Lucy Goosey. Also known as the Looster. Or Darth Lucy.

Since I know most of you care more about seeing cute pictures of Lucy than reading updates on our lives, I thought I'd add a quick second post about Lucy and the last few months of her life. In March Lucy came down with RSV so we got to spend some quality time at the hospital. Everyone there thought she was the cutest, of course :)

 This is by far my favorite picture (above). She reminded me so much of Grandpa Guelzow hanging out in his PJs at their house in Rochester in the mornings :)

In April Meghan and Lucy went home to Pittsburgh to surprise Grandma Sharon for her birthday/Easter. A big thanks to Aunt Rachel for making it all happen :) Lucy was a big girl and got to sit in her own seat on the plane (since most of the planes had open seats!!)

We got to be there for the annual Easter egg hunt (check out these pictures, awesome huh! we are all getting so old . . . )

Now (2011)

then (not sure what year)

. . .and when we got home dad surprised us with a nice note and candy (which we quickly ate) and flowers. What a great dad :) 

In May Uncle Brad graduated from the University of Utah and got his MBA so we got to spend lots of time with his family and with Grandma Sharon and Grandpa Steve. We LOVE when they visit.

Lucy started eating solids at 6 months, which has been a fun adventure. She also loves to read with us at night and can sit up all by herself now. She tries to crawl and stands on her hands and knees, but mostly ends up going backwards. Poor girl gets so frustrated! Her toys just get farther and farther away.

It's a Wonderful Life

Today has been one of those days where I have just thought and thought about how wonderful life can be and is. We really are so blessed and are truly enjoying our summer so far. We are especially glad that the summer will continue for another three and a half months! It will be wonderful.

Right now, Jared is working at a new job that he loves, I am a teaching assistant for my favorite class at BYU and as soon as I finish my thesis (the goal is before June 1) I will be done with school. Yay! I look forward to enjoying the second half of the summer with no worries. What a great feeling that will be. 

Jared's new job takes him away for 8 hours a day, and he is doing some internship hours in the mornings before he works, so we don't see him a lot, but I am enjoying learning how to stay at home with Lucy all day and I think it actually has made us enjoy our time together more, if that makes sense. I love when Jared comes home. It feels great to have him here and Lucy is in HEAVEN. She wiggles and giggles and smiles and gets so excited to see him. It is probably the best part of my day. She loves her daddy and she loves to have fun with him.

Saturdays are my favorite day. We go to the temple and we try to do something together as a family. Last week ended up being yard work but then we got to visit Jared's parents which was nice. I am a firm believer in The Family: A Proclamation to the World, especially where is says, " Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities." When we spend time together, especially time we've planned out with fun activities, it just feels different. Better. It's a wonderful feeling.

I'd probably have to say my highlight of the week though was Sunday night. Sundays are sacred days, really. They are days I cherish. We read together, go to church together, relax together, cook together, and occasionally I get to help Jared do his home teaching. His companion moved and so he let me come along this time to visit our friends, the Harnos family. They had a baby boy a few weeks before we had Lucy and we always enjoy spending time with them. They are the kind of people you can just sit and chat with about anything, especially the gospel and how it applies to our lives. I like that. I love new ideas and new perspectives. I think it is refreshing. We had a great visit with them, chatting about our babies' similar development milestones and funny habits as well as about the gospel and how it blesses our lives. I loved it.

I've realized this week how blessed we are. I get to go have lunch at Jared's job with him at least once a week, today being the first time. I love spending time with him and his work environment seems awesome. We have a beautiful baby who is finally learning how to sleep well and take good naps, and she is the cutest and funniest little girl on earth. Isn't it amazing that we are trusted with these little beings that bring such joy into our lives and we get to play with them and raise them and have so much fun with them? Lucy is such a happy baby. I love this time I get to spend with her. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

January

So far we've had a pretty exciting January. Jared is back in school and Meghan is just working in the evenings and doing an at home internship helping the English Language Center assessment and technology guy do some research. It's awesome. I just go in once a week and check up with him and get new assignments and then work from home on some really cool research. I still love interpreting and am glad I can still get in a few hours a day.

 Lucy decided to put her diaper on her head. It was hilarious.

Right now I watch Lucy the first half of the day and then Jared comes home around lunch time and I go work a few hours while he watches Lucy. It honestly is perfect. She is such a joy to watch and we both love spending time at home with her. We are so blessed to have good jobs that pay the bills and don't require us to work many hours. It seriously is awesome. Every day Jared comes home and I tell him how much I love spending time with Lucy. I have until August to finish my thesis and get in 150 hours of internship work and then I'm done with school, and Jared is really loving his classes this semester. We really couldn't ask for anything more in life.

She is getting good at sitting up and holding her head up and so we play a lot more and she explores a lot. She loves to lick her hands lately (and everything else she can get close to her mouth) and she's really good at swatting the toy turtle that hangs from her bouncy chair. It is so fun to watch. We read lots of books together and practice holding toys and wiggling. She is so stinkin cute and so much fun to be with. She loves bath time now and she's learned that if she wiggles her arms and legs while she's in the bath it splashes water everywhere, and she LOVES it. We've had to move the bath to the kitchen tile instead of just in the living room on the carpet but it's worth it. It is so much fun to watch. I laugh so hard every time.

I guess the only real "news" of the month would be that Woody the station wagon was donated to cars for kidneys last week. The poor car wasn't going to pass inspection and we just knew it was time, and we were able to donate it to an organization that uses the money it gets from the car to help with research and dialysis treatments and other things for people with kidney problems. It was surprisingly really hard for me to let it go, but we knew it was the right thing to do and it definitely helped the car insurance payment go down :) I got a few good pictures of Lucy in the wagon before they took it away.

Oh and one last note. I've been reading a book called "Believing Christ" by Stephen Robinson that talks about the Savior and the atonement and it is amazing.

I highly recommend it. It explains the atonement and how we can apply it to our lives in a way I've never heard it explained before. This book especially addresses the issue of perfectionist attitudes many women have and how hard they can be on themselves in a more effective way than I've ever seen before. It is enlightening and strengthens my testimony of how much the Savior really loves us and how accessible the atonement really is to every single person on the earth. God really does love us, and the Savior really made it possible for us to be happy and healthy and return to live with God and our families again. What a blessing.

November and December News

So I realize I am really behind on this, but I will make up for it with lots of cute pictures of Lucy. We've had a really good few months. We stayed here in Utah for Thanksgiving and were able to have dinner with a big group of Jared's family. The picture below shows all of us together (this is Jared's dad's side of the family). It was really fun to chat with everyone and then play basketball games afterwards, and it was REALLY nice to have a few days off of school.

The rest of the school year was a bit busy but we survived. Mom and dad came out to visit which was awesome. We love having them here. I don't have any pictures from that visit but I do have a picture from the baby blessing when they came out in the beginning of November. That was awesome too. It was great to have them here and we were able to bless Lucy at Jared's aunt's house which was actually really nice. It's a blessing to know that Jared is worthy and able to give us blessings whenever we need one and the baby blessing was wonderful. He is so righteous, one of the many reasons I love him.

Christmas break was fun. I think Jared and I read like 4 books a piece. We stayed in Utah this year and spent a lot of time at home reading and just having fun with Lucy. It was great to just sit around and relax after finals. Lucy is getting so big and she is so fun. We love to watch her discover new things like her hands and feet and it warms our heart every time she recognizes us and gives us a big smile and giggle. She is so stinking cute. We also got to spend some time at Jared's house for Christmas and at his aunt's house for New Years. We love spending time with family, it always is so much fun, and Jared even discovered a new dance game for the Wii at his aunt's house. I wish I had video of it. It was so much fun and so hilarious to watch.

Christmas itself was great. We were spoiled with gifts from everyone and we are so grateful for all that we received. It was a huge blessing and we definitely are not wanting for anything right now.

Well, I know this is getting posted late, I just never finished it, so I will post this up now and then give a little January update. I realize most of you really just want to see Lucy's pictures, so I'll try to share more with you more often :) We really are so blessed right now and couldn't be happier. It is amazing how daily we see the Lord's hand in our lives. There is no doubt in our minds that God lives and that he loves each of us, especially Lucy. It is amazing how happy she can make us and we love having her in our family. We wouldn't want it any other way. We hope everyone is doing well and that everyone had a good holiday break!

A Baby!

As many of you already know, we had our baby on October 8, 2010 at 5:16 pm. She weighed 9 lbs, 19.5 inches long. It was so exciting to finally see her! I really think that is the best moment, when you finally get to see what your baby looks like. She is way cuter than what her ultrasounds showed, and she was pretty cute on the ultrasound! She's now 2 weeks old and it has been quite the exciting two weeks.


We stayed in the hospital over the weekend and to our surprise, as we were packing up to go home, Meghan's mom and dad showed up! They weren't planning on coming until the first weekend in November (since the baby wasn't due until yesterday!) so it was quite the surprise. We got to spend a few hours with them at our house and they helped us get everything home. It was the best surprise we could ask for. Thanks to Katie for making it all happen :)



The first week was exciting. Lucy had jaundice pretty bad so she spent all week on a bilibed to help her lower her bilirubin levels and Meghan had an infection which was quite the awful feeling. We learned the blessing of modern medicine and technology through all of this though. Meghan's antibiotics had her feeling a LOT better within 2 hours of taking the first one and Lucy didn't have to go stay at the hospital because now they have portable bilibeds that you can keep at your house. It was so nice to have her at home with us and be able to take care of her during that week. Plus, the bilibed made for some really cool pictures :)


Last week was great. Lucy was officially healthy and not needing the bilibed anymore and Meghan's infection was basically gone. Johanna came to visit from Texas and help out which was fun. It's always great to see family, especially when Meghan's family from out of town comes to visit. We don't get to see them that often. We got to see baby Kingston which was fun too. He is 5 months older than Lucy and 5 times bigger. It's really funny to see.


Lucy is probably the cutest baby in the world. I'm sure all moms and dads think that about their kids, huh. But we love her so much and love to spend time with her. It's fun to watch her wiggle and use her arms and legs, to watch her stretch and make lots of funny faces, and just to cuddle with her. We love having her here with us and can't imagine life without her. She is such a huge blessing in our lives and is totally worth any sleep we might miss out on now and then :)


Heavenly Father has blessed us so much lately, and Lucy is one of the biggest blessings our family has received. She is a constant reminder to us that God is real and that He loves each and every one of His children, including the three of us. Every day we see how Heavenly Father is helping us and blessing us as we try to take care of a baby and finish up school and provide for our family. She brings so much joy to our home and we love having her.

September Update

I kept putting this update off, I don't know why, but I figure now is a good time to finally blog about September. This month was fun.

We had dinner at our friend Bryndi's house which was great. We got to spend time with her and with Maria and Ben (Maria and Bryndi and I served in the Relief Society presidency together in our singles ward). We love spending time with them and it was great to have just good conversation with good people.

At the beginning of the month we went to the cabin with Katie and Brad up in Wyoming. We love it there and it was fun to spend time with them as well and get out of Orem. We also got to see the only football game that BYU has won while we were up there.
Jared's mom had a baby shower for us this month as well which was really fun. We feel so blessed. So many people have given us so much to help us have a baby in our home. We got to go to La Carreta's (an awesome Peruvian restaurant in Orem) for the baby shower and the food was delicious. Alejandra is an amazing woman (and cook!) and we are so grateful for all she did for us that day. It was fun to have Katie there, especially since home is too far away to visit. I love having her here. It'll be sad when she isn't living in Utah anymore next year. It was also great to spend some time with Jared's extended family as well. They are so good to me.

Today Jared brought me home flowers (and reese's cups) which was awesome. The camera took pictures in sepia for some reason but I thought they turned out cool so I just left it that way. I must say it was a great surprise. I've been home all week not allowed to do much so I've felt a bit down and bored lately, and the flowers just made my day. What a good husband.


Last weekend was great. We love general conference and heard lots of good talks from the brethren. During Priesthood session I got to spend time with Jared's sister and mom which was really fun too. Sherrie took us to a Philly Cheesesteak place she's been wanting to try and it was delicious. I'm just saying, if someone wants to bring me some delicious food after I have the baby while I'm in the hospital, I won't mind if they bring me one of those sandwiches ;)

Between sessions on Saturday and after the second session Sunday we got to take field trips to the hospital which added to the fun of our weekend as well. I have been coming home with swollen feet lately, which is normal, but Friday I woke up with swollen feet and they didn't get any better by Saturday. I also woke up Saturday with a wicked headache so I called the after-hours line for our doctor's office and the doctor told me to go in to get checked out. Turns out my blood platelet level is low or something and so I was told to stay home until my doctor's appointment on Tuesday and take it easy. Tuesday the doctor told us that he didn't want to risk the platelet level getting any lower because that will cause a lot of complications and since I will be at 38 weeks and 1 day on Friday if Lucy hasn't come before then (like, tomorrow) then he'll induce me on Friday.

So looks like we will have a baby sooner than we expected! We figured she would come early - I'm convinced she is trying to escape for how much she moves around in there - so this wasn't a HUGE surprise but I must admit staying home all week is really quite boring. I am finding things to do with my time but I do get some pretty uncomfortable headaches and I'm really tired most of the time so I just get what homework done that I can and then take lots of naps. Good thing Katie and Brad set us up with a free month of Netflix :)

Anyways, that's our exciting news. We are looking forward to having Johanna come visit next week to help out with the baby, seeing mom and dad at the beginning of November, and of course having a little baby in our home! It is really an amazing thing to think that Heavenly Father trusts us with one of His children and allows them to come into our lives and bless us. We really have felt like this whole experience has been a blessing and we can't wait to finally get to see what little Lucy Ruth looks like.

It's amazing how much love you can feel for someone you haven't met yet. I know that there is a God, and I honestly don't know how anyone who experiences what we have these last 9 months could ever doubt it. Just the whole concept of our bodies being able to create a perfectly functioning body inside of us that knows how to breath and eat and sleep and cry and do all kinds of things as soon as they are born is incomprehensible to me. What a miracle. I have a feeling when we actually get to see and hold this little girl, those feelings will only be magnified. What a blessing it is to be able to start a family together and know that because we made promises in the temple that we will be together forever. THAT is amazing.

The beginnings of a lot of things . . .

Well, it's basically September and we are looking forward to a school year full of a lot of new things . . . a new baby, new jobs, a new school year with new classes . . . just to name a few. And the last month has been pretty exciting as well . . .

We are now visiting the doctor every two weeks instead of once a month AND we took a prenatal class this month, which makes it seem like this baby might actually come out one day! :) We love our doctor so we don't mind visiting more often and our prenatal class was really helpful so we just feel packed full of baby/birthing information. Wahoo! At times it's really exciting, and other times it is kinda crazy/weird to think we'll be having a baby. But all in all, we really are excited.

Meghan is officially obviously pregnant as you can see and is obviously swollen from the 100 degree weather we've had off and on the last few weeks . . . ugh!
(the photographer suggested I pull my dress back so you can see my belly, just so you know . . . i don't normally stand around holding up my belly with my hand . . . haha)

Anyways, baby is great. She kicks like crazy and really enjoys having a dance party after I eat. The heartburn of pregnancy I could definitely do without and I look forward to a day when I can sit however I want and not have back aches but such is life :)

Meghan is officially done teaching swim lessons and Jared is done working at RCWilley. Meghan will be interpreting at BYU for a few Deaf students (she finally passed her certification test!) as well as teaching a few classes at the library and Jared is working for the Distance Learning program as a tech guy at UVU. He is excited to work on campus and take lots of classes this semester and Meghan is excited to interpret and finish up her grad school classes this semester.

We have been really blessed in that all of Meghan's teachers/bosses are being very flexible with the pregnancy since the baby is due a few days after the halfway mark of the semester and she is excited to finish up her courses so she can finish up her thesis during the winter semester.

Last Friday was Meghan's last day working at the Timpanogos temple which was bitter sweet. It is an amazing experience to be there serving others every week and we love every minute of it, but Meghan's back has reached it's limit sadly so it was the right time to take a break. It's sad to think it will be a VERY long break, but it will be exciting when all our kids are out of the house to think we can share that time serving in the temple again. We recommend anyone who is willing and able to serve in the temple to go to your bishop and ask! It really is amazing. The most peaceful hours of the week. There is no doubt in our minds that the temple is the House of the Lord. His Spirit truly is there.

Well, that's about it for this month. We had a great month of August and September looks like it will be pretty great, too. Let us know how you all are doing. We love you!