Our new addition

Meet the baby: Vander Allen Stucki he was born at 3:48 am on Saturday March 22nd, weighing 7 Lbs. 4 Oz. What an incredible miracle!

A Room for Baby

One of the best parts about waiting for the baby to come is decorating his room! I couldn't find a set in the stores that I liked enough to spend the money on, so I bought some fabrics that I loved & my mom sewed everything for the bedroom. She made the crib bumper & dust ruffle, a changing table cover, curtains & a diaper hanger. Tyler's parents got us all the furniture for Christmas- the crib, changing table & glider with an ottoman. (We are so blessed to have such loving and generous families.) Tyler & Nate Coffin have been working very hard to get the basement finished in time for the baby to come home. . . even though it was supposed to be done by "mid-January at the latest"! We spent the whole day Saturday assembling & rearranging furniture, hanging clothes, filling bookshelves and talking about the baby. It was a blast!

I am a crappy wife. I have had three shots in the last month to show my husband how much I love and appreciate him, and I missed all of them. Our 2 year anniversary was on January 13th, his birthday was on February 11th and Valentines Day came right after that. We have made agreements not to do the whole cheesy V-Day thing, but I probably owed it to him after missing my other 2 chances. (Even my mom didn't let it pass without decorating our bathroom mirror with little gel hearts and leaving us each a bag of pink & red Kissables... my favorite!)
I think he knows he is the center of my world, but it still feels unfair that I blew off every easy, no-excuses opportunity to tell him again.
My husband is wonderful: he takes such great care of me and the baby-to-be and does everything I ask him to help me with, without complaining. He is so proud of me carrying this child and tells me all the time what a super job I'm doing and how beautiful I am. (So what if he lies- he still gets kudos for it!) He works as much as I do, goes to school full-time and still has homework to do when he gets home. He is also helping build my parent's basement- which is hard, dirty work. Yet somehow, he makes absolutely sure that he gives me the time & attention I need, helps with dinner & chores and still pull off Dean's list and A's every semester! He is a big dreamer and a hard worker, and I am so proud of him. He is a worthy Priesthood holder, and that is something wonderful all in itself. I cherish and respect that about him, above all else. He makes me laugh all the time and he doesn't take me too seriously, even when I'm over-reacting just a bit. That's where his great patience comes out too.

One of the lucky ones

There have been so many reminders these past few months of just how blessed we really are. To begin with, Tyler & I weren't even sure if I could get pregnant & have a baby... here we are at "T minus 26 days" and everything is great. Which leads me to my next point: everything is great! I love being pregnant! Sure, the extra 25 pounds can do a little damage to one's self-esteem, but that's the worst of it. Well, that and the fact that I'm not supposed to hot-tub till the Wee One gets here. But those are my biggest complaints, that's all I've got. Never had morning sickness, haven't been crippled by those naughty Braxton Hicks, my back & the rest of my body are handling the changes remarkably well.
So I owe a big thank you to all of you who have been praying for us... one of you must be on Someone's good-side, because we are being very well taken care of. But please don't stop, from what I hear, the hardest part is still to come.

Showered!

I am constantly amazed by how generous people are! Katy threw my baby shower last weekend & all my awesome friends came to celebrate with us! I remember talking to Katy after the party about how great my friends are and I made the comment:

"I may not have a lot of friends, but the ones I've got are the best there is!"

And it is so true. Lots of big hugs and thank-you's to everybody who came (or wish they could have come). It was so great to see everybody and the baby got so very spoiled!