Averien 1 month old

Averien is 1 month old. Wow time seems to go by too fast. Too bad it couldn't have gone this fast when I was pregnant. Averien is smiling already. It is so fun. None of our other kids have smiled as early as Averien has. Averien loves to be held all the time. She loves laying on your chest. She will sleep for hours this way. This last month she moved up a size in diapers. She has moved from new born diapers to Size 1. Averien weighs 8 lbs 8 oz. and is 20.2 inches long. We feel blessed everyday to have her in our family. She is such an amazing little girl. She still only cries when she is hungry, tired or needs to be burped. Her cry has gotten louder and stronger but still nothing like our other kids.

Averien has become a night owl. We really need to get this figured out soon so I can sleep better. She sleeps pretty good during the day but nights are hard for her. That is when she is fussiest. I can't complain too much though because even after the kids leave for school I am able to go back to bed for a bit while Kaelen is still asleep. I haven't been too exhausted during the day. Some days are more tiring than others but I manage. Enoch is an amazing help so that helps. He does a lot around the house for me so I can relax and take it easy still. I am not one to sit around after I have a baby and I always pay for it so I have been good about listening to my body telling me when it is enough.

We all can't get enough of her. We all love just holding her. She is just a wonderful peaceful little girl. We have been blessed with a wonderful little girl.

More pictures of Averien in February

February seemed to go by so fast. I guess there was just a lot going on but it makes me sad to know how fast time has gone by already. Averien is getting bigger already and changing so much. She is just the sweetest little baby. We feel so blessed to have her in our home.

Rachel is an amazing help. She will hold her for me so I can get some things done or help Jacob and Kaelen things. She will change her diaper for me and help get her dressed. She is a natural. I don't know know what I would ever do without her.


Rachel loves to sit at the piano and play with Averien in her arms. Averien loves to be cuddled and swaddled up. She loves being all wrapped up and warm.

Averien's Great Aunt Margaret and Uncle Clint live close by and they came by to see her and to give her a present. They got her an adorable 3 tiered dress. It was so nice to have them come over and visit and so nice to have them close by. We love that they live close enough to know our kids.

Splish splash I am taking a bath

Averien enjoys taking baths so much. She becomes so calm when she is placed in the water. She loves to play on her bath mat but also just float in the water with you holding her head up. She has started to become a little more active in the tub when she is in it. She gets so sad when you take her out. I absolutly love these pictures of her alseep with her Dad after her bath. She is always so calm after a bath. She will fall asleep soon after and sleep for a couple of hours.

Kaelen and Averien

Kaelen is such a fantastic big brother. He really loves his baby sister. He is very fascinated by her. He will go up and touch her and kiss her. It is really cute. He has been doing great since she arrived. He scares me though because he doesn't understand gentle. He wants to pick her up ll the time too. February 9th, 2011

(doesn't Kaelen look like Jakson in these pictures above)

February 24th, 2011- Kaelen still loves his sister but is not always the nicest. He has hit her a couple of times and he loves to jump over her when she is laying on the bed or floor. It scares the heck out of us. he will also grab her arms and pull of them. I am grateful that kids are tough. Kaelen also loves her things. He will grab her binkies and put them in her mouth and will also put on her hats as you can see in the pictures. He put on her knitted hat from the hospital and ran around wearing it. It was pretty funny. Even though he has some jealousy issues and isn't always nice he does love his sister. He is kissing her all the time and gets excited to hold her.

Grandpa and Grandma come to visit and help

My parents (Grandpa and Grandma Fisher) came to visit on February 10. My mom was wonderful and offered to come and help me with the kids after Averien was born. We had no idea when she was going to come since we never know when my kids will be born but it worked out perfectly. Averien was just over a week when my mom came and Enoch had just gone back to work. My Dad stayed for the weekend and then headed back to work and my mom stayed for almost 2 weeks.

I was acutally hesitant on how it would be with my mom around and let me tell you it was absolutely wonderful. She was so fantastic.S he watched Kaelen in the mornings for me so I could sleep. It was so nice to sleep and not wonder what Kaelen was getting into. It was also so nice to have her around to hold Averien so I could shower and do things that I wanted.

Kaelen absolutely loved having Grandma around. He enjoyed playing with her and she was awesome at that. My favorite thing was to wake up and hear them downstairs laughing really hard. They would throw balls around downstairs, play with Kaelen's toys and watch movies together. Grandma also was fantastic about reading books to Kaelen. Kaelen is so destructive and crazy that you can't leave him alone or he will do something or get into something so having someone around just for him was amazing.

When my mom left I acutally cried and was sad to see her leave and Kaelen kept asking where Grandma was going. For the next few days he would ask where she was. She was amazing help and we loved every minute of her around.

Rachel and Jacob loved having her around too. She would help them with things and take them places too. She also helped clean and do dishes and help with dinner. We were so grateful to have her come and visit.

I think though her favorite part of coming to visit was holding Averien. She was always holding her. If i ever held Averien while she was asleep my mom would take her from me. She was really sad to leave Averien because she knew the next time she would see her she would have changed a bunch.
Averien loved to be held like this. She would sleep hours at a time sleeping on your chest. She loves to hear your heart beat but loves being on her tummy.

Averien's first bath at home

It was a long time before we bathed Averien at home. We wanted to do it with the kids around and it was always too late in the evening or something happened that we couldn't do it. She was over 2 weeks old when we finally bathed her. I guess it is a good thing babies don't get very dirty.

Averien loved her bath. We did it in the kitchen sink. She would just lay there and move around. She was so quiet and content. The kids loved watching. They all hovered around watching and wanting to help. It was really fun acutally to have the kids there to see her bath. Grandma was there too and that was nice for her to be apart of one of Averien's firsts.

Averien stayed in the bath for quite a while. My arms were getting numb. She got a little sad when we first got her out but once she was totally wrapped up she was happy. I am excited to see how she is in the bath in the future.

First time at the Temple

Rachel today had the opportunity to go to the Idaho Falls Temple and do baptisms for the dead. Enoch and I went with her as well as Grandpa and Grandma Fisher. Grandma and Grandpa Heileson had a family member visiting so they with the help of Aunt Gregorie took Kaelen, Jacob and Averien for a couple of hours so we could do this with Rachel.

It was a really wonderful experience for her to do family names. She only did 8 names but she loved it. She was the only one that did names. She said that it was a really nice experience. It was so exciting as her mom to see her enter the temple and do this amazing work. I hope that throughout her life she remembers the spirit she felt and make the temple a part of her life always.

After we did baptisms we went and got pictures outside the temple and then Enoch and I left so we could go and get our baby. Rachel stayed and went and ate the the temple with Grandpa and Grandma. She really loved it. She said she had really good mashed potatoes and gravy.

When I went to pick up Averien she was just getting hungry but was not sad at all. I was so happy because I was so worried about her and how she would be. She didn't cry at all while we were gone, in fact she slept most of the time. I was so happy that she was good and that I didn't worry about her while at the temple and that we had the opportunity to go and do this with Rachel. I am always so grateful for family who help watch our kids so we can do things.

Skiing with Dad and Grandpa

Jacob had the opportunity to go skiing with Grandpa Fisher and Dad today. Jacob went during the school day with his school. Jacob's school has an outdoor club for all students and they went skiing up at Kelly Canyon. Jacob went with Enoch and because Grandpa and Grandma were visiting Grandpa went as well. They had tons of fun. Jacob loves skiing despite it being harder than it is for most of us. Enoch has the brilliant idea as well to use his crutches instead of poles. Jacob's crutches have ice picks on the bottom to keep from slipping on the ice. What a smart idea. He did though later try to ski with his poles. They only stayed on the bunny hill but I guess it was not only a challenge for Jacob but Grandpa too. Grandpa had one really good wipe out I guess. Poor Grandpa. They came home from a full day of skiing sun burned, exhausted but happy from a fun day.

We have been blessed with the best baby ever. Our other kids by a day or two old started crying and never seemed to stop for months. Jacob never cried but he ate all the time and then we had our share of problems with everything else with him. Well Averien is a blessing to us. She sleeps so well. She will eat and then go to sleep for 2 plus hours. She'll wake up with just a tiny cry or by making noises. You can change her diaper and she just lays and kicks her legs. None of our other kids were like that. I remember Kaelen screaming in the hospital when we changed his diaper. She will sometimes stay awake for 20 minutes at most and then go to sleep. When she is awake she will look around everywhere like she is trying absorb and take everything in. She is always so content. She burps very well too and there are times where she doesn't even need to burp. She is just so happy. The last 3 nights she has slept 4-5 hours at one time. My kids didn't even do that at 3 months old. We have not had a baby that sleeps about 23 hours out of the day.

This video is of her crying. This is pretty much what her cry sounds like and how long it lasts. It is the most amazing thing. I know she is only a week old (this was filmed at 3 days old) but none of our other kids were this good, even at the beginning.

The video is dark because we had the lights dim in the room. Rachel filmed it for me.

Rachel's 12th Birthday

It is exciting to have Averien's Birthday so close to Rachel's. It is fun that they will have birthdays two days apart. They will never forget either. This year for Rachel's birthday I had to be on the ball with everything and plan ahead. I knew that I would either have a new baby or be ready to have one and not be in the mood to make a cake. I went Monday and pre-ordered a cake from Sam's Club. I ordered a round chocolate cake with an edible topping. It was flowers with her picture in the middle and then purple edging and around the side of the cake it read "Happy 12th Birthday Rachel." I also wrapped all of her presents on Monday and had those already to go.

Well as you all know Averien came on Wednesday and so for Rachel's birthday we had to simplify. She said she loved it though. I left her a present to open Friday Morning when she woke up. I had bought her a really pretty wrap sweater and I wanted her to look pretty on her birthday. I think that she did.

In the morning when Rachel opened the curtains to look for Jacob's bus she saw a sign on the lawn that said Happy Birthday. She was so excited to see that. It came from the young women's presidency. They made a bunch of signs to put on the lawn for all the young women's on their birthdays. It was so cool. It just made Rachel's day to see that.

For dinner Rachel wanted a stake dinner. Enoch made steaks for us they didn't turn out too great. They were perfect but then while he was cooking them I had kid drama and he came and helped me and the steaks got over cooked. Oops. I felt bad. Rachel still was grateful and loved it all. We also had a Cesar salad and then I helped Rachel make this jello with whip cream and fruit mixed in with that. Rachel was really happy with what we ate.

After dinner we had family come over for cake and presents. Rachael came over with her boys, Madeline, Brytton and Evie came as well as Gregorie and Grandma Heileson. Rachel loves having family be at her events and loves feeling special and being the center of attention. We had cake first. It was fun to see all the Grand kids gathered around the table excited for cake. I will say that cake was awesome especially because of the butter cream frosting. Yum.

After cake we opened presents. Rachel was so anxious for this. I wish I had taken a picture of all her presents because they looked so nice but one of them was huge. From Grandpa and Grandma Heileson she got a new shirt and a grand piano charm for her charm bracelet. She got a charm bracelet for Christmas and has now started collecting them. It is really fun and she is so excited to get charms for it. Her piano too looks like a real piano. It is so awesome.

Madeline, Brytton, Evie and Gregorie gave her money. She is excited because she has some things she wants to get with it. Rachael, Joseph, Carter and Collin gave her chocolate and then balloons (and balloons for all the boys that say stuff like your are now a big brother Kaelen, Happy 12th birthday Rachel and so on). That was Kaelen's favorite gift to come into the house. Rachael and Joseph are making her a pegboard to put all of her hair stuff and jewelry on it to hang in her room. It was not quite done yet so she will get it later.

Rachel got from Kaelen a Taylor Swift poster and man she freaked out when she saw it. She has been asking for one for so long and let me tell you they are hard to come by. I finally found one for her. Jacob got her a littlest Pet Shop Blyth babysitter doll with pets. Rachel doesn't play with many toys but she still plays with Littlest Pets all the time. Rachel will even get Jacob to come and play with her. It is really fun. Jacob for weeks has known exactly what he wanted to get her and he even wrapped the present himself. I am sad that I never took pictures of the present because it was pretty cute. The only thing I helped him with the wrapping was cutting the paper. He did the rest and he was so proud of how it turned out.

I got Rachel 2 more charms for her bracelet. I got her an R with little diamonds in it and then a heart with her birthstone. She is getting such a great collection for her charm bracelet. She has mentioned that this summer in Canada she wants to find a maple leaf for it. I think that it is fun that she wants to look for charms now and collect them at each place she goes.

Enoch and I bought her another sweater to wear and then a whole new outfit for church. We bought her a new skirt, a couple of shirts to go with the skirt, a camisole and a jacket. We wanted her to feel and look beautiful at church on Sunday at her first time in young women's. I loved her outfit. I wanted it.

Rachel loves earrings and jewelry and asked for some for her birthday. Well I figured instead of buying jewelry we would buy her beads and everything she needed to make jewelry. She got tons of stuff for it. She was excited as ever to get it. I know that she will get tons of use out of it all.

Rachel got so many phone calls and emails too. She loved getting a phone call first thing in the morning and then getting phone calls all day and then in the evening too. I am so grateful for you all for helping make Rachel's birthday wonderful.

I can't believe that my little girl is now 12 and is heading to young women's. I am so proud of her. It is crazy to think that Rachel is going to be a teenager soon. She has though grown up into be a beautiful young women with amazing talents and an amazing spirit. We sure love her and are so grateful everyday for her.

We love you Rachel. Happy Birthday.

***February 9th- Since Rachel's birthday she has made 2 necklaces and 4 pairs of earrings. She loves her jewelry making stuff.

***Grandpa and Grandma came to visit and for Grandma to come and help out with Averien and when they came they brought Rachel her birthday present. They bought her a computer chair for her bedroom. Her chair matches her room color perfectly. When they gave it to her they had a balloon (which she got from her birthday already) tied to it. They had just the seat on the couch. She was so excited when she got it. She also got some Polly pockets that she doesn't play with but the clothes should fit her littlest pet shop Blyth doll. Kaelen really loves her chair too.

Averien's Room

One thing that I have looked forward so much to was that Averien was getting her own room. I have been able to decorate it how ever I wanted and it has been so fun. Rachel moved downstairs and Averien got Rachel's room. We spent many hours and many problems with paint getting her room ready. It was all worth it in the end and it turned our perfect. I was worried the room would not even be close to being finished before she came. Well it sat completely finished for 2 weeks before she ever arrived. Things turned out perfectly and I am so glad for that. I am so excitd to have just a nursery too for Averien. I never had one for any of our other kids so this has just been so exciting for me.

When we got home from the hospital Rachel had made this large sign on the wall welcoming home Averien. It is extremely cute. We had talked about putting her name on the wall exactly where Rachel made the sign but we didn't know exactly what her name was going to be so we never did it. Rachel's sign was such a nice suprise for the room and it looks perfect in there too.

Averien Comes Home

Our first night at the hospital went well. Averien the first day never wanted to eat. She went all day without eating. She slept the whole time. Nobody could wake her. Finally after not eating for 8 hours she woke up and decided she did want to eat. She then ate what seemed like all the time after that. It was more like every 2 hours though. She was up in the evening eating and then the nurses would come in and check our vitals and then at one point they took her at 3 AM to do some screenings on her. They do those in the evening I think to give the nurses something to do but then also when family isn't around. I didn't mind. I guess she slept through all of her screenings and stuff they do and I was also able to sleep. Enoch had no problem sleeping. He said that he didn't ever wake up when the nurses came in.

The next day (February 3rd) I was pretty tired though and was glad for all the catnaps I took. I had been up all night the night before and didn't get as much sleep as I would have liked the day before. We decided to go home today. I was tired and wanted to sleep in my own bed and the kids wanted us home. I will say it was nice to have food brought to me and the baths in the jetted tubs were amazing but I was ready to go home.

Enoch was gone for a few hours during the day doing some things and then brought Kaelen back. Kaelen watched Finding Nemo and Bambi in the room while I packed, showered and we got ready to go. He also ate lots of pudding and jello from the eating area outside my room.

Grandpa Heileson stopped by too to see Averien. He doesn't like to hold new babies but we made him. I think as tough as he acts he loved it. It was nice for him to visit us and to see Averien.

We wanted to leave the hospital at 3 PM but it never works out the way and we didn't leave till 5 PM. It was so fun getting her dressed and ready to go home. She is such an amazing baby. She rarely cries and makes noises. When we got her dressed she barely made any noise at all. When we got Kaelen dressed to go home from the hospital he screamed. Heck he screamed when we changed his diaper. This was a nice change.

I was so glad that I brought 3 outfits to pick from because she was smaller than I expected and only one of the outfits fit her. She is so petite that in her room full of clothes nothing really fits her right now. I also can't believe how little Averien looked in her car seat. It is amazing that she actually could be buckled into it safely.

Coming home was so nice. I was tired but the kids were so excited. They started fighting over who got to hold her. I had to explain to them that she wasn't going anywhere and they would have so many opportunities to hold her. They didn't like that.

Gloria was so wonderful while we were gone. The house was clean, she had made cookies with the kids and she offered to have dinner done when I came home but a friend of my insisted on bringing Papa Murphy's Pizza. That was in the oven when we got home. I don't know what we would have done without Gloria around. Thank you Gloria you saved our lives and made being away from our kids so easy.

We feel so blessed with our little angel. She is so precious and has such a sweet little spirit.
I think also I am just so glad to not be pregnant. I have no more heart burn and can eat what I want. I love it.