More pictures . . .

Mason is doing great. He had an eye infection but that is doing a lot better. I'm doing pretty good, although I never realized how much work a new baby is!! David is glad to be in Spring Break right now so he can spend some more time with Mason.

Mason Lee Yates

Thank you everyone for all of your offers for help, phone calls, texts, and prayers. We have certainly been blessed and have felt surrounded by support.

Our due date was February 14, (Sunday), so we got a scheduled induce date for Thursday, February 18th. I wasn't looking forward to that, because I heard being induced is pretty intense. On Wednesday afternoon, then, I was surprised when all of my pre-labor contractions that I had been having that week started becoming stronger and more regular. By the time we checked in to the hospital on Thursday morning at 7:00 AM, I was already 3 cm dilated and our doctor said to just see how things went! Things just were a little slow though; although they broke my water and I kept trying to walk around and keep moving, by the time 5:00 PM rolled around, I had only made it to 5 or 6 cm. I asked for an epidural and pitocin at that point, and David and I were sure things would pick up, but I was only at a 7 by midnight (although the baby was slowly dropping lower and lower). More pitocin! Finally, by about 4 AM, the nurses felt I was about ready. The doctor was doing another surgery at the time, so by the time we were all set up to push, it was about 5:30 AM.

Mason was born on Friday February 19th, 6:33 AM, weighing 7 lbs 14 oz, and 21 1/2 inches long. We were sooooo grateful to have a healthy little boy! It was a very long day but it was all worth it and we love him so much already. We feel we have been blessed in so many ways throughout the whole ordeal.

Chinese New Year! (And Valentine's Day)

I guess we didn't have any reason to try to celebrate Valentine's Day early, because this our "due day" is going to come and go like any other day. Here I am at a still-pregnant 40 weeks:
I went to my doctor appointment on Thursday and he told me I was still carrying Way too high. So now we're working on it! I've been walking a lot and I bought an exercise ball from WalMart to sit and bounce on whenever I am sitting to try to get the baby to move on down.
Some other projects I've been working on while waiting for baby:

Sewing scout badges onto David's scout shirt

Making curtains for the kitchen

I also finished all our scrapbooking from when we started dating to the end of 2008! I've been putting that off Forever.

And here is a table runner that I made; the flowers and teddy bear are from David to me for Valentine's Day. We are also going to make sugar cookies and have a nice dinner tonight to celebrate the holiday. Maybe something spicy.

We did go to PF Chang's last night for dinner (we got the mongolian beef and chicken lettuce wraps = soooo good). I guess I can count that for celebrating the Chinese New Year, which is today--it's the year of the Tiger.

Celebrating Vday a little early

This past weekend David and I SPLURGED and saw Avatar in 3D at the IMAX. It was a good movie to see that way--I've heard a lot of hype about all the special effects and amazing-ness of the movie, and although I'm no movie buff, I wasn't disappointed (although it DID take my eyes a few minutes to get adjusted to the depth difference). I also heard that the story line was wanting, but I didn't think it was too predictable or shallow. I thought it had a strong pro-strong-marriage message, and respect for deity, hooray! However, I once again wished for a Clearplay that could filter out just a few scenes and some of the language. Other than that, I'd highly recommend the movie.

We also watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs a few weeks ago and laughed really hard. Great movie.

Happy Groundhog Day!

I'm trying to be better at making holiday goodies for my piano students. This month I wanted to do valentines sugar cookies and I made them yesterday, which happened to also be Groundhog Day. Sooo I decided to make a few heart cookies (which were way easier to shape with the cookie cutters) AND some groundhogs.

Cute, huh?!!

(PS Thanks for the extended winter, Phil! I'm really enjoying winter.)

Nesting

I have been so frantically getting ready for the baby I've been doing a total house make-over, doing things I could/should have done when we moved in. Reorganizing our whole storage room/basement and redoing our kitchen were the two biggest things.

I've been so focused on Feb 14 = due date, I hadn't even thought or was planning about putting up decorations for Valentine's Day. Last week though my friend Erica invited me to make Valentine wreaths with her and so now we are ready for the actual holiday :) Here is what I made:


The red burlap wreath turned out a lot cuter, I think!!

12 Days of Christmas

One of the things I love about David is that whenever we lose something he confidently brushes it off with, "it'll pop up." (Whereas I have the tendency to tear the house apart looking for something.) During Christmas break, we lost our camera and indeed, it did pop up--in St. George. We had our good friends the Kellys mail it to us so that we could have it in time for the baby.
Another thing that "popped up" during Christmas break was David's wallet--the one he lost last May when we were moving to Omaha. Out of all the things we had lost, I thought this one was permanent (it had been over 8 months!). It is an ugly old thing that has lost its original color and he has lost a number of times, but he always manages to find it again. During one of our rest stops in Cheyenne, I was looking under my car seat for my water bottle and there it was.

Anyway, now that we have our camera back, we can post some of the pictures of our break!--although we can only post what we had on our camera before we lost it and whatever pictures our families have sent us. So if you have pictures, feel free to send them to us.

12+ nativity members! For Christmas Eve and morning, we were in Idaho. My whole family was there and it was so good to be with everyone. We always do a Nativity at my Grandma Harper's house with my extended family on Christmas Eve.
11 (or so) gift cards we accumulated. We got most of them from Christmas in Salt Lake. Every year David's mom has an amazing idea for a theme to go with all of our presents, and this year was gift cards. I'm excited for more shopping!
10 toes painted--I got a pedicure with some of David's sisters. LOVE Pedicures.
9 years gone in the new century! We celebrated the New Year countdown to 2010 by eating, spending time with friends, playing Seinfield Scene-It and other games
8 (at least) movies that David and I watched during the break. Some of our favorites included Avatar, Sherlock Holmes, Joexeous (sp?) Noel, . . . okay movies were Julie & Julia, Angels and Demons, and G.I. Joe. We loved watching movies & playing games.
7 More weeks to go! My mom took this picture of me at 33 weeks. David was so good to drive most of the time and I just set up a bed and slept in the back. LOVE YOU HUN.
6 Temple spires--visiting Temple Square to see the lights before Christmas with Grandpa Yates
5 stops in Cheyenne (since we've moved to Omaha). On our way back during this trip, we celebrated our 2 year anniversary at a hotel in Wyoming to break up the trip back. (Highlights = a fireplace in the hotel, eating at Outback Steakhouse, and enjoying the hotel's hot tub during the winter. Mmm. Felt so good to pregnant me.)
4 Days of being sick (towards the end of the break. I think it actually might have been due to the Terrible weather inversion in Salt Lake.)
3 on 3 basketball at the church in Idaho.
2 Baby Showers (they were so great. Our baby got some wonderful things!! THANK YOU everyone!)
1 Cafe Rio visit—OH I missed that place! Pork Barbacoa = best.