Mom Anita saves us Week 2!

Thank goodness for our amazing Moms! Mom Lynda left on Saturday and Anita took right over. We broke her in slowly to the burping and diaper changes but by the end she was watching Jaylee for full shifts between feedings. Like today we brought Jaylee out at 11am and Griffin and I went back to sleep for 5 hours!!! I just never knew how tired I could be...even though I was technically in bed most the night...just getting 1 1/2 hour naps just doesn't cut it! Griffin went back to school this week and so the chaos of adding his stress back into his life combined with Jaylee's addition to our family has been difficult but of course worth it. Thank you so much Mom Anita for saving us and letting us sleep!!! Jaylee will miss your taco! haha And we'll so miss your magic touch with Jaylee!

Happy St. Patricks Day! So Anita took over on Saturday, march 17th and we had bought this onesie just for Jaylee. Thank you GayLynn for MAKING the hat yourself. It is SOOOOOO soft and oh so adorable!!! St. Patrick's Day is huge in Griffin's family since his grandparents were both 100% Irish. Griffin almost 40% Irish so we had to represent the fact that Jaylee is near 20% Irish. :)

I love you Nini! (Anita decided she'd prefer being called a nickname rather than "Grandma". So a co-worker told her about a nickname his mother uses and it stuck...Nini)

Hello Brownie Torte!!! Mom Anita is (as everyone knows) an incredible baker. She attended and graduated from the California Culinary Academy and was a Pastry Major. Even though this came from a boxed Brownie Mix...something about her magic touch made it taste that much better! We are going to miss her and her cooking tremendously as well. :(

Our little Family

Our Ellis Family :)

3 Generations

Christi and Jaylee

I just continue to love how tiny Jaylee is. After setting her on the couch I couldn't help but snap this photo of how small she is! And do any of you recognize this outfit Jaylee's wearing? Well apparently all of us kids (merilee, jonathan, GayLynn and I) wore it as babies! And the hand mittens too! Thanks mom for saving our baby clothes all these years!

Jaylee's first blow out! Yes, what you're looking at is poop. I was in the middle of holding her when I felt it on my hand. Poor baby...doesn't look too happy! (But thank goodness it's her only blow out so far!)

ARen't I irresistably cute?

Ether finally has a sibling!

In honor of St. Patrick's Day Mom made us cornbeef and cabbage. What a treat!

Daddy and Jaylee :)

Mom Lynda saved us our first week...

What would we have done without Mom our first week? I would have cried probably, and been even MORE sleep deprived, and doubted everything we did with Jaylee. She was such a blessing being able to teach us what is normal and answer all our questions. She was so supportive and just offered encouragement...never criticized our decisions of how to raise Jaylee. We couldn't have asked for more especially our very first week as parents.

We call Mom the "Master Burper". She was always ready to give a hand if we ever asked for ANYTHING. After we'd change and feed Jaylee, there was mom ready to burp her. She seemed to have a magic touch.

I apologize for those of you who hate naked baby photos. I usually do too...but something about this scene just made me laugh so hard. A totally naked baby except for a huge hat just made me smile.

Maybe this is pretty normal, but we found some of the outfits we had for Jaylee kind of tricky to learn how to put them on. Having two people dress her became somewhat a norm for us this past week.

Once again I apologize for the naked baby photo...but this is Jaylee getting ready for her very first spongebath. Boy were we in for a treat... we didn't know Jaylee could cry so loud and hard until we gave her her first sponge bath. We can't wait for her ambilical cord to fall off and heal completely so we can give her a real bath. We're hoping it was just the coldness of a layer of warm water that we didn't dry off immediately that she hated...not the water itself... time will tell though! :)

This is our "Baby Moses" photo. Something about that hooded towel reminds us of Pharoah. She stopped crying once we dried her off and warmed her up by the furnace.

Yes...I looked like death most of Jaylee's first week of life. And still do actually. We actually stayed awake probably 95% of our first night with Jaylee. She makes so many little noises in the night time that we were constantly sitting up and watching her to make sure she was okay. One of these days I'll record her while she sleeps so y'all can hear the choir of noises we listen to each night!

One of the noises Jaylee makes 75% of the day are 'pushing' sounds...like she's having a hard time digesting her food and so she 'pushes' it out. Poor girl. So we decided to try having her sleep in a slightly more upright position. We bought a little bouncer for her that just happened to have a huge Monkey on it. Although we can't say it solved her digestion issues...we can say that Jaylee loves it. This is her loving it! :) Jaylee can fall asleep anywhere...like most newborns we assume. I just love having her fall asleep in my arms. I hope she stays this size forever!

So we learned that taking care of Jaylee is a team effort! Thank you team!

And thank you Mom for making gourmet meals every single day she was here for us. We couldn't have done it without you and miss you terribly!!!

Jaylee comes home

Oh how very small and insignificant I felt when Griffin and i brought little Jaylee home with us. What a huge responsibility it is to take care of a newborn. And I did not feel like I could do it alone. Thank goodness I have a loving hubby and we have wonderful mothers who agreed to take shifts helping us out.
Here is our little Jaylee bundled up in the blanket we accidentally stole from Orem Community Hospital! We discovered later that it says "Central Laundry" on it.

Here's our bassinett we have in our bedroom corner...quite a nursery hey? Wanted to capture just how tiny Jaylee was at 3 days old!

So I had no idea that the newborn nails were so long and sharp! We had to be careful because Jaylee kept putting her fingers in her eyes and scratching herself. So out came the mittens! Isn't she adorable???

Visitors in the Hospital

So the very day Jaylee was born, Thursday, Dad drove down to meet her. And I didn't take any pictures on my camera! But he has photos on his iphone. So technically Dad was the very first family member Jaylee met and was held by.

On Friday one of my best friends from high school, Mike Shaw, said he wanted to bring us dinner. But since I was already getting gourmet food in the hospital and Griffin was getting fed as well Mike insisted to bring us dessert. And oh my goodness he was not kidding...look at all the goodies he brought us from Kneaders!!! Yummy!!!!
And before he left he did hold Jaylee for a few minutes. So funny though because he said it was the longest he had ever held a baby other than one of his own. :)
And Anita came to town on Friday as well. Here is her burping little Jaylee in the hospital.

Later that night Mom arrived and got to help hold and burp Jaylee too. I LOVE the first photo here since Jaylee looks like shes so happy!
And finally late on Friday night Jaylee got put in her very first outfit...to prepare her for being taken home...but it took two expert mom's to do it!

Welcome Baby Jaylee!

Welcome to Earth our little baby Jaylee Joy! She arrived Thursday March 8, 2012 at 12:44am. I have typed up my entire experience and will try to figure out if there is a way to post that. Here is a photo the night of with Jaylee in her little hospital bassinett and me holding a copy of her actual footprints. We just can't get over what a little miracle she is. One minute she's in my stomach and the next she is her own soul and being with a personality ready to start her adventure of life on earth.
It's safe to say that Griffin has fallen in love with his little girl. How could you not when they put such a cute bow on her head? :)
We must say that Orem Community Hospital is more than we ever imagined. We wish that we could bring Orem Community to California with us whenever we move just because we want to deliver all our babies here. The nurses were impecable, the food was incredible, and private jetted tub...need I say more? As my "support person", Griffin had access to a fridge/freezer full of grubbin food as well as a microwave and fresh fruits etc. He offered time and time again to bring me whatever I liked and here he is on one of those occasions. What a supportive hubby I have. :)
Susie was the nurse that helped me through the delivery and walked me through my first breast feeding session with Jaylee. She also instructed me how to take care of all my feminine regions in order to fully recover. She was fantastic. I wanted to get pictures of Dr. Young and all the other incredible nurses but right after it all happened I just didn't have the energy. Susie actually came back my last day there to say goodbye so that's how I got her picture!

And what a small world Orem is. One of the nurses there was my friend Brooke from one of my singles wards back in 2003-2004. I was serving as 2nd counselor in Relief Society Presidency and Brooke was the Enrichment Leader at the time. We worked hand in hand and it was really neat to be reunited with her again! She's been married 8 years and has 2 kids. Last time I had seen her she was only engaged.

Overall we feel so blessed to have had Orem Community Hospital to bring Jaylee into this beautiful world!