He’s Here!!

Well Dylan has finally decided to join the family!  Here is the story of his birth:

It was Saturday, January 15th, Dan and I spent the day relaxing and doing some things around the house.  The hot water in the upstairs bathroom wasn’t working in the shower so we spend some time fixing that.  We also talked a lot about Dylan and when he would come – so we decided to watch some funny YouTube videos on how to induce labor and some funny situations when some pregnant ladies’ water broke.  In fact while chilling around the house, I decided to take a picture of me. So here I am the day before I delivered Dylan:

Not thinking too much about it though, I finally showered and we went to bed around 10:30 pm.  Dan was tired and had to get up for church meetings in the morning so we conked out in bed while I took a shower.

Once I finally crawled in bed, I couldn’t really sleep because I started having some contractions.  They were about 7-10 minutes apart, but they felt different than any contractions I had in the past.  Dan woke up ~ midnight/1 am and we started really timing the contractions.  We talked a lot about going to the hospital but couldn’t really make up our mind.  Dan decided to get up and take a shower and I straightened my hair (I had gone to bed with my hair wet!).  Once Dan was out of the shower the contractions seemed to slow down/stop and I was finally getting tired around 4/4:30 am.  So we decided that we would try to get some sleep and go from there.  However while lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, all of a sudden I feel a burst of water. . . I jump out of bed and get to the tile in the bathroom and a whole lot of water (well I guess it’s not really just water – but you know what I mean) gushes to the floor.  Pretty loudly I inform Dan that my water has broken and so he too jumps out of bed.

I felt a little lost once my water had broken and wasn’t quite sure what to do.  Dan was a big help and informed me that I had better get dressed because we for sure were now going to the hospital.  So I put some dry clothes on, grabbed a towel for the car seat, and headed to the car.  So my water broke around 4:45 am and we were in the car driving on the freeway by 5:00 am.  My contractions then started about every 6 minutes and were getting stronger with each contraction.  We arrived at the emergency department and I was wheeled to the Labor and Delivery Triage. 

We got to the triage bed and I again leaked a whole bunch of fluid all over my clothes and was given a hospital gown.  I was dilated to a 3/4, so they placed an IV line  and was soon taken to my LDR room (labor, delivery, and recovery room).  Because my blood pressure had been slowly increasing over the previous couple of weeks, they would not give me an epidural until my blood work returned normal.  So I labored until about 9 am when I finally was given my epidural.  Let me just say that I was really ready for the epidural when it finally came!!  Up until the epidural, they had given me a total of 3 mg of Stadol but I didn’t really like it (it made my head spin and I didn’t make a lot of sense when I tried to talk). 

I finally got my epidural and I was very happy when that finally kicked in:

Once the epidural was placed the nurse put my foley in and checked me again – I was now a 9 and pretty much immediately dilated to a 10.  Next they decided to just wait and see if his head would drop on its own before they started having me push.  So we waited . . . the contractions started to slow down to about every 10 minutes so they gave me a little oxytocin and we started the pushing.  The umbilical cord was wrapped around his body twice and so h wasn’t dropping very well.  Once the doctor was able to unwrap the cord, he came right out!

So here he is:  7 lbs 7.4 oz     19 in long

Lots of people came to visit us on the 16th at the hospital and thank you to everyone!! It is fun showing off our super cute little boy but we were very tired by then end of that night.  But despite the exhaustion, we still didn’t sleep that well.

Here are a few more pictures from the hospital:

Here are two very proud Grandpas!!

All the new grandparents together:

Here’s Dan, who did such a great job helping me through labor. He is going to be a super awesome Dad!!

On Monday night we decided that we really didn’t want to spend another night at the hospital and so we headed home around 6:30 that night.  Dan was very grateful not to stay another night as his bed was not very comfortable!

Here is Dylan just before we left the hospital:

Baby Shower

I had to post something about my super awesome baby shower!!  It was a lot fun and I think that it turned out great!  My two sisters. . .

 

. . . and mother. . .

. . . threw me a great party.  Of course the food was great (THANK YOU ANNA!) and we enjoyed the leftovers for a few days.

We had tortellini, Sara’s famous Brie, artichoke dip, caprese salad, my mother-in-law’s awesome English Trifle and lots of other yummy, yummy things.  My sister Anna headed up most of the food and everything so I owe her a BIG THANK YOU!!!  In fact one of the games that we played was “Guess what cheese is in what dish.” Almost every dish we had that day had some sort of cheese in it.  Most people did okay, however the tortellini had everyone stumped as there were seven different kinds of cheeses in that one dish!!  I am so grateful for all the family and friends that showed up to help us celebrate this exciting event in our lives. 

Grandma and Aunt Kayla were even able to make it, which is just great!!

Unfortunately having the baby shower has not made Dylan come any more quickly and none of the presents came with the baby included:

  Thank you everyone for helping us get ready for this baby!!

Dylan in 3D

We were able to have a 3D ultrasound thanks to Dan’s parents.  It was really amazing to see Dylan in 3 dimensions and be able to see more of what he is going to look like when he finally decides to join us out here in the world.  My parent’s, Dan’s parents, my niece Samantha, and sister Sara were all able to come along and see the baby.  Here are a few photos of him content in his current home:

 

 

Needless to say, we obviously think that he is pretty dang cute!!  Multiple people have stated that Dylan has my lips and Dan’s nose. So. . . . we’ll have to see. 

 

 

Hopefully we’ll get to meet Dylan in person here really, really soon.  If you all can’t tell, I’m a little anxious for this little guy to join the family.

Getting Ready For Dylan

Well it has been a crazy few months as Dan and I are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Dylan.  We have been trying to think of everything that we can do to be prepared for his arrival. 

Nonna helped us with the crib . . .

It was pretty easy to put together and it looks even better in Dylan’s room than it did in the store.  It really is a gorgeous crib!!  Thanks Nonna!!!

Once we got the crib all put together we continued to work on the nursery.  We now have a glider, a dresser, the crib, and some awesome curtains.  Dan and I made the curtains and cornice ourselves and must I say, I am very proud!!

We found these cool lamps at Ikea and Dan made the stands for them – he’s pretty handy with the tools! He also got out his soldering iron and wired them together so there’s only one switch to turn them on and adjust the dimness. 

So anyway his room is pretty much done – however we still haven’t figured out how to decorate the walls.  So if there are any suggestions, let us know. 

What Is Our Next Adventure?

Well as most of you all know, Dan and I are having a baby. We are very excited for this next chapter of our lives. I realize that I am now almost 25 weeks pregnant and I haven’t posted anything since our pool was finished back in May. You see May was the month we found out about our little one and after the excitement of the positive pregnancy test set in, so did the 24/7 nausea. That lasted well into my second trimester making me a little bitter about being pregnant. But now the nausea has finally left and I am just getting bigger and bigger!!

As you can see out little boy (yep, that’s right, a BOY!) is settling right in and growing fast! This picture was taken up in Greer, Arizona where the Merrill Clan gathered for an AWESOME weekend in the mountains to celebrate Dan’s father’s 60th birthday. We had a blast being up in the huge cabin with everyone together (although we missed Nonna!!). Besides being with everyone, one my favorite parts of the trip was the cooler weather up there.

With much deliberation, we have decided on a name for out boy. . . Dylan Jack -----Jack after my step-grandfather and Dylan because we like it. So we can now all refer to the baby in my tummy as Dylan.

We are starting to get the house ready for Dylan and we have started with his bedroom. Grandmother Doris has been generous enough to start it all off with the bedding for Dylan’s crib:

Next we have finally picked out a color for the room and have painted the walls:

Don’t worry Dan did a lot of the painting and we only let me up on the ladder once.

Now that the room is all painted we are going to add trim around the window and we have purchased some fabric to make the curtains.

Stay tuned for more pictures and updates on our exciting adventure!!!

Pool Time

Well our pool is all done.  In fact it’s been done for quite a while, but I’ve just been super lazy and haven’t posted any completed pictures.  So here it goes. . .

Putting in the PebbleTec was pretty cool to see.  The morning they came to do it, this is what I woke up to:

Looks pretty crazy, huh?

Once the guys were all done, the filling began.  Because our pool is so many thousands of gallons of water, it took several hours to fill completely (~24 hours!!).

. . . . still filling. . . . .

. . . . . still filling. . . . . .

 

. . . . . . splash!!!!  It’s all done.

 

As you can see, Dan was very anxious to get in the water.  As soon as the pool was filled, he was out there  swimming.  That first night it was all full, there weren’t any chemicals in it so it was like a giant bath tub!!  FUN FUN!

The bubblers on the big baja step are quite a hit with the little ones.  Even Kendell who can’t quite talk can say “bubbles”.

Chris came for Memorial Weekend so of course we all had to go swimming to try out the new pool.

Daniella can swim (thanks to her Aunt Sara), but she thinks it’s pretty fun to float around in the baby seat.

I love this picture of Kendell.  He loved the water but he would get cold pretty fast so he’d go warm up for a few minutes, then jump right back in!

The weekend before July 4th, we had all of Dan’s family over for a celebration.  It was really fun to have everyone out at our house.  Dan made a yummy pork loin roast on the grill (it had a homemade rub, was cooked on a cedar plank, then toopped with a pineapple salsa . . . Yum! Yum!), grilled corn, bratwursts, hot dogs, chicken, potato salad, fruit salad, soda & homemade ice cream (a 4th of July tradition!!).  Needless to say, none of us left the party hungry.  Dan got a grill to prepare for super fun party and he sure loves to cook on it (he’s pretty good at it too!!)

Everyone got in the pool and I think the kids had a blast.  Even Allen was able to overcome some of his water fear and wear a life jacket to swim around.  Go Allen!! 

Thank you to all who made this gathering possible!  It was really fun and think we had better do it one more time before the summer is over!

New York & Philadelphia

One of Dan’s good friend’s at work was getting married in New Jersey and we thought  that would be a good excuse to go to New York City and Philadelphia.  We stayed on Manhattan Island near Time Square and we had an absolute blast.

Here we are the day we got in New York.  We checked into our hotel and hit the streets . . . .  However we forgot our camera at home so the first thing we did was buy a camera so that we could take all these wonderful pictures.

We got pretty hungry as we started walking around so we stopped at little Thai Restaurant for dinner.  It was pretty yummy!!

We walked to Central Park, but it was pretty dark so we decided to just stop for a little while at the southern part and then headed towards Rockefeller Center.

But. . . we were tempted by the look of the pretty cupcakes at a little shop so we stopped for some dessert, a coconut cupcake.

We found Rockefeller Center so we headed for the elevator to get a view of the city from above.

The Empire State Building was lit with green lights in celebration of something about trees . . . ?? Can’t remember exactly.

It was a little windy and chilly up there, but it was an amazing view.

The next morning we walked to the harbor and took a 2 hour semi-circle harbor tour around Manhattan to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  We didn’t make it on the two smaller islands. . . that will have to be on the next trip.

The cruise was pretty cool and it was fun to see the island from the water versus the street where you had to look up to see anything.  Except . . .

 

. . . we had this “brick wall” sitting between us and the island for the first half of the tour so it was kind of hard to take some pictures.

Luckily he finally moved!

Behind me is Ellis Island.

You’ll have to pardon the hair, it was a little windy. 

The Statue of Liberty

We walked back to Central Park after the Harbor tour.  On the way we stopped and had street food . . . a yummy gyro.  We met some of Dan’s friends/co-workers and their wives and then took the subway down to Little Italy for some pizza at Lombardi’s.  That pizza was the best I think I’ve ever had!! Fresh tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, Yum! Yum!

Then off to the Museum of Modern Art.  Guess the artist. . . . Yep Picasso!

Can’t forget about the famous Campbell’s Soup Cans . . .

Yew! Time for a break at Bryant Park.  This was really close to our hotel and a nice place to relax.

Ahh, how romantic!! They’re at the top of the Empire State Building.  Looks like they got a little too much sun on their Harbor Cruise/Tour!!

Off to Philadelphia

We left New York City on Saturday morning on the Amtrak.  Once we got into Philadelphia we took the subway to the airport and rented a car to get to our hotel and the wedding the next day.

In Philadlephia we didn’t do a whole lot but we did go to Independence Hall and see the Liberty Bell.

Dan outside of Independence Hall.

The Liberty Bell

  

We couldn’t leave Philadelphia without eating a Philly Cheesesteak.  We actually ate them twice during out stay.  They were a little greasy, but tasty!