Viva Las Vegas

A few weeks ago Erick was offered a job in Las Vegas. YEAH!!! It came sort of as a whirlwind, he interviewed on a Thursday, unofficial offer on Friday, Official offer on Monday. He takes the Bar Exam at the end of this month and returns immediately to pack us up and get us out of Nebraska. 

I've spent the last 2 weeks trying to find us a place to live (sight unseen) with the help of my wonderful Aunt. We finally just got word that we were approved on our rental and should be able to sign the lease tomorrow. So in the next 3 weeks I have to pack up the house, find a moving company/van and get us ready to get out of here all with a newborn.

We weren't really planning on leaving Nebraska so soon. Since there hadn't been much movement in the job front we were just going to take our time, pack up the house and leave at the end of the spring, Erick would be able to take the bar and watch Avery while I worked and focused on trying to find a job. But Now.....LET'S GO!! So we are off to....

Motherhood

This was sent to me by my friend on the day I needed to hear it probably the absolute most. 

There are days when I drag myself into bed after particularly long days of just barely making it from one feeding to the next, not having accomplished anything besides making bottles, changing diapers and holding my little girl so she won't scream. My house is a mess, the dishes are piling up in the sink, we haven't had clean clothes in days, my husband had a frozen pizza for dinner and all I've had all day is 2 Diet Cokes, 3 Oreos a banana and no shower. As I lay my head on the pillow I cry silent tears thinking...I just hope I've done enough, however my feeble attempt is at this motherhood thing. I worry because we didn't read a book that day or we didn't play enough, or did I pay enough attention to her or she slept too much or not enough, or should I be reading more about vaccines or am I a bad mom because she's on formula or not in cloth diapers. Those are the days I need to remember i'm not alone and whatever my feeble attempt is He will make up the difference

"Yours is the work of salvation, and therefore you will be magnified, compensated, made more than you are and better than you have ever been as you try to make honest effort, however feeble you may sometimes feel that to be...He is blessing you and He will bless you, even—no, especially—when your days and your nights may be the most challenging." - Elder Jeffrey R Holland 

click here for the full conference address

"OUR" Hospital

The first time this commercial came on Erick said "Hey look honey, it's OUR hospital"
Now every time I see this commercial it makes me cry. Almost uncontrollably. This is where our beautiful little girl came into this world, where we spent the first 5 days of her life, walked the halls with her and had some of the most wonderful nurses. It will always have a special place in my heart.

5 Weeks Old

5 weeks old....I just had to post this picture because I love it.

1 month old

It's hard to believe this little girl has been part of our family for a whole month! 

It has been a big adjustment for her daddy and I, but we love her with all our hearts!

1 Month Stats:

Head: 15.75" (90th percentile, That's a Sayer head!)

Weight: 9lbs 2 oz (up 2.2 lbs from her birth weight)

She tries so hard to lift up her head, but she's just bobbly.

Erick and I think she's going to have brown eyes like me, but secretly I hope they turn out blue like her daddy.

Her sleep/eating is still sporadic, 2.5 - 4 hours, so the sleep deprivation has definitely set in at our house.

Pics of Avery

 A friend of Erick's from school just started taking pictures recently and we asked him to come take some of Avery when she was 3 weeks old. Here are a few that we love.

This one is my personal fav.

GO BIG RED!

Our Hospital Stay, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Thursday morning we all woke up a little drunk on "what just happened?"

After a long night of being poked and prodded and being woken up we were ready to just have some quiet time. We ordered some breakfast and then Erick ran home to check on the dogs and take a shower. I still had the epidural in so I wasn't going anywhere, So Avery and I just hung out for a while.

The Morning After....feeling a little drunk

After they came to take my blood again the nurse came in and told me my heme levels had dropped down to 5.5 (Normal levels are between 12-16, because I'm very anemic in my every day life I run around 8) They were really concerned about me being so low and my OB said I needed a transfusion. I was too low for injections so the only other option was transfusion. Erick was still at home when this all happened and I was a little freaked out. I had never had a transfusion before. When I got low they always caught it in enough time to give me iron injections. I called and discussed it with Erick and how I was a little scared and he said there was nothing to be afraid of. We decided it was going to be ok and told the nurse to Hook Me Up! They had to wait for my IV to finish and then hooked me up. I had to have 2 bags of blood which took almost 5 hours. When the nurse started my transfusion I kept saying, this is really hurting, i think something is wrong. She wasn't paying attention and kept saying, well it's going to be cold and maybe hurt for a minute. When I looked down at my arm blood had started filling under my skin and it was hurting really bad. She finally turned around and said, Oh No! and stopped the machine. I wanted to scream... "I TOLD YOU!!" She had to start an IV on the other arm since I had what looked like a huge bruise 4" from my wrist into my arm. After it was all over I started to feel so much better. Before I was really tired and felt so out of it, I just assumed it was because I had a little bit of a BIG DAY the day before. But after I felt so much better. Once my transfusion was over they took out my IV and Epidural. I was able to shower and that made me feel EVEN better. 

Friday the hospital photographer came to take pictures. I thought they would have given us more notice, I was hoping to have Erick there and maybe even showered before but she surprised us. She did a really good job. My mom has a picture of us kids from the hospital photographer and the pictures were just drastically different. We all had the "I'm just on the verge of tears because you ripped out my binky" look and they look like they were taken with a Polaroid. This woman was super professional and took quite a few shots. She said she would come back later in the afternoon after Erick got back from the house so she could show us the proofs. I was a little in awe on how high tech she was. She had all our pictures on a slide show on her ipad and had so many different packages we could buy. Of course we were suckered in as first time parent and bought the CD of pictures. I was so glad we did because alot of them turned out really cute.

I'm ready for my close up

Today I finally started to feel well enough to get up and do my laps around the floor. It was nice to get up and walk around, Erick and I took Avery for our "daily walks" usually consisting of a stop at the snack room (best place ever when you are starving at midnight at the cafeteria had stopped serving food 5 hours ago)

Bouquet from Gramma and Grampa Shea

Christmas Eve Morning they had alot of discharges so they needed to consolidate the 2 floors and said they were going to move us upstairs for the night. We technically could have gone home that afternoon but since I had the transfusion and Avery had lost quite a bit of weight from her birth weight they said it would be the best idea to spend another night being monitored. So we packed up all our stuff and moved upstairs. Christmas eve we normally have a fondue dinner, this Christmas eve we started a new tradition. Erick brought us Pizza and Martinellis. It was so good. Our nurse loved us because she got to celebrate with us too.

Christmas Eve Dinner

We were released Christmas Day Afternoon (they had alot of discharges that day so it took us a while to get out.) We were the first to be discharged about 1PM. 

Going home day. Family picture before we left (thank heavens for the auto-timer app)

Last time sleeping in her "hospital buggy"

All dressed for going home.

This was the moment that Erick and I sorta had a freak out....You mean you are sending this little being home with us? We had no nurses, no instruction manual and we were on our own.

Loading up to go home. 

The Girls meeting Avery for the first time. They weren't sure what to think of her. Allee licked her foot and walked away. Rubee just sat and watched her until Erick took her out of her car seat.

We couldn't have asked for a better Christmas present then taking our happy healthy little girl home.