photo update of miss Olive.

1 week

8 days and hanging with Nana

6 days

10 days

12 days

Official 1st photo shoot still to come.

she's here!

3 days old

Just checked into Labor and Delivery

Recovering with Olive in the Mother and Baby room

6 hours old and perfectly lovely

After an eventful day and 2 hospital trips (no I wasn't being over anxious about delivery), our baby girl arrived on Sunday February 8th. She weighed 7 lbs 7 oz. and is 19 1/2in. long.
Here's the story.
Saturday morning Spencer went for a run with my brother Nate at the reservoir. I got up to take a shower and had a (drop me to my knees and want to die) pain on the left side of my back. I crawled on my knees to the phone and called the doctor who told me to go straight to the hospital. Spencer arrived home shortly after the call (thank goodness) and we headed downtown. After being admitted and tested and monitored they concluded that I had birthed/passed not a baby, but a kidney stone. What? The day before my due date?I've never had a kidney stone before. After spending a couple of hours being monitored and concluding that the worst part was over, they sent us back home.
Later that evening Spencer and I decided to go to Park Meadows mall to "walk." They say that walking a lot can sometimes induce labor. Well, we walked for a couple of hours and then decided to get dinner at the Nordstrom cafe. One margarita pizza and two steps later my water broke. (A girl after my own heart, I love Nordstrom!) I somewhat panicked as we were in public and at Nordstrom after all, but Spencer kept assuring me that nobody would notice and we quickly headed for the car. Back at the hospital by 7pm, we were admitted again, but this time for all of the right and much anticipated reasons. After...all the fun things you do during labor, Olive Claire Marshall was born at 2:34am on February 8th, her due date. We brought her home on Monday evening, and are enjoying being home together as a family.

the nursery

Since I'm off work this week, Spencer and I have been busy finishing up the nursery. There are still a couple of projects in the works, (something for the side table and a couple of photographs of course), but I thought I'd post a few photos of where we are right now. I wish we could have painted, but it's a rental, so white walls will have to do.
We've heard that babies see best when things are high contrast, and that babies in yellow nurseries tend to have happier dispositions. Who knows, but when we saw this bedding we were sold.
We're on a bit of a budget so we ended up making most of the decorative elements. We're really happy with the way the mobile turned out, but I'd have to say that my favorite part is Spencer's sketch. What a talented husband I have!
Now all we need is our baby girl, 5 days and counting...

holiday 2008 recap

Better late than never right...right?

We had a great holiday season this year. We were brave and made the 13 hour road trip to Boise for Thanksgiving (really long but so worth it), and it was great to be home for a holiday. We fully experienced the craziness of shopping at 5am on black Friday, and I'd say reaped the rewards with some rockin' deals on Christmas gifts. We had a little get together with family and friends, and it was so fun to see the girls and the group of moms that I love so much.


We were able to break up the return trip and spend a day with Ty and Kumari at their new house in Lehi, UT, and I got to see the lights on Temple Square for the first time.

We spent most of the Christmas holiday at the Leavitts this year with Spencer's family. It was the first time they had all been together for Christmas in some 10 years. Their tree this year was amazing, we spent way too many hours playing Rock Band on Christmas day (love the drums), and the food was incredible as always. I'd say these mustaches win for best gift at the goofy gift exchange.


I was able to squeeze a few photo appointments in over the break as well, including two weddings which I'm happy to report I finally completed and delivered to clients today, and we moved! We're finally getting settled, and I'm home free from photos until after the baby comes. Thank goodness.

Baby update: She's doing great, getting bigger and packing a mean punch. Two weeks to go and we're finally feeling ready. Can't wait to meet our baby girl.

a stinker of a day...

Working for a non-profit definitely has it's perks, and one of them is that we get most all holiday's off, most recently-Veterans Day. So, since Spencer and I are a 1 car, 2 bike family, we decided it would be a good day to get a wheel bearing replaced on our car. We have always had our car serviced at the dealership, but this time we shopped around and took it to a little mom and pop place that was recommended to us.

Well, the small wheel bearing problem turned into a large "you need a new transmission" and it's going to cost you $xxxx.xx problem. I called Honda immediately to check on our warranty, which had conveniently expired in August of this year, but after a less than pleasant conversation with Honda, they agreed to look it over and "work with us".

Long story short, we picked it up, drove it to Honda, took a rental car home for the night and were told the next day that the transmission was fine, but BOTH front wheel bearings needed to be replaced and it was going to cost $xxx.xx, still ouch, but not as shocking after the transmission scare.

I hate car problems!

Anyways, to add to the stinkiness of the day, we came home and were making smoothies for dinner when our blender exploded throwing smoothie and chunks of glass all over our kitchen and dining room.

So, I got out the vacuum to clean up the glass from the carpet when it started to smoke and stopped working. Broken belt it turns out but aarrrggghh, i was not happy, and our house smelled of crusty rubber for the next 2 days.

And, to top it off my sweet husband, who i love, forgot to put the seat down...Yep, all the way in.

And then I cried.

26 weeks

i'm 26 weeks today!
for those of you that have asked, this picture should subside some of the curiosity.
i'd say it's official... there's a baby in there.

happy halloween!

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays and consequently one of my most homesick. I have such great childhood memories of family and friends gathered snacking on mom's homemade sugar cookies while dad entertained the neighborhood kids with his talking scarecrow.

In attempt to supress my homesickness, we decided to make mom's sugar cookies this year. I'm not sure if they were quite as good as when my mama makes them, but they were a lot of fun and not half bad either.