Meet the McCulloch's

Owen's first year..

2011-09-23T13:24:00.000-07:00

Since I have failed so MISERABLY at keeping up with this blog over the past year I am doing a bit of catch -up.. for us and for the grandmothers. Each photo here is a picture of Owen closest to the 13th of each month.. beginning with his birthday, August 13th, 2010. Enjoy!

Newborn:

One Month old:

Two Months old:

Three Months old:

Just before Four Months old:

Just after Four Months old:

Five months old: (started crawling)

Six months old: (Yes, with duct tape keeping his socks on- compliments of John)

Seven months old: (dirt in hair compliments of Emm J)

Eight months old: (started walking)

Nine Months old:

Ten months old:

Eleven months old:

Twelve months old:

Owen's 1st birthday... Photo Party

2011-09-17T15:52:00.000-07:00

Sweet baby Owen turned one years old on August 13th, 2011. He is such a happy and fun little guy with the cutest jack-o-lantern smile and bright blue eyes. He walks and climbs and loves to play outside, in the water and with rocks. He especially loves to eat rocks.. and eat pretty much anything he can get his mouth on! We love him to pieces and decided to celebrate his first birthday Dr. Suess style. Wonderful family graced us with their presence and we had a great time!

The birthday banner I made out of the Dr. Suess book: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
Our birthday wreath:
The cupcake tower and smash cake I made that morning.

OG seemed content while we sang Happy Birthday and helped him blow out his candles but he became quickly uneasy as we all stood around waiting for him to go at his cake.

Quickly enough his unease tuned into downright NOT FUN.

but he got over it.

We love our little man! This post is a month old and it's amazing how much he has grown and changed in just a short 5 weeks. He has more teeth and is getting pretty proficient at climbing (darn the luck).. but he is one of the most observant babies I have ever seen and loves to sit in my lap and read books again and again. He also loves to pinch and do whatever Emma is up to- especially if she doesn't want him to do what she is going or play with what she is playing with.

Here are some other shots we got right before our camera drowned in the kiddie pool. I hope we'll be able to get a new one soon so we can keep taking pictures of our babies! Any suggestions for a good digital camera?

At the Grand Canyon during the Shupe reunion at the end of July.. right at the start of John's pneumonia! He was so sick and still let me drag him around with my family. He loves me a lot.
Naked baby!!
We survived our first summer in Southern Arizona! Horray!!!

Owen is mobile!

2011-05-04T10:49:00.000-07:00

Owen's first month

2011-01-10T09:58:00.000-08:00

*Sorry that I am a horrible blogger. Of course you must understand that I have been pretty busy the last few months. (with babies, toddlers and my church calling I have tried and failed several times to post something.. I'm just going to back-track now).

Here is some shots of Owen's first few weeks of life.

This is while we were still in the hospital, August 14th 2010 in Albuquerque.

Nanny came to the hospital, along with Ron, Marie and Addison

We made it home just one day after he was born. Here he is with Nanny and Grumps.

He has the webbed toes on his right feet just like my mom, Grandpa Frandsen and Ron.

He sleeps next to our bed in a co-sleeper bassinet (or just in bed with us). Here he is all swaddled. He was swaddled tightly for most of his first three months of life. He loved it.

He was pretty yellow! Every after noon for the first two weeks I nursed him and let him take a nap by our living room window to get a nice sun-bath to help flush the jaundice out. He was a great nurser the first few weeks which also helped him get lots of nice fat (he was born pretty skinny when first born) and to get rid of the jaundice (even though I had HORRIBLE after-pains while nursing him).

I did a little photo shoot of him when he was three days old to have a picture for his birth announcement. He was very alert for the pictures, but he was actually a pretty sleepy newborn with very rare alert times. He just wanted to sleep and eat for the first two-three months!

Here is his first bath at home. He was only nine days old when his umbilical cord fell off because he kept soaking his belly (and clothes and blankets) with urine! He really hated this at first, but loved his second bath. Now he rarely bathes, but sometimes I bring him in the shower with me for a good soaping up.

He loves to be carried, in our arms or one of our baby slings.

Emma also quickly fell in love with Owen. She loves to hold him and kiss him and pat his cheeks. She also loved to "stress test him." She would pat his cheeks or tummy a little harder, then a little harder just to see what it would take to get him to cry out. This is Emma at 2 years, 3 months and Owen at 9 days old.

Owen is two and a half weeks here. I love that we captured his little smile. Even though Emma would torture him a lot his first few weeks of life he sure loves her now! No one can make him smile and laugh like she can. He is quite fascinated with her.

Of course it's not always fun and games!!

I was afraid that Emma would be pretty jealous of her new brother. She definitely was at some moments (especially when she would first wake up) but she kept her self pretty busy, playing and making messes. She loves her water colors.

Here is one of her messes.. she loves some lotion..

On September 4th, when Owen was three weeks old we drove up to Jemez Springs and did this beautiful hike. It was a couple hours long and he slept for all of it.

Here he is at exactly one month old! We sure love our little OG! Thanks to everyone who helped us get through this first month!!

Owen's Birth Story

2010-08-29T11:51:00.000-07:00

We are sooo happy to welcome Owen Ganes McCulloch to the world and especially to our family! He was born Friday, August 13th at 3:01 pm in Albuquerque, NM at the Presbyterian Hospital. He was 6 pounds 3 ounces and 19 inches long. We are already so smitten and in love with him! Here is a shot of the baby announcements I made and sent out to close family and a couple friends:

The labor actually started early Friday morning (maybe around 3 or 4 am, but I finally got out of bed around 5:00 am). Unfortunately, the labor pains were TERRIBLE and all in my back again! They were honestly so much worse than my early labor with Emma. My pain was at the highest level I ever got with Emma (towards the end of labor) but from the very begining.. I had the contractions radiating down my thighs from my back and major nausea (vomitting and diarrhea!) from the begining. I was ready to be done with the pain as soon as it started!! I ate breakfast (which I soon threw up), said some prayers and then woke up John and my mom. As soon as they were ready we let Bob and Amy know we were heading out. John and Bob gave me a priesthood blessing before we left. I'm very glad they were here. It was so nice that Emma could just sleep in and spend the day at home with her cousins. Thanks Bob and Amy!

Unfortunately when the triage nurse checked me I was almost completely effaced but only about 3cm, so I had to go walk for two hours. Those were a tough couple of hours! We went down to the first floor of the hospital where I managed to get through the contractions by leaning over things and John putting counter-pressure on by back. I did throw up a couple more times and of course told John we were not going to have any more kids! I did not want to go through this again! (He laughed and said we will talk about that another time). I did decide though that I wanted an epidural.

By the time we got back to Triage I was dialated to 5 cm so I was admitted. I asked for the epidural right away and I got one about two hours later. I'm not sure if the pain was actually letting up or I was getting used to it, but the contractions seemed bearable right before the epidral, but I went for it anyways. I'm glad! I was only completly numb on the left side, which was good to me because I liked to still feel what was going on. They checked me right after the epidural and I was dialated to 8 cm and the doctor, Bruno Caridi (who was really great by the way), broke my water (no Meconium, yay!!) By this time I was feeling really great and happy! The stress from the pain was gone and I was able to lay there and get excited to have a baby! I was laughing and talking and relaxed.. I was NONE of those things during the last two hours of labor with Emma, without the epidural!

I really decided that Owen was waiting for his uncles to come into town to be born (especially being named after Ganes!) Since Ganes and Max arrived in Albuquerque that day he was ready to come. After I had the epidural and was happy they came up to hang out... and Max took a nap! haha! Amy also came up. We were almost done!

The epidural was wearing off a little (though my left leg was pretty floppy) but I was ablt to feel when I was ready to push. The nurse had me do a couple of "practice" pushes while she was getting the doctor. When he came back in I was really ready to push. The doctor and nurses gave really good instructions (which I didn't seem to get with Emma) and he was born in three good pushes! It was awesome! I was so happy I was laughing!

I love this next part! Right after he was born they placed him on my belly while they cleaned him a little and John cut the cord. Then I was able to hold him and hug him and get him to nurse. He actually latched on and nursed really well from both sides! It was awesome! I was able to hold him and nurse him for about an hour! The hardest part was getting untagled from the epidural tubes!

The sweet little guy had his first huge bowl movement on my tummy. Thanks owen! That was a mess! I think he may have lost an ounce from the BM so he was probably Emma's exact weight. 6.4 instead of 6.3

Look at all that soft hair!

The proud papa!

The glowing grandma!

I had the boys (execpt John of course) step out while he was actually delivered and I was nursing. Amy stayed for everything and I remember her saying..something like, "Oh, that's how it's supposed to go!" because it was such a smooth and great delivery..

Ganes and Max got to love on Owen for a little bit then went up to the Rhien reunion in Farmington.

We had our room full of visitors four hours after he was born! Bob and Amy came with all the kids. Emma wasn't too sure about him. She wanted to sit on my lap for a while and check him out, but then decided she needed to see what Robby and Madison were up to.. She is a great big sister though!

We didn't think we would see Nancy or Kenny for at least a week because Nancy JUST had a double hip replacement.. but they snuck out of Phoenix and were able to meet Owen just four hours after he was born. :)

He had his first bath six hours after he was born and I went to watch and take pictures.
He loved this part.

I thought it was really funny that the nurse parted his hair.. it just made me notice his cowlicks more! So cute!
We love you son!

Baby Hungry...

2010-08-22T14:17:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that I was getting a little impatient for our son to be born! I felt a lot of pressure to have him.. John's family had a family reunion in Farmington the 13th and 14th that we wanted to go to.. my mom came to town to be there for the birth.. and had been there for a few days.. still no labor.. and of course Emma came 10 days early so I guess I just thought he'd come a little early too.. I did start to worry a little that he may be getting big too. I had my membranes stripped twice and had lost my plug.. surely I should be in labor by now!!!! Finally when I got to my due date I started to calm down and not worry so much or feel so much pressure to have him. I felt like I had to apologize to people.. how dumb is that?!! Now that he is safely here I am so glad he came when he did.. when he was ready.

Here's a little breakdown of what we did for the last few days while waiting.. and waiting..

Emma had her first experience with stamps! The ink on her eye was there in litteraly the first three seconds of her touching the stamps before I could even lay out the ground rules.. haha..

On Sunday, August 8th (three days before my due date) John, Emma and I went on a beautiful, and quite vigorous two hour hike up the Sandias. This was one of my impatient days (after going to church and hearing everyone exclaim..'You're still pregnant!!') I decided I would hike the baby out.. I had lots of great contractions, that went away on the car ride home.. haha

She is a great hiker.. she was so cute carrying all her treasures (rocks and sticks) around. We love you Emm J!!

John is a wonderful father to Emma. She is a very lucky girl..

My mom got to Albuquerque EARLY Sunday morning after driving all night! Thanks Mom! We were thinking that I would go into labor really soon since I had lost my plug on Saturday and my mom really didn't want to miss it.. I was feeling bad for a few days that she was here but no baby yet.. but I really am sooo very glad that she had those few days to spend time with me and with Emma Jane! Emma doesn't see her enough to remember her and know who she is so we remedied that this week. Now Emma knows who her grandma is and loves her well! It was a lot of fun having her here and she was so helpful around the house and with Emma. We went to an Isotopes baseball game Monday night. We tried letting her play on the grass and the attractions instead of sitting in the seats. She got about 10 free rides on this merry go round. She LOVED it!
My mom also pushed her on the swing to her heart's content!Also, Even though for the past six months I had been certain there was no way I would be able to make my dinner group for August because it fell on my due date.. I sure was still pregnant, so I made some yummy asian lettuce wraps and my mom and I headed over to Sarah's for dinner. (which was pretty funny because at first we were the only ones there and were all eating totally seperate things because it was me- with my lettuce wraps, and my mom, Sarah, the host and Terry and those three are all doing the HCG diet so brought their own special food)..
My mom and I also did some shopping, including getting a cute blessing tux for the baby, and walking.. and we even tried a new recipe and made some batches of homemade laundry soap. It was a fun week!

Bob and Amy got to Albuqueruqe really late Wednesday night. It was a lot of fun to see them and hang out with them!! I've been missing them a ton and Emma doesn't know Madison and Robby at all. They played GREAT together! It was a lot of fun!

And they brought their dog!! Which was a special treat for Emma.. she LOVES dogs.. any animals actually. Truman wasn't as excited about the dog.. he hung out inside for a few days.. :)

It was sooo awesome to have them here when I FINALLY went into labor early Friday morning. We had some great places lined up for Emma to go when it was "time" but it was really so nice to just leave her at home with her stuff and her cousins and uncle there... my mom and Amy came to the hospital with us and saw the big event.. the arrival of Owen Ganes McCulloch!

Just Call Me Martha

2010-08-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

I've been working on some last minute projects the last few days besides the diaper bags.. this baby is going to be set! I'm now going to do a lot of cleaning and hiking.. if he still doesn't come I have one more blanket I want to make.. :)

I love love this animal print.. and thought it needed a satin ribbon binding..
A burp cloth made out of a cloth diaper.. (I love this flannel I originally bought two years ago for a blanket for Robby.. I wish I had a lot more of it because I can't find it in any stores now)

I LOVE this socky monkey and banana flannel. I made this blanket a lot bigger... was planning on doing a brown blanket stitch around the edges.. but got sick of un-tying knots in the embroiderary thread... maybe I'll add some to the matching burp cloths..

Here are the burp cloths.. Each one is two sided with the bananas and the monkeys.. Love it!!

Ready... Set... GO!!

2010-08-06T10:26:00.000-07:00

I just finished diaper bag number two! Don't you love it? And all the space? You can make yours following these instructions.

So, I am packed and ready to go to the hospital... anytime now... Come on baby brother, don't you want a new place to sleep? Perhaps somewhere with a lot more room?

Diaper Bag, Number One

2010-08-05T17:04:00.000-07:00

I made this today! Found this awesome tutorial to help me..
Look at all the spacious room and custom pockets!

Too bad I don't have a new baby yet!!

Pregnant in July

2010-08-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

As stated earlier we decided to miss this year's McCulloch reunion to stay close to home since we were one month away from the due date. We sure have been busy though! We've been doing a lot of nesting.. John and I both! Emma on the other hand has picked up a new habit of throwing things.. food, papers, books, clothes, toys, fits.. I really wish she would stop.. maybe next year..

It has been a HOT summer for me. I really don't like sweating this much! But honestly I'm not a crabby person normally and I'm not a crabby pregnant person either... though I have met those.. I really do feel pretty good most of the days and know I could go on and on about the woa's of pregnancy in July- but actually I'm doing pretty good most days. I am soo grateful that the second week of July John put this baby up in our bedroom: A night-saver to say the least!!

However, the following weekend, our only two years old, deep soaking and pretty bathtub managed to crack (it was acrylic and installed poorly.. over styrofoam.. over a jack-hammered hole in the foundation (WHAT!?!)... so we/John tore it all out and I ordered a new one... it's in the garage in the box and we still have a hole in our floor.. so, does anyone know how to properly install a bathtub? We're hoping to learn SOON...

John successfully just completed another summer school class. So he now has more time to work on the bathtub.. but really just wants me to go into labor! (He gets 2 weeks paid paternity leave..) I don't blame him.. Work is the LAST place I've been wanting to go for about a month and a half. (By the way... John only has 4 more classes until he graduates and then it's off to grad school!)

Emma started having some sad seperation anxiety, which made me more emotional and stressed and tired.. She's doing a little better now though. I am only scheduled to work four hours this Wednesday.. I sure hope I don't make it!
Here I am at 36 1/2 weeks pregnant (taken July 18th).. almost term! I now have one of those bellies that always made my jaw drop at how big and far it sticks out..

One of my great friends Jennifer Radcliffe threw me a baby shower on July 24th. It was a lot of fun and turned out great!! I have some great friends at church and wonderful family members. (Nancy was planning on coming, but has to have one of her hips replaced on the 4th in Phoenix, so she really needed to rest and get a lot of things done in Farmington that day to get ready for the surgery.) We got lots of great things and had a fun time! Thanks everyone soo much!!

I loved the cake! Jessica Shaw and her kids made it. :)

We had friends and family write letters to the baby (and we decided to do it for Emma too) to be opened and read at different birthdays throughout their lives.. ages 1-20.. I love it!!

Jenn and I (later that day at a baptism..)
Here's some other things we've been up to this month..

Trying new recipes (grilled zucchini roll):

and using lots of favorite old recipes.. I just may be addicted to bruschetta...especially with fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden! Heaven!!

Long Sunday drives to the Sandia Crest, through a cloud! Lot's of Wheel of Time reading on our drives..

Burying Emma Jane in the sandbox

Swimming.. and unfortunately getting sunburned..

Hanging out with Megan for a few minutes here in Albuqueruqe!

Going to the aquarium with Johnathan, Darien and Annie

Practice being a big sister (with a little help from Heath and Berke Tew)

A little pregnancy update: I haven't had any other anatomy ultrasounds so I don't know if the echogenic cardic focus is still there on the baby's heart or if it will affect anything.. hope not..

Emma sweetly gave my belly a big hug the other day and said "My Baby Brutter" .. and she has been pointing out things around the house that are for him and talking about baby brutter! Yay! She will still go through a little shock though I'm sure..

Here I am at 38 1/2 weeks.. I am ten days away from my due date.. I have not been too anxious to have the baby yet (I've had too many cleaning and organizing and crafting projects to do!!!).. but I am defenitly getting there now. I think it's because Emma came ten days early.. so I should get that again, right? He has dropped and I've been having contractions like crazy but on Friday early morning I was only dialated to 1 cm and 50% effaced. When he's ready he'll come.. but I do hope it's closer to today then August 11th..

Happy Birthday America

2010-08-01T13:50:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Independence Day weekend at Vallecito at the cabin.. such an awesome weekend! We got there late friday night (July 2nd) and came home on Monday the 5th. Nanny and Grumps met us up there early Saturday afternoon. Of course we always love it there and had a great time!

We brought Emma's rain coat and boots that she had previously gotten from Nancy. Well Emma will never want for shoes.. she got two new pair from Nanny that weekend. She is wearing one of each in this photo.. some awesome faux fur boots and red mary jane squeakers. We loved them! She was squeaking around all weekend.. it was hilarious and great to know when she was wandering off... Emma loved standing out in the rain with her coat and "fishy."

I was 34 1/2 weeks pregnant for the trip.. so here's the whole family! I LOOOVED getting out of the heat. This was our last trip before delivery.. (as I write I am still pregnant...)

Of course we through hundreds of rocks in the lake for dozens of hours.. McCulloch tradition. Emma is still throwing with both hands..
"Happy You".. is what she calls candles on cakes.. and now she calls cake "Happy"... aptly named, I'd say. I brought up this carrot cake and to keep up with Nancy's tradition we lit sparklers and sang Happy Birthday to America. Emma LOVED the sparklers!

Another McCulloch/Rhien tradition is bathing the babies in the sink at the cabin. I guess Max's first bath was in the sink at the cabin. Emma wasn't too sure about it, but Nanny and Grumps were set on getting some pictures and a good bath- so once they gave Emma her "fishy" to wash she loved it. So cute..

We ate lots of good food (thanks Grumps) and played some good darts and cards.. loved it all!!

We didn't get picutes with our camera, but Emma had her first canoe ride. She did great.. and I was able to splash John really well with the oar a couple of times.

You have to see the video of Emma when she first put her shoes on.. she wouldn't stop jumping and I couldn't stop giggling!! Thanks Nanny!!

Almost July..

2010-07-25T13:14:00.000-07:00

Emma Jane sure loves Nanny and Grumps... sometimes in her random babbling she'll start talking about Nanny and Grumps and she loves to talk to Nanny on the phone. It's really sweet. :)

I am sooo glad that I was able to go back up to Utah for Grandpa's funeral and I'm really glad most everyone was able to make it too. It was good to see Bob.. but, seriously I have was SOOOO exhausted the day of the funeral.. by 11:00 I was struggling and I just got more and more sleepy. I really don't remember feeling that sleepy with a nap or bedtime being so far away! This is Emma at the funeral luncheon.. too bad I didn't lay down next to her!

I was all caught up on sleep the next day thank goodness! We decided for the last weekend in June we would stay home and take it a little easy... I did some visiting teaching while John started one of my wish lists for this summer.. installing a ceiling fan! (He decided to wait until I was done visiting teaching and running arrends to finish it when he realized Emma Jane had followed him up the stairs to the ceiling!!)
Here is our dining room light (old and ugly.. but still kind of cool.. I may try to sell it on ebay)

And here is our new dining room light and fan! It's the first ceiling fan in our house. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the fan. It makes such a difference, especially when I'm cooking or baking or doing dishes which happens A LOT! Thanks John! It only took us three times to get it all together right!

Utah trips.. we love you Jay Proctor!

2010-07-25T12:27:00.000-07:00

I am doing a little back tracking still.. The previous post of Emma's two year photo's as I mentioned were taken outside of the Bountiful, Utah temple. We went there for David Frost's sealing on Friday, June 11th. He and John have been good friends since junior high.. maybe elementary.. and he is one of my favorite friend's of John's. We were happy to be able to make if for the sealing. Emma and I stayed outside and took the picutures during the sealing. It was beautiful. Later that night at the reception Emma's reaction to seeing Jessalyn in her wedding dress was so funny. . she was calling her "fishy! fishy!" and was sooo excited! I knew right away that she was talking about The Little Mermaid, who at the end of the movie is wearing her beautiful wedding dress. It's so funny that Emma immediately thought it was her.. she would have a blast at Disney Land!! Jessalyn apparently loved The Little Mermaid too and was happy with the association.. :) Don't you just love her vintage dress and veil? (her whole theme was fabulous!)

We were origianally planning on staying in Northern Utah after the reception and drive home in the morning, but on our way up for the wedding my mom was on her way to Panguitch because Grandpa Proctor was not doing well. He has been sick for a while, but just a few days before a large tumor was found in his stomach and he had fluid in his lungs and was not doing well at all. We were on our way to Panguitch, and almost there, when he started doing a lot worse later at night.. He passed away just about 30 minutes before we got there. I was not too disappointed that we were not there with them when he died, but very grateful we could be there for the family afterwards. He wanted to go home so bad. I guess when asked what he wanted for Father's Day (which was two days away) he said he wanted to go home to his sweetheart. He got his wish. It had been almost two months that Grandma had passed away, and they were ablt to spend thier 74th (!!) wedding anniversary together.. (I think just a few days to a week after he passed away). We stayed for several hours the next day to help Grandma and Grandpa with some cleaning and things at the house so they wouldn't have too much to worry about while getting ready for the funeral. It is amazing how busy and productive Grandpa is! I enjoyed watching him work. :)

I'm really glad we got to spend some time with my mom. I really wish we could see her more so Emma can really know her! (p.s... being so big and pregnant it was soooooo nice in Utah where the weather was wet and rainy and quite cool. I loved it!)

Emma and I came back a few days later for the funeral. John had tests in school and work..

What a great man Jay Proctor is! He has left such a wonderful legacy. Of course we always knew he was a wonderful great-grandfather. He was always so interested in what the kids were doing. He would come and play with us and made videos of us playing and jumping on the trampoline. He would take us as groups or individually on rides with him to check the water meters around the mountains. He would always sing "You Are My Sunshine" on those trips. :) I was able to learn at the funeral that we was always like that with his own kids and grandkids- well of course he was! I guess he was actually envied by SEVERAL of Grandma's and Jay's friends while growing up. It was really hard on Grandma to lose her parents. But of course she knows she'll see him again and that he really was ready to go and wanted to be with Grandma so bad. He would often say that he just wanted to fall asleep and not wake up. :( I'm glad that he didn't have to endure too much physical pain. I am so grateful for my family and the legacy they have given us!!

Amber, the musicially talented woman she is, wrote an arrangement the morning of the funeral for "How Great Thou Art". That is one of my favorite hymns and it was a blessing to be able to sing it for the funeral. My mom, siblings and a few cousins (James Duckett, Jayson Frandsen, Diana Frandsen and Shalee Beckwith) all sang. It actually turned out really good. Grandma liked it so much she requested a repeat for her funeral. We told her okay as long as we had a realllly really long time to practice. :)

"brutter" will be here soon!

2010-07-16T11:09:00.000-07:00

I've been talking a lot about the baby in my tummy and the fact that Emma is going to be a big sister and have a baby brother for a couple of months now. She talks about babies ("baby" was her first word actually) and especially the last couple of weeks is really enthralled with my huge belly but has never tried to say brother or even acknowledge that part of it all.. until last night while reading "How to be a Baby, by Me the Big Sister".. I was pointing to the baby saying that was the baby brother and she finally said "brutter"... soo cute! She will be a good big sister I'm sure (after the initial shock and adjustments we will ALL have to make).
I am 36 and a half weeks today and I'm shooting for a July 31st delivery... we'll see how that goes. I am not ready for him to come yet.. but I will be ready by then... I've been drinking the red raspberry leaf tea and just started the Evening Primrose Oil and walking a lot more. I'll make sure I make my oregano and basil infused chicken cacciatore for dinner on the 30th to boost those contractions and I'll be good to go! (all of these things really helped with getting ready for and inducing labor with Emma... but she was also just ready to come.. we'll see how it goes!.. also, at this point I feel I would totally be okay with a later delivery date for sure! I'm not due until August 11th. I just want him to come when he is ready!

Also.. I'm not sure why but Emma has been into EVERYTHING this last week and is jumping off of all the furniture and making serious messes. She hasn't done these things too much at all ever and I think that she is taking this big sister talk seriously and wants to make sure she has a lot of mischievious skills she can teach her baby brother!! I will be outnumbered then too!! I love you little Emma Jane!

Emma Jane turns 2

2010-07-15T19:10:00.000-07:00

I decided I wanted to do Emma's turning two photo shoot. These are some of my favorites.. I took these the 11 June 2010 outside of the Bountiful Temple.

Tent Rocks- June 5th

2010-07-06T10:52:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning of June 5th, 2010 we slept in a little, then decided it would be a great day for a hike. John decided we should finally go hike Tent Rocks, near Cochiti Lake, NM. We drove up and started our hike at.. 11:00 am. It was HOT!! We realized we had not planned things very well because, who starts a hike that late in the Southwest on a trail with NO shade cover or water in HOT HOT weather.. Also.. being 30 weeks pregnant?!?

The great part was heading up to the very top of the trail and chatting with all the other hikers who started their hike late like us... "if a pregnant lady and a guy carrying a kid and a backpack can do it.. so can we!!" Unfortunately the very top did not have a very good view.. this was the best view.. about 3/4 of the way up:

We let Emma Jane walk part of the hike (until it became painfully slow).. she loved carrying her walking stick and throwing rocks. She's a great little hiker!

Thanks for holding this tree up for us John! You're so strong!!

Amazingly, we passed a LOT of hikers on our way DOWN the trail.. they must have started hiking at between 12 and 1 pm! Crazy! It was a lot of fun over all and we were really glad we went and even made it to the peak. Next time we'll do it in the spring or fall and start a little earlier.

To me this looks like someone got buried from the head to the waist while doing a head stand. what do you think?

We actually haven't done a hike since this weekend, one month ago...

Baking and Cooking up a storm!

2010-06-27T15:17:00.000-07:00

My weight gain this pregnancy has been normal.. which is a complete shocker because I am baking and cooking something new and crazy almost every other day! And I am consuming a LOT of what I make! I love to bake, but I really need to cut back because I love to eat my hard work.. but I did start freezing half of what I make.. There are some yummy rasberry muffins in the freezer right now next to the homemade oreo icecream (made with homemade oreos).. here is some of the evidence: (I'm not a food photographer however, as you will soon tell! sorry!)

*Chocolate Buttermilk Ice-Cream.. so rich and creamy and yummy!

*Old-Fashioned Whoopie Pies- all right.. tastes too shorteningy for me though..*Cake Mix Cookies, YUMMY! apparently I can't get enough chocolate!
*Home-made Oreos.. DIVINE! The cookies were just a little soft, which I love a soft chocolate cookie and I added vanilla bean paste to the cream which added a lot! Some of these went into the oreo ice-cream (no photo of that... but there's still some in the freezer if you want to come over..)*Collard Greens with Ham Hocks, I do eat healthy too! I have never cooked collard greens before but I got some from LPO (Los Poblanos Oraganics food delivery) and read up about them in my favorite vegetable cook book.

*Stuffed Pork-Chops, stuffed with spinach, sun dried tomatos, feta, cream cheese and lemon and garlic.. cooked this for my dinner group but made it again a week later with just a little less spinach and it was even better! John especially LOVES this.. and the chops are broiled and trimmed.. so pretty healthy (got it out of a "Cooking Light" cook book actually)

Speaking of John.. those who know him know of his love for Star Wars.. when I was buying the vanilla bean paste I found these pancake molds and HAD to get them.. I couldn't wait until Father's Day to show them to him so I made the yoda out of my favorite spinach puree egg recipe found in Jessica Seinfeld's Cookbook.. I just had to make him green!

Here's the Father's Day brunch we had.. notice the cream and rasberry syrup.. Emma just wanted cream.. This is Yoda, a storm trooper, and Darth Vader.. It really was great. John found some great music online for us to listen to while we ate. Rage Against the Machine did a great cover of the Imperial March that I really enjoyed.. :)

John is SUCH a great dad. He is gone a lot at school and studying and scouts and when he's home he has to study and sleep most of the few hours he's here but he always (right before bed-time actually) has Emma rolling laughing and giggling and running around having the time of her life. She LOVES her daddy. She hates it when he leaves and is so happy when he comes home. She actually just started calling him John sometimes.. So funny to me because I'm sure she just picked that up from me calling him John (though I don't think she knows my name.. I'm just Mommy or Mamma, sometimes Mom), but John has always called his parents Ron and Nancy- not Dad and Mom..Daughter like Father I guess. I got him the book "Strong Fathers Strong Daughters" for Father's Day and he is doing a serious read of it and is already trying to be better in everyway he can. I am so lucky to have him and our kids are super blessed!

*Beer Shampoo, Okay.. I know, may sound wierd but it's really good for your hair and I used to have a shampoo that I loved that had beer.. parts in it and decided to try my own.. It's out of reduced beer (I actually read beer reviews to find one with a lot of Hops, good for the hair, but didn't smell strong because I HATE the smell of it), Raw Honey, Castile Soap and a little water... this concoction is not what I was looking for, but I'm going to use it up and try another recipe soon.. I also ordered some commercial shampoo's with beer in it. I hope I like them!

Emma Jane likes to be in the kitchen with me and help us eat all these yummy things!

Emma Jane's real birthday party May 22nd

2010-06-25T09:11:00.000-07:00

I am back-tracking now since I haven't blogged in over a month! (It's been a busy one for sure.. )
We made it up to Vallecito, CO to the cabin for Emma's actual 2 year birthday. We were there for her one year also- it really is the best place for her birthday parties! We all LOVE it there so much and it's the perfect time to go and open it up. We met Nancy, Kenny, and some of the Palmers (Larry, Ann, Camera, Johnathan and Kami and their kids). We did a lot of good deep cleaning and some work on the pump to get it ready for the summer. It felt great to be back..

I made her another birthday cake to bring up and share with everyone- and to make sure she got to blow out candles on her actual birth day (the song and candles are her favorite part!)
This was my first attempt at fondant. It's sure not perfect..and got a little damaged from the trip.. but it wasn't too hard and I had a good time doing it.. I think I'll do it some more! The chocolate cake and buttercream frosting under the fondant was the best though!
Emma had a blast with the Palmer kids.. especially Ellie.. she's just 6 months older than Emma. They were so cute together.

They were also good helpers cleaning up with the brooms..

We threw rocks in the lake both mornings we were there. Emma and John loved it. Emma threw mostly with her left hand on Saturday, and switched to the right on Sunday.. She may be ambidextrous! On Sunday morning the water was a good 4-6 inches higher than the day before!As Papa used to say, I think they filled up the lake with all the rocks they threw in! Max came Sunday morning and impressed us with his rock-skipping skills (and long flowing hair :). John is a polar bear and went for a short swim Sunday morning. I got a good video of it.. but I'll keep that for us. :)

No kayaking this time- but she sure loved playing in it. I also brought some punch balloons and bubble makers that all the kids had a blast with.

Nanny and Grumps!

We love you cabin! Hope to see you soon! (We're actually going there for the 4th, and hopefully right after the baby is born for John's paternity leave..)

The party never stops though! We had a little birthday party at Ron's house Sunday night and we had a fun package at home waiting for us from my mom with some cute outfits and jewels and awesome light-up jellies!

My mom also made a sweet card for her.
The party still never stops...She just got a belated birthday package from my dad YESTERDAY! :) Now she really is a two year old.. and soon to be a big sister!!

* Emma's favorite foods: Milk, she asks for chocolate milk sometimes but usually calls it "sugar", fruit snacks, cereal, tomatoes, chips, apples, ice-cream

*favorite toys: Fishy (her Little Mermaid babie), her stuffed Eyore, Piglet Pooh and Tigger, her

hard plastic zoo animals (Rarr is the lion, Raff is girraffe, seera is Zebra), swimming and playing in the sink washing dishes (she says water as "wak" for some reason), Movies (Veggie Tales.. which she calls "Bob", The Little Mermaid, Monsters Inc, Bugs Life to name a few), coloring, her kitchen and kitchen tools, books books books, the stroller and going on walks,

*favorite friends: Lana and Heath, Truman, Nanny and Grumps, Mama/Mommy and Daddy. She just started calling Daddy John every now and then.. I wonder where she got that from?

*favorite phrases: Emma loves to talk! She is very expressive and says a lot with her eyes and

face. She still babbles alot, but really can speak in full sentences and says new words everyday. She also LOVES to sing. She knows some of the alphabet song and loves itsy bitsy spider, let's clean up song, if you're happy and you know it, ring around the rosie, 3 little ducks... when she's tired she asks for a nap and still takes a good 1-3 hour nap most days. When hungry she says she wants a snack.. sometimes that means fruit snacks but mostly any food will do!

She is full of energy and loves to run around, make messes, and run from mommy and daddy trying to tickle her. We sure love her!!

It's her party and she'll cry if she wants to..

2010-05-18T15:14:00.000-07:00

We ended up having to cancel Emma's birthday party. :( She started getting a fever late Wednesday night and was pretty miserable, hot and achey all day Thursday. It was the first time her fever wouldn't break from ibprofin or tylenol. Poor thing. I stayed home from work and pretty much held her all day. She didn't really eat anything- but would drink fluids. She was doing a lot better on Friday and thought we'd still do the party but then she got a low-grade fever Friday evening. That last fever was probably not really from the illness, but probably teething, because it went away with ibprofin right away and she was feeling happy and running around having a great time. She was getting her canines (all four of them just poked through about the same time..) so that made everything worse. We are still not sure what she was sick with, but didn't want her to still be contagious and make the whole nursery from church get sick.

Nancy and Kenny still came to Albuquerque on Saturday to trade cars with Ganes on Sunday and have a little family birthday party with us for Emma Jane. It ended up being a really busy weekend... and Emma was feeling a little cooped up and spoiled from all her special treatment so she threw several big fits.. it's her party and she'll cry if she wants to..thankfully I think that is all out of her system now! (and don't forget all the canines just poked though!)

Here are some things I got done before the weekend though..

My apron! It has some detailed pleats and I love the contrasting fabric.. but don't love the fit.. but I think it's because I'm hugely pregnant. (I'm somewhat worried about how much bigger I'm going to get in the next three months!!)

Our garden! I planted all the transplants last Tuesday (lots of chili peppers!!) and John and I tried to quickly build the fences around the boxes to keep Emma out. She has been digging in them for the past year and knew she would quickly destroy the garden otherwise. (we did get her a turtle sand box from a friend with lots of sand toys that she loves)

Speaking of gardens.. I signed up to get a harvest box from Los Poblanos Organics every other Tuesday. It is a huge box of delicious organic produce for 33$ (including shipping). Here's Emma enjoying her first bites out of the box.. (notice the chocolate yogurt all over her face)

I also made this little crayon holder for one of Emma's birthday presents. She loves to color and this is so much more fun than a plastic crayon tote.. that she just empties out completely right away anyways.. I love the monstor fabric.. I made it out of flannel because of the monstor fabric. Emma loves it.

Julie Tew brought over this cutest dress and jacket for her Saturday morning. She helped me decorate the cake while wearing it and then played in some water and the sand box and with Truman outside.. So it's already broken in! She was soo happy to see Julie's son Heath (or "Heaths", as she calls him). She really likes him and was really really needing some little kid interaction so I'm glad she stopped by..even for a few minutes.

Now we party! Because Saturday became so busy and we went to a graduation dinner at Quarters Saturday night we had her party kind of late .. but I guess that's not too suprising for us. Here's Emma around all the presents she openend that night. This awesome pink chair is from Nancy. It has a little shelf on the bottom for books. We LOVE it. The present she is holding is a little basket ball. Ganes had a big/little basketball hoop sent to our house. She didn't see it until Sunday night when Ganes was there.. she loved it and we all played some hoops with her for a while Sunday night. She was running around and it was really hard to get any pictures of her face.. but here are some valiant efforts..

This is the crayon holder..

I got this baby doll at a recommendation for the "Toilet Training in Less Than a Day" book. I haven't finished the book or started the training yet.. soon though. This baby pees and poops. I'm curious about the pooping part. She loves baby dolls.. but would play with this.. then throw her to the ground when she was all done.. she's not ready to hold any new infants yet!

Here is her cake! I became a lot more casual and sloppy while decorating it when we decided to cancel the party, but it has these little fun fondant shapes I made. I actually made the fondant! This was my first time working with it.. and only the second cake I've ever really decorated.. but the fondant was really not as bad or scary as I thought it would be. I found this marshmallow fondant recipe, and it actually doesn't taste too bad. I frosted the whole thing with delicious buttercream frosting, but I think I'll try to make a whole fondant frosted cake next... it's so beautiful!

Singing Happy Birthday to her and letting her blow out the candles was by far the highlight of her day. She LOVED it. "Happy to me!" She loved it so much, we did it about 5 times, and about 5 times the next day, and will for sure do it again this Saturday, the 22nd, when it's her real birthday! (and we'll be at the cabin.. horray!!!!!)

On Sunday we left Nancy and Kenny for a while so she could get some work done and we went out the the Tamaya in Bernallilo to see Ursula. We spent the whole time swimming with Emma. She LOVES the water! She did so great! She took swimming lessons last summer and did good but she is so brave now. She loves to jump in the pool and had her arm floaties on.. after about 45-60 minutes she was floating and spinning around in the water by herself! (and her floaties). She did not want to get out.. but when she finally did, she was starving and exausted. It was great. We're going to do swimming lessons again this Summer. We're going to do the second evening session at Montgomery Pool.. the Mom and Tot class. Anyone want to join us?

Hello Birthday Party

2010-05-05T16:54:00.000-07:00

We can hardly believe it's true,

Our little girl is turning two!

Come celebrate with us and Pooh.

Saturday, May 15th

11:00 am-1:00 pm

At the McCulloch's Howse deep in the Hundred Acre Wood

Come share the fun and food with us as we celebrate Emma Jane's birthday

4 down.. 18,687,263 to go.

2010-04-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the things I've been up to..

Re-fashioning my purse. I have a love for dark brown, which is the color of my usual purse, but I have been wanting to pull out another purse that is such a nice spring color- ivory. After using for an hour I remembered why I put it away in my closet. It has these metal rings on the handles that are too loud and heavy and .. not me. I hate how they clank around and because the straps are too short, it falls off my shoulder.. so I decided to change the straps to my liking!

Before:

Mid-Way: (The purse is leather.. I could only find vinyl that I sewed to canvas for reinforcement)

After:

(The straps may still be a little too short. If it bugs me enough I will have a re-fashion part two.)

Yard Work. I re-seeded our lawn with some Tall Fescue so I've been dilligently keeping it wet. We have had success and have some cute little baby grass blades coming up.. meanwhile the older grass was getting VERY tall. Emma loves to play in our back yard and on her swing. "wing" I had her in there while I was mowing the lawn with our OLD- at least 20 years and LOUD LOUD electric lawn mower and would push her in the swing when she needed another push. I looked up to see if she needed a push.. but she really needed a NAP! (She has been on a growth spurt. She took a 4 hour 15 minute nap on Friday!)

Baking these yummy (and low-fat/calorie) chocolate cupcakes.Eating Avacados.. and now I will watch the pits grow some avacado trees!

Growing a baby. I will be 25 weeks tomorrow.. John and I had these great Wild Things shirts made at Christmas and the size I picked for mine was just way too big and wierd.. but I altered it at the neck and took in the sleeves and then did this ruching technique that took about two minutes... and now I have a really fun, custom-made maternity shirt!

Making to-do lists.

1. Finish my apron. I haven't worked on it in months.. I will finish it this week!

2. Plant the garden in our square foot gargen boxes we planted last year.

3. Buy a sander, and supplies to paint and repair our big swing-set we got from the neighbor.

4. Peruse Craiglist for a decent proprane grill and an arm's reach co-sleeper.

5. Build a modern farmhouse table

6. Hang the curtains in the office/Emma's sleeping room.

7. Take down the wallpaper in the bathroom and re-paint.

8. Take down the old ugly mirrors on the dining room wall and re-paint.

9. Plan a two-year old birthday party for Emma Jane.

10. Start making baby announcements and baby boy projects.. car seat cover, blankets..

11. Make Emma's Crayon holder craft and work on her quiet book.

12. Clean and organize and PURGE my house.

Pregnancy Update/ Ultrasound #4

2010-04-24T06:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning I had 3 OB appointments in a row.. (from 7-10). I always have my regular check-ups with Dr. Stuart at 7:15 on Fridays. I like to get in and out. Emma and John were able to come with me to these appointments because the ban of children has finally been lifted in the hospital. We talked to Dr Stuart about the Echogenic Focus, and like us she was not worried about it.. easy appointment.. my next one is five weeks away.
Next we went down a floor to the Perinatal Associate's office and met first with the genetic couseler. This was an appointment they told us we should make and honestly we didn't really learn anything new regarding our case but it was still a good idea. It was a good time to ask questions and be put even more at ease that we really don't need to be worried about anything. We ended up asking a lot of other questions about genetics in general and had a little fun picking her brain.. she did tell us that at their office there are a couple of doctors who wish patients would not even be told it exists because it means nothing to them.. and a couple of doctors who say.. well, we should talk to them about it because sometimes it is correlated with other problems.
Finally we went back for another ultrasound- the tech did the general biophysical profile and our baby got 8 out of 8 (meaning he's growing and moving and the blood flow is still good and the amniotic fluid level is within nornal limits).. Then Dr Albright came in and took a little closer look at the heart and other organs and said we are good to go and we'd only need to come back if we start having any other complications. When I started to ask a little about the echogenic focus we quickly learned that he is one of the doctors that doesn't like it and wish they wouldn't have to talk about it. He said there are a lot of other hard or stronger markers for genetic anomolies that they look for and this baby has none.
So, it seems like we really didn't learn anything new.. and that's why we wanted to do these appointments- to make sure we wouldn't learn anything new. Our little baby is growing healthy and strong and we are excited to meet him. It was fun to have Emma see him on the ultrasound.. but I still don't think she really knows why my belly is growing so big. (and it is! I'm huge!!!)
I think we have his name all picked out. I love it. We'll let you all know what it is in a little less than four months when he is born!

boo

2010-04-17T12:52:00.001-07:00

I am 23 weeks and three days pregnant... so why did I throw up this morning? I am only 4 weeks away from the third trimester!! Sheesh!!

Remembering Dudley Lee Proctor

2010-04-16T08:05:00.000-07:00

Emma loves The Little Mermaid.. however she is simply called "Fish" not Ariel, Mermaid, Princess of even Barbie. I love it. She has to bring it with her everywhere. Here she is watching The Little Mermaid movie and laid down next to Fish and said it was time for a nap. So, I put the blanket over them and she thanked me. :)
You may wonder why this picture is fuzzy.. it is because Nina and I had to run and chase them around the aquarium the whole time... it's amazing the picture even turned out this good. Thanks for the workout girls!
Emma and I were able to make it to Panguitch for Great-Grandma Proctor's (Dudley Lee) funeral services. John needed to stay home for work and school. I was a little worried about the ten hour drive but bought a portable DVD player Monday night. What a miracle worker that little thing is! We made it all the way to Flagstaff without stopping. We were able to eat lunch at Niki's house and spend a little time with her and her sons. It was really good to see them. Part of the reason why I was willing to do the long drive was as long as someone road with me from Flagstaff. Luckily both Amber and Megan were able to get out of school and work so they rode from Flagstaff to Panguitch with me. We did that part of the trip without stopping also! Of course my butt was killing me.. but it was nice to get there at a decent hour. The funeral was on Wednesday the 14th. We had a two-hour viewing first. A lot of friends and family made it for that. Grandma looked SO beautiful and peaceful. Ann Proctor did her hair and make-up.. her real hair. Grandma always wore these big wigs until the last couple of years, but her natural hair was so beautiful and we were all so happy to see her looking so peaceful and happy. I also love that she was dressed in her temple clothes. I am so grateful for our eternal knowledge of thing. The funeral immediately followed the viewing. Grandpa (Clark) and Grandma (Gwen)Frandsen, her brother Jay, his wife Ann and my mom all spoke. It was great to see more what a positive and happy person she was. Several of her poems were read and we could really tell that the world through her eyes was such a beautiful place. Ben Proctor dedicated the grave. It was a beautiful prayer and blessing. Josh was a pall bearer. He did great. He is really growing up. Bob and John were both listed as honorary pall bearers. All of our cousins were able to make it except Bob, David and Dennis and J.C.. Here the pall bearers are placing their flowers on Grandma's beautiful casket. All of us, especially the girls took a flower or a few from the casket arrangement to press or dry.

It was a fast, quick trip but I am really glad I was able to go. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family. It was also so good to see Grandpa Proctor. He is doing very well. Really the hardest part was watching him cry at her side before they closed the casket. How wonderful to be so in love for so long! (They will have been married 74 years this June).

It was so good to come home last night and spend time again with my loving and wonderful husband (of 4.5 years). We'll reach that 74 year mark as well someday! :)

This is a few weeks old... but it's a cute video of Emma doing the dishes.

A few days without John.. and a little white spot.

2010-04-10T13:26:00.000-07:00

John is in Michigan at the annual American Nuclear Society student conference. He gave a presentation on some research he did (and had published) and did really well.. They give awards for good presentations and he'll find out tonight if he won. He did however recieve a "man purse" for place 3rd in a golf tournament...
lucky guy...
Meanwhile, Emma and I have been busy here at the house. I did a lot of work on the yard including overseeding our back lawn.. soon we'll have beautiful little green blades of grass poking through the black compost.. i LOVE Spring.
A couple of somewhat sad things have happened this week too. My great-grandmother Dudley Proctor passed away. She was 96 I think. She has had dementia and my great grandfather Jay and my grandmother Gwen have been taking care of her for months. She is such a sweet lady and was deeply loved. Her and Grandpa Proctor have been married for over 75 years! Can you imagine!?! My poor Grandpa Proctor stayed by her side to cry for several minutes. I hope John and I are still so in love and devoted to each other after so many years. I'm sure we will be. Hopefully I will be able to make it to the funeral in Panguitch on Wednesday..
Also I had a follow up ultrasound friday morning to get a better look at our baby's anatomy and they found a ECHOGENIC CARDIC FOCUS on his left ventrical. It is a little bright white spot on his heart. I was feeling pretty worried.. but am doing so much better today. It is one of the "soft markers" for Down Syndrome. I really think that he is fine however. He has no other signs that I know of yet. I did not do the blood test for genetic problems and will not do an amniocentosis. The uncertainty is the hardest part and I'm sure I will have a little worry spot tucked away in the back of my mind for the next four months... I have an appointment with a genetic counselor and the Perinatologist in two weeks. (Honestly I wasn't too worried until the told me I need an appointment with the genetic counselor.. but I would rather be overcautious than undercautious.) But honestly.. I'm not too worried.. so neither should any of you be!
Good news.. so far my blood pressure and protein leaking has all been within normal limits this pregnancy. Horray!
Has anyone else had a baby with the Echo Focus on their heart? One of my best friends who actually has a Downs baby just told me that he did NOT have the spot.. so who knows?

coming out of hibernation (welcome back, spring!)

2010-04-06T06:53:00.000-07:00

This may look like she is rejoicing over the warmer weather.. however Emma Jane really loves her daddy and was a little worried when he dissappeared into the gas station.. "where'd daddy go?"... as soon as she saw him waking back to the car, she yelled "daddy!" So sweet is a daddy and his little girl.

I have finally done it! I have made some beautiful loaves of bread using my own freshly ground wheat and by kneading it by hand. (The blackstrap molasses I added gave it this lovely color). I loved it. I never had a very good bread making lesson, and though I love to cook and bake (and aren't too bad at it), yeast breads have always been a little intimidating (even though I make cinnamon rolls just fine.. ) we loved the bread and gobbled it up. I'm going to make some more today! (with bananas!!)

I found this great/interesting and different DVD via a recommendation on Netflix called "How to Cook Your LIfe" about a breadmaker in a Buddhist Monistary and he is great and wrote this awesome book :
I HIGHLY recommend it if you are like me and afraid of making homemade bread. It is foolproof! One of my favorite purchases of the year so far.

We had a wonderful Conference and Easter weekend, and I hope you all did too! We watched three of the sessions at the McCraken's home... of course we missed alot of the talks because of the girls.. but it was great none the less. This is Easter morning after Emma found some stickers... she helped Lana get over her fear and hatred of stickers too..haha.. Also, notice the Ariel Barbie in Emma's hand. This is one of her favorite toys lately. She is "Fish."

I set up an Easter Egg hunt in our back yard for the girls. Emma found one egg, noticed something was in it, started eating the candy inside and then could care less about the remaining 30 eggs hidden in the back yard. I persisted though so I could at least get one picture of the hunt. (notice the open egg in her left hand and that she is gripping candy with her right fist.. all she really cares about)...

This is Emma saying "cheese" with all the goods... and just a few remaining stickers..

We got this great set of "Resurection Eggs" from John's Aunt Marie. They really helped us tell the Easter story to Emma along with the Gospel Art Picture book we got from the Bishop a few months ago. This will be our Easter tradition for years to come I am sure.. next year I will add some of those Easter cookies that become hollow when you bake them. I love Easter. Another fun tradition my family did a couple of times was that we had a birthday party for Jesus on April 6th. We would have a great family testimony meeting and I would even make a cake.. Happy Easter everyone!!

Here are some of our hikes we've been doing lately :
Emma ran for about 15 minutes after when we got to this hiking spot (near cuba) about a month ago. She was so ready to get out of the car so we didn't put her in the back pack until we had to.

I found this great stick that made me feel very much like Gandolf. For some reason most of the hikes we do make me feel like I am in "The Hobbit" on a grand adventure- that is one of the reasons I love to hike so much!....

...especially when there are cool rocks that look like marble and crumble in your hands..

This is the on the Albuquerque river walk nature trail. Emma had a great time, especially looking at all the geese and ducks on the water. She loves ducks and birds! (most birds are called ducks..)

Here we are at the Red Rocks just West of Las Vegas, NV. I really loved this area and highly recommend it to anyone traveling to Vegas. . I'm sure it is hot and miserable in the summer though.. It was a somewhat challenging hike for a pregnant one though, but defenitly do-able. . I only felt a couple contractions..

We also did the Hoover Dam tour, which was great.. What was not great though was chasing after a toddler and having visions of her jumping over ledges and falling to her death. She actually wedged through an opening in a wall that would have led to sudden death had we not seen her dissapear into the wall and then SPRINT over to her. Goodness, child!! Notice her body language saying, let me down.. to run around and give you heart-attacks!

This was two Saturdays ago.. we walked for a just a few minutes and then decided that because John had already done a 6 mile hike with the scouts that morning, we would rather do a nice drive and look for the dinosaur bone quarry in the area (this was near Mount Taylor). We didn't find it but John got a sample of some green dirt we found and he had in analysed and found out it has some radioactive minerals in it.. so we are actually going to look into getting the mineral rights for that area..

Here is that great vintage fabric I got at that rare store in Peralta. I am hesitant to cut it all up until I find the perfect project for them.. any suggestions?

Here are some projects I have completed (really easy and quick ones.. but better than nothing). I love this fabric I found for Nina's nursing cover. Click on it to see the little blue hearts.

Another nursing cover for Tiffany's baby shower. She is one of the few having a girl.

Emma fell in love with this "Pooh -Igger" fabric so I bought the rest of it.. it makes a big blanket. All I did was sew satin ribbon around the edges. She loves it.

While I have been sewing, One of Emma's new hobbies is to clean and do dishes! She loves to spill her milk after her cereal is gone and then wipe it all up..

Here she is wiping down her new kitchen we got from the Shaw's. Thank you! She loves it!! Notice her cute apron the neighbor gave her for Christmas. It has tinker-bell on it. Doing the dishes at my mom's in Kingman. (I am 5 months pregnant..)Dishes need washing in Las Vegas too..

and at home..

What have all of you been up to?

bouncing baby boy

2010-03-26T14:29:00.001-07:00

Well we have had a very busy last few weeks.. Here are some of the highlights:
* We had our ultrasound a couple weeks ago, and found out we are having a healthy BOY! We are very excited..
* We spent some time with family last weekend! My family in Kingman.. and John's dad in Vegas. We also did a great hike at the Red Rocks in Vegas. It was a wonderful, well-needed vacation.
*We got to spend time with Nanny and Grumps two weeks ago. We all loved having them here and it was so much fun to have Nancy there for the ultrasound (she guessed girl though...)
* While Nanny and Grumps were here to watch Emma we got to have a little stay-cation in Placitas at a lovely bed and breakfast. Thanks so much Nancy! It was wonderful!! (The room had a huge jet bathtub and a double fireplace. .. so romantic.
* I have still been thowing up.. about every two weeks. blah..
*I have been doing a lot of sewing! It is one of my favorite hobbies and I have been feeling very crafty.. I have bought fabric and have ideas for more projects than I have actually completed.. especially after we found out we were having a boy I bought a lot of fun boy fabic.. and I also got some awesome truly vintage fabric from a unique store in Peralta.

I will be sure to post picutures soon!

gazelle budgeting

2010-02-24T20:23:00.000-08:00

Who else has been addicted to the olympics this year? I sure have.. but on Wednesday nights we pull ourselves away for our "Financial Peace University" class. This is our third week and although not much is really new (because I've been a fan of Dave Ramsey for a few years) it is so encouraging to actually put these good principles in use! We did a budget last Friday and I think this is the first one we have actually kept! It only goes through this Sunday but we gave ourselves each some blow money.. and I am actually saving my blow money for something bigger I will probably buy in a few weeks. This is big for me because I like to spend money spontaneously.. too often. Now we will actually be able to put a good chunk of our paychecks into savings instead of blowing it on.. who knows.. some spontaneous junk. Thanks Dave! (and John for signing us up for the class!)

Pillow Factory Alphabet Down Filled Pillow GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

2010-02-21T14:42:00.000-08:00

Pillow Factory Alphabet Down Filled Pillow GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Wouldn't this look so cute under Emma's little sleeping head?

morning bliss

2010-02-20T08:55:00.000-08:00

I love being a mother.. for many reasons, but this morning around 6 Emma woke up crying "mommy" so I went and laid next to her to help her fall back asleep (which she did until about 9:30) but before she fell asleep she put her nose right up to mine, cuddled with me, gave me kisses and big smiles when I gave her eskimo kisses and stroked my cheek with her soft hand. I watched her sleep for a while before I got up again. Now I am entertained watching her make a breakfast mess. She ate most of her pancakes and is dipping a paper towel into her orange juice and "cleaning" her face with the orange juiced paper towel. It will be bath time soon enough. I love mothering my sweet Emma Jane.

welcome back sunshine!

2010-02-19T10:16:00.000-08:00

Here's Emma Jane in one of our measly snow storms this year..

The holidays are over and the air is starting to warm up.. so I am starting to feel a little more alive. I am not a winter person, but I have been addicted to the winter olympics this year! so much fun!

Christmas was great. We spent Christmas weekend in Farmington with John's mom. We announed to our families on Christmas day that we are expecting our second child. I am due August 11th. We'll find out the gender in a few weeks.. any guesses?

Emma reallly got into the Christmas spirit this year.. meaning she had a trunkk load of presents to bring home. She really had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun shopping for her.. but finding a place for all her stuff is somewhat impossible!

Here she is at my work Christmas party.. with the first gifts of Christmas from us.. some books!

We also had an early Christmas with John's dad.. and she got this awesome tricycle... she'll grow into it in no time..

She also recieved this little snowman bell from my dad and decided it needed to be swaddled in her daddy's shirt. I loove how much she nurtures and loves her little babies... she'll be a wonderful big sister.. and mother some day!

She has been saying a lot of new words and is still full of energy and life. She is very happy and sweet. We just love her! I shared some of my fruit smothie with her.. yummy!Emma's new favorite thing is Whinnie the Pooh. She loves the movies and could watch them all day... she calls them Pooh Igger... so cute. She likes to sleep with her little pooh bear too. So cute. She has been sleeping in her own big bed. We have a nice futon that I padded up with a memory foam topper and feather topper.. because I lay down with her until she is asleep.. and I am probably asleep before she is! John has to wake me up to go to our bed.. sometimes I am already too asleep to move though.. It's amazing how much little kids move around in their sleep!

We celebrated our 4th anniversary this January..It's been a fabulous four years. I really have the world's best husband! He is soo good to me every day that our anniversaries and valentines days seem almost.. unnecessary to me.. because John really expresses his love to me constantly. I am very blessed. We did go on a super date for our anniversary.. watched Sherlock Holmes, ate lunch, then watched Avatar. It was fun! Out Valentine's day was Sunday, but actually kind of busy for us.. I got some beautiful gerber daisies and chocolate.. just what I wanted.. and John got some of his man soaps and razors... i know- kind of lame, but he liked it! The best gift I got though was a few days earlier he cleaned out the fridge for me.. like really scrubbed it. It was so thoughtful of him.. i've been so naseaus that I hated even opening the fridge.. that was the perfect romantic gift for me!!

We joined a gym in January.. the JCC, or Jewish Community Center. It is great! We were going pretty regularly for little more than a month and then we both got super sick on super bowl sunday .. food poisioning from taco bell we ate the day before.. yuck! but man that threw us both off for about a week! I was working out right after work on Monday and Thursday..but the same day we were really sick my baby sitter called to tell me she wants to quit watchig Emma..

So we have some fabulous friends that are helping us out.. and so far she is loving it! She gets to play with her best friend Lana McCrackin on Wednesdays and will go there on Mondays a week or two after Nina has their baby.. and on Thursdays she plays with little Heath Tew.. Thank you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are such blessings in our lives!

Have any of you heard of Dave Ramsey? He has a radio show on 730 am, the Christian radio show and has written books... he's a big financial advisor that teaches good, old fashioned money advice like: work really hard, stay out of debt, pay tithing... he's great! we just started taking his class: Financial Peace University.. it's a class on DVD's that we watch with a small group and we got some books and resourses to use during and after the class.. so far we are loving it! On March 3rd we can invite people to come to class.. it's on his favorite topic- getting out of debt. It's Wednesday night at 7pm.. they even have a free day care class.. Anyone want to come with us? Check out his website..http://www.daveramsey.com/

Does anyone have any recommendations for a good double jogging stroller?

I hope you all are doing well!!

15 Weeks

2010-02-19T09:12:00.000-08:00

I am sooo sick of throwing up!!! I did this with Emma too, I was like 19 weeks with Emma the last time I threw up... I am in the second trimester, but it sure doesn't feel like it sometimes!!

18 Month Milestones and Memories

2009-12-08T13:29:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the McCulloch happenings for November...and part of December. I was sewing an apron one warm day while Emma was playing in the back yard and I went out to check on her just as she was going down the slide. I'm glad I didn't miss it! I was very cute and she looved it. This playground set came with the house and the slide is lopsided so she almost fell off several times but it was fun to watch. Too bad it is freezing in Albuquerque now! She'll have to wait until Spring to get back down the slide.

The first weekend in November we went to Kingman for Skye Lee McDaniel's wedding. It was such a fun wedding. Here is Skye with the groom... just kidding, her dog Brule that walked her down the aisle.. Emma loved playing with all the many pumpkins that were there. And she loved playing in the dirt the most!

Congratulations Skye Lee! We love you! It was sooo good to see Stacy, Skye and Brandon. I love those guys!

We were able to see my dad on the way out of town. He leant me a fun little Danish cookbook. I've made some Danish meatballs for our ward's cultural dinner and some shortbread. I want to try a few more before I send it back to him. We also were able to see Duke, my Dad's boxer dog that we got when I was about 15. He died about a week after we were there. :( Emma's best friend Lana (who she calls "Nana") had her second birthday and we were able to join in the celebrations a little.

Emma turned 18 months herself this month. She is a very energetic, fun, smart and special little girl. She loves the Nursery. She loves other kids and new people. She loves books, especially turning the pages by herself. She loves to color very much and is getting pretty good at it. She still uses both her left and right hands to draw and eat. She loves to try to say new words all the time. Some of her favorites are: milk, mama, daddy, shoes, poo poo, diaper, ball, book, cheese, yep, nope, hi, bye, night night.... she know where her eyes and nose and ears and hair and teeth are and loves to give hugs and kisses. We love her so much!!!! She also loves to make smiley faces! We went to wonderful Panguitch, Utah for Thanksgiving. We picked up Megan in Flagstaff on the way there. Emma loved the company in the back seat! It was such a fun trip. I really enjoyed seeing my grandparents (Frandsens) and my Great-Grandparents (Proctors) who are in their 90's. My sweet great grandma has Dementia and Great-Grandpa has cancer so it was very important to me that we were able to see them and spend time with them. I can't believe I didn't get any pictures with them! Of couse after our big meal on Thursday (I made a big yummy waldorf salad, a pumpkin cheesecake and a fruit cheesecake) and after some pie we went up to the mountains to get some Christmas trees. Bob and Amy got one, as well as my Mom and Amber (even though Amber did not have her own car to transport said Christmas tree). .. Yes, my mom has a puppy in her pocket.

Meet Samwise, the newest member of the Shupe family.

Despite John's cheesey smile.. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture.

Emma and Robby, he's wearing Emma's fusia jacket. It was pretty cold up there.

Emma loved the snow and pine cones! Joshua

I'm part of a play group that meets once a week and I usually can go once a month. This is at our little aquarium. This is Emma Jane and Bailey Munns by the sting rays

we love turtles! Emma climed up on this little bench seating area in front of the big aquarium and had a laughing and squealing party. When she gets really excited and is having a reallly good time she screams! Lunch with the play group.. Otis, Olivia, Emma and Bailey...As Emma turned 18 months I thought I would try her on regular cow's milk (she has been drinking goats's milk for the past six months.. and I am still nursing her a little). Things were okay for the first few days and then she started getting diarrhea again, so I switched her to Lactose Free cow's milk.. and I think it is the answer! She had a pretty bad diaper rash last weekend but she has very sensitive skin and gets them with any new food. Poor thing. I have heard that even more people are Lactose sensitive than they realize. I loooove my dairy!

Also, Emma is still sleeping in bed with us! I love it and it has been very easy and natural for us.. but our bed is getting pretty crowded so I'm going to start putting her to sleep on her own bed. Any suggestions or experiences with that? I also have been thinking more about potty training. I think she is getting close to being ready.. scary! I'm not looking forward to it!!

I am very excited for Christmas this year! I love having all the beautiful decorations up in our home (even though Emma has broken at least five ornaments already!) and I love Nativities and Christmas music and movies! We had our Stake Nativity Open house and Handel's Messiah concert last weekend and then were able to watch the First Presidency's Christmas devotional. We had a dinner at our house and invited three families over to watch it (The McCrakins, Formisanos and Dunlaps). It was a lot of fun albiet distracting at times with the three little girls! (Lana, Olivia and Emma). John and I are hoping that this Christmas season we can lose weight instead of gaining it! I took a couple month off .. but last week I started working out again! I need to learn how to stay consistent! I have lost about a pound and a half.. not the 10 I was hoping for.. but I'll take it! I'm trying to form a true habit by exercising every day in December (expect for Sundays)... I've missed a few days but it's definetly become more part of my routine. Exercise is sooooo good for you! Someday I WILL run a half marathon!

September and October...

2009-12-03T05:40:00.000-08:00

Hello friends!

I am still back-tracking and trying to keep up with our family journaling..

We made a trip to Mesa/Tempe at the end of September for Shannon Gorley's wedding. (Someone John grew up with when he lived in Apache Junction, AZ.) We stayed with Bob and Amy in their new house. It was a lot of fun. Amy and I went to IKEA with the kids and I fell in love. It was so good to see John's Family, Nancy (Nanny), Kenny (Grumps), Ganes (Uncle G), and Max (Uncle Frank). It was the first completely non-secular wedding we had ever been to. It was interesting to be at a wedding and never hear God or anything close mentioned at all. The vows were beautiful though. Kenny had just gotten back from Alaska and had a little grizzly bear for Emma and some awesome grizzly stories ..

The next weekend was General Conference and the Balloon Fiesta! My mom and brother Josh came for the weekend. It was a lot of fun. John missed all of the balloons because he was busy studying, so I am really glad they came. I knew Emma would love it and she did! We went to the Mass Ascension.
There were a lot of balloons and a ton of people. Here's Josh.

The kissing bees..
Emma loved this frog guy. All the other kids were kind of afraid of him, but he cracked Emma up! She would swing punches at him (he does actually make a good punching bag) and give him high fives. She is a picture of pure bliss..

The Air Force Band was there rocking out and Emma rocked out along with them.. she danced for a good ten minutes with no signs of stopping! Needless to say she was pretty much stealing the show..

We took a walk by the River Sunday morning. Emma loooves to be outside.

This is at the Petroglyphs Monument with the play group. (Aubrey, Gavin, Olivia and Emma). It was maybe a little too trecherous for toddlers, but they all had so much fun! Emma found an ant hill and thought it was the coolest thing.

There was a lot of movement during this photo shoot, but I have to share.. I thought it was so cute and how amazing it is to see the natural motherely instincts of a 17 month old. She got all of our clean laundry off the couch and was swaddling and covering (and burying) her little baby doll that she was carrying around in a little basket. And then giving the baby a drink of her sippy cup.. soo sweet!

I LOVE FALL TIME! We went out to McCall's Pumpkin Patch with the Smith's. Levi and Emma rode the cattle train together. We got a few pumpkins and Emma loved to pick up the pumpkins and throw them to watch them bounce, and she would try to carry several at once. I guess she loves Autumn also!

Emma also loves to read!

..and make funny faces! I also love fall because of all the pumpkin! (and squash and sweet potatoes).. I made something pumpkiny every week at least! Here's the pumpkin creme brule.. (divine) Here's a pumpkin cupcake with pumpkin cream cheese frosting I made. I found the best recipe for pumpkin cheese cake streusel cupcakes. yummmy! Emma also enjoyed all the pumpkin things I made, but cannot pass up some good cold cereal (also one of my favorite things)

Happy Halloween!!! We had so much fun with Halloween! I spent hours and lots of dollars making our costumes.. but it was well worth it. We had been planning this for several years.. and I'm pretty sure I fullfilled one of John's childhood fantasies as well. He was Han Solo with the boots, blaster and holster in tact! I was Princess Leia and Emma Jane was an Ewok. It was a lot of fun. We went to our ward Halloween Carnival the night before Halloween. Emma had so much fun. She really loves to be around a lot of people and other kids and likes to stay busy busy busy. I had to chase her around for a while before I got any good pictures of her.

sleepy ewok.

giggly ewok. This is Halloween morning when Emma drew some art work in the bathtub. It was just chalk. She was very proud of her work. :) Nanny and Grumps came over and helped hand out candy. Kenny is the best pumpkin carver. Emma was eating the pumpkin scraps raw! And I thought I liked pumpkin! We made some yummy pumpkin soup and watch some baseball. Happy Halloween!! November 1st, almost 18 months. Emma Jane climbing on Daddy's books.

Also.. John and I both had birthdays in October. We are getting old!

check out last blog

2009-11-20T11:26:00.001-08:00

for some reason it posted as September 12th.. but I just posted it this morning!

there goes the sun..

2009-09-12T12:25:00.000-07:00

20 NOVEMBER 2009
I uploaded most of these pictures in August.. so some of them are old and they are posted in backward order but at least they are something! This is what an Emma Jane looks like after eating chocolate pudding (her mama's favorite snack) and her daddy making the Emma face. This was around September...
We spent Labor Day Weekend in Napa Valley, CA for John's step-sister Kim's wedding. It was our first time in Napa and in the Bay Area and we both LOVED it. This is us at the wedding- it was beautiful and in a winery's cellar.. very cool. The coolest part was Emma Jane dancing like a diva at the reception. She was jumping and spinning and shaking her booty... I really don't know where she gets it from.. it must be her natural instincts! We spent a lot of time in San Fransisco and loved it! The tour we did of a WWII Submarine may have been John's favorite part. Here they are in the Dining area..

The Sub..

The city's trolly. We watched them drive the train on a big turn-table and get out and manually turn the train around. We were impressed.

This may have been my favorite part- lunch! I had rissotto for the first time and It may have been the best thing I have ever eaten! (I have since been making it at home and I found a butternut squash pistachio rissotto that is FABULOUS!)..of couse we ate dinner at fisherman's warf- clam choweder in a sourdough bread bowl..
Emma eating and loving the bruschetta tomatoes..

This was around August? Nanny and Grumps (Nancy and Kenny) came into town and brought this cute hat for Emma Jane. John had just gotten back from a boy scout wood badge training weekend which he loved and was a pretty big deal.. the area authority pretty much said all young men leaders had better get the wood badge..

Emma Jane and I went to the zoo with the McCrackin's.. here we are at the train station on our way to the aquarium.

This is Lana McCrackin.. they are best buddies.. soo cute!

This sweet dress was a christmas gift from my dad.. I think she is 14 months old here..

This adorable little dragon costume came from the Franze family. It brought alive the wild thing in Emma!

Emma LOVES going over to Marie and Nelson's house. And so do we!! They are the BEST babysitters too! The back view..

With her second cousins Addison and Coleson

Our wild thing

Uncle Ganes came through town

and we went on a steep hike in the Mountains of Mist.. Emma must have been on my back at this point..yea, I'm one tought mama..

I got this little blow up pool for Emma and she loved it! She would take a running dive into it! This is her best pirate face.

And her cheesiest grin! I wish you could see it better!

At the beloved cabin in Vallecito Colorado.. July or August

We took the boat on the Navajo Lake and and did some camping. We loved it. We ended up sleeping on the boat.

At our Elder's Quorm Social.. food on face and having fun!

This is BEAUTIFUL hike we did in Colorado, near Pagosa Springs.. can we live there please please please? This was at the tail end of the 4th of July weekend McCulloch Family Reunion. The actual reunion was at the Blue Lake Lodge Bed and Breakfast near Durango.

This is at the original McCulloch family homestead on the family ranch. It was so cool to go and get so much family history for his side of the family. Emma especially liked the chocolate chip cookies..

and chasing after the cows.. moooo...we went a couple miles away from the homestead to go shooting.. and John shot a gopher://gopher...after/ about 30 bullets.. it was hilarious.. soooo sleepy!

A trip to the zoo with the Smiths.. watch out.. these birds poop and bite!

Yay!

Emma enjoying the spoils from her awesome book birthday party the Nanny (Nancy) and Denise and Mama had for her..

We were able to go to Mesa for Lyndsey's sealing (my best friend from Dental Hygiene) school. I am so happy for her and so glad I was able to make it! The last weekend in May we made it to Kingman for Megan's graduation.. This is in Kingman at the "second chance prom" it was tons of fun. ..From L to R: Niki Christensen, Amy Shupe, me, Bob Shupe and Chris Christensen. Cute Madison had to get dressed up too! Love her!!

It was so much fun to go to prom with John! We were really excited about it and even had my mom watch Emma that night and John reserved the hotel room we stayed in at our wedding night. I also made my dress! Maybe the funnest part of the night was dancing with John and watching Bob and Amy dance.. they are pretty darn funny.. and Bob looked like Moes (Dwight's cousin) with his beard..

My mom's piano (actually.. I think it's Amber's).. I really want to get one for our home! Emma loves it too of course!

Baby Mozart

My Mom's back yard.. she was really enjoying this sprinkler.. though it's hard to tell by the look on her face..

Madi is a little too big to jump with Emma, but they had a blast.

Splash! Madi would jump in and Emma would cry.. so the pool didn't last very long..I also did swimming lessons with Emma Jane this summer. It was so much fun. Emma loves the water!

We drove to Lake Havasu from Kingman to get Emma's 12 month pictures taken (which turned out great.. thanks for the tip Niki!) and of course had to drive down the London Bridge which was named after us!My mom Sherrie Kay Shupe after Megan Graduated from High School!

My Grandma Gwen Kay Frandsen

My Grandpa George Clark Frandsen

Congratulations Megan Marie Christmas!! We loooooove you!

We sat in the grass during the ceremony so Emma could play and John could read.. I bet he read through my college graduation too...

I took this picture as she was walking to her seat..love it!

Emma Jane love to play in our backyard

This was our first trip of the summer to the cabin in May, where we invited Bob and Amy. They had a great time and fell in love with the cabin and Vallecito (there is really nothing you cannont fall in love with about that place). Bob especially loved catching all those trout!

We got up there on Emma's first birthday (May 22nd) and had a little birthday party for her. It was soo hilarious to watch her eat her cake..

The McCulloch Family

The Shupe Family

It was a fabulous summer! I will do another post.. hopefully before another six months have passed!

spring fever

2009-05-19T16:52:00.000-07:00

Horray for Banana's! She is 10 months old in this picture (March 22nd) She LOVES her swing in the backyard. She just laughed and laughed! This is March 1st, before we planted the grass.. now it is bright green! :

Bob, Amy, Madison and Robby Jay came to visit the 2nd weekend in March. It was soo much fun! They are the best!

Emma eating "Mel's Mix" out of our square foot garden boxes we put together (March 21st):

(March 26th) Emma is really into books... We'll be having a first birthday "book" party in Farmington June 7th. You're all invited!!

My awesome jogging partner. It was pretty cold for a while and if her hands got too cold she would SCREAM... (April 7th):

Emma LOVES fruit.. here she is chowing down on a plum.. yum! (April 10th):

Emma got a lot of practice walking in Farmington this weekend.. (April 19th.. Happy Birthday Nancy!):

Happy Easter dress.. she's clapping because she knows she looks so cute in her hat! (Compliments of Grandma Shupe..thanks Mom! ) (April 12th):

Our first family trip to the park.. she LOVES being outside.. (May 1st )

I followed her around for 15 minutes trying to get a good picture.. John takes the camera and gets this one with his first shot! :)

I wanted to finish our family update on the last four months.. I did a lot of work on the back yard.. pulling bushels of weeds (for hours and hours) and tilling the ground by hand and mixing in compost and fertilizer and manuer to our sandy new mexican soil.. and only about 7 blisters later and several hundred gallons of water we have some tall, bright green grass growing in our back yard. Horray! Emma loves walking around out there and now I am not so worried about her.. yet we still have ginormous weeds probably because of all the compost and fertilizer... but I am not ready to kill them with chemicals. It is Emma's playground and Truman's (our terrific tortoise) main diet. He woke up from hibernation a few weeks ago and has actually been chowing down on the weeds. Love him for it! Does anyone know of any organic weed killer that is safe for tortoises to eat?
We spent two weekends in a row if Farmington in April with John's family. It was so much fun to be there for Nancy's birthday and to see both of John's brothers and all the grandparents and cousins. We also did a little shooting up there.. and I did a nice long jog in the mud and we went to a performance of Beethoven's full 8th. It was great..

oh.. I'm so out of order.. but another fun thing we did this semester was participate in Albuquerque's TEA Party.. it was awesome. About 4500 people showed up on April 15th to protest our government's big spending and passing the bailouts (without even reading them!) . It was great. It was a lot more partisan than we were hoping it would be, but we were so glad to be there and we hope we helped ! I made a sign saying http://www.fairtax.org/ You should all check it out and write to your state reps to get it moving! Emma also did great at her first protest!! :)

Okay.. now onto more important things.. Emma Jane has two teeth, her lower front anteriors (O and P). It is so cute! She loves to use them too! I am still breastfeeding her and she knows better than to bite me! She also is walking! She took her first steps on April 16th and spent about 10 days only going a few steps at a time, and then spent a couple of days going about 10 steps and now she is a pro! Well..she does look like a drunken pirate occasionally.. :) She is so much fun and still a great baby.. but she does have this increadibly high-pitched scream now... and she can get cranky when she wants to. She babbles all the time! She loves to say Daddy and Dadda... I of course always respond with "Mamma or Mommy." She says that only when she feels especially sad. :( On Saturday she started saying "Baby." I call her that all the time. I have heard her say "Emma" in her babbling too.. She's such a doll. She's been teething lately.. :( but a few weeks ago she went through a good growing spurt.. eating and sleeping all the time. She is about 18 pounds now and will be one years old this Friday.. I can't believe it!!

She is a little climer! (May 6th):

At UNM's Duck Pond on Mother's Day (May 10th):

This is Emma and Truman's first encounter... she just cried and didn't know what to do, it was hilarious.. but then she got very comfortable with him and would slap his shell like a drum. She loved it! Poor guy! .. so I took him outside so he wouldn't be destroyed by our little EmmZilla..

crazy late-night snacking!

2009-05-18T21:45:00.000-07:00

Well, It has been an amazing four months since I have last posted anything (besides a few comments on friends' blogs) and I am excited to be here again! I have just realized the connection with my last blog.. it was right before John was starting his semester in school and he actually turned in his last homework today for the semester. Honestly, he being in school makes me feel so busy and stressed as if I was taking the classes and had to complete hours of homework and projects and impossible math problems right along with him.. I guess that is the empathy in me. ..
So, what have we been up to this semester? Well a LOT.
John of course was very busy with school. He is one smart cookie and I am still learning so much from him (he will always be my greatest teacher). He should be getting two A's and three B's this semester.. which I think is awesome for your Junior year in Nuclear Engineering. I do wish it could have been done with a lot less "5 Hour Energy" consumption and a lot more sleeping in bed next to me.. but I am proud of him. He is still an awesome scout master and got certified through the NRA to be a rifle instructor.... so of course we had to buy a gun and go shooting a few times. Fun! Actually, I think we saw a mafia member.. with body guards and all at the gun store.. good times. I am actually a natural good shot. .. a little Annie Oakley in me.. John studied a lot this semester with a Mr. Mario Luigi Luis Migel.. (I'm not sure on the order).. he is mostly "Luis." He is a great guy from Peru... and yes, John supplied the "5 Hour Energy" for all night studying! I am so glad that I get my husband back for a couple of weeks before summer school starts.. (I really sometimes feel like a single mom.... who has a loving husband I get to feed and cuddle with occasionally.. ;)
So.. what else have I been up to? I was just able to celebrate my first Mother's Day, which was awesome. John gave me my gift and card Saturday night (we can rarely wait to give any gift to each other), I got some wonderful chocolate covered strawberries and the sweetest card. We had a nice sausage-y breakfast and a wonderful picnic dinner at the duck pond at UNM (with ducks and baby turtles and giant gold fish). Emma loved it of course.. but mostly loved picking up the gravel. :) I am still the RS Secretary. I love it. It is a great calling. I love the President and the counselors and how laid back it is... and that it gets me out of Sunday school.. Actually Emma is good for that too. How do you get anything at all out of church on Sunday with a toddler? I guess I better step-up my scripture reading at home. :) I have been trying (not very hard or consistently) to loose weight..I've lost about 10 pounds since January 1st. I have a LOT more to loose. I am honestly lazy and addicted to sugar. I miss my athletic days and will have them again. Hopefully this summer John and I will get serious about working out and eating healthy. We'll keep you updated on that. (I really could use some encouragement... pushing.. coaching...training..bossing...) I did actually run a 5K race on April 18th. I think it took me 37 minutes.. It was my second 5k.. but I walked a little during the first one. This one I jogged completely and loved it. I really do love running. I did all my training for it in our neighborhood with Emma Jane in the jogging stroller. She's a great running partner (most days). I hope do do some more races. I love that Albuquerque offers occasional Saturday races (most are on Sundays). I hope to never run a Sunday race. In March we/I built two square foot gardening boxes and made the magic soil mix.. and it is now May and still have not planted any seeds (except for the basil in my windowsill).. we'll get on that soon after our next two long weekend trips.. John just got home from work.. so i am going to finish this later! with pictures and exciting stories of our family's main feature.. little Emma Jane!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-25T10:14:00.000-08:00

Hello friends! I am really bad at keeping current postings lately.. I guess it was the holidays.. but now we are back to somewhat of a routine.. John is back in school full-time and he is working a little less this semester so he can hopefully get better grades.. he just better stay focused! :) I am still working part-time and LOVING my days off. Emma is growing so fast.. well she is still very little... in the 10th percentile for weight but she is an active, happy and beautiful girl! She started crawling when she was 6 months and 4 days old.. and now she is standing up- using anything she can for balance. She is eating more and more solid foods and loves to feed herself.. I don't think she'll be doing the baby purees much longer.. (she's been eating baby purees I make as well as jarred baby food). She ate all of John's black olives off his pizza last night.. She is just the best! We went to Kingman for Thanksgiving.. which I made most of the dinner.. fun.. it was a great trip. We had an awesome five days in Puerto Vallarta , Mexico for Christmas and a nice relaxing New Years here at home in Albuquerque.. And then on our three year anniversary (January 6) I took John to the airport for his 12 day trip to Chile with Ganes.. He had a great time and Emma and I had a pretty good time too at home.. but we'll be doing all our future big trips together. I want to get back into the loop of the blogging world! Sorry for those who've tried to get in touch with me! .. but I'm back! Love you all!!

Here's our little Sugar Booger at Halloween.. MOO!

At Thanksgiving Emma decided to crawl over her cousin Robby..

I love this.. yes.. she has a lot of books.. good for reading and for resting... She started this sticking out her tongue business a few weeks ago.. don't you think she looks like a puppy? This is at my office Christmas Party.. she LOVED Santa Clause! She was so excited a bouncing up and down.. I think she likes the bright colors.. and she did try to pull the beard off.. :) The Natives in Mexico LOVED Emma.. Christmas night at dinner the waiter saw she fell asleep so he made this little bed for her.. so nice!We loved to walk on the beach.. it was an awesome beach.. the sand looked like gold glitter..
This was her first encounter with the ocean.. it scared her a little.. but she LOVED the hotel pool.. and the wet sand! EmmZilla!!!
I love this one..
John came home from Chile with a moustache.. he calls himself Senor Bigotes.. (Mr. Mustache in Spanish).. Emma cried when she first saw him. We went to Chilies.. John's favorite restraunt to celebrate his return. I love the llama hat that Ganes picked up for her from Peru.

At night when I floss Emma goes crazy until I give her a piece. She is also doing this new wrinkle face smile.. I love it! She was exactly 8 months old in these pictures..

Horray for good oral hygiene! :)

Emma loves to feed herself .. though most of it still ends up on the floor.. still no teeth.. thank goodness, but she is sure working on getting some!

Have a wonderful day!!! Enjoy the pictures!

Emma Jane

2008-10-28T22:05:00.000-07:00

This is a going to be a short post... mainly to tide some people over.. (Amy) until I can post longer.. and these pictures are a little over a month old!! She is moving like crazy and will probably be crawling soon!!

yes.. we spend a lot of time on the love sac..

I love this of them reading together..

Emma Jane and Papa! Her awesome great grandfather!

Happy Tuesday

2008-08-19T13:48:00.000-07:00

Horray! I am picking up the keys to our new house in about 20 minutes..
Look at those toes!

Anyone want to buy us a roof for our house?

2008-08-12T09:22:00.000-07:00

Check out this beautiful quilt Mama Rhien (Emma's great-grandmother) made for her! We love it!

Sweet baby Emma (John said this is his Anne Geddes picture)
Here is what I have been doing this summer: Mostly reading baby books. I read all these books.. plus a lot of magazines and Ensigns..

Well we are still moving! We will be closing on the house sometime this week hopefully.. there are always issues that come up.. still more issues with the roof.. but everything will work out.. fingers crossed!! Our apartment is full of boxes.. some packed.. some not. We are excited to be leaving! Especially since yesterday while I was bringing laundry back and forth to the laundry room (can't wait until those days are over! ) I found the hugest black widow spider I have ever seen!!!! Right outside our door! I have a pure hatred and fear of cockroaches so several months ago John got me this spray to get any I saw... so I soaked this spider.. Hopefully she doesn't have any babies near by!

A couple of weeks ago John and I went on a little hike with the Berger boys (John and Kyle) up to an old decalogue stone in Las Lunas. This is something John discovered online several months ago and checked it out. I couldn't go with him there until now becuase you have to squeeze through a gate.. and that was not happening with my big pregnant belly. It has not been "officially" authenticated by any scholars but it is thought to be ancient hebrew and a little ancient greek and they think between several hundred years old to as much as 2 thousand years old of the 10 commandments.. perhaps Book of Mormon times? It's pretty cool. You'll have to check it out and see what you think.. It was so green and pretty and a nice little hike (that we cut a little short because the moisquitoes were eating us alive..)

Emma is growing and smiling and is such a joy! She rolls over on her belly when she's on the love sac sometimes and she had her first laugh two days ago! I don't have any pictures of this yet but we had Emma sitting bare feet in our friends grass while she was taking pictures.. and she loved kicking the grass and feeling the breeze and watching the dog running around the yard so much that she had her first laugh! It was awesome! She is too much fun. I can't wait until she is laughing more regularly.

She loves to sit up (with some help) and look around the room. She really loves to watch the fish tank..

We'll keep you all posted on the house!

Trips and Pics

2008-07-27T12:55:00.000-07:00

Well I guess I am not as regular a bloggger as I'd like to be.. oh well. It's been a fun and busy time in the McCulloch house hold. John has one week left of summer school! Horray! He has really done so much this summer...lot's of work and class and studying.. he's a stud. :)

We had a wonderful 4th of July weekend in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. It was a long drive, but Emma did great! She was certainly the star of the show there at the McCulloch family reunion. She got to finally meet her uncle Ganes and bond some more with uncle Frank (Max) (they really have some connection going on.. it's pretty cool). The firework show there was so amazing. I'm sure it it was the best I've seen. We were very close and they got really loud but Emma loved them! Also while we were there she gave me her first real smile ! It melted my heart! Here is Emma with Ganes after playing hours of golf and getting attacked by mosquitoes (but before the West Nile really hit him).

We did a little hike to a waterfall. It was sooo green there! It was seriously neon green is some areas. So beautiful!!The next weekend was Emma's baby blessing. It was really a great day. My mom made her beautiful dress (which we had to pin in to fit her.. she's so little) We had a lot of great family support.. John gave her the blessing of course and we were able to have Papa, John's uncle Larry and good friend David Frost stand in the circle. (as well as a good friend from the ward). Here are Mama and Papa when the first got into town for the blessing. Mama made Emma's booties that she wore for the blessing. Here are the booties.. and aunt Megan finally got to meet Emma Jane..

Emma and Uncle Frank..
We are so crazy about our little Emma!The Shupe's...

The McCulloch's

The Rhiens... (well Nanny and Grumps)The great- grandparents..

The Palmers...The mothers...The close-up...the dress.....

yea.. we were taking pictures for a while.. don't worry we have a lot of other combinations that we got pictures of too..

Well Emma is just a little over two months old.. she smiles a ton now and is gaining weight a little better finally. I was looking back at pictures of her first six weeks and she looked soo skinny to me! I wish I would have figured out this no dairy thing a lot earlier. She had her first shots last week. She did pretty well.. just a little feverish and extra sleepy for a couple of days...sad! She is adorable.. here are some fun recent pictures of her.

yay for smiling!
This one cracks me up! this is after about 15 camera flashes in a row.. hilarious!!I am really into attachment parenting. Here is baby carrier number 3.. it might be the winner.. This is after a good warm bath and lotion massage.. She knows her mama loves her!!.. she's a doll..Here we are in front of our future home.. hopefully..We love it!... the closing date is set for August 11th.. but it turns out we need a new roof.. hopefully everything will work out! We are soo ready to move into our first house!! Wish us luck!

an update finally!

2008-07-02T14:09:00.000-07:00

Well we sure have been busy.. I've tried to post something... often. I guess I don't have my schedule as a new mom figured out just yet...

Emma is doing well! She is getting bigger.. I'm not sure how much bigger... People ask me all the time how much she weighs.. I don't have a baby scale.. so I really don't know! But I do still worry about her getting enough milk and gaining enough all the time! I still pump every now and then and give it to her throughout the day. I probably shouldn't give her a pacifier.. she just loves it though! I think I have determined that she is somewhat allergic to the milk and dairy products I eat, so I am now really trying to cut out dairy. If anyone knows me, they know how much I love dairy! I am drinking this almond milk with my cereal, which isn't too bad. So far I think it's helped her..

We've been going out for walks in our snazzy jogging stroller.. I haven't actually jogged with it yet.. but that will be coming soon I hope! I have my follow up appointment with my obgyn in a week and a half.. which will actually be 7 weeks postpartum... Here's Emma before our first stroller walk. Looks pretty comfy, huh?

It's amazing to me how much muscle tone I have lost! I try to exercise some days and let Emma hang out it her bouncer or swing.. some days she actually lets me! A kid at our complex walked by when the door was open and asked if we had THREE babies! It sure looks like it with all her seating!

John has been working pretty hard this summer.. lots of hours working and doing math homework, and not as much sleep as he's used to. So, three weeks ago we went up to his favorite place (and definitely one of mine.. it's where he proposed!) .. the family cabin in Vallecito, Colorado. We looove it there. We were both feeling overwhelmed and tired and stressed and it was amazing how we could actually feel the stress lifting off our shoulders the closer we got to the cabin and the more green and scenic the drive became. Nancy and Kenny met us up there. It was a wonderful weekend and much needed retreat! We took Emma in a carrier on her first hike, a little over a mile right next to the lake..and here is Emma and I after a nice nap in the "napping room." It is the back room (sun room) of the cabin which has a beautiful view of the lake. It is very conducive to sleep! I tried to study for dental hygiene boards in this room a couple of years ago.. I think I lasted 10 minutes!

Here we are in front of the cabin on our way to leave..(she was already buckled in so we didn't want to take her out)

Here she is with Nancy and Kenny (also known as Granny Nanny and Grumps): (she is about as big as Grumps' forearm. They are such great grandparents!)

After we left the cabin we went to Farmington for a father's day dessert over at Mama and Papa's house. We got a few generation pictures with Emma's great-grandparents (which unfortunately none of them really turned out) here's one where at least the lighting is somewhat okay..We did get to have a quick photo shoot with John's very talented cousin Rachel. She took a bunch of pictures of Emma for us. Check out her web page http://www.rachelclarephoto.com/

and her blog. ..http://www.rachelclarephoto.com/blog/ There are three pictures there of Emma under the title "New Baby E (June 18th)" .. you have to scroll down a bit to get to them.. but it's worth it! And ALL the pictures on there are soo beautiful! I wish they weren't moving so she can always take pictures of all our kids!

So.. after our wonderful father's day weekend at the cabin we came back to Albuquerque.. to our crazy apartment management.. and homework and our crazy pets! We have this great tortoise that is about 5 years old named Truman.. and one night about 1 am I was feeding Emma and John was doing homework and he looks down and is shocked to see that it looks like his guts have literally fallen out! We were so worried and sad.. I'm thinking that I don't give him enough water and he's dying and I don't even have a vet for him! So we put him in the bathtub to give him some water.. and his guts went back inside.. hmm...after 20 minutes or so searching on the Internet we find out those were not his guts, as "congratulations, it's a boy" comes across the screen. Yep Truman is officially a boy. He is sexually mature now and decided to let it all hang out.. and yea, it was a lot to hang out! Here he is looking innocent..

So, after the initial shock and trauma were over I go back to feeding Emma in the living room to see this! Sorry for the graphic picture.. but seriously! We have a real animal planet thing going on in the house! I don't think we'll see any tadpoles though because I'm sure the fish will eat them up unfortunately.. (you may have to click on the picture to enlarge it)

Well here are some pictures of Emma at one month .. (she'll actually be 6 weeks tomorrow)

Soo.. we have been managing our apartment complex for almost two years.. it wasn't bad the first year. We actually liked it.. the free rent has always been nice.. but the past several months have been increasing in frustration until we were counting down the days that we were not managers any longer.. so we put in our two weeks and not one moment too soon we put up a sign over the manager's sign saying .. well to pretty much leave us alone now! It's great.. now I don't feel guilty for not opening the door when I get knocks throughout the day! We were so happy and excited to put up the sign we had our friend take pictures for us..

Well John and I have been looking for our first house for about two or three months now and we just finally moved on from one house we really loved after making three different offers.. and even offering 98% of the asking price .. and still being refused.. we are convinced that she really doesn't want to sell her home.. so now we are writing up an offer on another house we actually found a month and a half ago and fell in love with.. but it was out of our price range.. but we are hopefully going to get an offer out on it tomorrow! Wish us luck! With how many problems we are having I wonder if we are not meant to buy a house right now.. but we are persevering and will hopefully be in one soon. Maybe even this one! We love the neighborhood and the house and the yard are perfect for us..we'll see how it goes.

Sorry for the loooooooong update.. I need to be more regular about this... We're off to Colorado for the Fourth.. I hope everyone has a wonderful Independence Day!!

7 Random Facts

2008-06-17T01:05:00.001-07:00

1. We have 6 Bleeding Heart Tetras in our fishtank that hide in the back most of the day, but since I have been up feeding Emma I see that they are super active and school and swim in circles and loops during the night.. our frogs, however, are always entertaining.
2. When Emma wrinkles up her forehead she looks strikingly like E.T.
3. John and I are still looking for the perfect house for us to move into. We're getting closer, I can feel it!
4. John put in his 2 week notice today as a resident manager of our apartment manager. At the 2 week mark I'm pretty sure he will turn his phone off for at least a week.
4. Global warming is a farce. 2007 was actually one degree cooler than the last 30 years.
5. Breastfed babies have higher I.Q.'s, better health, better mouths and vision and are generally happier.
6. I was only breastfed for a month or two.
7. If there was someway we could pull it off we would spend all summer, every summer at John's family cabin in Vallecito, CO. It is a little bit of Heaven.

I tag... Nichole and Jana

Motherhood: Week 3

2008-06-12T17:00:00.000-07:00

Emma Jane is 3 weeks old today. I seriously loving being a mom. It is the best thing I have ever done. It is really a way to learn true selflessness and sacrafice! I am also amazed at how much I worry already!! Emma is such a little baby, as you know and the most emotionally draining and chanllenging thing is making sure she is eating well and gaining weight. At 2 and a half weeks she had still not gotten back to her birth-weight. :( She is a very sleepy baby and a bit jaundiced and I know that is part of the problem. She is happy to just keep sleeping instead of eating!! But I've been waking her up more often to eat and am now pumping a little to keep my supply up and make sure she gets what I pump. So far it is working. Tomorrow I am seeing a lactation consultant to see what else I can do to get her to gain weight. I want a little rolly polly baby! I feel confidant that she will gain weight and be okay.. she is totally healthy and happy and content.. she's just lazy! I guess John was like that.. he would sleep 9 hours straight at birth!

You can see how she is a little yellow still in this picture.

She loves her baths! She moved so much when I was pregnant I would always say she was doing her water aerobics. I'm sure the warm water makes her feel right at home. She actually was really fussy a couple of days ago while I was bathing her and I couldn't figure out why until she pooped ALL over the towel. That is actually the only time she really cries.. right before she poops!

When Bob, Amy and Madison were here Amy and I got some fabric together to make these awesome hooter hiders! I am feeding Emma in this picture.. It's so handy because you can actually see what you're doing and have both your hands free. I haven't had to use it yet, but when I do I'll be glad I have it.

So Emma has to be woken up for most of her feedings and I usually do this by changing her diaper and it is so cute how she stretches and looks around and she makes the funniest faces!!

She loves her changing table.. she looks around so wide-eyed and wiggles and grabs the bars..

she also does this funny lip pucker all the time! I love it! My mom said she got that from me...

And here is the usual end result.. a sleeping Emma with milk on her face. :)

Emma Jane McCulloch

2008-06-05T16:59:00.000-07:00

Well I am a mother! I just noticed that I went into labor just hours after posting my last blog..

Emma Jane was born May 22nd at 7:20 pm. She was 6 pounds 4 ounces and 19 1/2 inches of cuteness. Wow.. what a whirlwind of emotions! Our lives are changed forever and I am so grateful! She is two weeks old today and she already seems like she is growing and changing.

I couldn't have asked for much more throughout my labor and delivery (okay I could. .. It really hurt and was pretty terrible! ) But we really feel blessed and that everything went okay. I woke up about 5:00 Thursday morning with contractions in my back. John and I went on a walk and then came home and laid down to see if they would go away, but they just got worse so we knew we were going to have a baby! We were in and out of triage at the hospital while I was in early labor. We spent two hours walking at a park and then three hours at home (actually cleaning!) until I drank some rasberry tea and took a warm shower which put me into active labor. ..my contractions were suddenly a lot more intense and evey 2-3 minutes apart (not to mention still in my lower back!) Here's us at the park.. you can tell that I am not in too much pain .. yet..

So we get back to the hospital and soon after my water breaks and there is meconium in it. I was worried about it but the doctors seemed to be okay with it. At this point I am really hurting.. all still in my back. Once we were in the delivery room I pretty much hung out on the bed leaning over my big exercise ball. I was trying to get the pressure off my back. John would push and rub really hard on it which did help most of the time...It all seems like a whirlwind now. .. I'm not sure how long we were in the delivery room.. but I started pushing around 6:30 and about 45 minutes later she was born. I did it all with out any pain medications.. It was really hard but I'm glad I did it. It was the most amazing day. So exhausting but the best thing ever! John and I just sobbed right after she was born. It was incredible. It is amazing how you can love someone so much!

She is healthy and beautiful and such a joy. They did say it looked like she had the meconium for a while, so it's a good thing she came 10 days early. We feel so blessed. .. with all my blood pressure stuff and preeclamsia worries I did great. Literally as soon as she came out my blood pressure went back to normal. So no worries there. John's mom, Nancy came to help out with the labor and delivery (really to be our doula) and I am so glad she was there. She was awesome. I know if her and John were not there I would have had that epidural (and probably 10 extra hours of labor). I really feel like I have a great sence of accomplishment after that.

Doesn't he look like a brand-new father? I love this picture. He is so good with her and loves her so much. I'm so grateful for him.

In this picture we are both feeling happy that labor and delivery is over! :

She was a little jaundice so I would put her in the sun for a little bit every day. She is doing a lot better now. It's amazing how protective I am over her and how much there is to worry about her already! Thank goodness breastfeeding has been getting better everyday...

I love this picture.. Emma likes to have here hands by her face when she sleeps. It's adorable. She sleeps a LOT! Even a lot a night.. which is great but I wake up on my own worrying that she needs to eat..

She is just amazing and so much fun. She has all this soft brown hair and blue eyes and the cutest little mouth! She also has John's feet! (Sorry Emma) She smiles in her sleep and it just melts my heart. I am seriously in love with her. :)

Thank you everyone for all your visits and calls and dinners and gifts and support! We love you!

11 Days and counting

2008-05-21T14:42:00.000-07:00

Okay I know we have not posted in so long! It has been such a busy month ! John did pretty good on his finals and he is back to his happy self again! We got the mario cart game for the wii and the indiana jones trilogy.. he is my happy 5 year old again. I love it. Too bad summer school starts in a couple of weeks..
Yea, I have only 11 days left until my due date. Somedays I feel terrible and "know" that labor is right around the corner and then I wake up the next day feeling great and still pregnant! My mom really does not want her to come early because she'll miss the birth.. but i'm playing selfish.. we want her to come now! I'm just so excited! I've been doing some "nesting" this afternoon and it smells like baby powder in this room and I love it. At my last appointment (last thursday morning) I was dialated to "not quite a 2" and 50% effaced and the baby was posited at a -1. soo.. that means it could be soon.. or a long time. But that night (so almost a week ago) I THINK I lost my mucous plug. How do you know for sure? I read that means labor could come in 2 days or 2 weeks. ha! Well I am doing all the self- labor inducing things.. except the castor oil. Maybe I'll try it if I get desperate. ..
An update on the house shopping. .. We have been looking at more houses and searching for the perfect house at the perfect price (which is actually realllllly hard to come by we are finding). The house we put an offer on is not available to us.. We found out after a week of waiting that because of the prior owner's situation our type of loan cannot buy that house. LAME! We did find one that we LOVE. It's perfect. Except the lady wants 30K more than we want to pay. :( I think we are going to make an offer anyways though. I'm getting a little stressed about it all .. but know I shouldn't . I really know Heavenly Father knows what is best and is watching out for us. Everything will work out how it should . We'll post some pictures soon .. and hopefully some pictures of our new house!!

42 days..

2008-04-20T19:00:00.000-07:00

Yep.. only 6 weeks left until my due date. Woa.. John and I started taking our "prep for birthing" class. It is actually pretty good. I've been trying to exercise and do the stretches and exercises that are supposed to get me and the baby ready for labor and delivery. It'll be here before we know it! We are getting really excited and nervous all the time.
We have been apartment managers for about a year and half now.. and it started out great.. and because of different things (mainly a new owner and apartment management group) the apartments are turing.. south. We are seriously embarresed sometimes to say we are managers here.. we really have no power or authority to get things done for people.. and so things are not getting done and it's really frustrating needless to say. Well because of all this we are looking into buying a house again. We really don't know how much longer we will live in Albuquerque..but the possibility is there that John's job at Sandia could turn into a long-term career.. I really don't want to move out east so it would be great if we could stay here. We also know that if we do end up staying in Albuquerque we would move to Tijeras.. which is a the foot of the mountains east of the city. Beautiful and away from the city. So we are really looking into that possibility and getting excited about it. We are also looking into buying land have having a manufactured home made for us. Does anyone have any experience with manufactured homes? We don't know much about them. There is a company here in town that does them.. and it is different that a mobile home.. but i'm not sure how different.. so we will see about that.. We have a lot to look into and a lot of praying to do. I'm not sure if I ward will ever forgive us for moving out though.. I guess our ward was just demoted to a branch because we don't have enough active priesthood leaders. So sad.
Well things have been busy and good. This is the worst time for john and school. He always loses his motivation and homework discipline every semester around this time. Hopefully he'll get back on it soon. :)

John got Tagged

2008-04-08T20:03:00.000-07:00

I got tagged. Here's the stuff

10 years ago....

10 years ago.... hmm.... I was living in scenic (not) stinky (true) Portales NM. It really was stinky we were literally surrounded by dairy farms. On days it rained the school would lift the no open flames ban so that teachers could light incense and smell-good-so-students-didn't-puke-in-class-candles. AND I got my DRIVERS LICENSE!!! Also I played football, not well, but I played. And yeah that pretty much sums up that year.. oh yeah I got to experience Corporal Punishment first hand at my school. Good times were had by all.

5 Things on My To Do List

1. Love Angela everyday with all my heart
2. HOMEWORK!!! (This will be on here for the forseeable future)
3. Be a good dad (WHOA!!!!!!)
4. Find all the gold brick on my star wars lego game
5. Finish the Book of Mormon, I meant to finish before I started work... then I hit 2nd Nephi

5 Snacks I love

1. DP
2. Chips and Salsa
3. Sonic Ice
4. Root Beer
5. Chocolate Covered Cockroaches

5 Places I have lived (Chronological)

1 Norman OK
2 Albuquerque NM
3 Farmington NM
4. Gold Canyon AZ
5. Farmington NM
(sorry this only brings me to the age of like 9... but only 5 were requested so the rest of my life will remain a mystery)

If I were a billionaire....

Honestly not a ton would change. We wouldn't be managing this apartment and we would have a hot tub. I would probably take the same classes. Scouts would be great because we would never do another fundraiser again! But I am completely happy with my life. Well, Angela and ______ and I would travel more often to more exotic places but that is all that would change.

5 Jobs (By coolness factor)

1. Sandia National Labs
2. Apartment Manager
3. Farmer
4. Stone Mason
5. WWF

7 Things You Don't Know About Me....

See this is tough "you" is pretty vague... If "you" happens to be Angela, David, Ganes or Max sorry nothing new. But let's see if I can't do somethings that will catch everyone off guard

1. I got two gold stars for a drawing I made of my bird, Rosebud, in 2nd grade
2. I got a blue ribbon in pole bending on horseback in 3rd grade (I never did better than like 48th on barrels)
3. I hate cauliflower... in any form really... well actually cauliflower compost is fine by me.
4. I experienced the 24th of October 1997 twice by crossing the international date line.
5. My normally drab imagination suddenly becomes alive in the morning when I try to convince Angela and myself why it is absolutely imperative that I stay in bed... it hasn't worked yet.
6. For my third birthday party I got exactly what I wanted... a ride on the AmTrak
7. I have travled at mach .86 my plane left late but arrived early

So this is me... I hope you enjoyed it

8 weeks and counting...

2008-04-08T18:28:00.001-07:00

Well things are busy like always here in Albuquerque.. work and scouts and doctors appointments... and taxes (yikes!) John just recently started a job at Sandia National Labs for the Department of Energy in nuclear radiation detection. It is a great job and pays well and will give him great experience. This will be his full-time job for the summer too. So we can buy diapers.. yay! I will be taking over more of the apartment managment stuff... yikes.. But we really feel very blessed that he got this job.

Speaking of blessings.. I had my "big" appointment with the perinatologist last friday and that went really well. I've been having weekly fetal assessments on fridays and they have all been great. They are grading the baby on a 10 point scale for different things and so far (after about a month and a half) she is an A+ baby. It's awesome to get to see her move around with the ultrasound every week. This week they actually could tell that she has hair on her head! That is a shocker to me! I was bald until I was like one years old!

Here is one of the better pictures we've been able to get of her face.. we haven't seen it very much at all.. i guess she wants to surprise us.. she looks so sleepy.. just like her mom!

However.. I think that most ultrasound pictures don't really look anything like the real baby.. for example.. this is cute but the angle makes her look like an alien!

Speaking of aliens.. she is a VERY acive baby, which is so wonderful and makes me really happy..but today she is seriously moving soo much! She was head down for a couple of weeks and I'm pretty sure she flipped over today at lunch while i was on the phone with John and I really feels like she is trying to climb out of my belly! Well check out these buff soccer legs! See what I have to deal with!!

We only have 8 weeks (minus a couple of days) until my due date. I have been soooo exhausted the last few days I wonder how I am going to make it.. and keep working and doing everything else.. I am really ready to hybernate! I also have been having these anxiety dreams that the baby is born and we have just the things we currently have.. so we have no diaper wipes and no crib mattress (the crib is all put together.. just no mattress yet..we'll get there) and I don't know how to install the car seat.. I really need to figure out the car seat because I have a dream about that like every night! Haha.. We are really excited to be parents. We can't wait to meet her and get to know her for the rest of her life.

P.S. For all you "The Office" fans.. they are back on air this week (this Thursday night on NBC). It's the only show we really watch... it's the best.

Baby Booming

2008-03-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a little while since I have posted. Life is busy and great! We have baby stuff and bags of diapers pilled up in our apartment now waiting to be organized and it is inducing baby filled dreams. Last night I dreamt she was born 8 pounds and 0 ounces and looks like John.

We have baby stuff piled up because I had my baby shower last Saturday. Horray! It was such a great shower. My awesome mom, sisters and little brother all came down for the weekend. It was so much fun. I got some awesome stuff too! We are getting so excited for her to be born. We still have so much to do and I feel like I still have so much I need to learn!! Here are some pictures from the weekend. Most of these are on Easter Sunday.

Here is my wonderful, crazy family.

I really love this one: :)

Great news! Truman is awake! Megan bonded with him this weekend. :)

Here he is eating off Megan's plate. yum celery..

MOre great news.. I can still see my feet!!!!

barely...

I got Tagged.. Twice!

2008-03-11T18:55:00.000-07:00

10 Years ago
I was just finishing up the last semester of my eighth grade. Something you probably didn't know was I was actually expelled from school this semester so I was kind of home-schooling.. myself. I also hung out with my 5 year old brother a lot. But I would say that what I was really up to was a lot of CHANGE. I was finally learning from my mistakes, changing friends and really growing up and gaining a real testimony for the first time.

5 Things on my to do list
Transform our messy office into a beautiful baby room
Get my visiting teaching done
Finally mend all of John's ripped jeans
Organize my pictures for scrap booking
Read the Old Testament

5 Snacks I love
candy/ice-cream/cookies
fruit
bell peppers with cream cheese
granola bars
yogurt

5 Places I've lived
Cedar City, Utah
Ogden, Utah
Kingman, Arizona
Flagstaff, Arizona
Albuquerque, New Mexico

What would I do if I suddenly became a Billionaire
Travel.. and take my family (the Shupes) with me. I would also get John a plane and a sailboat, be a stay at home mom, open a hot-sprins spa/bed and breakfast (like 10 Thousand Waves in Sante Fe), and build multiple summer homes (close to family, in Vallecito Colorado, Hawaii, Hava Supai, Cinque Terra Italy... and other beautiful summer places)

5 Jobs I've had
Office assistant for a Podiatrist (foot doctor)
Financial Aid Assistant at NAU
Computer Lab Aide at NAU
Dairy Queen (for one day! I hated it!)
Dental Hygienist

7 Things you probably don't know...random/weird facts about me :
(this one covers both people that tagged me) :)

1. I am notorious for doing way too many things at once. I'll have a few hours and start seven projects, getting nothing really accomplished and sometimes making an even bigger mess!

2. I love to buy books. I have shelves full! I love to buy them but don't have or really make the time to read all of the books I have! And it takes me so long to get though a book because I am seriously reading like 8 books right now..I'll just read them a little here and there. I keep saying that someday I'll read them all!

3. I am actually kind of nervous about being a mom. I have always imagined it and known I have wanted to be a mother.. but of course never pictured how I would be.. who would be my husband.. what would I be like.. and now that I am here I feel like I don't know what the heck I am doing and I'll be this awkward person who is supposed to nurture and raise a child when I cannot even take care of myself!

4. This is similar to the book thing.. but I love buying scrap booking supplies even though I haven't actually completed a scrapbook page in probably more than two years.. I will get better about that though! I have committed myself to scrap booking for my daughter so she (and I) will have her life documented.

5. I become so much more dramatic and whiny (woe is me exaggerations) around John. We actually both do it to each other.. pouty lips and all.. and at our institute class we just learned that this is a form of abuse through manipulating your couple to give you sympathy.. haha. we'll keep doing it I'm sure!

6. I LOVE Spring and Summer... I seriously get soo excited this time of year when it starts to warm up and start planning summer hiking and camping and road trips. It's like I become alive again. I would never work a day at all in the summer if I didn't have to. I would have picnics and take naps in the sun everyday instead.

7. I have always wanted to be a runner. A really good, fit, avid runner. I really wanted to do cross country in high school, but was afraid to push myself that hard. I've wanted to run marathons but have never pushed myself to do the training.. but I have ran enough to know the runners "high" and still want to be runner. But why don't I do it? Why don't I push through the hard miles and finally loose my extra weight and become this awesome, addicted runner? I guess I am lazy.. and would rather take naps in the sun.

Now I tag: Bob, Rachel Jensen, Niki, Becky and Kami

Weekend in Colorado...

2008-02-24T20:26:00.000-08:00

John just had another fun regional tournament for college bowl.. (the Jeapordy with teams). This year is was in beautiful Colorado Springs. His team did really well. They got 2nd overall, which means they cannot go to nationals this year. boo.. I'm actually secretly glad because I'll be really great with child then and won't be able to go. :( Here is the team:

I actually missed most of the games because I went up to Greeley to hang out with Rachel Jensen, one of my best friends for so long and her two boys. She just had a new baby boy, Hayden Charles, 6 weeks ago. It was so good to see her and spend the day with them. :)

We got back Saturday night and since John now has meetings at 6:30 in the morning with the young men's presidency this is how he spends his Sunday afternoons (he adverages about 5 hours for a nap.. you think I would be doing that.. I'm the pregnant one! ). :

Before we left I had my check-up with my regular OBGYN and my blood pressure was looking good.. even though I am still leaking a lot of protien in my urine I seem to be okay for now.. fingers crossed and lots of prayers for no preeclamsia and for good health! She also said all the kidney screenings came out okay... whew!! horray for healthy kidneys!

Here is my belly at 25 weeks:

And here it is at 26 weeks: There's defenitly no hiding it now!!

The Pregnancy...the first 25.5 weeks

2008-02-20T20:57:00.000-08:00

Well, yep. I am pregnant. Most anyone who reads this knows that. We are having a little girl and she is due to appear June 1st. I'm thinking she'll come May 27th. John keeps saying riduculous things like June 12th or June 8th. No way. :)
Well once the morning (and afternoon and evening) sickness finally subsided I have been feeling pretty good. My energy is up a little more and my belly is growing every day. I feel her kick all the time and do sumersalts and she is sure stretching out my skin.
About a month ago we went in for my regular check-up and my blood pressure was just a little high so my doctor ordered a 24 hour urine collection. Let me tell you what a joy that was! I had to spend my whole day close to home and pee in this horribly designed "hat" and then keep it in a nice jug in the fridge. It was such a joy, let me tell you. So I drop it off Sunday morning at the lab and Monday while I am at work a nurse from my doctor's office (she works for a different doctor because my doctor is only there wednesday - friday) and this other doctor call and tell me my protien levels are really really high and I need to go home and be on bed rest until the next morning when can go to their office to see them. So of course we are so worried and stressed and thinking of a million things and start reading about preeclamsia and eclamsia and are feeling pretty miserable at this point. (Physically I feel pretty good though). So, we go in to the office the next morning and my blood pressure is the highest it's ever been (I say it's from all the dang stress! ) It was still not soooo high.. but too high for a pregnancy... and high enough that they send me over to Triage. So we spent the next 5 hours in this little room in triage and over there with their machine my blood pressure is normal, my urine is protien free and the three blood tests they did all came out normal. horray! Too bad it took all day for them to tell us that! So it turns out my protien level was 3870 mg (normal is 0, 300 is too high). Yikes! but now everyone is really confused that the blood tests were normal.. so they have me redo the dang 24 hour urine collection. so I had to take more time off work to essentially stay home and pee in a cup. Well, this time the protien level is 389 mg.. a LOT better but still a little high. jeesh. I'm still not exhibiting any of the pains or swelling that come a lot with preeclamsia so we are feeling a little better about things.. and of course after a lot of prayers from family and friends and fasting and priesthood blessings.. so we are feeling not soo stressed all the time anymore. Well my OBGYN then referred me to a Perinatal (high risk) doctor. We saw him on the 5th of February and we loved him. They did a long ultrasound and the baby is doing awesome. Whew.. So he's trying to figure out what the heck is going on (my blood pressure was great that day and had no protien in my urine). So he starts invesitgating my medical history a little. I don't really have much of a medical history.. but then it dawns on me that I have had something going on with my kidney's for a while.. i've never gone to the doctor for it but I know something is not right with my kidneys. My mom told me that when I was younger I had a lot of bladder infections and when I was in college I had a really bad one that gave me severe (can't move and sobbing) pain in my kidneys. Well I still never went to the doctor for that.. I just got a blessing from my friend and took two days of an antibiotic dose (I didn't know I was supposed to keep taking it) and then I was miraculously better. However, since then when I get UTI's they are so miserable and tenatious and take forever to go away as well as give me kidney pain. I even get kidney pain when I don't drink enough water.. well says Dr. Joffe "you may be chronically building up kidney stones, or you may have some disorder where your bladder regurgitates the urine back to your kidneys which will raise your blood pressure and cause the protien in your urine." Okay. so now i'm thinking I'll finally get this kidney stuff figured out! However he told me to start taking a baby asprin every day to help prevent preeclamsia and to take my blood pressure daily. He ordered about 6 tests at the lab, a kidney ultrasound and fasting renal (kidney) doppler (listened to the blood flow to and through my kidneys). I finished those tests about a week and a half ago and haven't heard anything which I am taking as good news. However I still had one last test to complete- I got to ruin another weekend by collecting my urine for 24 hours again. (at the least the "hat" design is getting better with each test!). Again I dropped the test off Sunday morning and gave them some blood, and again this other doctor's office gets is and calls me.. So I have to quickly cancel patients for the next afternoon so I can go back to the hospital, get more blood tests done (for preeclamsia), get my blood pressure checked and have a fetal monitoring ultrasound done. The baby is still doing great and my blood pressure is okay. jeesh! At this point I still haven't heard anything from the Perinatal Doctor and am just confused.. I have another fetal assesment ultrasound tomorrow morning and an appointment with the regular OBGYN. Hopefully all that will go well and I will know more about what the heck is going on. I still probably won't know everything until I meet with the Perinatal specialist on the 5th. Sigh. Other wise I feel okay. I do get dull pain in my right kidney... daily. I'm not sure how I feel about that. And the last few days my sciatic (psychotic) nerve is Killing me! Also I've been having bad sharp pains in one spot in my belly where it feels like my muscle is getting shredded apart. jeesh.. other than that, i'm good!
Tonight John talked to the baby for a few minutes in Spanish and told her he wants to feel her move and then sure enough he put his hand on my belly and felt her move a lot. :) This was teh first time he's felt her move. It was awesome. This pregnancy stuff is for the birds but we are so excited and anxious to be parents and can't wait to meet her. :)
Thanks everyone for your prayers and support!

the best vaccum EVER

2008-01-22T20:16:00.001-08:00

okay so i've been really wanting a really good vaccum lately. John and I inherited one from an old tenant that looks like it should be a good one, but I really have felt that it's actually a piece of junk .. which i especially notice when I am doing situps, stretches, pregnant push-up and such things on the floor... also since we are trying to get our apartment ready for a little baby I've really really been wanting to find a good vaccum. and so I did a little research and have found it! It's a Kenmore Progressive Direct Drive. It's pretty much one of the best purchases I have ever made and I am really excited about it. :) It has a fancy shmancy sensor on it telling me how much dirt is still in the carpet and automatically changes the suction power accordingly. It's awesome. Let's just say I'll have to vaccum for a while before I really get rid of all that dirt! (and it confirms my suspisions that our other vaccum is a crapper) Crazy! I'm really excited and happy that I have my first real, good vaccum. :)

summer 2007

2007-10-07T19:15:00.001-07:00

Here will be a quick photo break down of the awesome and busy summer we had. As mentioned earlier we went to Italy, which was amazing. On our way there we spent a day in NYC with John's best friend David. Here are the two of them with a view of the city. It was awesome and David was a great host. We saw a lot. It was my second time there but first time to really see the city.

I had to add this picture of John in Rome in front of one the bars. Huge, nasty (or tasty) italian sausge

This is us in front of the St. George temple with Madison. This was our first time doing a session there. Bob, Amy, my mom and my grandparents were there. It was great. It is a beautiful session.

We were in southern Utah for two weekends in a row, first for the Shupe family reunion at Duck Creek. The second reunion was the Frandsen reunion in wonderful Panguitch, UT. Southern Utah is beautiful.

This was my first time fishing since I was a little girl. It was tons of fun though I didn't get a single bite! Josh, Bob and Amy are in the background. I think Bob had the best fishing luck of all of us this weekend.

Here is John at the Sandia crest overlooking Albuquerque. We love to go on long hikes together. It is so great and healing to be in the open in nature and bear your soul with each other. It was defenitly needed this summer and we were grateful for any opportunity to do so.

We also took a trip to Arizona which I love. We spent some time in Flagstaff with my sisters and some time in Kingman. We did a hike in Fossil Creek. This is Amber and I.

I can't believe this was my first time to hike fossil creek! we also did a little swimming and cliff jumping which I love!

Something else I did about a month ago was dye my hair. I was going for a dark auburn brown and got this:

It lasted for about 12 hours.. was removed and then I had a nice orange hue.. .now it is what I wanted.. the brown. Next time you are around John, notice how many gray hairs he has! It is crazy! Poor guy.

Here is John watching general conference on the love sac today. It was awesome. I love hearing the words of our prophet and leaders of the church. We need it so desperately.

Next Saturday is John's 25th birthday. We are going on a fun road trip. I will be sure to document the good times!

Have a wonderful day!

Nuclear Renaissance

2007-10-07T18:59:00.000-07:00

Well, this is my first time to write on a blog ever! I have never even done facebook or myspace, so this is a pretty big deal. But something very exciting has occured, that's right the nuclear renaissance has begun! The first new nuclear reactor was ordered last tuesday, the first on in 29 years and there are supposed to be at least 8 more ordered by the end of the year! So that's really exciting and means I will have a job when I graduate from school.

School has been going well. Math is challenging and I need to study harder in it. I think I am going to start staying at school until 5:00 and just study at school, there are fewer distractions there. But other than math I am pulling good grades.

So Conference was really good. I was honestly suprised that Elder Eyring was chosen to replace Elder Faust, I thought surely it would be Elder Packer but what do I know? However I did have a really good experience while listening to Elder Eyring speak during the priesthood session and it was like a testimony to me that he was the man for the job. This evening Angela and I went for a walk and talk about the gospel. Watching Conference has made me want to do better. I want to study my scriptures better and to greatly improve my personal prayers. The Apostles talk of these great prayer experiences and I must admit the closest I have ever come to praying all night was the time I fell asleep on my knees on my mission and my companion left me in that position for 45 minutes! /So I really want to improve on those things.

Other than that everything is going really well. I love Angela more than ever and I know she is the love of my life. I love you guys and I will talk to you later!

October 6th

2007-10-06T17:51:00.000-07:00

Well we are finally joining the world of blogging. If you know John then you know that it will mostly be me, Angela that will be doing to communicating. We want to keep in touch with our families and friends and let you know how awesome we are. :) Here is us in Roma. We went to Italy this last May and I have not showed our pictures to everyone yet!. stay tuned for the awesome lives of John and Angela McCulloch! love you all!