Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was a very different Thanksgiving spent with our tiny little family, but we had a great time. We went to the Wisconsin Dells. It is the water park capital of the world. We stayed at the Chula Vista resort. We went to the park and went to the hotel buffet for Thanksgiving dinner. I swore I would never go out to eat on Thanksgiving, but I did and it was fabulous. It was not as good as my mother's turkey or my mother-in-law's stuffing. However being thousands of miles away from home it was the next best thing. The water parks were so much fun and there were few lines. If we are in Milwaukee next year we will probably go there again.

During this Thanksgiving season I feel incredibly happy that our Heavenly Father has blessed us with the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love knowing that I can return to live with him and my family someday. I feel so blessed to have Brad as my husband and to have a healthy little girl. I am thankful for my family, friends, education, home, food, and much more. I can't count my many blessing. Thanks to all of you for your friendship and examples to us.

The water park

Joslyn enjoying the water slide view

Sleeping in her cute swimming suit, thanks Marlee!
Brad after the amazing tube run
My handsome husband
Enjoying the Thanksgiving buffet

Mom and Joslyn after a fun few hours at the water park.

Bring on Christmas!

Bath Time and Smiles

One of Joslyn's favorite things to do it take a bath. She is content every second she is in the bath. Here are a few pictures of bathtime. Also she is smiling now. It is fun to see her smile!

Joslyn and Daddy

This is my favorite picture. This is Joslyn at two weeks, Brad was so excited to see her after school/work. I had just fed her and he wanted to burp her. This was the result of her burp. He still burps her when he is home. :) He is a great dad!

Halloween

Kristi (and Eric) hosted a wonderful Halloween party once again. Kristi ALWAYS plans to perfection. Diana and Kristi made some very creative treats. Diana and Kristi are quite the cooks. We had a great time decorating, eating, and visiting. Kristi made gingerbread houses to decorate. Mine was a bit flimsy and Diana and I tried to salvage it, but as you will see we failed. It is the true haunted house. Thanks for lots of fun.

Joslyn, Elliot, and Sarah

Diana and the hunted house. Diana's and Ryan's real one is in the back.

Matt, me, and Eric. I dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood.
Brad and Josie. She really is a good baby despite all the crying pictures I post. :)

The Food

One Month

Joslyn and Mommy

On Monday Joslyn turned one month old. She sure is growing fast. We couldn't enjoy parenthood more. She is a true joy!

Meeting Grandpa and Grandma

Holy Hill

Sprecher's Brewery

Sampling the sodas

I love this face she does!

Brad's parents came to town last weekend to meet Joslyn. It was wonderful to have them. Brad has not seen his parents in ten months so it was extremely nice for us to see them and spend time with them. He jokes that it takes two sons and a granddaughter to get his dad out here, we are sure glad they could both come. We had a nice quick weekend with them. They arrived on Thursday afternoon. We went to the Sprecher's brewery with them on Friday. On Saturday Brad and Jeff had a football game so they were able to go watch the guys play. It is the first football game Brad's dad has ever seen him play in where they won. Spanish Fork struggled Brad's senior year. In the afternoon Brad and I took them out to Holy Hill and to Cedarberg. We then played games at our place. They left on Sunday. It was too short of a trip, but sure nice to have them. We love and miss you!

Nana and Papa's Visit

Joslyn showing her true colors

Holy Hill

The beautiful autumn colors

Trip to Chicago

aquarium

Chicago skyline

Joslyn's first trip to Chicago

Walking to the Aquarium

The Bean in Chicago

My parents came into town two weeks ago to meet Joslyn and spend some time with Brad and me. We had a wonderful time with them. We picked them up on Wednesday night. On Thursday my mom and I took Joslyn to the Doctors for her two week check up. She had gained one pound and one ounce in a week. She is growing too fast. Brad took Dad to his school and gave him a tour. On Friday we went to downtown Milwaukee and drove along the Lake to see the beautiful autumn trees and the mansions. We then picked Brad up and headed to Cedarberg for the day. On Saturday we went to Chicago and went to the Aquarium. We also had dinner at Giordano's pizza. It was so fun! On Sunday we drove to Holy Hill. It is a church up on a hill that is gorgeous. It is surrounded by trees. With the change in seasons you could not have asked for a better view. On Monday we took a trip out to Madison. We stopped and shopped at the outlet mall. We headed the rest of the way to Madison and went to the capitol building. We also drove around the University of Wisconsin campus. We celebrated my dad's birthday that night with dinner. They flew out early the next morning. It was so nice to have them here. I miss them too much already. Love you both!

More Photos

Kristi edited the other pictures and brought them over on Sunday. Thanks so much for taking these great photos Kristi.

Joslyn's Photoshoot Preview

These pictures were taken by my friend Kristi. She also painted the butterflies for Joslyn's room. Kristi is so talented. Thanks Kristi!

The Delivery Story

On Friday, the 25th of September, Joslyn's due date, Jana became a little more concerned about her blood pressure. Her feet were more swollen than normal and her blood pressure had been creeping up over the previous weeks. She asked the nurse at her elementary school to take her blood pressure, which was 133/84. She called the doctor's office and the nurse didn't seem to think it was a big deal. She told her to take it easy over the weekend and then to come in on Tuesday for her regular appointment. She came home at around 5:00 and could not shake the uneasy feeling she was having about everything. She asked me to take her blood pressure again. I told her I'd take it after we watched a movie. We started watching 27 dresses (at her request of course) and during the movie she began having contractions exactly 11 minutes apart. I took her blood pressure afterwards and it had increased to the 160's. We called my dad and he said to go to the hospital where they would most likely induce her. When we arrived at the hospital our doctor was the on-call in-house doctor. He checked Jana and said well she was dilated 3 cm and 80% effaced, and that it would be best to induce her given her high blood pressure and protein in her urine. We got really excited because we knew our baby was coming soon. Induction began smoothly and the anesthesiology resident put in the epidural without any problems. Jana was comfortable throughout the night but her blood pressure continued to stay elevated. They drew some labs and found out that her platelet count was 78 (much lower than normal). So at this point the doctor came in and told us that she had developed severe preeclampsia with HELLP syndrome and that he needed to start her on IV magnesium sulfate. It's a good drug for prevention of seizures, but has nasty side effects. I think Jana experienced them all. She got nauseated and started vomiting, weak, hot flashes, and it burned while going into the IV. So from that point on she was pretty miserable, but she continued to progress. Other than an hour where her epidural wasn't quite doing its job and her feeling lousy things were going well. She was complete at 1:00 pm on the 26th and began pushing. Dr. Lee came in shortly after and the baby was born at 2:01. She looked perfect as she came out. In fact, her APGAR scores were 9 and 9, the highest scores they ever give out. (as you can tell I am already a very proud father). They placed Joslyn on Jana's tummy and I cut the cord. I then ran over to the warmer to watch them clean her off and examine her and take the first pictures of her. Things were great until I heard Jana calling my name. She was having a hard time breathing and feeling dizzy, lightheaded, and ready to pass out. Turns out she was hemorrhaging pretty badly and Dr. Lee was quickly trying to find the source of the bleeding. While this was going on the anesthesiologist took her blood pressure at 60/20 and ran out of the room to get medications and the attending anesthesiologist. I was incredibly nervous at this time and both Jana and I started praying that this would turn out okay. They got another IV started and began pushing fluids and giving meds to bring her BP up. Meanwhile a nurse was providing uterine massage to get her boggy uterus to contract (also a side effect of magnesium sulfate) and Dr. Lee had called in the Chief OB resident to help him control the other source of bleeding. Luckily they found that source quickly and got it under control. Jana's cervix had torn during the delivery, something that is very rare, and was bleeding profusely. Jana's uterus finally started contracting, they fixed the cervical laceration, and with the fluids and blood pressure meds Jana's BP began to stabilize and she began to feel better. With a sigh of relief, I gave Jana a kiss and then went to see out baby who had been left pretty much unattended during all the commotion. We know we were truly blessed that things worked out okay and that both Jana and Joslyn are doing well. Here are some of our favorite pictures from the hospital.