Sophie Mae Jensen

Ashley has been super busy with the baby so I, Daniel (new father) will be writing this blog post. Ashley is the history graduate and me the accounting, so don't expect the same quality of writing. 

This story begins on the coldest night of the year (-15* or so). Ashley was very uncomfortable on Sunday and was ready to have her baby already. All of us had chosen days for when we predicted the baby would come. Ashley thought she would come on the 17th because my family is in a habit of sharing birthdays. The 17th is our niece Bella's b-day. I was the most optimistic and chose the 16th. None of us were right since Sophie decided to come on the 14th. 

Ashley woke up on Monday at 3:00 a.m. and was starting to have contractions and could not stay asleep. I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and didn't not see my wife so I went outside to investigate and found her bouncing on her exercise ball and very much looking like she would have a baby sometime that day. 

 We decided to to go to the hospital at 6:00 a.m. as the contractions came closer together and were about 5-8 minutes apart.These are the pictures of Ashley as she was first admitted to the hospital. As you can see she was very smiley and happy before the really bad contractions came. Ashley was quite the trooper and toughed through a lot of mean contractions until she decided it would be best for her to have an epidural. Before the epidural she had one contraction that was so bad she threw up a few times. She received an epidural at around 11 a.m. and started to feel much better. Ashley took a nap for an hour and a half or so and then we just hung out awhile until she was ready to push. Ashley only had to push for about 5 contractions and 10 minutes before baby Sophie was born!

Sophie Mae Jensen is 7 lbs 8oz and 20 1/2 inches long

Grandma Jensen is soooo happy to finally have a grandchild here that she doesn't have to travel several hundred miles to see.

Sophie has been a very good eater so far and ate for about 45 minutes her first time

 Sophie looks so tiny in her car seat. 

We left the hospital around 6 p.m., the day after Sophie was born and we are very happy to have her healthy, safe, and happy. 

We were excited that my sister Marci and her family happened to be visiting this week. We didn't know if Sophie would make her appearance before they left to go back home. Baby Stella was very fascinated by Sophie and wanted to touch her sooo bad 

I got to give Sophie her first bath and dress her up, and pick out her first bow

Here we are as we are about to leave the hospital with our new baby 

Parenting Practice

 We have been blessed with lots of visitors this year! Shortly after Christmas Daniel's sister Marci, her husband Alan, and their darling 10 month old Stella came to visit. Daniel does so great with nieces and nephews around this age. They just love him. One particular night Stella just cozied right up with Daniel until she was whisked off to bed. She also loves the whiskers on Daniel's face. Apparently they are fun to touch.

Christmas 2012

 We had a great Christmas this year. It was nice for me to have Christmas Eve off and Daniel's sister Erin and her family came out from Arkansas. Christmas is definitely more entertaining with children around. We might have been more excited to see them than they were for Christmas.

 Thankfully Idaho didn't disappoint and we were blessed with fresh snow on Christmas Eve. My parents came over to Daniel's parent's house and we had a great Christmas meal together. The girls opened traditional Christmas Eve gifts of PJs and some super cute slippers. Then we made sugar cookies for Santa and they happily skipped off to bed.

Christmas Day started earlier than we've had in a while, but we still had a great morning. Lots of wonderful gifts were given and baby Sophie got even more goodies. She is all set with the best.

 Daniel had a work party three days after he started his new job and we won a Smores maker. It really is just a cutesy little ceramic thing you put fire in and then you carefully burn your marshmellow. All our nieces got a kick out of it and loved blowing out the flaming mallows. Bella impressively downed two whole smores all by herself.

 After we had our fill of games and excessive amounts of candy, Daniel and I went to spend some Christmas time with my parents. Our gift to them was tickets to the movie Les Miserables. My dad loves few things (Hugh Nibley or anything church-related) more than Les Mis. So I was excited to share this movie with him. We all had a great time.

 The Sunday before Christmas we had "pre-Christmas" with my parents. It was the day scheduled for Spencer to skype home for Christmas so we opened presents and celebrated early. It was super fun to see him. He looks great! And skinny. I am so grateful for the technology that we not only get to talk to him, but also get to see him! His English is getting worse--it's pretty cute.

We had a holly jolly Christmas indeed! We are especially looking forward to sharing next Christmas with our little girl.

39 Weeks and Random Pictures

39 Weeks

I'm feeling rather large. No major complaints, just ready to finish being pregnant. Also, I'd like my baby. Daniel is ready to meet her as well.

 

 We unloaded a couple pictures from Daniel's phone today.

 Back in September we went to the Eastern Idaho State Fair with Mike and Lara. Oh the glorious food to be had! Hand dipped corn dogs, scones, deep fried candy bars, and enormous lemonades. I dream of that food frequently.

We also love to visit Kelsey's baby Ruby who is almost three months old already!