Too cute!

Over Thanksgiving break we got Trevor's brother to take some family pictures for us. He did such a great job and Kaydance is just too cute that I have to share :)

Sad

My two most favorite people in world had to leave me tonight. I'm sad.


However, I feel like I'm getting a lot accomplished while I have some time to myself without worrying about anyone else... ya know, like posting stuff on my blog :)

Luckily, it's only for two days until I get to go home for Thanksgiving for a week! I can hardly wait. I'll have to work hard these two days to get all my homework done so I can play hard while I'm home with ALL my family!

A few of my favorite things

I must say that I haven't been as good lately about taking pictures of Kaydance. But I have gotten a few videos of her. She has been such a chatter box lately and loves to coo and talk.





This is one where she fell asleep with a pacifier and then pulled it out. I guess she still thought it was in there. Watch her lips:



And lastly, this is one of her in the tub. She absolutely loves bath time. She splashes around so much I usually end up almost as wet as her. I have been meaning to get a video of her, and when I finally did, she gave me a little surprise... listen and watch closely... This was just too funny not to share :)

Happy Halloween!

Photo Booth

Let me just start by saying that I have one of the best teachers in the world! I love Mrs. Knight to death and will surely miss her when I graduate. Not only does she know what she's talking about concerning dental hygiene, and can teach it to me, but she also shows us awesome videos during class so we don't get bored. Here is one of the latest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47NqM-qMlRA

Not a happy camper

Okay, so first of all, Kaydance was having some issues and so I took her to the doctor. He thought that she might have a milk protein allergy and so he suggested I put her on soy formula and stop eating dairy for a week. (At this point in time I was breast feeding as much as possible and supplementing with milk-based formula.) So, I took his advice and put her on soy formula and quit drinking my precious milk. I also could not eat cheese, yogurt, sour cream, cottage cheese, ice cream, or any other grocery item containing any of the above mentioned ingredients. That was probably one of the hardest weeks of my life.... seriously. I thought I might starve. I was going to eat a salad, but of course, no ranch, and who wants just lettuce? How about some spaghetti... without cheese? I don't think so. Grilled cheese sandwich? No. Tacos with cheese and sour cream? No. No. No. No. Everything. No. But the good news was that Kaydance was doing much better and I was still able to breastfeed.

After a week of that I decided I was going to die without any dairy in my diet. I seriously considered going with soy milk, but realized that would only allow me to have a glass of milk with dinner or a bowl of cereal, but still no cheese, yogurt, etc, etc. It was at this point that I decided I would just stop breast feeding and go strictly with formula. Today was the first day of this new diet for Kaydance and she was doing fairly well until she needed to releive herself. She is quite constipated and not too pleased with me. And to add to this miserable-ness, I took her to the doctor again to get her 2 month immunizations. She looks so sad and just moans with discontent.

I feel bad for doing this to her all at once, but I guess now I'll just have to deal with her fusiness for a few days and it will be over for a while. I really don't want to go to school tomorrow. I'm seriously thinking about calling my teacher to tell her I can't come in because my baby needs me, and my patient cancelled for tomorrow and I can't find another one. I don't want to leave her with the baby sitter, not only because she probably won't be the best baby for her, but because I want to be the one to comfort her and be there for her.

The past few weeks I was doing pretty good about having a schedule and being alright with things the way they are in our lives, but this past week has been a struggle for me. I was ornery because I couldn't find anything to eat, but I also felt like I was leaving my baby and not being the mother that I need or want to be. I am SO READY to be done with school so I can stay at home with her. That is what I want the most. I don't feel quite up to par on motherhood because I leave her everyday, I no longer breastfeed her (which is one of the things I enjoyed most and made me feel motherly), and now I can not comfort her when she is in pain.

And not only is she in pain, but I'm in a little (or maybe a lot) of pain as well. I feel like I did a few days after I had Kaydance and my milk came in; and all the fun the goes along with it. (I won't elaborate here, but I'm guessing that some of you mothers know what I'm talking about, and perhaps a few select people whom I elaborated to at that time about said condition and how I felt about it)

I guess I just need some encouragement to get me through all of this. It was really hard at first, then got a little easier the next few weeks, but is now back to being super difficult. Please pray for me and Kaydance that we can have the strength to make it through and to be happy while we do it.

ummm.....

I woke up sick this morning. I absolutely DESPISE being sick. Throw up, diarrhea, chills, fatigue, achiness, and hungry/thirsty because you can't eat/drink anything without throwing it up. That's how I'm feeling right now, if you care to sympathize. I dreaded calling my teacher to tell her I was sick and wouldn't be at clinic today, but it went well, and turns out 2 of the other girls were home sick also. I tried to make my attitude a little positive and thought this would be a good chance to get some long-needed homework done. (I was in fact, complaining to my mom last night about how I didn't have enough time to get it all done, and now I was home all day with nothing else to do.) Turns out: I am utterly and completely worthless when I'm sick. I have NO ENERGY at all. But I can not sleep because my stomach won't let me. So here I sit, miserable, and piled in every bit as much homework as I had last night. Ok, there's my negativeness.

Better news is that we got to bless Kaydance the week before conference in Moab with all of our family members. It was so much fun and Kaydance was absolutely beautiful in the dress my mom made for her! Thanks mom!





A few more random things:

The other sunday I got Kaydance ready for church first and then put her in her swing to be entertained while I finished getting myself ready. Here she is when I got her ready,


and this is what I found when I came back.



And here are just a few more cute pictures of her from the past few weeks.

Once you start, you can't stop

Crying that is. At least for me. I'm starting to dislike Sundays a little bit now-a-days. I have always loved going to church and taking Sunday naps and eating big Sunday afternoon dinners, but lately, that just hasn't been the case. I still love church, but we seem to miss out on the naps and dinner a lot just so we have a few more waking moments together before Trevor has to leave.
It seems like all day Sunday I try to hold back the tears I know are eventually going to come at the end of the day. Some of them are tears of joy, but mostly tears of sadness. It makes me so happy to see Trevor holding Kaydance and just loving her like he does. That's when I have some of those tears of joy. And then when it finally comes time for him to leave, it's like I can't help myself. I can't hold it back any longer and I just weep. I hate having a tear streaked face and a snotty nose as the last thing Trevor sees as he's walking out the door, but I can't bring myself to be happy in that moment and smile. I'm not glad that he's leaving; I'm not glad to be starting another week alone. I always feel overwhelmed thinking about everything I have to do that week. I feel stressed out before the days even start. School is the biggest thing because I never want to study when I get home from school. And although I don't want to, when I do, I usually just fall asleep reading or end up taking care of a crying baby who I never get to see all day. And then on the weekends I don't do any studying because I want to spend every minute with Trevor and Kaydance. Then there's more stress about the fact that I have to take care of the house and Kaydance, oh yeah, and myself. Sometimes I forget that last part. Between school and homework, housework and Kaydance, I just forget to take care of me. Luckily I have awesome family, friends and visiting teachers who bring me dinner and always ask how I'm doing. I couldn't do it without them.
I know this post is kind of random, but I had to get my feelings out. I'm not asking for sympathy, (although it might be appreciated), I just need to vent.

On a lighter note, here are a few more pictures of the little one:

Labor Day Fun

For Labor Day we decided to hike to Timpanogas Cave with my sister Natalie and her boyfriend Zeniff. We knew you could buy tickets in advance, but we didn't. By the time we got up there, all the tours of the cave were sold out, so we didn't go. Instead, we got a map of a few other hikes around the same area on the Alpine Loop and decided on Cascade Springs. There were so many people up there, a lot of them being idiots who got their camper trailers stuck and others who practically parked in the middle of the road. It was taking us so long to get there, I decided to make Kaydance a bottle and just have Natalie feed her in the back seat. Trevor finally made it through all the crowds and was now cruising on the winding road and had asked if anyone was getting car sick. Not even one minute after he asked, Kaydance proceeded to throw up all 4 ounces of her formula all over herself and her carseat. We ended up having to pull over and use the trunk as a make-shift changing table.


She was pretty happy after that.

We finally made it to Cascade springs and hiked around a little bit. It was a fun little hike, and Kaydance especially enjoyed it.



After we were done walking around we decided to head over to Midway, since it wasn't too far from where we were. We drove over the mountain to Midway and through Heber and then over to Park City. We went to lunch there and then decided to check out the Olympic Park. Trevor and I actually decided to do the zipline there, seeing as how last time I was 8 months pregnant. It is the steepest zipline in the world and you go up to 50 miles and hour. It was really fun.

Kaydance

Apparently I haven't been putting enough pictures and such of Kaydance on here. So, here a few of my favorites and a few videos.


This is a real smile. She was about 2 weeks old when I took this. Unfortunately the flash went off and made her close her eyes, but I just love that gummy smile.


First time at church.




This video is just of her sleeping, not really super exciting, but she's just so cute!




Here's one of her when she's just waking up, see how close she is to rolling over already?!?!

These next two are the things that we do when Trevor is here on the weekends:

Bitter Sweet

Well, the craziness of the next eight months in our life has officially begun. School started on the 26th for me, which brought about some mixed feelings. It was kind of fun and exciting to be starting school again, especially since it's my last year, but at the same time, it was really hard for me to have to leave Moab and be here with a two week old baby who I have to leave with a sitter everyday in order to go to classes to get a degree that I don't plan on using extensively.
This first week went okay considering the fact that I didn't have a sitter (thanks to my mom and sister for helping out last minute), my books, or a patient to practice on. I'm hoping these next few weeks will go a little smoother, though.
Things without Trevor here are really different for me. I mean, there have been times when he has had to leave me alone for a few days, even 3 weeks at a time, but I always knew that he would be back to stay for a long time before he had to leave again. And adding a baby to the equation makes things a little more challenging. There have been a few times already, even though it's only been one week, that I have really wondered if I could do it all; that I have doubted my abilities; that my emotions have gotten the best of me; that I have thought seriously about just giving up and going back to Moab to be with Trevor and our families. I hate leaving Kaydance in the morning knowing I won't see her for the next eight hours, I hate coming home to an empty house, I hate making dinner for one and eating by myself, I hate going to bed alone knowing that the next day will only bring more of the same, but I will only be more sleep deprived than the day before. But I love having Kaydance here with me, she brings me so much joy and keeps me company, and I love my apartment, as empty as it is sometimes, and I love that I have food to eat and a kitchen to cook it in, and I love the fact that I at least get some sleep each night, albeit only about 3 hours at a time.

I love that Trevor's job is so willing to work with him and that he's able to come up on the weekends, I love that he is so willing to help in whatever way he can, I love that he always wants to hold and play and cuddle with Kaydance, I love that he makes the time to be with me, I love that he tells me I'm doing a good job and that he loves me. But I hate the fact that I have to go four days without seeing him, I hate that he is only here for three days at a time, I hate that the time goes so quickly, I hate thinking that he is missing out on a part of Kaydance's life, and I hate having to say goodbye to him every Sunday.

As you can see, it's all bitter sweet for me. I'm still trying to get used to this whole idea and lifestyle change. It will be hard. So hard. I know that the Lord doesn't give us trials that we can not overcome, but sometimes I still wonder about this one. So, please, be patient with me.

Kaydance is HERE!!!

The long awaited baby is here. She has had us in anticipation for nine months but now she is here. After a very long week of failed inductions, ultrasounds, monitors, IV's, and nights in the hospital bed, Kaydance Harper Knutson arrived Tuesday, August 11 2009 at 5:28pm. She weighed seven pounds even and was 20 inches long. Here are some of our favorite pics so far.

Catch up

I know I haven't blogged lately, but I didn't realize that it has been over two months since doing so. Not much is new though. Here's what we've been up to:

Trevor has been working at the school district here in Moab, and he loves his job. It has been such a blessing! He had to go to a school bus training at the end of June in Park City, so I went with him and we made that our anniversary celebration. It has been two years now... how quickly time goes. Being pregnant and all, it was a little difficult to find things that we could do together. We really wanted to go on the zip lines or the alpine slide and stuff like that, but being 8 months pregnant, we determined that probably wasn't the best activity for me to be doing. But we did some fun stuff, and I got a lot of baby shopping done while Trevor was at class. Here we are at the Olympic Park.



In the mean time, I have been working at the dentist office here two days a week as a hygiene assistant. It has been good for me to get out of the house, but I don't feel it is a huge burden to have to do so. The dentists are so flexible with me and just tell me to do whatever I feel like I need to do; come and go as I please, take off as much time as I need, and quit whenever I feel I need to. So as of yesterday, I am done working. It was a great job this summer for me and a great way to earn a few extra dollars and for me to keep up on my dental skills.

As for the baby, she is due in one week. This last part is definitely going the slowest. I have loved being pregnant, for the most part, and had things pretty easy, but I am sure ready to be done and have a baby in my arms instead of in my belly. It is getting very hot here and I am getting very big and uncomfortable. We have decided on a name, but haven't quite determined the spelling yet, so we will just announce that when she comes. I realized that I haven't really taken any pictures during my pregnancy, so here is one of me 39 weeks prego.


Other than that, things are pretty much the same. I had a baby shower a few weeks ago and we got tons of pink stuff. Everything is much appreciated but here are a few of my favorites.