Joshua's Birth - A Beautiful Experience

Baby Joshua is here! We are so happy to have him in our arms (and out of my belly!). Everything about his arrival has been beautiful and special, and we have both felt thrilled ever since.

We chose to have our baby boy at home. I know that option is not optimal or even possible for many births, but we felt that it was the best option for us. I wanted to avoid the increased risk of C-section that comes with epidurals and pitocin, and hospitals make me anxious and uptight, especially since the death of my mom. I wanted the most peaceful, comforting environment possible for such an intimate event. (Our home can be peaceful when Lily is not around.) We did lots of research on the safety of home births, and found a midwife who has delivered well over 1000 babies. She was wonderful to work with and gave us a very comprehensive level of prenatal care, with 45-minute visits at each appointment.

A good friend of mine, Joelle, introduced me to the HypnoBabies childbirth course, which I started using to prepare in January. It required a huge amount of time - often over an hour per day - and kept us up late many nights. I practiced relaxation, visualized the ideal birth, read birthing information, did prenatal exercises, practiced relaxation cues and scripts with Adam, did perineal massage, and learned self-hypnosis diligently for three months. I learned that the reason Lily's birth was so difficult was because she was facing posterior, and my contractions were pushing her into my back instead of my cervix. I also learned that this can be avoided by posture and prenatal exercises, which I did religiously.

Everything was going great until a week before my due date, when he somehow turned posterior in spite of all my efforts to prevent it. I was frustrated, afraid, and even angry. After several days, I went to the chiropractor and then we did several belly lifting exercises that are supposed to help. Thankfully, he wiggled right around. And the next morning at 3 am, my contractions started, about 10 minutes apart. I was actually excited!

I stayed in bed listening to relaxation recordings on my iPod until 7:00, when everyone got up. Then my contractions became closer together and more regular. Adam's mom was with us, so she got Lily ready to go to a friend's house. Unlike with Lily's labor, when my back was in so much pain between contractions, I felt great between each one. I ate breakfast, read a story to Lily, and talked with everyone, pausing to completely relax during each contraction. By the time they left to go at 9:30, my contractions were strong enough that I had some anxiety about Adam leaving (he had to take them to the car rental place). But I got totally relaxed on my birthing ball, listening to my iPod, and I hardly noticed he was gone.

After he got back, he was able to give me a priesthood blessing. Then I took a shower. My contractions were getting fairly strong now, but Adam just supported me every time I had one, and we talked cheerfully and I washed my hair in between. I even blow-dried it afterwards. It felt so natural and normal, except with the addition of increasingly more intense contractions every few minutes.

My midwife, Lisa, and her assistant Ellie showed up around 12:30. I relaxed on the birthing ball again, propped up against the bed with pillows. It was so comfortable, even though the contractions were strong enough that I couldn't talk during them. I stayed completely focused on being relaxed, no matter how intense they got, and kept saying "relax" and "open" to myself. Amazingly, with a number of the contractions, I could actually feel my cervix opening.

Shortly after they arrived, some blood appeared and they told me it was a sign of later dilation. I was surprised, but decided not to get my hopes up. During Lily's birth, everything took so much longer than I expected, and I felt extremely disappointed when I had been labor for 12 hours and was still only dilated to a 6. This time, I was determined to simply let things happen as they happened without focusing on the timeline.

On my way back from using the bathroom, I had a contraction that stopped me in the hall. As I knelt there with Adam supporting me, I started to feel emotional and began to cry. But strangely and amazingly, I was not crying from emotional exhaustion, discouragement, or pain like I remember doing during Lily's birth. If anything, it felt like I was crying because I was happy! It even brings me to tears now, to think about all of us kneeling together on the floor of our little hallway, with me asking my midwife why I was crying, and feeling so much joy and happiness that it made me laugh through my tears. She was smiling and telling me how great I was doing, and again said this emotional stage is a sign of later dilation and transition.

I decided to get in the bathtub, and then things got very intense. It was extremely difficult to keep my whole body relaxed now, but I focused with all my concentration on keeping all my birthing muscles relaxed. Adam was using all the tools we practiced to help me stay focused, and it felt like a complete team effort. I could not have done it without him. I felt powerful instead of helpless like I had during Lily's birth. Instead of this happening to me, I was doing it. I was in control and we were in it together. When Adam said "relax", I relaxed automatically. With Lily, I remember that when Adam told me to relax, I felt indignant and almost angry, since of course he had no idea what I was going through, and "how dare he tell me to relax?" When he said I was doing great, I told him he was lying, and when he said I was getting closer, I said "how do you know?" and started crying. But this time, all those things same encouraging words made me feel stronger. We were in it together, we were in control, and we were rocking this birth!

When I stood up to get out of the tub, I felt a sharp pop like a balloon bursting, and they told me my water had broken. Ellie informed me that the contractions would probably be somewhat stronger from now on, and I got a little worried. I felt like they were as strong as I could handle, and I thought if they get any stronger, I don't know how long I can do this. But the next one felt different, and STRONG, and I knew something was changing. Adam helped me to the bedroom, and then suddenly with the next one I had to push and it was unbelievably intense! With three pushes and in only 6 minutes (and a few very unearthly sounds coming from me!), our baby was born at 1:58 pm.

With a huge smile as they handed him to me, I said, "I did it!" and I felt like I had conquered the world. We did it! Then Joshua was in my arms, purple and crying and perfect. Adam cut the umbilical cord and we climbed into our own bed, and I nursed Joshua for a long time with a feeling of complete exhilaration. I was so happy! Everything I had visualized had happened exactly as I pictured, down to the time of day and the number of hours I was in labor. I didn't tear at all, and didn't have any of the extra bleeding or other problems I had after Lily's birth. The experience was not easy or pain-free, but it was amazing! I felt like I had accomplished a major physical feat, such as climbing a mountain or running a marathon. It was such as contrast to my previous experience, when I just felt beat up. This time, I had met the challenge, and came out on top!

As I have reflected on this experience, I feel like this is what birth is meant to be: a challenging, difficult, but wonderful experience. I don't think God meant it to be terrifying or horrible, but at the same time, it should be a sacrifice to do something as significant as bringing a new life into the world. Everything worthwhile in life takes effort and hard work - education, marriage, parenting, living the gospel, earning a living, learning to play an instrument. But the effort can be so meaningful and even rewarding. I learned that birth can be beautiful, meaningful, and rewarding as well.

Lily adores Joshua.

Welcome to the world baby Joshua! We are so exited to have you!

I know that not everyone can have an experience like this, although I wish they could. I can sympathize with women who have had long, very difficult and painful birthing experiences. But I hope that we can start sharing the wonderful side of birth as well so our daughters don't have to grow up mortally afraid of what they will inevitably have to endure someday. I hope my daughter can look forward to having children as a challenging, but empowering right of passage. I am so grateful for the healing and joy we were able to find through this experience, and I want to pass that on to her.

Anticipating a New Chapter

The end and the beginning are almost here! I am looking forward to the end of pregnancy, as it has gotten somewhat uncomfortable. :) And I am looking forward to having our precious baby boy here at last. I can't wait to hold him. And yet, I have a small feeling of regret. My one-on-one time with Lily is limited, and it hurts me. I wasn't expecting that. I feel for the frustration and confusion that she will likely experience at losing her status as the exclusive object of my attention. And I feel equally regretful that I will never be able to give him that level of attention. At the same time, I am so excited for them to build a relationship with each other.

Lily is very excited to meet him. It seems like we have been talking about it forever. We have read books about families having new babies, talked about how he's growing and will come out soon, discussed what we are going to do with him when he arrives, and had many conversation about Lily's status as big sister and how she is going to treat her baby brother. She knows that he will cry and sleep and drink mommy's milk, and that he can't do any of the things she does, like talk or play with toys or eat food. She talks to him, hugs my belly, and tells him that she loves him. We have sorted his clothes together, which of course she wants to wear (she actually squeezed into a pair of 3-month pants this morning!), and have looked at his little diapers and carseat. She has even seemed to accept that I am his mommy as well as hers, and that Adam is also his daddy. But I know she cannot comprehend the changes he will inevitably cause in her daily life. I hope she deals with it well and is not devastated by our affection for him. Regardless of how she reacts, I know that having a brother will eventually bless and benefit her greatly.

We have had some other changes recently. Lily is now mostly potty-trained! She went five days without an accident last week, and hasn't had an accident at night for about two weeks. We have been pleasantly surprised at this. When we told her she was a big girl and could wear princess panties now, she flatly refused to wear diapers even at night. There was nothing we could do to convince her, so we just let her wear her underwear to bed. She only had one accident at night, besides one time when she was calling for us to get her out of her crib and we took too long. Otherwise it has gone great. It sure will save us money in diapers, and it has been nice to have a 3-week break from changing them.

I also cut my hair off. It is quite short. The longest layers barely touch my shoulders, and the shortest don't even stay in a ponytail. It is shorter than I wanted it, but I like it. I just know I won't be able to handle long hair very well with baby. Plus, it's nice to have a reason to make a change once in a while. I will definitely grow it back out though. I think I will always prefer having long hair, but this is fun for now. Here are a couple pictures. Not sure why I look so fat in the second one, haha...

Adam has finished his last class required for his degree, but for some reason decided to sign up for another class anyway. It's an online class about teaching online classes. He says it's helpful, which is good I guess. Then I asked him if he is addicted to school. Seriously, are we ever going to be done? I will just keep assuming that his dissertation will get done one way or another by next summer, but I honestly don't know how that will actually happen. Shh! Don't tell him I said that! (I don't think he reads this blog; if he does, I guess I will find out soon! ;)

As for me, I have been uncontrollably nesting, and feel very satisfied at having sorted clothes, cleaned house, prepared freezer meals, etc. In my excess of nesting enthusiasm, Adam and I even reupholstered our kitchen chairs, finally. We refinished them 3 years ago and have been meaning to reupholster them ever since. They look sooo nice! :) Adam's mom arrived the end of last week and she has been immensely helpful with a few other projects, and keeping the kitchen clean (the bane of my existence!) Lily has LOVED having her here, and they have had so much fun playing together. She is fantastic with kids. My good friends Brianna and Liana threw me a very nice baby shower last weekend, and it was so fun and beautiful! The gifts and food were perfect, and instead of games, they prepared freezer meals for me! It made me realize how many wonderful, caring friends I have. I almost can't believe how many people have been willing to help and serve as this baby comes. Multiple people are coming from out of town to help us out, ward members are hosting them in their homes while they are here, many people have sent clothes and gifts, others have agreed to help out with church callings in my absence, and so many have volunteered to watch Lily after the baby arrives. I just hope I can pay it forward and serve others as much as they have served me.

Anyway, our lives will be changing very shortly. I have been having Braxton-Hicks contractions and have definitely felt pressure and things changing. I have been pretty worried the last few days because the baby rotated last week to a posterior position, and I really want him to turn back around before my labor starts. Lily was posterior for most of my pregnancy and it caused months of back pain and very difficult, painful back labor. I think she would have come much more quickly and easily if she had started in a better position. So I have been crawling around on my hands and knees and doing pelvic rocks to get him to turn around, but so far it hasn't been successful. Hopefully it happens soon, because one way or another, this baby will not be in there much longer! We are excited to meet you baby boy! :)

Ode to Adam's Saturday Class

Things have been rough lately. I have had chronic congestion and fatigue with this pregnancy. It hasn't quite been constant, but I have gotten sick 5 times and each has lasted about a week. I am sick again. And coupled with the other discomforts of being 8 months pregnant, I am struggling. Lily has been dying to go outside for the past 5 days, and I just don't feel good enough to take her out, or do much of anything else. Adam has had a lot going on so he hasn't been around that much, and I have had to find time and energy to prepare a talk for Sunday because I'm speaking in church. On top of that, Adam has a class every few weeks which lasts all day Friday and Saturday. It is the bane of my existence, and it will take place this weekend. I am very nervous about how things will go if I am not better by then, and doubt I can recover for my talk on Sunday if I don't have a day to rest before then. In my frustration and state of near incapacitation today, I wrote a poem about my disdain for this class.

Ode to Adam's Saturday Class

Dear Adam's Saturday class:

I really hate you!

More than washing dishes,

More than diapers full of poo.

I unhappily await you

With loathing in my soul.

I'd like to round-house kick you

And then throw you down a hole.

You're like the Grinch of Saturdays;

You steal my weekend break.

And like a stocking full of coal,

Leave just a bad headache.

I suppose you're necessary

To getting this degree,

But did you have to come right now

To ail and burden me?

I'm sick and 8 months pregnant

With a 2-year old who throws

Huge tantrums I can't take alone

For 6 days in a row!

Just writing this is giving me 

An anxiety attack

So please be gone and don't return--

I need my weekends back!!

I guess the positive side of this coin is that this weekend's class will be the last one, and then I won't have to deal with it again. And after that, only 5 more weeks until this baby comes! I just hope I survive in the mean time.

Stir Crazy!

We have been SO busy lately! I am not sure how things got so crazy around here. Suddenly, in less than 2 months, Adam went from no clients to 5, and I am working 10-15 hours a week. So I have been working a lot on Saturdays, and Adam comes home at 4 on weekdays and makes dinner with Lily while I work. Unfortunately, this has been limiting his time to study for his classes, grade assignments for the class he is teaching, meet with his clients, and work on his dissertation. I have also been doing a home-study HypnoBabies course, which I am really excited about! It is a different approach to natural childbirth, and I think it will make this a really great birth experience. However, it is "labor" intensive (haha), and requires about an hour each day, which I can only do after Lily goes to bed. And Lily never goes to bed before 8:30 (usually more like 9), has stopped napping, and always wakes up at 7. If we put her to bed earlier, she wakes up earlier. So by the time we get her in bed, clean up from dinner (some days), read scriptures, and I do my Hypnobabies studying, it is past our bedtime already! In fact, it is so busy that I am almost excited for this baby to come so we can have more time . . . I said "almost". I recognize that once that actually happens, we won't even have time to sleep!

So how's that for an explanation of why I haven't written in almost two months? Let's see, since I wrote last, we went to California for Christmas, had a wonderful time, got completely spoiled by Nana & Papa, visited San Francisco for our 7th anniversary, got fairly sick, but had fun anyway. Here are some pictures of our fun trip to California.

Lily decorating the tree with her cousin, Amelia. 

And her aunt Amber. 

Playing Mr. Potato Head with Nana 

Christmas morning! 

It was a fun trip. Lily got her fairy wings from Santa, and a lot of other fun gifts. May too many . . . :) We all enjoyed it, but it was also nice to come home and start regular life again.

Then I had a lovely week in January when I couldn't do anything because my back went into terrible spasms. It was so painful that I couldn't sleep or do anything else for four days and had thoughts like "If only I were in labor right now. At least that ends!" Ultimately, the chiropractor said that my huge belly has been pulling my back out of alignment while I sleep. So I invested in a super-awesome maternity pillow, and every night I look forward to snuggling with it! I also spent a lot of days in a friend's hot tub, borrowed a massager from my neighbor, tripled my intake of calcium, and increased my exercise regimen. And now my back feels great, thank goodness!

Otherwise, we are doing well. Lily is growing up and saying funny stuff, as usual. She asks "why" to everything, and has for about a year. Those conversations usually terminate in "because that's just the way God made us." So for example:

"Lily, put your shoes on please."
"Why?"
"So we can go to the store."
Why?"
"Because we need to buy food."
"Why?'
"Because we have to eat in order to live."
"Why?'
"Because that's just the way God made us."

Well, that has backfired. Now, whenever we ask her a question, she responds with "Because that's just the way God made us." Whether we ask her why she doesn't want to eat her cereal, or why she threw her sippy cup on the floor, or why she took a toy away from a friend, or why she is screaming. "Because that's just the way God made us," she replied, with a pesky little grin. It has been funny, but also really frustrating.

The other day, Lily was singing "Jingle Bells" and a little while later I told her, "Lily, you got Jingle Bells stuck in my head." She replied, "You have dingle bells stuck in your hair?" We laughed, and I tried to explain what having a song stuck in your head means.

Then the next day, I was brushing my hair and Lily asked what I was doing. I said, "Getting the tangles out of my hair," to which she excitedly replied, "You getting the dingle bells out of your hair!" Classic.

This next little guy is also making his presence known. He can really kick! He kicks much harder and much more often than Lily did, and I thought she kicked me a lot. I am also getting bigger, and have already had someone ask if I am having twins. Really?! In fact, most Sundays and Tuesdays, when I take Lily to the library, I have multiple people ask, "You must be getting really close, right?" No. I am not getting really close. I am just getting really big! But, honestly, do you have to rub it in? I am certainly grateful that I don't need to worry about him being a low-birthweight baby. But I had really hoped to gain less than 50 pounds this pregnancy. That will probably not happen. I guess I should just be grateful that I lose it easily. :)

To ward off any unnecessary weight gain, I have been successfully avoiding sugar for the past month. However, yesterday I went to a friend's house and she taught me how to make fudge. That kind of catapulted my sugar-resistance efforts. But I thought it was worth it since fudge is Adam's favorite thing ever. I really wanted to make him some for Valentine's Day, but I have failed at making fudge so many times that I knew it would be a bad idea to attempt by myself again. Happily, our fudge was a fantastic success! We made the marshmallow creme kind and the old-fashioned kind - so much work, but vastly superior!

And today, it snowed another 10 inches in Corvallis, and it's still coming down hard! I ended up watching a friend's children most of the day since school was out, but she still had to work. We played in the snow a little, but Lily got cold really fast. Hopefully the whole city doesn't shut down again, or we will be really stir crazy! But if it does, maybe I will get caught up on all my neglected sewing projects. :)

Year in Review

Merry Christmas! We hope you (whoever you are) are doing well and enjoying the holidays! We don't send a Christmas letter because we know many people won't read it anyway. But for those who are actually interested in what we have been up to (but don't want to read an entire year of blog posts), here is a summary of 2013:

January: Started the year in Utah with Lily, taking care of my mom. I spent three weeks with her, and it was very special. Of course, it was a little hard to see her so weak and in so much pain, but I will be forever grateful for the time we spent together, and the time she spent with Lily. As for Lily, she had a fantastic time playing outside and thoroughly enjoyed her first experience with snow.

February: Adam turned 30 in February! He wasn't too upset about it. I kept trying to tease him, and I didn't get anywhere. I think he feels like he has more credibility as a therapist now that he is out of his 20s.

March: Lily thoroughly enjoyed playing outside in the not-as-cold weather. We attended story time at the library and played on the basketball court a lot. She became very attached to our BYU basketball.

April: We received a call from my grandma that we needed to come to Salt Lake City to say goodbye to my mom. It was a painful and tearful visit. She passed away on the 13th, but peacefully. It was a special experience, and I know she is happy. I stayed in Utah for two weeks to plan the funeral, sort through her things, and be there for my dad.

May: I was recruited to be the music director for the stake musical, Promised Valley. I spent many nights practicing demanding music and trying to figure out how to teach it to the cast. Adam also began his therapy practice. It took a long time to get the supervisor, paperwork, office space, advertising, and state requirements finished, but he finally began meeting with clients as a Marriage and Family Therapist!

June: Spent the month taking Lily to Promised Valley practices, dancing and singing. We made many good friends and had a wonderful time. We also moved to a new apartment, which has been a huge blessing. We are saving almost $200 per month, and have many more social opportunities with other moms, dads, and kids for Lily to play with. I do, however, miss our dishwasher.

July: Visited Adam's family in California for a week. We hiked, went to the beach, visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium, cooked, and had fun with Adam's family. Lily and her cousin Amelia played outside in the inflatable pool with their Nana, and loved every minute. We also finally had our play performances, which were very fun and memorable.

August: We found ourselves in California once again. Adam's brother Travis returned from his LDS mission to Brazil! We were able to visit and spend some time with him. We also found out that we were expecting our second Clark baby! I spent the rest of the month sick and exhausted on the couch.

September: We finally got out into the beautiful Oregon wilderness and went for a quick one-night camping trip. Lily had fun throwing rocks into the river and listening to owls hoot in the middle of the night. Lily and I also took a trip to Idaho and Utah to visit my family. First we went to see my grandma, which was a lot of fun. My sister also came to stay with us there. Then we traveled down to Utah to see my dad and meet his fiancee, Elizabeth. We had a great time.

October: We returned to Utah, driving this time, for my dad's wedding. It was beautiful and fun to see family. Lily wants to get married in the temple like Grandpa and Elizabeth.

November: Lily turned 2! I also turned 28, but that didn't feel as significant somehow. I spent a lot of November working from home for my former employer, and Adam spent it working on his dissertation and grading papers for the online class he was teaching. Lily enjoyed attending a swim class, usually with mom and sometimes with dad. She learned how to blow bubbles, kick, jump off the wall, and lots of other fun water skills. We also found out that baby #2 is a BOY! Lily is very excited to meet her baby brother.

December: We are looking forward to visiting Adam's family again in California and celebrating the holidays with the people we love. We hope you have a merry Christmas too!

Strange things afoot in Oregon

Things have been a little unusual around here lately! Corvallis is not southern-California-balmy, but usually relatively warm. It only snows a couple times each winter, and it almost always melts by the next morning. But this past week, it was FREEZING! Literally. It snowed a week ago last Thursday. But this was no ordinary mid-Oregon snow dusting. It snowed over NINE INCHES overnight! School and about everything else in town was cancelled, including the big band Christmas concert I was very excited to attend.

What made this incident even better was that some ingenious high-up city authority decided that it would probably melt on Friday, so they didn't bother to plow the roads. By Saturday morning, everything was so packed down and frozen that they couldn't plow it. Brilliant. The result was an entire week of nothing happening in this town. Church cancelled. Choir performances and the stake nativity festival cancelled. The downtown entirely shut down for several days, and all public employees were sent home. Saddest of all (for me), the ward Christmas party was even cancelled. The choir, primary, and youth in our ward had been preparing an special program, which we have never done before. I had assembled a small group to sing a jazz number, and I was really excited. Finally, I had invited two non-member families to come with us, and they were both really excited about it. All cancelled. Stupid city planner.

It was also SUPER cold. As in, cold for Utah weather. It stayed below 20 degrees for almost a week, and dipped below zero one night. I haven't experienced negative temperature for a while, and I forgot how cold  they really are!

But there were good things - we got Adam at home more than usual, since campus closed for two days. Lily also really loved playing in the snow. Unfortunately, the snow was really powdery and "dry" so it was almost impossible to make a snowman. We tried every single day, hoping the snow had melted a little to make it wet enough, but it never did. She was very disappointed. So we improvised by using a spray bottle with warm water to make three snowballs, and stacked them on top of each other with the tiny end of a carrot for a nose, twigs for arms, and tiny pieces of raisins for eyes.  It was only about 10 inches tall, but that was good enough for Lily. She talked about our snowman for days.

Poor Lily was so tired after all that winter recreation that she fell asleep in her high chair!

Besides the weather, things have been busy, as usual. Unfortunately, Adam has not had many clients for several months. This has been a challenge for our income, but I have been blessed with the opportunity to work some from home. My former employer, DecisionWise, contacted me in October and asked if I would be able to do a project for them. It was only a 30-hour project, but it kept me busy for a few weeks, and Adam was able to come home early to watch Lily since he didn't have clients. That project led to another in November-December, and I will be doing another in January. Even though it has been a bit stressful to have deadlines, I have appreciated the opportunity to use my brain again and remember what I learned in college. And of course, the added income has been a huge blessing. I really feel that the Lord has been looking out for us this year. It has been a difficult one, but we have been blessed in so many ways.

And now, it's almost Christmas! I can't believe it came so soon! We will be going to California to visit Adam's family in Soledad (near Salinas). It will be fun, especially for Lily who will get to play with her cousin Amelia. Adam and I are especially excited to spend our anniversary in San Francisco. Ironically, he has practically never been there, even though he grew up less than three hours away. We are going to visit Chinatown and Fisherman's Warf and Ghirardelli Square and drive down Lombard Street. We are going to pass up Alcatraz, since I have already been and it is unbelievably expensive. But if you know of any other destinations we just can't miss, please comment!

Here are a couple more recent pictures.

Lily made a bed for herself under the table.

Mutual teeth-brushing

Lily's first french braids (Shortly after this picture, she started sobbing and demanded that I take them out. So sadly, she never wore them anywhere.)

This was our excursion to Storybook Land in Albany, which Lily really enjoyed.

Merry Christmas!

Catch-up: Halloween and Birthdays

I can't believe it has taken so long for me to write about these things! Halloween was well over a month ago. What can I say, things have been busy. We didn't do anything extremely memorable for Halloween, but Lily's costume was just too cute to pass up. Here are a few pictures of us. In case you can't tell, we were trying to be the family from 101 Dalmatians. Our costume probably would have been more obvious if we had, like, nine kids. Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately), that is not the case. So most people struggled to figure out our costumes. But it was fun anyway.

Shortly after Halloween, we had a fire safety activity at our apartment complex. Lily was very excited about the fire truck, as has talked about that day every since.

Lily's 2nd birthday was on November 21st. She got to celebrate twice, since we couldn't have the party until Saturday. Here is Lily opening a few of her presents. The highlights included:

a Minnie Mouse doll from Grandpa and Elizabeth,

several fun books from grandparents,

a baby doll stroller from my good friend Amberly,

and two pairs of firetruck pajamas from my good friend Candice. If you read my first post from November, you will know that Lily greatly coveted Candice's son's firetruck pajamas when they come to visit, so they thoughtfully got her some of her very own!

Lily really wanted an Elmo party, so that's what we did. It was not extravagant in the least, but enough to make her happy. We didn't take many pictures, aside from these Elmo cupcakes I made, which Lily was so very happy about.

This is the community center where we had the party, with a few birthday decorations.

Here is Lily with her friend Jacquelyn, also a BYU fan. :)

Elmo balloon!

Happy birthday Lily!

This was Lily the day after her birthday, trying to wear my shoes to church,

And riding her brand new rocking horse. That was our gift to her, since she loves riding ponies so much.

I also had my birthday in November, although it was nothing super special. I was actually sick the day of my birthday and Adam took Lily to a Christmas parade while I lay on the couch at home. It wasn't a miserable day, but not the most fun birthday of my life.

However, Adam may have made the best birthday cake I have ever had in my life. He made me this peppermint cheesecake. It didn't look exactly like hers, but it was pretty close. Ours just didn't have shaved chocolate on top. I wanted to take a picture of it, but we ate it too fast (and shared with lots of other people). It was absolutely AMAZING! It might be my favorite dessert I have ever, ever had! I have dreams about that cheesecake now, it was so good. Good job Adam. I think I will just have peppermint cheesecake every birthday for the rest of my life.

Otherwise, I spent my birthday reflecting. I am not usually nostalgic on my birthday, but my life will be forever different after this year, without my mom. So I just wanted to think about the past 28 years of my life. I contemplated each one, and thought about what happened and how my life changed. Some of those memories made me cry because I am so grateful for them. These primarily revolved around meeting special people: a few very dear friends, my husband, my daughter. And my conclusion was this: I am so happy. 

True, this has been a hard year. There have been big trials and many little, frustrating struggles. But overall, I feel so very blessed. I have everything that is important. I love my husband and my little girl more than I ever thought possible. Adam truly makes my life amazing, and I am so grateful. He is so patient, unselfish, forgiving, validating, and fun to be with. He is an awesome dad and works so well with the young men in our ward. I know he has a strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and he lives what he believes with full integrity. I have a testimony of this gospel as well, and I am so grateful for my Savior! My life would be nothing like it is without my knowledge of God's love and His plan for me. There are many other blessings, but they are all peripheral to the gospel and my family. We don't have everything, but we have everything that matters, and I am so grateful. I guess that was my birthday gift - the opportunity to contemplate how blessed I am. I hope I can remember that throughout this year, and that 28 can be filled with gratitude and thanksgiving.