Halloween 2013

Our Halloween was just perfect! The morning started out  in cute Halloween jammies and hanging out with cousin Madison. These girls just have too much fun together! Especially when they aren't fighting!

That evening we got the girls dressed up to go trick-or-treating. Holland and Madison were little Pocahontas girls. I made their tutus, Tyne found their cute necklaces at American Eagle and then we grabbed a couple of things from their closets and Hobby Lobby to complete the look. We thought they looked pretty adorable in their costumes! They had TONS of fun trick-or-treating. Knocking on the doors and grabbing handfuls of candy! Holland always wanted to go back for more! We made it to quite a few houses and luckily it wasn't too cold for the girls. It definitely wore Holland out because she slept great that night! 

We didn't get any family pictures so this will have to count. 

{Also, can you spot my 16.5 week baby bump?!} 

Our three trick-or-treaters: Ava, Madison, and Holland {who didn't look in any of the group photos!}

When we got back to the house we let the girls dig into their candy for a few minutes while we watched an episode of The Walking Dead. It is kind of Halloween tradition for Race and I. The second year we were married we watched a bunch of the first season while passing out candy. I got so scared every time someone knocked on our door--I was pretty happy when we ran out of candy. The show still scares me so I mostly tune out but it is definitely a fun tradition! 

It was a successful Halloween! I loved dressing Holland up and hey, I can't complain about free candy! Maybe next year we'll actually do some type of family costume...we'll see! I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween!

11 & 12 Months.

So obviously I'm super far behind on posting Holland's monthly updates. But, I still want these things written down somewhere so here goes nothing!!

In Holland's eleventh month she:
-Officially started walking {Junde 26th, 2013}
-Said the words mama, no, and do {for dog}
-Loved to play with my hair.
-Loved carrying things around with her everywhere she went.
-Would put her hands on her forehead all the time with a very dramatic air.
-Started puckering up to give her daddy kisses! {SO ADORABLE!}
-Loved shoes {chewing on them, carrying them around, attempting to put them on}
-Started sleeping a thousand times better than ever before!
-Went on a family trip to Lagoon and was a good trooper being shuffled between Mom and Dad while they went on rides.
-Loved to play with toy cars and attempted to make car sounds while pushing them around.

In Holland's twelfth month she:
-Started putting everything on her head {shoes, headbands, food, etc.}
-Was super wiggly at night
-Went to UT for a family reunion and AZ for Mom's friends' wedding.
-Said mama and now the "g" sound for dog instead of do
-Started giving high fives
-Became a pro at using sippy cups
-Loved to share bites of her food with mom/dad.
-Loved running around stores and trying to get into everything!
-Got really good at stuffing her mouth to overflowing. She was {is} definitely not a slow eater!
-Learned how to spin.

I wish that I had written these posts more in the moment because even though I wrote down these little notes it is hard to remember all the super fun small details about Holland at each age! Hopefully this will help motivate me to stay a little bit more on top of things! But, I'm still glad that I kept notes and have them all here on the blog for me to refer back to. It's so fun to see Holland change and learn new things. I can't believe how much she has changed in the past two months! I'll have to do another post about what she's like now because she is an absolute joy to be around and has learned so much!

In Other News.

This is happening. :] 

Holland doesn't seem to be too excited about getting a sibling! Haha.

We're all pretty excited to welcome Ashby Baby #2 next April and I'm attempting to teach Holland that there is a baby in my belly. Mostly she just thinks my belly button is super cool stuff. 

The official due date is April 13th, 2014 and we can't wait to meet this second baby! I am 15 weeks along today (Sunday) and we just had our first doctor's appointment on Friday. We love our doctor and I am really hoping to have a VBAC (Vaginal Birth after Cesarean). We'll see what surprises this labor and delivery brings though since Holland's birth story did not go at all the way I was planning! Hopefully I'm a little more prepared for the unexpected this time around!

I'm excited to talk more about my birthing plans and thoughts about preparing for the unexpected and stuff like that. I've been doing a lot of research on all things birth related {even more than I did with Holland--and I did A LOT with her!} and I'm really excited for this new journey--no matter how it turns out! 

I'll do a pregnancy update/comparison to Holland's in another post but I just wanted to finally let the cat out of the bag! We're having a baby!!! 

Stuck. {A Mini Post}

I've been so stuck when it comes to blogging. I have about a billion things I want to/should blog about for journaling's sake but I've just been feeling overwhelmed. I've written entire blog posts that I just can't figure out titles for so I never post them. And then I have TONS of posts I want to write about my feelings towards birth and stuff in that department but I have SO much that I want to say and I just haven't found the time or energy to get it all written out in a logical way. Does anyone else just get stuck when it comes to finding titles for their posts or have any of you gotten stuck because you just have too much to say? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who has been in this boat--right?

Anyway, I am going to "unstick" myself for five minutes and write a quick post while Holland and Race are out of the house for a few minutes and just do a quick life update. Here's what our past couple of weeks have looked like:

I got to see four of my eleven siblings and my parents and even got to have my two sisters stay with me for a week and then my mom and Gelsey stay with me for another week! {Helena and Gelsey pictured-- my parents, Stuart and Solomon unpictured}

We were all able to head over to Oregon for my Great Grandma Usher's memorial service. It was simple and perfect and Holland slept through the whole thing. We got to hear lots of fun memories of our Grandma and visit with lots of family.

Holland has been teething and got this goofy tooth that's like 1.5 teeth or two teeth just super close together. Race and I are not passing on good genes in the teeth department--our poor children!

We had family pictures taken and the next few pictures are just pictures I snapped while our awesome photographer friend was taking pictures of Race's sister and her family {she had a double duty photo shoot!}. Taking pictures is so much more work with a baby! Haha. But I can't wait to get the pictures back and I know it is so worth it to have the memories to treasure forever. It was also fun for me to practice taking pictures with our nice camera. I don't pull it out nearly enough and while a BUNCH of the pictures turned out blurry I still love them. :]

So that's what's been going on over here. Hopefully I'll stop feeling quite so stuck and get some of the posts that have been floating around in my head for months up on the blog! We'll see!

Emotional Recovery After a C-Section

I have wanted to experience natural childbirth for a long time. My mother delivered all eleven of her children naturally so that is what I grew up wanting. Once I got married and started thinking about having children I had to decide for myself if a natural birth was really the birth experience I wanted. So I began to research and still decided that this was the way I wanted to go. Race thought I was pretty crazy at first but after he researched he also decided that this was the experience we wanted to have. On a Sunday a few weeks before Holland was born my dad had all of the kids at home write 100+ life dreams down just for a fun family activity. Right after my number one dream {to be a good mother} I wrote that I wanted to experience natural childbirth. So we prepared. We read Hypnobirthing (by Marie Mongan, M.Ed., M.Hy), we wrote our birth plan together, and we prayed for everything to work out. I was so ready to have my baby. I wasn’t nervous to experience contractions and birth--I was excited! I was excited to come closer to Race through this experience. I was excited for my mother to be able to see a birth because although she has had eleven children she has only been at one birth before. I was so ready for all of it! I never expected that things wouldn’t go the way I desired. I knew that I would do anything necessary to get my baby here safe and sound but I was not emotionally prepared to have a c-section {not that I think women usually are prepared for that}.

I waited almost two full weeks after my due date for my body to kick into gear and things to start naturally. I could have been induced two days after my due date like my midwife had tried to get me to do but that is not how I wanted things to happen. So I waited. And it was hard. But after almost two weeks I was awarded with my water breaking on its own. And I was thrilled!  But then the contractions didn’t start. So I waited a little bit longer. And when the contractions started I was THRILLED {again}! Yes, they hurt but I was just so excited! I breathed through my contractions and was handling them fine. They were not unbearable. {I don’t want this to be a repeat of my birth story which you can read here so I’ll skip most of the details} I was excited for throughout the day but it was so hard to hear that I wasn’t progressing when the nurses checked me and after 24 hours I got an epidural. About 5 hours later I was 10 cm and started to push. Again, I was thrilled to be pushing! So far I had gotten an epidural which I had not wanted but I had not been put on Pitocin and I did not have a c-section so some of my birthing desires were being met! After two hours of pushing my midwife and doctor came in to talk to me. They explained that because of Holland’s position {posterior/sunnyside up} and because of the presence of meconium they thought it would be best to do a c-section. In that moment I felt peace with my decision and I know that was a gift from my Heavenly Father.

Over the next few days, weeks and months the grief of having a c-section hit me. As I heard about other people’s birthing experiences I was jealous and sad. Now I often cry when I read people’s beautiful, natural birth stories. I sometimes feel like a failure even though I know I did all that I could and I am so happy to have my baby here. I am sad that Race and I did not have the experience that we wanted and that Race looks back on our birthing experience as a bit scary. I am sad that my mother was not able to be there for the birth and I’m afraid {jealous already?} that she’ll get to witness someone else’s baby being born before she gets to witness her oldest daughter having a baby. I am scared to get pregnant again because I am not ready to deal with all the stress surrounding trying a V-BAC and then possibly ending up with another c-section. I cried when my parents told me that I was the inspiration for a family friend birthing naturally. I didn’t {still don’t exactly} understand how my “failure” at having a natural birth would be inspiring to someone. There have been so many different emotions that I did not know I would be dealing with.

There were many blessings surrounding Holland’s birth as well and I would like to take note of those here because I think it is important to recognize that although things didn't go the way I was expecting there were still so many good things I was able to experience. I was blessed to go into labor on my own and to be able to experience labor so I’m not quite so nervous for next time.  I was blessed with a very loving and supportive family and medical staff--I did not feel like I was pushed into having a c-section, it was my decision. I was blessed to have no problems bonding with and breastfeeding my baby. I was blessed with a pretty quick and easy physical recovery {or so I’ve been told--this is my first baby} after having major surgery. And ultimately I was blessed with a beautiful, healthy baby who I am absolutely in love with.

I have cried a lot about my c-section and that is okay. It is also something I didn’t realize would be so hard. So I started researching and found other people’s stories and realized that I’m not the only one {who knew?!} who had to recover emotionally as well as physically after their c-section. I wanted to add my story to theirs because I hope that it can help someone out there to know that they are normal in their feelings. It is okay to be sad, angry, jealous and scared. And it will get better over time.

Here are a couple of other articles that I found helpful:
http://thehumbledhomemaker.com/2012/08/emotional-recovery-from-a-c-section.html
http://www.plus-size-pregnancy.org/CSANDVBAC/csemotionalrecov.htm
http://www.vbac.com/emotional-healing-after-a-cesarean/
http://www.netplaces.com/postpartum-care/recovering-after-a-c-section/emotional-issues-after-a-c-section.htm

And now I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of my adorable daughter! 

Mini Post

I used to write lots of mini posts. They're kind of what started my blogging a couple of years ago. I would just write up quick posts on my phone, add some pictures from my phone and call it good. I think for now I'm going to go back to doing those because that's what works for me right now. 

So here's mini post number one. 

Holland and I are down in AZ visiting family. We are loving getting to see cousins and grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles but we sure are missing Race! Here are a few Instagram/phone pictures of our adventures! 

Flagstaff with Aunt Helena!

Visiting Kylie (my old roommate) and her adorable boy Jake (just a day younger than Holland)!

Hanging out with cousins!

Getting to know Granddad Ashby 

Napping in her stroller. 

And of course lots of FaceTiming with Race! 

We'll be heading back to Idaho on Sunday and while we're sad to leave we sure do miss that face up there!! 

On Being Brave. {& Haircuts--kinda}

I am really shy. Because of that I am always really impressed with people who can start {and carry on} a conversation with just anyone they meet.

For the past few weeks I was trying to figure out where to get my hair cut {I got a pixie cut and those are a little scary--especially when you don't have a hair dresser you know you love}. I was constantly on the lookout for people with cute pixies so that I could ask them who cuts their hair. None of my Idaho friends have short hair and my ward here is pretty  heavy on the elderly population {we have FOUR retirement communities in our ward boundaries} so I didn't really know where to start. I wanted something really cute and chic {what does chic really mean?}--not a "mom" or "grandma" haircut.

I started to keep my eyes peeled whenever I left the house. I didn't see much when I went out but I can honestly say I didn't look that hard because I knew I wouldn't be brave enough to actually walk up to some random stranger and first, compliment them on their cute hair and second, ask them who cuts it. So I set up an appointment with a recommendation from a friend of a friend and hoped for the best.

The night before the appointment Holland and I were wandering around Target when I saw a really cute, stylish girl {for some reason the stylish part was pretty important to me} with a really cute pixie cut. I just knew that I had to get up the nerve to ask her about it. I walked by her a few times and was about to walk away without asking when suddenly she was walking right towards me! I HAD to ask her.

So I did. I stopped her, complimented her on her cute hair, and asked her who did it. She told me how she had gotten it done at a nearby beauty school and hated it so she cut it herself and then enrolled herself in beauty school!

Ever since this happened I have been thinking about it a lot. I loved learning about this random girl's life. I know I just learned this one little thing but if I hadn't complimented her on her hair and talked to her for a whole one minute I wouldn't even know that. In fact, I probably wouldn't think about the cute girl with the pixie haircut again.

People are so much more real and memorable when you know something about them. I want the people I'm around to be real to me. I want to know more about the people I come in contact with throughout my life. I have my close friends and family that I know so much about but I think I often I forget to interact with all of the other real people around me.

Even though it was something so small I am grateful I was brave and I really feel like I was rewarded with a piece of that girl's story. I think I need to always be on the lookout for something to ask strangers about. I need more random conversations in my life! What about you? When was the last time you had a conversation with a stranger? Did you start it or did they? Did you think about it much afterwards or am I just weird like that? 

Some Other Random Notes:
-In about six months I will be going to that cute girl to get my hair cut!! I got her information and I am so excited to have her start doing my regular trims!
-Now that I have a pixie cut I see girls with pixies ALL. THE. TIME. {go figure} and I feel a special kinship with them. I'm not sure if it's reciprocated but that's okay! :]
-And a couple questions for any hairdressers out there--Do you like to carry on a conversation while you are cutting a client's hair? And do you usually initiate the conversation or does the client?

Here is my hair for those of you who haven't seen it on Instagram yet.