Family pictures

Before we had Cody, I really wanted to get family pictures. You can get an idea how big I got. This was 1 month before my due date and 2 weeks before he was born. Landon was great during the photos! We already need to get new ones but that'll have to wait until the springtime probably.

Landon & Cody

I figured it was my turn to tell my side of the story. Sorry it's so long. Just skim it. My water broke at like 11:40ish at night. I seriously thought I was peeing my pants!!! Since we didn't pack anything before, we packed sorta quickly (I wasn't having contractions) and took Landon and our dog over to my parents. Well, we got to the hospital and just waited for the contractions to get stronger. They never really did so at around 6 they started me on pitocin. Well, the contractions got stronger (a little) and they said that any time I wanted they could start getting me ready for an epidural. I told them GREAT! The nurse went to talk to the Dr. to get the Dr. orders to start the IV and also to tell her the baby's heart rate was dropping every time I had a contraction. The nurse came back and said she was going to check me. That's when she discovered the cord. She paused for a second, looked at me and said very calmly, "Okay... You're okay, the baby's okay, but the cord is out. This is an emergency." I'm thinking, "Okay, stick it back in"! She then told me I would need a c-section and I was like, Ohhhhhh, okay then". She got on the phone and said 2 words. "Prolapsed cord". Immediately, I have a couple more people in my room preparing me for surgery. I've got to say, they are fast when there's an emergency! They're booking me out of the room and I'm telling John to call my mom. I'm being rushed down the halls and mean while, there are now like 5 people pushing me along! I'm putting on a hairnet and I feel like I'm part of Grey's Anatomy! My nurse was trying to keep me calm even though I really was. It was quite surreal. They bring me into this sterile looking room with 2 huge lights. They then move me over to the other bed and are pulling my arms out, strapping them down I guess, putting warm towels on me, putting up a curtain, I have a doctor telling me that she's delivering my baby, and all I can think about is, I don't have an epidural, please don't cut!!! I do mention to the anesthesiologist that I don't have an epidural and he lets me know that I'm being put under. I think, oh thank goodness! Now, if this wasn't a hospital, I'd be totally freaked out! I felt like I was being sacrificed or something. Good thing it was a hospital though. Anyways, the anesthesiologist asks me if I'm ready to sleep, I say I am, and before I even have time to ask them if they want me to count backwards, I'm out! The next thing I know, I'm waking up, they're putting me under again (I guess I was having problems breathing and still in pain), and then I'm waking up again and they're getting me to sign a paper. I couldn't focus at all and felt like I was on LSD or something! It was so funny. I don't even know what my signature looked like. For the next couple of hours, I was in and out and everytime I woke up, I kept thinking, I need to let them know I want an epidural. And then I'd remember I'd had the baby and go back to sleep. I didn't get to see him till 11:30 and I wasn't allowed to be alone with him since I was still totally drugged up and couldn't get out of bed to get him if something was wrong. Anyways, it was quite the experience!! By the way, I went in to the OR at 7:35, he was born at 7:43 and I was awake in the OR for a good 3-5 minutes. That means they basically started cutting the moment I was out! Eeek! Good news is that it really wasn't that bad (I got a lot of sleep and have never been so out of it in my life which was a new experience) and I'm just really glad that we live in these times! He is the smallest kid we will probably ever have!!! At his first doctors appointment, he dropped down to 5.8 lbs! Oh, and Landon got his 18-month appointment at the same time. Yeah, 75% for height, 30% for weight, and 97% for HEAD!!! That's right, we have a genius on our hands! Here are some more pics of both of them!

Landon has learned how to pray! It makes us look like good parents!

Landon loves to play with Cody's hands.

Any time the camera comes out, he smiles at it.

Wide-eyed

Here's just how small he is!!!!

Cody Scot Vranes

I would like to introduce you all to Cody Scot Vranes, born this past Saturday a 6 lbs 2 oz, 20 inches long, and size 13 feet (OK, obviously not really, but his feet are long and thin - I'll snag a picture of that later). He's a long, thin little guy who missed out on some girth-building time - he was born 2 1/2 weeks early. (Note: pardon if any of the following brief summary is TMI for anybody - I'm not always the best judge of that. Hopefully Tiffany doesn't mind, but her and Cody are asleep right now, so I'm taking my liberties - wish me luck) Yeah, we were a little surprised on Friday night when Tiffany's water broke. 8 hours later, the doctor had the nurse check things out after several abnormal, but not too serious, heart rate drops by Cody during contractions. The nurse discovered Tiffany had a prolapsed cord (where part of it is outside), so while the baby's vitals weren't in critical condition, they took her in for an emergency C-section. The hospital is nice but not always the most organized, but it was a well-oiled machine when the nurse made the call. Nearly 10 nurses were in the room prepping Tiffany and she was wheeled off to OR and withing 15-20 minutes after the nurse made the call, Cody was delivered. Heavenly Father was watching out for us and answering prayers. Tiffany and Cody are doing just fine and we able to come home yesterday. When I brought Landon home from our friends' house, he was more interested in the lamp I had moved downstairs instead of Cody. Later on, he softly petted him (he's had practice on our dog). Here are some pictures that I hope you enjoy.

Halloween and Such

Happy Halloween (late)! As you can tell, Landon was a lion. Doesn't he look like such a cute little girl?? He loved going trick-or-treating with our friends' daughter. He figured out that they were putting good stuff in his bag and would get candy out of it and hand it to me to unwrap it for him. Next year, maybe he'll actually be able to say trick-or-treat!!!
As the seasons start, it gets busy around here. John's birthday is on the 2nd and mine was on the 7th so on top of Halloween, we had birthdays to celebrate! Also, my new calling has been keeping me pretty busy. I'm the music chair coordinator. This means I conduct the music, set up any special musical numbers in sacrament, and oh yes ... choir. I'm in charge of the Christmas Program which is LOVELY! Since I'm due the 1st, I started on Christmas music 4 weeks ago!! Christmas, here we come!

Pumpkin Patch

So although I've lived here all my life, I didn't know that there was a big pumpkin patch on the other side of the mountain!!!! So that is what we did this Saturday. It's actually quite a drive but I felt it was pretty worth it. Landon really enjoyed it. He had a ton of fun. He even tried to get a closer look at the goats! He also LOVED all the balls around! Yeah, that's what he was calling all the pumpkins. And of course he wanted to play with them. He couldn't pick them up but that didn't mean he didn't try!

Here's Landon and John on the hayride to get our pumpkin and Landon trying to pick up a "ball".

John ropin' a cow and Landon trying to get in with the goats.

I needed a picture with me in it and I know John is talking in the picture but I'm smiling in it so too bad!

Here are just some funny pictures of Landon. He loves getting in the laundry basket now (those are clean clothes). He also loves his sunglasses. He feels so cool with them on and keeps them on in the car sometimes!!!

The Balloon Fiesta

This was John's first Balloon Fiesta. We went the very first day, Saturday. Good thing too since Sunday was a wash out and the next weekend wasn't very good for ballooning either! Saturday was the perfect day to go. We ended up taking off our jackets it got that warm! It was a great morning. We saw the Darth Vader balloon get inflated and take off. We should have figured out that that was the balloon we were going to see since they had storm troopers and Darth Vader there!!! We were early enough to see the dawn patrol which was really pretty. Thursday morning, we went to John's work where we sat in the parking lot (since it's right across from the balloon fiesta field) and had breakfast burritos. You have to eat breakfast burritos when you go to the balloon fiesta. Thursday was the special shapes day. We have TONS of pictures but I'm not going to post them because it would be an even longer post then this already is.

Us getting out picture taken with Darth Vader and a storm trooper. It was crazy! You had to hurry to get your picture taken because there were lots of people wanting pictures.

John having his important breakfast burrito (a must have).

Here's the Darth Vader balloon we saw getting inflated. I wanted John to at least see how they did it.

Balloons galore. John told me that the ones I took last year for him while he was in Germany, just didn't do it justice, and it doesn't. It's amazing to see so many balloons in the air. The count this year was around 620 balloonists. A little low they said.

The dawn patrol lighting up.

Honeywell Party

John's company had their yearly Honeywell party. It was down at the State Fair Grounds. They had hot dogs and hamburgers along with snow cones and cotton candy. Landon refused to try the cotton candy! I really wanted to see what he'd think of it. John really enjoyed the blow up play centers they had! He just when on each one once just to see how it was. :)

Good Ol' Pete

Continuing with tennis, we went to an exhibition match with Pete Sampras and Sam Querrey. It was amazing seeing Pete Sampras play! We were so excited to see him. We were both a little star struck. He was still so good and he had a great sense of humor. Sam Querry is an up and comer and actually played and lost to Nadal in the US Open. Tickets weren't too bad priced but it ended up that one person was giving away a ticket so we took that and then someone else sold us one of their tickets so we ended up with not bad seats for real cheap! Sorry about the pictures. They didn't turn out too great but here they are.

Pete's in the gray, Sam in the yellow.

Here we are enjoying the game.

There he is waving to us! Not too clearly but that's what that is.

For those of you who are fans, here's Pete doing what he does best. The serve and volley. He made it look so easy.

The US Open

That's right. For the one day that we were in NY, we were able to see the US Open Semi-finals!!! For any of you who know tennis, this is a big deal and tickets are hard to come by. Our friend, Austyn, got us the tickets. Her boss was out of town and had courtside tickets to the semi-finals. Had it not been for Hurricane Hannah coming up the coast, we would have seen Federer and Nadal play at the Authur Ashe Stadium. However, by the time we got the tickets, they had moved up Nadal's match to another court with limited seating. We were deciding between sitting in our courtside seats for the last couple of points in the Federer match, or for sure get a seat and watch Nadal (now the #1 player in the WORLD) play. We decided Nadal. It was incredible to see him play up close and personal.

On our way to the stadium.

Landon did really well at the match. He liked clapping when everyone else did. (You like the big belly?)

Nadal Serving! Me, John, Dustin and Austyn at the match!.

We had to leave in the 3rd set because of the storm. It started out as a small sprinkle but by the time we got to the subway, it was coming down hard! The rest of the day we just hung out. Dustin and John watched the BYU game and me and Austyn worked our pregnant selves out! It was really fun just to hang out. So we didn't see any of the city but the tennis and just getting to hang out with Austyn and Dustin was a blast. The city will always be there!