Hello Hazel!

Just a really quick post this morning to show off the new baby! She came at 5:22 PM, Tuesday Oct. 21. She's 19 inches long, 7 lbs. 14 oz., has a head of dark hair, and is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!


More pictures/videos coming soon... so stay tuned!

Family Pictures

I've been looking through my archived pictures trying to find some good family pictures and it's not been the most successful endeavor. We Gublers are far from photogenic; one of us is inevitably looking less than desirable. So, these are the best I came up with:


This is from our weekend jaunt to Redondo Beach. We just drove down and back to pick up my loom I got on ebay (that I still haven't used, but am still excited to have.) If Shay were writing this blog, she would say we were "lookin' at fish." I'm thinkin' I wish my bottom were that small again, even if it is flat!

Tomie was funny on his first trip to the ocean - he screamed whenever I put him down in the sand or surf, but he did like the birds and the sailboats.


This is from Legoland on our Christmas Vacation with Levi's family. Yeah, we took a vast quantity of family pictures on this trip and this was the best we could do for looking normal - delivering our son up as dragon fodder! What does that say about our little family? And should I be worried? Tomie gets to be a dragon for Halloween and Hazel gets to be either his treasure horde or his maiden sacrifice. Perhaps I SHOULD be worried!

This is not a particularly great picture, though the desert is beautiful and Hazel is included. It's also the first time I tried using the timer on my camera - not too bad, eh? We took this just a week or so ago while we were riding four-wheelers "out-back." We haven't done that in FOREVER. They've put up so many new fences it's almost impossible to ride anywhere! Such is life and perpetual change.

Speaking of change, while I was looking for pictures it made me realize that while these last couple days have been so exciting waiting for Hazel to join us, they're also a little bitter-sweet that they're the last days of being a family of 3. It's been fun being a little family and letting Tomas be the center of our world. Isn't it amazing that life frequently changes dramatically in something as short as a heartbeat? Wow!

So...yeah...still no baby. I've pretty much accepted the concept that I'm just going to be pregnant FOREVER!

Remembering My First Delivery

As I wait to deliver Hazel, I can't help but think back to my first birthing experience. And what a doozy it was!!! Here are some of the hi-lights!
When I delivered Tomas at the LDS hospital we had to deliver in the O.R. because he was so early and the O.R. has a window into the Newborn ICU so the baby can be whisked away and taken care of. So since it was an operating room, Levi and my mom had to wear the full mask and gown regalia. It's a good thing too, cuz Tomas managed to splash everyone within a 5 foot radius! He is definitely a water baby!
This is my son's very first picture. I hope you're not squeamish, but isn't he beautiful! That's his dad's hand cutting the umbilical cord.
This is the first time I got to touch my baby boy. After he was sent through the window to get all wired up and tested and I was all stitched up, I was wheeled back to my room for an hour or so. After the epidural wore off, they wheeled me into the NICU to finally be with my Tomas. It was rather surreal and I didn't know that I could hold him until a day later! Argh! He was such a funny fellow and refused to keep his legs and arms all bundled together, instead he would drape them all over this way and that. He still doesn't like to stay in blankets
Tomie is a couple weeks old in these two pictures. He spent a month at the hospital taking his own sweet time learning to eat enough on his own. (He still tends to eat on his own terms.) He didn't like the NG tube going in his nose so he would hook his little finger underneath it and yank it out. He had a number of tape burns on his cheeks from doing that. He also had a number of IV sites, but the one you see here in his forehead infiltrated and left a little scar that he still has today. It even glows in blacklights!
It wasn't the best way to go about birthing a child, but it was well worth it! Hopefully Hazel plays the game a little more nicely! Either way, this is one happy momma!

What are little girls made of?

Hazel's GREAT Aunt Maridee held a nursery rhyme shower in her honor last weekend. It was ever so cute as were the many pretty pink accessories Hazel acquired! We had themed refreshments such as Humpty Dumpty deviled eggs, a vegetable tray from the garden of one contrary Mary, and water fetched by the clumsy Jack and Jill. The female relations also put their hands to penning their own nursery rhymes especially for Hazel and the results were amusing. Here's a small sampling of their endeavors:

Little Crazy Hazie
Loved to smell the daisies
Never was she lazy
That crazy little Hazie

Hazel be nimble, Hazel get a stick!
Tomy will get you if you aren't quick!

Hey piddle puddle, Hazel's in trouble
What are Saddie and Levi to do?
Tomy is there with diapers to share
And with luck, some wipies too!

It was so much fun to visit with the girls about girly things! So thanks to everyone who came for coming, thanks for the many gifts, thanks for those who helped put it on, and thanks to my honey for watching the boy while I had a little GNO! Now I would thank Hazel greatly if she'd scoot her little booty out of my big belly so we could both sleep a little more comfortably!

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

Isn't that how The Tale of Two Cities begins? It's only been a decade or so since I studied it in high school. Whether or not, it seems to me that such a statement applies to more time periods than just the French Revolution. Case in point: the terrible twos. Here is my son on our recent FHE outing on the four-wheelers. Evidence A would show that Tomie was having a great time imagining and riding on the bike. Evidence B, however, would indicate that the experience was much too distressing for one child to handle!

Evidence A: The Best of Times


Evidence B: The Worst of Times


Such is the life of a two-year old. A roller-coaster of precious, keepsake moments and full-on, winner-takes-all battles of wills. What an adventure! Luckily naps make everything right again and the two-year-old can't help being cute, even when being a pain!