A Baby!?

I keep waiting for the moment when I have a bunch of free time so i can sit and write a nice blog post about the birth story and Hallie and then i just decided that is NEVER going to happen! So I will write what i can before the crying starts ;) So here is a summary of Hallie's birth story.
Jared and I had been trying to move for a couple months since he had a new job and was having to drive an hour to work and back again every day. But finding an apartment was taking a LONG time. It was less than a week from my due date when Jared's mom and i found some new apartments in Newberg that still had openings! So we filled out the papers and waited to know when we could move! My Due date was August 7th, a Thursday. They said we could move in on August 4th, a Monday. Well, I began having contractions on Sunday August 3rd. They were very consistent all day long, but weren't very strong And were coming every 20 minutes. That night they started getting pretty strong and were hurting and were about every 8 minutes apart. Monday morning we were supposed to get everything loaded up and move to Newberg but we decided I should go to Newberg early so that if the baby came I would be close to my hospital. So Jared's mom and I came to newberg and started walking around to get things moving. (Jared was at work) and Jared's Dad and employees loaded up our old apartment and moved us over. I went into the hospital in the afternoon, the contractions were strong and every 3 minutes apart! But they said I still wasn't dilated enough. So I came to the apartment and started getting things unpacked! i went back to the hospital around 7pm and they admitted me in! They let me sit in the Jacuzzi for a while and when i got out I asked for an epidural because those contractions are PAINFUL holy cow! I never expected labor to feel the way it did, it was a surprise! But then the epidural came and I thought I was in Heaven! It was so amazing. i couldn't feel any pain, but i could still feel the contractions! Hallie Ann came on Tuesday morning at 1:30am. She is so beautiful and we love her so much! We can't help but smile every time we see how cute she is!
That was a very watered down story, but I'll add some pictures and then get Hallie because she's calling me!

Our new apartments in Newberg

My last bump picture taken August 4th

As fresh as a baby gets

making funny faces from the moment she was born

her first outfit, she still fits in it :) But it actually fits her now

I love it when she yawns

She was so tiny! 7lbs

Looking back i would have taken A LOT more picture in the hospital. Next baby i guess!

outside

I love to be outside! And i LOVE the sun. That's why summer is my most favorite time of the year! There's just nothing better than getting to be outside, it doesn't matter if i'm just sitting in the grass, hiking, walking down the street, playing in the water, or just going to take out the trash, it makes me happy to be outside in the sun! When i'm inside i always open all the blinds in the whole house because i want it to be as bright as possible! Summer is just the best, this summer is quite a bit different from the other summers in my life, and I'm thinking i may have to get used to it, at least for a little bit. I miss having summers off from school and from work and from any worries and just going on long road trips and vacations the whole time. That was so fun and i will always remember and treasure those times because they really were a huge part of my life. were not quite in the position where we can do all those things now though, with Jared working and not getting any time off. Hopefully as he moves his way up the Walmart chain we will get more time to vacation!
But don't worry, were not completely boring people :) We've made some of our own little mini vacations on the weekends!

A couple weekends ago we went for a drive up the mountains and took our gun and went shooting. It was a fun day out :)

We stopped on this bridge over the river. i want to take a tube up and float the rapids another weekend!

 

 

After shooting we went to the Rose Gardens, it was a cool place. (Can you spy me? I was hiding!) haha

I thought that ray of light shining was kinda cool

This was at a mansion up on a hill and we could see the whole Portland City from up here!

Another Weekend we went on a picnic at a duck pond we know about. The picnic was really fun but then we tried to feed the ducks afterwards and they wouldn't eat our bread! They were already full! So I thought we needed to find some other ducks that were hungry to feed our bread to. So we googled a new place to go and fed those ducks instead and they LOVED it! They were starving! :) And then we found a trail along this little creek nearby and we hiked that, it was fun!

This is jared chasing the ducks that were too full to eat our bread. He figured they needed some exercise. haha

Here we are on our little hike up the creek

we went camping this past weekend. There's our tent in the background

Jared made a nice fire with all the sticks we found around camp

We hiked up to thee top of the hill

There were flowers EVERYWHERE, they were pretty. I had to smell them. :)

he is just so cute i had to kiss him

Kidney Lake

This past weekend we went camping at Kidney Lake. It's across the Columbia River in Washington. We had a lot of fun hiking and making fires and hanging out, but sleeping on the ground was NOT fun for me while pregnant! The last 8 pictures were from our camping trip.

So this has been our fun the past few weekend! It's such a great life :)

Scatter post

BEWARE; this post is very long and probably boring!

Ok lets just start with baby talk! So, being pregnant is not what I expected! Like, half the time I don't even remember that I am pregnant. The only time I really know Im pregnant is when I can feel her kicking, and thats like the coolest feeling ever! Sometimes it freaks me out though...i mean, theres a human inside of me! WHAT?!? isnt that weird? I mean, how is that even possible!? But its super cool too. The rest of the time I don't feel pregnant, I just feel sick or achey or tired and that's just kinda lame and not as awesome! But I guess I know what people mean when they say they feel pregnant now. They're basically just trying to tell you that they're not comfortable and feel bloated!

We got a crib!

 We can't wait to meet our new baby girl! We have her crib and changing table all set up in her little room! I have been sewing crib sheets and a nursing cover and a nursing pillow too! Its so fun getting things ready for her arrival! Even though we're no where close to being where we probably should be! Like, if I went into labor early it's gunna be bad news for this baby! So we are thinking of naming her Halle, but we don't know how to spell it. I liked Halle, but Jared says Halley, and other people say Hallie or Hallee. It's just so hard to decide! I just want people to see it and know that it's pronounced Halle. Not Haley or Hollie! Oh decisions decisions. I mean, i guess it's not a big deal, it's just someones name who will be carrying it around for the rest of their life that's all. ;)

So a couple weeks ago I got to take a little vacation! It was so much fun, the only thing that would have made it better was if Jared could have come with me! i started out by flying from Portland into bakersfield! Krystalee was there with Fife!!! It was so great spending the whole vacation with KL and Fife! I just love that boy! Hes just the cuttest little chubby cheeked baby in the whole world! So we spent a few days in California with our parents and Donny and Alyssa! It was really fun, i wish we could have stayed in Cali for longer! The weather was just so perfect and hot! We ran the river and had a picnic and i had a baby shower there too! It was all so much fun! Then we drove to utah for the next week and a half! We visited Troy and Aubree in logan and got to meet new baby maysa! She is soooo cute! oh my goodness so precious! And we saw new baby Miriam as well! Dang, jared and i have our work cut out for us if we want to have the cuttest babies...gulp! We also went to Elk Ridge for a few days, and we stayed in Provo with Colby and Mykel for a few days too! It was all very fun! i loved being able to see everyone! We ended the trip staying at Gma and Gpa's house in Draper for a couple days! It's always fun at Grandma's house! 

Me and KL on the Kern

Colby carrying sleeping Fife, dad and kl hiking up Red Rock Canyon in Provo

So I've been home for a couple weeks now, which is super strange because i feel like I just got home! The weather here has actually been pretty nice! IT was sunny all last week and its sunny today too! I'm actually sitting outside on our picnic table as I write this because the sun feels so good! Tonight I am challenging Jared to another tennis match, we played last week and i lost by one game! (but i let him win, ha! Like he could actually beat me! ;) 

Jared and i at our latest tennis match!

today's view out our sliding door

Ok one last story. On sunday We were over at jareds parents house for sunday dinner. After dinner we decided to play a game called Heads Up, it was our first time playing it. basically you have a word but can't see it and everyone on your team trys to explain it to you and you have to guess what it is. It was a fun game and it got me laughing pretty hard! Well I was drinking some milk and started to laugh! Never a good combination! well milk started draining out of my nose so i headed for the bathroom thinking OH SHOOT! And then i started coughing because i was choking on the milk! And since i've been pregnant its never a good idea to cough, ever. Well I couldn't help it! I peed my pants like completely! It was so bad! So I call jared over and quietly ask him to go find me a new pair of pants somewhere. he closes the door and i hear his booming voice announce to everyone that "Sierra is in the bathroom and needs a new pair of pants!" Wow. Wow. I sure do love that guy. Well tah tah for now! 
I wanted to post more pictures but my computer wouldnt let me!

Valentines Day was such a great day! It's funny, because I used to dread valentines day. I would walk around and feel like everyone had a boyfriend or husband except for me! But the last three Valentines have been great since I've had Jared for all three! :) This year I made a whole bunch of kisses on paper and cut each one out. then i wrote nice things on the back of each one and spread them all over our bed with a few kiss candies! Jared loved that surprise ;)
 we went out to Olive Garden for dinner and it was soooo good, it is my all time most favorite place to eat! When we got home from dinner Jared comes into the room with this HUGE bucket full of candy! haha It was all decorated and fancy for Valentines Day too. He's so sweet. The only problem is that now we have all this candy...ITS EVERYWHERE! I don't know how we will ever eat all of this, we have a major candy issue.

 To the left is a picture of how much candy we have... and it looks like even more in real life!

We are finally in our own apartment now! It feels so nice! Our new apartment is pretty cute :) I had them paint the walls a light gray and there's a light yellow accent wall in the dining room. I do wish the living room had carpet, but all well! It is a double bedroom apartment and its a lot more space than we're used to!

I know this is dark. But this is the view from our front door walking in!

this is looking back at the front door. 

excuse the mess on the table. Here is a peek into the kitchen :)

I made homemade bread for the first time last week! It turned out pretty good but not exactly how I wanted, so I will have to keep practicing with it! I accidently put the dough in the pan upside down too, so it got really HUGE! 

Last week Jared and I went to the portland Timbers Soccer game! Jared's boss gave us the tickets for free! This was the only soccer game i've ever been to besides high school, so i wasn't super excited for it, but it turned out awesome! The crowd may have been the best part!

This is us riding the train to Portland! I love riding the train!

Here we are at the game! We were really close to the field!

We went to the Portland Oregon Temple on Saturday! It is such a beautiful temple!

We find out the gender of our baby next week! March 12th is the big day! I'm so excited to find out what we're having! my belly is getting bigger every day! 

It's called life!

I'm updating!!! Yes, miracles do happen! So i'll just give a quick overview of whats going on in my life for now since you all probably don't know! I graduated from BYUIdaho with my bachelors degree in Exercise Physiology in December! It's so weird that school is over, I miss it sometimes. I miss having a schedule that changed every day and i also miss having homework to do in the evenings! I also miss LEARNING! I loved my college experience so much, I had so many great teachers and I learned so much its unreal!

Bump!

I have been studying for my Group Fitness certification though, so i haven't completely stopped educating myself. Most of what i study for is just review from what I learned at school, but it just feels great to work my brain again a little bit! I should study more before I get so fat I can't move...which brings me to the next topic! I'm pregnant!

Yes, we found out two days before Thanksgiving but we kept it a secret from everyone (besides our parents) until Christmas! Being pregnant is just crazy...I don't know how i feel about it! you're sick like every day of your life, you have -10% energy, everyone who talks bugs you....its just kinda a terrible thing! Oh ya, and I can't leave out the fact that I just feel fat...Ive only gained two pounds and everyone says i look the same but i feel so fat and gross! But of course, a sweet little baby will be here soon and that over rules all of this! I just can't wait to meet the new little baby! I got to see the baby on an ultrasound and it was so exciting! he was just rolling around and stretching his cute little arms and it made me so excited! So tomorrow I will be 14 weeks! My due date is August 7th! we will find out the gender around 18 weeks! Jared is sure its a boy, he says "He doesn't make girls". I have a feeling it might be a girl though! I don't really care either way though, I'm just excited to have a baby!

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So we are living in Oregon for the time being, we moved here December 21st! And we are living at Jared's parents house. I'm not really liking it a ton here, I'm sure it's due to the fact that were living in someone else house. I absolutely LOVE Jared's parents, but living with them is just not a good thing. I just like to have my own space and my own bathroom and my own house rules and my own food to cook and my own way to clean and my own TV to watch and my own everything! haha But we should be moving out this weekend to an apartment...I've probly said this for the past 5 weeks but this time I  think its actually going to happen...it better. Oregon is so beautiful!

Jared is working at AccuShred NW here in Gresham. He sits at a desk and makes and takes phone calls to people. He is really a sales man because he talks to the people and quotes them and makes the sales. I work there part time or just whenever they need me. Jared still really wants to work at Walmart, we have been told that Walmart does most hiring in March, so hopefully he will get hired there soon!

I still do love pickles and I also love Jared so so so so so so much! I'm the luckiest girl in the world to be married to him! until next year! ;)

Snowboarding on Mt Hood

cutie!

My super cute birthday cake made by Bev :)