Christmas Videos

 

Alex loved carrying the keys around in his mouth as he crawled.  I only got a few seconds on video right at the beginning, but he's just so silly I wanted to share!  :)

Merry Christmas

 This Christmas was Alex's first Christmas and we had such a fun time!    As you can see, we had to barricade off the tree so his tiny little hands wouldn't get everything.  He did like to try and pull on the pack and play sides to get the tree to shake, he was so funny!  But the tree held up through today, so it was definitely a great idea!

Christmas Eve we went over to Rachel and Shawn's and spent the evening with their family.  We had delicious snacks and we did our ornament game and also exchanged presents.  We got a new silverware set (yay!!!) some hot sauce, gift card to the MegaPlex, a calendar and Alex got a Disney Collection storybook!  Thanks so much Fuhrimans!

Christmas morning we were up about 8 am and got Alex some breakfast and then our festivities started.  We opened our stockings and Alex loved his new sippy cup and some keys he got.  Jared loved his new Family guy t-shirt and Liz loved her Tetris game for the Nintendo 3DS.  Our presents were wonderful as well.  Alex got lots of books to read and he got a tamborine from Aunt Becki, Uncle Paul and the girls and a learn to walk 'walker' from Grandma Sheryl.  Grandma and Grandpa Frieden got him a fun book with bible stories.  Jared's favorite present was his Texas Hold 'Em poker set and Liz's favorite present was the external hard drive to hold all of her photos!  It was a wonderful morning and then we had family on the Bagwell side over for brunch around 10.  It was wonderful to see everyone and then we had some good food, good company and our gift exchange.  We got a new blender and some movie tickets from Bob, a book and picture from Dad and Carmen, and from Mom we got a 50's style hot chocolate maker, a movie and some hot cocoa....yum!  The Dempsey's also gave Alex a set of keys, so now he has lots to chew on!

  

Mommy and Alex - Our little family - Daddy and Alex 

 Alex, Alex and more Alex!  :)

Liz with her hard drive and Jared with his poker set.  

The last picture of Liz is with the frame that her and Becki send back and forth to each other year after year.  The picture is from a visit to Sioux Falls back in like 1999 ( or sometime long ago!)  Such a fun tradition!

Many thanks to everyone who made this such a wonderful Christmas.  We're so blessed to have such a wonderful family and to know that this special season is about the most special gift we've ever received, the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Remember the reason for the season is Him and we hope you've had a blessed Christmas!  

Love from the Bagwell family!

The many faces of Alex

Here's some random pictures of our sweet boy over the past few months (in no particular order)  We sure love him!

Just chillin' in his bumbo eating his crinkle blanket from Grandma Frieden

 Our little bubble blowing machine

 Mmmmmm, I love to eat my hands....both of them!

 Look at me!  I'm getting so big!

 Taking a cat nap on our lunch date for Daddy's birthday

 All smiles!  Just melts my heart!

 Alex's new way to wear his jammies....I went to get him the other morning and he had pulled his arm out of his p.j.'s....such a silly!

Such a cheeser!

Viva Las Vegas

We took a trip the end of July to Las Vegas to see Jared's mom and to visit my friend Jackie from Sioux Falls who was also vacationing in Las Vegas.  It was very very hot, so we didn't have a lot of outside things planned, it was more just to visit with people.  The drive wasn't too bad, but Alex didn't like being in his carseat basically anytime we were trying to get around Vegas.  We saw a few of the sites and took Alex swimming for the first time.  It was fun to get away, but we'll definitely want to go back when it's not so warm and when Alex is a bit older.  Here's a little peek into our vacation.

 

Our view heading into Vegas

 

 The Bellagio Gardens and Conservatory

 Alex's first time swimming....he didn't like it too much.  Mommy was more excited, I think!

 Grandma Bagwell and Alex....he sure was a happy boy!

 Jackie and me.....love this girl!

3 month photos

My friend Jen from work came over and we had Alex's 3 month photo shoot in July.  He did fantastic!  He was pretty happy and we got lots of cute pictures.  Here are just a few of our favorites.

Baby Blessing

Alexander's baby blessing was on May 13th, my first Mother's Day; it was perfect!  My parents were here from Iowa and after church we had a picnic over at Hatch Park with the extended family that could be there with us.  It was a special day for our family.  Jared was such a proud Daddy and did a great job blessing Alex.  We are so blessed to have this gospel in our lives and for the knowledge that our family is forever!

 Proud parents with our sweet baby boy

 Grandpa and Grandma Frieden from Iowa and our little family

 Proud Papa  :)

Grandpa Bagwell, Alex and Jared

Our handsome boy in his blessing outfit

6 months?!

Wow!  Where does time go?!  Our sweet little boy is 6 months old and we have loved having him around.  He's such a fun little boy and has such a cute personality.  He's very happy and gives his smiles to anyone and everyone!  We're so blessed to have him as a part of our family.  Here's some posts to catch up from the past few months!

Playtime

Alex loves his little playmat.  The lion is his favorite toy and he loves to look at himself in the mirror.  He sure is getting big.  We love him so much!

Alexander's Arrival

      Finally getting around to posting Alex's delivery story.  Our original due date was April 17th, but when we went for our weekly check up on Friday March 30th, we were in for a bit of a surprise.  Thursday night we had put the carseat in the car just to get it out of the house and we also thought we'd take our hospital bags with us to all our future appointments, just in case.  Well, we had some of our hospital bag with us, but forgot the last few things we had packed, plus our pillows and such.  At the doctors, they checked my blood pressure right away as well as if there was protein in my urine.  My blood pressure was pretty high, but they didn't say exactly how high.  We went into the exam room and Dr. Deschamps came in and had the nurse take my blood pressure again.  It was around 210/120...(normal is 120/80) and they said the protein in my urine was also off the charts for what their equipment measured.  She also checked me, but we were only dilated to a 1.  This appointment was at her office that's up at McKay-Dee, so she said we were walking down to labor and delivery 4 doors down.  I then asked her if after that we'd get to go home, and she said we weren't going home without a baby.  So it begins!
       We got checked in at the hospital around 3:45 on Friday afternoon and I got into the lovely hospital gown and they hooked me up to all sorts of stuff.  They had a hard time getting an IV in me because my hands were so swollen through my pregnancy my veins kept moving around.  They finally had somebody else come in and they were able to get the IV in my left hand.  I was hooked up to magnesium almost my whole hospital stay to prevent seizures and other problems resulting from the preeclampsia.  Since we were only at a 1, they put a pill up by my cervix to help that open and soften to get ready for delivery.

Here's me in my lovely hospital outfit and my blood pressure cuff and IV

All the stuff I was hooked up to almost for the duration of our hospital stay

      Jared and I had decided that we wanted to go for a natural delivery, no epidural.  Friday was pretty uneventful, I just felt crappy with the magnesium and the pills weren't doing too much to dilate my cervix.  The nurses kept checking all throughout Fri afternoon and evening, and by Saturday morning around 9, we were dilated to a 3.  Throughout the night they also had to keep checking my blood pressure, so the cuff tightened like every 10 minutes to take my blood pressure...it was a pretty sleepless night.
     Saturday morning Dr. Deschamps was the one that checked me and since we were at a 3, she went ahead and broke my water....that was the weirdest feeling ever!  After that, I started having some contractions on my own.  They weren't too bad to start but continually increased.  One of the nurses asked if I was getting an epidural and I said no because we wanted to go all natural, but she wanted to at least give her opinion.  She said because my blood pressure was so high, when I had to deal with the pain from the contractions, that made my blood pressure even higher which wasn't a good thing for me or Alex, so she at least wanted us to think about the epidural again, keeping that in mind.  Jared and I talked about it and decided that we would go for the epidural.  This was around 12 on Saturday.  They had just given me some meds to lower my blood pressure and then the dr came in to do the epidural.  I did not do well with the epidural, everything got really bright and I was dizzy and nauseous and my ears were ringing.....not a fun feeling!  I guess the epidural lowers your blood pressure as well, so my blood pressure dropped to like 80/40 because of the mix of the meds and epidural, so we spent the next few hours working to get my blood pressure back to a normal level.  
     Once my blood pressure was back to a normal level they were considering starting me on oxytocin (which is like the pitosin), but Alex's heart rate wasn't handling the contractions we were currently having, so they didn't want them to increase until he stabilized.  His heart rate would drop during the contractions and stay low even after they were over.  So the next little while was focused on getting him to handle the contractions ok.  I know they started me on the oxytocin, I'm just not sure what time all of that started.  At this point, we were still planning a regular delivery.  I was starting to have a lot of pain just on the right side of my body, so the had the dr come back in to check the epidural around 8:00 or 8:30.  He adjusted it a bit and it made me feel yucky again.  This time I started basically dry heaving because I didn't have any food in me to throw up.  At this point I'm pretty out of it and all I hear are the nurses talking and yelling saying 'We gotta go! His heart rate has dropped to 40'  I'm gagging in the little bag they give you as they're telling me to roll onto my side because my baby can't breathe.  Right.....roll on my side.....I'm completely numb from the boobs down (this dr did a spinal block and epidural combo) and you want me to roll on my side.....sure! 
     Next thing I know I'm being raced down the hall to the operating room.  They also want me to help get from the bed to the operating table....again, how do I do this when I can't feel my legs!  It's the weirdest feeling ever!  Because all of this happened so fast, Jared didn't get to be in the operating room with me, which made me even more scared and worried.  All I could think of was Alex....is he ok, is he going to be breathing, is he going to have brain damage, is he even going to be alive...all these bad things.  As I'm lying there flat out on the operating table without Jared, I'm just praying that he's ok.  Dr Deschamps was on call for the weekend, so she was the doctor that did the c-section.  We were dilated to a 9, so he had already gone a bit down the birth canal, and Jared said he saw them kind of tugging him back up out of there.  Once Alex was out, Dr Deschamps put my fears at ease, told me he was a little blue, but he was breathing and he was in the with nurses and Daddy, so he was ok.  He was born on March 31st at 9:17 pm.  He came in at 5 lbs 13 oz and was 19 inches long.
     As I lay there waiting for them to finish stitching me up, all I wanted to do was be able to see and hold my precious baby.  It seemed like forever before I was able to look into his sweet little face.  They got me cleaned up and into a recovery room and they brought Alexander in to me.  It was the most amazing moment, knowing that this sweet bundle of joy was sent to us from Heavenly Father and he trusts us enough to take care of him.  Because Alex had to be in the NICU, I only got to hold him for about 10 minutes or so.  Jared and I went back to our room and Alex went to the NICU.  He was in intensive care because of his low blood sugar and also because of his CRP levels (which have to do with infections I think) that they needed to monitor him.  I was so sad because having a c-section and trying to move around or get down to the NICU was a challenge.  I only made it down there once on Sunday, twice on Monday and once on Tuesday morning.  They brought Alex into our room on Tuesday afternoon and then we left the hospital about 8:00 pm on Wednesday night.  Not quite the experience we had planned for with our birth plan, but Alexander is here and healthy and that's all we can ask for!

Here's Alex in the NICU

Our little family

Alex ready to go home!

We are more than ready to go home!

It's definitely been an adjustment being parents, but we love Alex and wouldn't trade him for anything!      

Finished Nursery.....We Think!

We think our nursery is finished...minus our sweet little baby boy! And maybe a few wall decorations. My shower was last Saturday and we had a great time, lots of good company and cute clothes and lots of supplies! I'll post pictures of that as soon as I get them from those who took pictures :) Here's a few updated pictures of Alexander's room. Here's his crib, complete with bumper and sheet, compliments of my Mom. You can see our Bronco pillow pet acting as baby underneath a wonderful warm baseball blanket that was hand-made by my cousin Roseanne.

I finally got this shelf mostly cleaned off and it now houses all the diapers we got, along with some totes that are filled with sheets and blankets, and room for other things as well. I'm sure we'll find things to store in the totes!

Here's his changing table, complete with diapers, wipes, lotions, bath items and room for some other things as well.

And last, but not least, the new hamper we got and his dresser complete with the frames I just finished from an idea Rachel had. I mod-podged some sports paper on these frames from Michael's and now have a cute little set to go on his dresser. And soon we'll have some cute pictures of our handsome man to put in them. We're so excited!

All in all, everything is coming together, and even if we didn't get or buy anything else, I think we're still set to bring our little guy home and have a nice, safe, happy place for him to live. We're so excited to be able to welcome him to the world in about 6 weeks!

Valentine's Day

Jared and I celebrated Valentine's Day twice I guess you could say. We had some movie tickets and a Chili's gift card, so we had a date on Friday night almost for free! Can't beat that :) We enjoyed some delicious dinner at Chili's and then headed over to the new MegaPlex in Centerville and watched "The Vow." It was a good movie, but I wished the ending would have been a little bit better. It was still fun to get out of the house and enjoy a 'night on the town' before our little one gets here.

Here's a self portrait of us before heading out the door on Friday. I hadn't realized how chubby my face has gotten too! Good grief! My eyes squint up WAY more now than they normally do!

I got a delivery at work on Valentine's Day from my sweetheart. He had these beautiful tulips sent along with a very very sweet note. They still hadn't bloomed when I got them, but over the past few days, they started to bloom. They're gorgeous!

And inside the box was this note in an envelope that said someone was thinking about me. I sure am one lucky lady to have this wonderful man as my husband forever!

Jared had school on Tuesday night, so he stopped at home for about an hour to get some stuff done and then he headed up to school. He usually gets home around 8:30, so while he was gone, I ran to the store and picked up a few balloons and a yellow rose and got the table set with some candles and our etched glasses we got for our wedding.

We enjoyed a nice dinner of homemade lasagna, garlic cheese bread, and sparking red grape juice. It was great to spend a fun evening with Jared. All in all it was a great Valentine's Day for both of us!

Almost finished!

Our nursery is coming along great! We found a new pack n' play on clearance at Shopko and a nice 3 piece furniture set at Wal-Mart. The set included a crib, changing table and dresser. We've gotten most everything else out of Alexander's room, so now it looks more like a nursery! :) We're very excited and we're down to 11 weeks, which seems SO crazy!

Here's a picture of the crib and the changing table

Looking in at the crib and rocking chair

This is the AWESOME Broncos blanket my friend Linda at work knitted for Alexander. He's going to love it (if Jared will ever let him use it) ;)

Here's our clearance pack and play. It's also got the raised bassinet which we love.

And last but not least, a picture of the rocking chair again and the dresser as well. The dresser was horrible to put together, but we finally got it. The crib was super easy to get together, but I put it together in the living room, only to come to realize it wouldn't fit through the door to his room! So we unscrewed it and put it back together once we took the pieces into his room. All in all, things are coming together.

We have our baby class at McKay-Dee on Saturday and then Rachel's throwing a shower for me later this month. We can't believe in 11 short weeks our little bundle of joy will be here!