Christmas and SNOW!

Here are a few pics from our first christmas with the lil girl, oh and shawn using his christmas present :)

Grandpa Anderson and Shaylen

chillin with uncle jamie :)

We had many parties to go to and got to see a lot of family. It was very busy though. The night after Christmas Day Shaylen slept from 10pm till 7am!!! That probably wont happen again for a loooong time :)

Yes this is our backyard. And by that night we got another, oh, 4-5 inches of snow.

Thanksgiving, faces, and bedtime routines....

This was our little punkie's first Thanksgiving! And she did very well yucking it up with all the family and wearing a very festive turkey!

My brother met Shaylen for the second time over thanksgiving, making the treck from Chi-town. Shaylen was enjoying her time with the guys!

Shaylen LOVES her uncle Jamie



This girl has many facial expressions. These are all consecutive pictures of her making faces while she is sleeping. I have a feeling this girl is going to be a major character as a toddler.

We are reading to this little one, and making sure she knows that reading is important. Shawn enjoys reading to her in his simpsons PJ pants :) hehe. We are also trying to get into a bedtime routine which isn't always the easiest thing, but we are getting there. She has had her moments but she is getting to the point where she wakes up about 1 time per night, between 9:30pm and 6:30 am, not too bad.

All in all things are going pretty well. We don't really take her outside yet, due to the cold and flue season, but that is okay, we are enjoying the time we do have together at home. We are so thankful for our supportive friends and family that have offered help to us over the last 6 weeks as this girl has been growing and changing. We can't wait for her 2 month check up in January to see how the numbers have changed!

2 week appt and so much more!!

So Shaylen's two week doctors appt on the 16th went very well. We really do like our doctor and the time that she takes with us and Shaylen. Shaylen weighed in at a whopping 8lb's 7oz!!!!!!!! We were so excited to hear that. The doctor said that they hope to have the newborn up to the birth weight by the two week appt, well Shaylen exceeded that by almost 1 lb. Everything else looked good to the doctor and we will head back there on January 5 for her two month appt.

We are NOT in a schedule yet, though as of today she has gone down for a nap at 11am for three days in a row, so that is exciting. She is still getting up every three hours at night but that is so be expected though we are both ready for longer stints of sleep. It is hard to believe that she is already 3 1/2 weeks old, almost a month!!

We are gearing up for thanksgiving with this little turkey, and are excited to be spending it with family. We want to wish all of you, our friends and family a great thanksgiving!!!! Eat to your hearts delight, its just one day right?? :)

Her first day at home with us, she is thrilled, cant you tell :)

Shaylen enjoying the company of her bouncer.

We thought this was soo funny. We were about to go for a walk outside, when we saw this :)

Just after a bath, OH so cute!

One of her many facial expressions, when she is not too happy.

Oh one of my amateur picture taking moments.

Shaylen Ruby Anderson

This precious little girl arrived on November 1, 2009 at 9:43 pm.
She weighed 7 lb's 10 oz and was 20' long

So here is the relatively short story about her arrival. At 7am on Sunday morning November 1, my water broke, well started to leak, while on the way to my routine morning bathroom visit. I did not think that what I was feeling was normal, and I was quite right. We called the Doctor, they told us to go to the hospital, and made our way there. By 8:30am I was in my delicately picked out, and very flattering hospital gown. Around noon they found that I was not progressing as quickly as they would like. They wanted her out within 20 hours of my water breaking due to risk of infection, so then started the petocin to speed everything up a little.

At 1:30pm we thought we should call the grandparents and let them know what was going on. Of course they both promptly showed up to support us :). throughout the afternoon my contractions were worsening and by about 4 or 5 pm I was ready for the epidural and swore I had to be at least 5-6 cm! But to my great apparel, I was only at a 3cm. So after the fun process of getting the glorious epidural, I was feeling good, and ready to speed things up.

At 9pm my wonderful nurse, a friend from high school, checked to see how I was progressing and to her shock and mine, I was ready to start pushing. "side note" for some reason I just always thought there were like 5 people in the room when you start to push, like there was going to be this huge crowd, but that was NOT the case, and that was fine with me. So with my nurse and Shawn by my sides, I started to push. She was coming fast, and the nurse thought she maybe have to get the doc, but then he walked in. Within 17 minutes this girl was out!!! She arrived into this world so quickly, I guess she was just so excited!!

What an amazing experience and truly what a blessing from God. The two weeks since then have been a rollercoaster, but it is all well worth it. We have a lot of support thanks to friends and family. I just cant believe this girl is already 2 weeks old! She goes for her 2 week check up tomorrow, so we will keep you posted.

OH the name :). People keep asking where we got the name from. I truly found it online one day during my days off before we moved back to MI. Shawn and I both really liked it, and it kind of stuck. Of course Ruby was initially my idea, but how could Shawn resist with it being his favorite programming language. Also, Shaylen means "admirable" which not only compounded my reasoning for keeping the name. What a great name to live up to.

Right after she was born!

Our first Family photo
and the proud daddy! Don't you just LOVE the face she is making at him!
Then of course the grandma's were as proud as could be. This is number 4 for Shawn's mom and this is the first of this generation in my family and my grandma is the first great grandparent out of all 4 of her other siblings.

Loving it under the warmer after her first bath!

She had no problems with her car seat! Which was a big relief for us.

Fall is Lovely!

This fall has been so fun watching all the leaves change colors, the neighborhood be flooded with leaves on the ground, carving pumpkins, and drinking cider. We are still anticipating the arrival of our little girl, but in the mean time Shawn continues to work on the nursery, while I continue to get ready and organize. I am feeling good at 39 weeks, thought I remain very slow, and get very tired and worn out quickly.

I had a wonderful baby shower on October 17 that was right up my alley being all decked out with fall stuff. My friends made it an extra special day indulging me with my fall fetish. They actually carved the letters b-a-b-y out of pumpkins, filled bottles with candy corn, had hot cider, and pumpkin bread!

Last Saturday we had our neighbors across the street over and carved our pumpkins. Shawn and I cheated with a stencil :).

To all our CA friends, this is our house in the fall, and our street in the fall. The trees change continuously and the colors are so beautiful; this picture does not do it justice.

Above is my tummy at 39 weeks. She is not here yet, but that is okay, work is still being done on the nursery. As of last week Thursday I was 1 cm dilated and 75% effaced. We will see what my appt comes to tomorrow.

This is just a funny picture. I am 38.5 weeks and it looks like I have a pumpkin the same size under my shirt!!! OH and I totally planned having black on with an orange pumpkin to get into the Halloween mood!!

Baby Shower, 36 weeks and Fall in MI

Our first shower was September 26 with Shawn's family. We got many wonderful gifts!!

35 weeks, I look so tired, but really I wasn't. I don't know why my eyes are so droopy :)

This is the 36 week picture. Yes almost there.

I had my 36 week doctors appointment and everything was good. I was measuring perfect for 36 weeks and the heart rate was normal. I am not officially dialated at all but she says I am slowly progressing and the doc could feel her head! crazy! The tissues are softening but not really thinning yet. That is a good sign, cuz we need to finish the upstairs yet, and I am really just not ready for her to come into this world yet!! So I will continue to take it easy and get this house as ready as I can while getting tired so easily.
The bathroom is almost done, just needs some painting on the walls, Shawn got the ceiling done. The nursery needs walls but the windows are done and our bedroom just may need one more coat of paint on the ceiling we will find out tonight :). So almost there, just a few more baby steps.

Shawn and I have ventured into the fall season here in MI. I have decorated most of the house for halloween!! and we went to Cranes Apple orchard, and made our own apple sauce!! The leaves are continuing to change and we are loving the consistently cool weather. The rain has been very consistent as well :).

Shawn devouring all the apple skins, soo attractive :)

It is the first time we used our apple peeler!

Remodeling and 34 weeks along!

Our bathroom remodel, nursery fixer upper, and ceiling fix in the master bedroom is all coming along smoothly. My uncle Larry and cousin Ryan did an amazing job tiling our bathroom, and putting in three windows. The trim around the windows in the nursery looks original to the home which is the most amazing part!!

Our new tub!! No Shawn is not sleeping in the tub :)

The new window in the bathroom and the two new ones in the nursery.

I am now 34 weeks along, almost 35 weeks.

These are the new windows in the nursery with the amazing trim work!! I am very excited to be getting closer to having the nursery finished!!

~Labor Day, Home Remodel and 33 weeks along~

Labor Day with Family: It is so much fun to be able to be here for this now. Every memorial day, 4th of July, and Labor day my family does brunch and now we get to be here for these holidays!!

Ellie the daredevil :)

Mike the.... hmmm.... goofball :)

Oh and Shawn... the handsome

So the house is in shambles upstairs and we are now living with my mom and staying in her basement for now while the bathroom is getting redone, the nursery walls are getting redone, and our bedroom ceiling is getting repainted. Geez, so much work!!

The Bathroom shower partially torn out, and look, there was a cubby shelf thingy behind the shower wall. Gotta love these old houses!!
Shawn scooping up all the insulation.
The Nursery waiting for new walls and new windows :).

Our bedroom. The whole bed fit in the closet, gotta love that!! We are just scraping, filling in and painting the ceiling.
OUR NEW TUB!! So exciting!
OH and I am now 33 weeks pregnant!! This little girl is moving a lot!! Day and night. This is me standing on the front steps of our house.