Weekend Activities!

Pete and Jacie and I had a really fun weekend. On Friday night Pete went to the BYU vs. Central Florida football game and Jacie and I stayed home. I had Cafe Rio for dinner and we watched "Madea's Big Happy Family" which I actually really liked. We had a fun girls night :) Pete had fun at the game, it was close but we won!! On Saturday night we roasted brats and made s'mores with the Prawitts which was super fun. On Sunday night Allison and John Rex came over and had cookies and played Bananagrams (one of our favorite games, a lot like Scrabble) with us, it was so great to see them!

 This is Nate Prawitt starting the fire for our roast on Saturday

 

It was windy and kind of chilly so we wrapped J up in a huge blue blanket in her carrier. We thought in the dark she looked like just floating head and bib haha

On Monday was Pete's 25th Birthday! 

He loved his homemade card from me and J :)

We had some of our friends over to sing "Happy Birthday" and have some cake and ice cream! It was so fun! 

Fall is one of my favorite seasons because it is full of birthdays, football, nice weather, and nice sweet spicy smells. Bring on Fall!!

More fun things :)

Jacie was blessed earlier this month! We decided to have her blessed in Petes's home ward in North Ogden, Utah. It was such a great day! The weather was beautiful, we had so many friends and family come and there was just so much love surrounding the entire day. Pete did a wonderful job blessing our little girl and I felt the Spirit so strongly. It just reminded me that our baby, and all babies, are a gift from God. 

Pete and I with Jacie in her blessing dress, isn't she beautiful?

J and her very proud Nana :)

My family was able to come up from Texas for the blessing!

Haha ok, this picture is obviously not from the blessing. For my History of Photography class I had to make a cyanotype print. Cyanotype printing involves a lot of chemicals that are not good to inhale and some that can cause chemical burns so I had to suit up! Pete said I looked like a domestic terrorist haha  

Here is the finished product! I put some leaves and things on top of the paper that had been brushed with the chemical cocktail and put it in the sun to develop. It turned the parts where the sun touched blue and kept the other parts white. I think it looks pretty cool!

It's that time again...

Time for the first BYU home game!! The first BYU home game is always exciting, especially when it is the rivalry game against the Utes. However, this game was just awful. We started out bad and we ended bad. There were some points where I just had to think, " there is just no way this is real, we couldn't possibly be doing this badly". On the bright side, the weather was beautiful! 

Pete and Jacie looking all excited and optimistic before the game

Pete and I got to go to the game and Jacie stayed at our house with Mariah and Kardin

This was a beautiful sunset, and I really love night games because the weather is nice and they play with the lights on

Oh! On an unrelated side note, look how big my baby girl is getting! She is holding her head up! She is two months old now :) 

Life is busy and wonderful and of course Jacie is growing up way to fast and getting cuter everyday. She can be so funny sometimes! She is starting to coo more which is super fun and she still makes tons of snorting/grunting noises that crack me up because she sounds like a little pig haha. Pete and I just can't get enough of our baby girl :)

Some fun things we have done lately

Even though school has officially started again we have still made time to do some fun things too :)

J is all decked out to watch her first football game, BYU vs. Ole Miss! We won! Can you see the excitement on her face?

The extreme excitement just wore her out, so adorable

We decided to hike the "Y" over Labor Day weekend. It was Jacie's first hike! I love having so many firsts to look forward to

For an early birthday present Pete took me to the most amazing concert EVER! Rascal Flatts and Sara Evans! Rascal Flatts is my very favorite group and has been for years, I know every single song by heart. It was amazing!

Here is a video from the concert

We went to the "Yankee Spirit" exhibit for an Art History event. It was American art from all different time periods and one of our favorite pieces was the "Book Wall", it was so cool!

And huge! Yes, those are all books! The picture just doesn't do it justice

At the event they had a blue grass band and apple pie which was super fun

This is just a cute video of J trying to turn over, she is almost there!

Life is so good :)

The Trip Back to Utah :)

After leaving Texas we took the three day road trip back to Provo! On the way there we stopped in the smallest town in the United States; Buford, Wyoming. There is only one resident! He owns a gas station, the only business in the town, and lives in a small house right next to it. Pete and Andrea and I drove through Buford last summer on our way back from Colorado and took a picture in front of this sign so we thought Jacie needed a picture. She is one month old here!

   

J was such a great road tripper, she pretty much slept the entire time!

On our way to Provo we stopped in North Ogden so J could meet her Kelly family. Here she is with her cousins Addison and Tylin

Everyone wanted to hold her, even Vincent! (The son of Matt's girlfriend Rubi)

Our Nephew Luke is too little to hold J, but he is too cute!!

We also went to Park City the next week so Jacie could meet her Rogers family. This is me, my dad, my grandpa, and my great-grandma Rogers; five generations!! So cool!

                        

The Rest of Our Summer in College Station

This summer we lived in College Station, Texas because Pete got an Internship with TTI through Texas A&M. He worked on campus and did transportation research. It was so great being closer to my family for the summer, especially with my being pregnant. We really loved College Station, especially the really cheap movies ($4.00 on a Friday night!) and how close everything was. It was really great but MAN was it hot!! Texas had the second hottest summer on record, the hottest summer was in 1980 and we were only one day away from hitting that record! There were thirty-something consecutive days over 100 degrees, now that's just insane! Pete took pictures of some of the fun cars that we saw, yes that is a pink fire truck and a pick-up with a full sized grill hitched onto the back. Built in tailgate party! 

This is Jacie on her first day home sleeping in her bed for the first time :)

About to walk into the house on the day we brought her home, I am still pretty swollen

The first week that she was home we all really liked to sleep...

and sleep...

and sleep some more :)

My family came down from Fort Worth to visit baby J

She is so dang cute, I can't get enough!

Jacie's first day of church in College Station

J and I when she turned one week old :)

Hannah came to stay with us our last week in Texas while my parents were on a cruise in Alaska

We had a really great and eventful summer! It was definitely one that we will never forget. :)

Jacie Ann Kelly is Born!!

As you can tell we decided to name our little girl Jacie Ann Kelly, Ann after her Nana. She was born on July 16th, 2011 at 1:11 pm. She was born at St. Joseph Hospital in College, Station Texas. Luckily for Pete and I she decided to let me wait to go into labor until AFTER we went and saw the final Harry Potter movie :) We went to the movie on Friday night, July 15th, and I probably went into labor sometime that night but I didn't know for sure that I was in labor until about 5 am the next day. I woke up with some serious pain and thought "ok, I think there is definitely something going on here". I woke Pete up and we started trying to time my contractions so that we would know when to head to the hospital. The first few that we timed were about 6 minutes apart but then they moved to 5 minutes and then to 2 minutes all within about half an hour or so. Now anyone who has had a baby knows that the doctor always tells you to wait to go to the hospital until your contractions have consistently been 5 minutes apart for about an hour. Since my contractions were getting closer together so quickly I figured I must be experiencing false labor so I decided to just sit tight. They continued to get harder and more painful and started being about a minute and a half apart. This is the point when I am hunched over in pain and I told Pete "If this is false labor it is SO not funny, I cannot be feeling this extreme pain for nothing!" So we decided to go ahead and go to hospital. Even though we had planned to, Pete and I never did a practice drive to the hospital so we had no idea where it was. We plugged the address into the GPS, and guess what? It got us lost!! So we are driving around in a random neighborhood that the GPS took us to with no hospital in sight and I am holding onto the door of the car for dear life with every contraction. Luckily we found some people in a parking lot setting up some sort of fruit stand and asked them how to get to the hospital. When we got there they put me in a room right away and got me hooked up to monitors. At that point my pain was validated when the nurse watched the monitor and said "Wow! Your labor is going like gangbusters!" So very true. At this point my contractions are right on top of each other. The doctor came in to see how I was progressing and I wasn't happy to hear that I still hadn't dilated at all, not one single bit. Luckily my lack of progression didn't keep them from giving me the blessed epidural. It was amazing!! Before the epidural I felt the worst pain I have ever felt in my life, but within five minutes of getting the shot I didn't feel one more contraction, it was beautiful. When the doctor came in less than an hour after checking in on me the first time she checked again and let me know that I was then dilated to a four and fully effaced! She said that I had progressed so quickly because my contractions were so intense. I was feeling good, no more pain, progressing well, my Mama had arrived at the  hospital, all was well. A little while later the doctor came in to break my water and said that she thought she felt a booty where the head should be so we did an ultrasound and sure enough J was breech. Since I was progressed so far at this point they needed to go ahead and do a c-section as soon as they could get me into an O.R. so that she didn't try coming out on her own. They did a spinal block and off we went. The surgery went really smoothly and wasn't bad at all. I had heard some horror stories about getting a c-section but mine was no big deal. When I first heard Jacie cry I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. Then Pete carried her over to me and put her right up next to my face, I couldn't hold her yet because I couldn't move while I was on the operating table. She was so beautiful! After they took her away to the nursery I just fell asleep right there on the operating table, I was exhausted! I slept for a few hours and woke up when they brought her back to me. Holding my baby girl for the first time was an indescribable feeling, the absolute best! We stayed at the hospital for 2 nights and then got to go home, well to our temporary College Station home that is. The doctors and nurses at St. Josephs were so great and helped me have an amazing experience. I am so glad my baby girl is here!!

Waiting in the Labor & Delivery Room

 My Baby Girl! Jacie Ann Kelly!

Pete holding her next to my face so I can see her :) 

Jacie and her Nana

Me holding Jacie for the first time :) 

Definitely my favorite picture taken of her in the hospital, she is so goofy!

She was jaundice so they had to put her in a special blanket with UV lights. They put eye protectors on her and we decided she looked like she was going to a tanning bed

She is just so precious!

 I will do another post about the rest of our summer and with some updated pictures of Jacie, I just wanted her birth to have a post all its own :)