Logan Kyler Bair

Against everyone's will we decided to keep the name a secret even though we were bribed and threatened by our family and friends to at least give them a hint. We really only had his first name picked out and it wasn't until the night before he was born that we actualy decided on his middle name. I think we'll probably take that route with our future children as well. We ended up having to stay at the hospital an extra day because Logan was jaundiced. We came home on Saturday but had to go back to the hospital on Monday and stayed until Wednesday. The poor little guy had a lot of "cooking" to do under the lamps. We were just so glad to finally get him home for good. I knew Logan had personality before he ever came out but it became more apparent once he was actually born. He loves to "mark his territory." Right after he was born, he peed all over the nurse and since then has peed on almost every spot in our house, his own face, and of course Scott and I get it almost daily. He was kind of a dream baby the first couple weeks. He was eating and sleeping really well and when he was awake he was just a little angel. At nine days I was taking pictures of all his little smiley faces and it was like he was loving every minute of his little photo shoot. We had been reading a book called "Babywise" and planning how we were going to get him on a schedule and get him to start sleeping through the night and everything was looking really good so far. Scott and I are completely clueless about what we're doing so it's all been quite the learning experience for both of us. Anyway, the book seemed so clear on what to do and we were certain that if we followed the instructions everything would fall into place. Well at two and a half weeks he became a different baby and he wasn't being cooperative or following any intructions. Now he's really cranky at times, is very inconsistent with eating, and never wants to go to sleep even though he's completely exhuasted. He keeps me up at night, of course, and makes me really work hard at everything from getting him to eat and sleep to dressing and burping him. We've almost thrown out the "Babywise" book so if anyone has gotten this to work for them please let me know your secret cause we're already behind on his progress toward our goal of sleeping all night. Anyways, one thing that hasn't changed since birth is his terrifying scream/cry when we change his diaper. I don't know if he'll ever get used to it. All I have to say is it's a good thing he's so dang cute or I might be tempted to just send him back. We do have some really good, calm, happy times but we're much more grateful for them than we were the first 2 weeks.

Scott's putting on Logan's very first diaper minutes after he was born.

Our very first family photoTime to finally go home...

Our first couple days home...Little did we know we'd be right back in the hospital on Monday. Poor little guy.

So after we finally got to come home for good I decided to do a little photo shoot. This is Logan at 9 days old. He has quite a personality.

Bun in the Oven

Now that this part is all over with I'm a little more able to talk about it. First of all, if anyone ever told me how hard pregnancy was I'm not so sure I would have shed all those tears and had so many sleepless nights during the heartwrenching year we were trying to get pregnant. I realize not everyone has such a difficult experience during pregnancy and to those I say "I really don't want to hear about it." Though I know things could always be worse and I'm grateful they weren't that didn't make my experience any easier. I had morning sickness all day and my whole pregnancy, however, by the last couple months as long as I took my perscription I didn't get sick or even feel sick most of the time, thank goodness. Having diabetes I stressed out trying to take extremely good care of myself and my little bundle of joy. I tested my sugar about 10 times a day and changed my medication doses sometimes twice a week but I was still so guilt stricken if anything wasn't perfect even if there was nothing I could do about it. I went to the doctor every week to every 2 weeks the majority of the pregnancy and then my last trimester it was twice a week which got so old but for the most part it gave me some peace of mind. I think aside from the diabetes stuff the first couple trimesters were pretty normal with the exhaustion, aches and pains, sickness, discomforts, mood swings, etc. but the end was a different story. The little sucker was growing very big despite the fact I had regulated my blood sugar better than I ever had before plus someone that's 5 feet tall doesn't have a whole lot of room for a big baby to fit anyway so sitting, standing, sleeping, walking was extremely uncomfortable. I developed a couple of uncommon but normal pregnancy symptoms. One was PUPPS which is this awful rash all over your belly that itches and burns unlike anything I have ever felt before. Apparently only 1 percent of pregnant women get this. It, of course, can't be cured and doesn't go away until after delivery and progressively gets worse throughout the pregnancy. There's nothing you can do to treat it or relieve the pain except for put on some lotion wich isn't that effective. I also developed polyhydramnios which pretty much just means I had a lot of extra amniotic fluid. Not a big deal right? Wrong. Remember how I mentioned my baby was big and I was, well, once a small person? Well add a bunch of extra fluid to that and you have a ridiculously huge, uncomfortable Alicia. Only 1 percent of women develope this as well. I'm the lucky one that got both. People literally thought I was ready to pop like 10 weeks before I was even due. Then toward the last month and a half I started having high blood pressure which just makes you feel yucky. Luckily the doctor took me off work once the polyhydramnios developed and my blood pressure started rising. At 37 weeks they decided to put me out of my misery and get the little guy out. They did an amnio test to make sure his lungs were developed, which they were, and scheduled an induction for Wednesday, April 29 at 3pm. So Tuesday we packed up, did a little video journal about what was going to take place the next day and went to bed excited for the next day. Then at 1am my water broke, which after losing what seemed to be 5 gallons from my big belly I immediately was feeling relieved and decided I could have gone much longer if all that fluid wasn't making me so miserable. Anyway I was just glad to know the little guy was as ready to come as much as I was ready for him to come. He was born at 6:25pm so he took his time but it really wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. Just the last hour and a half was the only really difficult part. He weighed 7 lbs. 13 oz. I was so glad I had him early or he might have been around 9 lbs if I had him at 40 weeks. The second I saw that beautiful baby boy straight from our Heavenly Father with his perfect little button nose and his adorable chubby cheeks I knew why I had gone through it all and why Scott and I had prayed and fasted so long for the Lord to bless us with a child. We thank God every day for our little miracle.



Here I am at 27 weeks.

This was at my shower. I was 32 weeks.

The next 2 were at 36 weeks.

After all the hard work Logan was finally here.

P.S. Yes much more pictures are coming of Logan...what you all really are waiting for.

Scott's Feminine Side

I found these pictures from a few months ago and thought this needed to be documented. A few months after we moved into our ward I was called as a beehive advisor. I'll admit I was a little intimidated by this calling considering it's been a long time since I was 12 or 13 and I don't know the first thing about what girls that age are into these days. I know...what am I 80? But that's really how I felt. Anyway, one of the girls, Penelope, lives a few streets away and occasionally stops by for a surprise visit. One night she came over and brought one of her sisters. I happened to be painting my nails and thought this would be a good opportunity to have some serious girl bonding with some manis and pedis. Well...apparently not a whole lot has changed since I was 12 or 13 because what was more intriguing than having their nails painted by their cool, new leader was, of course, chasing Scott around trying to paint his nails. Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of girl bonding with all the attention on Scott. It was, however, very entertaining to see Scott run away and get attacked by little blonde girls with nail polish in their hands. Ultimately a compromise had to be made because there was no way I was letting those three make a mess out of the carpet and also because they pretty much wouldn't give up, or leave, until they accomplished their goal. So Scott ended up agreeing to sit still if they painted only one toenail each. I just had to save the girl bonding for another time.

New York

More catch up...
Last June we also went to NYC with our friends Aaron and Amber. It was probably one of the coolest vacations I've been on. It started out a little rocky for me though. We, of course, were flying there all day long. Our flight was delayed and we ended up landing in rush hour. Being the frugal people we are, mostly out of necessity, we rode a bus to the subway to eventually get to our hotel all the while dragging a weeks worth of luggage with us. To say there was standing room in the bus and subways would be an exaggeration. I had never seen so many people at one time in my life and after being pushed, shoved, stepped on and knocked over I'm certain none of them saw me. It was such a relief once we finally got to our hotel because I was spent. I was hot and sweaty, exhausted, hadn't eaten in what seemed like days, and was livid at Scott for continually leaving behind his little 5'1" wife in this scary city to get trampled on and lost. The hotel looked pretty old but it was fixed up nice. We got our key for room 513, or whatever it was, and found out we had to climb 4 flights of stairs...not because the elevator was out of service but because this hotel didn't have an elevator. That was the last straw! I was ready to turn around and go home. I had had enough NYC to last me a lifetime. But...once I let out some steam, got some food in my belly, and some rest I was good to go.

Everywhere we went in NYC was just like you see on TV and movies. Time Square was a lot of fun to go to because it's just so exciting even when there's nothing going on and you're just walking around. People and taxis are everywhere and the billboards and lights are overwhelming.

The coolest thing about Central Park is that it's this huge, gorgeous park right in the middle of all the huge buildings in this dirty, overcrowded city. The second you step into that park it's like you're in a different world.

We couldn't miss out on going to a couple famous spots from Seinfeld.

We went to a Mets/Yankees game which was a lot more exciting for the boys but definitely a good time. Even the baseball games are bigger and better in NY. Those New Yorkers are not playing around when it comes to baseball...kinda reminds me of the Sooner fans during football season back at home. We, of course, had to go to a broadway musical in NYC so after a little compromising with the boys we decided on Legally Blonde. I've been to quite a few broadway shows but this was surprisingly the best. It was so funny and entertaining...even Scott really liked it. We also went to the famous areas like Little Italy and So-ho. So-ho kind of reminded me of Mexico because of all the little booths where people were selling things and honestly I wasn't that excited about it but Little Italy was a lot of fun and they had some great food which is all I really need.

Here are pitures of the New York Stock Exchange, the bull that's on a lot of movies, and the site of the World Trade Center. Wall Street wasn't too exciting for me. That's more Scott's thing but it's nice to say I've been there. I was really disappointed with the World Trade Center. They haven't done any kind of memorial, signs, nothing to show what it used to be or remember who's lives were lost or anything. The construction site you see above is all there is to it.

We didn't go to the Statue of Liberty but we rode the ferry over to Staten Island to see it. That day it was pretty rainy and foggy but we got a few good pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, and I think that other picture is the city of Brooklyn. Once it started clearing up the view was gorgeous.

Carnegie Deli was our favorite place to eat out there. We had to go 2 nights in a row cause we liked it so much. A lot of famous people have been going there for years as you can see in the pictures behind us. They're known for their corned beef sandwiches and cheesecake and not only are they huge they are to die for.




Here's just some pictures of all the places we went to: Rockefeller Center, Macy's, The Today Show, NBC Studios, and Radio City Music Hall. The NBC tour was pretty cool but the Rockefeller Center tour was a little too much for me. My legs were tired and the tour guide yelled at me for sitting down during his boring 2 hour tour. Macy's and pretty much every single store we went into were the most beautiful stores I had ever seen. They were so big and had so much stuff in them I could've spent days just shopping in NYC. It was like heaven. Although, if you ask Scott I'm pretty sure he'd say it was like hell.

This is when we went to the Empire State Building. It was extremely crowded but well worth it.
You really don't understand how tall that building is until you actually go to the top. It was amazing everything you could see and the view of the city up there. The pictures really don't do it justice.

Cruise

Last June we went on a cruise with Scott's family. Some people liked to call it the "grandma bair" cruise but I like to think we went because it was our last big hurrah before Matthew went on his mission. Whatever the reason we had a great time. I have no idea why I don't have pictures of Mama and Papa Bair but I promise they were there too.

Mostly we did a whole lot of eating, laying out, eating, an occasional nap and then eating. It was amazing. We had fries with honey mustard in between meals all day and then for dinner we ate like 3 appetizers, 4 main dishes, and 5 desserts. Can you get a better vacation than that?

New House

Scott and I bought a house in Gilbert last May. It was probably one of the most frustrating and stressful things we've ever done but finally we found one that was perfect for us. It seemed like it was just meant for us the way it all worked out. This is right after we bought it. Not the best pictures but they'll do for now.

New Leaf

Okay. So I've made a goal that I have to be better at blogging since we have Baby Bair coming along. The family wants to be updated and I need to start documenting all the great things in life so I don't forget. So...this is me feeble attempt to catch up on just the highlights of the past year and turn over a new leaf to become a real blogger.