Powerful: Derek + Laura

Warning: This is long and is written in detail as it's meant to be my record of her birth.  Well it's been a long time since I've blogged. Life gets busy and it's hard to keep up. However, I found myself wanting to record the details of Hazel's birth story. She's already 4.5 months old and I am finding that I am starting to forget small things. I want to write them all down before I forget. So here I am, sharing our story, so that I can remember and share it with her someday. Hazel Anne Power joined our family on September 3, 2017 at 8:40 pm weighing 7 lbs 5 oz and 19.5 inches long. She is my smallest baby. She's 6 oz less than Brooklyn and 1 inch shorter. She is just darling and we are so glad she's a part of our family.  So I guess I'll start at the beginning. I found out I was pregnant right after Christmas time and was able to share the news with my family that was in town for the holidays. We return home from our trip and I start bac...

Since our little girl is almost 4 weeks old I decided it was time to write her birth story. I want to put down the details before I start to forget them. This is the first time I have had a chance to look at all the pictures from birth and I am reminded of all the emotions I experienced. I have feared child birth my whole entire life and it is so surreal to know that I actually did it, barely, but I did. Now before you continue I should warn you: There will be lots of photos and it will be lengthy in text in the two following blog posts.  Just needed to put that disclaimer out there in case you didn't want to read on. Since I some day hope to turn this blog in to a book I want to record as much as I can. December 30-31, 2012: I had started to feel light contractions during the day...maybe about every 1.5-2 hours. There weren't too bad but I was excited as I knew it was a sign of labor. I still had my doubts that we would progress at a quick rate since this was my first bir...

Life has been busy since our baby girl was born but I wanted to take a moment and announce our most exciting news. Brooklyn Elise Power was born January 3, 2013 at 10:45 pm weighing 7 lbs 11 oz and 20.5 inches long. She is so beautiful and we feel so blessed. She is our little girl and we couldn't be happier. Tomorrow she'll be a week old. I can't believe it. Thank you Brooklyn for already allowing me to experience so much love and joy. Thank you for letting us be your parents. We sure are doing our best. We love you sweet girl. Thanks to all of you for your love and support throughout pregnancy. We love our little miracle.

Taken on Christmas Eve. Belly is HUGE! 38 weeks, 4 days How Far Along: 39 Weeks today. (I know I missed 37 and 38 weeks so this is a three in one.) Due date is one week from today! Crazy. Size of the Baby: Somewhere around 7 pounds and 20 inches long Weight gain/loss: This keeps fluctuating every week. Just depends on the time of day. Basically I have gained anywhere from 23-25 pounds through pregnancy. I just hope that I can keep it around there until she comes. Since Christmas is over this should help a little, right? Sleep:  I just laugh at some of the positions I end up in. Anything to get some sleep. My sleep has been accompanied by some crazy dreams this past week, mostly of going in to labor. (This was a couple of weeks ago.) As of now, sleep is really non-existent. Every part of my body aches from the mid-back down. Best Moment of the Week: Getting to see our baby girl on an ultrasound last week. We haven't had an ultrasound in almost 20 weeks...

Ok first thing. Can we talk about how it has been snowing all day long? It hasn't stopped since last night. I went outside for one brief moment today and nearly froze to death. So grateful I am working from home on a day like today. My car is covered in snow and my only two shoe options at this point are flip flops or slippers. No jacket that fits either. So grateful to be inside and warm. Now that I have addressed the snow factor I wanted to share some adorable photos. So ever since I have become pregnant I have constantly wondered about what our baby girl will look like. It's something I think and sometimes dream about in these final weeks of pregnancy. I am so excited to see her cute little fingers grab hold of mine and to see if she has hair/no hair, her cute nose, her eyes, and everything about her. I am getting excited just thinking about it now. As you know I am in the final stretch of pregnancy, only 15.5 days until our due date. I can't stop thinking about her...

Last year around Christmas we were moving in to the ghetto of Provo and weren't able to get a Christmas tree until a couple of days before Christmas. This year I wanted to enjoy Christmas a little bit longer. No moving, no traveling, just Derek and I enjoying our last Christmas without a child. We are naturally excited to have her here with us next Christmas but it'll be nice to relax and enjoy one last holiday with just the two of us. We have been making it a priority to really cherish the time we have together. Anyways, who knew Derek would be so picky about a tree? Last year we found one in a matter of minutes. Our 4th stop, at Lowe's, we finally found one we liked for a good price. I am loving the smell throughout my house. We are pretty excited that we got ourselves a Canon Rebel for Thanksgiving and have had fun experimenting with it...hence all the pictures. I honestly have no idea why his mouth is green Victory! The finished product. We really love how...

Ok so I have been wanting to blog about Thanksgiving for a while now but I have just run out of time. I also need to do a 35 week update so everyone bear with me as I combine a lot of random happenings into one post. Thanksgiving was so nice and relaxing. Spent some much needed time with family and Derek. I couldn't have asked for anything better. We spent Thanksgiving afternoon with my mom's side of the family enjoying quite the feast. I was loving the stuffing, sweet potatoes, french silk pie and rolls this year. I couldn't get enough. Meat still makes me pretty sick and I knew the turkey wouldn't sit well with my pregnant body so I just skipped it all together. However I still had a rough night and later learned the french silk pie was made with raw eggs. ha So much for my good efforts.   How cute are they? Love this picture. My Aunt Carolynn and some of her girls. Love them! Almost family photo. Missing Scott, Kim, and kids. I also apolog...