Capri Laughing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRaFx4sfmdw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Ranch-Giving and Thanksgiving

Well it has been awhile since I have written on this blog! Seriously, I am bad but hey you get around to it when you can right?

Live has been crazy, busy as usual....running a business, new baby, school, new house/new projects. But hey that is what makes life exciting right? It is an exciting time to live.

Some things that I have been grateful for not in any particular order:

Capri

Paul

Clean Water

Food

New Home

Technology and skyping with Heather in Italy!

Family

Friends

The Gospel

These are just a few things.

We were extremely lucky this year we were able to celebrate Thanksgiving twice this year! One at the Ranch near the end of October, immediate family members and extended family members were there. We thought, why not make it an early Thanksgiving, also known as Ranch Giving. Sadly, Mr. Paul couldn't make it out, work work work :(

Some of the highlights of the trip were: picking the perfect Christmas trees for my mom, and sister Sandy. I wish we could have brought one home but I don't think the airline would be ok with that :) It was gorgeous. I absolutely loved the white birch trees with the vibrant yellow leaves, simply breathtaking. Another plus was that it wasn't too cold! This is a family tradition we have had over the years and I absolutely love it, it is so refreshing to hike around and pick your own tree from a mountain side so old fashioned but I love it!

Another highlight was eating the yummy dinner of course, seriously such good food, we had what any other person would have except for the fact that my grandma is a secret chef, she would of course never admit to it but everyone and their dog would agree anything my grandma touches is edibly delish! Moist turkey, mashed red potatoes, pear and gorgonzola cheese salad, stuffing, and grandmas famous rolls.

I was so glad that Capri was able to experience the ranch, it is a place of peace and solitude, we had a great time walking around outside and visiting with family of course. I feel so blessed to have my own special buddy to hang out with all of the time, she is such a charming little lady, I love her to pieces!

Also, my super fun sister in-law Danielle, threw an amazing Halloween party in the barn full of cob-webs, halloween treats and flying bats (ok they were fake but were still rad). It was fun to see everyone geared up for Halloween, and wow did Eric and Danielle/Chanel win in the costume department. They were a family of garden gnomes or as we called them "the gnomies", so funny! Here is the pic of their fam. Chanel was already tuckered out and was in bed by this time in the evening

I will be posting about the Halloween party another time but it was pretty amazing, Brittany and her magical hands...she can make anything look good :)

The homey gnomies!
The decked out barn
Papa holding onto miss Capri, so presh!
The palm tress sisters, ha so funny!
Loading on hand-picked trees atop the car
Oh how I love nature
Sista time-Danielle we missed you!
Just mama and Capri, wearing matching sweaters, funny story she Capri actually had a brown/creme blanket. But, since it was deer hunting season, we decided she needed a color that stood out so she didn't get mistaken for a little deer :)

Just lounging around
Ranch view from the window
Feasting!

We also had an amazing time with the Andrew's family, 9 out of the 12 kids were there, it was fun loud and exciting as usual.

I wish we had brought our camera, unfortunately we didn't bring it, so if any family member who is reading this has any pictures send them on over! The food was fantastic, there was like 12 different dishes! Along with 12 different pies, quite an amazingly delicious feast. My favorite dishes was the fresh green bean casserole, the crispy onions on top SO good. The stuffing was next, so incredibly yummy, Marlyce (Paul's mom) used her homemade bread with it and it was absolutely incredible!

It was fun having Miriam home from BYU, she is always so fun to catch up with, we also had some cousins come in from Lancaster, Kathy and Ricardo, it was fun chatting with Kathy she has a new baby that is a couple of months younger than Capri, her name was Anna. It was fun exchanging birth stories and such. We did truly miss Hyrum and Tiffany, Celeste, and Morgan.

Hopefully we can all get together soon!

Well that's a wrap...now onto Christmas season, I can't wait. I am most definitely listening to Christmas music, and have been since Thanksgiving dinner ended!

Sweet Baby Capri

Pregnancy is over, now I can officially blog, just kidding. Well I guess I have more of an incentive to blog now that we have this precious little addition to our family. My oh my does she bring such a sweet, tender spirit into our home!

So I am going to write a little bit about my pregnancy and my labor. Pregnancy first 3 months seemed to drag on forever as I had the lovely morning sickness! I felt so sick I did not want to eat at all. The rest of my pregnancy literally went by in a flash. I know those that say they didn't like being pregnant, for me I absolutely LOVED it. I loved feeling my baby kick and grow even if it did cause MAJOR heartburn. Heartburn to the point where I would eat just a piece of bread and sure enough the burn was there! The funniest thing was whenever I would eat sugar she would kick...kick...kick, just like her momma she loves Sweet things! I loved feeling so connected to something and having an instant love for this new babe to join our family.

I really was hoping Capri would come on July 4th, so she could always have fireworks on her birthday and be around family, but alas she had other plans. The evening of July 8th, I was feeling some painful contractions that were pretty close together for about 4 hours. So Paul and I called in Labor and Delivery and they told us to come in. We walked in and I was so sure I was in labor, however, they monitored my contractions and informed me I was in false labor. Boy was I bummed I was in SO much pain only to find out the labor wasn't real. However, they checked my blood pressure and for some reason or another it had completely spiked. The doctor was concerned that I might have pre-eclampsia so they told me they were going to induce me since I was already one day over my delivery date.

I was so relieved to finally get my baby here! So, they induced me around 10:00 in the morning on July 9th. The Pitocin was super effective, that I was in some pretty bad pain that morning so they gave me some morphine. It was crazy how fast I dilated, I was at a 1 when I came in and by 11:30 I was already at a 3, I was still in some pretty bad pain so I opted for the epidural which couldn't bring relief quick enough. When they put the Pitocin in the IV it really kicked me into gear by 12:00 I was dilated to a 4. It was so crazy because the morphine was still entirely in my system and I was sleeping in-between my contractions every five minutes I would have a 30 second contraction. The rest of the time I was snoozing! The craziest thing is I went from being dilated from a 5 to a 10 in a matter of 20 minutes! By 1:30 it was definitely time to push, and boy oh boy was I ready. Paul was there helping me so much, telling me everything was going to be ok. Holding my hand even though I probably squeezed his hand so hard his circulation stopped pumping through.They had to break my water as it was unable to break on my own and 30 minutes later, Miss Capri Noelle Andrews came. She was as beautiful as ever, when she came out she was Completely clean which I believe was due to drinking raspberry herbal tea for about a week. She was beautiful, the doctor put her right against my chest right when she came out, she sat there with her eyes completely wide open, I was completely overwhelmed with joy and love that I have never experience before in my life, I would jump in front of a bus for her, take a bullet for her, whatever it would take to protect this sweet new life. I looked at Paul and felt so complete as a mother and wife. I feel so incredibly blessed and love being a mom.

I loved having family come and visit. Heather and my mom were there and were such a big help! My mom flew in on the morning of September 9th, the absolute perfect timing! They came in and threw their arms around me and expressed such great enthusiasm for their new niece/granddaughter. They were so funny they reminded me of tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum as they were both wearing identical striped shirts and sporting the same ear to ear grin. So funny! I absolutely loved seeing them interact with Capri!

Paul's family also came to visit, which was so wonderful! Such a fun, and exciting time, Hyrum and Tiffany were there along with Paul's parents, Rachel, Esther, and Miriam. I loved seeing them interact with our sweet baby doll and see Paul, the proud father show her off to them with such excitement. It was so nice to be surrounded by such love from our family.

The first night we had Capri I was a little nervous I would not get any sleep at all, or that breast feeding wouldn't come naturally but to my pleasant surprise I did get a great amount of sleep as Capri would wake up to feed then go right back to sleep or look around without making a peep :) nursing was easy and I felt a major relief as the first night was spectacular.

The following day we were hanging out and all of a sudden my sister Sandy from Utah busted through the door! I was completely unaware they made the trip out to see us. It was probably one of the best surprises of my life! I can't believe my mom and Heather kept it as such a secret. My little nieces Cameron and Kennedy immediately gravitated towards Capri and Mick (1 year old) their youngest was completely enamoured by her and would run over to her and say "MAMA" so funny and cute to see them all interact. It was so great to see Sandy as she has helped me so much along the way answering all of my pregnancy question, such a wealth of knowledge. I loved seeing her with Capri as she was gleaming just looking at her.

We also had some great friends Todd and Brittany drop in and see us, Brit brought us some of the best beef soup I have ever tasted and visited with us, such a treat to have such amazing support from friends and family.

So just be prepared my blog may just have more than one post a year, yea for babies!

Below are some pics of the little Mrs. I will be posting more soon enough!