What am I doing up at this hour???

Ok, here it is 4:30Am and I am sitting at the computer. I am asking myself, WHY? Some parts of motherhood are just not fun! So from the very beginning Hayden has been a pretty good sleeper. I got her on a regular schedule and she would sleep 10-11 hours at night from about one month on. I thought life was great! Then about a month ago things all went down hill fast. All of a sudden she started waking up in the middle of the night. I would go and put her binkie back in her mouth, wrap her back up in her blanket and she would fall back asleep...for about an hour. So I did this process about 6 times a night. I knew that she could go for a long period of time with out eating so I didn't want to feed her because I didn't want her to get into that habit. Well I put up with it for a couple of nights. Then we went on a little vacation and it is impossible to be on a schedule on vacation. So after we got back I thought she would go back to her old sleeping habits. WRONG! Then she got RSV, which is horrible! She couldn't breath well and was very congested so of course she wasn't sleeping well. So now after a couple of weeks we should be back to normal. If things were normal I wouldn't be awake right now. She is five months so I decided that she is old enough to let her cry it out! I absolutely HATE this part of being a mom. It breaks my heart to let her just cry. I would much rather just cuddle her but I know that she needs to learn to put herself to sleep. So after about 45minutes to an hour of crying I think she is settling down. It takes everything I have not to run in there, pick her up and snuggle her in bed with me. I am trying so hard to be a good mom and be strong. I know this first night is the hardest and then hopefully it will be much easier after this. Some people might say it is horrible to just let your child cry. I feel that although it is super hard right now it will make my life much easier in the future. So here I am awake in the wee hours of the morning...I stop for a second and there is SILENCE! I better get to bed! I LOVE being a mom! Hopefully tomorrow night will be much better!

FOUR YEARS OLD!!!

Our little Isabelle is growing up! She just had a birthday and was so excited to turn 4 years old! She absolutely LOVES birthdays and so she has been planning hers for quite a while. We asked her what she wanted for her birthday and told her maybe she could get a big girl bike. We took her to the store and had her sit on one but she had a fit and didn't want anything to do with a big girl bike. She is perfectly fine with her little tricycle. We than asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday and she said about 50 different things. We had a big day planned.

It started with Dad making her yummy Mickey Mouse pancakes and opening up presents. Than we went to Chuck y Cheese with two of her good friends! We ate pizza, played lots of fun games and won lots of tickets. Than we headed home so we could meet grandma and grandpa and all of her cousins at the Draper Temple Open House. Isabelle has always loved Temples since she was very little. She always asks when she can go inside whenever we drive by a Temple. So we thought that this would be a great experience for her. The Temple was beautiful and I hope that she enjoyed it.

After we came back to our house and Isabelle had chose to have taco's for dinner. We than had Hello Kitty cake and ice cream and opened presents from her cousins and grandma and grandpa. She had a great day and was very spoiled by her friends and family.

The weekend before grandma Penny came and stayed at our house and took Isabelle shopping at the Disney Store. She new exactly what she wanted and couldn't be talked into anything else. Over all she had a great day and now she loves to tell eveyone that she isn't three anymore....she is FOUR YEARS OLD!








Here are some fun facts about Isabelle:

Favorite Color: Pink
Favorite Food: Spaghetti
Favorite Cartoon: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
Favorite Toy: Dora Castle
Favorite Treat: Gummy Hotdogs:) (a little weird)

Can write her name by her self and loves to write others names
Loves to sing, talk and read books
HATES to get her hair washed and combed
Loves to help with her sister
LOVES to go to primary
Loves playing with friends and cousins
Bore her testimony all by her self in church
Loves being a princess!

Isabelle we love you so much and are so glad that you are in our family. You are such a special girl and bring so much joy into our lives. You are such a big helper and always loves to learn. We love you so much, Mom and Dad

Hayden's Big Day!

Last Sunday we blessed Hayden. We are so lucky to have her in our family. She is such a good baby and we really enjoy her. We invited family and friends that live close by to enjoy her big day. My mom made her a beautiful dress and headband. Todd gave her a beautiful, spiritual blessing. I am so grateful that he honors his priesthood and is able to give our children such great blessings. After our church we had lunch at our house and took lots and lots of pictures of the beautiful girl. We enjoyed family and friends and had a great day.

Holiday Rundown!

So now that the holidays have come and gone here is evidence of what we have been up to:

We picked the coldest night to go down town and see the Christmas lights! But we enjoyed it!





We spent Christmas Eve at our house with Todd's family and we opened presents from them. Both Todd and Isabelle got new camera's.



We all got new PJ's from my mom on Christmas eve. My parents came to our house early Christmas morning. It was so fun to see the excitement that Isabelle had. She got a new baby, an easle, and her most wanted Nativity set. Todd got some new tools that he can use on our new house!







New Years was great! We spent the night at the hotel with the Wahlen family. We played games, ate good food and stayed up all night!









What a blessing it is to have the chance to be surrounded by family and share great times and to celebrate our Saviors birth. We had a great holiday and hope all of you did as well!

RANDOM CRAZY LIFE!

Along with everyone else we have been a little busy and haven't had much time to blog. So this is going to be my attempt to catch up on what we have been doing, I might be a little random.

First off, Hayden is doing great! She really is a good baby and we are so happy that she is part of our family. She is eating good and finally sleeping good (for now) and that is about all she does:) She is almost smiling and is really starting to be more aware of what is going on around her. She constantly grunts and groans and makes sure that we don't forget that she is around. She is so dang cute that we can't go anywhere that we don't get stopped by strangers that want to look at her and comment on all of her hair! Isabelle absolutely loves her and runs to her every time she makes a peep. Isabelle loves to help and is such a little mother. I can't wait until they can be good friends and play together. They definitely look like sisters....here is a picture of Isabelle at one month and then one of Hayden ...do you think they look alike?


This year we had a great Thanksgiving! We spent the day down in Ephraim with Todd's family. We watched the Macy day parade, relaxed, played games and ate lots of yummy food. Todd had to work early the next day so we weren't able to spend the night. I usually like to get up early and head out to the crazy stores on Friday but with Todd having to work I wasn't able to. I couldn't help myself, I dragged both girls out with me to a few stores later that morning and got a little shopping done. I think people thought I was crazy. I love being in the hustle and bustle of the season and I can't miss a good bargain:) Later that evening I joined all of the girls in my family for our annual overnight shopping spree. All of my cousins, aunts and grandma spent the night at a hotel and shopped and shopped and shopped. We stayed up late doing facials, talking and just having fun. Then we woke up and shopped some more. More people thought I was crazy to go because I just had a baby two weeks before but I couldn't miss out on all of the fun. I love my family and am so grateful for a wonderful grandma and mom that spoil us!


Next was another fun annual Christmas tradition....cutting down Christmas trees. Todd had to work and I didn't want to miss out so I took both girls and down we went to the cabin. Isabelle was so excited to go and find a tree! Luckily my sister is 8 months pregnant so she stayed in the warm cabin with Hayden. We took 13 kids up the mountain looking for 4 trees. We looked and hiked and looked and hiked and finally we all found one. Isabelle was a good little hiker, at one point she was getting tired and she said, " mom, I just wish there was an elevator up here!" The three little ones did great! I want to thank my dad for helping me cutting and carrying my tree down since I had my hands full with Belle. We had a hotdog, shot the guns and had a great time! What I love about fresh cut tree's is that they never look the same on the mountain as they do in our house, the GREAT smell, and the natural, not perfect shape! Todd put up the tree once we got it home and me and Isabelle decorated it. Only 15 minutes after the last decoration was on.....it tipped over! It was late and I was tired so we put it back up, cleaned up the water and then I waited until the next day to redecorate the tree. It looks great and smells even greater!



Isabelle is in a little dance class and LOVES it! She goes once a week for an hour and that is not enough. She asks me every morning if she gets to go to dance that day. There are just three other girls in her class and her teacher is great. They learned a little Christmas dance to the song, "Santa Claus is coming to town". Every time she hears that song she goes crazy and has to stop everything and do her dance. They are having a little performance but unfortunately we aren't going to be able to make it so they had a dress rehearsal that she was so excited about. She is going to be able to perform her dance at our family Christmas party. She is such a little performer and loves to show off!

So far this has been such a fun Holiday season! Isabelle is so excited for Santa to come and has written him at least a dozen letters. I love watching the excitement in her eyes. We also got to go to the Festival of Trees which was a ton of fun. It is amazing at all of the work and time that people put into donating trees. We got to have breakfast with Santa and Isabelle got to sit on his lap and give him her letter. After sitting on his lap she didn't want to leave and she asked me if she could go and dance for Santa! I told her that Santa would love to see her dance but that there were lots of other kids that wanted to see Santa so she couldn't. She is a crazy girl!

Another great thing about this time of year is family Christmas parties! I am so grateful for such a wonderful family and I love getting together. I have a great Aunt and Uncle that put together a great party. We had wonderful food and then we got to ice skate. Todd had never been before and he was a natural. He did great! I tried and tried to get Isabelle to skate but there was no way I was going to get her out on the ice. So me and Todd had a fun time and I was impressed that my mom even tried it. We also had our annual Wahlen Christmas party at Hill Air Force Base. I love this party because we get to get dressed up in our new Christmas dresses, we have a nice dinner, have a little talent show, do the nativity and then Santa comes. Every year it is always so fun and I am so grateful for my grandparents for giving us a wonderful night. This year I got the two girls matching dresses...it is so fun to have two girls now:) Isabelle did her little dance and did it perfect. And of course Santa was great! She was so excited and loved the little present he gave her. Even Hayden sat on Santa's lap and got a present. Here are some pictures of that night.







So that has been our RANDOM CRAZY LIFE!

SURPRISE!!

If you haven't already noticed we had a little surprise last Saturday night. Hayden Penny Brown decided to come and join our family two weeks early! Even though I wasn't quite ready for her to come we are so happy that she is here. My due date was November 21 but I was scheduled to have a C-section on the morning of November 14th. She had other plans! Friday night November 7th, I wasn't really feeling well and I was having some contractions. I just thought that they were normal and just thought that they would go away. They weren't that bad and I was able to sleep through them that night. On Saturday morning Todd let me sleep in while he finished painting the nursery. Later that afternoon we went to get Isabelle a twin bed and then a bed for the guest room. I wasn't feeling great again but I was 38 weeks pregnant so I didn't think much of it. All day I was pretty miserable and was still having contractions, they were getting harder but I just dealt with them. We were out doing errands all day, we stopped by Todd's sister and then by my parents house. By this time I was in a lot of pain and the contractions were about 10-12 minutes apart. We decided to call the hospital and ask them if I should come in. They told me to drink lots of water, lay on my side and take a bath. If the contractions didn't stop then to come in and they would check me out. We stopped at Cafe Rio to get some dinner before we headed home. I followed the nurses instructions and it made me a little more comfortable but I was still having contractions.

At 9:00pm I told Todd I didn't want to do this anymore and I wanted to go to the hospital and get checked. We pulled Belle out of the bath, put her PJ's on and jumped in the car. At this point I was in pain and was exhausted. We got to the hospital and while I was walking in I had some pretty hard contractions, they were getting harder and harder to breath though. They admitted me, hooked me up to the machines and then the nurse came in to check me. I told her that I was scheduled for a c-section the next week and that I really didn't want to be there. She checked me and we were all shocked to find out that I was dilated to a NINE!!! She immediately called the other nurses and started getting things ready. She said that I was definitely having the baby tonight. Todd called my parents and told them to come right away. The nurse said that they were going to try their hardest to get me to have a c-section but they didn't know what was going to happen. They called my doctor and the anesthesiologist and told them to hurry. At this point I was pretty nervous, I was scared I was going to have to have her natural. Luckily just in time my doctor showed up and my parents got there. They finished with all of the set up and wheeled me into the operating room. They gave me a spinal and then things were great from then on. Medicine is great!

This c-section was a lot different then with Isabelle. It is amazing how fast they took her out. Todd was with me the whole time and was telling me what they were doing. It is an amazing feeling. I could feel pressure but I couldn't feel any pain. She was finally out and let out a little cry. She had lots of dark hair and weighed 7.1lbs. and was 19.5 inches long. I went into the recovery room where Todd came in with the baby. While I was recovering Isabelle was with my parents and she was very anxious to see her new baby sister. She kept going up to the nurses desk and asked them when I was going to come out. She was so excited and wanted to hold her little sister. Todd told her that her name was going to be Hayden and Isabelle said no it is Isabelle. We had an exciting and surprising night and we were very happy that she is here.




After a great stay at the hospital we are home and enjoying our new addition. Todd has been able to take some time off of work and I am so grateful for what a great husband and dad he is. He has been taking great care of us! She is still a little confused about her days and nights but other than that she is a great baby. It really is amazing to me that just a week ago she was growing inside of me. I feel so blessed to bring this little child into this world and I am so excited about what our future holds.