Christmas Morning...

is so MAGICAL when you have little ones to enjoy it with!

Happiness...

Curiosity...

Finally rocking out after talking about a guitar for a month straight...

look at those EYES!

Happy 27th!

Happy Birthday Brian! Here is what Brian has been up to for the past year!

Celebrating his 26th birthday!

Going to the Dodger game on Mormon Night!

Going on a lot of hikes and delving into a new hobby: geocaching!

Going on a mini family trip up to Santa Barbara. Here they are in front of the Santa Barbara Mission.

Completing Law School. This was his last day! As you can see from all these pictures, Braden is daddy's little sidekick.

Becoming a daddy of two! Little Jade loves his daddy. As you can see, it has been a big year for Brian! Happy 27th birthday to our favorite man!

Braden's 2nd Birthday!

May 26th was Braden's birthday and this is how we celebrated! Braden woke up to a house full of balloons and a big birthday present! Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the package opened, but trust me on this one: it was in Braden's words "a try-see-cull" and he loved it! It is a little big for him still, but he will grow into it.

We then headed outside for a birthday party with his friends.

We ate yummy pizza and Braden and his friends played together on the playground!

Then it came time to blow out the candles and dig into the yummy oreo cupcakes.

Happy birthday Braden, we love you!!

Baby Jade

Four days after Brian's graduation, we were blessed by this little guy coming into our world.

Let me share with you how that day went. I woke up on Tuesday, May 11 at 5 am with contractions that felt pretty regular and upon looking at the clock, I figured they were coming about every 7 minutes. I got out of bed and went and laid on the couch and continued having contractions for two hours. Then, when I went to wake Brian up at 7 to tell him, they stopped! Throughout the rest of that morning I had contractions that would come and go, but none were unbearable and they were fairly short, so I took it easy and hung out with the family. I took a walk and went down to the playground with the family to let Braden play.

We ate lunch and then I had a couple of pretty uncomfortable contractions, so I went to lay down on my bed. This was at 1 pm. The contractions were every 7 minutes again, but this time they were longer and a lot more painful. I relaxed through them with the help of my darling husband/coach (I honestly don't think I would survive labor if he wasn't there). Every so often I would change positions to try to help labor progress, but every time I moved I was incredibly uncomfortable and it made things a lot more painful. I labored for a couple of hours and then started insisting we should go to the hospital. Brian called the hospital and they insisted I should stay home until the contractions were "five minutes apart for a solid hour." I then continued to insist that we should leave for the hospital. Good thing I did.

We left for the hospital around 4 pm, leaving Braden asleep for his nap (I am so glad he was napping during all of this) with the baby monitor on and with our neighbor friends. Walking down the stairs and to the car took an eternity because with each couple of steps I took a contraction came, meaning when one would end I took a couple of steps and the next one would begin so I would have to stop and relax through it. These were no ordinary contractions, either! They were majorly painful!!

The car ride was extremely uncomfortable, but we arrived at the hospital, valeted the car, and they wheelchaired me to labor and delivery. By this point, the contractions literally felt like they didn't have a beginning or an end, which was disheartening because, doing this all naturally, my relief comes in between contractions, but there was no in-between, and thus, no relief. They took me straight to a LDR (labor delivery recovery) room and asked me to change into a gown and pee in a cup. I told them that wasn't going to happen and I asked to be helped onto the bed so that I could lay down and try to get more comfortable. They took their leisurely time doing all the check-in stuff. We gave them our birth plan and asked for a midwife. They checked my dilation and their faces went blank and confused. The midwife said that the resident obstetrician who checked me couldn't tell if I was at a zero or a ten, but it was one or the other! Good news (since I knew before labor I was already dilated to 3), and boy did I need it at that point! They said I could start pushing whenever I felt the urge.

A couple of minutes later I felt the urge to push. I pushed through 3 contractions and then baby Jade Isaiah Maucotel entered our world, all 8 pounds 8 ounces and 20 inches of him! He was born at 5:38 pm. A mere 4.5 hours after my labor really started and only an hour after arriving at the hospital! Although this labor seemed a lot more painful than my labor with Braden, it was also a lot shorter (Braden's was 16 hours), and the pushing (which is where the real strenuous work comes in) was a lot easier (3 pushes vs. Braden's 1.5 hours of pushing). We love our little Jade.