Tahoe- First family vacation

We had a lot of fun in Tahoe....in June. I think it was June. Well let's just say we went sometime this summer. It was kinda last minute. It was for only one night which was perfect for our first trip. Sadie did really good!! We spent a lot of time relaxing and driving. We drove around to a couple of waterfalls and they were all really neat. The snow was late melting this year so all of the waterfalls were exteremely full. The super bumpy roads made Sadie fall asleep which was good because she usually doesn't like her car seat.

The timeshare had this huge bath tub that was a lot of fun with Sadie! The craziest thing is that this was also the shower....so awkward. Because it's just so big! I hadn't been to Tahoe in awhile and I had forgotten how nice it is. The weather was perfect and it's pretty close to us so it was the perfect overnighter!

Just for fun

I think Sadie's onesie says it all!

Fourth of July

For fourth of July we had a lot of fun. This year we decided to just keep things simple and do a family only party. Which meant a lot of good food, swimming, games, and more food!!




It was a really fun fourth of July and technically Tim was on call all day but luckily he didn't have to work. Of course we had to get a picture of Sadie with Coke because I'm sure she's going to want to be just like her Dad.


Also I am so lucky to have a sister that makes bows because Sadie always gets to wear the cutest bows!! I love it!

Tim's Birthday

I'm a little behind on my posts, but at least I'm blogging....right? It was Tim's birthday in June, he didn't have to work but he was on call all day so it wasn't as enjoyable as it could have been. We spent the day just relaxing and hanging out. After Sadie went to bed and we knew Tim wasn't going to get a job we headed to In N Out.

We celebrated with my family the following Sunday.

Abella wanted to help with the candles, and Tim was nice enough to let her help.

Good thing Abella helped because they were hard to blow out.

Happy Birthday Tim!!

My inexperience

This is kind of a novel of a post, I didn't realize how long it was when I wrote it. Sorry!

This is where Sadie sleeps, yep in her swing.
We don't turn it on, it has never helped her fall asleep but she liked it more than the bassinet so we've just kept her there.

Oh sleep, I have always loved sleep. Lately Sadie has been sleeping horribly! Whenever she took a nap it would be for 30-45 minutes. She was not always this way. She used to do really really good. Her naps were never great but everyday I got at least one long nap. The nap would last anywhere from 1-3 hours. As a new mom these were crucial! I used this time to eat, shower, or get a much needed nap! So when I started losing these long naps I was really disappointed but I just figured it was a phase or that she wasn't tired enough. Then a week later it started affecting her night time sleep also. Sadie's night time sleeping was going really good, it was gradually getting longer and longer. At about 7 weeks old she was sleeping 6-7 hours at night. This helped me catch up on sleep since I wasn't getting a nap anymore but this didn't last long. All of a sudden she started sleeping 2 and a half to 4 hours at night. Since this is my first child I have been basically winging it. I didn't really read a baby book. I have read a ton of articles online and I have a couple magazines but there is a lot of information left out. So I started investigating online. Here were my two mistakes: first I had no idea how long Sadie was supposed to be awake for. I had read that it is about an hour but I didn't know when that would start to stretch out. I kinda felt like maybe I was putting her to sleep too often bc she was waking up so much. I also read somewhere that she should have 2-3 naps. So essentially I was keeping her awake for about 2 hours before I would try and put her down. My second mistake was that I was feeding Sadie way too often. I was using this as a way to pacify her. Which she needed because she was so tired. I would nurse her every two hours or shorter. That's a lot and I could tell sometimes she wasn't really eating. I didn't know. In the beginning I was feeding her a mix between this and every 3 hours, which is probably why her sleeping was doing so good. But once her naps went bad I changed to every two hours and things just went bad fast. It's amazing how everything is connected.

Well I bought a book. I decided I needed help and I investigated online what I could do to make this better. I found a blog that seemed to have a lot of answers. The lady is LDS and seems really passionate about her baby philosophy. And I loved that it wasn't just a bunch of how-to's but a philosophy. The book is called Babywise. From what I read online there is a lot of people who don't like this book but the Blogger really spoke to me so I just had to read the book for myself.

The book helped me realize what mistakes I was making. For mistake number 1 a babies waketime can be as little as 45 min. The book suggests finding the optimal wake time for your baby so I did this and Sadie's is an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. I figured this out because she would become really fussy and hard to put down after this time.

For mistake number 2 the book suggests nursing every 2 and a half to 3 hours and then between 9-15 weeks moving to every 3-4 hours. Sadie is 13 weeks old but since she's used to snacking little meals I've decided to transition slowly so I'm still at every 2 and a half to 3 hours. I know I was feeding her too much because she wasn't eating a full meal every time. If your an experienced mom I'm sure your just laughing at all of my inexperience.

Through all of this I am just really glad for the Internet. I was able to read a couple of other mom's experiences and really learn from them. I feel so dumb for being so ill prepared. I thought I knew the basics and that would be enough. I guess I thought I could stay the same and that Sadie would just mesh into my life but I'm starting to see that who I am is being redefined and that I need to be not just her Mom but a teacher, leader, and caregiver. I'm not sure why it took me so long to figure this out. Really there is a TON I don't know and I rather not try and figure it out all alone. It seems that magazine articles don't teach you a whole lot but books give a more in depth view into someones philosophy and reasoning for doing something. I think for now on I'm going to look at more of others experiences and read some more books so I can choose what parts of their philosophy I want to make my own.

Mother's and Father's Day

This was our first Mother's and Father's Day.
We spent Mother's day in the hospital so we celebrated it a week late.

Sadie was getting ready for bed so she is all swaddled, I LOVE these swaddlers!!

We took a group picture with all of the Mom's in my family.

Luckily Father's day was a lot less eventful, in a good way.

So we were able to take a lot of good pictures.

Mail

Jared was holding Sadie while looking through the mail and she became so interested! She couldn't take her eyes off of it. She is so spoiled living so close to everyone, I love it!

Drool

We were taking Father's Day pictures.


And using this cute squeaking giraffe to get Sadie to look at the camera.

Well Tim kept putting it up really close to her mouth.

Which led to her drooling.

I was shocked at how much drool you could see in this picture!
She has been drooling a lot more recently.
Which is mostly due to the fact that she sucks on her hands constantly.

Randomness

I love reading books with Sadie but 60% of the time she cries so when I actually get her in the right mood we read a ton of books.
Sadie has just barely found her hands and toys. She doesn't grab at anything yet but really likes her activity mat and her mobile. Her activity mat has a bird on it that moves back and forth and she talks to the bird and will cry when it stops moving.
She hates the car and her car seat. She screams the whole time and if it's a long enough drive she will eventually fall asleep.
She really likes being swaddled and instead of rocking her to sleep she likes being bounced so I have an exercise ball I use.
She loves baths and being on her changing table.
I'm starting to figure a schedule for her but every thing is still pretty spontaneous.
I love girl clothes and I LOVE bows. I didn't think I would but I really can't go without. It just completes the outfit.
She has a couple friends already and I'm glad that she has two cousins within a year of her that are both girls.

This is her cousin Bridgette with Grandma (and this is the best picture we could get!)

Well that's a lot of randomness. She is a lot of fun and there is a lot of figuring things out on the fly. But we like her, we are gonna keep her.

All about Sadie

I love reading everyone's blog when I'm nursing at 2am. It's the best thing to keep me awake. However, I'm horrible at writing on our blog, I feel like I have no time to do it because my spare time is spent sleeping, eating, or trying to take a fast shower before she wakes from a nap. Also I still feel pretty brain dead most days and I'm not sure if I'll be able to form cohesive sentences. Well here we go:

This post is all about Sadie because really what else do I have to talk about?

This past weekend we finally did Sadie's baby blessing. Everything turned out really great except that it rained all weekend. My mom made her dress and it is gorgeous. Tim's mom and brother Mike came out for the weekend which was a ton of fun!! Even though it was raining we still managed to play a ton of games and eat a ton of food. One day Tim and Mike went to an indoor Go-Kart track while the girls had pedicures and went to lunch.

She is asleep in her blessing dress (I'll post a better picture soon)

Fronce Family Pictures

Some other major events:
At 7 weeks Sadie had a fever and we took her the pediatrician who sent us to the ER. She had a UTI and we had to stay in the hospital for a week (the week of mothers day) and they pumped her full of antibiotics. She had an IV in her arm which looked so sad. We were able to stay in the hospital with her, I don't think I would've been able to leave her.

I don't like this picture but you can see the IV in her arm.

They had to splint her arm so she wouldn't bend it.

This is where I slept

This is where Tim slept

Sadie is almost three months. At her two month dr.s appointment we found out she is in the 95% for length (24") and 95% for weight (12 lbs). She is in the 75% for her head. She did ok with the shots but when she was napping her Tylenol wore off and when she woke up I could tell she was in pain. It was sad because when she's frustrated she kicks and every time she kicked it just made her more sad. She couldn't really focus enough to eat either I hated it!!

Hopefully I'll keep this up to date. Also I wrote most of this post while nursing at 2am so I hope it makes sense.
This is my favorite most recent picture of Sadie

Pictures!

I figured I'd write a little update, finally. I went into labor Friday, the 18th, at about 11:30. I had been having back contractions all day but I didn't really realize it. I just thought my back hurt. When I went to bed I couldn't get comfortable because of my back. I was hoping I was going into labor, it was hard to tell though since the contractions were only in my back. Since I couldn't fall asleep I got up and did my hair, added some things to my hospital bag, did my makeup, and timed my contractions. They were coming in a really weird pattern, I would have three contractions and then a big break. I still wasn't sure if I should go to the hospital. Well I could only wait 2 hours and then I woke up Tim. I just figured I wanted to be close to the epidural instead of fighting it out at home if these contractions were going to elevate. My weird contraction pattern continued and so as they got closer together it was awful bc I would have 3 contractions back to back and then a couple minute break. So after a few big contractions I was begging for an epidural. After I got the epidural life was good. Things seemed to slow down but I didn't care I wasn't hurting. Fast forward 10 hours and it's time to start pushing. I didn't really get any sleep so I was exhausted to start with. I had to push for 3 hours and it was because my skin wouldn't stretch out. They finally had to get me an epistiotomy, ugh, the doctor wouldn't even tell me how many stitches she put in, ugh. Needless to say her head looked like a football when she came out.

Tim had decided on a name probably 2 days earlier, Sadie Rose Fronce (SRF) was born March 19th at 4:58 pm 8 lbs 20 3/4 inches. She has a very small amount of hair, blue eyes, and everyone says she looks like Tim. She loves sucking on her hands and sleeping while Tim holds her. We are still exhausted and I'm shocked how many diapers we've used all ready but being a Mom is fun. Other random info: my acid reflux automatically went away, my belly button is slowly becoming an inny again, and I think that chocolate gives Sadie gas which is super depressing bc how can I go without chocolate- especially at Easter time. I'll post pictures soon, but I hardly ever make it to the computer.

Coolest Barbie ever!

One of my favorite presents this Christmas was this barbie! Look close and you'll see why its so cool.

It's name is Janessa! It's even spelled exactly like my name! How awesome is that! What a cool find. I am so proud that I am a black barbie and I'm "So in Style." Thanks Jessica!

Scripture study

I love these books! They make my scripture study so easy and I feel like I am learning tons more than when I just read each day. I finally finished the whole Book of Mormon and now I'm starting in the Pearl of Great Price. I haven't really ever study the Pearl of Great Price so I'm really looking forward to it. Basically these books have the scriptures along with notes from the author and a whole bunch of quotes from prophets and apostles. It makes understanding the scriptures really easy and I don't have to read in two different books because the notes are printed with the scriptures. They are really neat books!