Jayda Lyn Bell

So this little girl came into the world on Friday, October 16 at 8:48 PM. She is pretty perfect and we already love her so so much. Here is the Bell family about 10 minutes after Jayda was born.

I got a little sick the day I delivered and passed it on to my little girl, I'm sorry. Jayda had some abnormal blood test scores so the doctors put her on an antibiotic which she had to have through an I.V. for 7 days! I was an emotional roller coaster for the entire week, but I was lucky to have Clark there to comfort me and be the strong one for both of us. Here is Jayda with her make-shift cast to cover her I.V. She had that stupid thing in both hands and both feet through out the week. She also got a high fever and had to have a spinal tap. This poor girl had a rough first week of life, but she is pretty strong.
Here she is just making a funny face with her cute mohawk and bow that the nurses put in. We had some really great nurses over those 7 days and I am very grateful for all their help.
I was discharged Sunday night so we had to do something called a "Hotel Stay" so that we could stay at the hospital while Jayda was still getting her antibiotic. We had to pay for every extra night we were there, and we could only stay if there were available rooms. Well, Wenesday rolled around and they told us we were going to have to leave. I bawled for a good hour just thinking that we would have to go home without our little girl. Luckily, our nurse fought for us, and there ended up being a couple extra rooms that night. It sure wasn't very nice of them to scare us like that. We finally left on Friday, Oct 23 and Jayda got to wear her very own clothes!
We are still adjusting to being home, but I sure do love to cuddle with her. She loves to fall asleep after she eats and burps and I take full advantage of this cuddling session.
I couldn't get this picture to turn, but here she is at a week and 3 days old. She still has here dark hair, just like her dad and we love it. She looks older already and we are having so much fun being parents to her. She really is such a blessing in our lives and I couldn't imagine it any other way!

3 Weeks Left!

So this is me at 35 weeks, but I now only have 3 weeks until this baby comes! I'm so excited to meet her and hold her, but still a little nervous. We have a few things left to buy, but I'm sure everything will come together... well I hope it will. I don't know how much I'll get to blog once Baby Bell is here, so I thought I'd let you know what we've been up to the past few weeks.
My brother-in-law, Blake, is very into biking and decided to ride Lotaja (Logan to Jackson) this year. The rest of Clark's family drove up to Jackson Hole and met him at the finish line. He's crossing here with his team on the second row, far right. It was over 200 hundred miles they rode and Blake did really well!
Here's the whole family (me, Clark, Warren, Tammy, Emily, Blake and Audrie) under the arch of antlers in down town Jackson. We walked around all the shops, ate some good food and enjoyed relaxing together.
This was the scene outside our new house last week when our Stop and Waste valve burst and flooded our storage room. It was about 9 AM and Clark yelled to me to "Come here!" I kept asking why, why, until he yelled, "Call 911!" That got me downstairs and on the phone with the fire department real quick. There was about a foot and a half of water in the window well that was making it's way into our house. Luckily, it was a storage room with no carpet, but a lot of our books that were still in cardboard boxes were ruined. It could've been a lot worse and we're lucky that there wasn't too much damage.
On a brighter note, I get to watch and play with my niece, Audrie, every Thursday while her mom works. Last week we had to stop by Prodigy for me to grab a few things and Audrie got her first opportunity in a dance studio. She pulled out all the dress ups and danced really close to the big mirrors for a good half hour. It was so cute and I can't wait to have my own little one in dance classes some day!
I have had two baby showers so far and last Saturday, my high school girlfriends threw me an awesome shower. Here's Devon (a friend from college) and me with the amazing Diaper Cake that she made for me. Complete with home-made blanket and stuffed animals.
Lisa, Ashley and Holly, chillin while I was opening my great presents.
Laura, Heidi, Rachelle with Landon, Lennie and me. All these girls are such great friends and I'm lucky to have them! Thanks Lisa and Rachelle for hosting and planning!
Here's Aimee and I just after the shower, showing off our baby bumps. She's due about 3 weeks after me with her second. I know the picture is kinda dark, but it shows off the bellies and I think it's pretty funny!
And let's not forget my little sister, Alli. She's growing up so fast. This is Alli and her Homecoming date, Andrew. She looked gorgeous that night, but always looks so cute. I swear I didn't have the cute clothes she does, back when I was in high school.
And I was so excited that we finally got our crib and bedding, I just have to post it. The baby room isn't quite done, but it definitely feels like a baby room now and I love it. I can't believe there is actually going to be a crying baby in our house in just a few weeks!

A New House

It's been a long road, but as of last week, Clark and I are officially home owners! Although moving is a lot of work, being in our own home is so great! It feels like a lot of space for just the two of us, but we sure have filled it with a lot of stuff. And, in less than two months, there will be a little one there with us to keep us busy. Here our some pics of moving day. Here's all our friends and family that were able to help us move all our stuff.
Left to right: Blake with Audrie on his shoulders, Emily, Tammy, Mel and Mike (behind), me and Clark, Morgan and Natalie, and Alex. My Dad is behind the camera and Heber met up with us later to carry all the heavy stuff in. My mom also came over the night before to help me pack up my kitchen. Thank you so much for all your help everyone.

Here's our old apartment full of boxes before the move started. I kind of hate moving.

And here we are with only a few items left in the same room. I realize this isn't the most flattering picture of me, but it does show the baby bump pretty well and I haven't posted one of those pics in a while. Aren't I huge?!

And here is the front of the house. It has four bedrooms, two bathrooms, downstairs family room, formal living room, obviously a garage, a laundry room and extra storage space downstairs.

And here's me just resting, I'm good at that, after we got the front room all set up. It's pretty quaint and I quite like it. Now we just need to get a new couch for the basement, barstools, a new TV (according to Clark), and a whole lot of baby stuff. Getting a house is expensive, but worth it. Now I just have to put everything away...

Happy Anniversary!

It's hard to believe it's been 3 years since this!And this!

Our anniversary was actually on the 8th (I'm always a little behind), so to celebrate we went to a hotel for some much needed R and R. We watched movies, took naps, hung out by the pool, and ate. Clark took me to Five Alls for dinner, which was delicious, and all together we had a really fun weekend together. It's not often that we get to spend 2 full days together so we tried to make the best of it. This will be our last anniversary with just the two of us, since Baby Bell will be here before we know it. Clark is the best husband and is going to be the best dad too. I love you, Clark!

Summer 2009... so far!

I know it's been a long while since I've posted, but I haven't forgotten about blogging. I actually miss it. I just have no internet at home and that makes posting a little bit harder. Clark and I have been doing a lot of fun things this summer. I don't have much time now, but here's a quick synopsis of what's been going on since our trip to New York.

Back in June we went to Kelly Clarkson! It was cold and rainy, but still really fun. I love Kelly!

We headed down to St. George for a weekend with the family and got to see two shows at Tuachan: Annie and Footloose! And guess who was the main character in Footloose... Thayne Jasperson from last season So You Think You Can Dance. I have been watching Thayne dance for years so it was really fun to meet him. I think I have a knack for finding and taking pictures with cast members of SYTYCD.This was me a couple weeks ago. I need to be better about taking prego pictures, but here I am at 26 weeks. I'm now 28 and feel a lot bigger. Here's my friend, Natalie, and I at the American Idol concert. We met up with my family for dinner and had a lot of fun at the concert. Adam is a much better performer than Kris, and I was glad I got to see Allison sing. She's so good.I've also been able to see my high school girlfriends more than normal lately. We've had several get-togethers, like this BBQ at Lisa's and it's so fun to see everyone and their kids. I'll be joining that mom group soon and I'm kind of excited to have a little one to chase around the pool, instead of just sitting and watching. Last week was a lot of fun and a lot of hard work. Clark and I, mostly I, babysat my friends' 3 kids for 5 days. Talk about being thrown into motherhood. Although I was exhausted every day, I still had so much fun with these kids and learned a lot about how much work goes in to just packing up the car to leave for a few hours. The two in the picture are Wyatt and Rylie on the day we went to the parade float preview at the Expo Center. They got their faces painted and got balloon animals. Who you don't see in the picture is little 8-month old Lindyn. She is such a good baby and it was so cute watching Clark play and take of her. He's going to be a great dad. And this week Clark and I were staying at his parents house to take care of the dogs. We invited my little sis, Alli, over last night to watch So You Think You Can Dance and have a delicious dinner. We then made a rainbow cake, my favorite, for dessert. Alli frosted and sprinkled it and was pretty proud of herself, if you can't tell.

I've made it to the pool several times and have been working too, but this summer has been pretty fun so far. We've also been dealing with trying to buy a home. The first one didn't work out, but we are currently under contract with our second choice. We're supposed to close in a few weeks so hopefully this all works out and we'll be in our first home soon!

Trip to Buffalo

Clark and I were lucky to be able to travel to Buffalo, New York to do some sight seeing, but more importantly, to spend time with our good friends Doug and Rachel. I don't know how to do those slide show things, so you get all the pictures right here. First on our list of fun things to do was go to Niagra Falls... so cool and so beautiful!
This is a classic Doug and Clark picture. They both wish they could be rappers like Kanye.

They have all kinds of tourist stuff to do around the Falls so we had lunch at Rain Forest Cafe and walked around a little bit before doing some much needed baby shopping. Here's Rach and I trying to look like we're dancing in front of the James Brown quote, "I've got ant in my pants and I need to dance!"

You can't go to Buffalo without having buffalo wings for dinner at least once. Here's the four of us at a great little wings place called Duff's. I think Doug and Clark ended up going there three times in the five days that we were there. A little too much for me, but the wings were really good.

The next day we headed to Crystal Beach on the shores of Lake Erie. It was a great day and such a beautiful place just to hang out at. It's only about a 30 minute drive from their house which makes me so jealous. We had a lot of fun laying out, playing frisbee and football and eating giant otter pops!

On Saturday we headed up to Palmyra to see all the church sites. We first went to the Palmyra temple, then headed to lunch at this little place called the Chill N Grill. When Clark and I ordered the "Junk Plate," we thought all those things were going to be separated on our plate, but no, the baked beans, macaroni salad, fries, and two burgers were all slopped together, with ketchup, mustard and onions decorating the top. Pretty awesome!

After lunch we went to the Book of Mormon Print Shop, which was really cool and then headed over to the Smith Farm where we were able to go inside the Log home of the Smith family. Talk about a spiritual experience. Here's the four of us in the room where Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith. So neat.

Next was the Frame house. I don't think he's supposed to, but Clark is touching the bricks were Joseph Smith had to hide the plates from mobbers. Pretty cool.

And finally, the Sacred Grove. If you've never been, you should go. Its so peaceful and quiet. This is Doug, the photographer, getting a great shot of Clark and I walking through a piece of sunlight in the grove. Turned out pretty good!

We even got to see Camille and her new husband Andy, some friends from high school and college, who moved to Buffalo a few months ago. We had so much fun spending time with Doug and Rachel and can't thank you enough for letting us stay at your house and cooking us meals. Everything was so great and it was so fun for Rachel and I to not only hang out together, but talk pregnancy a lot, since she's only 6 weeks ahead of me! We love you and thanks again!

IT'S A...

GIRL!

I was pretty much expecting them to say boy, since so many of our friends and family thought it was going to be a boy, but I was pleasantly surprised when she said girl! Clark and I are very excited to have a daughter and love that we can now call the baby "she" and "her" instead of "it." I'm starting to feel her move and I'm really enjoying being pregnant, so far.

Has It Really Been a Month

I can't believe it's been a whole month since I've posted. Sorry. Besides the fact that we no longer have internet at home, I have been extremely busy. Shortly after my last post Clark and I had a nice weekend trip in Vegas. We ate out a lot, saw the cirque show, "KA," and did some shopping.
Me on the beautiful Strip at night. I'm pretty sure my eyes are closed.

Clark and I just outside of New York, New York where we watched the Jazz lose their last game of the playoffs.Me with the cute elephant at Rain Forest Cafe.

As soon as we got back I was in dance concert mode. I was on the phone and running around all day every day trying to make sure that everything was going to go smoothly for Prodigy's dress rehearsals and performances. Luckily, everything was a success! The preschool performance was adorable and all the dancers did so well. We even had a motorcycle come out and circle the stage before the "Rock Ballet" production started and that was a huge hit. I was extremely nervous, but I have received a lot of compliments on how well everything turned out. I am, however, so glad it's over. What a huge relief!

The next most exciting thing going on in our lives is that we are shopping for houses in the Sugarhouse, Holladay, and Cottonwood Heights areas. It's been a lot of fun so far and it's weird that we will actually be buying a home here in a couple months.

We find out if our little baby is a boy or a girl on Monday, June 1 so I will let everyone know as soon as we know.