My Amazing Family

I am blessed with an amazing family. I can not thank them enough for everything they have done for us over the past five weeks. Whitlee's delivery was not the easiest and after I was home a few days I ended up back in the hospital, then I ended up going to get a blood patch that did not go well. It was a really hard time for me but my family and Dustin's family have been a great help to us. My mom was there from the beginning and stayed with me until I was well enough to take care of the kids. She does so much for us and I am very thankful to her. Dustin's mom came and sat with me for two days. She took care of Dalley while I took a nap each day and it was nice to be able to get some rest. Luke's wife Kayce has been there for me and has offered a lot of help and so has Dustin's sister Haley. After my complications Shawn's wife Stina decided she needed to come and help me. She flew down at the end of June and stayed for a week. She was a lot of help. We got a lot of projects completed that I had been needing to do for awhile. It was so nice to have her and my cute neice and nephew here. I am so thankful for everyone who helped us out. We are truly blessed to have such an amazing family.

The first weekend in July we had a family weekend and it was awesome. My parents came Friday night. On Saturday they took Ira and Dalley and Stina and I took the girls and we all went to Escalante for Kate's baptism. It was a nice day. We headed back in the afternoon but my parents and the boys stayed and went fishing. Dalley had a great time fishing with his grandpa and cousins.

On Sunday we went to church and then hung out and visited. It was a nice lazy day. On Monday we went to the parade and then Stina and the kids had to leave. It was really sad to see them go. After the parade we went home for a nap and then headed to the school for the game booths. Luke's family arrived just in time to go to the festivities.There were a lot of cute games for the kids. It was my first time in my life not being in Alamo on the fourth. It was pretty good but nothing beats your hometown celebration. After the booths we headed to The Robbers Roost for lunch then we went back to my house and hung out and played some phase ten. Then we let off our own fireworks and visted outside until the town fireworks started. They were really late getting started so Luke's family had to leave before they really got going. It was a really fun weekend and it was really hard the next day in my empty house after everyone had left.

Dalley and Dustin got in a water fight one evening, it was pretty cute
Dustin taunting Dalley

Ira and Arvella, I miss these kids already!

Cute little family minus Shawn

Dalley standing on the dog box in Dustin's truck waiting for the parade to start

Ira got a Cowboy hat when we went shopping and he loved it. We gave him some hnad me down Wranglers and boots to complete the outfit

These boys are best friends

Luke's kids doing sparklers

My crazy husband almost burnt his foot lighting fireworks without any shoes on

Kayce and Luke

Cute Kate

My Munchkin

I just love this view, last year it was corn this year it is triticale

Dalley's puppy chasing Kate

Dalley Loves his puppy

Robin Hood Lukie

Whitlee on her one month birthday. The little smarty rolled over on her one month birthday.

Dalley likes to put the binki in

Whitlee all dressed up for church wearing the cute booties and headband Dustin's friend made her

Meet Whitlee Jane

I love the look on her face, she looks a little bit suspicious
A very proud big brother. He tells me she is his baby, but he will share her with me.


Proud daddy, nothing is more attractive than seeing my gruff husband holding our little baby



At the hospital only a couple hours old


Looking back the last two months flew by, but when I was living them they didn't go by that quickly. I was consumed the whole time with wanting to have my baby. Dalley was born a little early so i thought for sure Whitlee would be too. Not only was she not early but we went passed my due date. I never would have thought I would go passed my due date so the last few weeks drove me nuts. But finally I agreed to be started and on June 7 at 2:27 a.m., our sweet Whitlee Jane Westwood was born. She weighed in at 9lbs15 ounces and was 20" long. I about died when the doctor told me how big she was. When I was pregnant with Dalley they were worried about his size the whole time, but with this pregnancy they never once worried about her size and she was about two pounds heavier than Dalley.



So far she is a sweet wonderful baby and I am feeling very spoiled. Dalley was a little more high maintenance. He was on oxygen for his first month home so I was a nervous wreck with him the whole time. Whitlee seems to be so easy in comparison. Our first night home she slept six hours straight and the next night she slept five. I have found that she will sleep forever if she is being held so it is tempting at times just to hold her and get more sleep. I am trying not to create a bigger problem though so I try to not hold her when she sleeps. She is such a cuddly little thing it is hard to put her down. The only thing that isn't easy with her is eating. From the start she has not liked to eat and it is a fight every time. A couple of days after we got home I hemorrhaged and ended up back in the hospital for two days. During that she was exclusively on the bottle and it has been a fight getting her back to nursing. I know it just takes time, but those middle of the night feedings would be less frustrating if she would latch easier.



I am really excited that she looks a bit like me. Dalley looks so little like me I have actually been asked if I adopted him. I was praying that she would at least look like me a little. She has dark hair and darker skin but her features definitely resemble Dustin. I guess the Westwood genes are really strong. So far she is the only Westwood grand kid with dark hair and I hope it stays dark.



She already has a sweet little temperament and is quite patient with her big brother. He would hold her all day if we let him. We are all in love with her already and are so thankful she is finally here.

Two Easter Weekends

Dalley and I were able to celebrate Easter two weekends in a row. The actual Easter Weekend was right after Grandpa Dahl's funeral. Dustin was on the desert chasing cows so it was just Dalley and I. We went to Cedar on Saturday and had lunch with my parents. When we got home I hadn't prepared to color eggs but I decided I wanted to do something with Dalley even though it was just the two of us. So we colored eggs with food coloring. Sunday morning we went to church after I gave Dalley his basket. After church we went to Dustin's mom's house and played cards for awhile. It was a nice day but we missed having Dustin there.

Dustin finally came home the next Friday. On Saturday Haley had a little Easter party at her house in Panguitch. It was a lot of fun. We had a bar b que and the kids colored eggs and got Easter gifts. Dustin surprised me by playing Rock Band on the Wii. He usually hates any kind of video game, so I am not sure how they convinced him to play. It was fun watching him though. They gave Dalley a little guitar and he really got into it. He was a pretty cute little guitarist.

All of the kids got hula hoops for Easter. Dalley even got a cute miniature one. Everyone had to show off their hula hooping skills. I was again surprised by Dustin's hula hooping skills. He was really good at it, but Jax was the best. He could go forever and one time he even had three going at once. All in all it was a pretty fun day.

Now Dustin is back on the desert and I will be glad when all of those darn cows are home. I am not a big fan of him being gone this close to my due date! Especially since there is no way to contact him when he is there unless he drives into Hanksville for some reason.

Here are a few pictures of our two Easter weekends.

Belle and Jax coloring eggs

Belle and Grandma Cooper

Dalley coloring Eggs

Dalley with his Easter Basket in his new church clothes

Dalley and the eggs we colored

Dalley's Eggs

A whole bunch of pictures

A couple of weeks ago we had a lot to celebrate. My baby brother Ryan got home from his mission so my whole family, except Rowdy's part, got together for a reunion. Shawn and Stina were able to come from Washington and I finally got to meet their precious baby, Arvella. She is so tiny and so very sweet. I had forgotten how small babies were. It made me wonder if I was ready to have a baby again. I guess now that I am 8months pregnant there really isn't any going back. We spent the first day of the reunion hanging out around the ranch and having fun together. The next day we spent doing family history stuff and going on a historical tour of Hiko. My brother Luke is quite the historian. It amazes me the stuff that he knows about our family history and about the history of Hiko. He has really done his homework and it was a lot of fun learning from him. He even put together a trivia game made up of our family history. The third day was my day to plan. I had planned to go to the cabin but of course the weather didn't cooperate. We ended up doing my activities on the ranch and they were still fun. I had a scavenger hunt which turned out to be pretty fun. Then we had skeet shooting. We went through two boxes of skeet and a whole bunch of shells. It was really fun. I got three cameras worth of pictures so here are a few to show how the weekend went.

Ira and Dalley painting Dalley and Dustin

My mom and Dad with Ryan when they picked him up from the airport

We are turning Stina into quite the country girl, she is a really good shot

Kate with Arvella, Kate was the best little babysitter. She just loved holding Arvella

The boys feeding

We put some of Dalley's wranglers on Ira and he was the cutest little thing in them. He has quite the little strut

Lukie with the grand prize from the scavenger hunt, he was proud to be the winner

Kids waiting for Uncle Buck to show up at the airport

Stina and Arvella

Hey girls, he's single

Dalley on Homer Horse

These two are such good friends, I love that they are buddies

Luke's family at the old Hiko School house

View from Hiko cemetery

My handsome Dad

My handsome boy

Holding the squirrel Uncle Ryan shot

Ira loved wearing every one's hat, He got his dad in on the action