Sweet, sweet baby

I'm sitting here with an adorable two-week-old baby asleep on my lap and thinking about how blessed I am. Really, I had so many worries and fears about having a new baby (everyone tells you their horror stories) and so many of them have disappeared. Some things I am thankful for:

• Cassie has brought so much love into our home! I love Trevor, he loves me, we love Cassie...yesiree. :) We definitely are a happy family.
• People are so NICE. So many people have been incredibly kind and thoughtful by offering to help, visiting, bringing meals, calling, etc. You know who you are- thank you!
• I feel grrrr-eat! (think Tony the Tiger) Honestly, I was afraid healing would be long and painful...but it's been quick and pretty painless!
• Cassie is really cute. Has anyone else ever feared having an ugly baby? Anyway, I'm really glad she's so stinkin' adorable- it makes all the hard things a little easier.
• Cassie is in a pattern of sleeping for two 4-hour blocks of time at night. I haven't done anything to deserve this blessing, but I sure am grateful for it.

Here are some pictures from the last two weeks:

Here she is in her bouncy seat. The sleeper is a little too big...thanks to Jessica for bringing over a few more newborn-sized clothes!




Hmm...she already has some crazy sleeping positions! It's a little too hot to swaddle her, so sometimes we find her sleeping with her arms in strange places...













And here's what happens when I leave Trevor alone with her:Thanks, Kristy, for visiting with your adorable Kimball! It was great to have some company today.

She's Here!!

Okay, first of all, this is Trevor, not Emily. Although I thought I'd never say this, I have to admit that blogging has its place in certain situations, like when babies are born. I hope you enjoy the pictures and the videos. You probably won't see much more of my work on here, but I thought I'd save Emily some time since she's rather busy feeding the baby and trying to get some rest. I'll have her update you with her feminine touch as soon as she has a little more time. Enjoy!

This is the last pregnant picture we have of Emily.We decided to get a few self-taken pics just before leaving for the hospital late Wednesday night.

Here's Em, anxiously waiting for the medicine to kick in and do its job. She was started on Pitocin (sp?) at about 12:30 am on June 5th. She was given the epidural (sp?...obviously I haven't read up on these big words) at about 5:30. She was thinking she'd wait and have them give it to her when she couldn't stand the pain anymore. I told her it sounded courageous, but kind of pointless. She listened and was very glad. Progress was pretty slow. The doctors were thinking she'd probably have to have a C-section, but after she hit about 4 cm, things accelerated. By 3:30, it was time to start pushing. Em pushed a total of 24 times (8 contractions over about 15 minutes) before the baby was all the way out. I couldn't hardly believe she had actually been in there or that she would fit through.

This picture was taken just moments after she popped out. Here are the stats:

Weight: 9 lbs 3 oz
Length: 21 in (on her way to the WNBA, I hope)
Name: Cassidy Taja Hawkes
Background on the name:
Cassidy: we just liked the sound of it. We had narrowed it down to either Cassidy or Jenna several months ago, but Em thought that seeing her would make the decision easier. When I saw her, the name I had in mind was "Raisinette" or maybe "Lumpkin." She's looking more like Cassidy now. We actually plan to call her "Cassie," but Em thought it would be nice to have a bigger name for more formal occasions, or if she ever becomes a cowgirl.
Taja: that's my little sister's name. Emily and I have all brothers except Taja, and we really liked the name (and my sister).

Here's Cassie getting cleaned up. She started to look normal after they wiped all the stuff off of her.
This is actually the second time they weighed her. The first time, it read 9 lbs 2.5 oz, so they rounded up to 9 lbs 3 oz. This is similar to the way I get A's in school (when I get A's in school).
The new dad!

This is my favorite. Em was soooo excited to see her new baby, as you can see.
Emily was crying because she was happy, not because she was in pain or anything. She keeps insisting that she really didn't feel much pain at all the whole time and is just grateful to have had such a positive experience. We have lots more pictures and a couple of videos, but I'll just put a few random ones on here that hopefully show you what she looks like.

This is the first time I really got to see her opening her eyes much. We can't tell what color they'll be yet.
We had several visitors come and see us from both of our families. Here is Emily describing the size of Cassie's head. (She's not that far off.)
Awww, a new little family. On Friday, Emily observed, "Hey, I just realized she's already sealed to us." That was neat to think about.
No, I wasn't faking it. Labor and delivery is rough on moms and dads.
And finally, here's Cassie in her car seat, getting calmed down for the ride home. We'll keep you posted with more pics soon.

Still Waiting...

We're just one week away from our baby girl's due date and getting pretty excited! Her room is ready to go, my students are done with their performances, and I'm starting to feel pretty uncomfortable, so we're getting pretty anxious. As of yesterday, I'm dilated 1 cm and she has started dropping, which is progress from last week, when I wasn't dilated at all and she hadn't dropped. Hopefully we'll be meeting our little girl soon! We'll keep you updated.

Ah, Spring Break

Hooray for Spring Break! This is the first time in my life that I've had a week-long Spring Break, and it was just what I needed. Here's what I did that week (April 14th-18th):

1. Had my first contractions...yikes! I woke up early Monday morning feeling really uncomfortable but didn't pinpoint that it was Braxton Hicks contractions until about 6 am. It actually made me feel really sick and I couldn't keep much food down all day. Fortunately, my mom was with me all day and took care of me. She had already planned to come down and help me clean and get the baby's room ready, which leads to thing number 2...

2. Got the baby's room ready...hooray! Actually, my mom did a lot of the work (thanks, mom!). We got everything out of our second bedroom and fit it in our storage space really easily. I got all the baby stuff organized and in drawers or hung in the closet, so I'm feeling a lot better prepared. Now the room is exclusively baby stuff, minus the computer desk in the corner.

3. Spent a lot of money...oh boy. First off, let me make it clear that some of it was gift money from a baby shower and I was buying things we need before she arrives. We bought a "dresser" (stackable drawers) and put it in the baby's closet, I found a perfect little table/bookshelf for the baby's room at Savers, and I went to the Park City outlets with my sister-in-law to buy baby clothes. And the biggest purchase of all...we bought a digital piano! It has a full-sized keyboard with weighted keys, it looks a lot like an upright piano, and it has NICE headphones. Even though my birthday isn't until June, the piano is my birthday gift for this year. The spending doesn't stop there: we're planning on buying a glider rocking chair in the next few weeks so I have somewhere to rest during late-night feedings. :)

4. Hung out with my old roommate...good times! My roommate Danielle, who recently returned from her mission, came to Provo to visit and check out the job prospects before she returns to school in the fall. We had a good time reminiscing and walking around campus, which has changed a LOT since we were there last.

Trev says the darndest things...

...in his sleep! The other night I woke up at about 1:30 to him yelling "Star Wars!" As if that wasn't funny enough, about 5 seconds later he said, "Got 'im!" After laughing out loud, I stayed awake for a moment hoping he might say something else, but he just started breathing like Darth Vader like he usually does in his sleep. :) Actually, he rarely snores unless he has a bad cold. When I asked him about it in the morning, he couldn't remember dreaming about Star Wars, but he did think it was pretty funny. I told a few of my classes that day and they thought it was hilarious. One student asked if he was a Star Wars "nerd."
This week Trevor had a few really late nights. I went to bed at 11 on Monday when he still had several hours of papers to correct for the class he TAs. When I tried to wake him up the next morning, he seemed really defensive. I asked him if he was tired and he said, "No!" with a teen-age 'what a stupid question' tone. So I asked how late he stayed up and he responded, "As late as I wanted to!" Napoleon-Dynamite style. I asked how late again and he replied, "6:30." Since it WAS 6:30 right then, and he usually is a little sweeter when I wake him up in the morning, I realized he was talking in his sleep. When he was really awake 30 seconds later, he couldn't remember any of it. Pretty entertaining!
I'm sorry I'm so inconsistent in my blogging. I can't access any blogs at my school (the internet blocks it) and Trevor usually uses the internet at home while he is doing homework in the evenings, but I'll try to blog more often. Everything is going well with my pregnancy and our baby girl seems to be doing well. She moves around a lot and has had the hiccups several times in the last week (actually, she has them right now). My principal predicts that I'll go through the entire school year without having the baby (the last day of school is May 30 and she's due May 28) but one of the teachers thinks she'll arrive early. I'm okay with her coming early as long as she comes after May 17- that's my students' competition at Lagoon, and I don't know what I'll do if I can't be there to conduct them. My school administration is in the process of hiring my replacement for next year right now, so hopefully the new teacher will be prepared to step in whenever this baby girl decides she's ready.

Christmas Pics and Baby News

Okay, baby news first. We had an ultrasound a few weeks ago and found out that our baby will be a girl! We're pretty excited, but honestly surprised. We really thought it was going to be a boy, as did most of our family. It was kind of fun to change my thought process from boy names, clothes, and toys to girly ones! We've already thought of a few names we like, but Trevor prefers to be silly and call her "she who must not be named" or "what's her face." Oh! I felt her move for the first time the night before the ultrasound. I was falling asleep when I felt a definite kick. She did it again and Trevor was able to feel it, too. Pretty exciting. I feel her move a LOT now. I have a feeling she's going to be an active little girl. This picture is me at 22 weeks.

Well, we had a blast this Christmas. We spent most of the holiday with my parents in Centerville. We played some pretty intense games and put together a few giant puzzles. It really was fun and relaxing. Here's Jenga moments before it toppled.



We also had a good time on Christmas morning with my brothers and sister-in-law. Things got a little crazy when Vaughn tried on Mom's new coat. He looks pretty good in it, eh?

The best was our Cropper family Christmas Party (my mom's side of the family) when all of the great-grandkids (my cousins' children) acted out the nativity scene while my uncle read from the New Testament. There were two angels wandering around confused the whole time, chewing on little cookies. We ran out of little kids, so the next youngest cousin present had to play the donkey. And the youngest cousin present was...my "little" brother, Robert, who is 6'6" and 21 years old. I laughed the whole time, but it was neat to remember when I was a little kid at my grandma's house, getting excited about the costumes and getting dressed in the back bedroom and fighting over who got to be an angel or a shepherd or a wise man...and now I wonder how my parents kept a straight face during our yearly performances.


Other highlights from our Christmas vacation: going to the Salt Lake Temple and looking at the lights on Temple Square (not for too long...it was cold!), and the second annual Hawkes family bubble-gum blowing contest.


Let me give you a little background on this one. Last New Year's Eve, Trevor and I were on our honeymoon, and we decided it would be a good idea to start a yearly tradition with our newly-formed family. I'm not sure why we decided on bubble gum, but we had a lot of fun and decided to let Trevor's whole family participate in the competition this year.
Anyway, we had a great vacation and were very sad to have it end. Things are going well now that we're back in the swing of things with school and work. We're plenty busy but plenty happy too!

Can you tell I'm pregnant?

This is me at 15 weeks (one week ago). I had a funny experience at school about a month ago. Before I told my students that I was pregnant, I felt like I was starting to show a little (around 11 weeks). I had a student in one of my classes tell me that I looked pregnant in front of the whole class. I was embarrassed because I realized I was definitely starting to show, and she was embarrassed because she thought she had really offended me and that I wasn't pregnant. Poor dear. At least she'll be more tactful in the future. I told all of the students about a week later that I was, in fact, pregnant.
I realized my last post was kind of negative about being pregnant, so I better let everyone know that we're very happy and excited about this new little one in our life! Everyone seems to think it's a boy, including Trevor and me...but can you really be sure? We'll find out in about a month. I'm really looking forward to feeling the baby move. Sometimes I just need the assurance that he/she is still alive in there.