Rhen Has Arrived!!

Rhen Lee Beutler
Born 3/9/09 at 1:51 PM
7 lbs 11 oz, 20 inches long

Man what a time we've had, Rhen came as quick as could be this afternoon. Mom and baby are doing great. Rease is still sizing up the situation. As you can see, we have a wide-eyed addition to the family. I don't know how we ever lived without her.

Play By Play!

Hello everyone, I'm the designated blogger for the day.
Natalie and I were about to drop Rease off at Oscar, the betrothed one's, house and heard from the hospital that things had got a little hectic and they didn't have room until around 10... maybe. So with a little bit of impatience we went out to waste some time. Breakfast at U Food Grill, getting into a confrontation with the cashier at Walgreens over some coupons then a little road trip to Saratoga Springs where they would give us the deal (yes coupons can drive you crazy). Then we got a call from the Doctor's office. The hospital had been trying to find us for the last half hour because they just had a nurse come on shift.

Now we're here. They got us right in and broke her water. All the tubes are in place and the contractions are getting fierce. The happy Doc should be by any minute. Natalie is just firing up the ipod to watch Lord of the Rings and I'm sitting in on what I'm sure is the most uncomfortable chairs in the entire hosptital. I'll keep keep the updates coming!!

My projects

A few months ago my sister Hayley took me to the fabric store to get stuff to make quilts - one for Rhen and one for Rease's new bed. With some help from Hayley and lots and lots of time, I finally got done with both of them this week. The crazy colored one is for Rease and the other one is for Rhen. I had a fun time doing them and was able to spend lots of time with my mom and sis during the process (I needed their help a lot of the time!) This project is done just in time for Rhen to come!

Snowshoeing with Dad

Josh took Rease snowshoeing up in Suncrest today. One last date with dad before baby Rhen comes. They obviously have a great time together!

Still Pregnant

Well, I am officially 3 days away from my induuction date and even though I was hoping for an early labor, no luck so far. I went to see Dr. Smith on Tuesday and we talked about my induction date of Monday, March 9th. He told me that Monday is starting to look like a busy day and that there is a chance that we would have to wait until Tuesday to induce me (sigh.) He said that in the case that there are too many people on the schedule or others that are in labor then they remove people from the list according to due date. Well, since I am getting started before my due date I am most likely to be bumped first and have to wait until the next day. Oh man! That's like telling me that I have to run 5 more miles after I just crossed the marathon finish line. Not fair! Plus we have this wedding time crunch which is the whole reason that he is starting me early! So yesterday I decided to take matters into my own hands and see if I could start my own labor. I went to the grocery store and bought a bottle of castor oil. I've heard that it works and my mom and my mother in law both said that they tried it on a few of their kids and were successful. So my mom helped me whip up a castor oil cocktail with apple juice and I was ready. Let me just tell you first of all how gross this stuff looks. When we mixed it with the juice the oil just settled on the top and balled up. It looked like Karo syrup that wouldn't mix in (I wish it tasted like Karo syrup too but no such luck.) I knew the side effects of drinking this stuff were hours spent in the bathroom and possible vomiting, but along with that it is also supposed to trigger contractions. I was ready to take on the side effects as long as it would help get Rhen here quicker. So anyway, it took me a few minutes of talking myself into it to finally gulp this stuff down (and almost throwing up half way through because it was so disgusting) but I did it and settled in for a night of contractions. Well a couple of hours went by and I did spend my fair share of time in the bathroom, but after everything was said and done I didn't have many results. No contractions, no pains, nothing to do with getting me into labor! By the end of the night, I ended up being disappointed that it didn't work for me. I went to bed with the hopes that during the night the contractions would start and we'd be off to the hospital. I woke up this morning with a baby still inside and a stomach ache from the nasty cocktail I drank the night before. What a disappointment! I have started to accept the fact that I will most likely have to wait until Monday (or more likely Tuesday) to have the Dr. induce me (sigh again.) It's not all bad, I really have had a good pregnancy and I love feeling the baby move inside my tummy (which I will miss greatly when she is born.) Rease is a great helper around the house and I love spending one on one time with her and I know we only have a few days of that left. I will try and be more patient these last few days of my pregnangy...no more castor oil for me!

Rease's Big-Girl Bed

We have been planning on getting Rease a new bed for a while, but just this past week finally decided to do it. After a few trips to IKEA we decided on one and brought it home. I didn't think that it would be as easy as it was to get Rease to sleep in her new bed, but the minute we had it set up she was all over it. As you can tell by her face in these pictures, she loves that she is a big girl now and doesn't have to sleep in the crib anymore. She's even pretty good at staying in it when we put her down for naps or at night for bedtime. And when she wakes up she quietly knocks on the door to let us know she is ready to come out. She made this very easy on us!

Yeah for big girls!

Sisterly Love

I am getting so excited for Rease to be a big sister. For a little while I worried about how she would react to having a new baby in the house - someone to take all the attention from her. But she has been so cute during this pregnancy and has gotten into the habit of kissing Baby Rhen and pointing to my belly whenever Rhen's name is mentioned.

I don't think I have to worry about this big sister loving her baby sister!

Friends and kids

A few weeks ago I was able to spend some quality time with a couple of my friends from high school. Brooke just had her darling baby boy Cooper and Misha and I met in the middle and visited her in Manti. Baby Cooper is so cute and it was so fun to get together and catch up. Misha brought her little Sammie and she is cute as can be. We had a great day together and I wish we could do it more often. I love these girls - thanks for a fun day together!

Rease's Obsession

I love my little Rease. She is the type of girl that is easily distracted but when she is focused on one thing, she is really focused. Recently she has been obsessed with the movie Wall-E. If you have never seen this movie, you would think to yourself "that's a weird movie for a little girl to like." But if you have seen it, you'll understand how darling it is and love it for the fact that there is not much talking, but the characters are so so cute. Anyway, Rease has taken her Wall-E obsession to the extreme and we watch Wall-E about 3 times a day. When she wakes up in the morning she says Wall-E, after naps - Wall-E, anytime we are in the car - Wall-E, we have a Wall-E poster hanging on our fridge, a stuffed Wall-E and Eve, a Wall-E plate and cup, you name it. She can say most of the characters names when they come on screen and repeats them over and over throughout the day. She has never been a big TV or movie watcher, but for some reason she can sit through the whole Wall-E movie without a flinch. I've tried putting princess movies on or even 101 Dalmations, but she gets easily distracted from them and only makes it about 10 minutes before she's on to something else. Anyway, love her - she is obsessed with this darling movie.

This is Eve - or according to Rease "Ev-a"

If you haven't had a chance, you'd love this movie. Or Rease could tell you all about it next time you see her!

Our day with Grandpa Losee

This past Sunday we took a trip down to Delta to see my Grandpa and Grandma Losee. Grandpa has been sick and not doing too well, so we try and make it down as often as we can. He had lots of visitors that day and we're glad we could be a part of the big gathering. My mom and dad, Hayley and her boyfriend Caleb, Justin and Stephanie, Josh, Rease and I all squeezed into the suburban and had a great trip together (No, if you count all the people I named, we didn't all have seatbelts on. Four of us squeezed into the middle seat of the suburban - luckily it's big enough for even a pregnant girl to have enough room. Funny story, just outside of Nephi a cop started to follow us and we for sure thought we were busted. Dad was sweating bullets of course, but it turned out that he was just out for a friendly drive and didn't pull us over. We all had a good laugh watching dad be nervous for a few minutes.)

Aunt Celia and her girls made us dinner and then of course we had to play Nintendo for a little while. Grandma has an old time Nintendo - the ones you have to blow in or tweak just right to make it work - and we always end up playing Dr. Mario or Mario Bros 3 while we are visiting.

It was such a fun day and we loved seeing Grandpa and Grandma. We love you guys!

My new hobby

So I've picked up a new hobby since I got my wheat grinder for Christmas - making bread. My mother-in-law is a great cook and she has some great bread recipes. She helped Josh find me a wheat grinder for Christmas and I have made a bunch of bread since then. It's easy and fun and makes me feel like a good wife to have Josh come home to fresh-baked bread. Plus, no more buying bread!

Voila! There's the finished product, ready to come out of the oven!

Rhen update

Good news from Dr. Smith today! First of all, everything is going great. Heartbeat is 145 and strong, I am measuring right at 32 1/2 weeks and Dr. Smith said Rhen looks completely normal and healthy! He also thinks that I have a great chance of delivering early because I was 2 weeks early with Rease and said it's about a 50-75% chance that I'll deliver early with this one too. I told him that my brother is getting married on March 13th (the day before my due date of March 14th) and he said that if I haven't delivered on my own before that he would start me on - the best news of all - March 9th! Wahoo!! That way, I will have the baby and be out of the hospital for sure before the wedding! Oh man, best news ever! No more worrying about my water breaking at the wedding (it's been a fear of mine since the graduation incident last time), no more worrying that I will be fat and ugly for all the millions of pictures that will be taken and best of all, everyone that is in town for the wedding will get to see our sweet Rhen in her first week here! Mostly I'm grateful to have a great pregnancy and healthy baby on the way. Good news all around today!

The pee-pee adventure

Well we've started the potty-training journey in our house. I admit I wasn't excpecting to do it this early, but for the past month or so Rease has started telling me before she has to go to the bathroom. She'd come get me and say "poopie" and I'd check her and her diaper was clean...then sure enough 5 minutes later she comes back and says "poopie" and it's the real thing. So this week I decided to get her a toilet just so we could start having her sit on it and try it out when she tells me she needs to go. Well, of course she loves sitting on it and thinks it's a fun new toy to carry around. But as far as actually going to the bathroom, we've had no luck...until today. She was in the bath and said "poopie" (I think she thinks that pee and poo are the same word, so she only says "poopie" even if it's just pee sometimes.) So after the bath I took her straight to the toilet and she sat down and went pee! I was so proud! She got lots of praise and a treat to go with it, so hopefully she keeps this up and gets the hang of it real quick! She's making this potty-training easy for me!

Sorry if the pictures gross you out - but I had to document this exciting event!

Christmas 2008

We hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year. I have been meaning to put these pictures up from Christmas for a couple of weeks now, but between Christmas, New Years and Josh's 30th birthday (yes, can you believe he's that old?) along with the Wii that my parents got as a family gift (and we are taking full advantage of) I just haven't had too much time to get around to posting. So here was our wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Eve started out just like it should with a house of girls - spending plenty of time getting ready in front of the mirror. Rease has mastered how to get more than one thing done at once - hair and brushing teeth in this case.

Once again - hair is drying, so why not have a snack?

We hosted Christmas at our house this year since both of our parents are empty-nesters. So mom and dad Beutler, mom and dad Losee, Andy and Hayley spent two days with us - what a great time! We had the traditional Beutler Family Christmas Eve dinner - french dip sandwiches.

And followed it up with another Beutler family tradition of caroling. We had such a fun time visiting neighbors and friends and I have to say, I think we sounded pretty darn good too!

Us in our Christmas pajamas.

And Grandma Beutler reading us Christmas stories.

Christmas morning we saw that Santa found all of us and left plenty of gifts for everyone. Rease got lots of toys and was a very spoiled girl this year.

Grandma Beutler made us all matching aprons. Perfect because Rease loves helping us cook.

Grandma Losee got her this cute hat and vest with gloves and all.

And Rease's favorite thing this year - a new baby with a stroller and diaper bag. She loves being a mommy! Hopefully this is a sign of what a good big sister she'll be too!

Josh got Rease a new camelbak bottle - great for her!

And along with all her gifts she picked up a new habit of wearing grandma and grandpa's glasses. She kept them on for so long that we decided to take the lenses out so her eyes don't go all crazy. Ever since then, she doesn't want to take them off.

Yes, this is our child most of the time now - quite the grown-up! She even wore them to church last week - what do you do?

Anyway, we had a great great Christmas and loved having family close to spend the days with us!

Happy New Year to you all!

Good times in Dallas

We just got home from a fabulous trip to Dallas to visit Chad, Britt and Nolan. We did so many fun things - here are the highlights.

A fun plane ride. Rease got her own seat on a couple of the flights - yes we had 5 flights total which was a bummer, but we got cheap tickets so we weren't complaining too much.

Aunt Hayley taught Nolan and Rease a new computer game...and then she spent the rest of the weekend playing it herself. I have to admit, I got hooked on it too!

Wearing her new backpack. Which by the way, she loves this thing and doesn't want to take it off.

Taking bubble baths. Rease didn't know what to make of the bubbles, she kept trying to wipe them off her hands.
Shopping.

Going for rides with grandpa.
Reading with grandma.Visiting Chad's work. He works for Bain Consulting and they have a really cool building that has great Christmas decorations.
Plus, outside of their building there are some cool horse statues that are, according to some magazine, one of the top ten things to see in Dallas.


Playing in a toy train. I think this was more for decoration, but oh well.

Taking some crazy rides in the stroller with grandpa.
And visiting the best ice sculpture exhibit ever. It had 2 million pounds of ice made into houses, villages, slides, nativity scenes, you name it. We were all given parkas to wear because it was 9 degrees inside. The kids were bundled and we all had a great time.

We had such a fun time - it was hard to leave! Thanks Chad and Britt for having us crash at your house and showing us a great time!