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Aurora 2009, originally uploaded by J Webeck.

I just finished this 8×10 of Aurora for the 12 months of 2009, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to share it and explain what we’re up to right now.

I know I’ve totally been slacking on the blog, but I have been very busy working to prepare for our upcoming move to Monterey, CA. Yes, we’ve not only made a firm decision, but we’ve even paid our security deposit for our apartment, and paid school fees to get in. We’re totally excited about getting out of the army and going to live in Monterey. It is where we met after all, and it’s probably one of the most beautiful places in the United States and maybe even the world. It’s definitely a bit magical for us. We’re lucky enough to have found a place right on the beach. We don’t exactly have a view of the beach because we’re on the first floor, but it’s literally about 100 feet from our apartment to the beach. It’s also got a great jogging path right next to it, and a bike path that Sean can use to get to school. He’ll be doing the Arabic Summer Intensive Language Program starting in June (and I’m also toying with the idea of doing it one of the three summers we hope to be in Monterey), and then he will start the Masters program in International Policy in Fall.
So I guess that about catches us up as far as our plans go. We will be packing to leave in less than one month and we should arrive in Monterey the first week of March if all goes according to our plans.

Here’s a link to the google map of surfiside apartments. And here’s a screen capture of the satellite view of the apartments.

I might’ve exaggerated a little. It’s probably about 200 feet to the beach. But who’s counting?

Ok, so most of you are probably asking yourselves what in the world Jenny was doing in a nail salon. Let me explain. One of the gifts I received from Zoë’s baby shower was a gift certificate for a deluxe manicure/pedicure at a nail salon in Copperas Cove. Well, I thought it was just for one or the other until about half way through the lady had me start soaking my fingertips. I wasn’t going to complain. It was quite a treat, sitting there in this comfy chair that’s massaging my back while my feet are soaking in some sort of hot waxy substance and my legs are wrapped up in hot towels after being massaged. It was actually only my second pedicure ever (the first one I got right before I had Aurora), and it was my very first manicure. Oh, and I learned that people who actually get them on a regular basis just say mani and pedi. I never knew this, but it was probably pretty obvious to the people when I came into the salon that this was not something I do very often. Anyway, on to the adventurous part of the story – there were only two of us in the salon actually getting our nails done by these Vietnamese people, when in walks this young man who looks very much out of place in this salon. The lady behind the counter asks what she can do for him and we’re of course staring at him, wondering what in the world he is going to say. He doesn’t say a thing, but looks around for a few seconds and then leaves. I was wondering whether it was just me making assumptions in my head, but I really thought he was about to rob the place. Well, the salon workers all started talking to each other in Vietnamese and the lady behind the counter told a male co-worker what happened and he went outside to see where the guy went. They also called the cops who came, and I asked one worker what was going on. She said that a couple years ago a guy came in to a different salon wearing baggy clothes, and a backpack just like this guy and he robbed the place. She said that the only difference was the other salon had only female workers, and in this one, there was a male giving the other lady her pedicure. She figures if the male pedicurist hadn’t been there, he would’ve robbed the place. I guess with all the stories I’ve heard about this place, I’m actually pretty lucky that this is the closest I’ve come to seeing a robbery or other crime.
Oh, so Sean was at home watching the kids for me during all this and I even managed to go get a hair cut from a friend in our ward. I’ll have to post pictures later because it’s too late right now. Besides the almost witnessing a robbery thing, it was quite a good day.

Merry Christmas Everyone! Oh, this video expires January 15. So enjoy it while you can.

Before I launch into the rest of our adventures from November through mid-December, I just wanted to share some exciting news about Aurora’s potty training progress. Someone gave me the advice to have Aurora sit on her potty chair in front of the TV and let her eat salty snacks and drink juice to get her to go. Well, I tried it once last week with no success, but I tried again yesterday and she used the potty 5 times with no accidents! We did the same thing today and she even went number two and still has not had an accident yet. There may be an end in sight to purchasing Aurora-sized diapers after all.

Ok, so picking up where I left off, here are more cute photos from the last month and a half of Webeck family fun. I’ll add details or comments where appropriate or needed.

Sisterly love.

Fun dressing up.

“What are you doing to my little sister?” Don’t worry Aurora, we put you in a laundry basket as well.

And you didn’t seem to mind it at all either.

You didn’t seem to mind wearing grandma’s curlers either.

Everyone loves a freshly bathed baby.

This is Sean showing off Zoë’s long toes to his Army friends. Yeah, they’re that impressive!

After dragging their feet for over a month, Sean’s unit finally allowed him to pin on his new rank of sergeant which the Army had promoted him to at the beginning of October. It’s about time! So this is me, pinning on his new rank.

Right after the promotion ceremony, we were given a plaque saying that Zoë is officially a “Cav Baby” since she was born while Sean was in a Cavalry Unit.

While mom was visiting us, she took lots of pictures of course, including these next few, and the previous several photos as well.

Here’s our family photo with Sean sporting his mustache for “No-Shave November”. When soldiers get bored, they grow mustaches.

As I’m looking through my photos of our trip to Dallas to go to the temple with Emily before she left for the MTC, I am appalled to say that this is the ONLY photo I even have with Emily in it. I can’t believe we didn’t get any photos of us all at the temple together. Boy did we drop the ball there. What kind of Thadens are we anyway? We should be ashamed!

Oh, wait a minute, I found one more pitiful picture of Emily. At least that makes two. So sad.

This was a Thanksgiving potluck with our Parents as Teachers group. Sean was able to be there for part of it, but again I dropped the ball and didn’t get a picture with him before he had to leave to go to church meetings.

I think Zoë may be one of the happiest newborns I’ve met. She just gets so excited every time I smile at her. It’s so cute.

It took Aurora about a month to warm up to Zoë enough to be willing to hold her. Before that, she refused to even get very close to her and hardly acknowledged her existence.

Here’s our little princess with her army helmet.

I was in charge of making desserts for Thanksgiving dinner with Sean’s family. Shortly after pulling the pumpkin pie out of the oven, Aurora decided she needed to salt and pepper it. So, in order to save it, I had to scrape off the top layer of pie where she had seasoned it. It still tasted pretty good I thought, but it sure wasn’t pretty.

This is Aurora getting excited about the toy trains that Sean had when he was little. They’re pretty fancy ones as far as toy trains go.

Sean’s mom is amazing at decorating for Christmas. I think there were seven trees set up when we arrived. Just click on this photo of the trees so see the rest of the photos from Thanksgiving (and that goes for any other photo as well that you wish to see more of).

I just realized that I skipped right over Aurora’s birthday. That’s probably because if I don’t have photos of an event, it never happened. Ok, not exactly, but I’ve realized that if I want to remember something for years to come, I have to take pictures of it, or I will forget. I guess mom must’ve taken photos on her camera since I don’t have any. Well, real quickly, we did throw a birthday party for Aurora and invited some friends from church over (Garners, Bringhursts, Durrs), bought a helium tank to make helium balloons, played outside and had pizza and cake. That night we learned the hard way not to allow a child to take balloons to bed with her if they have strings or ribbons attached. Just take my advice – don’t do it.

At the end of November, I headed up to Kansas to hang out with my mom and dad (who came back from Iraq on December 3rd), but I stopped over at Becky’s to get photos done of Zoë first, and then slept up at Patrick and Kiera’s place. So here are some of the photos from Becky’s photo shoot.

Ok, I’m going to have to stop again for the night. Hopefully I’ll get fully caught up here soon.

After having a baby, it obviously takes some time to get into a new routine and a new schedule and some things that aren’t top priority get pushed aside for a while.   Well, I’ve had a little time now, and I can finally do a little bit of catch up on the blog.

To start, I’ll go back to a few days after Zoë was born.  I’ll mostly use pictures to tell what we’ve been up to, since I hardly can remember anything that happens if I don’t record it with pictures.  Good thing I live in the age of digital cameras. 

Mary Lee and Richard came to visit us and to meet their newest granddaughter on the 29th of October, just a few days after Zoë was born. It’s wonderful having family so close.

Having a new baby in the house can really wear you out.

But with a baby this cute and wonderful, it’s hard to complain.

And of course since we have another child that requires time and attention, it does give Aurora more opportunities to explore things and rearrange them, like the silverware drawer.

We did manage to make it out to the ward Trunk or Treat party on the 30th, which surprised several people, since it was only 5 days after I’d given birth. We had a good time though. Aurora and Sean went around to the different cars, and I stayed at our car to pass out candy and to show off Zoë of course.

I love seeing Sean and our daughters snuggling. It just makes me happy.

I’m going to have to break this blog into parts because it’s getting late and I have a long drive ahead of me tomorrow (heading from Kansas back to Texas).

A friend of mine from church is a professional photographer and she asked to take newborn photos of Zoë. If enough people comment about how cute the picture of Zoë is on her blog, then we can get a free 8×10 out of it, so feel free to check out her site and her blog and comment away (on her blog, not mine).
http://heartpics.blogspot.com/2009/11/its-christmas-season-photos-of-heart.html

Her website is photosoftheheart.org.

10/28/09 09:32:31, originally uploaded by J Webeck.

Last week Wednesday, I had my 39 week check up. The midwife told me I was not at all dilated and that since my first baby was induced, there was definitely a chance I’d have to be induced again. This was the last thing I wanted to hear. I’ve been planning to go natural for a few months now and I’ve been reading the Bradley Method book and another book on Hypnobirthing to prepare myself for a natural childbirth. So when she told me I might have to be induced, I was scared and also determined to do whatever was in my power (and safe for the baby) to make sure she came out without the use of pitocin (or any other method of medical induction). The first thing I did when I came home (besides adding “Have a baby!” to my To-Do list) was to do a 45 min long P90X cardio workout. For those of you who’ve not heard of P90X, it’s a set of 10 or 12 DVDs each with a different intense workout focused on a part of the body to help you get yourself in very good shape physically. I’d never used them up to this point, only Sean had, but I’d heard him say how sore they made him. He wasn’t exaggerating. I did have a few contractions at the beginning of the workout, but they didn’t last. The next several days though, I had sore muscles that I’d never felt before.
Saturday morning I felt a few contractions, but again, they didn’t last and weren’t very intense, so I continued on with my day as normal. We did have a “Super-Saturday” activity at the church for Relief Society and I got a lot of comments from people who were wondering why I was there, and why I hadn’t had the baby yet. Apparently Sean had been telling people I was going to have the baby on Wednesday (earlier in the week). I guess he hadn’t made it clear that this was simply his wish, not a guarantee. Anyway, I told some of the people I spoke with at church that it was my goal to get the baby out and that I may or may not see them at church the next day. I also asked for any suggestions people had to cause labor. One friend of mine told me she’d walked up and down the long flight of stairs by the RB at BYU in order to go into labor (and it worked for her).
That evening I decided Mexican food would be a good idea for dinner, with a little extra spicy red pepper on it (I don’t do spicy at ALL). Then I told Sean I was going to go for a walk around the block (choosing the route with the most hills), as they had previously caused some contractions. He joined me a little bit in to my walk and took Aurora to the park while I walked back and forth on this street next to the park that had two nice uphill slopes to it. I probably did that for about 45 minutes and then decided to call it quits. I had been contracting during it, but I didn’t think it would really lead to anything. After we’d been home for a while, and had gotten Aurora to bed I noticed I was having some contractions still. It was about 9:45pm when I checked my watch. About 10pm I passed the mucus plug (sorry if that’s too graphic for anyone), which gave me a lot of hope that this baby would come on her own, even if it could be anywhere from several hours to several days. Sean and I were both pretty excited at this point and had no intention of going to bed yet. Sean had suggested a movie, but I asked if we could do a P90X workout again to make sure the contractions stuck around. So we pulled out the Stretch workout dvd and did that for over an hour. By the end, the contractions were intense enough that it was not too easy to stretch through them. They were also coming about every 3 minutes and lasting 45 seconds to a minute. At that point Sean went out to Walmart for me and bought me a yoga/birthing ball. I’d previously wanted one, but had forgotten to pick one up. I figured it would help me cope with the pain and help the baby drop into position. In the meantime, between contractions, I was packing all the last minute stuff for the hospital and making myself some French Toast, since I knew they weren’t going to want me to eat once I got to the hospital. I still packed a bag of snacks that I could sneak in case labor lasted longer than expected while at the hospital.
Around midnight Sean called the labor and delivery section of the hospital to ask when we should come in based on contraction length and how far apart they were. They told us we should come in, but I knew it was still too soon. We continued preparing though, and Sean went over to ask our neighbor if she’d be willing to come over and sleep at our place with her son to keep an eye on Aurora when we went to the hospital. That worked out very well for us so we didn’t have to worry about waking up Aurora and moving her to a stranger’s house or dropping her off at a friend’s place who lived the opposite direction of the hospital. Just before 3am I noticed I was starting to get a bit nauseous and I figured that meant I was getting towards transition since the only time I threw up during Aurora’s birth was when I was just about fully dilated. That’s when our neighbor came over and Sean drove me to the hospital.
When we got to the triage section of labor and delivery they put me on a bed and started strapping monitors to me. I asked if I had to be on the monitors (knowing from my reading that constant monitoring was far from necessary for a normal birth), and the nurse basically said absolutely yes! She was immediately added to my blacklist. When a different nurse came in to check on me I asked her the same question and she said they just needed 20 minutes of monitoring to make sure the baby’s heart rate was stable during contractions and then they could unstrap me and let me walk around for an hour at which point I’d come back and they’d put the monitors on for another 20 minutes. That nurse was added to my good list. The doctor came in to see how far I was dilated and unfortunately I was only at a 4. That really scared me, because when I had Aurora I was stuck at a 4 for what seemed like an eternity. Of course the whole experience of being induced lasted about 27 hours – which really is an eternity when your epidural isn’t working properly and your strapped to a bed unable to sufficiently cope with the pain. But at least they didn’t send me away saying I wasn’t far enough along. A little later a midwife came in (the one who ended up delivering me) and started reading the form to me that basically says the hospital has the right to do whatever they want to me if they deem it to be medically necessary. Most of the things that she read off were things that I figured would be far from necessary in my situation so I asked her what would happen if I didn’t sign the paper. She wasn’t too happy with me at this point, but I was the one in labor and I didn’t want my baby to be pulled out of me with forceps or a vacuum or to be cut out of me either, so I was just trying to do what I could to keep that from happening. Obviously I lost the battle about signing the paper, but luckily things went smoothly enough that no intervention was necessary.
After being unstrapped, Sean and I walked the hallways of labor and delivery, stopping about every minute so I could grip on to the hallway railing, slump over and try to breath through the contractions. Just under an hour later we were ushered to our room by the nurse on my blacklist who was all too eager to have me back on the monitors. The contractions were still very close together and extremely intense. After being on the bed for a while, the contractions were starting to make me push, so the nurse went and got the midwife who said I was now at a 9. (It was now about 6am, almost 3 hours from when we left home.) The contractions were still forcing me to push, and so that’s what I did. As I did so they broke my water (since it was still intact) and within 10 minutes of starting to push, Zoë arrived.
During this whole experience I was wondering whether I would ever choose to go natural again because the pain was more excruciating than I’d ever experienced before in my life, and it was by far the hardest thing I’d ever done as well. By the way, whoever says giving birth is like running a marathon, they’re wrong. Giving birth (at least naturally), is way harder! However, having had almost a week to recover now, I realize that going natural is probably the only way I will ever choose to go again, because recovery (as everyone who has gone natural has told me) is far faster and easier than recovery from an epidural birth. That’s the truth!

We will send out a birth announcement at some point, but for now, here’s the info:
Zoë Webeck was born Sunday October 25 at 6:35am, weighing 7lbs 7oz and was 20.5 inches long. (For comparison sake, Aurora was 7lbs 8oz and was also 20.5 inches long).

This is our family “To-Do” list with my contraction times on it.

I may not look like I’m in labor here in front of Darnall Army Hospital, but I am.

Not very flattering, but what birth photos ever are?

Aurora was not terribly interested in Zoë, but at least she wasn’t jealous either.

Aurora’s interest quickly turned from Zoë to the Animal Crackers.

Aurora decided she really like Zoë’s car seat.

This is a cute one of the two girls. Oh, and check out those long toes!

I realized after a few comments that I didn’t really give proper credit to my wonderful birthing coach Sean, both during the birth and for all his support since the birth. Sean really has made this entire birthing experience a great one for me. I really am blessed to have such a wonderful husband who supports me and our family so well.

PA231960, originally uploaded by J Webeck.

Sean’s company hosted a trunk or treat today, so we decided to go check it out. Luckily we’d already borrowed a costume for Aurora from a friend, and Aurora was quite excited about dressing up in it. She got a number of people complimenting her on how adorable she was as a chicken, and of course as her parents, we figure she should’ve won the “best costume award” just because she was so cute in it. (Thanks, Heather!)
The first person manning a trunk was wearing a rather frightening mask which made Aurora keep her distance until he took it off briefly to show her he wasn’t really a monster. After that, it didn’t take long until she was saying please to anyone in front of a trunk and thanking them when they gave her candy.
I think the only part of the activities we didn’t enjoy so much was the scary maze that although we were told it wasn’t really scary, it still was too scary for an almost two year old and it did involve crawling on my knees with a scared baby on my back – which was not so much fun for a 9-month pregnant mother. But overall, I think we had a really good time and of course, we got some great photos out of it.

Oh, and two unrelated but also adorable photos – this one of Aurora with her cute hat on (yes it was actually cold enough today to warrant wearing a hat).

And this one is of Aurora actually eating meat (it’s turkey bacon). She asked for it and although I totally expected her to not touch it once she got it, she not only nibbled on it once, but a few times and seemed to enjoy it somewhat, although she didn’t finish the whole piece. Still, this is big progress for our non-meat-eating child.

truffle tins?, originally uploaded by J Webeck.

For those of you who read my blog, I need your input. I’m thinking about ordering some tins and candy boxes from a website to sell my truffles in. Would a tin like one of these be a good idea (one that would fit six truffles I believe and have a window display to show them off)? I figured they would be nicer for gifts, and keep the truffles fresher for longer since they’re supposed to be stored in air-tight containers in the fridge anyway.

The normal boxes I’ll also sell the truffles in will look like one of these “high-gloss candy boxes” below, and will fit 8 truffles in a box.

I appreciate any and all feedback, comments, questions, concerns, etc.

10/16/09 08:37:07, originally uploaded by J Webeck.

Yesterday Aurora and I went to our first pumpkin patch together (I’d been to one before, she hadn’t), with our Parents as Teachers group. There were several different stations that we rotated through, including pumpkin painting, story-time, singing time, games and a hay ride (to name a few).

The weather wasn’t the best, but we managed to have a pretty good time anyway, with the hay ride probably being the highlight for Aurora.

The lady in charge of the pumpkin patch had a bullhorn/air horn that she would blow to let all the groups know to change stations. We were standing maybe a bit too close for Aurora’s comfort when I was taking pictures, and got this great one of Aurora, right as the horn blew.

Today was Military Appreciation day at Boston’s Gourmet Pizza restaurant here in Killeen. They were offering 1 large 1 topping pizza free to the first 25 military families to show up around lunch time. We were definitely among the first to arrive, and it wasn’t near as busy as we expected. They had all sorts of free activities available as well for kids. They had a bounce house, a clown who made balloon figures, did face painting and told jokes, they had free cotton candy, free horse rides (not pony rides) and a rock climbing wall.

I was quite impressed with the set up and loved that everything was free of course. Aurora had a blast, and we took advantage of everything except the rock climbing wall (which I really wanted to try, but Sean didn’t think they’d let me since I’m SO pregnant at this point. Oh well.) But yeah, we had a really good time there, and the pizza was excellent. It was our first time ever eating at Boston’s – and probably not our last. The photos from Boston’s were taken on my cell phone because I didn’t know to bring my real camera (and my pocket camera is either dying or dead already, so I wasn’t carrying it around either). So that’s why the quality of those photos isn’t so great.