Firsts

This week has been a week of firsts at our house.

Buying our first stroller. I've been really wanting to take Rachel out and go on walks, but we haven't had a stroller, so on Friday we went to Target and found a cute little umbrella stroller to take our baby for walks in.

Going for a walk with the stroller. On Saturday we opened our new stroller and took Rachel for a walk to go get our mail. It is so nice to actually have a stroller to put her in instead of trying to hold her while I walk. I for one loved it.

Doesn't she look so cute all decked out and ready to go? Jacob picked out her entire outfit!

Making a pot roast. I've made it a goal to learn how to cook different types of meats. Usually we don't cook anything except for chicken and hamburger. So this week on Sunday I decided to cook a roast in my crock pot. I had it all ready to go and turned it on in the morning and when we came home from church I was expecting to smell it as we walked in the door. Well, I didn't. We came in and looked at the roast and it was cold. For some reason my crock pot never turned on. We decided to put it in the fridge and have a green smoothie and left over spaghetti for dinner instead. I ended up cooking it on Monday instead, and let me tell you, it was good!

Rachel's first bottle in church. So I decided that instead of trying to fight the crowd in the mother's lounge on Sunday (there are about a million babies in our ward) I would just pump a bottle and bring it to church with us. We've given Rachel a bottle a couple of times before but Jacob has always been the one to give it to her. The only time I gave her a bottle was when we were driving in the car. Well, Rachel was fine through most of church and didn't get hungry until about halfway through Relief Society. So I tried to give her the bottle and she drank a little bit, and then stopped eating and gave me a very confused look. She couldn't understand why I would be feeding her from a bottle. She kept letting go of the bottle and turning her face towards me to try and get me to feed her the right way. I got her to take enough of the bottle to tide her over til after church, but she didn't eat as much as she usually does. I thought it was sweet that she let me know she preferred her milk right from the source.

Making and trying pumpkin fudge. So before we moved, I bought all of the stuff to make a pumpkin fudge recipe I found. I brought all of the stuff to St. George with us, but when we were there everyone thought it sounded weird and no one wanted to try it so we brought all of the stuff back home with us. We decided to finally try making it on Monday night. It was definitely a success! We very much like it (Jacob especially) and will be making it again in the future.

Taking Jacob to school and bringing him lunch. So before Rachel was born, I would always take Jacob to school so that I would have the car and then I would bring him lunch in the middle of the day. Since Rachel came, Jacob has just been taking the car. Well Yesterday we decided that we would try doing things the way we used to. It was so fun to get to see him in the middle of the day again. The three of us loved it!

Driving to our house. So yesterday was my very first time driving to our new house. Ever since we moved in two weeks ago I haven't gone anywhere without Jacob, and when we are together he usually drives, so yesterday after I dropped him off at work, I drove home to our house with out him. I'm glad I didn't get lost!

Rachel's first bath in the bathtub. Also yesterday, I gave Rachel her first bath in the bathtub. Before that I always just put her in the sink for her bath or just took her in the shower with me. She absolutely loved being in the tub! She has always loved her bath time, but she was so happy when she realized she could just lay there and kick in the water! It was so cute to watch my little happy wiggly girl in the bathtub!

Jacob remembered to take our garbage cans out to the curb. This is the first place we have lived since we have been married that we have had to take our own trash cans out to the curb for the garbage man to come pick up. The first week we were here we had a big trailer in front of our house and there was no where to put the cans. Last week, I only just remembered because I heard the garbage truck on the next street over. This week, Jacob remembered last night and got them out so they would be ready for garbage day today.

Getting and paying our first (and last) hospital bill for Rachel's birth. We finally got our hospital bill for what our insurance wouldn't cover regarding Rachel's birth. Our total came to 39 dollars which covered 10 meals for Jacob while we were in the hospital. That is definitely one thing I love about being in the military!

I wonder what other firsts this week will bring!

Visiting Teachers

I am so grateful for visiting teachers, can I just tell you? Before just recently, I have never really had much experience with visiting teaching, either with the actual being visited or being a visiting teacher myself. For that matter, I really haven't had much experience with Relief Society because I was in the nursery til I got married and then it seems like I have spent most of the time since teaching in the Primary. I always kind of felt a little bugged when I got a visiting teaching assignment because it was always someone I didn't know, and usually I didn't know who my companion was either so I always had a hard time actually going out and getting it done. In October of this last year, a lady was called to be my visiting teacher and in the past few months she has brought dinner to our home twice, once when Rachel was born and again when we were moving, she has visited me in my home a couple of times, called frequently to check up on me, and has become a good friend. Her friendly and caring attitude towards me has given me a better understanding of the purpose of visiting teaching and has made me want to try to be a better visiting teacher and a friend to those I visit teach. We are all here on this earth together, we should try to make the most of it and make as many friends as we can and try to help anyone we can. Thank you Robin Genzel for being my visiting teacher and my friend and for showing me how much good a visiting teacher can do!

Blessing Day

So I know I'm a bit behind with blogging but I'm going to do my best to catch up. For some reason I can't get my computer to connect to the internet so I'm trying to use Jacob's computer which is harder because all of my pictures are on mine so anyway here it goes.

Rachel was blessed on December 19, 2010 by her father when she was 4 weeks old. It was such a neat and special blessing! She was blessed in the evening in my parents church building. It was so fun to see all of our family that came for the blessing! Jacob's mom's mom (Rachel's Great grandma) made Rachel's blessing dress and she did an awesome job! The dress was beautiful and Rachel looked like a little angel! She put so much time and effort into making that dress for her and we are so grateful to her!

It was my first time taking Rachel among so many people and letting so many people hold my baby so I'll admit I was a little overwhelmed with it all! I think Rachel handled it better than I did! She was so good and tolerated being passed around so well. Her only requirement through out it all was that she had to have her binky the whole time!

Through all of the fun and craziness of the evening I regret to say that I did not get a single picture on my camera. My awesome sister Caralee took some pictures and my dad took a couple too, so I'll try to post what I can. Thank you so much Caralee and Dad for taking those pictures so that we could remember this special day!

These are the two pictures from my Dad. I'll put up the ones Caralee took later, but for now we are having technical difficulties!

6 Weeks Old!

I can hardly believe it has already been 6 weeks since Rachel came and joined our family! I can't even imagine life with out her! What was life like before she came here? Surely it couldn't have been as good as it is now! Our Rachel is such a good baby, we just love her so much! Rachel started smiling when she was three weeks old and it is so fun because her smiles are coming more and more frequent. She loves to just lay on her back on the ground and wiggle. She will kick her legs and wiggle her hands back and forth and that is when it is the easiest to get the smiles out of her. She loves her baths, her mommy, and snuggling! It has been kind of crazy being away from home these past two weeks, Rachel has been passed around to lots of different people and for the most part she has tolerated it pretty well, although she definitely lets us know when she has had enough and when she just needs snuggle time with mommy! She is a really good sleeper at night time and usually only wakes up once (sometimes twice) to eat during the night. Last week we took her to her first movie in the theaters. We saw Tangled and she slept through the entire thing! It was awesome! I love to watch Jacob with her. He is so good with her and it is so fun to see him fall into the role of being a dad. I just love this little girl of mine! It is so fun to finally have her in our family!

Christmas Vacation!

We all had such a good time in Southern Utah with our family! It was so fun to have everyone meet our little Rachel girl. The day after Christmas was my first time back to church after Rachel joined our family and can I just tell you it was so nice to be back! I didn't realize how much I would miss it I guess! I just loved how strong the spirit was during all three meetings, even during sacrament meeting which Rachel and I spent in the mother's lounge.

I love this picture of my Dad holding Rachel. I just love the cute happy look he gets on his face when he is holding one of his grandchildren.

I have more pictures to post, but I just need to find the time to put them all up. Life is a little crazy right now with trying to get things unpacked and set up in our new place. I'll post more later!