The new addition

Solana Grace

Born May 21st, 2010 @ 4:36am

8.5 lbs 19.5" long

Her name means sunshine. And it fits her perfectly.

She is now a week old and couldn't be a sweeter baby.

The labor story:

On wednesday the 19th, I went to my doctors for my overdue-date check up. I was not dilated, and feeling great, no pain, no contractions, no swollen legs or feet. I was 41 weeks pregnant and as I left the doctors I had to schedule my induction date since they would not let me go past 42 weeks. I was praying it would be soon since I did not was to be induced.

That night we were surprised when I started to to have contractions, which were occurring randomly. They soon became very regular at around 2am on Thursday morning, and were about 4-5 minutes apart. Finally around 6am we called our midwife and she told us to head down to the hospital and she would meet us there. After frantically packing and rushing off to the hospital, I checked into the hospital at 7am on Thursday and it was not an easy ride from there. I was in labor for 27 hours and only one of those hours was pushing. Even though I wanted to die, Solana did great. She was perfect the whole way. We had so many blessings through labor, though minor complications occurred, she came out perfect. I was blessed to not have a C-section, and I couldn't have asked for a better midwife and hospital staff.

The moment she arrived was beautiful, and Adam and I were instantly overwhelmed with happiness, excitement, and love for this new little one. She cried for a moment, and as soon as she was placed on my chest and heard my voice, she was calm. Adam held her for a very long time, totally blown away by this incredible moment. She has continued to be a wonderful joy in our lives, and we are so excited.

Our little Texas girl.

This is baby Adam and his mom, we are all blown away at how much Solana looks like Adam.

Adam holding Solana just an hour after she was born. The pictures are identical to me. I love it.

Proud Mama and Papa!

Our first nursery

She is due in 2 days!! But I'm sure she will be late, which I am perfectly fine with. I have been feeling great, maybe just a little tired, but even that I can't complain about since I have not had swollen feet or legs, and no back complaints, so I feel pretty lucky.

I finished the nursery last week, and I love how it all turned out. This room did not come together by myself, lots of family and friends have attributed this darling room, and I am really grateful. Let me know what you think.

The long awaited nursery photos!

I got these night stands from my sister, and then we went and got knobs at Anthro.

This crib was a perfect find.

Lots of fun hair accessories. We are pretty sure she will be bald for a while, and we want people to know she is a girl.

Love these diaper pins.

While unpacking stuff from my childhood, I came across this dress and wondered why I had saved it for so long. I called my mom, and she confirmed that it's the dress I was blessed in. Now our daughter will be blessed in it as well.

I found these sweet little fairy puppets and decided to hang them outside her closet.

Aren't they just adorable?!

This was a perfect find, thanks to Cynthia! It holds everything we will need.

Lots of storage underneath.

And it holds all her toys on the other side.

My favorite purple chair. And my first pink furniture buy, an emu leather ottoman.

I can't wait to fill these frames.

The room is also our guest room.

Now we just wait.

Hopefully our next post will be the arrival of baby P!

The trek to Texas

Driving through a terrible blizzard, with ice accumulating three inches thick on the front of the car.

No, it's not the inside of a deer blind, it's the Big Texan Steak Ranch Motel, which was ugly, weird, and almost as crappy as the food.

The day before graduation we shipped all our stuff to Texas so that it would be there within the week we arrived. Daniel (my brother in-law) and I drove my truck out and towed CheyAnn's car behind it, then she flew out later with Brooke. As far as road-trips go, it was pretty sweet, but it did have its fair share of unexpected twists and turns.

1) We left really late. 2pm isn't the ideal time to leave for a 24 hour road trip. But I wasn't in the mood to be extremely worried about time. So that's when we left. We ended up doing the majority of our driving at night, which was crazy.

2) Blizzard. While driving east through Wyoming and south through Colorado, we spent hours driving through a serious blizzard, mostly at elevations over 8000 feet. That's pretty high, and the weather was really nasty. We drove at about 30 mph for several hours at night. No fun.

3) Early the next morning, we pulled over to take a nap at a gas station. But the battery died, and it was freezing cold. So that sucked. We got a jump and were on our way. Not too bad.

4) The Big Disappointment. We went well out of our way to go to Amarillo, to take on the 72oz Big Texan Steak Challenge. For various reasons, mostly because we just didn't feel like it, neither one of us attempted to eat the 4.5 pound steak, and we're very glad we didn't, because the food that we did have sucked. Awful steak, awful burger, even the Dr. Pepper sucked. For a famous restaurant that prides itself on meat, it deserved the title, the Big Disappointment. (Which is the same nickname I've given to Spurs player Richard Jefferson.)

5) So, we had a decent drive, and as we drove the last hour through my old stomping grounds, the beautiful Texas Hill Country with bright flowers everywhere, I was feeling pretty good until BAM! I looked back and the tire of the trailer was smoking... I pulled over thinking it was a blowout, but as we examined it, there was no blowout, but a significant impact with something. Daniel walked back to see what debris we might have hit, and we were both shocked to find that it was... an African Impala. Like, the little antelope, from Africa. In Texas, on the last hour of a 30 hour drive. What are the odds?

After a while, we got one of its horns, bent the trailer piece back into place, and were shortly at our destination. It was a successful, fun, adventurous road trip.

But seriously, an impala?

The Graduate

Now that we are finally getting settled in San Antonio, we can catch up on all the crazy stuff that has been going on.

A couple of weeks ago Adam graduated from BYU. It was a great 2 day event, and Adam's parents flew out to celebrate. It was great to have the closure right before we moved from Utah. It feels so great to be done with school, well at least until law school. But for now we are just enjoying our school-free life and getting ready for our baby-filled life.

This is what we woke up to on graduation day. Booo...

But this is how the day turned out to be. Beautiful!

The honors graduate, and his medal. It is amazing to me that out of 6,700+ graduates, only 44 graduated with University Honors. Way to go, babe!

The Prestidges

The other Prestidges

Finally done!

Finally hiking the Y with Matt, the day before we left Utah.

Reflecting on the past few years...