Carla is 2... yes the big T W O!!!!

There are many new and exciting milestones that she has reached.
She can take her clothes on and off all by herself- mostly off though, she HATES wearing clothes.
She ABSOLUTELY loves being a big sister.
She is starting to learn to reason. "Carla you can have a popciccccle after you eat lunch." "Okay mommy." After lunch, "Please popciccccle mommy??" She is so smart.
She wakes up every morning and every nap-time naked, I mean butt naked!
She loves watching monsters, which is her special Saturday and Sunday treat with daddy.
She has learned her numbers in Spanish up to six, although she has a hard time remembering 4 sometimes.
She loves to read! Some of her favorite books are- Mom Mine, You Do, Mama do you love me, Zoom Zoom, This is the way we take a bath, The Book of Mormon Stories, The Friend, We're going on a bear hunt- especially the "tiptoe tiptoe tiptoe... WHAT'S THAT?!?" part.
She loves to color, and paint, not such a huge fan of finger painting though. She complains that her hands are yucky.
She loves eggs and yogurt!
She says "come in" when we knock on her door to get up from bedtime or after nap-time.
She loves playing with Bug, Taylor, Adam, Lacey, and Keith- our neighbors. She goes over to their house and knocks and knocks and yells "come in" until they let her come in.
She is daddy's buddy. She runs full speed to him when he comes home, and waves goodbye and blows him kisses until she can't see him when he leaves.
She went to her first movie- Despicable Me, and sat through most of it, except for when she went to the potty... all 5 times!
She is now, at 25 months potty trained, which she did all by herself!!
She loves taking bubble baths. She got two today... lucky baby.Best of all, when she goes to sleep she still waits for me to tell her...
"I'll like you forever, I'll love you for always, as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be."
So despite all of her growing up, she will always, ALWAYS be my baby.
You bring joy, laughter, and pride to my life, my sweet baby girl.

Papoose- the official nickname

When Elizabeth first came home, we used to wrap her up nice and tight. She loved it. If ever she was crying we would bundle her up and she would stop. I though that papoose was the word that Native American's use to describe the tight wrapping of the baby. I started calling her papoose because she liked to be all wrapped up. One night Zach asked me why I called her papoose. I told him why and we started wondering how it was spelled. Zach got out the dictionary. Low and behold, to both of our surprise, papoose is a Native American baby! We thought it was sort of cute because Carla is our baby, and papoose can be our Native baby. Besides, I am Native American- Mayan, from the Pipil tribe. A couple times I called her papoosinga, I don't know why, just something to add on the end I guess. The funny thing is that now Carla only calls papoose, papoosinga. Sooo cute how she says it too! Adorable. So Elizabeth's nickname is Papoose or Papoosinga or sometimes just Inga.

Coming home

Dr. Young came to see her before we went home and I got a picture of them together. The man who got her out, and kept me safe during the pregnancy. Thank you Dr. Young for all you did.
Before we were able to leave, they checked her bilirubin levels, which of course were not where they needed to be. So they put her under the lights. Poor baby. She didn't mind it though. She was in heaven because it was nice and warm underneath the light. I took her in every other day to have her levels checked for the levels to stabilize. Luckily I only had to do this for a week. Poor baby getting poked on her little foot.
Anyways, then we were able to get ready to go home. I got her dressed and we were off. When we got home, my parents were waiting for us. It was so sweet of them. I love them so much, they are always there when we need them. Oh yeah, and they took me flowers, Gerber Daises, my favorite, in the hospital. We put her in her bassinet to sleep. That didn't last long though. She wanted to be snuggled and cuddled. She was an amazing sleeper though! She slept for 5 hours straight, then woke up to eat. Good girl!

The sisters meet.

The next day Carla came over to meet Papoose. She didn't meet her when she was born because she was already sleeping. She came over and even wore her "Big Sister" shirt. It was adorable. As soon as she saw Elizabeth she was in love with her. She wanted to hold her, which she did so nicely with daddy's help. She loved on her and even gave her kisses. So sweet! And we also took our first family photo.

Papoose's first bath...

Zach was able to give the baby her first bath. We bathed her the next day. It was nice to see him so involved in the care of our new baby.

The long birth story...

It was September 9th, about 10am. I was going in for a routine Non-Stress Test at the doctor's office. The NST went well, then he examined me and found that instead of my body progressing and getting ready for the baby to come, it was going backwards. My cervix closed, my uterus went from ripe, to unripe. It was not a good thing. The doctor came in and said that it was time for a heart to heart.
Oh yeah, the night before, I had Zach give me a blessing. It said that I needed to pay close attention to what the doctor said, and that he is a very inspired doctor. That I needed to follow his counsel, and that Elizabeth would arrive healthy and strong.
Back to the heart to heart. He said that the longer I waited, the more at risk I was putting myself and the baby. That many things could go wrong, and that my body wasn't acting like it was going to go into labor any time soon. He said that I really needed to evaluate how important a VBAC was to me, and that I should consider having the c-section. I asked him when the c-section would take place. To my complete shock, he said, "tonight, or tomorrow morning." I called Zach, we said a prayer and I felt peace. I knew that we should do the c-section. I started crying, partially because of disappointment that I wouldn't be able to ever know what labor was like, fear of labor and the recovery, and anxious that I only had a couple of hours to get ready for the baby. I went back with the doctor and told him that night would work for the c-section. He told me to be happy, that in the matter of hours I would be holding our little bundle of joy in my arms, and that some women like having c-sections (even though I know that he isn't a huge fan of them unless they are truly needed). The nurses also tried to comfort me, and get me excited. They gave me a tentative time of 6 pm and I left.
Everyone was alerted, my mom and I went to buy last minute things. We went to Motherhood Maternity to buy some nursing bras, when I got a call from the hospital. They said that they had no rooms left and if I could come in the morning at 5:30. I said that would be fine. So my mom and I got some food. I then alerted everyone again. We went home, and as I got the bag ready, I began to get more and more excited. The plan was that my mom would come to the house at 5am and watch on Carla since the actual c-section wasn't until 7am, and then she would bring her to the hospital.
That night I started spotting. I called the hospital, they said that it was probably due to the doctor's exam that morning. I brushed it off. Zach went to sleep about 11 or midnight, and I stayed awake for a while and finally fell asleep at 2:00 am on the couch. About an hour later, I woke up in sheer pain. After about 5 minutes, I was able to get to the bathroom and started gushing blood. I yelled for Zach but he didn't hear me, instead, Carla woke up. Our bedroom door was open and Carla's was closed, go figure. I finally was able to get up, and go to the bedroom and yell at Zach that I was gushing blood. That got him up quick! I was in sheer pain. I was having contractions that were lasting about 90 sec, and then they would stop for 30 sec, and another one would start up again. It was so intense. Zach reminded me to go to my happy place and to breath through my contractions. I did, and the difference was amazing. It was so much better. I was able to walk and talk. Zach called Lacey, who came over to watch on Carla until my mom came at 5am. We got to the hospital at 3:30, and they admitted me immediately. They checked me and I was dilated to a 3! I dilated 3 cm in half an hour. Two hours later I had dilated another 2 cm. At 6am they gave me the epidural and the contractions slowed down. The doctor came in at 7 and decided break my water in hopes that it would start the contractions again. When the doctor did that, they noticed that the water was filled with miconium. They started a flush and put in a monitor inside me to measure the contractions. Yup, there they were. Getting stronger and stronger, and closer and closer together. I was still dilating 2 cm every 2 hours. Talk about intense. The doctor came in at 3pm and asked me why I was still pregnant, I asked him the same question. It was quite funny. The contractions continued and with every contraction I was to push to try to get the baby to drop because she was still really high. But it was to no avail. Finally at 8 pm the doctor sent everyone out of the room and had me push. She was hardly dropping with every push. My incision was starting to hurt and after about 10-15 min, the doctor had me stop pushing and we had another heart to heart. He said the baby just wasn't coming and that it would take at least 3 good hours of constant pushing for her to come.
' 'n ;/n '/- From Carla...
That was a bad idea because my incision was already starting to hurt and I could rupture. So, Zach and I decided it was time to let go of my dream VBAC. I cried and cried and cried. But at the same time, I felt peace. They finished preping me for surgery and Zach got ready also. They wheeled me back to the O.R. I started shaking uncontrollably and got really cold. They said it was because the block in my back was blocking the pain from the contractions in the lower back which moved all of the pain to the top part of my body. It was horrible. I was crying because I was scared that I was going to hyperventilate or have a seizure. Luckily Zach was there holding my hand telling me that everything was going to be fine. The cutting took about a half an hour, and at 8:40 pm my little papoose (Elizabeth's nickname) came out. The amazing thing was that the anesthesiologist picked up my head so that I could see her coming out. It was beautiful. She looked like a strange goopy alien, but it didn't matter to me. I loved her with all my heart just the same. We weren't able to hold her right away because she had to go to the respiratory therapist because of the meconium. We were however right next to her and were able to see her the whole time. After taking her APGAR and suctioning her out Zach got to hold her. While they finished sewing me up, which took FOREVER- at least it felt like it, Zach took the baby to meet her grandparents who where outside the O.R. waiting. When I was finally done, they wheeled me back to my room and there was Zach with my alien. He gave her to me and said that he hadn't let anyone hold her because I needed to hold her first. He gave her to me, and I just held her and held her. I was shaking still, they said it would last a couple of hours, which it did, but then I was fine. We spent the night just loving on her, and recuperating.

The ceiling is falling! The ceiling is falling!

It fell!

I guess there was an internal leak in the swamp cooler. It was funny because I thought that someone was breaking in, so in a very sneaky manner went to check it out. Yeah, like anyone is going to be scared of a hugely pregnant woman. When I looked down the hallway I realized it wasn't a robber, it was the ceiling, now

decorating the floor. More keeps falling, so Zach finally just finished tearing it down and pulling down the insulation. We are all okay. I was frustrated when I called our landlord because he thought that I was overreacting. Obviously NOT!!! He came over and was in shock. He said, "Wow, the ceiling really did fall." Um yeah! So for now we

get to live in an extremely HOT house, with a hole in the ceiling, and insulation particles in the air. Eh oh well, at least it isn't hazardous to our health and Elizabeth isn't here. If she was here I would really be going nuts, or we would be staying at my folks place until the hole got fixed. As of now, he is going to come on Saturday to see if it is dry or close to it so that he can fix it. When I told him that I was due to have Elizabeth next week he started to be a lot more apologetic and more empathetic as to our new found dilemma. So he is getting to work on it right away... thankfully! I was in the kitchen washing dishes and checking on Carla. A miracle happened amidst all of this because Carla would not get out of the car because her balloon had flown away and she was very upset. I kept checking on her, and no, the car was not hot, but she would not come in, or even let me unbuckle her from the car seat. She was in the car when this happened, and what a blessing it was! I don't know what could have happened to my sweet baby girl if the ceiling would have fallen on her head. Blessings have a way of coming in odd ways, but they are blessing non the less.

Elizabeth Jane Part III

Yesterday I had my appointment. I haven't felt her move very much lately and so I mentioned it to the doctor. Yeah, he set me up for a non-stress test at the hospital that same day and another one on Thursday. They did the AFI, and turns out that my fluid level is high, 22.5... again! Great. So of course, that is one explanation as to why I can't feel her as much. I am also measuring at 41 weeks. At least I can't get any bigger! On the bright side, I am 50% effaced, dilated to a 1, and my cervix is soft and ripe. That means that my chances for a VBAC are really good! Ya hoo! He said she probably won't come until next week, which I'm okay with, although I would LOVE for her to come Friday. I guess I'll wait.

Jesus is here????

The other night we were sitting down in the living room playing with Carla, when suddenly she heard the main entrance to the apt complex open and someone walk up the stairs. She stopped dead in her tracks and said, "He's coming! He's coming!" I proceeded to ask her who was coming and her reply was simply, "Jesus. Jesus is coming." Puzzled I asked her again, "Jesus is coming?" She said, "Yip. Jesus is coming."
Oh what sweet innocence. I thought about it and realized that He IS always coming. He is always with us, in our home, in our hearts. I love the things that come out of the mouths of babes, except for when it is "no." Never loose your innocence my little love.

Elizabeth Jane Part II

So, I went in for my NST and the fluid level went back up to 16. The doctor is calling it good for now. Phew! It is now 13 days before I'm due and everything is going superb. I went in on Sunday to get checked because I thought my fluid was leaking, thankfully not, but they checked me and my cervix is still closed, but at least I am 60% effaced, which is great. My body is doing it's thing and I'm super excited for her to come. WOO HOO!! This morning Carla woke up at 3:30 am and wouldn't go back to sleep. About 6 am, I started having contractions. They were pretty strong and about every 3-5 min. I was excited because I am ready to meet my young blood, and be able to hold her tiny little body in my arms and give her some good loving. Another plus is that she would be born on Grandpa Robert's birthday- which he REALLY wants, and then both girls would have been born on a grandparent's birthday. Ahhhh. But as of now, no such luck. After 45 minutes of contractions, they stopped. Ah poop. Another day it will be I guess. Lizzy, we are super duper excited for you to come sweetness!

Elizabeth Jane

Baby #2 will be arriving shortly! We decided to name her Elizabeth Jane Roberts. She will be named after both of her grandmas, just as I am. My mom's name is Georgina Elizabeth and Zach's mom's name is Jane Agnes. So we decided to put together Elizabeth Jane, instead of Georgina Agnes. Tee hee hee. Everything has been going great. At 20 weeks we found out that our baby was going to be a girl. It was a shocker because I was positive that she was really going to be a "he." When the Ultrasound tech said, "Looks like a girl!" We both were in shock, especially Zach. The tech even said, "looks like dad is in disbelief, lets see if we can get another angle. Yup, just more labia." When we were walking to the car, Zach finally said, "Its a girl." I just laughed. Then of course he blamed his shock on me because I was the one that convinced him that we were having a boy. Yeah, nice one honey, blame it on the pregnant wife. Very nice. Tee hee hee. Anyways, we are ecstatic to be blessed with another princess in our family.
About a month after that, I started measuring big, every couple weeks Dr. Young would have me come in to recheck me and yet again, my uterus was growing and growing. He had me take the glucose test, and I passed with a 97%. I had another ultrasound done and low and behold, I had very high fluid level. Normal is 6-18, and I had a whopping 22! I started to freak out because of all of the complications that it could bring. Luckily the baby is a lot bigger than what she should be. The is measuring three weeks bigger than normal. They considered changing my date, but decided not too, although the date according to the baby's growth and the due date according to my last menstrual cycle is the same, August 21st. So we'll see when she comes, anyways back to the complications... the next day, my daddy and Zach gave me a blessing. It was a wonderful, calming blessing. In it I was promised that I would sleep...YAY!!!! Also that Elizabeth Jane was fine and that the labor would go well and smoothly. In it, Father also said that I needed to have the courage to get the rest that I needed and to protect the baby. So that is what I have done. I have tried to eat more than once a day, because I just don't get hungry, and drink a lot more liquids. I am trying very hard to eat healthy and to take care of my body as much as possible.
The next week, which was last Monday, I went in for another Non-Stress Test, and low and behold, the fluid level went down 6 points! I was at a 16, the only downside was that she moved and is now in breech position.
Today, I went in for my supposedly last NST. Elizabeth was moving like crazy, probably because I drank 22 oz of KoolAid before going to the appointment. Cheese! Then we, Zach got out early and was able to come to the appointment, went in for the ultrasound, and the doctor said, even before measuring all the fluid, that there wasn't very much fluid around the baby. Sure enough, there wasn't. The fluid went down 8 points. Now I am only at a 9. Great. Anything under 6 and I can't have a VBAC anyways. Great. She is at least head down, sort of. Above her head is her hand, holding the umbilical cord, which I guess is a bad thing because she can't come out vaginally that way because she would be pulling the cord out with her.
Now the doctor is concerned because my fluid level is dropping too fast, so I'll be going in next week for another NST to make sure that the fluid isn't too low. If all goes well, I will be able to skip a week then I'll be going in weekly for my appointments because I'll be in the last month of the pregnancy.
I can't believe that everything is going by so fast! This pregnancy has just flown by. Obviously by my lack of writing about everything that is going on. Soon enough we'll have our little Elizabeth Jane, our butterfly here in our arms. We are anxious for her to join our family. We love her so much already!

MANTI AT LAST!!!!

We have been wanting to go to the Manti Miracle Pageant for a couple of years now, but every time we start planning on it, something happens. This year, we had no money, and I mean absolutely NO money. My sweet mom paid for our gas so that we could go and we took our lunch, dinner, and snacks. We left here at noon and returned at 12:45 am. We spent almost the whole day at the park, which Carla LOVED, and also made a stop at the craft fair, which was really nice also. Then we went to see the pageant which was amazing as always. It was so beautiful how they told the Joseph Smith story, clips of the Book of Mormon, and the Pioneer trek west. Zach loved it, as it was his first time seeing it. Carla actually did miraculously well, especially after she fell asleep.
I had a sweet memory return to me. I remembered that was were I received my first testimony that the Church, Joseph Smith, everything was true. It was a wonderful to relive that moment, one which I treasure with all my heart, because that moment has changed my entire life. Without the Gospel in my life, I wouldn't have served a mission, an amazing and wonderful husband, a beautiful daughter, and all of the other blessings which I receive daily.

El Salvador

Pictures can say more than a thousand words, so I'll let the pictures do most of the talking. We went mostly to spend time with Abuelita Tere, which is what we mostly did. We went to Joya de Seren and the ruins of San Andres. Which are two very popular places in El Salvador. We also went to Guatemala for a few days and were able to see some very close family. It was wonderful to be back with our family. Carla discovered a love for bottle caps, brooms, cleaning, and wacales. She called her Tia Lucky "Tia" and even kept calling for her and her dog Bingo, and her bird Christina, long after we returned home.


She HATED the cold El Salvador showers but loved her Tia bathing her in the backyard of her house. I was so precious!

Easter...

This was Carla's very first Easter Egg Hunt...really hunting! We went to the Rohrer's for the hunt between the Saturday sessions. She loved it! Especially when she realized that there were treats inside. YAY for chocolate!!

Then we came home and watched the second part of conference and opened our Easter baskets. Carla's favorite part of course was the stuffed bunny. We also put a church book in her basket. We decided that our new tradition is going to be receiving the Easter basket the day before Easter and the Easter basket have a special book about Jesus.

Then on Sunday we can focus more on the Savior and His resurrection. On Sunday, we went to my parent's house, of course, Carla had another Easter Egg hunt. Then we did something that was unforgettable- we had a snowball fight. Yup snow for Easter! Those two days were a blast!

Ba loon

Carla is saying new words all the time, but two of my favorites were uttered from her sweet little lips just a few days ago. We were at Smith's when suddenly she pointed to the balloons and said, "Ba loon." It was so stinking cute! Now she can spot a balloon a mile away and starts fussing and pointing and saying "ba loon, ba loon." I get a kick out of it every time! The other words she started saying was "I do." She got that from her book You Do, which is about a mom telling her daughter to not do something, and the little girl says "you do." The mom of course, tries to justify herself and in the end asks who deserves a tickle, and the daughter says. "I do." So, out of an entire book, Carla decided to say "I do." Now she walks around with her You Do book saying I do. Oh I love it!! She is such a joy to have in my life. There isn't a day that goes by without sweet, tender, funny moments, in which I realize again and again how truly lucky I am to be her mom.

Duckies and Fishies

On Sunday we decided to go to the fish pond. We went and picked up my mom and went to the fish pond in Springville. I remember going there when I was a wee lassy. We took a lot of bread with us and from the moment we got there Carla was in love! She was staring at the duckies, the whole time saying "quack quack." The unexpected surprise that we got was that there were HUGE fish that were stealing the bread from the ducks. It was actually quite disgusting, but oh well. Good old sewer water, the breeder of many unusual things. Carla kept trying to get into the water. She wanted to go swimming with the duckies and so Zach got her close enough to touch the water once, and then my mom reminded us that it was sewer water, full of it's city yucks. Needless to say it was the one and only time she got to touch the water! We were there for over an hour and when it was time to go Carla cried and cried! Oh she was mad that we were leaving the duckies.