3 months old!

So time has flown by as Alyssa gets bigger everyday. It is so fun to see as her personality starts to come out. I have started back to work which really sucks and she is going to a daycare at the hospital which they are really good but I would still rather be at home with her. On April 12 (Easter sunday) Alyssa and cousin Landon were both blessed by there dads and they both did a wonderful job. It was great to have both families here to participate in this great event. After blessing we went to a park for a luncheon and thank heavens the weather turned out good that day.

All the grandchildren on the Rutz side! (Keri, Landon, and Alyssa)

Family picture outside of the church not the best but it will do!

My sister had someone up north make these cookies for the blessing they did an excellent job very detailed and were so cute! Thanks- they were delicious to:)

Alyssa with a pretty good smile, it seems every picture we get she has a bib on oops! She likes to spit up a lot and I get sick of changing clothes and doing laundry.

I was up north a week ago visiting family and stopped to see my sister. Kari likes Alyssa but she doesn't want to change her diaper- I wonder why not!!

So on Friday night my friend Kim and I took our little girls swimming at my work. Alyssa's first swim in a pool. Thanks to grandma who gave us this floatie she and Annie both loved it. How cute is she! She seemed to like it but she was hungry. She was just chillin on the tube. I love this face she is making!

Annie in the floatie she loved it! We had a good time wasn't long but for these two cute girls it was plenty. Then afterwards Kim and I treated ourselves to ice cream at Dairy Queen- YUM!

Lance got a new job at Diamond Ranch Academy working with troubled youth. He likes it for the most part but the hours suck. He came home Saturday morning after work and I fixed Lance and Tyson breakfast. Uncle Tyson with Alyssa he loves playing with her.

Bath time! Alyssa loves the bath can't wait for her to be able to play with toys in the tub she will love it.

I took Alyssa to church today by myself. It was an adventure of course she had to eat in the middle of sacrament and she had a poopie diaper. But look how cute she looks in the dress Grandma Rutz gave her. I love it. She will be able to wear it awhile we had trouble keeping the pants on.

New Arrival--- Alyssa is here!!

Ok so I know it has been a long time since i posted but a lot has happened. The end of January I got put on bedrest because I had preclampsia and my blood pressure was high. I was on bed rest for a week and lets just say it was the longest week of my life or close to it. I am not used to being so lazy and unproductive. I went into the doctor on February 4th and he decided he was going to induce me the next day. I arrived at the hospital thursday at 930 in the morning and lets say this was only the beginning of a very long adventure. I was hooked up to everything you could imagine and was not dilating very fast at all. By 5 pm I got my epidural and still was only dilated to a 4. Still no progress. By Friday morning at 730 am when the Dr. came in he was surprised I still had not delivered and of course he was going out of town and a different doctor was taking over for him. I was finally pretty much all the way dilated. By 11 am I was able to start pushing and did so for 2 hours with no progress. When the Dr. came in to check me after a little break from pushing he told me there was no progress of the baby moving so they would have to do a c-section. Lets just say I was not very happy about this.
Well Alyssa was born Friday, February 6th at 2:46 pm weighing in at 8lbs 2 oz and being 20 1/4" long. She had some complications at birth to top everything off and ended up in the NICU for a week with swelling on her skull, blood sugar lo
w and she had an infection. Needless to say she is now home and doing well and is such a fun little one that I love. Me in the hospital in labor hooked up to everything!

Alyssa in the NICU in an incubator, she had jaundice so she is under the lights, cute sunglasses huh?! Look at all the lines she is hooked up to poor little girl.
Finally all lines gone except an IV in hand, her first outfit she got to wear that the hospital put her in.
She loves the boppy pillow and will fall asleep in that before her crib. We are in trouble! She loves to sleep until it is time to go to bed for the night and then she is wide awake! We got some work to do that is for sure to get on a schedule before going back to work!!

Holiday Adventures

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Well a little update on our lives. Thanksgiving my sister Kimberly and her family came to St. George to visit and we had lots of fun while they were here. My mom and sister LaTesa came to visit the first weekend of December and we shopped til I dropped. It is always fun to have family come visit here instead of always having to go north to see them. Christmas was busy I had a baby shower the week before christmas thanks to Sarah and Amy who put it on it turned out great and I got lots of cute things. It was nice to have Cindy here also where she could join in with the family. We had fun with Cindy and Jim in town for a week. We had our Christmas with them on Tuesday before Christmas at our house and it turned out great. We even got a family picture taken without it being a wedding! Thanks for all the gifts!

We headed up North on Christmas Eve and just in the nick of time to ride to Logan for my family's party with relatives. It was good to see everyone and we had lots of fun with games and all the good food. On Christmas we went to LaTesa's house to open gifts and have more good food (I think that is all we did was eat I felt like).

Kari holding LaTesa's new dog named Missy. She sure was a cute little thing. On Friday it worked out that some friends from high school all got together and we went to dinner. I hadn't seen a lot of them in about 5 years so it was good to catch up and see how everyone was doing. Congrats to JoyLyn who has been married for a year and to Kathleen who got engaged on Christmas! I am excited for her and thanks for setting it up. And then there was me who had gotten married and am now 8 months pregnant that no one knew about so all in all it was a night of updating on our lives.

On Saturday we headed to Tremonton to spend a night with my Kimberly and Chad and also thanks to Kimberly and Shelly for throwing me a baby shower. It was great and very stressful with all that went on to get it put together. We had to head back to St. George on Sunday and we were very blessed not to have bad weather while driving. On New Years we got together with Amy, Sarah and Camron to play games. We ended up at our house just before midnight to watch the fireworks put off on Dixie hill. We can tell we are getting old cause we were all ready for bed by 1030 but we were strong and stayed up til the fireworks were over. This is our first picutre of 2009!! Also with me being 8 months pregnant.

Cold Weekend Fun!!

So on Friday afternoon my friend from PTA school called me and asked if it was okay if she came down to visit. I of course said yes and was very excited. Needless to say she didn't get here until around 12:30am she was waiting for her friend so she wouldn't have to drive down alone. In the meantime Lance and I went and saw the movie

The Express which we would highly recommend. We were in bed when they arrived so we welcomed them and showed them where everything was and hit the sack since we go to bed so early. I know it's a sign that we are getting old. Saturday morning we got up and fixed a nice breakfast and then we decided to take them up to Dixie Rock which was a probably not such a bright idea since it was cold and windy. It was a quick trip to the top and back but well worth the view.

Jen and I on top of Dixie Rock check out the view with the Temple in the background!

Lance and I

Jen and her "friend" Cody

After we attempted Dixie Rock we decided to go to a matinee movie. We all agreed on going to see Forever Strong which is a good one to not as good as the other one but was still good. Lance said it is a movie to rent but you can make your own opinion.

After the movie we left the boys to themselves and Jen and I went to Massage Envy and treated ourselves to a massage. Actually Lance had bought me a pre-natal massage which I wouldn't recommend since they make you lay on your side and then they rub your stomach which was awkward. Later that night we decided to go to Staheli Farms and we went to the Corn Maze and walked around.

Jen and Cody at Staheli Farms

Cody, Jen, Katrina, Lance at Staheli Farms

IT'S A GIRL!!

So if you didn't know already I am pregnant and we just found out it is a Girl! We are so excited. I am 20 weeks along and am doing fantastic! Getting bigger and feeling the pain of that but can't complain, I had no morning sickness. I know call me lucky cause I am. My due date is February 28th. Perfect time to be pregnant here in St. George when it is nice and cool. Here are the pictures of the ultrasound and a picture of me of how I am growing! I know this isn't a very good one but the only one we got. You can see the face somewhat.

Here is a picture of the foot just in case you couldn't tell!

And this is me at 20 weeks along. Yes that is our ghetto fridge in the back funny gotta love it!

GIRLS DAY HIKING IN ZION

Jane from work got a bunch of people she knew together and we went hiking yesterday in Zion. It was an absolute beautiful day to go. There were a few clouds and a slight breeze. There were 15 of us all together. We had a blast we hiked about 5 miles some slower ( like me) and others faster. We had to ride the tram up to get off for the hike since it is still the busy season and let me tell you it was ridiculous I don't think I have ever seen that many people on that hike as I did that day. We got to the top and it was gorgeous. We rested and laughed and ate a snack and then we headed on back down to meet the others. After the hike we went to a little cafe as you are going into Zions called Oscars it was pretty good and I think we were all starving. We left St. George at 730 in the morning and didn't get home til 6. I will just say I think I am going to be sore for awhile. Also I was careful for all of you wondering what I was thinking hiking when I am four months pregnant don't worry I think we had enough medical people in our group nothing could have gone wrong. We had a Dr., a NP, 2 therapists, a nursing director over NICU. So I was in good hands. It was fun to get out and exercise surprised I am saying that as I could barely get out of bed this morning!

This is all that made it to the top. I probably shouldn't try and name people cause I don't think I would know them all.

Surprise 60th Birthday!

Happy Birthday MOM! So my sisters and I decided that my mom needed to have a birthday party for her 60th and if we told her so she wouldn't have let us do it so we decided to take it into our own hands. My sister LaTesa was the one who actually was the planner for most of it. So props to her. Her Birthday was September 5th. Lance and I drove up to Bountiful friday night and stayed with my sister so my mom wouldn't know we were there. We had to park down and across the street and be very careful that she didn't come over. Well sure enough she called me sister and she was only a couple minutes away from her house, needless to say I was in the middle of cooking for the party and Lance was downstairs watching a movie with my niece Natalie. I yelled for Lance to hurry we had to leave right then my mom was on her way over so we snuck out the back door and watched around the corner of the house til my mom drove up. When we waited and decided that the coast was clear we unlocked her gate and started slowly down the driveway behind the truck to make sure she was already in the house. As we started to dart across the driveway we notice the blinds in Natalies room fly up and we dart back to the truck wondering who in the heck had thought of that bright idea as we were trying to get away. So we wait a few more minutes and then dart across the driveway across the street into the circle where we had parked our car. We got away but it sure was nerve racking. Later that night my mom and aunt since they are twins thought they were just going to dinner with my sister and my cousin. Low and behold they were surprised when they showed up to the park and there were family and friends there. It turned out to be a great time and they haven't killed us yet for letting everyone know how old they are! Here is their cake with a picture of both of them when they were young. Look at all those candles! It was on FIRE!!!