Changes all around

In the spirit of big changes in the past couple of weeks, our ward was split this week. Having first heard about it last week, the crowds were packed in. We filled the chapel, the overflow, and nearly half of the gym. No wonder they are splitting it! We are in the new ward, called the Foothills Ward, and it encompasses the Meadows part of the old ward. In conjunction with that change, we are getting new callings. We will certainly miss our 4-5 year old kids, and I was grateful to have one last week to teach them. I was called as the Elder's Quorum President. Kind of a daunting task, but hopefully I will be up to the challenge. Luckily our new ward has a lot of the younger couples that I already know, so that is good.

We took Brooke to church today for all of the changes, and she did really well.

We have had some really hot weather as of late (22 straight days about 90) which makes it hard to get out and do anything. We ran a few errands yesterday and Brooke started out bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but soon she lost her spirit. Luckily the weather is cooling off a little and we were actually able to open the windows at night. I'm excited for fall.

Like mother, like daughter

Apparently, Brooke takes after me. When she was discharged from the hospital, she weighed in at 5 lbs. and 15.9 oz. We had a doctor's appointment today and she's up to 6 lbs. and 10 oz. and is in the 25th percentile. Go Brooke!!!!!

Hopefully her love of food will continue on for a long while.

Welcome to motherhood

Well, I think I've officially made it to the mom club. Sunday morning as I was changing Brooke's diaper, I got a nice water fountain of pee. Luckily there was a new diaper underneath her to catch all her glory. But that's not all, folks. Yesterday, I was changing a poopy diaper and my mom was helping me. As my mom lifted Brooke's legs for me to slide the diaper underneath her, out came a strong stream of liquified poo. This did not just happen once but twice. It did get squirted on the couch and on my hand. It was wonderful but amazingly enough I wasn't grossed out. I guess that happens when it's your own kid!

Here's the story...of a lovely lady

This is more for me than anything else. I didn't want to have to write it all out in the journal and typing is so much quicker. This will be long but for anyone who reads this, hope you enjoy!!!

So, I figured I would give my side of story on how little Brooke MacKenzie decided to join our family. Like Troy pointed out, I had my final Dr.'s appts on Tuesday. Not much of a surprise, I had not really progressed. I just assumed that we would be going to the hospital Thursday night to induce. Well, that afternoon I started having cramps. They were pretty mild but somewhat consistent. I continued to feel them through the night and by the next morning around 5 I started timing them. They were coming every 10 minutes or so. We decided to call my doctor and see what we should do. We headed to the office and met with the nurse practitioner. She checked me and said that I had dilated to 2 cm and was mostly effaced. They also decided to stick me on the non-stress test machine just to see how the contractions were going. Every time I felt a contraction, the numbers wouldn't go up at all. That was a little dissappointing and had me scared about what I should expect when I would be in active labor. Everything looked fine with the non-stress test so the nurse practioner told me to come back in the afternoon to check me one more time. In the meantime, she recommended that I do a lot of walking. We walked around the mall for a bit, came home for lunch, then I took my mom to "walk" around some of the model homes around our neighborhood. We headed back to the dr's office around 3 and the nurse practioner checked me. This time she said that I had dilated to 3/4 cm and was 90% effaced. Yay for progress. She spoke with the doctor then gave us 2 options. We could either A)be admitted into the hospital right then and kind of sit and wait it out or B) go home, "relax", and wait it out there. We decided to head home knowing that we had the option to come back later. Well, I started timing my contractions again that afternoon starting around 5-ish and they were very consistent at 10 minutes apart and they were starting to hurt. Everytime I would look at the clock and see that my 10 minutes was coming up I would cringe. Around 8 we decided to walk some more around our block. During that time, my contractions starting come every 5-8 minutes and man, were they painful. At 9 I told Troy that I wasn't sure I would be able to stay home any longer to "relax" so we called the doctor. We proceeded to pack up our things and head to the hospital. We got there around 10:30, made it to the room at 11:00, and was checked by the nurse at 11:30 am. Apparently, I have a magical cervix (tmi...maybe) that can expand and shrink because when she checked me she said that was still at 1 cm!!!!!! That totally blew my mind. Also, the assistant that had hooked me up to the non-stress monitor did not put the thing that measures contractions in the correct spot. No wonder whenever I was feeling a contraction, the numbers didn't change. Anywho, at this point, I'm a little uncomfortable and the nurse asks if I want an epidural. Without hestitation, I say yes. She starts the blood work then tells me that she'll talk with my doctor around midnight to go over things and that she would be back to check me. During this time of waiting, my contractions start coming quicker and stronger. At one point, they were every 2 minutes or one on top of another. It was horrible. All Troy could say was "try to breathe through it." Ha, easier said than done. The doctor finally came around 12:30-ish, checked me and said that I was definitely still at 1 cm. Man was that dissappointing. She said that I had two options. A) take a sleeping pill and try to get some rest of B) get the epidural. Well, that was a no brainer. Life after the epidural was heaven. I didn't get as much rest as Troy did (he was out from 2-6) but I was able to shut my eyes for maybe 1 hour all together. The doctor also gave me a suppository that helped progress my labor. By 2 am I had already dilated to 2 cm. At 6:30, I told the nurse that I was starting to feel some pressure but it wasn't painful. She checked and I was fully dilated. Unfortunately my doctor had to run to the airport so she was gone from 6:30 to 9. I wasn't allowed to move at all because they didn't want my water to break so I just laid there for a good long while while my whole left side got super numb. The doctor came in at 9:30, broke my water at 9:45, and little Brooke made her debut at 10:12. I don't think I've ever been as exhausted as I was after giving birth. At one point I was scrolling through the pics that Troy had taken and I was struggling so much to keep my eyes open. I think you can kind of tell in this pic. All in all, everything went without a hitch and I'm glad that I didn't have to push any longer. The hospital stay was great and the food wasn't that bad. I would definitely recommend sending the baby to the nursery during the night to get some sleep. We didn't do that the first night but the second night we did and I think that was my last night having a really good sleep for a long time. We came home Saturday afternoon to my mom waiting for us on the porch. I think she's excited to be a grandma for the 3rd time. We gave Brooke her first bath yesterday. Surprisingly she did very well and I love how fuzzy her hair. We had Brooke's first doctor's appointment this morning and we couldn't help but get her all gussied up.

More pics

Who are we kidding, you don't care what we write, you really just want pictures. We are now home and looking forward to sleeping in our own bed.

More than 5 years in the making...

I know some of you have been waiting since Tracie and I met to know what our kids would look like. Wait no longer.

Proud Parents

More thoughts (and pictures) to come later, but I wanted to get the nitty gritty out for those that haven't heard. Our little Brooke MacKenzie Ware was born at 10:12 a.m. July 24. She weighed in at 6 lbs. 6 oz. and measured 19.75 inches in length. She looks like her mom and has a full head of dark hair (We'll have to keep trying for our blue eyed blonde haired Asian baby). Both of my girls are doing fine. The delivery went smoothly, and she was out after only about 20-25 minutes of pushing. Pictures to come once i get home to pull them off the camera.

More Progress

The contractions are getting a little closer together and Tracie decided she would most likely have more energy going into the hospital sooner rather than during the middle of the night. So we are getting ourselves ready and will be heading there soon. Wish us luck!!

...Some Progress

It seems we are fully entrenched in early labor. The contractions are regularly spaced, mild (my word, definitely not Tracie's), but not close enough together nor strong enough to be considered active labor. We went to the doctor at 3, and Tracie was dilated to a 3 or 4. We were seeing the nurse practitioner and she did give us the option to me admitted to the hospital if we wanted. She called the doctor (it is her day off) and she re-iterated that it was our choice, and gave her opinion that we definitely won't make the 7:30 pm induction tomorrow night, and that we would probably would be coming back sometime during the night. We chose to come home, relax, watch So you think you can dance, and then see what happens tonight. Stay tuned...

Tired of baby talk? We got rain for the first time since July 8th. And it was a lot and much needed.

Progress?

Tracie started feeling 'cramps' yesterday, and everything we read suggested they were Braxton-Hicks. This morning they got a little more uncomfortable and were coming regularly enough that we called the doctor. We went to her office at 9 and while Tracie had made progress (she's at a 2), they don't think it is actual labor yet. So she is on a walking regimine, and we go back this afternoon. They also hooked her up for a stress test and seeing how low she was reading this morning, and how high it could get during the big contractions, Tracie respects the epidural a whole lot more! :) So no baby yet, but we are making progress. Not sure if we will make it to Friday...

My Biggest Fear

Since moving into our house, my biggest fear is that I would find something dead in our basement window wells. I already faced my fear somewhat earlier this year when we were visiting my brother and his family and I found a dead cat in their window well. Luckily, this time my mom found the dead rabbit in the well while she was exercising downstairs. She also found a baby bunny too that had somehow survived the fall. Unfortunately we had to wait all day for Troy to come home to take care of it but luckily it was under the deck so it wasn't out in the sun all day. We also fed the baby bunny some lettuce which it eagerly ate. All in all, Troy said taking care of the rabbit wasn't nearly as gross as disposing of the cat at Will's place. Thanks Troy for being great!!!!!!

Still Chugging along...

But not for long!!!!!!!!!! I have finally begun to make progress although it's not a lot as Troy mentioned last week. I still have no idea if I've experienced contractions or anything else but I have my last dr's appt. this Tuesday so hopefully she'll come back with good news. If this little girl doesn't come by Thursday, I'll be induced Friday on the actual due date. A couple weeks ago I had asked my doctor about inducing. Not because I wanted to be but just to find out at what point it was an option. She told us that we could induce anytime after 38 weeks and if we wanted to schedule a date. Well, that took us by surprise and I had no idea what to say. In the end, I told her that I didn't to go past my due date so we have it scheduled that I will go to the hospital Thursday evening at 7:30. She'll start me on prostaglandin then induce me the following morning. Can you believe it?!?!?!?! We're going to parents by the end of the week!!!!!!! Anywho, I have a feeling that if we did not set up this date our gal would have liked to stay inside for another week or so because she hasn't dropped.

On to fun stuff, Troy's mom and little bros came into town last weekend for a few days. It was fun to hang out with them. Sunday night we played a game called Whoonu. It was a lot of fun and we all found out something new about Brett. Apparently, he disliked sushi the least out of all the cards that were given to him. Anyone who's anyone knows that Brett is a picky eater. None of us at the table believed him and we decided to put him to the test. I bought California Rolls from Costco for him to try. Mind you, this is no where near sushi but it was a step in the right direction. I even gave him good, salty soy sauce to eat with it. In the end, he said that it wasn't that bad but for some reason I don't think he'll ever eat it again. The rest of the time they were here, we went swimming, mini golfing, and the boys went golfing. It was a lot of fun to have them here.

Friday night, Troy and I had our final date night without having to pay a sitter. Troy mentioned that the ladies in his office wanted to see me one more time before the baby came so I headed downtown Friday afternoon. Come to find out, they threw us a small baby shower. It was very sweet of them. Afterwards, we had dinner at Maggiano's then went and saw The Dark Knight. It was good movie although towards the end I wanted to get up and walk around. It was kind of long but well done.

My mom came in on Wednesday and she'll be here for probably about a month. I can tell she's super excited for the baby to come and I'm really grateful that she is able to be here. Especially because she'll be able to cook for us and her food is delicious. Anywho, good things are to come later this week. We'll keep you guys posted. Wish us luck because we have no idea what we're doing!!!!!!

She's not here yet...

... but we are a little closer. The doctor said this morning that Tracie is at a 1. Any day now!!! Sadly we had to say goodbye to Erin and Ryan on Saturday. We will miss their presence and the house will be a little quieter without Grant's squeals! :) We really did enjoy having them here, and it is always nice to have friends here in Colorado. We dropped by to see Aaron and Robyn before we left so they could say goodbye and Robyn could get a picture in her swimsuit. :) We 'watched' Grant while Erin and Ryan went on a date. We had a craving for smores. We didn't feel like starting a fire or anything, we just made them over the stove. Thank goodness for a gas burner.
They were delicious.
Here's the proper form.
My mom and Taylor and Brett got here on Saturday and are here for a few days. It should be fun, especially since I don't have to work!

Big News!!!

I passed my exam! (did I fool anyone?) 7 down, 3 to go!!! Halfway to my EA (this was the A part).

The waiting game....

The waiting game is finally over...as in for pics of the baby's room. (did I fool anyone?) We finally finished the baby's room and can I say how glad I am to be done with it. After we put up the chair rail we just had some touch-ups along the baseboards to take care of. I am not the best person to do such a thing since I'm a bit on the perfectionist side. I finally told Troy that he needed to take away the paintbrush and paint from me before I drove myself crazy. Anywho, so here are some pics of the room. We're still missing the glider but we should be getting it within the next week or so.

As for the other waiting game...I'm still waiting. Luckily, we had a lot of guests come and visit so it has taken my mind off of waiting quite a bit. Drew and Jenna drove over for 4th of July weekend and stayed with Robyn and Aaron. They came down Friday afternoon and stayed around for a fun BBQ and fireworks afterwards in downtown Castle Rock. We also had our friends, Taylor and Stephanie and their little boy down too. It was a lot of fun except the fireworks were cut short when the hill caught on a fire. Bummer. Saturday, Troy and I met up with Robyn, Aaron, Drew, Jenna, and Ryan & Erin and headed to Estes Park. The weather was perfect up there. It was a hot 94 in Denver but a nice 79 in Estes Park with a bit of cloud cover. We walked along Main Street, threw the football a little bit around Estes Lake then headed to Troy's old stomping grounds, Longmont, for dinner at Old Chicago. All in all it was a fun weekend except for the beautiful, swollen feet and hands I'm now sporting. :)

I have a Dr.'s appt. tomorrow and hopefully she'll come back with good news that I've somehow progressed. I better have with all the walking I've done in the past couple weeks!!!!