Primary 2015

This is the bulletin board I designed for our Primary.  

A foot print gets added each month for that month's theme. 

It has almost been a year since being put in as the President and it has been one full of growth and learning. I really do love the children and am looking forward to seeing them share the Primary Program with the ward. 

Justin and Ruth Blazzard

2nd Week

View from the back of our minivan.

My mom came to visit and always it was wonderful.

She cooked and cooked and cooked for us.

One day I think she made almost 12 loaves of bread.

It is a very special for me to get to have her come and spend time with our family during this new chapter we are beginning.

I love her, hope I can be like her and always cry when she leaves.

Natalie had a blast with her as well.

Ezra loved the baby. 

His older brother who is 3 told him that maybe they could get him a baby when he is bigger.

First Week Home

One Week Old in these next two pictures.

I love how this captures me soaking my swollen feet in the background.
 Having a baby is sure hard work for your body.

Toddler

Toddler Behavior:

#104

Finding a quarter cube of butter in the fridge to snack on while mom is trying to wash baby who puked everywhere.

#105

As soon as mom leaves to go to the bathroom in preparation for leaving the house in 2 minutes, kick one shoe off that was just put on and hide under couch. Follow mom around asking, "Where is it?" While she looks for it.

#106

Use manners by saying thank you when mom does something for you

#107

Spill dry beans everywhere by holding container upside down when you are trying to get it out of the pantry. Be sure to do it while moms is trying to get dinner ready and baby is crying. 

#108

Sing often. It is so cute that you will rarely get in trouble when singing. 

 

The First 48 Hours

The first 48 hours after Jenna was born were peaceful, happy, exhausting, and full of life.

Natalie coming to meet Jenna for the first time. She wasn't quite sure what to think of Jenna, but enjoyed playing at the hospital and really like the new Cinderella doll we gave her. The nurses also gave her the big sister sticker she is wearing in this picture and she loved sporting that for the next couple days.

Jenna had alot of fluid in her tummy and was very gassy for the first couple of days. Her farts smelt very bad.
She also started spitting up in the first twelve hours and I think she was a little cold at the hospital.
I should have put her in a sleeper outfit.
All of these things combined meant I held her the entire night and next day after she was born.
I was sooo tired and had to watch TV the second morning to keep myself awake. I had never seen "Cake Boss" before, but it was kind of a fun show to watch. 

Getting ready to go home. She and I were much happier after we got home. The hospital is great for taking care of the mess of having a baby, but afterwards they are not very helpful at letting you get rest. I really get frustrated with all of the vital checks, blood drawing, people coming in and out of your room, the uncomfortable bed, etc. For Natalie and Jenna I only stayed about 24 hours.

She was a trooper on the car ride home. Now that we have two car seats, I am so grateful we have a minivan! It is so easy to get them in and out of.

"Myles"

I spend a fair amount of time trying to get Jenna to smile at me each day. It goes something like me saying, "Can you give me a smile?" In a baby voice and then following up with, "that is a nice smile" when she actually does. 

Well anytime Natalie looks at Jenna whether she is smiling or not, she says with a big grin, "She miles." 

Oh my two babes. Our days are crazy but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Strollers

We have a very nice double seated stroller, however the 2 year old insists on walking.

Then about half way through the walk she decides she is tired, so when we take the one seater there is only one option.

She must climb in the basket to ride home. 

She is kind of miffed that Jenna has taken her spot in the front, but she does get a kick out of the basket.

I think on this night she made me carry her the last 100 feet of the walk.

Little girls are fun.

I got two bathrooms cleaned today and feel accomplished. This was only possible due to a friend watching Natalie. Have a Happy Weekend!

Justin and Ruth Blazzard

The Birth Story

Warning- this is a pretty long post.

For the past week my body had been contracting on and off and from my doctor's appointments it was clear birth was nearing. At my appointment on Monday I was dialated to a 4.5 and 60% effaced. This was exciting news, but each day felt like a marathon with a lot of anxiety and anticipation wondering just when this little one would decide to come. My doctor offered to induce me on the 9th or 10th, but I declined. I was really hoping things would start on their own and thought that would make me more nervous having a set date.

 I had two meetings this week that I had hoped to make it to. Baby was cooperative, and I did!

Tuesday evening, Wednesday morning I was up and down all night, going to the bathroom and just overall discomfort. At one time I woke up with sharp pain in my back. It was so bad that I had to wake Justin up to give me counter pressure. This continued for about 20 minutes and finally my body relaxed again. Justin thought for sure that was it, but we both fell asleep and awoke tired the next morning. 

We all went about our day as we had planned. Natalie and I headed to playgroup at the park.

My friends were joking with me about having a baby that night. 

Other than being tired, I felt pretty good the whole day and didn't notice many contractions.

That night I had a meeting and Justin and Natalie had a really good time at the Splash Pad. 

We fell asleep at about 10:20 only for me to awake at 10:50 with sharp, long contractions. I woke Justin up immediately because I needed counter pressure stat. Each contraction was at least a minute long and was coming every 3 1/2 to 4 minutes. 

At first I told Justin we should wait for an hour before heading to the hospital.

I did not want to make the 20 minute drive to only be sent home with false labor.

After he watched me go through about 3 more contractions he said that we were going in right away. I had a strong feeling I just needed to let him take the lead on this.

He called the hospital and then our friends who live across the street to come over to stay with Natalie We left our house by 11:30 ish and arrived at the hospital just before midnight. 

The nurses were taking it slow with a little bit of paperwork when we got there and I was slightly irritated. My contractions had not slowed down at all and I just wanted to get into a private room and not chat. (Obviously later stages of labor) 

I think the nurses thought they were going to send me home, because Justin had told them we had only been laboring for less than an hour. 

They then saw I was in pain and took me to a room. The nurses comment on the way was, "Well let's go check to see if you are going to stay the night." 

We got to the room and she was fiddling around with computers and I don't know what else while I continued contracting. 

Finally she checked me and said, "Oh, well you are at an 8, we are going to need to go call the doctor."

I was not surprised at all and glad she finally realized I really was going to have a baby, soon.

The staff got into gear and the room was being prepped for a baby.

I was having strong contractions, consistently, but they were not nearly as painful as they had been with Natalie's birth, and I wonder if that is because my water had not yet broke?

The nurse wanted me on the bed to be attached to the fetal monitoring system, yet I did not want to lie down. The only other position not on my back was on my hands and knees. 

Justin was great about applying counter pressure with each contraction and that helped take the edge off of each contraction.

I also had the nurse give me a narcotic through the IV. That didn't really change any of the pain, just made me really loopy and relaxed. It was nice to be so calm between contractions. 

Not long after they got the IV in and had give me the medication, the doctor arrived. She walked in and asked if my water had broke yet. Right as she said that it broke and then I started feeling like I could push.That was about 12:53 a.m. 

This was the hardest part of my labor experience by far. Feeling my baby descend down and crown was very painful. Thankfully it was a relatively short amount of time. I think it took about 6 contractions of pushing and our baby Jenna was born at 1:11 a.m. on July 9th.She was born at exactly 39 weeks gestation.

She cried first thing.Everyone remarked on how much dark hair she had. I smiled to myself, I knew she was going to have dark hair. Once I got turned around on my back Justin brought her up and placed her on my  chest. Once again a rush of love and joy. She went to nursing right away. 

I had a small tear that had to be stitched up, but other than that was just fine.

We love our dark haired girl and are so grateful she is healthy, happy and here. We were also both thankful it was a short labor, as we were both exhausted from the previous night's excitement.

I am grateful that I was able to once again deliver a baby naturally. It is very difficult to go through the pain of giving birth, but always worth it once that little baby is placed on your chest. I was very anxious leading up to Jenna's birth and I know that Heavenly Father blessed me to get through it once again.  

One thing that I felt like helped my body a lot with getting my body ready to labor and the actual labor process was drinking Red Raspberry Leaf Tea. I started at about 28 weeks and tried to drink a cup twice a day. This is suppose to help strengthen the muscles in the uterus. In turn this should help with having deep effective contractions along with really helping prevent hemorrhaging after labor. I feel like it did it's job wonderfully and even helped my body prepare well.

 There were many tender mercies along this journey that I recorded in my personal journal.

I am so grateful for the gift to be a mother!

First bath by my awesome nurse Shannon. She was called in right when I started pushing, then stayed to help me after she was born. She said her two favorite smells in the world were new babies and a horse's mane. That isn't really important, just something fun about her I want to remember.

Justin had a bet with his boss that our baby girl would come before July 9th and his boss said July 9th or later. Well, Jenna arrived barely on the 9th. Daddy lost a dollar. Pretty funny it worked out that way.

5-6 Weeks Old

"I think babies deserve to rock the world of those around them a little.  To stir things up, to make us rethink priorities, to bond-totally and completely giving ourselves to them when they need it most.  Even if that means little things like fat pants for awhile, or a makeup drawer that goes untouched for months, or big things like lots of "no's" to invitations and commitments, or everything that once seemed so important plummeting down that priority list and maybe even disappearing.  Of course we can rebuild slowly-on the baby's timeline-but things shouldn't look the same ever.  We all need to move over and make space for this precious new life we brought into the world.  Babies deserve it, and we moms do also" - Sarah (Author of Clover Lane Blog)

This spoke volumes to my hear when stumbling upon it during another nursing session. I told my mom when she got here on Day 5 of Jenna's life that I had no idea how Natalie had grown up to where she is now and I didn't know how we were going to make it with Jenna. Granted, I had just had one very long night with a crying baby who wanted to nurse and couldn't because of engorgement problems. Really though, making it to the 6 week mark is a huge accomplishment! I forgot how much work these little babes are, GREAT work, but still long hard hours of work. We are slowly making room in our life for this new adorable, special, incredible human being. I can say for sure that life as we knew it will never be the same, and that is awesome.

She is such a joy to have in our home. She definitely makes her presence known and has a different temperament than Natalie. Her little digestive system does not tolerate chocolate at all! If I eat it, I can expect a full puke shower within the next 6 hours. Without chocolate, she is still a bit of a spitter all the time. We keep our washing machine busy with burp cloths. She loves to be held, and mostly just by mom. She started smiling at 3 weeks. I know that sounds crazy, but that was her first smile at me, and it was not gas bubbles. She did/does smile a ton in her sleep, ever since she was born. More than I remember Natalie ever smiling. She even giggles at times in her sleep and it makes my heart melt. Tolerates tummy time for short amounts of time. Wakes up 2-3 times a night. Is in 3-6 month clothes and must be at or close to 11 lbs. She is about 23 1/2 in long, making her a very tall girl. Enjoys bath time, and hates when you get her out of it. Likes to stay up late at night, doesn't usually go down for the night until somewhere between 10:30- midnight. Tolerates outings, but I think likes being at home. Prefers to nurse with a shield, though she can without it. Takes a pacifier, only when she is in the mood for it. Loves to smile at and talk with Natalie. Is doing very well and we all sure love her.