Oh Dallas, How I Love Thee

Life is so interesting how it turns out.  I would have never guessed that I would be living in Dallas, TX and even less that I would feel so at home and like it so much!

Ok so it has been a while since I posted and I feel like there is a lot to tell but at the same time there is not anything to tell!

Brooklyn:
-She is super tiny, only in the 9th percentile for height and 15th for weight at her 6 month check-up!
-Started on solid foods around 5 months and will eat just about anything.
-Strawberries give her a super cute pucker face!
-She is super happy, easy going and laughs a lot
-She started sitting on her own at 5 months
-She is not crawling yet but she is getting closer (not exactly excited for that)
-She says "da da" all the time, especially when Daddy is around (not really sure if that is related or not)
-She is super cute!
-She rolls everywhere, and is scooting
-No teeth yet but drools a lot and puts everything in her mouth!

Riding a horse

Enjoying her food, a lot!

Bush and I have been doing Cross Fit since the middle of August and we love it! If anyone out there wants to work out and love it, look into cross fit.  Bush is super busy with his job but he is really loving it.  It is challenging but it is fun for him to be in the ground work of a company, plus he loves that his opinions are wanted and listened to! Yes, he likes to be in charge!  I have been busy with Brooklyn and cross fit.  That is my two main things during the day.  I LOVE being able to go to the grocery store a couple times a week and not having any produce go bad because you don't have to buy for 2 weeks at a time!  Brooklyn and I have been doing a play and learn gymboree class, which she loves a lot! We will be starting a Kindermusik sign and sing class this month and next month.  I am enjoying taking advantage of what the city has to offer.  

We traded in our black dodge mega cab on a toyota tundra.  We don't need two big trucks anymore living in Dallas.  Plus the mega cab is so huge to get around in the city.  

Currently my cousin Dane is living with us for a little bit and Brooklyn is our Harry Potter, she is living in our closet!  We set up a pack and play in our walk in closet and that is where she is sleeping while Dane is here.  Our town home only has 2 bedrooms so no extra space.  

Dallas/Update

Well we have been living in Dallas for a month now and it is super HOT!! It has been hitting record highs here in Dallas the whole time we have been here.  It is humid but not as humid as Houston, which we found out this weekend when we went to visit Jake, Sabra and Hannah.  Our place is nice but it is different than living in a house, although I won't miss mowing a lawn!  We have been enjoying it here, it is so nice to have a pick of several grocery stores in a 1 mile radius of where you live.  Also you can't beat having a Costco and a Sam's Club within 5 minutes of you.  Moving was not fun, but I have never heard from anyone that it is fun.  It was not too stressful since we had a moving company come pack us up and move everything. They had to get a smaller truck and take all of our stiff out of the normal 18 wheeler and then put it in the smaller truck to move us in to our town home.
And this is why

It is tight quarters here, our mega cab has a hard time getting parked.  However, it is so very nice having more than 1 bathroom.  We really miss our nice cozy home in Rangely but a garage and multiple bathrooms is sure giving it a good competition.

Broooklyn and I in Salt Lake the day before we flew here to Dallas. 

Poor tired Brooklyn on our living room floor.

Hannah and Brooklyn before her first swim in our pool

The lovely Dallas traffic!! This is a huge city!  

More Changes

Well we are off to become Texans!  That's right Bush got a new job.  He is going to be Director of Operations for Thurston Energy.  He is super excited and I am so proud of him.  So we are selling our house and going to be renting for a little while down in the Dallas area.  Then hopefully we will buy a home with some land.  Moving is quite the task... especially when I have never done it before.  We are having to get a moving company and find a rental and sell our home, it is very overwhelming.

On a more cheery note, we blessed little miss Brooklyn on May 27th!  It was great to have family and friends around to support us.  Here is daddy and Brooklyn!

Ok here is the truth about the picture... It was taken a week later because I completely forgot to take pictures on the actual day!!

Pictures

We had pictures taken when Brooklyn was 2 weeks old and here are a few of them!

I think this picture clearly shows she has blonde hair not red!  We are pretty sure a lot of people want to see red hair on her since Bush is a red head.  I am always just amazed at how many people say oh she is a red head... when clearly she is blonde.

2 Months Already!!

Brooklyn is now 2 months old!! I know you always hear time goes by so fast and I couldn't agree more.  She is getting so big!! She is now 10lbs 7oz and just shy of 23" long.  The doctor said she is in the 35th percentile for her weight and the 60th percentile for her height.  She received her 2 month shots yesterday and that was incredibly heart breaking as a parent.  Being an EMT I thought that maybe it wouldn't be so hard to watch but it is completely different when it is your child.  The sad part is that it took me longer to recover from her shots than it took her.  She screamed and cried and then about a minute or two afterwards she stopped and was smiling and cooing again.  So far no side effects from it, except she is a little more sleepy than she normally is.  Which I now understand what a "normal" baby is like!! Brooklyn sleeps AMAZING through the night but doesn't sleep hardly at all during the day.  So having her sleep more during the day is quite strange.  She is smiling a lot now and cooing a lot too.  

This is her "famous" pouty face!!

Well a few weeks ago poor Toby was ran over... he had to stay at the vet for 2 days to monitor him but he came home and is doing great.  He broke one leg but luckily not enough to need to repair it.  He has a cast on that leg that will stay for almost two months.  He had some pretty bad internal trauma but has been recovering great!  He is such a stubborn dog, which served him well in surviving.  The vet told us the night that it happened that he had a 50% chance of surviving.  He has some gashes here and there but they are starting to fill in.  He is our little boy and we are just so happy he is still with us.  

Brooklyn Margaret Hazelbush

Our little precious girl finally arrived on March 21, 2012 at 9:52am!!!
She weighed in at 8lb 5oz and 21.5" tall!!
I can not express how much we already love her and are smitten by her!!

This is quite the journey for me because during my whole pregnancy up till the very end I was still undecided on how I felt (or so I thought).  I let the fear get the better of me.  When she finally came out I started crying because I just knew I loved her all along and was just scared.
My birthing experience was a very positive one.  I was scheduled to be induced at 7am on the 21st and I was so nervous about it because my OB was not going to be there and I just did not know what to expect.  The only plan was to break my water and then let my body take over.  I was very opposed to using pitocin and so I did not want any other interventions unless it became medically necessary.  However it did not happen this way at all.  I feel so blessed and lucky to go into labor on my own.  I woke up around 12:15am and was having a contraction.  I decided to get into the shower and see if the warm water would help them keep coming and it did.  I was having them every 3 minutes while in the shower and once I was out they went to every 5 minutes.  So we got all of our things and headed to the hospital.  We called both sets of parents to let them know.  We arrived at the hospital around 2:20am.  I was dilated to a 4 by this time which was great... also I was able to have my OB Dr. Griffith come to the hospital and break my water.  He was scheduled to leave for a conference till the following week at 6 that morning.  He was beyond awesome and rescheduled his flight for 11am instead.  Once he broke my water we found out that there was meconium in the amniotic fluid.  Which is not good but it is not a medical emergency either.  I was having some really good contractions at this point and was waiting to get an epidural.  My parents arrived at the hospital around 3am.  My Mom was such a huge help during labor.  My poor Dad had sprained his ankle the day before and so we put him in a reclining chair by my bed.  I received my epidural around 4:30am which was AMAZING!! By this time I was dilated to a 6 so it was a welcome relief.  I originally told myself I wanted to hold off on getting an epidural till I was at least 5 or 6cm dilated, which I did.  I was really impressed with myself because you have to hold still in an uncomfortable position for a while and I had some of the stronger of my contractions and I held completely still.  I just leaned into Bush and would squeeze his hands while they happened but wouldn't move at all.  After it started working I felt the most relaxed I have been in months.  I even was able to fall asleep for a little while.  My contractions were slowing down though and around 7:30am they started a pitocin drip to help them get stronger.  At this point I was ok with this because you are so ready to be done.  Dr. Griffith came back to check me around 9:20am and I was almost fully dilated but not quite there.  He told me start pushing during the next contraction to see if we could make any progress.  Apparently I did and so the pushing began.  It was a bit funny because Dr Griffith was getting everything set up and in his gown while Bush was telling me when to push and counting for me.  Dr Griffith would just look over while it was happening and kept saying good just keeping doing that.  I must have been pushing really well (it is hard to tell with an epidural) because little Brooklyn arrived at 9:52am.  Between contractions I asked the Dr how long this part normally takes and he said on average an hour.  I must have really wanted him to deliver because he had to leave at 10am to catch his flight.  He literally ran out of the room and hospital at 10:15am.  You hear horror stories about labor and birth but mine was not at all like that.  I was so pleased because everything I wanted to happen (with a few exceptions) was able to happen.  Now we are just enjoying out little girl and can't get enough of her!!

Daddy and Brooklyn

Uncle Nate apparently likes her

Aunt Sabra

Uncle Jake 

I apparently did not get any pictures of anyone else yet... or I can't find them yet.  

She has a ton of blonde hair and is just so darn cute!!

New Directions

Bush and I have been talking about our "goals" for our physical fitness lately.  I have found quite a few quotes and inspirations that are helping us to be driven.  This year we have only a few goals we both want to accomplish... This september we will be running the Dirty Dash again in Utah and it is a 10K (which is a little over 6 miles), we want to complete P90X before the end of the year and we want to make running a regular part of our exercise regimen.  I will have pregnancy weight to lose and Bush just wants to become more fit.  We are not into the crazy diet fads but eating healthier is part of our goals as well.

We want to set a good example for our kids.  We want to be active with them and show them that being active will help them as they get older.  If we eat healthy our kids will eat healthy.  If we show that exercise is essential they will follow suit.  Besides who doesn't want to look and feel smokin' hot in their 30's, 40's and 50's??  We are young now and can make this change and luckily neither of us are overweight to begin with (except me during the pregnancy, ha ha) so this change shouldn't take a long time to take over our life.

And this poster is just so true!! Anyone who has ran a lot or did a hard exercise can relate to this.  Just a side effect of reaching your goals I guess!!  And as a trainer said, "Transformation isn't a future event, it is a present day activity!"  There will come a day when we can't run or exercise they way we can now but today is not that day so go do something that makes you sweat!!  I am now thinking of exercise as a gift/blessing from Heavenly Father... he gave us these amazing bodies, so why not use them?