Our 1st Christmas!

We weren't able to travel to be with family for Christmas due to it being so close to the end of my pregnancy. Chris and I talked about family traditions growing up and it seemed the only thing similar was the fact that our dad's always read about the birth of Christ from Luke 2. So we did a little of both family's traditions and look forward to the coming years as our family expands and traditions continue. We had a nice relaxing morning, then went to a friend's house for Christmas dinner.

.Chris and me on Christmas day:)

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Chris gave me one of the best gifts ever for Christmas. For those of you who know me, you know I LOVE The Cosby Show and Bill Cosby. I grew up watching the show and can't get enough of it. Well, Bill came to CA for a stand-up show and Chris got us tickets...YAY:) We went last Saturday and it was so much fun! Meeting him is the only thing that could have made it better.

I LOVE my husband!!!!!

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me, Chris and Bill after the show.

Baby Shower

I've been anxiously awaiting my baby shower since we moved to Nor Cal in July. My ole' roomies made the trip from AZ to be here for it!! Ashley's mom, Jeanne has been planning it since July and all her hard work paid off. She has taken such good care of us since we moved here and my baby shower was no exception. I had so much fun and couldn't believe how much Jeanne did for this party. She is amazing and you'll see what I mean in the pics below. It was the best baby shower ever! The only thing that could have made it better was if my mom and sisters could have been here for it.

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(The ole' roomies) Kathy, Kzimbo, Jill, Ash and me.

The food was amazing.

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Jeanne made all these fancy desserts herself. She spent a week baking. A week, I tell you! She also made the bread for the sandwhiches and dyed the bread pink and white. We had fudge, toffee, lemon tarts, chocolate covered bananas, a variety of cookies...I'm gonna stop cause you just had to be there.

So I mentioned this party has been in the making for months now, and when Jeanne first started talking about who I would invite, I thought the only people I know are coming from AZ. But as time went on, I've gotten to know some great women in my ward. Everyone has been so nice to me and made me feel welcomed since day one. It was so great to have them at the shower also and offer so much support for the trials of parenthood. Here are some pics of some of the guests.

. Emily and Kirsten with Allie in the back. (I'm one of the Mia-Maid leaders and Allie is one of my girls)

. Some of the young women leaders I work with and another one of my girls, Whitney.

Brooklyn with Jane and Anderson.

Kim, Kathy, Jill, and Chandra. (Chandra is the wife of Chris' best friend Josh)

Yay for family! Kiley, Ashley, me, Shannon, and Elise.

Ashley and Shannon are my sisters-in-law and Kiley and Elise are my nieces (Shannon's daughters). They drove over from Sacramento and it was so great to see them. Wish we could see them more often cause they are a lot of fun.

After everyone ate and chatted for a bit we played some games. One of the games we played was the string game to guess the circumference of my belly. Kathy won thanks to her 1 to 1 ratio trick but she was gracious enough to give it to the next best guesser, since she was the one in charge of the game.

Kathy measuring me.

Since it was Christmas time all my presents were under the tree waiting for me to un-wrap them.

We got some great stuff that we really needed like Butt Paste and a changing table but also some fun stuff like adorable baby clothes...

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and this beautiful quilt Jeanne made for Lila. I told you she is amazing!

I'm a mommy and Chris is a daddy:)

Sunday, December, 27th 2009 we went to the hospital for some 'prep work' prior to being induced. Here's pics of us before leaving.

.Chris carrying all our stuff.

.Me trying not to look nervous. (but I totally was)

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In the process, my water was accidentally broken which kind of expedited things. By 11 pm I was dilated to 3 cm. We got a few hours of sleep before they started the pitocin at 4am Monday morning. After experiencing my water breaking and some miserable contractions the night before, I decided to get my epidural when they started the pitocin. Thank goodness for modern medicine! I slept great till about 8am and felt so relaxed. They checked me again and I was 6cm. About 45 minutes later, the nurse came in saying the baby's heart rate was dropping and she checked me again and I was 10 cm. She called my doctor and he was on his way. I had to push through 4 contractions before she came out. It was totally easy, with those drugs of course:) Lila Sharon Johnson was born Monday, December 28th, 2009. She was 4lbs. 10 oz., 17 1/2 in., and incredibly beautiful!! We love her so, so much and are blessed to have her in our lives.

.Me and Lila:)

.She likes sleeping with her arms like this.

She is such a calm and peaceful baby, except when she acts like a savage beast during feeding time. I wish I had a picture of that. It's quite a scene.

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So long and skinny, like a torpedo.

Don't you think we have the same feet?
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We love this girl and all the faces she makes!!!!!

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The proud daddy and...

mommy:)

(Due to being busy birthing a child, I wasn't able to blog about my awesome baby shower or Christmas, so that will come soon.)

Baby Update

For the past few weeks I have been going in for weekly ultrasounds and non-stress tests. Our baby girl's abdomen is measuring small and the doctors determined the placenta is not providing/transferring enough nutrients for adequate growth. They have predicted I won't make it full term but it really is a week by week observation. I am 33 weeks and counting. This weeks check-up and growth ultrasound went very well. She is still measuring small so they will continue the weekly monitoring.

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A cute profile pic of baby Lila

(Did we tell you we finally agreed on Lila? Well, we did:)

A belly pic for those of you who were asking.

Lila's crib, ready and waiting!

(Quilt made by Grandma Johnson and baby lamb from Grandma Pope)

Thanksgiving Break

For Thanksgiving we went to Sacramento to visit family and friends. We spent the first half of the day and ate the big meal with our friends Josh and Chandra and their family. The second half and dessert was with Chris' sister Ashley and Travis and their families. It was a great day at both houses and too many funny instances to re-tell. We are so grateful for their generosity and having us share the Holiday with them. We forgot to take pictures at Josh's but did get a picture with Ashley and Travis.

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Me, Chris, Ashley, and Travis

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The next day we got our Christmas tree and all the decorating materials. It was so fun watching Christmas movies and listening to Christmas music as we decorated our first Christmas tree. I love this time of year!

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Our 1st Christmas Tree.

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For awhile we were going on Sunday walks consistently but haven't the past few weeks due to the early evening. Today we went on a walk at the same park we always go to. The last time we went the fall colors were so vibrant and I remember thinking to myself I should have brought the camera. The path we walk at the park is so peaceful and this time I took some pictures.

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I love bridges...

.and tree lined walking paths.

.This reminded me of some painting. Not sure which one though.

. I love the colors of the season and tall trees.

Wicked!!!

Wicked was fun and entertaining! I'm so glad we finally got to see it. We were starting to think it's an elusive show we were never going to be able to see. Last night was our final attempt and it was successful.

We had tickets to see it in AZ but moved a week before the showing so we sold them. Turns out the show is playing in San Fran. So we bought tickets to go for my birthday in September. We decided to drive into the city cause we wanted to eat out and stop by a maternity store. Bad idea, cause traffic was horrible and it took us like 3 hours to get into the city. As we were crossing the bridge into the city, I looked down at the tickets and realized they were for the night before. I told Chris and we just looked at each other in total disbelief. How could we have not even looked at the tickets before now?

Since we were already in the city by this time, we decided just to go to the theater and talk to a manager and see if they would help us. We explained our sad story to the ticket booth guy and he said we would have to write a letter and the manager would call us in a week. Well, we didn't know if they would even read our letter but wrote one anyways and hoped we would get to see the show. It took about 3 or 4 weeks but finally Bob, from the Orpheum Theater called and said we could choose between a few dates. We marked our calendars again and started another countdown. This time, we decided to ride BART (pictured below) and not deal with the ridiculously annoying traffic.

I've ridden on BART before but many years ago and Chris has never experienced it so we were a little uneasy about the ride, especially at night. We got to the station and had a little trouble parking. Chris started to worry we were going to miss the show again. We grabbed some info guides and also asked the BART lady where we needed to get off and about how long it would take to get to our stop. It was a relief to get on and just sit 'til we got into the city. The BART is a very interesting spot to people watch by the way.

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We got off, walked upstairs and we were right in front of the theater. There were no problems with the tickets and we even got better seats then what we had originally purchased. Nice eh?

Both of us really enjoyed the show and were really impressed that the theater was so nice about giving us another chance to see the show. We will be sending them a thank you note:)

Nightmare...and Pumpkins

Nightmare Before Christmas is one of Chris' favorite movies and this is our second annual pumpkin carving and watching the movie for Halloween. I've never been into the whole claymation movie thing but this is the second time I've seen the movie and it's growing on me. Especially the soundtrack.

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Chris starting off the Pumpkin carving.

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Me cleaning out my pumpkin. Sometimes I don't get grossed out by the guts of a pumpkin but this year I did.

Still carving...

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and done.

We had some complications, of course, with my pumpkin, but you can't even tell can you? Chris is great at solving problems:)