We were discharged from the hospital this afternoon at 1:00 pm.  We picked up JZ from the Self’s house (who have been just amazing!) and then headed home.  It is so good to be back in our home!  I took an awesome nap in my own bed – so much better than the hospital bed!  One of my visiting teachers brought over a great dinner and now we are relaxing and playing games.  JZ was a bit jealous when he saw Emily in his old car seat.  After I took her upstairs to nap, Dan said JZ climbed into the car seat.  He is getting used to the idea now and even helped rock Emily in her seat.  It is all finally starting to sink in.  It is hard to believe that we are now a family of four!

Jess was driving me to work this morning and at around 9:01am she had a contraction. We had no reason to think anything of it, except she had a second one at 9:04. Contractions continued and by the time we got to work, we decided to turn back. Before we got home, we already knew that we just had to collect our belongings and head directly to our friend’s to watch JZ and then over to the hospital. We called the hospital before we got home and by the time we finally got there, they had been expecting us. They quickly moved us to get Jess checked out and at 10:49am, we were officially admitted! And 5 cm dilated (Jess was 3 cm a week ago).

Once they got us in our room, we had two nurses in high gear getting everything ready, baby table, IVs, forms, charts, etc. When we asked about why they were setting up the baby table already, they told us it was because “we know your type”. The nurses were Mary and Lynn, the unit manager.

She quickly dilated to 7cm and then 8cm. It was painful for Jess, but they needed to get everything else done before they could give Jess the epidural. The epidural finally came from Dr. Smith. I almost passed out, but not from the needle, but because it was 85 degrees in the room from a broken thermostat and I was dying of heat and lack of food. (Yea, yea, yea. Poor me. Spare me your lecture of how bad Jess has it. I’m just saying it all.) Thankfully, Lonny, the engineer, came and lowered it down to 65 for us. And I found the fridge and got a sandwich in me.

It’s 12:31pm, and they just broke her water. She’s now at 9 cm and having contractions every 3-5 minutes. The doctor is on his way from Issaquah (20 minutes away). Let’s see who gets here first.

Keep refreshing this page. I post more info as I get it.

12:53: Doctor Paley showed up. He won. But not by much apparently. It’s time to push!

1:23: Emily Elizabeth was born at 1:09pm. She has brown hair and a lot of it. No measurements yet. Mommy and baby are doing great.

1:28:  Emily is 20.5” and 7lbs. 14 oz.

2:23: Pictures added. Click album below.

4:24 JZ met his new little sister.  He mostly ran around the curtain that hangs by the door, but he was intrigued by Emily.  He touched her forehead and pulled off her hat.  I think he is going to be a great big brother!

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We had a great trip for Easter.  When we arrived on Saturday afternoon, my parents picked us up and we all drove down to Arizona where my sister lives.  We caught the last show of the Easter pageant at the Mesa temple.  We had a beautiful Easter with Jenny and her family.  We floated down the river, took a mini train ride, and celebrated my 25th birthday.

On Wednesday, we drove back to California.  My parents took us to Universal Studios for my birthday on Thursday.  JZ got to meet Curious George.  We had a great time at the beach on Friday and Saturday and played at the pool.  Unfortunately, our colds got pretty bad and on Friday I went to Urgent Care because my ear hurt so much.  We had the doctor check Dan out while we were there.  We both have ear infections and Dan’s throat is also infected.  So now we are on antibiotics and starting to feel a little better.

Early Saturday morning, my mom and I went to some garage sales.  One house was selling off a whole bunch of scrapbooking stuff.  Check out the picture I took of all the great stuff I got for only $29! 

Check out our pictures from our trip.  Hope you all had a wonderful Easter and thank you for all the birthday wishes!

After helping me sort laundry JZ decided to explore the laundry basket.  Who knew it could be so much fun!

We visited the Bellevue Botanical Gardens to see their annual light display.  Every year just gets better and better.  They make such great replicas of the flowers I couldn’t help taking a million pictures.  Here is a picture I took when we visited the gardens in September and one of the lights.  It is one of my favorite flowers and I immediately recognized it in lights.  See our other pictures in the photo album on the right.

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We had a quiet Christmas at home but really enjoyed our time together.

Santa brought us a new Xbox 360 game called You’re in the Movies. You play a bunch of mini-games in front of the Xbox Live camera and then it automatically extracts your bodies and puts them in a movie or trailer. Optionally, you can upload your videos to the internet, so you can download them to your computer. Here’s one we did on Christmas.

Here’s our Christmas photo album.

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This is us playing in the snow. As you may be able to tell, JZ is bored. He didn’t care about the snow at all. You’ll notice that our snowman fell over… most of the way. He hung in a back bend for 2 days.

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JZ surprised us last night by taking two steps while watching TV.  So we got out the video camera and had him walk back and forth from Mommy to Daddy.  He can do so many steps in a row.  Just last week, he would barely take one and then fall down.  Now he is a pro!  Check out our video!

For the second year in our new family tradition, we have created ElfYourself videos.

We made a country version and a disco version. Enjoy! And let us know which one you like more.

It’s hard to believe, but JZ is already 1!  He had his birthday on November 18.  Nancy and Laura came to Washington to celebrate his birthday.  We had a great weekend going to the zoo and shopping and had a nice birthday party Tuesday night with a few friends.  JZ got some great new toys and clothes.  He loves his new helicopter, especially the balls.  He pushes two around the room and then crawls after them.  It is a hoot!  Check out our pictures and his birthday video.

From the man who used to eat butter and fat with everything. From the man who claimed that his three basic food groups were fat salt and grease. Now this man, me, is on a diet.

I am on diet at the Pro Sports Club. The diet consists on protein shakes (and an overall high protein diet), 3 one-hour workouts with a personal trainer, a 30 minutes session each week with a dietician, a session with a psychologist every month and some meetings with a physician.

There are some of you who are questioning the high protein diet, but rest assured that these doctors (who run the program) know what they are doing. Here’s my numbers from before the program at my 5 week check point.

So yea, 5 weeks and I’ve lost tons of weight, lots of inches and have gained tons of energy and tons of freedom from the “necessity” of food (referring to all the snacking and overeating that had just become part of my life).

We embarked on a home repair adventure this weekend.  Dan borrowed a Suburban from a friend and we bought a new dishwasher.  We spent all day Saturday and 3 trips to the hardware store working on replacing our dishwasher.  JZ was our big helper.  It was a pretty tricky project for us, but now we have a beautiful new dishwasher and our sink and counters are just about free from all our piles of dirty dishes.  Yay!

Our little monkey at the Ward Halloween Party.

We went to Dan’s office on Friday for trick-or-treating and some coloring.  He was so good at choosing one candy out of each basket and putting it in his bag.  But as soon as he had five or six pieces in his bag he decided he had enough and just tried to eat his candy.

JZ stuck a wrapped Hersey’s kiss in his mouth and when I finally noticed he was chewing on something, I pulled it out and he had already gotten through the wrapper and was enjoying the chocolate.  He also ate some yummy licorice which you can see on his face :).

We had a wonderful cruise to Alaska with the Bowler family.  Grandma, Grandpa, Jenny, Joey, Benjamin, Haley, Jessica, Dan and JZ went for the trip.  We got to stop at 3 port cities - Skagway, Juneau and Ketchikan.  The cruise was so amazing.  The food was absolutely delicious (a little too delicious if you ask my waistline).  JZ ate so much!  He seemed to love the salmon and Halibut, so we ordered him his own plate each night!  We went swimming, watched evening shows, went dancing, played ping pong, shuffleboard, and more. Check out our photos to see more of the fun we had.

At the port cities, we did some hikes, saw glaciers, took a taxi tour, saw a salmon hatchery, totem pole museum and bald eagle care facility.  Pretty amazing!

On formal night, Benjamin fell down the stairs right before we were going to get pictures taken.  He got pretty banged up and so we went to see the ship's doctor.  He was fine, just some cuts and bruises.

My favorite part was the day we cruised through Glacier Bay.  A ranger came on board and gave a tour over the boat's load speaker.  We enjoyed gorgeous scenery while sitting and enjoying delicious food all day from the buffet.  We saw glaciers calve - pieces split off and fall into the sea.  It is pretty dramatic.

NBC will be offering some 2,000 hours of Olympic coverage at http://www.nbcolympics.com. If you missed something, don't have a TV or it wasn't broadcast, you'll probably find it there. It requires you to install the Microsoft Silverlight plugin (like Flash), but it is worth it. For better quality and more options, make sure you use the Enhanced Player (it'll be in the lower right after playing a video).

Jess and I watched the Opening Ceremonies yesterday and it was amazing. Over 15,000 participants! Worlds's largest LED screen. And some of the most amazing technology and performances you have ever seen. 10 minutes into the video, you will find a performance about paper and moveable type. This was my absolute favorite number. Watch this one 'til the end (about 6 minutes). That's all I'll say about that. :)

Definitely check it out!