Fair Trade Act

Despite all the physical havoc aftermath this little angel pie has wreaked on my body... (think hemorrhoids, occasional incontinence, sore breasts, body stretched out, and oh yeah, all that flab) I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

Look at this face. What a darling! Still can't believe she is mine.







Isla loves staring contests with her Daddy. As I have mentioned before, she ALWAYS wins.



P.S. Can anyone help me figure out my header thing? Do I just need to make something to those dimensions in photoshop or something? Durrr I tried to make my layout all fancy and it didn't really work out. ooops.

Blessing Day

Sept. 27 was a very special day for us as Isla received her blessing in our church. Aaron did an amazing job speaking words that will last throughout Isla's life and serve as a compass for her. I was so touched as I thought how grateful I am for my precious little family and that my family will be built upon a firm foundation of our Faith.

The day was perfect and beautiful. Not because of the amazing food that everyone so generously helped with, or because of the perfect weather - but because of our closest friends and family that were able to come share the day with us. We had quite the group here supporting us. Every single day I think about all the love that our baby is surrounded by, from her grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, to perhaps showering her with the most love, of course, the crew.

So to all of you who were here, and also those who wanted to but weren't able to make it, we love you and thanks for all the support. Not only on Isla's blessing day but every day of our lives.

ST. GEORGE MARATHON 2009

Psyche, I didn't run it. Well, I ran a little bit of it. I jumped in with my mom around mile 25.

My mom ran her FIRST marathon Oct. 3 and she KILLED IT! We are all so so proud of her. She trained so hard - ran it in 3 hrs. 50 min. - and qualified for the Boston Marathon. Not bad for a 49 year old Grandma! haha. She's my inspiration to start running... someday.

Anyway, Aaron and I decided that "supporting her" provided a great excuse to go lay in the sun for a few days. Road Trip! Lots of family and lots of fun. Oh yeah, and lots of pics too.



Here we are en route to St. George. Isla LOVES her carseat and enjoyed finally having company in the back seat with her.



Night before. Getting ready.



KT tape is magical, or so I hear. And Grandma with her 2 sweet grandbabies the night before the race.



We woke up at 5 am to drive up the canyon to Veyo to watch her run by. It was dawn and the sunrise was gorgeous. But it was cooooold.



At the finish line. Notice how Orion is the only "civilian" (non-runner or non-military) beyond the orange fence boundary... yeah he made friends with the security guard, chatted him up, and ended up getting let into the restricted access area. haha, OF COURSE HE DID!



Looking good, eating melon, sporting the medal, and celebrating.

GOOD JOB MUM! WE LOVE YOU!

Adventures

Having a tiny newborn around has reminded us that the little things in life that happen every day are actually big adventures. I think we really appreciate what we considered our "normal" activities a lot more now, as we experience them with Isla.

We love sharing our life adventures with Isla. Everyone warned us "YOUR LIFE IS ABOUT TO DRAMATICALLY CHANGE" - but we disagree. Life hasn't really changed, it has just been enhanced. We still do the same crazy adventures just with Isla strapped to our chest in the Baby Bjorn! It seems to have brought new life to our activities as we can't wait to introduce Isla to them.

We are so grateful and blessed that we are able to provide her these opportunities in life and can't wait for even more. In her short 9 weeks with us her list rivals even those with many more years on her such as:
Boating
Elk hunting
Camping in the Uintahs
Flyfishing
Bike riding
Road tripping
and tomorrow she will have her first ride on Jack (my horse).

Fishing on Grandpa O's Boat. Isla absolutely LOVED being out on the water!

This life jacket was huge on her, but the smallest there was. It was so cute though!

At elk hunt base camp with dad. SO pretty up there.

Taking a nap in the tent at camp. And yes, she is sucking her thumb. She sucked her thumb in the womb and although we try, we can't always keep it out of her mouth!

All bundled up to go camping in the Uintahs.

Camping at Lily Lake.

Sitting around the campfire making delicious hobo dinners and dutch over cobbler. (Sans utensils haha) Thanks Whit and Brady! So fun.

Road tripping to St. George for mom's marathon. (Blog on that coming soon!)

When Tough Little Boys Grow Up to Be Dads...

They In To Big Babies Again...

Yes it's a country song. I never thought I would be likening our life to a country song.

Okay I take that back. Come to think of it... our truck has broken down - my horse DID die when we were dating - but at least there's no cheating.

But back to the song. If you have never heard it, you should. It's by Gary Allen. And I love it. I liked it before, but now it's Aaron.

So excuse me for a moment while I blog about the greatest husband and best dad Isla and I could ever want. At risk of sounding wildly cliche, I'm going to say it anyway. He may not be perfect, but he is PERFECT for us.

If I haven't already invited you to my pity party, you may or may not know that Aaron still works in Wendover. We don't get to spend much time with him and it makes ALL 3 OF US very sad. So when Aaron is home we try to make the very most of every moment. Aaron is SUCH a hard worker and sacrifices tremendously for our family. We are so grateful for him.

Isla LOVES her dad. Every day when Aaron calls I will hold the phone up for her to hear him. Her eyes get all BIG and she makes all these little confused faces because she can't actually see him. Okay it's a sad trick. But SOOO cute!

Annnyway, I wouldn't say that any of us ever doubted that Aaron would be a great dad. But we all had our reservations when he HONESTLY thought that babies went through 2 or 3 diapers a day. :) haha.

But to tell you the truth he has morphed into the most amazing dad and managed to remain an outstanding husband at the same time too. Basically he's magical.

I have compiled a list (because I am left brain, and we like lists). This is a list of my top ten favorite things of Aaron as a dad:

10. The Baby Bjorn. He puts her in this ALL the time, even if he is just sitting at the computer. He loves it, and so does Isla!

9. Dressing her. I have to bite my tongue sometimes because I (once again, left brained) like her to be proper and matching, and he (being right brained) thinks that clothes should NOT match.

8. Her holding his finger. Enough said. It's just sweet.

7. Sharing his accessories. He likes to let her try on his neon Volcom sunglasses, his New Era hats, and anything else.

6. Their staring contests. Most of the time she beats him. She's really good at it.

5. Our ongoing household fight whether Pampers or Huggies are better. I just find it funny that he has such a strong opinion about it.

4. Their daddy/daughter naps.

3. When he looks at me like he has NO clue what's going on with her. But we laugh really hard anyway.

2. Him dancing with her. We always have some sort of music playing in the house. And whether its "pausing for a dance break" or full on ballroom style, he's teaching her the moves.

1. When he gets up in the morning with her, lets me sleep in, then they bring me breakfast in bed.

Basically anyone that knows Aaron knows that he does everything. And when I say he does everything, I mean he goes ALL out and does it legit. So it comes as no surprise that fatherhood is no different. We love you!

nap time

elk hunting

staring contest

cuddling

Isla's Birthday Story

Well it's been long enough, I finally have some time, and I want to write the story down before I forget it.
Also, I am a bit detail oriented - so this will probably be long and descriptive. :)
Here goes...

Isla Sue Bell
August 9, 2009
11:57 am
8 lb 6 oz
21 in.

One day after my due date I went into the dr. to find out I was still "tighter than a ZERO", not dropped at all, and not feeling anything remotely resembling a contraction. I was becoming restless and BEGGED my dr. to start me that day. She said she would start me at 41 weeks, which would be the following Monday. I hung my head in sadness and trodged out of her office. She called me back an hour later to tell me that Monday was FULL at the hospital, so we'd have to wait until Tuesday. I cried. Well, I went back to work and just waited. Finall, Friday the hospital called and said "we are calling to register you for your induction Sunday". I was shocked and confused. I argued with her (although not too hard) that it was supposed to be Tuesday. She said she had just gotten off the phone with my dr. and it was now Sunday. YAY!

Seeing how we'd been prepared with bags and all in the car for weeks, there was really nothing more to get ready. So naturally we decided to spend Saturday at the shooting range. Yes, 41 weeks pregnant shooting in a trap competition with the Lions Club men.

My brother-in-law calls this the poster for "I VOTED SARAH PALIN" ad.

While there I received another phone call from the hospital. The lady on the phone said "we spoke with your dr. and we want you to come in TONIGHT" to start me on a pill that would supposedly make me dilate. And that's how it began...

10:00 pm - we arrived at the hospital. Got registered and into our room - IV's, monitors, all that stuff, checked again, yep still not dilating AT ALL!


1:00 am - they gave me a pill (NOT orally...) that was supposed to help me start to dilate then turned out the lights and told us to get some sleep. Yeah right, who can sleep at the hospital knowing you are going to be delivering your little girl within a matter of hours? Aaron slept well. There was a nice couch in the room that folded out to a bed and he brought his down comforter. I think the only thing I heard him say all night was "I feel like I'm sleeping in a cloooouuud"
4:00 am - time to check again. NO dilating. Now I'm starting to get bugged, thinking this is going to either A. become a 24+ hour labor, or B. end up a C-Section. So they administered another pill.
4:45 am - contractions started! They were about every 3-4 min. and were getting pretty hard. I felt bad waking Aaron up because there was really nothing he could do at this point except listen to me complain. So I just let him keep sleeping in his "cloud".
7:00 am - nurse change (THANK GOODNESS, the first nurse was new to labor and delivery and having her check me hurt more than a contraction. Very Bad. Plus she had bad breath. AND she forgot to give me my strep B antibiotic.) And time to check me again. Contractions were about 1 1/2 - 2 min apart and getting VERY painful. Still, only dilated to a 2, maybe 3. At this point Aaron asked the nurse when I could get my epidural. I didn't want it yet because I was only dilated to a 2 and felt like a total wuss getting it this early. But, the contractions were getting REALLY bad.
8:00 am - finally Aaron and the nurse convinced me to get the epidural. AHHH heaven! Life was good.
9:00 am - dilated to a 4, called my mom and dad and they started heading down. Dr. was on her way too. But we were told we have a ways to go still. We had the music going and reading tabloids, feeling great.
10:00 am - everyone was getting there. My Dr. came in and I told her I thought my water might have broken or my catheter was leaking. She checked and it had broken. Then I heard a "well, you're not going to believe this, but you are dilated to a 9! I'm going to go change and then we're having a baby!" Yes, in one hour I had gone from a 4 to a 9.

This was Aaron's completely freaked out face as they were getting the room all set up to push.

Final good luck kiss.

My sweet mom, BEST labor coach on the planet. I could not have done it without her, NO WAY.

11:00 am - start the pushing! At this point my Dr. still guessed that Isla was going to be a 6 lb 9 oz baby. Aaron was amazing. So supportive and encouraging. His main tasks: give me water, wipe my face with a cool wet washcloth, and keep the iPod on satisfactory music for my demands. It was the best birth experience I could have hoped for. We were all laughing, joking, reciting Saturday Night Live skits in between contractions.
11:57 am - FINALLY Isla arrived! All I could hear was "HOLY - SHE'S HUGE" "THIS IS A BIG BABY" "I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO OFF ON A BABY'S SIZE IN MY LIFE" I started thinking to myself... could someone please say something else? Like, is she cute? Is she a SHE? Or is she simply just Andre the Giant? They put her on my chest and I burst into tears. I knew I would be overwhemed with joy and all that, but Aaron and I are not really criers, so I really didn't expect to cry. That was the best moment of my life. She was perfect, and she was mine. Dr. asked Aaron to cut the cord, and he responded with a pale faint "um, NO". So she asked me if I wanted to. OF COURSE! So I cut the umbillical cord myself while she was laying on my chest! haha. In Aaron's defense, he said he was actually considering it until the episiotomy. But when he heard/saw that he absolutely couldn't handle the cord. They took her to do all the measuring and stitched me up. A little mommy/daddy bonding, then family came in to meet her.

Too precious.

Aaron in LOVE.

Such a proud dad.

Me watching Aaron with Isla. This is my "pure happiness - life is complete" moment.

Grandpa Orion with his newest little girl.

Grandpa Kent.

After a little recovery they took us up to our maternity room. They took Isla to the nursery for some mandantory testing, Aaron and our parents went out for lunch and I took a nap. When they got back they did Isla's first bath right in our room.

Getting ready for bath. I love Aaron's look of "what the heck is going on".

Oooh so cold!

After bath in what Aaron's calls my super-protective-don't-touch-my-baby pose.

Well, that's pretty much the nitty gritty of the event! Everything went so smoothly it couldn't have been any more perfect. Isla has been so completely healthy from minute one. I guess that's what you get when she's late and huge. We are so happy.

Going Home!

All buckled in and ready to go home.