Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

So we have been dumped with a ton of snow! I woke up this morning to Dan telling me it was snowing. It has not stopped ALL day. Dan just went outside and

 measured the snow on a table and it was 5.5 inches!!! This is very odd, considering we live i

n a desert in Southern California. Below is a picture of Lancaster, where we live. That is a Joshua tree out in the desert covered in snow.

Here are some pictures of our backyard and front yard. In the backyard, a huge branch fell off our tree, due to the weight of the snow. The snow today was really wet, so I guess it weighed more. Pretty crazy, huh. Luckily it didn't fall on our house

I wish Anna was older, so we could go out and play in the snow. I have a feeling we won't get snow like this for a long long time. 

A Thankful Heart

So today during church, there was a musical number that made me reflect on all of my blessings. It was actually a song that I had performed in a choir at BYU. It's a Thanksgiving type song, and the music is really pretty. As I was listening to it, I felt touched by the Spirit and by Heavenly Father's generousity in my life.

I have been blessed with so much. There is nothing that I lack. Heavenly Father has always made sure that I have a roof over my head, food to eat, clothes to wear, and money/job to sustain myself. These things are all I need to survive and yet He blesses me with more than I need. Everything else that I have in my life, is really just little extras. A home, computer, TV, car, cell phone, furniture, extra clothes, life in the United States, money to spend on fun stuff, and other nice things that I have to enjoy. I could go on and on with the things I don't really "need." Heavenly Father has given me so much. Not to mention my wonderful husband and beautiful daughter. I feel so truly grateful for all my blessings. I only hope to be able to stay worthy of the blessings that He still has in store for me.

Isn't she so precious? I'm so thankful for her.

Now a little bit about our Thanksgiving. We stayed home this year and had our own first Thankgiving. We invited another family over and they have two cute little girls. We cooked the turkey, made stuffing and rolls. I have never cooked a turkey in my life, but it actually wasn't that hard. I didn't really enjoy sticking my hand in it to pull out the neck. I looked for the gizzard parts, but they weren't there. I thought that was really weird. However, after the turkey was done, Dan was cutting it, and found them all in a nice little package at the bottom of the turkey. I guess somehow they were put there, and not in the cavity of the turkey with the neck. Good thing they were wrapped up. :) Anyways, it turned out well. As did the stuffing, and the rolls were awesome. We tried a new recipe in this bread book that we really like. They turned out so good! Dan made them. Way to go Dan. It was a lot of work and cooking, but it was good. I have actually never made stuffing or gravy, but it wasn't hard at all.

The only down side to that day was I didn't get any pumpkin pie. The family we ate with bought some pies. We went over to their house that evening to eat pie, and for some reason the pumpkin pie wouldn't cook. When she took it out, it was still soupy. So she put it back in the oven, but it still wouldn't cook. By that point, it was late and Anna was fussy, so we went home without any pumpkin pie. I had some apple, but it made me sad that I didn't get any of the pumpkin pie.

New Anna pics and Bookshelf

I was able to get some really good shots of Anna the other day. I put her on her stomach for some tummy time and she started smiling. It was adorable. I think these are by far the cutest pictures of her that we've been able to get. 

Gotta love that smile

So cute!

Playing on Daddy's tummy!

So a few months ago, Dan bought some bookshelves at a garage sale for $2 a piece. One was painted white, the other one was just wood and not painted. I've been working on sanding the painted one. It's been taking forever though because I can only do it when Anna is sleeping and some days I just don't get around to it. Well, I finally got the wood one sanded, primed, painted black and put up in our living room. It makes me so happy because for the last month and a half, we've had a huge stack of boxes of books, as well as loose books in the corner of our family room. There are still some books, waiting for the second shelf, but it's a lot better than what it originally was. 

Before I started sanding. 

Newly painted bookcase in the family room.

We're going to paint the other one black as well. Not too shabby for only $2. And they're solid wood, not particle board. 

Anna's first Halloween

Anna had her first Halloween on Friday. We dressed her up as a pea in a pod. I thought she looked so adorable!!! Her little chubby cheeks were all squished in her costume. 

A kissy sandwhich!!!

The Phelan's first Halloween with Anna

She didn't like her costume too much though. I think it was because the sleeves were kind of long and her legs were kind of stuck together because there weren't actual legs in it. We didn't do a whole lot for Halloween. We couldn't take her trick-or-treating. We had a grand total of 3 people ring our doorbell for candy. It was okay, because I only bought one bag of candy and really wasn't expecting a lot of visitors. Then we had our friends Katie and Luken come over with their two cute little girls. I'm excited for next year because she'll be able to walk and Halloween will be a little more fun. 

Working moms and the norm...

So I had an interesting experience today at the pediatrician's office, besides taking 2 hours just to get 4 shots (it was extremely annoying). She was talking to me about starting solids with Anna and suggested that I start on a weekend, that way I'd be with her more, assuming that I worked during the week. I told her I was a stay at home mom. Afterwards I was thinking about it and it's interesting and a little sad, how most people assume that mom's work and put their kids in daycare. It's become the norm now and has been for quite a while. I don't know why this struck me as particularly sad today. I love being able to stay home with Anna and take care of her. I would miss so much of her growth if I were at work. Sure, it's not sunshine and roses all day and every day, but there's no other place I'd rather be. I remember before I quit my job, occasionally feeling kind of sad for having to quit and not being able to advance in my work. However, a few weeks after she was born, I remember thinking that I wouldn't want to be any other place. Work was not worth missing raising my baby. 

I know that a lot of moms have to work or prefer to work rather than stay home. I'm not saying every mom has to stay home and raise children, but I honestly believe that part of the problems of today's youth comes from not having parents at home. They know their parents won't be home till 5 or 6 and it's easier for them to get into trouble. Anyways, I'm just thankful that we can afford for me to stay home and hopefully it will stay that way, seeing as how the economy is getting so unstable lately. 

On a happier note, Anna laughed for the first time yesterday. It was so cute! Dan started tickling her and she just gave this loud chuckle/laugh thing. It made us really happy. Also, she has started to roll from her back to her stomach. She's done it quite a bit the last few days. The funny thing is that after she rolls over, she doesn't know what to do next. Sometimes she gets fussy, other times she just kind of hangs out. It's pretty cute. 

Scrapbooking

So I have finally gotten around to scrapbooking some of Anna's baby pictures. I've been wanting to do this since she was born, but just haven't gotten around to with moving and stuff. I've never really scrapbooked before, but I'm excited to start doing it. Here are 2 pages I've done so far. There are still some finishing touches I want to do to them, to spruce them up a bit.

I enjoy trying to tap into my creative side. I've never been one of those super creative, cutesy, artsy kinds of people, but I think I'm doing better. There are also a lot of ideas online, which are helpful. The only downside to this new hobby is it can be kind of expensive. So far, a friend gave me a whole bunch of paper she didn't want and I got some cheap stuff at Target. However, I think with some careful budgeting, it won't be too bad.

Here are some cute pictures of Anna. She has really started to blow raspberries. She loves doing it, it is so cute! She just sticks out her tongue and blows air. Inevitably, a lot of spit gathers around her mouth and just adds to the noise and cuteness of it all.

She has also started to be able to move herself a lot. She'll turn on her side, then kind of go on her back, but in a different spot than originally. I don't know how to explain it, but she is just able to manuever herself around. Here, I put her kind of in the center/side of the circle and after a while, this is where she ended up. It was funny.

Poop vs. Throw Up

Poor Dan, he never saw it coming...

So I just have to say that I prefer poop over throw-up. I know this sounds really weird, but there are a few reasons for this odd statement. First of all, poop is contained (for the most part). The poop stays in the diaper and all you have to do is clean it off a little bum. Breast fed babies, this is a very easy process, since the poop is generally thinner (until they start eating solids). Throw up on the other hand, comes very unexpectedly. You could be sitting on the couch, standing in the family room or kitchen, and bam! all of a sudden you, the couch or the floor (usually both) are covered in nasty regurgitated food. It's not as easy to clean up as poop. You have to change your clothes and if you didn't clean it as well as you thought, the after smell lets you know.

I don't know, I just would rather deal with poop than throw up. For about 2 1/2 months of Anna's life, she would throw up a couple of times a week. It has finally subsided quite a bit and I am SOOOO thankful for that. Yeah, poop smells worse for the moment, but once you get rid of the diaper, the smell is usually gone. Once, I used a rag to clean up some throw up and then put in under the sink with some other dirty rags and forgot to wash them for a while. Well, nasty black mold grew on the rag. I was so disgusted, I threw the rag away! I vote for poop all the way! :)

The last month...

Well, a lot has happened in the last month. First of all, we moved into our first house!!! We bought a house and love actually owning a home! It was kind of crazy because we had been told that escrow would close on a certain date. I told our apartment that we would be out 10 days after that date, thus giving a nice cushion of time. However, our loan didn't fund forever and the day before we had to be out of our apartment, we weren't sure if we were going to be able to move that day or wait. It was all very stressful. The loan actually didn't fund by moving day, but luckily the owner let us "rent" the home until it did. It was all the providence of Heavenly Father that it worked out that we could move when we were supposed to. We were very grateful. So we love being in our new house.

This is my new favorite picture of Anna.

Anna update: She is now 3 months old! She is getting so big. At times I look at her and can't even believe that she ever fit in my stomach! She is really developing. She has started to reach for things. It is so cute! She can tell she is in a new place too. The first few days she would just keep turning her head left and right and just looking all over the place.

We also finally put her in a crib. She had outgrown her bassinet. So the first night, she's fine. The second night, apparentley she moved a lot because when I went in her room that morning, she had turned herself around completely. Her head was where her feet should have been. It was so cute! The only bad thing about the crib, is because I'm so short, I have trouble putting her in her crib sometimes. Especially when it's for a nap. I have to lift her over the side, and I think the lifting motion wakes her up sometimes. Other than that, her crib is great. It was kind of weird though for the first few days to not have her in our room. I missed her, even though she is just across the hallway, barely 8 feet away from us! It was nice to have our bedroom back to ourselves and not have to whisper our prayers together before bed. Or whisper at all when we needed to talk to each other.

This was taken a few weeks ago. This was the dress she was blessed in. She smiles so much now.

I think she looks so adorable in the corner of the couch. I love her chubby cheeks!

She has learned how to grab the circle-thing and pull it to play music!

She just fell asleep on Dan like this.

So life is going well for now. I'm at home with Anna, which I'm so grateful that I can do. We've been blessed so much right now. Dan has a good job, we have a beautiful baby girl, we have food to eat, vehicles to drive and money in the bank! We live a blessed life.

Mommy Moments

So my baby girl is 9 weeks old today! In a way that seems like such a short amount of time, but on the other hand I feel like it's been so long! She is getting cuter and cuter everyday. The longer I have her the more I love her. 

I love being a mom. There is just a special feeling when I pick her up from her bassinet after she's been crying and knowing that I'm the one that gets to hold her close, comfort her and make her feel better. 

She has the most classic pout look I've ever seen. Even though I know she's not happy when she makes it, I can't help but laugh and just tell her how cute she is. We've been trying to get a picture of it, but still have succeeded in getting it just right. 

A couple of weeks ago, I was feeding her, but was looking away elsewhere. All of a sudden I look down at her and see her just looking up at me, smiling. I love that feeling! It was so cute. It's moments like that, that make it worth it to have a baby. 

Other times, when she's either just waking up from a nap or in her car seat at the grocery store, I'll look at her and smile and she smiles back! Her whole face just lights up and it's adorable. Can you tell I love having a baby? :)

Now, for the not so fun-lovey moments. Her peeing on her changing pad right as I'm about to put on her new diaper. Or when she has these explosive sounding poos that leak out of her diaper and onto my pants. Or her oh too often throw ups that get all over me, Dan or the carpet. In the last 9 weeks I've been pooped on, peed on, and thrown up on, all by someone a 1/10 of my size! But that just comes with the territory, I guess. It's at times like these, where I have to remember the cute, lovey, cuddly times. After all, it's not her fault. I feel so blessed to have her in my life.

Life updates...

I  got married a little over a year and a half ago to Dan Phelan (pronounced Fay-len). We are currently living in Lancaster, CA. We moved out here a year ago because Dan got a teaching job. He teaches high school art. 

Right now life has changed drastically for us because the second most important event in my life happened (the first one was my wedding day). Two months ago I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Her name is Anna Bree Phelan. She is absolutely precious. I just love looking at her and knowing that I'm her mom and she is my little baby. I'm so grateful to have her in my life. 

Let's back up here a bit and give some details on pregnancy and delivery. I had a relatively easy pregnancy. I never had morning sickness. In fact, I only ever threw up 3 times over the course of nine months. One of those times though, I think I ate something bad and it made me throw up. Compare this to my sister who is 6 months pregnant and has probably thrown up close to five hundred times (no joke). One day she told me she had thrown up seven times! I worked my whole pregnancy and felt fine. I worked out my whole pregnancy as well (I highly recommend it. It helped out a lot). The last few weeks weren't much fun because I just felt so huge and couldn't sleep well. For some reason, only at night would Anna extend her legs up into my ribs. It hurt so much, I couldn't lay down. Other than that, pregnancy was pretty good, although it felt so good afterwards not to have a baby in me.

Delivery was even better. I went into labor at 5 pm and she was born at midnight, after a half hour of pushing, and 7 hours of labor. It was great and even better once I had the epidural. I feel very blessed, compared to other stories I've heard. 

Anna was 8 lbs 2 oz when she was born. I was extremely surprised because I thought for sure I had a 7 lb baby in me. She came out with red hair! We still aren't sure where that came from. I hope it stays, but we'll just have to wait and see. Either way, she's just so cute!

From the looks of things, we'll be in California for a while. It's not bad here, but I do miss not having any family close by. The closest family is in Utah. I guess it makes  you appreciate them that much more. :)