Family Pictures and Crafts!!!

We finally took family pictures a couple of weeks ago and they turned out pretty good for the most part...it's hard at this age to get pictures of Brayden looking at the camera...he was so interested in what was going on around him and watching the cars go by...and of course sticking his tongue out :)

I've also been making a lot of crafts lately! I really enjoy making new things and I just got a sewing machine, so I'm really excited to start using it! 

 This is a diaper wipe case cover I made! 

Brayden Herrick Barton

We would like all of you to meet our precious baby boy, Brayden! :) He's a week old today and we love him so much. He was born on January 21st (2 days after he was supposed to arrive) at 10:38pm. Below is the story of his birth.

As most of you know once you get into your 9th month of pregnancy, you go to your OB every week until you have your baby. I had been going to my OB every week and every week my doctor would tell me that I was making progress. After seeing my doctor for a couple of weeks I noticed I was making progress but very slowly. I went from not being dilated and being 50% effaced to the next week being dilated to a 1 and still 50% effaced to the next week being dilated to a 2 and dilated to a 70%. I was dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced the day before my due date. Because of this one of my OB's decided to strip my membranes to see if it would help induce labor. That evening and the day of my due date I walked a lot hoping it would help me go into labor and when it didn't work I was starting to get discouraged and thought, "Man, this baby is never going to come." haha Sunday (the 20th) came and still nothing and then I went to sleep. I woke up at 3:30am when my water broke. Callen and I rushed to the hospital and got there about 15 mins later. The nurse hooked me up to an IV and told me I was dilated to a 3 and 80% effaced and the next few hrs we just waited to see if my contractions would progress by themselves. 6am came and I still wasn't making much progress so the nurse put me on pitocin, which lets just say is some heavy duty stuff. haha After going through 4 contractions with being on pitocin I had to have an epidural because it was so painful. After being put on pitocin i made progress but very slowly. I was stuck dilated at a 4 and 5 FOREVER. By the time one of my OB's got back to the hospital at 6pm I was dilated to an 8 and 100% effaced. My doctor was worried because usually women progress in dilation every hr unlike what I was doing. He told me that if i wasn't dilated to a 9 by 7pm that I would possibly have to have a c-section. After he said that, Callen and I freaked out a little bit because that's the last thing both of us wanted. When the nurse checked me an hr later I was dilated to a 9 and then a half an hr after that I was dilated to a 10. That's when I started pushing. I pushed for an hr and a half when the doctor came in and said that the baby's head was stuck because of my pelvic bone. You could barely see his head, but me pushing wasn't doing anything since my pelvic bone was too small. The doctor then tried to use forceps to pull the baby out as I was pushing, but after just one push the doctor could tell the baby wasn't going to budge. He then told me that I needed a c-section. As soon as he said that I start crying and a bunch of doctors and nurses came into my room to get me ready for surgery. I was put on higher doses of the epidural which caused me to shake really bad and also caused me to feel really cold and nauceous. We got into the OR and i remember thinking this is taking forever to get my baby out. After almost 40 mins of being in the OR, Brayden arrived. I was so out of it that it's hard to remember all the details but I remember the doctor showing me and Callen the baby and a smile came on my face and I just felt relieved that he was finally here. Callen went with the nurse to get the baby cleaned up and had measurements taken. For all of you that know Callen knows that he rarely cries, but when we were in the OR right before the baby arrived he was very emotional. The whole day was a very emotional and tiring experience. It was the happiest day of our lives but also the hardest. 19 hrs of labor and having to have a c-section in the end was really hard. We are just glad that Brayden is here and healthy. He ended up weighing 8 pds 14 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches long. He has already brought so much joy into our lives. He's the cutest thing and we can't wait for you all to meet him :)

Holiday Season

The past couple of months have been pretty crazy for us. Last month we celebrated our 2nd yr anniversary and then a week later celebrated my 24th birthday. For our 2nd yr anniversary we took off work and spent the night in Park City at The Canyon's resort. My sister owns a condo there, so it was nice to spend time there for free...thanks Min and Pat! :) We usually go on a cruise for our anniversary, but with me being pregnant we couldn't do that this year, but we enjoyed the replacement of Park City. :) For my birthday we went to Tucanos, which for those of you that don't know has some amazing food. It's an all you can eat meat and salad bar. It's pretty pricey if you go there for dinner, but if you go during the month of your birthday, then you eat for free, so we usually just go twice a yr for each of our birthdays. 

As you all know the last day of last month was Halloween. We spent it with Callen's 2 sisters families like we usually do. We took the nieces and nephews trick or treating which was a lot of fun, especially for Callen since he was able to scare several kids with his costume. Callen has a tradition that every year during Halloween he gets a scary costume or mask and scares his brother-in-laws, Jordan and Aaron. This year he definitely got them good and it was hilarious to see. He had 2 costumes...one was Big Foot and the other was a Wear Wolf. 

Another exciting event occurred was us getting a truck a week ago. We have been wanting a truck for a long time now and with the help of my brother we were able to purchase one from a guy in Boise. My brother told us about a listing for a Toyota Tundra in Boise (which is where he lives) and he was able to go check it out and test drive it for us. We completely trust my brother, so when he said it was in great condition we took his word for it and decided to buy it. Callen flew up to Boise 2 days later and drove the truck back to Utah. We were both really excited about the truck, but even more so for Callen....he flew to Boise last Wednesday night and got there at 11pm and then drove the truck back that night and got home at 5:30 the next morning. Yeah, I know all of you are thinking, he's crazy and yes he is hahah but he was very excited to get it home. Picture below:

With Thanksgiving this week, we are heading to California to spend it with my family. It will be fun to see my family and this will be the first time they have seen me pregnant, so I'm really excited for that. We will also be able to see my niece Quincey for the first time, which I can't wait for. She was born in August and from what I hear and seeing pictures of her, she's already getting big. :( This is what makes me really wish I lived closer to my family. 

Everything with my pregnancy is still going great. I'm now 8 months along and feel like I can't get any bigger than I already am....even though I'm actually small for how far along I am. I'm short and small so it just seems impossible for him to grow any bigger. haha :) Just 2 months left and we can't wait for him to come. I'll post an updated picture of myself soon! :)

Baby Pictures

These pictures aren't the clearest, but here's some that was taken at my 16 week ultrasound (2 months ago) when we found out we are having a boy. 

I am now 6 months along and am getting anxious for our little boy to arrive. I started feeling him move at 19 weeks and last week is when he really started to move and kick. It was the first time Callen was able to feel him and he was definitely excited about it. :) All I can say is our baby is a very active little boy because he moves all the time. It's a pretty amazing experience to go through. 

Here's a picture of me from a couple of weeks ago at 5 1/2 months pregnant:

 

January 19th!!!

Even though I should have written this post a lot sooner, we are excited to announce that we are having our first baby. Due date is January 19th! Here's the funny story of us finding out we are expecting:

Most of you know that Callen and I work together and because of that every now and then we eat lunch together. We decided on Wednesday May 16th to get lunch at Panda Express. We brought lunch back to the office and ate at our desks. I opened my fortune cookie and my fortune said, "Your wisdom will keep you from harm and danger." I kind of laughed and took it to Callen and said, "I think this fortune was supposed to go to you." (the reason is bc Callen was leaving the next morning for Honduras) I went back to my desk and then a few mins later Callen comes in and says the same thing to me about his fortune, "I think my fortune was supposed to go to you." I read it and it said, "Exciting news is in your near future." That night we decided to take a pregnancy test and sure enough it came out positive. :)

I am now just over 18 weeks along (4 1/2 months) and thankfully feeling better. The first 16 weeks were pretty brutal for me being sick every day, so I am very happy to be feeling back to my old self. (well for the most part). The 2nd trimester has definitely brought on some new experiences for me. I'm now experiencing charley horses just about every week and feeling dizzy/light headed every now and then. It's not a very pleasant experience but I'll take it over throwing up and feeling nauseous any day. :)

When I was in my first trimester I had heard from some of my friends that they found out the gender of their baby at about 16-17 weeks, so I just assumed that was when I would find out. However, my doctor told me I wouldn't find out until 20 weeks. I was really bummed I would have to wait another month, but then I heard that you can find out early...you just have to pay a fee. Callen and I decided it was worth paying to find out early, so we found out at 16 weeks that we are having...drum roll please..........a BOY!!!! It was so fun and exciting to see our baby during the ultrasound. He was stretching a lot, so the Sonographer was able to get some awesome pictures of his hand and foot stretched out. :) We both thought the baby was definitely going to be a girl, so it was definitely a surprise to hear it's a boy. It's kind of funny because Callen really wanted a boy and it didn't matter to me if it was a boy or girl, so when the Sonographer said it's a boy Callen got really excited and was definitely expressing it in the ultrasound room. :) About an hr later Callen told me that he was kinda bummed and when I asked him why, he said, "I wanted a girl too." hahaha I just told him I'm sorry and that I wasn't having twins. :) We are really excited to have a boy first and have him be the big brother to his younger siblings. We have another ultrasound in 2 weeks, so we are excited to see the growth of our little boy. :)

Weekend trip to Boise!!!

A couple of weekends ago we went to Boise for the weekend for my brother's baby's blessing. It was great to get away for the weekend, except for the drive there was horrible. :( We ran into some major dust storms and the wind almost blew us off the freeway. That lasted from Burley to about 10 minutes East of Boise...total= 2 hrs. Not fun at all and I was freaking out most of the time. Thankfully Callen was driving because if I would have been I would have freaked out even more. haha Coming back home to Utah was very nice weather and instead of it taking us 5 hours to get home it ended up taking us about 4.5 hrs and that's with stopping in Brigham City to see the temple which is gorgeous! 

I love to see the temple! :)

Our nephew Broden is adorable! We were really happy that we were finally able to see him...and Lysh and Brand too. :)

Forever!

So, I have been realizing lately that it has been FOREVER since I updated our blog. It's really hard to find time with school, work, family, activities, etc going on on a daily basis. Today with it raining outside, I thought I better start updating you all starting with the end of last year. Last November we spent Thanksgiving with Callen's family in Saratoga Springs. All of the family was able to be together and even though we had dinner as a family, Callen and I still wanted to make OUR own Thanksgiving meal. We made or should I say I/ME/MYSELF (haha) made the turkey, potatoes, gravy, jello (with cream cheese, of course), rolls, pie, and stuffing. It was way yummy and I had fun making it while Callen watched me. ;) He's kind of a wussy and was too afraid/disgusted to take out the turkey guts...I guess I'm the man in the house! ;) I can only imagine what will happen when I have our first baby...more than likely Callen will be MIA during that time...haha During Christmas time we went to Sacramento the week before for work. Callen is an on-site trainer and travels every month to train companies on our software. Usually he goes by himself, but this time I went with him and it was fun, even though most of the time I spent working in the hotel while he was training the company. While we were there, we did go to a King's game and got to Jimmer play...yes that was during the time when Jimmer ACTUALLY played. :( We of course have seen Jimmer in real life play before but not for the NBA so we were excited and ended up getting a Jimmer jersey and Jimmer shirt...yes we are MAJOR fans!!! :)

The next week we went down to Orange County where my family is from and spent Christmas with them. We stayed with my sister, Mindy's family and had a ton of fun playing with the nieces and nephews. They are all so adorable and they love Callen, especially Presley and Pyper...Callen is their favorite person! :) For Christmas Callen got me a snowboarding jacket and snowboarding pants. I was so excited especially since Callen is going to teach my how to snowboard. We didn't have much snow this winter, so we weren't ever able to go. :( I got Callen a cocomotion (hot chocolate maker) which might sound funny to most people, but Callen REALLY wanted one...you have no idea how much Callen loves hot chocolate until you live with him. We got back home a few days before the new year and spent New Years Eve with our friends, Sean and Amy. Sean and Amy got married 20 days after us and are already expecting their first little one this July. We are really excited for them!

This year has gone by super fast and we feel like lots of things have already happened which include 2 more additions to our family. Callen and I have 2 new nephews...one born on March 10th (Broden James Pyper) which is my brother Brandon's and his wife, Alysha's baby and our nephew Corver A. Nielsen was just born this last Wednesday (April 11th) to Callen's sister, Arianne and her husband Jordan. We were able to see Corver the day he was born and have seen him a couple of times since then, but we weren't able to make it up to Idaho to see Broden, however he will be blessed the first of May so we will be going up there to see him.

Broden

Corver

School is going really well for both of us and is also stressful. We can't wait until we both graduate. Working full-time and going to school is difficult but we've been able to handle it. Our semester ends in just a couple more weeks which we are very happy about. I started up tennis lessons again a few months ago and it's been keeping me crazy busy. I have been having people contact me daily for lessons. It's great, but is also a little overwhelming. I am excited for summer, that way I can teach more. I am also starting cardio tennis in the next few weeks which is basically learning the basics of tennis, but mostly working out and always moving your feet. Cardio tennis is fun but also very tiring, which allows a person to burn up to 900 calories in an hr. It's awesome and one of my old tennis students is going to help me team teach the lessons. :)

I haven't had a ton of time to make more crafts but the ones that I have made are in the pictures below:

 This is an earring holder!

 This is hold all of your hair accessories

Spring Wreath!