Bootcamp with Jess: my life for the next 6 weeks.

So, last week I started a bootcamp fitness program. It's called Bootcamp with Jess. They featured it on Channel 2 News morning show once a while back. Anyway, basically it's INSANE! The first week is called "hell week" and it's very appropriately named. It was the most insane week of my life. By Monday I couldn't move... and that was just the beginning. Oh man...

So here are some of the things they require of new P.T.s (that's me)

1. Drink 120 oz a day.

2. Eat no bread, pasta, dairy or soda

3. Make it through hell week.

All I have to say is I've never been worked so hard in my life. It was intense but it's going to be so worth it! It's one hour of hard core circuit training 5 days a week. When I say hard core I mean HARD CORE. I had to drop and give the instructor 10 push ups on Tuesday. When I bent my arms I fell flat on my face. Seriously. And I still had to manage the 10 push ups. I tried to describe to Nick just how hard it was and finally on Wednesday I came home and said "Today instructor Thomas asked me if their was blood in my urine or if I had any swollen joints." All Nick had to say to that was "Wow." He stopped making fun of me and my gimpy-ness after that.

Anyway, for the next 6 weeks I'll be kicking my butt and eating like one of those crazy health nut people (Egg whites and grapefruit for breakfast kind of crazy). But it's going to be worth it when I can fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans again! Bring on swim suit season!

Three things that have saved my sanity...

So, some of you may already know this, but Sammy has been having tummy trouble for about a month now. He got terrible, painful gas and would fuss so much he wouldn't sleep. It got so bad he literally wouldn't sleep lying flat on his back. Finally, after a month, I think we're on the down hill side of this battle. These three things have helped us through the last month and helped save my sanity. In no particular order:

1. My chiropractor
He's been adjusting Sammy every week, and every week he's gotten a little better.

2. Summer brand Swaddle Me blankets

I know they look like a baby straight jacket, but once I realized Sammy wakes himself up fussing because he wiggles so much I bought one of these. That was also the first night he slept on his back in weeks. Coincidence? Probably not.

3. Colic Calm Gripe Water

This has probably been what has helped us the most. It's the only homeopathic gripe water out there, which means it's made from natural ingredients and is regulated by the FDA. It is AMAZING! Anytime Sammy is screaming I give him a dose and less than a minute later he's calm and perfectly fine. It even gets rid of his hiccups instantly. So amazing! It's a bit pricey, but worth every penny.

One Month

Little Sam is one month old today! It's amazing how time flies! I seriously have no idea where October went. Here's my big boy on his birthday. He's wearing what Nick calls his "Jedi outfit". I can't believe how much he's grown!

This is Sam on his first Halloween! His shirt says "My First Halloween" and his hat is a pumpkin that says "Mommy's Little Pumpkin." It was seriously the cutest thing ever! We had bought him a costume, but he was way too little for it.

And this is what I usually wake up to on a Saturday morning. Nick takes Sam from the room early so I can sleep in and hangs out in the living room. That's Sammy and our cat sharing his lap. Both are fast asleep.

It's been a hectic month but I'm so glad to finally have my little guy here!

Two Weeks.. Where did they go?

Today we had our two week appointment. It's hard to believe little Sammy is two weeks old already! Everyone at the doctor's office couldn't stop talking about how cute he is. And here I thought I was biased :) He's growing and gaining weight really well. He's back up to his birth weight, which is good to hear because he's such a stinker about eating! He's as healthy and happy as ever!

Here are some pictures I took this last week. This has to be one of my favorite pictures so far. This is our cat Tinkerbell. She's our "old lady." She's about 10 or 11 years old and a TOTAL princess. We were really worried about how she'd adjust to having a baby around, but she's been great! She loves Sammy and loves to cuddle with us while I hold him. Here's Princess Tink and her newest people...

This is one of the many pictures I took of Nick and Sam. He's such a proud papa!

On Saturday we carved our pumpkins. Everyone got one, including Sammy (although mom carved it for him while he napped). Here's dad cleaning out his pumpkin. Ew....

Me getting ready to carve Sammy's. He's being a good helper...

The finished product! The one in the middle is Sammy's. The one on the right is mine and the left is Nick's. Yay for Halloween!

The First Week

Well, we survived the first week. I have to admit, it was a bit of a struggle due to lack of sleep, difficulty with breast feeding, and fluctuating hormones. But Nick was a dream through it all and helped me stay sane. I don't know how I would have done it without him!

Here's a picture of my "Little Gelfling" (anyone seen Dark Crystal?). I have to admit, he's pretty much the cutest little guy ever. :)
So far I've been enjoying staying home with my little guy. Between eating, diaper changes, and naps, I'm not really sure where the day goes most of the time. For the first week, I added up all the sleep I'd had and it literally came out to as much sleep as I used to get in a night. I was trying to breast feed, but my milk was just not coming in. It took 1+ hour to feed him (we ended up having to supplement because he wasn't getting enough) and he was on a 2 hour schedule so I never had enough time in between to even get drousy. After 8 days with no milk (it should be in by day 3) and no let-down, I couldn't do it anymore. It was miserable to watch my little guy be hungry all the time. So, we decided to switch to the bottle. It had never occurred to me before I had him that I might not be able to breast feed, so I took the switch pretty hard, like it was a failure on my part. This has been the main cause for the baby blues. I am doing much better with it now. I've gotten more sleep and talked to my mom. Apparently, her OB told her that women with larger breasts tend to have more difficulty with breast feeding. This made me feel much better. Although sometimes, I still wish it had worked out.

Anywho, now that everyone is happy and content, we're settling into a routine. Nick has been so wonderful. He's made such a good dad already. His favorite thing to do is take naps with Sammy.

Isn't this picture priceless!? They look so much alike it blows my mind. Nick calls him "Mini-Me".

Introducing...

Samuel Bryan Baguely!! Little Sammy was born on October 9, 2010 at 11:08 pm. He was 19 inches long and weighed 7lbs 3oz.

Needless to say, he's stolen our hearts already :)

The Nursery

We finally got the nursery done!! Here are a few pictures of what we did. We went with an underwater sea creatures theme. Also, blue is Nick's favorite color and green is mine. Hence the color palatte.

The sign I made for his door.

The pictures I painted

We found so many cool things at IKEA to hang on the walls. I fell in love with the lamp!

See that awesome chair? We bought it from our neighbors because they were getting rid of it and my mother-in-law offered to re-do it for us. I LOVE the new fabric and it matches the room so much better now!

Now all we need is the baby....

The Herriman wildfire

I think by now, most people in the Salt Lake Valley have heard plenty about the Herriman wildfire. You couldn't turn on the news without hearing updates every 5 minutes. For Nick and I, this fire hit a little too close to home.... literally

Nick and I have been happy residents of Herriman for about 2 years now. Back in March we bought a house just south of Rosecrest (the south end of Herriman). One of the reasons we liked the neighborhood so much was its proximity to the canyons. It was this proximity that gave us such a headache on Sunday.

Sunday night we left for dinner at my grandparent's house with my mom and her fiance. They picked us up around 4:00 and we headed out to Murray. We could see smoke on the other side of the mountain at that point and wondered what had started the fire. We weren't too worried about it though. Nick has lived in Herriman for years and said the mountain catches fire about once a year but they always get it out without too much trouble. So we went to dinner at my grandparents house, had a lovely evening and headed home around 8:00. By this time you couldn't even see the southwest end of the valley because of all the smoke from the fire. We were a bit worried at this point. I really started to panic when people started calling to ask if we had been evacuated. Evacuated? The fire wasn't even near our house when we left! That ride home was one of the longest rides of my life. I spent the whole time squeezing Nick's hand and praying we'd be able to get back to our pets. When we made it home, this is what I saw out our backdoor:

That is the mountain that is literally directly behind our house. Now I was worried. Nick went out to talk to the neighbors and they tracked down a police officer to ask what was going on. The officer said that the mandatory evacuation was all houses south of Mirabella Dr.... Mirabella is the street that backs up to our backyard. Literally the people behind us had been evacuated and we hadn't. The officer also told us that we needed to pack our bags because we were next.

Wow.

So, Nick came home and we started packing. At this time I was so worked up we packed a hospital bag just in case the stress put me into labor. I have always watched the news and heard stories of people being evacuated from their homes and thought "well that's awful." Never in my life did I think someone would tell me to pack everything I cared about in my car and leave my home, possibly for good. So, Nick and I spent about 30 minutes packing and debating whether we were going to leave before they evacuated us, where we were going to go, etc. We decided we'd wait until after the governor's address to make a decision. Nick, who never gets worked up or worried about anything, was pretty confident we wouldn't be evacuated. I made him put our bags and pet carriers by the door just in case. After the governor's address, which was not helpful at all, Nick decided to go out and check the progress of the fire before we made any decisions. When he came back in he just stode there and looked at me for a second. And then he said "We're leaving. We're leaving right now. Get your things in the car now." Now anyone who's ever met Nick knows this about him: 1. He's almost impossible to scare and 2. He almost never tells me what to do. His reaction scared me more than anything else that night. So, I went outside to look..... The fire had burned down so low on the hillside you couldn't even see the flames anymore. The only thing that was visible was an orange glow coming from behind the houses directly south of us. The fire was 1/4 mile away from our backyard. 1/4 mile away at the most. I was frantic. It took us less than 5 minutes to pack our cars and head to Nick's brother's house.

Needless to say that was one sleepless night for everyone. I think total I slept about 3 hours. I kept getting online to check the evacuation status. About 30 minutes after we left our neighborhood was put under evacuation. At about 4am or so the order was lifted on our neighborhood, so we were able to return home in the morning with the warning to keep our bags packed just in case. When we got home we noticed you could see where the fire had stopped. It had literally scorched and blackened the front yards of the houses in the neighborhood just south of us. It probably came within feet of setting those houses on fire.

The funny thing about this whole experience was, I was never that emotional the night we packed. Even when we walked through the house to check we didn't forget anything and I thought "I may not have a home to return to tomorrow." By that time I was on auto pilot. I don't think the reality of the situation had really set in. When I pulled in the driveway the next morning after everything was over, I just burst into tears. The relief was overwhelming. It was hard to believe I had said goodbye to everything we had: photo albums, my wedding dress, my dad's old baseball cap. In the end they were just "things" but they were still things with meaning.

Needless to say I'm very, very greatful for all the men and women who helped fight the fire, our wonderful neighbors, and all the friends and family who offered us a place to stay. I hope to never need that kind of support again but it's wonderful to know that the support is there. And one interesting comfort I took from this whole experience: everything that means anything to me will fit in my car.

Scotland and Ireland

Alright, I know it's been 6 months since Nick and I went to Scotland and Ireland, but I've finally been able to get the pictures off my camera. I lost the cord to connect it to the computer at some point during the move and I finally gave up and bought a replacement cord last week. So, here's our adventure!

As most of you know, my oldest friend Clare is an Irish dancer and has been since the 4th grade. Well, in the 4th grade I told her, when she made it to the world competition, I'd go with her. 15 years later I made good on that promise!

This was taken on our 3rd connecting flight. We were flying into Glasgow, Scotland. We'd been up for about 30 hours at this point...

We finally made it to the hotel that night. I think this was pushing 36 hours of no sleep..

This is the Glasgow Royal Concert hall where Clare competed.

Hahahaha!!! Yes, I AM that immature!

This is the Glasgow cathedral. It was a pretty cool old church.

This me roaming the streets of Edinburgh.

Us outside the concert hall after Clare competed. Cameras weren't allowed inside so we didn't get any pictures of Clare in her dress. They take Irish dance quite seriously.

The life size elephant made us incredibly happy. This is our shopping day, the last day we spent in Glasgow.

We made it to Dublin the next day. Clare's Aunt Margeret took us around sight-seeing.

One of the cool buildings in dowtown Dublin.

Our trip to Powerscourt. This is a view of the grounds. They were huge!!

Powerscourt..

Me in one of the gardens.

The signs might have been one of my favorite parts of Dublin.

Seriously??? You have to ask people not to drive their cars into the ocean?

And there you have it. These are just a few of the 206 pictures Nick and I took. I hope you enjoyed our exploits. I know I certainly did!!

Baby blues: Is this even normal?

So, ever since I hit the 3rd trimester I've been really emotional. I know that, between hormones and stress, a lot of pregnant women get really emotional, but this is seriously getting old. I think I may be battling the dreaded "baby blues."
I'm not sure how normal any of this is, since it's the first time I've been through it. I'm not really a very emotional or overly sensitive person, but the dumbest things seem to bring me down these days! It's stupid stuff like "Why didn't so-and-so come to my shower?" or "Why won't Nick just finish the patio?" or "How come no one has invited me to hang out recently?" These are all things that I normally wouldn't have thought twice about, but I just seem to dwell on trivial things like this lately. I feel like there are days that I just look for things to be wrong. And the funny thing is, an hour later, I'll feel perfectly fine, like nothing was ever the matter.

Needless to say, this is all getting a bit frustrating. I seem to be on an emotional roller coaster. Some mornings, I hate my clothes so much, I'm in tears trying to decide what to wear. Other days I get dressed without a problem. Some days, all I want to do is hang out at home with a good book. Other days, being home by myself all day makes me feel lonely and unproductive. Ugh!! I swear pretty soon I'm going to punch something!

Ok, I'm not REALLY going to punch something, but this cartoon made me happy :)

I feel like I'm going crazy! Is being this emotional even normal?

32 Weeks... and a baby bump?

I've hit the 32 week mark! That means there are only 2 more months to go! Oh man, those two months can just fly by. That will be just fine with me. I'm pretty sure, about a week ago, a biological switch was flipped... because I just got so excited to have Sammy B here! I've been so anxious I pace the house and reorganize the clothes we have for him on almost a daily basis. I love seeing everything that has been done in the nursery, but then it also makes me want to hurry up and finish! I just want everything in there and ready for him. I've been told this is what they call nesting... Nesting is driving me nuts!

I've had a few requests for baby bump pictures and have been putting it off because, as I've said, my baby bump isn't very... bumpy. But, I've decided it's about time to show off the bump... or lack there of.

Yes, that's 32 weeks along. This was also the 3rd picture we took because the first two were at bad angles and I just looked chubby rather than pregnant. According to What to Expect, he's 4.5 pounds now and the size of a freakin' honeydew. Sheesh, no wonder my hips hurt!

On another note, see the plant I'm standing next to? That's my very first ever tomato plant! I'm very excited with how much it's grown! We've already had 3 tomatoes so far. Nick is loving it (I hate fresh tomatoes so they're all his). Also, Nick finished the patio this week, so as soon as he gets the back yard mowed I'll have some before and after pictures.

31 Weeks down, 9 to go...

Well, today I am officially 31 weeks pregnant. That means the "weeks left" are in the single digits. So weird! I haven't posted too much about the pregnancy because.. well... I'm not really sure what to say. "Yup, still growing a baby!" doesn't seem like much of a blog post, but we'll see how it goes..

Today I had yet another doctor's appointment. I really like my doctor a lot, which I think is really important. It was pretty much the same with the whole "pee in a cup"... "get on the scale" routine. Everything is looking good though, which is nice. My weight gain is right on track to hit the 25-30 pound mark, which I'm pretty excited about. And my blood pressure has been great the whole pregnancy. After having a friend go through a preeclempsia nightmare I'm quite grateful for my low blood pressure. All in all, a pretty healthy and normal pregnancy.
That's not to say I don't have my discomforts or weird quirks.

"Quirk" #1: I blew out my hip about a month ago. By "blew out" I mean, I couldn't walk, sit or stand without tremendous pain. Turns out while I was running my usual route, I through my hip out of alignment. I get to see a chiropractor until I deliver, but otherwise no permanent damage was done. Turns out it was a blessing in disguise. The women in my family have messed up hips during pregnancy and my mom's hips never got better after she had kids. According to my chiropractor, if he aligns me before my joints tighten back up I'll be as good as new. So I'm grateful for my bum hips... in a weird sort of way.

"Quirk" #2: I've discovered a small brown spot on my stomach. Now, my theory is that it's a freckle that's been stretched by my growing belly. My doctor looked at it today and said that could be it, or it could need to be removed. Lame!! But, he's going to wait until my 6 week-after-delivery appointment to decide whether or not to remove it. Apparently it's "not too concerning, but it does have one or two warning signs we look for." I'm still hoping for a stretched out freckle..

"Quirk" #3": This is probably my favorite quirk of all. Due to my height, I'm barely showing. It's weird and I'm not really sure why, because it hasn't happened to any of the other women in my family, but I look about 5 months pregnant when I'm really 7. I'm not complaining or anything, but some days I can pass for having just gained weight... Although I think I'd rather look pregnant. I didn't think much of it until today, my doctor had to double check how many weeks along I was because he said I was barely showing. In the end, I'm still gaining weight and I'm measuring right on track, so I'm going to enjoy how little I'm showing while I still can. I've still got 2 months to go...

In other news, Sammy is getting bigger by the day! According to my "What to Expect" app, he's almost 4 pounds and is about 19 inches long! Crazy! Especially considering I was 19 inches long when I was born. It compares his size to the size of a head of lettuce:


Yes, that's right, a four pound head of lettuce spends his days hanging out on my bladder. There's something for you to think about! :)

Jack Johnson

Yes, that's right, yours truly got to go see Jack Johnson on Friday! It was so awesome! I went with my dad's best friend Ethan and a few of his friends (Nick is pretty much the only person in the world who doesn't like Jack Johnson so he didn't want to go). Here's a picture of us waiting for the concert to start.

I really do love Jack Johnson. His music just makes me happy! And he's just as good live as he is on his CDs. It was pretty impressive. I also decided that Usana is the best place to see a concert. I love hanging out on the grass eating a snow cone.

Also, this week we got the crib!! Thanks to my very generous and awesome grandparents. It's all set up too (I made Nick put it together that night). I'm getting pretty excited. The nursery is so close to being done!

It's the little things....

So, sore hips, heart burn, hunger, and a general case of over-active brain have combined to make... insomnia! As I was eating my bowl of marshmellow mateys at 1am I decided to blog about the little things in life that make me happy and might not get the recognition they deserve. In no particular order...

1. Sleep. Dreamless sleep to be precise
2. Good food and good conversation with good friends
3. Milk delivered by Winder Dairy to my door step in a glass bottle. It makes my morning every Wednesday morning!
4. Laundry. Weird, I know, but I've always liked doing laundry. Go figure.
5. Gardening. I enjoy playing in the dirt and the sunshine. With gardening, I can kill two birds with one stone
6. Yoga
7. My pets
8. The baby grand in my living room. It was a gift from my grandmother and has been in my family for four generations now.
9. The way, no matter how much I shove him, my husband always seems to end up right in my face at some point every night. I actually find it quite sweet, even if I act like it bugs me
10. Harry Potter
11. Watching BBC period-pieces. Jane Austen is my favorite.
12. The sound of running water, like a fountain or my fish tank.
13. The color green
14. Coffee. I desperately miss my caffine.
15. Going for a jog. I never realized how much I enjoyed running until I couldn't do it anymore.
16. Inside jokes that are so old, you don't remember what the joke was in the first place
17. Jimmy Neutron. I love that show.
18. Reading a book. Preferably some mindless fantasy novel
19. Google. I use it to check the spelling of a word atleast once a day.
20. Driving at night.

So there you go. That's my list of the little things in life that make me happy. Random, but loved by me none-the-less. Now, if only I could sleep...

Preparations for the baby

Well, it's been a while since I've posted and a lot has been going on! Nick is building a patio (picures to come) and my internship ended so I'm now a stay-at-home-mom-to-be, just to name a few. July has been a pretty hectic month for us too. We've had family in town 3 out of 4 weeks of the month, but it's been a blast! Anyway, all these things combined to make July fly by and contributed to my lack of posts. No more slacking!

So the most exciting thing we've been up to, in my opinion, is getting the nursery ready. It finally hit me that I'm running out of time to prepare so I've been working the last couple of weeks to get it done. So far we've got about half the painting done. We're going to be buying the crib in the next week or so as well. Here's a picture of the paintings I did to go above the crib. As you can see we went with an underwater sea creatures theme...

I got the idea for the paintings from a website online. An artist had something similar for sale, but he wanted $350 for a set of 3. I figured I could paint it for about $50 and decided to give it a shot. I really like the way they turned out, especially the bright colors. Although I'm sure I broke about 12 copyright laws....

Hopefully the nursery will be done soon and I'll be able to post pictures of that as well. I never thought I'd ever feel this way, but having a baby is exciting!

Happy 3 years Hubs!

Today is Nick and my 3 year anniversary. To celebrate, I thought I'd chronicle our adventures over the last 3 years, the good and the bad.


On June 9, 2007, we were married at the Homestead Resort in Midway, UT.

We went to the big island, Hawaii for our honeymoon. Although, I don't have pictures because we forgot our camera and had to buy those crappy disposables at the last minute.

We moved into our first place, an apartment in Midvale, about a week before the wedding. At the time, Nick was selling cars and I was going to school.

In November of that year, Nick quit his job at Tim Dahle (good riddance) and started working for CSI Networks.

A year later, November of 2008, we moved into Grandma Facer's... well... run down old house in Herriman. Yes, it wasn't exactly a palace, but we loved it, wood paneling, orange carpet and all.

In March of 2009 we went to California for spring break to visit Nick’s family and hang out with our friends, the Pratts and the Bowdens and Disneyland!

April 4, 2009, my father passed away. This time in our marriage is still, to date, the hardest thing we went through together. We still miss you Daddio.

A month later, on May 8, 2009, I graduated from the University of Utah with a Bachelors of Science in Environmental Geoscience.

In July of 2009 I got a tattoo, on what would have been my dad’s 50th birthday. It took 3 hours and hurt like crazy, but I love it.

In September of 2009, we went to Oahu with my mom and brother. We met up with James and Heather while we were there. We had an awesome time!

In November of that year Nick lost his job. But, what we thought was a disaster turned out to be a blessing, Nick got a job that same day working for Ampian Staffing as a recruiter for technology companies and he absolutely loves it. It's so nice to have him come home and tell me all about his day and how much he loves the work he does. And the people he works with are truly great people.

On February 12, 2010 Nick and I took a 10 day trip to Spain. It was soooo cool!!! We went to Madrid, Seville, Granada, Valencia, and Barcelona. It really was a fantastic trip.

On February 28, 2010 Nick and I bought our first house. We absolutely love it! Especially Nick, which is funny because he's the one who was unsure about whether or not we should buy a house. But, he listened to his wife in the end. Good man ;)

On March 29, 2010, we went to Scotland and Ireland with my best friend Clare. She's been an Irish dancer since we were 9 years old. When we were 9, I told her that when she made it to Worlds, I'd go with her. Well, 15 years later I made good on my promise. The competition was in Glasgow, Scotland. We stayed in Scotland for 7 days and afterwards went to Dublin, Ireland to visit her Aunt Margaret. It was so much fun to see Clare compete in Worlds after all these years of waiting and to get to see Dublin with her, after talking about it since we were kids. I can't wait to go back!

It's been a busy 3 years for Nick and I, but that's not all. In February we found out we'll be starting the biggest adventure of our lives.... parenthood! Our baby boy is due October 18th. Needless to say, Nick is so excited to have another Baguley boy in the family. I can already tell I'm in for it. These two are going to be trouble :)