Aunt Nadine

J.D.'s Aunt Nadine passed away on Andee's birthday, November 7th. She had a funeral 2 days later. aunt Nadine meant so much to J.D. and I. Her and her husband, Dale, helped us so much when we lost Andee M'lee because they too lost a little girl 69 years ago. She never got to see her baby girl because back then, they took the baby away because they thought it was better for the mothers to not have any further attachment. They thought it helped with coping....little did they know back then. Society has come a long way and I'm grateful for the time we got with Andee. When they told us she died, all we could think of is her meeting her little girl. The funeral was so neat because they put the casket on the wagon and went to the grave sight. All of her children rode on the wagon too. The coffin was hand made by one of her sons as well. it was beautiful.

We will miss her, but we are so happy that she finally gets to see her little girl, Nancy.

Andee's 1st Birthday

I can't believe it's been 1 year since we lost our little girl. It feels like it was just yesterday. It was a pretty hard day and J.D. nor I slept the night leading into her birthday. All the memories rushed back in and I was throwing up the whole morning. 

Dawson told us that Andee wanted a cake and we could pretend to get her presents. We also decided to take balloons to the cemetery. When I told Dawson about the balloons he was so excited! He said, "Mom! I can draw a picture for Andee on the balloon and then Heavenly Father will catch it and give it to her!" 

It brought tears to our eyes, but I would like to believe that that's what would happen. 

Before heading up to the cemetery, I took a picture of the sun setting on this beautiful November 7th day.

Everyone had a balloon and those that didn't get to draw on the balloon whispered their messages to Andee.

 And here they go on their way to Heaven!

 Right after, my mom and Jori with her kids came up. We saved balloons for them so they could tell Andee Happy Birthday too. It was so special for everyone and meant so much to J.D. and I.

 Here's Mckynlee and Jori letting go of their balloons

Mckynlee is pretty close with Andee. You ask her, "Where's Andee?" and she will grin and point up. It's the most amazing thing. She has done that on her own since she could understand words. 

That night we went swimming at the hotel and blew out Andee's candles. Dawson and Carson had so much fun blowing out the candle together and then swimming. I loved watching how excited they were for the cake. 

The day was also filled with so much love and support from friends and family. We had friends calling and texting letting us know they remembered Andee M'lee. It really gets us choked up to know and feel love from so many people. It meant the world to us to know how many people remembered her. Thank you to everyone and we know Andee misses all of you.

The Name is Official

For a long time we have debated on a name for this little guy coming in December. Finally we felt really good about one in particular. We felt it was what we were supposed to name him, and will fit who he is. The name is Monty Bryant. He is named after his Grandpa Stevens, which is so honorable we felt. With how Monty has been in the womb so far, we really feel like his personality kind of reflects his Grandpa Stevens as well- pretty calm most of the time and is his own person. 

So we ordered the scrubs! 

 We also got the CUTEST set up from my sister Amy and her hubby Rick. This was their baby gift to us, and wanted to get it to us asap so we could be ready for Monty.

WE LOVE IT! Dawson loves that he gets to share his room with Monty too! Dawson recently got the bunk beds that J.D. had as a child. He is committed to the top bunk, and I have found J.D. snuggled up there with him almost every night as Dawson goes to sleep. Dawson already says that the bottom bunk is for Monty when he is old enough, but it's okay for him to use Dawson's crib for now. Dawson is still trying to convince us to move the cradle in there as well so him, Monty, and Andee are in the same bedroom. (the cradle for Andee, the crib for Monty, and bunk for Dawson). We feel almost ready for him to come home, just a few more things. Only 4 more weeks until he comes! We have scheduled to be induced on the 20th of December, but I won't doubt if he comes sooner.

Update on the pregnancy: Everytime I've gone to the doctor I have noticed my blood pressure being so high, especially for me. 1 week ago it was a little too high, so I had to do a 24 urine test. They were testing the protein in the urine to see if I had preecampsia. They would like the protein count between 0-150, and mine was 290. SO, if it gets above 350 they will take the baby. For now before they test again, I'm on moderate bed rest for the moderate preecampsia. I can honestly say that my anxiety of losing Monty is definitely contributing to my high blood pressure. I can't help but feel so much pressure of making sure he's moving, because if I don't...maybe we will lose him and it will be too late. So I'm constantly doing kick counts. 

I do go in for weekly monitoring and ultrasounds to check the baby, and so far so good. One week he wasn't moving so much and so we had to stay for extra monitoring, but after another 20 minutes he picked up his movements and we were okay. 

J.D. is doing okay, but both of us don't sleep much. This month celebrating Andee's 1st birthday has brought back a lot of memories and emotions that are hard to handle. It's made us both so nervous for Monty and we still just don't have a huge excitement, we just want to bring him home. We are so grateful for the gospel and our knowledge, otherwise I don't think we could be handling everything so okay.

Family Pictures

I know we are going to be adding another baby to the family in December, but I always am so grateful for doing family pictures while pregnant with Andee. It was her life, and I will always have them. So, I wanted to do family pictures while pregnant with Monty, just in case that's all we get. 

We decided to get Andee a little cowgirl hat to represent her in our family pictures. 

Dawson, J.D., and Andee

 This one has a little weird lighting because the sun was reflecting off of the water, but I feel that it's magical in ways. Me and all 3 kids. Dawson was telling Monty about the ducks in the pond.

I love this family picture. We got a little close up redone on it and it turned out so stinking cute! Dawson is just being him, not wanting to take anymore stinkin pictures. So he sat himself down. It ended up being the best family picture of the day.

 We really liked this one because Dawson is being such a goofball. It was SO hard to get pics of all of us together and him smiling.

Originally I had wanted to drive to the same place we took pics last year with Andee. It didn't turn out because the time change just makes things too dark on the east side of Cedar Mountain by the afternoon. In the end, I actually was grateful we chose to do pictures in St. George. We had better lighting, it was warmer, we didn't rush and had a lot more time to get more pics, and it was different place for Monty. It was pretty emotional for J.D. and I to think of going up on the mountain, I don't think we could have held it together for pictures. Also, this is the pregnancy with Monty, not Andee. So we need to do something special for him. 

We are so grateful for Sari and Baylor taking our pictures. Hopefully we have some new ones in the winter with Monty here.

The Week of Halloween

The entire week of Halloween was truly eventful, busy, filled with miles on the car, and tons of fun! 

It started with a date with Dawson. 

Every year I look forward to my Tucanos free meal birthday card. J.D. was out of town and wouldn't be home the rest of the month... and so I took Dawson (plus he's under 6, so he was free too). 

 

 It just so happened to be a Halloween festival in the streets of the Riverwoods that night. So we watched entertainment, trick or treated to all the stores, and danced.

 The next day was Taylee's birthday party! Dawson and Kyson were fortunate enough to be the only boys with this huge group of girls! 

 It was a costume party, so Dawson dressed up as Iron man! 

They danced, watched Charlie Brown's halloween, played in the leafs, caught candy from the candy launcher, had cupcakes, and opened presents. Dawson had so much fun!

We then had our ward halloween party! We couldn't wear masks, so Dawson wore the Jedi costume that Molly and Lucas let him borrow. At the party they had a small spook alley. Dawson went through, and was laughing at the end. 

 The next day we headed to Brian Head! It was my birthday and J.D. wasn't going to work, but when our friend called us asking to clean carpets that day, J.D. asked if we could get a deal on a room because it was my birthday. We not only got a king suite, but we a meal compensated, and a massage compensated! It was a great birthday! I only had to help J.D. clean for a few hours, so Dawson swam and had a blast with my niece Sari and her boyfriend. 

This is the swimming pool rock waterfall!

 Here's Dawson pretending to be a shark!

 The next day we rushed back to Holden to spend Halloween there. We always stop and see Grandma Marjy (who's 98). Jessi was Dorothy, and Jetta was a clown. We love trick or treating at Grandma's because she always has the BEST candy to give out and is so happy to see us.

 They had a trunk or treat this year instead of a carnival. Here's Tilden and Dawson loading up!

 The next morning we headed to Kanab. My sister Amy needed work done on the house and we'd planned the weekend down with my family anyways. Luckily Layne had a football game! We got to wear our matching Cowboys hoodies! 

Dawson and Jessi enjoying their dinner, of course Dawson is a goof about pictures. lol!

 The next morning we headed to St. George for a Shelley Family Day. The girls did the cutest Thanksgiving craft while the boys went to Fiesta Fun. Dawson LOVED driving the go carts! 

Jori, Carson, and Mckynlee all came down from Montana (we were sad Danny couldn't get off work.) We celebrated Carson's birthday at the park that afternoon. Mckynlee wouldn't go to anyone, but DAWSON! She loved and loved and loved on him the entire time we were there.

 Carson is SO into sports (mainly football), so he had a football cake and had to wear his Steelers jersey.

 Dawson and Carson may not always agree, but they are becoming the best of buds. They copy each other and it can get kinda gross when it involves showing your food. lol!

 Carson seriously broke the pinyata with his first hit. It's amazing how strong this kid is.

 The next day we did family pictures, but that's on a different post because they turned out so amazing.

The Hunt

For a 2nd time in a life time, J.D. drew out again for the hunt! It was for the west side of Southern Utah, so we hunted in the fields of Holden. Now I may have mentioned this in a past post, but just in case I can't help but truly believe that anytime any of us Shelley girls have ever gone hunting with the boys, it is then when they actually get something. J.D.'s first buck, I was with him the 3rd and final night that he was able to hunt....and yes he got a buck. This time, I chose to go again on the last night he was able to hunt. We had chose to sit in a spot right where the deer would come out. I finally told J.D. that if we stayed there the deer wouldn't come because they'd smell us, so we'd better move. So we did, and what do you know.... within 15 minutes here came a buck right where we had been sitting. J.D. shot once, missed! Shot twice, hit! BUT we thought we missed because the buck took off back into the brush. So, as the buck was headed back into the brush, J.D. shot a third time. 

Luckily J.D.'s brother Chet was scoping out the brush for us on top of the hay stacks, so he called and said J.D. had hit the deer the 2nd time and to go start looking before it gets too dark. So we had back to where we saw the deer. We found tracks, but no deer. J.D. had me stay by the tracks as he went around the little hill. I didn't exactly stay put. I started up the hill, and as I did WHAM! The deer jumped up right in front of me! I yelped...quietly. Then I started panicking and clapping for J.D. to come back. I didn't want to talk in fear of scaring of any other deer that might be headed towards the field. J.D. comes running back and we both start up the hill again. We found him, a 3 point. Although his hip and back legs were completely busted up and bleeding, he was still dragging himself away from us. However, we couldn't put him out of his misery because we wanted the others to have a chance at getting a buck if there were any coming. So, we followed him slowly. Finally 20 minutes later, with no other buck in sight, it took 2 more shots to put the deer down. Then, they started gutting it....so gross, foul smell, being pregnant, I just turned around and looked at the stars. 

Here is J.D. holding his buck in the background, Tim (a friend), Chet, and Parker all holding the coyotes J.D. killed while looking for a buck. 2 of the them are J.D.'s, and the last one is Parker's. 

J.D. took his little man Dawson hunting too. Dawson was so excited, woke up at 5 am with J.D. and hunted all day with him without one complaint. Dawson had a blast because he got to help shoot the coyotes! He was so stoked! AND he even got to wear his new camo that Uncle Choc gave him for his birthday!

 The night I went hunting with J.D., Dawson hung out with Molly and Lucas and their family. He ended up in a Jedi costume! SO here's our family picture with a Jedi, 2 coyote heads, and a buck.

 Here's our little hunter next to his first coyote kill!

 The last day of the hunt, Parker was still in need of a buck. So J.D. took him out, and this particular deer was so far away from where they were sitting that Parker didn't think he could hit it. So he gave J.D. the go ahead to shoot for him. One shot and he was down. However, they could not find this sucker anywhere! So J.D. went looking one more time the next morning and found him.

 All in all it was a good season. We made $100 off the coyote heads, and got some deer jerky. J.D. and Dawson had such a great time, I had fun with J.D. when I got to go, and we were all pretty proud.