She's Here! She's Here!

The wait has finally paid off! Ellie Ann Crane arrived on January 12, 2012 at 7:07 pm. She weighed 6 lbs, 11 oz and was 18.5 in long. What a beautiful babe she is! Everyone always posts "the birth story" on their blog, so I've decided to jump on that band wagon. Plus, it's a whole lot easier to type than it is to write in my journal...anyway, here we go.
The morning of the 12th, I had an appointment with Dr. Glenn. Debbie (Danny's mom) had flown in the night before, so she came with me. When they weighed me that morning, I had lost another 2 pounds. That was 4 pounds in 2 weeks. Dr. Glenn told me he wanted me to take a NST (non-stress test) just to make sure that everything was going ok and that there was enough amniotic fluid. They hooked me up to a monitor and did an ultrasound. It was fun to see Ellie again. I only had one other ultrasound at 20 weeks, so I hadn't seen her for awhile. The fluid was at 3.5 when it's supposed to be between a 7 and 24, so the nurse told me that Dr. Glenn would for sure want to induce me that day. WHAT?! That was super exciting, but I was worried about Ellie. They monitored her heart rate for 20 minutes and things looked good. That was a major blessing. After that, they took me straight to my room. Debbie went and picked up Danny and they grabbed our suitcase from home.
At about 1:30, they started me on the pitocin. Things went pretty quickly after that. My contractions were really intense and were coming really fast. Ellie was not putting up with it as well as we would have liked, so the nurse decided to put a monitor in my uterus to check the intensity of the contractions. Before she put it in, she measured me and said, "Actually, we're just going to have you start pushing." Woohoo! I was fully dilated. She called Dr. Glenn (who was in the middle of a haircut. He didn't think I would progress that quickly.) and told him to get down there right away. Then the fun stuff began. I started pushing at 6:15 and at 7:07, Ellie was born. That was so wonderful! Nothing prepares you for that moment when you first hear and see your little baby. All your emotions swell over and everything around you disappears except for that little one. Danny was able to cut the umbilical cord and they placed her on me. Oh, she was precious. All the worry and fear of the day melted away. They let me hold her for awhile (skin to skin time) and then Danny went with her to the nursery so she could get cleaned up.
We stayed in the hospital for 2 nights. It was wonderful being a family of three. I think that first night we just watched Ellie the entire time. We oohed and ahhed over every little thing she did. We tried to see who she looked like the most. We just couldn't get enough of her. On January 14,  we were able to come home. Those first few days were intense. You worry about every little thing and exhaustion just takes over. On the 17th, my mom finally came, along with my grandparents. I'm so grateful for Debbie and for my mom and all the help they gave us. We couldn't have done it without them.
Now Ellie is almost 1 month old. She loves to eat, sleep, chill in her bouncy seat, listen to Mama sing, and she's becoming a real conversationalist. She loves to have her head massaged and loves fleecy blankets. She loves to relax in the bath and loves when Daddy comes home from work. Ellie hates being hungry. She has no problem letting you know when it is time to eat. She hates getting out of the bath because it's just too cold. She is just like her daddy when she wakes up. It usually takes her a little while to be fully awake. It's so cute to watch her struggle to choose between sleeping and eating (so far, eating always wins).
We absolutely love our precious baby girl! She is more than we ever dreamed of and we love watching her learn and grow each day.

Picture Palooza

I have a wonderful husband. After reading our last post, he went and bought me a camera cord. What a guy! I love him! So here are some pictures to help you through the last few months of Crane life.

First up is our anniversary. We went to The Roof. Delicious! Afterward, we found some nice foreigners to take our picture. We're so multi-cultural. And those are the flowers Danny surprised me with. Eternal love. That pretty much sums it all up.

Laurel and I went to Taylor Swift in September. It was super fun! She is an amazing singer! We had tons of fun yelling...I mean singing our heads off. Baby will definitely be a Taylor Swift fan.

Next up, Halloween. Here are some pictures from our party.

We're pretty attractive, I know. But some people walk in the light, you know. Here's a few more of our party and The Pumpkin Walk up in Logan.

After a two year absence, Danny and I were finally able to go to a BYU football game. Laurel and Randall had extra tickets and for once we weren't working.As you can see, we were really, really excited. It was a lot of fun, even though our toes are still recovering from the cold. Jaymes came and visited us.

That just leaves us with Thanksgiving. It was just the two of us this year so we (mainly I) decided to skip the cooking hype and eat it up at Chuck-a-Rama. Brilliant idea! It was so good! The only sad part about eating out- no leftovers. But we're getting over that. Craig and Lana came to visit us that night. It was fun to see them. Wish they were closer.

Well, that about sums up this palooza. Life has been great! We're so excited for the Christmas season and for the upcoming birth of our beautiful baby girl. We have so much to be grateful for.

By popular demand...

It's that time again. Life has been wonderful lately. We've been really busy, but still able to do lots of cool stuff. Well, let's face it. Danny and I are just really cool people. A lot of our pictures are on my camera and, sadly, we lost the camera cord, so we're just going with whatever we have on Danny's camera. But, I digress.

This past month was Danny's almost favorite time of the year. He is a Halloween fanatic. He loves the decor, the jack-o-lanterns, the dressing-up, the-scaring-your-wife-silly bits of this random but delightful holiday. I did get him back a few times though, so I think we're pretty even on the scaring each other part. We had a fun Halloween party with lots of people we hadn't seen for awhile. All these pictures are on my camera, but everyone lived up to the "dress-up or beware" warning we placed on the invite. McKenzie and Von we're wild Indians...uh, Native Americans, Laurel and Randall we're a snake/lizard and a cow, Dean and Katie were crayons, Justin and Emily were Cleopatra and Marc Antony, and Danny and I were nerds (yes, we did have to add a bit to our regular attire). We had yummy food and played Werewolves and Villagers. Fun was had by all! Overall, October was a fabulous month.

Now on to what's really important. Baby girl is doing so great! We are super excited to meet her and can't believe there are only 9 weeks left of this long, arduous process (there have been fun moments to I guess). We bought a stroller, car seat, bouncer, and she is getting well-stocked in the clothing area. I made a bunch of headbands a while ago. They are pretty adorable. We still have to work on her room though. I'm afraid she may have to live in the closet, like my sister did for a few years/months :), but hopefully we'll get everything settled before to long. That's what Thanksgiving is for, right? So, I do have a couple of belly pictures. I've been really bad about these, but I do have a good excuse.

As you can see, things are looking pretty good :) We're so excited for our darling baby girl to be here. To hug and snuggle her. What a special blessing she is.

In other news, two years ago today, Danny and I held hands for the first time. Thank you Napoleon Dynamite.

And baby makes tres...

Well, here we are again. So stinkin' much has happened the last couple of months. But I'll try and remember it all.
First and foremost, we are having a baby girl! We had the ultasound today and everything looks great. She is beautiful! She already has a little bit of an attitude. I think she gets that from her dad. It was so amazing to finally see her. This was one of the best pictures she would give us. It was like she was thinking "Ok, guys. I'll give you a good one to start with, but that's all you get. Suckers!" Funny girl. So now begins the fun of buying baby stuff and packing our new apartment full of girly things.
Which brings us to our next topic. We moved! We're out of the tiny box of an apartment we were living in all summer and now we reside in what we consider a "great and spacious" place. It's two bedrooms, has a dishwasher and a disposal, is in a great ward, and we just can't say enough good things about it. It's perfect.
Danny and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. Since I work like all the time, we had to celebrate a couple days early. He took me to The Roof up in Salt Lake. We had an amazing view of the Salt Lake Temple as the sun was going down, plus it was an all you can eat buffet. Woohoo! It was a wonderful date. I love Danny and I'm grateful for him and all he does for me, especially during these last few months. He's been such a trooper.
Well, that's it from The Cranes. Signing off.

Father's Day

Father's Day is this Sunday. Now usually this day would consist of my dad coming home from all his church meetings to a delicious meal of his choice. We'd all tell him how wonderful he is the rest of the day and that was that. Or somethings like it :) Since I've left home, Father's Day has taken on new meaning. It's a day for me to miss my dad. A lot. I'm so grateful for him and the great influence he has been on me and all that he does for our family. My dad was in school for the first 10 years of my life. That's kind of a long time. I think I would have quit and worked at Wal-Mart. But he worked so hard and the blessings of his choices are still coming. He's such a great example. From him I learned what characteristics I wanted my future spouse to have, what I wanted him to be like. I wanted him to be like my dad- a righteous priesthood holder, a man who loves being with his family, who works hard to support his family, who has a good sense of humor, and a man who puts the Lord first in his life. Luckily, such a man existed :) I'm grateful for my dad in so many ways.

This Father's Day, I also have a father-in-law. I've loved getting to know him and learning more about him. He also works so hard to support his family and is the most gentle dentist I've ever been to. He's a funny man with a good sense of humor. I'm grateful for all he did in raising his son to be the man he is today. Dave loves to read and is always telling us something new he learned. I love that quality. I've loved getting to know Danny's family. They treat me as their own and I love them.

I probably should go on and on about my love, Danny Crane. How wonderful he is and how he'll be a wonderful father. How good he is to me and how much I love him. But I need to save something for our 1 year anniversary post. Haha. Danny is more than I ever hoped I would find in my eternal companion. He is my best friend and my personal comedian. My forever.

Anyway, I love these three men and also the other fathers in my life. Thanks for being the examples that you are. End of super sappy post.

Lately...

Lazy Sunday afternoon = the perfect time to write a little something. The past few weeks have been a major whirlwind. We moved into our new apartment, discovered that we hated it (minus the fact that it has a washer/dryer), and immediately started looking for a new place. We found a major steal that I wish we would have checked into earlier. It's a 2 bedroom beauty. This past week, manager called and told us we could move in a month early. Hallelujah! We sold our contract in a record speed of three hours and now we are set to move in less than 2 months. Yeah for apartment hopping! I find some heavy irony in the fact that as a single lady, I stayed in the same apartment for 3+ years, but as a married lady, we'll have moved 3 times in one year.

More good news! Danny was accepted to the next seminary teaching class. We were so happy to find this out. It means we're a little bit farther down the path of the future. We're both working all the time and Danny is taking 2 classes right now. After we journey to Disneyland in a less than a week (excited!), he has his finals and then starts all over for summer term. Oh the joys of a full-time student. Anyway, we're excited for all of the fun things coming up and we're trying to really enjoy the moment. But Disneyland can't come fast enough :)

Sunshine and Summertime

I am so excited for this summer. We have so much fun stuff planned. And my summer starts tomorrow! That's what life is like when you're finished with school! We're going to San Jose tomorrow for a wedding. Apparently it's shorts weather. Those are beautiful words to my frozen ears. I cannot imagine wearing shorts. I went and dug our summer clothes out today. They are beautiful. However, now I need to whip out the old razor and shave...

To give you a quick lowdown on the summer plans, after we come home from CA, we have Easters. Danny and I got our Easter buckets (yeah, we're pretty hard core and need buckets, not baskets), and we plan to fill them with fun stuff and hide them. My mom and grandparents are coming the week after that for Women's Conference. I'm way excited about that. We're going to do lots of fun stuff. I'm going to whip out my new "Our Best Bites" cookbook and serve up some culinary masterpieces. Yeah! Our next summer event...wait for it, wait for it... we are going to Disneyland!!! I've only been to Disneyworld, so I am way excited. My family is going out to tour Jaymes' mission and then they are hitting the land of Disney, so of course we are going to meet them out there. Then we're going to Brad Paisley/David Archuleta for the 4th of July! And Laurel and I just got tickets to Taylor Swift in September. The gist of this post if pretty much that Danny spoils me horribly! I love him.

I suppose I should update instead of just saying all these amazing things we're going to do. This past week was my big 2-3. It was a wonderful day... actually week. Danny got me a candle warmer, the OBB cookbook, a CTR ring, some shirts, we went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, and he just treated my like a queen...well, he always does that. I went with a few friends to get cupcakes (gotta love the Sweet Tooth Fairy). I love birthdays! Danny is trucking along in his school stuff. He loves finals. A lot. But only one more week! We're still waiting to hear if he is moving to the next seminary class. He loves teaching so much and of course he's really good at it.

Anyway, that's all from the Cranes.