The Solomon Family

Aaralyn will play in just about anything. I don't mind-I think it's good for her imagination!

From our visit to the new Gilbert Temple. It was beautiful, inside and out! There were so many stairs though, I felt like I'd ran a marathon by the time we were finished with the tour, haha!

"The Hammer"- a superhero that Aaralyn came up with all on her own and apparently wears a DVD cover on her head as a mask. Please ignore her nakedness-she's just now starting to want to wear clothes all the time, haha!

Aaralyn and I at Aunt Amy's house, the night before Jace left on his mission.

"The Hammer"

Look at that cute smile!

I've shared it with most everyone, but I never officially announced on the blog that we are having a little boy! I have a very positively identifying picture to prove it, but I've felt like sharing it online is a little weird lately, haha! It never bothered me to share Aaralyn's hiney shot, but all I can think this time is that I don't want a picture of my son's privates out for all the world to see before he's even born. Maybe it's a pregnant hormone thing, or something else, I don't know, haha!

Anyway, everything has been going great in the pregnancy so far! I switched doctor's pretty easily when we moved back to the mountain and I really like who I'm seeing now. I guess she likes me too, because she was telling my aunt who works on the OB floor at the hospital about it, haha! I think I've spent maybe twenty minutes in her company, so I'm very happy to know that she remembers who I am outside of our visits. It makes me feel that much more relaxed about delivery time :)

We had one tiny scare where we thought my water may have started leaking, the details of which I will leave out because they're a little difficult to explain and probably a bit of an over share. The good news is that we're fine though :) Liam was measuring about three days behind at our last ultrasound (January 13 I believe), which is normal. I've only gained one pound the entire pregnancy though (after losing about 15-20) so we're going to have another ultrasound in a few weeks just to make sure he's still doing good. With my thyroid issues, Dr. Kyrimis felt that it wouldn't be a bad idea and I agreed. We opted out of all the genetic testing so we don't get as many ultrasounds as other women might and I'm happy to be able to see him again before he arrives.

It's funny to me how different this pregnancy is from Aaralyn's. With her, I felt like you couldn't even tell I was pregnant until after 35 weeks because I was just huge all over. This time around, I've already had strangers start asking when I'm due and I'm only 24 weeks along, haha! Instead of sweets, I crave a lot of salad this time around, unless you count cold cereal which I could seriously eat for every meal for the rest of my life and I would be happy. I don't ever remember really having sleeping issues with Aaralyn either, but I've been exhausted this entire pregnancy. I wake up at least once every night and then toss and turn for thirty minutes to an hour before I finally fall back asleep. I'm thankful or every bit I can get now though, because I know I'll be waking up more often than that to feed him once he's born.

Aaralyn is excited to be a big sister. She likes to talk to my belly and tell Liam stories, or sing songs to him. She's felt him move a few times now as well. I think she is going to do great when he arrives. She already talks about playing with him and was quite put out that he wouldn't know how to stand up and walk so they can play soccer when he's born, haha!

We are so thankful for our kids. I can't even explain it, how they've made our lives better. I look at Aaralyn and  can't even remember what our lives were like before her. I can't wait to meet our little man!

  This year, Jake and I went to the Sweethearts Ball in Snowflake a week before Valentine's Day. A member of our ward had stopped by and surprised us with tickets (and I was having a bad day and had to apologize for crying when he gave them to me, haha) and we were very excited because we didn't have any money to do anything special this year.

Side note-why can nothing ever be on the actual day in this town? Is there a reason we always have to do it a week before or after, even when the holiday or event fell on a weekend? I don't understand it, haha!

Anyway, there was a nice dinner and program/talent show type things with some singers that I really enjoyed. However, there was no dancing, which I was really sad about. I thought since it was a ball that we would be wearing holes in our shoes by night's end, which I was really looking forward to. Even without the dancing though, I still enjoyed the night out with my hubby. We don't get to do that very often any more.


On actual Valentine's Day, we had a family dinner at Grandma Connie's house, which was delicious as always. Afterwords, my parents invited us to come out to a movie with them, so we ended up getting to go on a date then as well (two dates in two weeks, woohoo!). We saw Endless Love, which was surprisingly funny and really good! I enjoyed it very much. After it was finished, Jake confessed he though he was going to have to sit through a sappy movie, but he really liked it as well.

Aaralyn got to do her own fun things while we were out, going to see the Harlem Globetrotters with Grandma Vic and their family while we were at the ball and playing with my siblings while we were at the movies. If you ask her what her favorite part about both was, she'll tell you excitedly that Grandpa Ronnie gave her a piece of gum at the basketball game, haha!

I know that it's been a little while since I posted anything... okay, a long while!  Since my last post I've finished two shows and been cast in another, Aaralyn has started crawling and cut her first tooth, Jake has a new job, we have a place of our own, and I've had some really exciting work experiences. So let's recap!

Edges went fantastically, I miss the cast a lot.  It was definitely one of those shows that brings everyone involved closer together.  Over the summer I performed as Crystal in Little Shop of Horrors. It was tons of fun too! I got to sing almost every song, and lost around 10 lbs from all of the dancing around, haha!  Last week we had our first rehearsals for the next show, Aida. I will be playing the part of Nebehka. Overall, it looks to be like a good time as well! I also received an invitation to audition for The Phantom of the Opera which is only the show that I've dreamed about being in for almost my whole life, no big deal (it's a HUGE deal!). We'll see what happens ;)

Aaralyn is growing up so fast! She talks gibberish to us all the time, has her own cute way of singing, and her personality just shines like a beacon.  She can crawl now- in fact I imagine that she'll be walking really soon. She's started to stand up without holding onto anything. It's all going by so quickly! I discovered her first tooth today, on the bottom, right side, in the front. I'll have to be careful not to let her chew on my fingers any more!

Jake got a job working at the Carriage House here in Snowflake, on the night shift. I know it isn't his dream job, or even his favorite job, but I also know that he is extremely grateful for it. It's made it possible for us to move out of my parent's house and be our own family, in our own place. It's not glamorous, I'm a terrible housekeeper and am rarely around to cook dinner, but it's ours and I love it.

Jake and I will be starting school tomorrow, eep! That was an excited "eep" by the way. We're going to have such an awesome semester! We both received our grant money on time and were able to go on a three day vacation to Las Vegas to see Phantom for our anniversary. It was tons of fun and very romantic, but now it's time to get back to work!

We are so blessed in so many ways! I don't even know how to thank everyone that has helped us, especially the Lord. I know that we're young and just getting our feet wet in most things, but we have a great life. We have so many things that people only dream of having, our love as a family being one of them. I <3 my little family!

While Mom and Belinda were in Chicago, one of Mom's fans gave her an outfit for Aaralyn that stated "Portia and Vance's Lil Fan."  It is super cute!  Aaralyn had her first photo session done wearing it, I love all of the pictures so much!  Here's a few of my favorites though :)

Aaralyn is now over four months old!  It seems like everything is moving so fast.  She knows how to roll from her back to her belly now and is working on rolling the other way now.  She attempts to get up on her hands and knees to crawl but so far has only figured out how to do one end at a time, haha!  Sometimes she sleeps through the night really good and sometimes she doesn't but she does sleep in her pack-n-play instead of our bed now, which is awesome!  She's even starting to hold her own bottle, the little stinker!  She's started on solid foods now, we gave her rice cereal for the first time last week.  She made one weird face on the first bite and after that she couldn't get enough of the stuff.  Now our only problem is that she gets mad because we don't feed her the cereal fast enough and then she doesn't want to eat it anymore because she gets tired from yelling at us, haha!  As soon as she starts to handle the spoon a little bit better I'll start giving her fruits and veggies. 

Play time in the crib

We love taking pictures and videos of Aaralyn!  We're not quite Uncle Tim status when it comes to having the camera handy, but having a camera on our phones has helped a lot.  We take most of our pictures and video with our phones actually.  Unfortunately, Youtube is not working right now so I guess the videos will have to come later :(  

St. Patrick's Day

Easter with Uncle Brady

First time in the high chair

Daddy trying to show Aaralyn how to crawl

Jake has been working in the hospital pharmacy as a tech intern and only has two more days left.  I've been very proud of him.  They really like him there and would like to hire him so hopefully that will work out.  Right now he makes knives and sells them in his spare time to help us get some extra cash. 

Aaralyn is growing just as she should!  She got her first three shots at her last appointment and I felt so bad because I couldn't even stand to hold her while they did it, I had the nurse hold her.  I had hoped that she would sleep through them like she did her foot prick, but no such luck :(  She screamed really good and then just wanted to lay with mommy all day.  I felt bad for her, but I knew it was what would be best for her in the long run.  She's getting to the point now that she can really see what's going on around her and will interact with people.  I've heard her giggle twice in her sleep but nothing more than that.  Hopefully we'll be hearing good laughs soon!

Jake, myself, Mom, and, Dad were all called as the primary teachers to the 8 year old class.  They can be a little rambunctious sometimes, but I enjoy teaching them.  It's also fun to have Callista in our class. 

We've also been having fun taking pictures for our photo site (which will hopefully be up and running soon!).  Here's a couple of my favorites:

Jake and I also got new iPhone 4's and opened our own cell plan instead of staying on Dad's.  How grown up of us, haha!  We hope that Jake will get hired at the hospital and we'll be able to move out of my parent's house sometime in the near future. 

Life has been very good to us lately.  I've felt the Lord blessing us immensely on several occasions, and have been brought to tears during many of those instances.  I feel like we're growing up, even though we already have our own little family.  It feels like we're just starting out on our journey, and it feels very exciting :)

It's been just a little bit over 84 hours since Aaralyn was born, and what a spectacular time it's been! 

After the delivery, Mom, Dad, and Belinda left the hospital and headed home so that Dad could get some sleep to work that night.  Of course they all held and cooed over Aaralyn first :)  Vicky stayed longer, thankfully, because Jake and I both fell asleep for about an hour and she watched Aaralyn for us.  I felt kind of guilty, not because I had slept (selfish, I know, haha!  The nurse actually told me to sleep and she didn't hear any complaints from me, pushing that baby out was hard!) but because Jake had slept through almost the whole labor and there he was, sleeping again!  Vicky didn't mind though- I'm sure she was eating up the time she got to spend with her first grand baby!  Grandma and Grandpa Solomon and Great Grandma Geiger also came to visit before we were moved from the delivery room, I can't remember if it was before or after our nap though.  I also ordered a cheeseburger and french fries while we were still in the same room and it was delicious, I was starving and it hit the spot just right!  However, I can't remember if that was before or after our nap either, haha!  I think the visit and the food both came before the nap though :)  I also fed Aaralyn for the first time as my side of the family was leaving.

The nurse gave Aaralyn a bath right before we were moved down to the third floor to our new room.  She didn't like that very much.  However, she did look a lot cleaner for pictures later :)  The nurse also put a cute hat on her that I just loved, and it was awesome that it kept our little baby warm :)

Jake and I got a special congratulatory dinner from the hospital cafeteria that night of chicken, salad, veggies, cheesecake, and sparkling cider.




While we were eating, Mom, Belinda, and Jace came to visit.  Because it's RSV season, the hospital won't allow any visitors under 12 years old in; Jace drove our car up to the hospital for us since Mom and Dad had driven us up in their car.  The hospital had also graciously given Dad the night off, so he was there as well.  While they were all there, Vicky, Kimber, and Kolton came to visit as well.  It was a nice little party in our room :)  It also helped Jake and I out because everyone wanted to hold Aaralyn, so we were able to eat without needing to worry about her.  Our other visitors included Grandma Connie, Aunt Brenda, Larissa, and JD. 








After everyone left, Jake, Aaralyn, and I got ready for the night.  I was able to take a shower, which felt AWESOME!  I wasn't really feeling all that sore, probably thanks to the pain medicine they were giving me, but my stitches were hurting a little bit so the hot water was very relaxing for me.  Jake laughed at me right before I got in; Aaralyn pooped her diaper for the first time right as I was finishing undressing and I asked him to wait and not change it because I wanted to be there for it, haha!  I ended up changing it myself after my shower :)  It was a task that rewarded me with a feeling of accomplishment that was probably much larger than it really should have been, haha! 

We discovered that night, Aaralyn does not like to sleep in anything that is not mine or Jake's arms.  While we stayed at the hospital, she slept on my chest.  Jake and I don't want her to sleep in the bed with us though; I knew I couldn't roll over in the hospital bed, especially since I didn't move once I got comfortable with my stitches.  We slept pretty good, with the occasional wake up from the nurse to check on us, and early in the morning Wendy showed up to check on me specifically.   

She said that I looked good, no major swelling or bruising, and explained the concept of a sitz bath to me to help clean everything for the next little while, along with the other cleanliness things that I need to do.  I'll go see her again Tuesday to make sure that everything is still looking good. 

Aaralyn also got checked again by Dr. Coss (who has a fantastic mustache, if I do say so myself!) and they determined that she looked awesome and that everything was working the way it should.  They also decided that something must have happened when they weighed her right after birth; they originally said that she weighed 7 pounds and 1 ounce, but when they weighed her again in the morning she only weighed 5 pounds and 14 ounces; they decided that she must have weighed 6 pounds instead at birth and somehow the numbers came out wrong.  She has her first doctor's appointment tomorrow (Monday) with Dr. Peterson so we'll see what he has to say about everything. 

Aaralyn had her hearing screen done, as well as her PKU test and passed both of those as well.  So they sent us home finally!  We filled out her birth certificate information and some other paper work and started getting ready to leave.  As we were packing everything up, Grandpa Lowell stopped by to see her and helped Jake carry our stuff out to the car.  Grandma Connie had also stopped by that morning again.  We really enjoyed all of our visits with everyone while we were there :) 

When we got home, there was a banner stating "It's A Girl!" along with some balloons, and some very excited uncles.  Everyone got to look at or hold Aaralyn again and then we finally retired to our part of the house.  A lot of our time since then has pretty much been spent feeding, sleeping, and changing diapers.  However, there are a couple of "exciting" things that happened. 



I managed to fall down the stairs on Saturday, thankfully I wasn't holding Aaralyn, and my stitches are ok from what I can tell.  I have a pretty nasty bruise on my left leg though :(  Mom and Dad wanted to move us to the ground floor after that because we've all been worried about falling, especially since Aaralyn is here now.  The thoughts of having to move everything now that I finally have it all where I want and the fact that the door at the stairs is the only thing that keeps me from going crazy on my siblings sometimes made me feel so panicked and anxious that I asked if we could just stay upstairs.  Everyone agreed to let us do that, but I have now been forbidden to walk on the stairs without someone there to help me, especially if I have Aaralyn with me.  I find that arrangement kind of funny since Jake has fallen down the stairs more times than we can count and we've never decided to do that for him, haha!   

Today we went over to Jake's parent's house so that Ronnie could meet Aaralyn for the first time (he'd been working all the days before and couldn't come see her).  I'm guessing from the smile on his face that he really liked her, haha!  She got her first bath at home today too, and I'm guessing from the look on her face that she didn't like that at all!  





As for our sleeping arrangement here at home, Aaralyn still won't sleep in anything but our arms.  Jake has been staying up with her until about one in the morning while I sleep and then I'll get up and feed her and cuddle with her from there.  A lot of the time we fall asleep on the couch together, Aaralyn and I; she sleeps on my chest like we did at the hospital.  Jake and I are both hoping that she'll figure out it's ok to sleep in the crib or pack and play; we can lay her in there while she's already sleeping and she wakes right up like an alarm went off or something.  I think she likes listening to our heartbeats when she sleeps and that's why we're having such a hard time working it out with her.  It's only been just under four days though so we'll see what happens :) 

So that's our latest life's adventure and we've loved every second of it! 

I was beginning to feel like it would never happen, but, just like everyone kept saying, it did!  Our precious little angel, Aaralyn Marie Solomon, was born this past Thursday morning at 11:16am in Show Low, six pounds, one ounce, and nineteen and a half inches long.  It was quite a trip getting her here though!

On Tuesday morning (the 13th) I went to my regular appointment with Wendy and was told that I hadn't progressed any more than I'd already done in the weeks prior.  It was really disappointing.  However, when Wendy checked me she was a tiny bit rough and she told me to come back in to get checked again if I started having good contractions before three that afternoon.  At about 1:40 I suddenly started having them pretty good and I went in to get checked, very excited as I'm sure you all can guess :)  I had made some change, I can't remember exactly what, and Wendy told me to head to the hospital and that she would see me later that night to deliver! 

I was giddy by the time we got to the hospital, even though my contractions had picked up some since I'd been checked again.  I was put right into a room and sent out to walk the halls to see if we could get things moving better and faster along.  To make a long night short, I only progressed maybe another centimeter that whole night, even though my contractions were very strong, enough to make me cry a little bit.  As the night shift was getting ready to leave, Wendy told them that I could have pitocin to help things along if I wanted since things weren't moving at all anymore and I'd already needed some pain medicine and was throwing up.  I told them that yes I would like the medicine and was under the impression that I would still be staying and having our baby that day.  However, the day shift nurse that came in called Wendy back and told her that she wasn't comfortable giving me the medicine because I wasn't a full thirty nine weeks yet (I had three days left to get to that point) and refused to give it to me.  I was very upset because I felt like she was being somewhat rude as well, claiming that she was too busy to properly monitor me even though there was no one else on the floor to take care of at that point.  She gave me the option of staying and walking some more or going home.  I chose to go home, mostly because I was very upset and didn't want to see that nurse ever again in my life, but also because I was throwing up because I was so hungry and wasn't able to eat anything at the hospital.  I cried a lot.  I really felt like I could scream at the nurse for being so inconsiderate; I would never tell a woman that she was going to be staying at the hospital until her baby was born and that she'd be leaving with it and then send her home in such a thoughtless manner.  I felt like the nurse was being very lazy and I told the family that I hoped every pregnant woman on the mountain came in to deliver on her shift so that she would have to actually do her job.  It sounds harsh, I know, but hey.  I was really upset. 

When we got home I ate some food and then crashed on the couch (the nurse had drugged me up really good before sending me off- I think she was trying to make sure I didn't come back while she was there, haha!).  I slept all day, maybe getting up for around two hours all together, something that I was very grateful for later.  I was still very upset though, crying a lot, and feeling like every time we tried to get our baby here someone just had to stop it for whatever reason.  I started to get a headache and was having some weird vision things going on so dad took my blood pressure for me.  It was much higher than what's normal for me so we called Wendy to see what she wanted us to do.  After another time of taking my blood pressure, she sent us back to the hospital to get checked out. 

When we got to the hospital my blood pressure had leveled out and I started to feel upset again because I knew they were going to send me back home.  As you can imagine, my blood pressure then shot back up to where it was when we called Wendy, haha!  One of the nurses then came in and said that she had just talked to Wendy on the phone and suggested that Wendy just come in and break my water for me because of my blood pressure.  Wendy agreed to do so and had said she'd be on her way to the hospital shortly.  I could have kissed that nurse, Anna was her name I believe.  They moved me into my own room (the big one on the floor, lucky us!) and we settled in again, but this time we knew for sure that we would not be leaving without our baby. 

Jake just snoozed away in the corner for most of the labor, haha!  He said he figured that he should get all the sleep he could at that moment in time, since he wouldn't be getting much more after Aaralyn was here, haha!

At two thirty in the morning on December 15, Wendy broke my water and our waiting game began.  I felt a little bit of a warm trickle and thought "well that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be" and then asked if I could maybe get up and walk to try and help things along.  The nurse told me that they had to monitor the baby for a little bit first to make sure she was handling the break good and then I could walk if she was; if not then I would have to stay in bed and they would start my pitocin sooner rather than wait for me to come back from walking.  As they monitored the baby I then felt the huge gush of water that I had been expecting when my water was broken.  I honestly thought I was peeing myself there for the first couple of seconds before I realized what was going on, haha!  It was an uncomfortable feeling, one that I kept having for most of the night afterwords.  Aaralyn didn't handle the break as well as they would have hoped; her heart rate kept falling during each contraction, but it would return to normal as soon as the contraction was over.  So they had me change positions in bed and after a little bit they came in and started my pitocin (at 3:30am I believe).  I was starting to feel a little bit uncomfortable as the hours ticked by, but not as much as I expected.  They ended up coming in and upping the amount of pitocin I was receiving through my IV because I was still progressing slowly.  When the shift change came around and I switched nurses I was only at about four centimeters and 90 percent effaced.  I was starting to feel like I was going to be there all day in labor, and I was worried that if things didn't pick up I would end up having a c-section because of the risk of infection.  Wendy left the hospital and came back to Snowflake to see her patients at the office, that's how slow I was moving! 

My previous wish that every pregnant woman on the mountain would come in to deliver seemed to have come true as well; there were around ten ladies that all delivered on Wednesday and Thursday, five of which were all laboring the same time that I was.  This meant that the anesthesiologist was on the floor and working hard- we all wanted epidurals, haha!  I was afraid of the actual pain of child birth and asked for one while he (Chase) was on the floor.  It turned out to be good timing; right before he came in I had some contractions that made me cry.  He was very nice and my epidural took very well.  I was afraid of the initial poke from the needle but I didn't need to be.  I think having my IV put in hurt worse than getting my epidural.  Things really smoothed out for me then, but I was still moving very slowly so my dose of pitocin was increased again.  My nurse, Evonne, was working with another woman as well so she left me with the family and said she'd be back in a little bit.  By the time she came back I was having such intense contractions that I was crying again, which I was very alarmed about.  I was worried that getting the epidural had done nothing for me and that I was going to be in a bad place when it was time to push.  Evonne was so nice, she called the anesthesiologist back to top off my epidural and then she broke out the lavender oil and rubbed my feet and hands for me.  It was very relaxing, so much so that I suddenly shot from being about halfway ready to all the way ready!  Wendy wasn't even in town, they called her and she sped all the way back to Show Low, haha!  Jake called Vicky and she got there just in time for everything to get set up. 

When they told me that it was time to push I was suddenly scared, which I also found funny because I knew there was no going back now.  Wendy got there shortly after my epidural was topped off and it really was time to push.  My epidural was so good this time around that I couldn't even pick my legs up by myself, haha!  I had lots of help though; Mom and Vicky held my legs for me, while Jake held my hand and kept my hair out of my face.  Belinda was taking pictures from the side and I know that Dad was there somewhere (haha!), I think he was sitting in a chair in the corner.  I remember Mom looking at me and saying "She has hair!" as soon as I started pushing; Aaralyn really was RIGHT THERE, the only thing in the way was my pubic bone.  We ended up using the vacuum to help her head out, as well as myself getting an episiodimy;  it turned out that the cord was in the way, up by her neck, and that's why she was having such a hard time coming on her own.  I originally thought that they'd said the cord was wrapped around her neck but Mom said it was just up there next to her neck in an awkward position.  I remember pushing really hard, stopping and feeling a little bit of pressure when Wendy cut me, pushing some more and then everyone suddenly saying "There she is!  She's here!"  and I opened my eyes and Wendy was holding our little baby girl up by the ankle and she looked perfect.  I started crying, just like I knew I would, and they laid her on my chest to look at.  Aaralyn opened her eyes and looked right at me.... it was one of the best moments of my life.  Jake cut her cord for her and then they took her to clean her up a little bit and measure her.  Wendy sewed me up after I delivered the after birth and they helped me get comfortable in time to hold Aaralyn again.  I kept telling Jake to go over and look at his daughter while I was getting my stitches but he didn't want to; he stayed right by me, holding my hand, and telling me what a good job I'd done. 












Everyone was crying, we're all so happy that Aaralyn is finally here!  There's a lot more to the story, even though it's only been two days since she got here, but I will have to post the rest at a later time :)