12 Dates Around the World: Paris

For Valentine's Day this year, I gave Scott a monthly "Date Around the World." He received a fake passport (I even have little stamp cutouts to document where we go) and a travel itinerary for the rest of the year. February we "traveled" to Paris.

We put Hayden to bed a little early, and enjoyed a Parisian picnic of cheeses, crackers, bread, apples, grapes, and sparkling apple-grape juice. We even had some honey and thyme, as well as some roasted garlic to add to our gooey, melty, yummy brie. While we ate, we enjoyed a Spotify playlist of famous, romantic French songs as well as some accordion café music. I played a YouTube playlist of famous Parisian landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and the Arc de Triomphe. We even watched a clip of Rick Steves at the Louvre.

Afterwards, we copied a small section of a Monet – of course, the famous water lilies. Scott didn’t seem too excited about it when I first proposed the activity, but an hour and half later, we both were very proud of our masterpieces. He even said we should paint again sometime.

To finish off the night, we enjoyed some homemade French Apple Tart. Thank you Barefoot Contessa!

We then watched “Midnight in Paris.” If you haven’t seen this movie, you should! It’s FANTASTIC and has beautiful Parisian vistas throughout the movie.

We had so much fun and can't wait for March's trip to Dublin!

(P.S. The idea and printables came from The Dating Divas

Welcome Baby Boy!

So I haven't blogged in months, and obviously, we have an addition to our family.

 Please welcome 

HAYDEN YOUNG TORONTO!

Saturday, August 4th was his due date. I'd been having contractions on and off since my last doctor's appointment on Thursday, but nothing too consistent. That night, at about 9:30, I had a big contraction. I kept having them all night long, but they weren't consistently timed. I watched a movie on the couch all night, dozing whenever I could. (I didn't want my moaning to keep Scott awake).

By 7:00am Sunday morning, I'd had it. I called Labor and Delivery and told them that my contractions were getting a little too tough to handle but they weren't coming at consistent intervals. They told me to come in and they'd put me on the monitors to see what was going on, so Scott and I drove to the hospital (longest 4 minutes of my life). 

Once on the monitors, they said that my contractions weren't that big (HA!) but they called my doctor. They got a hold of him at 10am and he said to start me on Pitocin (since I was going to be induced the

next day anyway). By 1pm, I got an epidural so I
was FINALLY able to get some sleep. A little while later my doctor came in and broke my water. That got things MOVING! By about 4pm they said I was ready to start pushing soon.

I started pushing - I had NO idea how hard that would be. I could feel the epidural wearing off and that allowed me to push better. It started to wear off a LOT and my doctor asked if I wanted to push the button again. I decided not to because I knew that would slow things down if I couldn't feel the contractions and I wanted my baby OUT! Well, I pushed for about an hour longer with my epidural almost completely worn off. I had my mom and Scott there helping me every step of the way thankfully, because it was the hardest thing I've ever done. Finally, I'd had enough and I started to cry. My doctor said, "I can have him out in two minutes if..." He made some suggestions and I said, "YES! Get him out!"

A couple minutes later at 6:28pm, our sweet baby boy was born. 8lbs. 2oz. 20 inches long. I cried with happiness. They let me hold him as they cleaned him off. He was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen and he had long, dark brown hair. Scott cut the umbilical cord. Scott went with him to the nursery to give Hayden his first bath while I cleaned up. They finally brought him back to me. It felt like forever!

I had the MOST amazing experience - the most loving husband, the most supportive mom, the best hospital, the most skilled doctor, the kindest nurses... The whole experience was wonderful.

Easter Trip to Utah

So I haven't blogged in a couple of weeks and we've had lots of fun things happen! 

1. We found out we're having a baby boy!!! The ultrasound took almost a half hour because they are SO thorough looking at and measuring everything. It was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life to see our little baby moving inside of me. We told the u/s tech that we DID want to know the gender. At one point, she had swung to a new view and I knew immediately that we were having a little boy. She said,"Do you want to know what you're having?" "Yes!" (But I could already tell.) "It's a boy!" He was very stubborn during the u/s and mostly was bent in half with his feet up by his face. Here's the ONLY picture we got of him NOT doing that. Little bugger! We sure love him.

2. We took a trip to Montana and enjoyed the beautiful landscape on our drive up and back. We ate tons of yummy food and went to the Billings Zoo. (Our camera died and the few photos we took are on Scott's phone.)

3. We went to Utah for Easter. We drove down after Scott got off of work on Friday night. We spent a couple of hours chatting with Mom and Dad Toronto. They showed us some of their pictures from a recent trip they took. On Saturday morning, we enjoyed a yummy breakfast and worked in Mom and Dad's garden. (Scott helped dig and pull up three big stumps! I raked. Ha ha ha - one of the benefits of being pregnant.) Saturday afternoon we went to the Hogle Zoo with more of our family. (Can you tell how much I like Zoos?) We saw elephants, a rhino, tons of different kinds of monkeys, and many more animals. The best part was spending time with our siblings and nieces and nephews. Here is a video and some photos from the zoo. 

 

That evening, we all gathered back at Mom and Dad Toronto's and had a yummy dinner and played in the back yard. Becky and I helped set up a little scavenger hunt for the kids. It was fun to see them get so excited. (Sad that I didn't get any pictures from that night!)

Sunday was Easter and I personally had a wonderful time enjoying the special feelings of that day. Afterwards we ate dinner with Grandma Packer and drove to North Farmington to look at a beautiful field of tulips. The weather was awesome the entire weekend. So grateful to have family close-by.