New blog

I still haven't gotten around to designing the new blog, but I'm going to switch over to that one anyway. So, 2 weeks from now this blog will be going private. I will no longer be updating it but if you want to be able to still see it, get me your email address if you haven't already!

Without further adieu... Olivejuicestill.blogspot.com

But today, today is date night.

Today I'm going to get ready. Usually I like to strut around in one of Trent's t-shirts and perhaps some basketball shorts or other cozy bottoms all day. Since retiring, I usually don't wear make-up since I am mostly at home anyway. and I usually walk around with a rat's nest on my head. but not today. Cause today is date night.
Tonight we will go out on the town and I will dress to the nines and wear actual make-up (not just foundation and mascara like usual, if you're lucky I mean). Mostly cause I like seeing Trent's face when I come out of our room after *literally* locking myself in there to surprise him with how well I clean up. It's like him seeing me in my wedding dress for the first time on our wedding day, or at least what I would imagine it like since I didn't make him wait to see me in it. In fact, I invited to take my bridal pictures with me.
Tonight, I will wear my new kelly green shirt that I stole from my mom this last weekend when I saw her in Utah and made her give it to me and she said okay and now it's my favorite shirt i own, thanks mom. I will also wear my kelly green Steve Madden pointy toe pumps that I never get to wear cause really, what else matches them? and I will wear my new jeans that I (had to) buy for the winter cause no other pants fit except for maternity ones since my weight loss has haulted at 28 lbs. (Yes, i gained 45 lbs cause i really packed it on the last month) I love them!
Ila is joining me. She, too, wants to get dressed up cute for daddy. She is sick of her pajamas. She remembers her first few weeks of life when she wore pretty dresses and bows everyday.
And who do we have to thank for all this? His name is Dave, he feels he is in eternal debt to Trent since Trent offered him a job after being on umemployment for months. We are going out to eat to Green Valley Ranch for free tonight. Then perhaps a movie. I love date night.

Spiritual Enlightment

“Brethren and sisters, material possessions and honors of the world do not endure. But your union as wife, husband, and family can. The only duration of family life that satisfies the loftiest longings of the human soul is forever. No sacrifice is too great to have the blessings of an eternal marriage. To qualify, one needs only to deny oneself of ungodliness and honor the ordinances of the temple. By making and keeping sacred temple covenants, we evidence our love for God, for our companion, and our real regard for our posterity—even those yet unborn. Our family is the focus of our greatest work and joy in this life; so will it be throughout all eternity, when we can ‘inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities … powers, dominions … exaltation and glory’ (D&C 132:19).”
Russell M. Nelson

The many faces of Ila Claire

New blog update

I'm still working on the new blog. I have the address and now I will begin designing it... in case you were wondering. and... I am giving it a little bit of a makeover... you'll see.

Trent's been watching Ila tonight, he just said, "Look, Thomas S. Monson!"

Kalei Hogan

While in Utah, I took some pictures of Kalei that turned out awesome, she is so photogenic! We got so many good ones, this is only the beginning!

Weekend at Home

We spent this past weekend back home in Utah. We went to Frightmares. We saw Craig and his lovely new fiance, Kari. We got to spend some much needed time with family!

As long as we're on the subject

Since my little pumpkin has such long lustrous locks and sometimes I'm not always into this look: especially cause those ginormous flowers smack into everything, I made her some hair clippies. I LOVE them!! Especially these: The largest ones (the butterflies) are maybe 2 inches so they look pretty cute and I think they would look cute on an older little girl too. Who am I kidding, I'd wear them. I don't think I could sell these on Etsy though cause they were already assembled for scrapbooking and I just glued clips to the back. See?

So I really can't take credit for the intricate designs...

Accessories accessories...

Yesterday, I decided to get creative. One of my best friends has a birthday coming up and I know she would love a handmade gift so I decided to make her one. I know I LOVE accesories, and I know she LOVES accessories so, I made headbands. Now I am thinking they are pretty cute and besides the fact that I don't want to give them to her I am thinking maybe I could sell them on Etsy? (Not these ones! I would make more to sell!) What do you think? Would you buy them? How much might you expect/be willing to pay? They are very Anthropoligie-ish, are they not?

One step too far

http://d.yimg.com/kq/groups/17260182/1610997888/name/ftc-vi26.wmv

No way this is gonna pass... it sounds like a joke. Pretty outragous.

My Uncle who lives in Southern California and owns a paving company took matters into his own hands last Monday morning after not being paid on a job. HAHA!!I'm pretty sure the security guard is fired.

Family Pictures

An amazing photographer, Brittany Rulis, took pictures of us as a family and Ila inparticular. Follow this link to check out the sneak peak. It's hard to believe they were done at our house. I highly recommend Brittany if you live in the Las Vegas area. I can't wait to see the rest!

By the way, please enjoy the fact that I am blogging this at 3:00 in the morning; you could say that I have adjusted to the late night feedings.

Lake Tahoe... finally

In beautiful Tahoe, we did so many fun things! and we definetly can't wait to go back! Here are somethings we did:

We stayed here at my Uncles house, did I mention it was ON the lake? Being over a hundred years old it is on the national historical registry list. It had 10 bedrooms! it was huge and beautiful!

We posed for the cameraWe played washers

My dad hit my little brother in the head with a washer and cut his head open... my brother kept saying, "Why did you do that Dad? Why would you want to hurt me? Why did you want me to bleed?" through his tears... such a character. When all was said and done, he thought it was a pretty sweet wound. The rest of the time my dad got to be the butt of all the jokes when it came to playing Washers.

We got buried in the sand

We went out on the boat (Oh look! A picture with me in it!)

We played football

and we took A LOT of neat pictures.

Making some changes...

I'm starting a new blog for our family. I'm concerned about all the personal information I have given on this blog. But, I don't want to go private so I have come up with a compromise. I will start a new blog that is public and leaves out personal information such as our last name and where we live and I will make this one private. If you still want to be able to view this one, please leave your email address and I will send you an invite. When I get the new one up and running, I'll let you know!

I'm talentless

Etsy is killing me! I keep drooling over all these amazing knitted things people are selling on there and I want to buy them so bad but I can't on account of the mortgage payment so I decided I have to learn to knit. I am determined. There is no turning back now cause I have told you and then I might look like an idiot. You will want to learn too (and that blue beanie is ONLY $25, I want it so bad!):

I need to prioritize

I really really should be, need to be doing something more productive than catching up on blogs while she is actually asleep, but I just can't seem to bring myself to clean or do something else I have to do. We went to Lake Tahoe this weekend and it was amazing! and I will blog about that {maybe during her next nap?}

Since Ila was born, she doesn't sleep like a regular newborn. When she wakes up from her naps, she is up for a good 2 to 3 hours at least, sometimes more. and yes, conviently, this happens at night on occasion also, but for the most part, she does pretty well at night {excluding last night - I don't wanna talk about it}. So, because of this, our house has never been messier, we've never had more dirty laundry, our fridge has never been so empty {I thought about posting a picture, but it's just embarassing, i haven't grocery shopped in over a month!}, and I've never eaten less in a day. It's fun. It's the best excuse I've ever had to get nothing done. Here's a Tahoe preview for you:

Your gonna be getting lots of these for a little while:

We just can't get enough of this little princess... I took these on her 2 week birthday last week. I just love showing her off!

Also, we changed the spelling of her name. Between receiving phone calls regarding "ees-la" and the doctors office calling her back from the waiting room ("ees-la" also), I just couldn't take it. I was really bummed to do it, but now people should be able to pronounce her name right the rest of her life. So, it's now spelt Ila.

Oh my word... she's so sweet.

How to break my heart:

These 2 give me butterflies

And I would just like to add...

I've lost 26 lbs. in 9 days.

I'm trying to hurry!

Everyday the past week I have thought, I have to blog, while everything is fresh... but it's been busy. They are coming though, I promise!

Day 7

**I meant for this to go up Sunday

So far in Isla's 7 days of life, this is what she has experienced:

• 4 heel pricks
• getting her stomach pumped
• blood drawn from inside her elbow
• an IV in her head
• about 10 other pokes on her body trying to find a vein so they don't have to put the IV in her head while we stood out in the hall and heard her scream for an hour and a half
• laying under bili lights for 24 hours and could only be held during strict half hour feedings every 3-4 hours
• 4 nights at the hospital
• ultrasound on her gallbladder and spine... to find out if she may need a liver transplant!

Needless to say, it's been a rough week on her, but she appears to have the memory of a goldfish and is doing just fine. Plus, each time they weighed her at the hospital she peed on the scale, so I told her, "That's my girl, way to show 'em who's boss."

Oh, and she doesn't need a liver transplant, we really appreciated the doctor telling us about that posssibility before he was more sure... it was a long 24 hours before the ultrasound was finally done.

It's funny how, each time she cried or each day that has gone by, or each time she had to be poked again, I love her more and more, and it's harder and harder on me. But, now we are enjoying life... and waiting for her to poo, it's been 3 days.

and Greg: I do LOVE the smell of it.

Labor Day

Labor was one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and I'm not just talking about her actually arriving. We showed up at the hospital at 8:00 Sunday morning. Originally my doctor was gonna start me on the stuff that softens your cervix but when the nurse checked me that morning, my babies head was much lower; after she informed the doctor, they started me right on Pitocin. After about 2 hours the contractions were a couple minutes apart and a little uncomfortable but I didn't need the drugs put in my IV yet.

I was making slow progress, each time the nurse checked, up until 3:30 pm I was a "one but getting thinner". The nurse flipped me on to my side to see if that would help and I guess it did cause I would rate the pain of those contractions at at least an 8, and I took her up on an offer for IV drugs; at which point I was floating in the clouds. At 3:30 I insisted she check me again cause there had to be a reason for the pain. Yeah,well, I was still a one but so thin she accidently broke my water. By then the drugs wore off a lot and the contractions were excruciating and every minute. Trent was trying to help me by reading the ultrasounds and telling me when they had peaked. He was reading the wrong line, saying, "It's going down, this isn't even a bad one!" and I was like, "Oh this hurts so bad, it's getting worse, NO, it has not peaked, I KNOW because I can FEEL it!!" It was kinda funny later.

She said I had to put up with the pain for an hour then she would check me again and if I was at a 3-4 I could get the epidural. An hour later, she stretched me to a 3 so I could get it!

I was surprised to still be in a lot of pain! They say it's just pressure, but pressure hurts! Also, I had to go over to my right side and get on oxygen cause she wasn't doing well, with the contractions coming so close together her heart rate was dropping. Which also meant I could feel everything on my left side. They gave me a shot of something to slow down the contractions. My nurse later told me, once the baby was doing better, that she was really scared for a while there. When she came on the shift and saw our charts, she thought, "Please don't be my patient!"

At 6:30 or 7 I was checked again and although she was lower, I was only a 4. At 8:00 I told them to check me, the pain was different and I knew I had made progress. Sure enough, I was a 9! and her head was RIGHT THERE! at a Plus 2! WITHOUT pushing! The nurse called the doctor and we started practice pushes, we did 2 or 3 sets and she said to stop, she and Trent could both see the head. It took my doctor over a half hour to get there cause she was on call at another hospital and I was getting a little impatient. I seriously just wanted to push! She got there about 9:30 and Isla was out at 9:53. Well, that's what they said, but I think it was 9:48.



It just didn't seem real when she came out and was put on my stomach. Trent started video taping at that point and I think the look on my face was probably confusion, it was so crazy what had just happened, that I had pushed that out. I have told Trent a few times through out the pregnancy that I was most excited to feel that special love that you only have for your own child and I know that when they put her on my stomach I was waiting for that feeling to begin.

2 or 3 days later I wanted to do it all over again. I craved doing it all over again, and I still would if I could (and I'm assuming I probably will). My mom described it best, she said the next couple days is like Christmas morning, the anticipation gone.

I feel very strongly about epidurals now. I can't say that had I not gotten it, I wouldn't have savored the experience and look back at it wanting to do it all over again, as much as I do. I still felt a lot of pain but I was very aware of what was going on and enjoying myself to an extent. Except the oxygen mask, I hated the oxygen mask.


She was wide awake for at least 2 hours after, very alert and has at least one period a day of just looking around for an hour or two now. She also can roll over onto her side and almost her stomach... impressive, I know! But, kinda scary too. I haven't had the baby blues too bad, I had them more last week and this weekend with the hospital stay. I tried keeping them in all last week until Thursday night, I was just holding her sitting up and she was just looking at me and I just started bawling. Trent came in the room and asked what was wrong and I was just like, "I just love her so much, I just want her to be happy!" It's so weird!

Anyway, things are all good now. She weighed in at 7 lbs 6 oz and 20 inches long. She was spitting up everything she was eating and had to get her stomach pumped to get out all the amniotic fluid still in there and that helped a lot! She dropped down to 6 lbs 8 oz but is now back up at 7 lbs. But I'm thinking a few ounces has got to be poo cause she hasn't pooed in 3 days.

We love her a lot and I can't get enough holding her. Half the night is spent sleeping in her bassinet but the other half is on my chest.