Finally an Update!

Hello Everyone! (if anyone is still checking this)

I have been hassled by a few people that I needed to update my blog, so I figured I better go ahead and update. I had originally thought to keep this just a pregnancy blog, but was told that people want to see pictures of Elise now that she is here. So anyways here goes...

Elise is now 11 weeks old... so here is what has happened in the past 11 weeks.

• Elise was born on January 24, 2011 by c-section at 3:23 pm. She weight 8 lbs 1 oz, and was 21 inches long.
• We struggled a little in the beginning (the first 4 weeks) with breastfeeding and weight gain for Elise. But we finally figured everything out, and she is now chubby and thriving weighing in at the 78th percentile!
• We took our first big road trip to Upton Wyoming ( a 6 hour drive) in March. And Elise did great. She loves her car seat.
• Elise has attended 3 Denver Nuggets basketball games, and she does great there as well. I just put her in the sling while we watch the game, and honestly, she sleeps through it! I can't believe she can sleep through all the clapping and yelling.
• At the end of march Elise started with the "cooing" at Daddy. She would imitate the sounds he makes like the i's and o's. (See video below, it's adorable).
• We took our second big trip which was to Pinedale Wyoming the second weekend in April. She still liked her car seat (YES!) but she gets a little overwhelmed when a lot of people are talking to her at once.
• Oh and she has slept through the night once! ha ha. It didn't do me any good though because I was up the whole night checking on her and wondering why she wasn't awake.

Okay, so here is what everyone is waiting for.. THE PICTURES! My friend Todd gave Elise a stuffed dog when we were in the hospital, and the hospital photographer took her picture with it. So I decided to try to take the same picture to compare Elise's growth every month.

Here is Elise as a Newborn

Elise at 1 month

Elise at 2 months

Okay and here she is talking to Daddy!

36 Weeks and Getting Close!

Well, we are now slightly over 36 weeks along, and still feeling great. Although, like I said before some of the typical pregnancy issues are starting to settle with me, such as the swollen ankles - it doesn't seem to be just my ankles though, my feet are also pretty swollen, and my toes look like little sausages. However, I know it is all for a great cause when we get to meet our sweet little girl. I am now going to the doctor for weekly check-ups. Last week I was told that it would be a while because I am still carrying so high. I have to admit that I look forward to the day when she drops because I might be able to catch my breath a little! On Friday when I hit the 36 week mark, I went to get pregnancy pictures again with my friend Tammy- as I have been every month since I was 8 weeks along. I can't believe how big my belly is!! Here is one of my favorite pictures that we took that day. Looks like I am getting close ...
During the Christmas break my mom and Michayla came to visit for 4 days, and we spent most of that time washing baby clothes and bedding and getting the room completely ready- including having the diaper bag ready to go! I couldn't believe how long it took to take off all the tiny little tags and organize the clothing by sizes. I think the closet turned out great! Matt got all the shelves in place for us, and we started to fill them with the cute clothes. Here is a picture of the closet all ready the arrival.

Shower and Nursery

Well on the weekend of December 5th- my wonderful friend Nichole, with the help from Marjorie, Kathy and my mom, hosted a very wonderful baby shower for me. It was such a special day!! The theme was 'A Baby Girl is Blossoming' so my mom had some wonderful decorations to follow the theme. A friend of mine from work, Betty, made a beautiful layered cake that also had the blossoms theme. It was very exciting that Jeanne, Matt's mom (aka Uma) flew in all way from North Carolina to come to the shower!! We were so happy that she came, and made the day so special to spend it with friends and family. Thank you to everyone that chipped in for such a wonderful event! The day was topped off at the end when Nichole announced to me that she was pregnant....with TWINS! How exciting that I get to go through pregnancy, and then motherhood with such a close friend. Here are some pics from the shower....

The hostesses with the most.... (not pictured Kathy!)

Granny and Uma

Anthony came for a little bit!!

Betty with her beautiful cake!

The Book Club Girls

Betty, Me, Pam and Lydia

(Girls from Advanced Programs)

And, The second part of this post, I know I mentioned the nursery... so before the shower I was hoping to have the baby's room all done being painted! Well Matt definitely worked hard to get the purple and yellow complete, not to mention putting together the crib and sanding and refinishing the dresser. Then my dad came down from Silverthorne to paint animals on the wall to match our bedding. It turned out AWESOME! Every time I walk in the room I feel like I am part of a cartoon. Hopefully you can tell by the pictures how awesome the painting is. We still have a little bit of work to do, and some final items to purchase before the room is ready...but we have definitely made some great progress.

And as for the pregnancy....well... 6 weeks 2 days and counting :) The third trimester has definitely been the hardest for me. I feel more tired, and of course the aches and pains are starting to settle in. Every time I look down at my ankles I get surprised at first and think "ohhh I don't remember spraining my ankle" but then I remember that I am just swollen! ha! Other than the swelling, and added fatigue I feel pretty good, and I know it is all worth it for when we get to meet our baby girl. Anyways, here are the pictures of the adorable animals in the nursery.

Thanksgiving...

Yeah I know, I am a week and a half behind of posting about Thanksgiving. And well... I blame it on the exhaustion of being pregnant :) ha ha...

Anyways, the Friia household had quite the busy Thanksgiving. And it was a blast!!!! We are so thankful that we had so many family members come to spend to the day/weekend with us. It is always hard for us with Matt's schedule to be able to travel on holidays, so it is so special to us when we have guests. We had Auntie Cheri, Uncle Troy, Sophie, Lainee and Jess come down from Upton, my mom came from Cheyenne, my brother Anthony and his wife Abbey with their son Jayce came from Nebraska, my dad came down from the mountains, and Rob and Kathy came over. It was a full house but like I said, we had such a blast. After cooking way too much food, and eating way too much...wait I think I was the only one that ate too much, in fact the table got cleared while I was still eating! Anyways, after the feast, Kathy sang and played the piano and my dad played and sang to the guitar. It was so great having everyone sit around and sing all the songs. And after every song Jayce would say "More again". He just loved hearing all the music, and he even sang along to some of the songs. We were just so happy to have a house full of so many wonderful family members.

Then after the dinner me, Cheri, Lainee and Sophie, and Matt for a little bit, drove down to Castle Rock for the Moonlight Madness shopping sale. I went crazy in the Carter's store, and bought all kinds of clothes ranging from newborn to 18 mos! The sales were great, but we were pretty worn out after getting home around 1:30AM.

Friday night we all went to the Nuggets game and watched them beat the Chicago Bulls, with a buzzer beater, game winning shot by Carmelo Anthony! Needless to say it was an exciting and very eventful weekend!!

Here are some pics from Thanksgiving Day!

Shoe Fetish

Okay, I know on a previous post I talked a little about Matt's shoes. So first I was getting all worried about preparing bambino's room because Matt's shoes were taking up the whole closet. So finally he took down the closet and moved his shoes. Well... they moved into the spare room, where his shoes covered the bed and all the floor space in that room. Soon enough that didn't work anymore because we had to have a place for guests to stay, so finally Matt created a wall for his shoes. Yes a wall. I counted today and he has 86 pairs of shoes. I would say 90, but Matt says we can't count his "old" pairs of shoes at the Pepsi Center. This is also after he got rid of 6 pairs! Oh, and YES he wears them all.... CRAZY!

So anyways, every season when Matt travels with the team to Portland he is given a certificate to shop at the Nike employee's store. He came home Thursday night with shoes for our little girl! My first thought is 'OH NO! He is starting her collection already!!' Let's hope she doesn't have the same fetish as Daddy :) They are definitely very adorable.

Here are some pics of the shoes! First of Matt's shoe wall. ha ha

So the picture below is of the shoes for bambino!! The pic of the black shoes (second from right) doesn't really do them justice...they are black with purple sparkles with purple shocks! So stylin'!! The shoes on the right are pink hightops with fur, and second from left are converse shoes with cows.

Here is a picture of the adorable purple shocks next to a pair of daddy's shocks :) They look so tiny next to Matt's giant size 12!

Memory Lane...

What an awesome weekend!!

My mom and I traveled to Pinedale this weekend for a nice trip to meet with old friends and visit the old stomping grounds. It was so great to see everyone again, and of course see how much Pinedale has grown. I haven't been back since last August when I went for my 10 year class reunion.

Mom and I stayed with Karly and Joey at their gorgeous house that Joey built. On Saturday Karly had a brunch/baby shower for me with all the old gang - It wasn't the typical baby shower with only women, everyone was invited. It was so great to sit and visit with everyone, oh and of course show off the ever growing belly! :)

After the shower Karly, mom and I drove up to Fremont Lake and walked around the campground loop. Karly and I found the Aspen tree that we had carved in K+C = BF (Karly plus Carey equals Best Friends) I guess the whole BFF thing wasn't created yet! ha. But as you can tell from the picture it has grown in quite a bit. As we were walking away we realized that we carved that masterpiece 20 years ago!! It is so great to have a friendship that lasts that long...seriously talk about Best Friends Forever!!! Thanks for a fun party Karly, and a great weekend.

Oh and by the way... The Nuggets lost to New Orleans on Friday night, but came back to beat Houston on Saturday night (that's the reason Matt was not in attendance for the weekend fun in Pinedale)

Can you see the K+C=BF?

Tayte, Carey and Karly

North Carolina

Last weekend (the weekend of September 25th) we flew to Durham North Carolina for 4 days to celebrate Matt's mom's (Jeanne) wedding. It was such a beautiful wedding, with a weekend full of fun. We arrived Wednesday night so it was nice to spend Thursday with Jeanne and David before all the events of the weekend took place. They also had a southern style buffet for their rehearsal dinner on Friday night. Mmmmmm Fried chicken! ha! One morning we had the discussion with Jeanne and David of what they wanted to be called by bambino. Jeanne had decided on "Uma" which we love! And David came up with Bubba, kind of as a joke at first, but we all ended up really loving Bubba as well! So as of right now, bambino will have Uma and Bubba down in North Carolina.

As for the pregnancy, I have been feeling bambino girl a lot more, but I still can't feel distinct kicks or punches. I can just feel her moving around. I can't wait for Matt to be able to feel the kicks and movements from the outside.

Here are some pics of the weekend in North Carolina:

Matt and Carey

Matt and his brother Tim

The Bride and Groom (Uma and Bubba)

Matt and his New York Aunts (Mary, Janice and Kathy)