Blessing Day

Today was sweet little Ari's blessing day! Here she is with Grandpa Capel, Uncle Adam Morrill, Daddy, Grandpa Morrill, and Great-Grandpa Capel.

Nathan gave her a beautiful blessing. She was blessed to follow the examples of the strong women she was named after (Aurelia, a woman full of faith who I taught on my mission, and Marie, Nathan's great-grandmother who kept her family strong in the gospel). She was also blessed to be close to the Spirit, turn to God in difficult times, and seek both spiritual and intellectual knowledge.

We're going to get professional pictures of Ari in her beautiful dress next week, but here is a photo of her dress by itself (made by Grandma Morrill) and her blessing blanket (given to her by Grandma Capel).

Sunday Best

Just some cute photos of Robbie and Ari in their Sunday best!

Superman & Spiderbaby

SUPERMAN
On Friday Robbie saw some kids "flying" on Sesame Street and he decided he wanted to fly, too. He stood in the middle of the living room and jumped and jumped, but just couldn't seem to fly! He got so upset he fell on the floor and cried, saying over and over again, "I can't fly. I can't fly." Such a devastating realization for a two-year-old boy. Luckily he got over it pretty quickly and was contented with shooting some hoops.


SPIDERBABY
About a week ago Nathan was asking Robbie what his baby sister's name was and Robbie insisted it was Spiderman. He repeated the same thing the next day. A few days ago I asked Robbie if Ari's name was still Spiderman--he said, "No, its Spiderbaby." So here's sleeping Spiderbaby:
Superman and Spiderbaby together:

A Perfect Parade

Last Saturday we went to the Draper Days parade, just a few miles from our house. It was the perfect parade, in my opinion. We got there just a few minutes before the parade started and were still able to get a good spot--no huge crowds to deal with. Robbie loved all the firetrucks, police cars, motorcycles and horses. They threw tons of candy, too, just like Halloween in July! Here's Robbie waving at the "princesses" on one of the floats.

The Cutest Baby Mullet

Ari was born with a mullet--short hair up front, with tons of long hair in the back! I haven't quite been able to get a photo that does it justice yet, so you'll have to use your imagination a little bit. The hair on top of her head is always sticking straight up, too, so she looks like she has one of those '80s flat-top mullets. I love that Ari has so much cute dark hair. I dreamed of having a little girl with lots of dark hair, but always figured it was just wishful thinking since I was pretty much bald until I was two and so was Robbie. We've sure had lots of hair surprises with our kids--Robbie's red hair was pretty much a one-in-a-million random genetic thing since as far as we've been able to figure out the only people in our families with red hair are Nate's great-grandpa and some of my great-great aunts and uncles.

"I'm not a brother, I'm a boy!"

So, Robbie is in denial about being a big brother. Today Grandma Morrill said something about him being such a good big brother and his response was, "I'm not a brother, I'm a boy!" Actually, Robbie doesn't pay much attention to Ari at all. Occasionally he'll try to give her a toy or even a slap on the head (Mommy got really mad when that happened), but he only seems to acknowledge her presence once a day or so, and I'm not exaggerating. Pictured above is a rare occasion when he wanted to "help" me feed Ari. Notice me holding his arm very tightly so he wouldn't shove the bottle into her mouth.

Welcome to the world, Ari!

Aurelia "Ari" Marie Morrill joined our family three days early on Sunday, June 29th at 9:43 a.m. She was born at St. Mark's Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah and weighed 8 pounds exactly and was 20 inches long.

This is me and Robbie the night before Ari was born (Saturday). We had just spent the weekend enjoying the Capel family reunion. Thursday night we had dinner and a talent show, Friday we spent the day at Seven Peaks water park, and Saturday we played games and had another dinner and program. I had contractions off and on all through the reunion. I'm glad Ari waited just long enough for us to enjoy time with our aunts, uncles, and cousins!

I woke up Sunday morning at 5:30 a.m. with contractions. We went ahead and called Nathan's mom to come over to watch Robbie, though I felt like it might still be too soon to go to the hospital. When I leaned over to kiss Robbie goodbye at about 6:30 a.m., though, my water broke and we knew it was definitely time to go!

We got to the hospital at about 7 a.m. and at about 8:30 a.m. we started walking the halls of the hospital while we waited for the anesthesiologist to come give me an epidural. Nathan was an excellent coach and was able to help me relax through the contractions by imagining a hike we had taken to Mt. Timpanogos when we were first dating.

Much to everyone's surprise I started feeling like pushing around 9:00 a.m. and by the time the anesthesiologist arrived the doctor was rushing into the room to deliver the baby. So much for the epidural! Well, at least now I know what its like to give birth "naturally"! After about half an hour of pushing Ari was born and came into the world healthy and strong.


We had lots of family visitors in the hospital (here's Ari with her aunts Ember and Keli)

. . . and also had time to store up some sleep for the coming weeks (here's Nathan and Ari).







We made it home on Tuesday, July 1st and have been busy feeding, burping, changing, bathing, and cuddling little Ari ever since!