little Eliza {december 19}

      

At Home {December 9-16}

We enjoyed having my mom here and Nate home from work for Eliza’s first week – I loved having the help, and the boys loved having fun people to play with. My mom helped them make gingerbread man cookies a couple of times, which they loved. Bennett has pretty impressive cookie decorating skills! She also took them to the kids’ museum a couple of times, and Bennett was excited to have Nate take him to preschool and to his last soccer class. They were both a huge help and I was so grateful to have help with the kids, the cooking, the cleaning, etc – and to just have company! Here are a few pics from our first week.

My mom drove home a week after Eliza was born, and she convinced us to let her take the boys with her for a few days since we were planning on going down there with her. I was pretty sad to see my two little buddies go, but it was nice to have a quiet few days to recover. It was amazing how little I got done even though it was just Eliza and me during the day!

 

 

It’s a Girl!!! Eliza Jean {December 8}

Feel free to just skip down to the weight, pics, etc. if you don’t want to read the whole story :)

My mom came into town last Thursday so she could be here when the baby was born (due Sunday Dec. 8). We had fun shopping together on Friday and doing some last-minute baby prep (while attempting to get my contractions going), then went to the Church Christmas party that Nate was in charge of that night. I spent Saturday organizing the baby’s room while Nate worked all day trying to get a project done. That evening, we all took the boys over to the Festival of the Nativities, which was amazing! They had so many neat nativities and I loved seeing all the interpretations from different cultures. The backgrounds and scenery were amazing too. It was fun to experience it with the kids and show them all the baby Jesus figures. My mom took the kids home so Nate and I could go out to dinner and have a little date before the baby came. 

After dinner, we went home for just a little bit, then I told Nate I would go with him to help clean up from the Church Christmas party (long story…but the other ward in our building used some of the decorations for their party Saturday night and we needed to go get them). We were at the door to the church and Nate was getting his keys out to open it at 9:45 when my water broke. I had been saying earlier that it would be nice if my water just broke because then I would know I needed to go to the hospital rather than wondering about the timing of contractions, etc. So we turned around and ran home to grab my hospital bag and a few other things, and got to the hospital about 10:15. The screaming of the lady in the room next to me prompted me to get the epidural a little earlier than I was planning, but it was nice to be able to rest for a little while. When I woke up after a couple hours just before 3:00, I was worried that I hadn’t progressed much, but it turned out that I was ready to start pushing. After 45 minutes of pushing, our baby GIRL was born at 4:02 a.m.!!! It was pretty exciting when they held her up, but I have to admit that amidst all that was going on, I really wasn’t sure of her gender until the doctor said it’s a girl. I was just glad to be done with labor and have a healthy baby. But once it set in I was pretty excited to have a girl. We didn’t decide for sure on her name until right before we left the hospital. We had liked the name Eliza for a long time but had a couple others we were considering too, and eventually came back to Eliza. So far it seems to fit her.

So now that I’ve bored you with all the birth details, here are the key stats:

Weight: 9 lbs 15 oz! The doctor and nurses were all commenting on how big she was, so I was curious what she would weigh in at. If only she had held on for one more ounce…

Length: 20.5 inches

and some pictures:

 

About a week before Eliza was born, we took the boys to each pick out a toy for her. They spent about 1/2 hour looking at the wall of baby toys and going back and forth on which one to get. In the end, they both chose these little rubber duckys – Bennett chose green and Ryan chose blue. Ryan has been especially concerned with making sure she has her ducky with her in the swing or while I’m feeding her.

our first attempt at a family photo

       

more pictures to come.

Thanksgiving

Since I was just over a week away from my due date, I couldn’t travel for Thanksgiving, but my parents and Jess & Shane and their family were kind enough to travel up to our house so we could be with some family for Turkey Day. I have to admit I was pretty spoiled / lazy – they kicked me out of the kitchen if I tried to do too much – so I got to enjoy a wonderful meal without too much effort on my part. Everyone arrived late Wednesday night – we spent Thursday morning cooking (Mom, Jess and I) and playing in a turkey bowl (Dad, Shane, and Nate – the kids all played at the park while they were playing). After a delicious meal in the afternoon, we went on a nice walk and enjoyed our pie.

Mom, Jess and I went out for some Black Friday shopping on Friday morning/afternoon while the kids played and went to the church gym to get some energy out. I was hoping to (and was pretty successful) get most / all of my Christmas shopping done so I would have it ready before the baby came. We spent some time at the park on Saturday morning before everyone headed out in the afternoon. Overall a relaxing weekend and fun to have family in town visiting! Sadly, we only got a couple pictures.

 

O Christmas Tree {Nov 23}

The Saturday before Thanksgiving, we ventured up in the woods to cut down our first live Christmas tree. It was a little harder than we expected – there are millions of trees in the forest, right? Apparently not the right kind, size, and shape. We had a lot of fun though. The first place we went we couldn’t find anything, and as we drove back to the freeway to try another spot, we saw one on the off-ramp that we decided would be our backup if we didn’t find anything else. We tried another spot, where we had to drive up the mountain a ways, but finally started seeing cars coming down with trees on top so we figured we were heading the right direction. Bennett was excited to see some snow. When the roads started to be snow packed, we parked and walked a ways up the road, then ventured off the road. Our tree is a little bit of a Charlie Brown tree, but it has been fun to have a real tree, and we like it more because it took some effort to find it :)

The lumberjack hard at work, complete with his Movember mustache; and the view from where we parked our car

success!

The Zoo

We braved the zoo a few days ago with some friends – I was a little worried about walking all over pushing a stroller while 8.5 months pregnant (awful hip pain this pregnancy!) but it wasn’t too bad and the kids had fun. It was supposed to rain, but we met a few friends there and played in the indoor playground for a little while, and by the time we went out to see the animals, there were only light sprinkles here and there. Ryan’s favorite is always the elephants, Bennett’s the dad lion. There was hardly anyone there, so it was fun to see the animals without the crowds. A couple pictures of my cute little bears and their rain gear: (Bennett took the one with me in it)

Happy Halloween!

We had a fun Halloween – it felt a little rushed since I got back from Portland later than planned (and had to run to JoAnn’s that night 5 minutes before they closed to get some final supplies to finish up Bennett’s costume). But we had fun – we met Nate at work and trick-or-treated through his office, so it was fun for all of us to see where he worked. We were there fairly late so everyone was generous with their candy :) We then headed over to a Halloween party hosted by some of our friends, where we had yummy dinner and treats, and went trick-or-treating in their neighborhood. The boys had fun and were less shy than last year, so overall a success. We went back to the party and played some games before heading home.

Bennett dressed up as Super Bennett – thanks for the costume Jess and mom! It was a modification of the Super Landon costume my sister made for my nephew a few years ago. Bennett originally wanted to be a pumpkin, but Nate thought that wasn’t fun enough and we couldn’t find a non-cheesy, non-baby pumpkin costume. We were glad when, after getting the superhero cape my mom sent him in the mail, he got excited about being a superhero.

Ryan was a cowboy – which is a Morris family tradition for 2-year-olds (starting with my brother Jake when he was 2). Ryan’s feet were too big for the boots we’ve been passing around among the nephews so I debated whether it was worth getting new ones or not. I finally did and Ryan LOVED them. He wanted to carry the box out of the store, then into the house, and put the boots on as soon as we got home, then wouldn’t take them off for his nap. I was glad I bit the bullet and bought them.

         

Ryan, & Bennett wearing the same cowboy costume – Bennett was almost a year younger.