Ella Cyrene Burnham

Our baby girl is here! What a joy she has been this last week.
We went into the hospital at 4:00 am on Wednesday November 23. When we arrived, I was dilated to 2 cm. They started me on pitocin about 5:00 and my doctor came in about 9:00 to break my water. I tried to get some sleep while Darrin emailed his professors telling them he would not be in school and my mom worked on a christmas stocking for Ella.

About 12:00 I couldn't handle the pain any more so they gave me an IV with pain medicine until they could get someone to come over and give me the epidural. My first epidural did not work. It made my right leg numb and that was it. The second time was a charm and I was ready to go! :)
Our wonderful nurse Nancy came in a little before 3:00 to check me. She said that I was at a "big" 9 cm and she was headed to call my doctor. I started pushing as my doctor was on her way to the hospital. She arrived and I pushed a few more times. Our precious angel Ella was born at 3:42 pm.

We were fortunate to be able to have my doctor deliver her. I was prepared to have the doctor on call deliver my baby because my doctor was heading out of town for Thanksgiving (she left right after she delivered Ella!)
We had a wonderful nurse Nancy who helped us through the entire process and was wonderful at making me comfortable and making sure my mom and Darrin were doing okay!
Ella weighed in at 7 Ibs. 7 oz. and was 19 1/2 inches long. She has lots of curly dark hair! She had her dad wrapped around her finger the second he laid eyes on her.

We were able to bring Ella home the next evening and enjoyed a mini Thanksgiving dinner that my wonderful mom made!
It has been such a blessing to have this little girl join our family.


                We sure love her!

Hair Bow Holder

Our little girl already has TONS of hair bows and clips and she is not even here yet!! I decided I needed to do something with them instead of having them sit in a pile. I found a hair bow holder here and thought it was pretty cute and looked easy to make. I added hooks to mine for all the headbands to hang on!
I think it turned out pretty cute and I probably will have to make another one soon...this one is already pretty full!!

Halloween Fun

 We have been able to enjoy a week full of Halloween Fun here in Ohio!

  It started off with friends coming over to our house to decorate Haunted Gingerbread Houses. Every year we make and decorate gingerbread houses for Christmas. This year we thought we might be a little busy during December (our little one hopefully will be here!!) but we still wanted to do something. So, we made haunted houses! Thanks to all of our friends who came over to help decorate houses and continue our tradition! We feel very blessed to be surrounded by so many wonderful people!

We also were able to enjoy our ward's annual "Trunk or Treat." Darrin and I decided we needed to dress up so the night before (after decorating gingerbread houses) we put together our costumes. Darrin drew and cut out our stencil for the costumes and then we each painted our own! I think they turned out cute!

To end our week of Halloween fun we carved our pumpkins that we picked from the pumpkin patch. It turned out to be a 2 hour project for Darrin but his pumpkin was worth it! (Too bad it didn't last very long)

We hope you all have a VERY HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Time Out for Women

A few weeks ago I had the chance to have my mom and sister Emily come out for a few days. We headed down to Cincinnati to participate in the Time Out for Women conference that they had (or "three cheers for women" as my uncle called it!). We met up with my aunt Aleta, my aunt Jaimee, and my Grandma Despain. It was so much fun to spend the weekend together and hear some uplifting talks and music! It was Emily's 18th birthday and she was able to have Michael McLean sing to her! :)
The weekend went way to fast and it was hard to say goodbye's but I am glad that we were able to spend a few days together! Thanks everyone for coming out so we could spend a few days with each other!

Our Weekend

We had a very  fun and exciting weekend.
It started on Friday with a Murder Mystery Party at a friends house. The theme was "Murder under the big top." Darrin was assigned  to be Robert Flyer- a trapeze catcher and I was assigned to be Edna Extravagant- a circus performer (I was the fortune teller). We enjoyed dinner and mingling with our "circus friends" at one last party before the circus headed to another state. While at the party there was a murder so it was left to us to figure out what happened and who did it. It was an enjoyable evening. We are so grateful to have so many wonderful friends and neighbors out here! (I don't have a picture of all the men in the group but their costumes were great also!)












Saturday morning was spent with some ward members doing a service project that was sponsored by our city. We were able to help stuff trauma dolls for the local hospitals to give to children who come in and are hurt. The children are able to color the dolls and take the dolls with them to get X-Rays, etc.

We then headed to the pumpkin patch to pick our pumpkins for Halloween. We went out to Young's Dairy where we took a wagon ride to the pumpkin patch and walked through hundreds of pumpkins to find the right ones. We found our pumpkins, hopped back on the wagon and headed over the dairy to enjoy some of their famous ice cream and shakes.

Family Night Dinner

 Darrin and I have a date night jar where we pick an activity to do for our date nights. They are usually free or very inexpensive dates (perfect for a law student budget!) and some are very random! We sometimes pick from the jar for family night activities if our weekends are full. This happens to be a weekend where we have other things planned so for family night we chose an activity.

The little paper said: "Put garbage sacks on the floor and eat spaghetti dinner with your hands"
So...that is exactly what we did tonight!  It was entertaining and a little messy but it was sure fun!

What we have been up to!

Our life the last few weeks:

• Camping- Darrin has been camping for the last 2 weekends and is going again this weekend. He has had a ward campout with his scouts and this weekend has a stake campout. Last weekend we were able to enjoy camping with our friends. We had a great time talking and laughing around the campfire!

 (Yes this is our tent...it sleeps 9 and comes with a porch....we set it up inside our apartment when we got       back to let it dry out-it took up our living and dining room...)

• Crafting- I have been able to do lots of fun crafts and start a scrapbook for our little one since I only work in the mornings (some of my crafts were done while I was at work waiting for my little students to show up in the early hours of the morning!)
  

• We have also enjoyed walks around the park here. The leaves are starting to turn colors and the temperature has been perfect! 
• And of course we are staying busy with work and school. Darrin is staying busy with reading for all of his classes. He is almost half way done with law school!! 
• We are also looking forward to the arrival of our little one soon! Only 8 weeks left!!!