Grace's Baby Blessing

Today, we gave our sweet Grace Lorraine a name and a blessing at Church. Travis performed the blessing, with our Bishop, my cousin Richard, and Travis' dad, brother-in-law Mark, Grandpa Larson, and Uncle Ray joining him in the circle. It was a wonderful, sweet blessing, and an overall joyful experience, sweetend by the support of all of our family and friends. Thank you to everyone who was able to come!

Here are some pictures of our beautiful Grace girl in her blessing dress:














Her pretty socks and shoes, which she proudly showed off to her great Aunt Candace at Church =)


We even got some great smiles out of her while we were taking the pictures! In fact, she's been quite the smiley girl all day long; maybe she has an idea of what a special day this has been for her.

After Church, we had a lunch with everyone who came for the blessing at our Grandma and Grandpa Larson's place. It was SO nice to have this opportunity to see and visit with our loved ones before we move out East later this month. Thank you again everyone for coming, and for supporting us and visiting with us! We love you and will miss living so close to you!

My good friend Chelsea and Grace:

Grace with her loving cousin Gavin (who requested the chance to hold her):

Me and my sweet baby:

We love you Grace and are so grateful for you! We're glad we could share this special day with you too!

Update

Well, it's been a while since we posted anything and we just wanted to let everyone know what's going on with us.

The main thing we want to let people know is that Grace will be blessed in our ward on the 14th of June. You are all invited to come if you can. Really. Anyone reading this is likely a family member or good friend and we would love for you to be there when we bless our wonderful baby Grace. Call us or send an email if you're coming so we can plan on you and tell you the details, like sacrament meeting time and church location. We will only be on this side of the country for a few more weeks so we'd love to see you all if you can make it. It won't be as easy to get together once we move.

Speaking of moving... The other day we signed a lease for a house to rent in Parma, Ohio. It is right next door to Brandon(my brother) and Rachel and we are very excited about that. We love the house, or at least the pics we've seen. It will be a nice upgrade from our one bedroom apartment. Mostly, we are just glad to have housing arrangements settled. Below is a picture of the front of our soon-to-be home.

We are counting the weeks and days until our big move. The plan is to load everything up on the 29th of June and leave town on the 30th. My parents and I will drive the truck and our car and Jenny and Grace will hang out in Blackfoot for a few days, then fly to Ohio with Tia(my sister) on the 3rd of July, our scheduled move-in day. We've been slowly packing what we can. It's nice to be able to take our time getting everything ready. So that's the deal on our upcoming move across the country.
We've taken some great pictures of Grace. She seems to be the subject in almost all the pictures we take these days. Hopefully we can post more photos soon, so stay tuned for that.

Already One Week Old!

Last Thursday, Grace turned one week old! Time with her is passing by so fast! Sometimes, I want her to grow up quickly so that I can interact with her and discover her personality; and other times, I just want her to stay this small size forever so I can cuddle her in my arms. Sigh. I'll just have to catch the precious moments as they pass.
Anyway...to commemorate Grace's big event, here is a post of pictures from her first week of life and her one week old birthday!

My parents were good enough to come and stay with us after Grace was born (my dad left Saturday and my mom will stay for another week), and their favorite thing to do here has been to hold and love Grace (obviously!).
Here are some pictures of them doing just that during her first week of life:

My mom also brought several books for Grace, and enjoys reading them to her (when Grace is awake):

Daddy and daughter playing together too (of course):

And then, for her birthday, Grace got a mini photoshoot!

Here she is all squeaky clean after her bath:

My mom made a quilt for her too, so we had to get lots of pictures of her in that! (Oh, and her dad picked out her birthday outfit...just thought you should know.)

Isn't her hair starting to look red?

I just LOVE her pretty blue eyes! And she just loves her little hands up by her face! =)

She also loves to be all stretched out, which is kinda funny for a newborn, but we think it's so cute!

She was such a little sport!

Our pretty girl:

Grandpa loves his little Grace!

We also made cupcakes for her birthday, but since she couldn't enjoy them with us, we didn't take pictures. And for the rest of the day, we just snuggled her and showered her with love and attention. =)

HAPPY one week BIRTHDAY baby Grace! We love you!

(My First) Mother's Day

Our little Grace was born just in time for Mother's Day, and was the best Mother's Day gift a new mommy could've asked for! She brings such a sweet spirit into our home, and I feel so lucky to be her mom.
Here she is on Mother's Day in her "I love mommy" onesie--perfect for the occaision:


Mother's Day evening, we went to Blackfoot to celebrate with Travis' parents, as well as my parents who had just arrived from Arizona.

Here's Grace with her Aunt Tia, who thinks Grace is pretty kissable :)


With her Grandma Suzie (Reed), for whom Grace is her first grandbaby. You can't see it, but her shirt says "Grandma: And proud of it! As you can imagine, my mom has been SO excited to finally meet her first granddaughter.


In grandma's arms, in her first Sunday dress:

With her grandparents:

A 3 Generation photo:

The Reed-Holloway Clan:

Our growing family of 3!

After eating a delicious Mother's Day dinner and visiting with family, our little family headed home to get some sleep!

Here's Daddy and Grace getting ready for bed:

Our little sweetie:

We love you Grace, and are so glad you joined our family just in time for Mother's Day!

Welcome, Grace

We welcome to the world and to this blog Grace Lorraine Holloway. She was born on Thursday, May 7th at 2:50 pm, and weighed in at 7 pounds 3 ounces, and measured 19 1/2 inches long. We are so happy to have her in our family and are glad to report that both Jenny and Grace are healthy and doing well. Here are pictures of our sweet baby girl.

Jenny and Grace meet for the first time


The three of us







7 lb 3 oz

Her first bath

Grace's first experience with the car seat. She wasn't sure about it at first but she loves it now.

Checking out of the hospital to bring our precious bundle home

Baby Update

We just got back from the Dr.'s office (for our LAST appointment!) with the latest:
I am:
dialated to 3 cm's
70% effaced
and the baby is at a -3 station (down closer to my pelvic bones) and is still head first. =)
Also, as usual, my blood pressure is good, and the baby's heart beat sounds great.
Now, for the really interesting news:
The Dr. went ahead and "stripped my membranes" (separated the baby's amniotic sac from my uterus), which means that my labor could get jumpstarted, and we could be heading to the hospital tonight...or, the process could keep going as it has been, and I could continue in false labor. So far though, my contractions aren't feeling any different (which is supporting the second scenario).
So...we have a back-up plan: If our baby decides she likes life in the womb enough to stay in there for a few more days, I have an appointment to be induced Tuesday morning at 7:30 am. Long story short--we WILL have a baby by next Tuesday (though we really hope she decides to come before then)!
And since it's been awhile since I posted pictures, here are a few from last Friday--at 9 months pregnant:

The "mommy" and the excited "dad-to-be":

We love you baby Grace and can't wait to meet you!