something we didn't already have.

I'm sure we'll be using it again 6 months from now!

Cinnamon Rolls

 

Ingredients

3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup margarine, softened
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 (.25 ounce) package instant yeast
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup water
1 egg
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 cup margarine, softened

Directions

1. Heat the milk in a small saucepan until it bubbles, then remove from heat. Mix in margarine; stir until melted. Let cool until lukewarm.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine 2 1/4 cup flour, yeast, sugar and salt; mix well. Add water, egg and the milk mixture; beat well. Add the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. When the dough has just pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth, about 5 minutes.
3. Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, cinnamon, softened margarine.
4. Roll out dough into a 12x9 inch rectangle. Spread dough with margarine/sugar mixture. Roll up dough and pinch seam to seal. Cut into 12 equal size rolls and place cut side up in a greased 9x13 pan. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until browned. Serve warm.

Recipe is from All Recipes (photo credit goes to All Recipes too)

27 Weeks

26 weeks

Here we are, just over 3 months out!  In some ways I feel like we have no time left to get things done, while in others I feel like we still have a LONG way to go.

The belly rub count has exceeded my memory's capacity to keep up.  Here are a few things that have happened recently that are worth writing down -

The other night (morning?) I got up to go to the bathroom around 4:30-5:00 am. When I got back into bed, I felt a few of the hardest kicks I've felt yet - I wished I could have turned the lights on because I'm pretty confident I would have been able to see that movement without trying too hard!  I didn't fall back asleep for a while as I was so excited to be feeling such huge amounts of movement! 

Most awkward belly touch - in a work meeting, a MALE co-worker sat down next to me and leaned over and gave my stomach a few pats (we'll say co-worker's name was "Fred").  "So Heather, how's little Freddy doing?"  My response flooded out before I even had time to think.  "Um, first of all, we're having a girl.  Second of all, if we were naming her after a boy, it would be her DAD which would be 'Nicky'..."  Haha bless his heart...

We started our prenatal class last week and it has been so fun!  We're learning a lot - I told Nick that if nothing else, at least we're learning we are clueless when it comes to caring for a baby!  Better to realize it now than be surprised when we bring our baby home from the hospital....it was a good choice for us to sign up for our class though and I know we'll be taught useful information that will come in handy!

My belly button is beginning to flatten out a little - it's been poking out for a long time, so it's nice to know that might be calming down a bit.  I also have started getting the lovely "linea nigra" line on my stomach...

We've been surprised at how many strangers make comments about us expecting a baby soon.

Tuesday I go to the doctor again, and then we're down to 2 week appointments!  Wahoo!

25 weeks

Our "mirror-acle"

Last week was Spring Break and we were excited to have a week with no classes.  

We decided to leave town for the weekend and go see our families.  

Nick has never been a huge fan of the highway leading out to Roosevelt.  

Maybe because of the inconsistent speed of the semi's, maybe because I don't like him to pass these huge semi's... 

Anyway.

Friday night we enjoyed a meal at Dairy Keen in Heber and got on the road after dark.  

My parents were in the back seat and we enjoyed our ride all in the same car. 

Somewhere along the way, a deer came into the picture.

She (yes, a doe) took a little turn right into our driver's side mirror and bumped her head really hard.

Nick slowed down when we saw the deer, so we couldn't have been going TOO fast...  

We immediately saw that the mirror was missing.  

When we stopped to evaluate the damage, we were surprised to see that the mirror was all that we lost in our little accident.

No scratches.  No dents.  What a miracle (or mirror-acle)!

Hopefully the deer survived the concussion that must have come with taking our mirror off!

24 weeks

23 weeks