The newest addition

                                        Introducing.....   Ivory Elaine Egan


Early Monday morning October 28th, we went to the hospital for the C-section.   Everything went a lot smoother the second time around, just knowing what to expect makes you so much less nervous.   It is still weird to be awake while they are cutting you open and pulling a baby out of you.  They really had to pull to get her out too, Ryan said there was two nurses basically putting all their weight leaning onto me with their elbows to get her out and it actually kinda hurt and I was numb from my chest down.  Finally, I felt a big release of pressure and heard her cry.  This time I actually stayed awake the whole time but unfortunatley when they brought her over to show her to me I got really sick and threw up, so again not the tearful heartfelt greeting I imagined upon seeing my baby for the first time.

 I am 100% sure I would have never gotten this 8 lbs and 9 oz baby out of me naturally so I am glad I did not attempt to try labor again.      By the time the sun was rising I was back in the recovery room.  After an hour they brought me down to the recovery floor and I got to see this cute little girl.  

View out of my hospital room the morning of.

We got most of our visitors the first day. Great grandma and grandpa christensen, then Penny, Tim, Becky, Libby and Elliot.  Then Grandma Cindy and Tristan, and later Erin & Jake, and Tyler and Tiffany.    The rest of the hospital stay was pretty chill, minus getting sick again, (throwing up and C-section is not fun in case anyone was wondering)  Tristan could only come and visit for a few minutes  a day before wreaking too much havoc in the small hospital room.    Nursing was so much less stressful, I don't know if its because I knew better what to expect or she is just a better eater but overall everything seemed to go smoother this time around.  By Halloween day I was ready to go home.   So far this girl is so chill,  the only time she ever seems to fuss is when her diaper is dirty (this has never bothered Tristan).  She is such a good eater and has already regained and surpassed her birth weight.   She is just so sweet!

Going home from the hospital

First day home

 Ivory and daddy staring contest

Baby Shower

My sister in laws and mother in law threw me a lovely little baby shower for Ivory.  My colors for her room are pink and gray.

And since I am way behind in getting the nursery done, the activity at the shower was painting these cute little picture frames!    I just quickly snapped a few pics, wish I had gotten more and better ones.

 Cute party favors.

I am so excited to put together the nursery and hang all these cute things! 

Fall Happenings

Its been a pretty nice fall this year, we've gotten to do a few fun things,  wishing we had time to do a few more things but as our motto this year due to moving and being pregnant seems to be, "Next year we'll do that..."

Our ward had a playgroup activity during fire awareness this week where we got to take the kids to the fire station.  There was treats, fire hats, and they even got to sit in a fire truck (Tristan's favorite part as you can tell from this pic)

We've gone to a few pumpkin patches. They all have a bunch of fun activities for kids, so its a lovely way to kill a few hours keeping them entertained. 

Baby Update

It looks like I am going to be having baby Ivory on Monday, October 28th.  I had been scheduled for a c-section on Monday, November 4th, one day after my due date.  I had really wanted her birthday to be after Halloween instead of just a few days before it,  because there are always so many parties right before Halloween and I don't want to be locked into a Halloween party every year and I wanted to go trick or treating with Tristan this year, but I am also so happy to not have to be pregnant for an extra week that I have a little boost of energy today to try and get as much done as I can.  I'm having all the signs of pre-clampsia again, so that is why my dr. recomended not waiting the extra week.

We all got the stomach flu this week which was awful timing, since Ryan had to miss a couple days of work this week and now take next week off and couldn't get all the baby preparations done that we wanted.  I couldn't keep any thing down so I had to go to the hospital to get an IV of fluids for the baby.  I feel like I've already been poked and prodded enough and am not looking forward to the recovery of the C-section.   But, the thought of only a couple more days of being pregnant is nice.  I have to say, I do not handle pregnancy well and have been miserable the past little while and am so swollen I have a double chin and no shoes that I can fit into and well I won't list all my pregnancy complaints but you get the idea.

I still can't comprehend how we are going to take care of Tristan and a new born but I am assuming that since others have done it we can too. I'm hoping he adjusts well to the new baby and my not being around for a few days.  Whenever we ask him where the baby is he pulls up my shirt and points to my belly. One day recently when I was going somewhere he gave me a hug good bye and hugged my belly, it was adorable.

I'm so excited to finally meet this little girl!

The House

Finally getting around to posting some pics of the house.  We have so many projects and things we want to do and decorating that it is a little overwhelming, considering I haven't even begun to do a nursery for little Ivory yet.  So these are the before pics, I hope to have some after pics before 5 years passes at least.


It was kinda cool to see our house go from this

to this in a few months

Probably the room we love the most.  The builder put different countertops in at first that we didn't feel like matched the sample that we had picked out so they were super nice and replaced them for us, we love these ones so much better.  All these pics are a little dark, we took them Friday evening after finding out the loan had funded and it was actually ours before moving in the next morning.

 Mud room, coat closet bathroom door

Downstairs bathroom

 Formal living room.  We plan to make it a library/office at some point.

Family Room

 Stairs, which will be painted a light gray like the rest of the downstairs soon, and stair railing which we want to re-stain a darker color.

 part of the hallway

 upstairs kids/guest bathroom

 1st bedroom- turned into Ryan's man cave- music room

 hallway

 laundry room

 Master bedroom and Tristan checking things out

 Master bathroom,  I guess we didn't take pics of the separate shower and tub.

 closet

 2nd Bedroom- Tristan's room

 3rd Bedroom- Ivory's room

 4th Bedroom-  Guest room

 Back of house,  looking forward to putting a yard and fence in next spring and letting Tristan run wild

Bell Family Reunion

Part of our summer activities included the awesome 2nd Annual Bell Family reunion.  We rented a cabin in Heber and basically hung out, ate and played games for a few days.  The day before we all got to go see baby Brynn be blessed.  Here is Tristan hanging out with Aunt Penny and Uncle Tim.

 The three boys hanging out on the hammock.

 At the fish hatchery we got to get a little tour of.

 Tristan looking at the fish.

 Its a shame we didn't find this cool tepe until the very last day when we were packing things up, we had to take it out anyways for a bit to play with.

 Silly family picture right before leaving.

 It was basically impossible to get a good picture with grandma and all the grand kids.

 But this turned out pretty cute with grandma and Richard's kids, although Elliot looks a bit worried

 Richard's Family.

 Annaliese's Family

 My Fam.

 These two cute girls had a blast playing together.

 Penny and Tim and Orson must have escaped during the rest of picture taking time.
Picture with the whole family.

Can't wait for next year! With at least two new additions to the family!