Ahhhh! Time goes too fast!

My little baby girl just rolled over BY HERSELF for the first time! She's only 4 months old, people. I can't believe it! She is getting so big. Part of me wants her to stay small for awhile longer. I still want a baby. But she is just getting so big. Ryan can already balance her in his hand, and she loves it. She pulls herself up to a standing position when she has your fingers, she's trying to sit up.... Oh my! It's going too fast!

3 Year Old Boy 3 Month Old Girl

Dainen turned 3 years old!! And Alivia is 3 months old! So we had to take pictures :)














I LOVE my cute kids!!

San Francisco - Fort Point

Ryan's parents came and stayed with us for a few days before Alivia's blessing. We had a lot of fun together. We went to Fort Point in San Francisco. If you haven't been there, I would recommend it. It was really cool!

Here we are driving across the Golden Gate Bridge.


Here is San Francisco!


Fort Point was one of the first forts built on the West Coast. It was built to protect the bay, but it was never needed. They had lots of cannons like this, and some even bigger.


We were lucky enough to be there right when they were doing a cannon demonstration. Dad, Ryan, and Dainen got to be "soldiers" and load the cannon. Afterwards, they got their "Cannoneering certificate". It was so cool!


Here are Ryan and Dainen pushing the cannon ball into the cannon. I wish I had been on the otherside so I could have gotten a picture of Dainen's face. He loved it! Ryan held on to his hands on the rod and lifted him up to push the cannon ball into the cannon. He thought that was pretty fun.



The view from the top of the fort is so amazing. The fort is located under the Golden Gate Bridge, right by the water, so the view you get is of the bay and the underside of the bridge. (It's cooler than it sounds.)

Here are some pictures from when Ryan, Dainen, and I went last fall with some of Ryan's classmates.


Here we are at the top. I told you it was cool!


We had fun while Ryan's parents were here. It was good to spend time with them. And I'm so glad they got to spend time with their grandkids.

Alivia's Blessing Day

What a wonderful day!! We felt so blessed to have so much of our family here to support Alivia. She looked so beautiful!! And the blessing she recieved was so amazing! What a special little girl we have. I'm so excited for her to be a part of our family.

See how beautiful she is?!!


A four generation picture with Alivia, me, my dad, and his mom.


Grandma and Grandpa came all the way from Idaho to be with us. They stayed with us for a few days so we had a chance to do some fun things. (More on that later.)


The WHOLE Ivey Family!! Brad and Mallory, and Mike and Ariel came all the way out here from Utah just for this. They spent more time in the car driving here and back than they did actually being with the family. Sorry guys!! But it was SO AWESOME that they came! And we were so glad to FINALLY meet Ariel! YAY! (Although, I just realized that she is not in this picture. Sad. But she was in others.)


My little family.


What a fantastic day!! Thanks to everyone who came to support us, and to those who were supporting us from afar! We love you!

Easter Pictures

I know I have a bias opinion, but my kids are THE CUTEST kids EVER! And I have these pictures to prove it! Hahaha!
These are our Easter outfits. Aren't they cute?? Dainen LOVES holding his sister.



So I found this cute little dress for Alivia and I just fell in love with it. So I wanted us all to match. Ryan and Dainen already had ties, so I just needed to find a shirt or something to match everyone. It was so frustrating!! I am so NOT a fan of shopping when I am looking for something specific, cuz I can never find it. Plus, I was shopping with both kids, so it was just frustrating at the get go. But I finally found something, a super cute top, so I was pretty excited. Easter morning, I'm getting the kids ready for church, Dainen is done and ready to go and I'm getting Alivia dressed... the dress that was the inspiration for all of our outfits was too small! :( It's ok, though. It was just barely too small, so I kind of forced it on... is that bad? It wasn't squeezing her or anything. Once it was on, it was fine. It was just getting it on that was kind of hard. Anyways... here she is in her cute dress.


These family pictures are kind of blurry but that's because we set the camera on the mantel of the fireplace all the way across the room and set the timer. So I had to zoom in A LOT. But that's ok. They still look good. I like this first one better, except for the huge gap between Ryan and me. The second one is cute too, though. :)


Yay for Easter!


We truly are blessed to have the family we have. We love our little kiddos! And how blessed we are to have a Savior who loves us enough to lay down His life for us, and take it back up again so that we can return to live with Him and our Father in Heaven. I know that He lives and loves us! Happy Easter!

Moments that make it ALL worth it

Being a Mom is hard work. And sometimes it is very thankless and I feel so under appreciated by my kids. But every once in awhile, there are these sweet moments that make it all totally worth it.
Some of those moments happened for me this past week:
1. Dainen started saying his prayers completely by himself, which is so sweet in and of itself, but the other night he said, "We're grateful for Alivia, that she's here in our home and not in Mommy's tummy."
2. When Dainen wakes up in the morning, he comes into my room where I'm rocking Alivia and before he acknowledges my existence, he climbs over to Alivia and says, "Hello my love!"
3. I was giving Alivia a bath and she was screaming and crying. Dainen came over, put his hand on her head and said, "It's ok, Alivia. I just love you."
(Are you noticing a theme?)
4. Dainen started calling Alivia "huggies" because he likes to give her lots of hugs.
I really do have the cutest kids ever!! And they love each other. What more could a mom ask for?

It's time

Ok, all you Moms out there, it's time I got serious. Alivia is here, Dainen is 3, we are all adjusting... It's time to potty train. Some of you may be thinking "What?! Dainen isn't potty trained?" No, he is not. We tried 4 or 5 months ago, but he was so NOT interested and I was sick and not up to fighting him every day. I was also afraid that if we did get him potty trained before Alivia came, he would just revert back for attention. So here we are. I'm tired of changing two kids, and I think he's ready. He tells me when he needs to be changed, especially when he stinks, and he's shown more interest in the potty. So.... what do I do? I want to hear all your tricks, all your advice. If you can't tell, I'm a little bit intimidated by this task and not really sure how to go about it. So any and all advice would be helpful. YAY!! Here we go!

Welcome to our Family, Alivia

After a grueling 9 months, and much anticipation, Alivia is FINALLY here!



Born February 7, 2011 she weighed in at 7lbs 14oz and measured 19 1/4" long.



The labor went quickly, a little less than 5 hours.



My mom and sister were able to be there, along with my wonderful husband who was so amazing and supportive. What would I do without him?



It all started at home when, after running down the stairs from our 3rd floor bedroom to our first floor entryway to answer the door for a brother in our ward who was delivering a meal, my water broke. (If I had known that's what it would take, I would have run up and down the stairs a lot sooner!)



I was home alone; Dainen was playing at a friends house and Ryan was at work. I tried calling his cell phone, texting him, telling him he needed to come home, but he was not responding. So, in a panic, I called my dad's office and he suggested I just call Ryan's work. (oh yeah, duh. Thanks Dad!) He answered and when I told him my water broke, he said, "Hot Dang! I'm on my way!" We grabbed our bags- I was prepared this time- and dropped off an overnight bag for Dainen at his friends house and we were off to the hospital. By the time we got there, it had been about an hour and a half since my water broke and the contractions were coming pretty strong. We got all settled into a room and the nurse, Natalie, confirmed that my water broke and said we'd get things started. As politely as I could, I let her know that I would like an epidural as soon as it was possible. Ryan laughed when I did that. (Apparently, and according to him, I wasn't very nice or patient with the nurse when I had Dainen.) The nurse told me I was extremely dehydrated, a part of the hyperemesis I had been dealing with throughout the whole pregnancy, and that they had to get fluids in me before they could do the epidural. In the meantime, they gave me some pain medication that made me a little loopy. I just remember being tired. Mom and Kristin showed up about then, making the two hour trip in just an hour and a half. (good job Kristin!) The Anesthesiologist came, kicked everyone out, including Ryan (apparently she had an experience where a woman's husband fainted while she was doing an epidural and he hit his head and ended up dying so now she won't let anyone in there except the nurse) and I got the epidural. Natalie, the nurse, was awesome during this time. When I had contractions, I needed Ryan there to hold my hand and talk to me. While he was gone I started to panic so she grabbed both my hands and helped me through them. When everything was in place, they let Ryan back in. But the epidural only took on one side of my body. My left side was numb but I could still feel every contraction on my right side, and they were BAD! They were coming fast and incredibly strong. I really thought my body was being torn in half. The anesthesiologist was called back in and she readjusted everything (and allowed Ryan to stay with me). I was pretty out of it here. I just remember the intense, searing pain, telling Ryan I couldn't do it and that I was scared. He reassured me that I was strong, that I could do this, and that he loved me. At one point they asked me to roll over to my side and scoot towards the edge of the bed. I couldn't respond, I couldn't move. So Ryan had to literally roll me and pick me up to move me where they needed. After they were done, it kicked in through my whole body and I could feel myself relax. I told Ryan I could do it now. :) My nurse checked me and found that in the last 15-20 minutes, the time it took for them to get the epidural in, I had gone from being dilated to a 5 and 75% effaced to a ten and 100% effaced. No wonder I was in pain. She had me push once to see if baby girl was ready and she was, so the doctor was called in, my mom and Kristin were let back in, and we were ready to go. I pushed a total of 6 times, the doctor asked if I wanted him to help me, I said yes, and he got her out. Ryan was able to cut the umbilical cord and they laid her on my chest while they wiped her off. I cried and cried while she kept reaching for my face. The nurses took her over to a station in the corner of the room to clean her up, check her out, weigh her, and do all that they do before they gave her back to me, wrapped up and beautiful. The next few hours were sort of a blur. It was really late, we were really tired, we were really excited, there was just a lot going on. But our baby girl was here! Mom and Kristin brought Dainen to the hospital the next morning. Ryan met them at the door and explained to Dainen before he came in what was going on; Mommy had sister out of her tummy and because of that he needed to be soft with Mommy and with sister. When they walked in, Ryan holding Dainen, he saw me and said hi and then Ryan pointed to sister who was in her bassinet. Dainen said, "Oh! I want to see her!" He was so good with her. He gave her loves and kisses, and just held her, with Daddy's help. He kept looking at her and then looking at my tummy like he was trying to figure it all out. But he finally understood that sister wasn't in my tummy anymore. What a smart kid. We had to stay in the hospital for 48 hours due to the fact that I had tested positive for Group B Strep and wasn't able to get all of the medication before Alivia was born. They just had to watch her and make sure she didn't have any problems, which she didn't. We came home Wednesday night and were so glad to be able to sleep in our own beds. Mom and Kristin stayed with us for almost two weeks, and then Ryan's mom stayed with us for a week. It was SO awesome to have their help! Family is so awesome! I love mine. We've had a lot of fun having everyone over to visit and to see Alivia. Dainen has had fun with his cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents and has been very grateful for their attention. We have also recently celebrated his 3rd birthday!! I can't believe it. We had a family party and a friends party for him. It was good for him, for all of us, to be able to focus on just him and let him know how much we love him. We're all adjusting to our new family and loving it. Thanks to all of you for your love and support!!