The Andersen Family 

Nathan, Lizz, Harlow & Baby

April 11, 2013

Photograph by Becca Laing

What a wonderful year we are having!  Life is beautiful & rich!  We feel so incredibly blessed!  Nathan is starting his last year of school at BYU, planning on graduating next spring.  Harlow is growing fast, exploring new things every day, loves being outside & learning to walk.  Mommy is feeling great so far at almost 8 weeks pregnant, thrilled to be having & bringing another little perfect angel into this world. 

after 1 comes....2

Coming November 23, 2013

 a new little one will be joining our family!

Can you see our excited faces the day we found out :)

Nathan & I are very excited to be expecting again and Harlow is excited to be a big brother, he just doesn't really know it yet...up in heaven they were the best little buddies though! 

Silence

I was down stairs doing the dishes when I realized that my house was very quiet...too quiet for all three of us to be at home and no sleeping baby.  I remembered Harlow going up stairs and guessed he might just be getting into some sort of mischief in his favorite place - the Bathroom.  So just in case, I grabbed the camera and snuck upstairs to find...

I love that office

We had our first doctors visit at ValleyOBGYN on April 16th and as soon as I walked in I remembered how much I love the place! My drs are all amazing, professional, and kind. Even with it being a group practice they know me and remembered my liver complications. Nothing really can be done about Cholestasis but we'll watch for signs and keep our prayers coming. (Knowing and feeling like we wanted to have another baby I did a liver cleanse back in December. In January we went back to the dr to get everything in order and had my liver numbers tested so I could see what my base numbers, no pregnancy looked like; they were great, so ahead we went.) I got to see Dr Drews this visit, one of my favorites and the one who primarily helped me with all my liver stuff last time.

Long ways away still but I REALLY want to go into labor on my own...induction was interesting and I'm grateful Harlow was fine. I want to labor at home. I will be going yet another different route this delivery, I'm looking into hypnobirthing. The idea is basically this: women have given birth since Adam and Ev, literally. Our bodies are beautiful and miraculous gifts. They were made to do this. When we have fear our bodies tighten up which is then counterproductive to the progress our bodies are trying to make. Releasing the fear mind over matter, breathing patterns, visualizations, physical touch all help keep your mind calm. Something interesting I'm learning is that when endorphins are released into your body they are more powerful and cover up pain. I experienced this with delivering Harlow. My body was shaking, even with the epidural while I was in transition. It wasn't a cold shiver, it was a tension shiver or such...does that make sense? I asked Nathan to run his hand down my side or arm and amazingly, as soon as he started to simply touch me my shakes went away. He would get distracted and stop and when he stopped my shakes returned. Touch, a loving trusting touch creates a release of natural, powerful endorphines.

Another thing that's going to probably sound silly is that months ago we watched these movies about animals having babies, the elephant sticks out in my memory. The mother elephant was very calm, no screaming, hollering, or even panting...just calm swaying. And she birthed her baby is near silence. Sure, you might say, it's an elephant and she's huge...well so is her baby!!

...I am intrigued by all this and will be for sure learning much more as time progresses. Our bodies, birth, and motherhood are beautiful, sacred, and wonderful! I'm so grateful for this honor and privilege.

If any one of you have had experiences with natural birth, hypnobirthing, the Lamaze method and feel inclined to share you are more than welcome to, I'd love to hear what you have to say, being respectful of the decision I've already made, of course :)

Grandmas

I am so thankful for my wonderful Grandmothers Nadine Farr Rasmussen and Lois Wilkey Larsen.  Such amazing examples of lives of faith, service, and optimism.   The love they have for us and confidence they feel in us is so apparent every time we see them.  I am grateful to the pride they have & show in me.  It makes me want to rise up and be my best self.  

My Grandma Larsen is someone who I value my time spent with her.  She is humble and patient.  She is loving.  But one thing special about Grandma Larsen is that she is "real".  She doesn't beat around the bush, she tells you things how they are or how she sees them.  I love talking with her because I feel like I can be open and honest with her without fear of being judged, "looked-down upon", or weird.  She loves me for me and is always there with a kind listening ear.  She knows she's getting older and has been cleaning, sorting, preparing her and her belongings for the time when she will join my Grandpa.  She's an example of someone who knows what needs to get done and gets right down to work to do it, without fear. 

I'll have to be honest, I don't have as many memories with my Grandma Ras as I had with Grandpa but looking back I know why.  Grandma Ras has led a life of service.  When we were together at family gatherings I never made a meal or a bed, or anything.  "Grandma, I'm on vacation!" as I so obliviously told her once when I was a little girl when she asked for help unloading the dishwasher(...I'm embarrassed to tell that little story).  I don't remember grandma because she was the one doing all those things.  Doing them so none of us had to.  Now that she is older and has Alzheimers I am getting to see a new grandma.  Its hard for me to watch but even now I get beautiful glimpses into "my grandma", the woman she truly use to be and I love it.  What a wonderful woman.

General Conference

Went to have our traditional Sunday morning Conference Session breakfast with Uncle David & Aunt Sheri Larsen.

In preparation for this April's General Conference Peter & Emma went to the store to buy a special toy for Harlow.  Balls!  Harlow's first word.  Harlow spotting them as soon as we walked in the room.  Peter also bought a special treat for Harlow - a chocolate ice cream bar, in memory of the Larsen Christmas get together where Harlow stole and ate all of Peter's chocolate ice cream bar.  Harlow and his clothes were a mess then and was all messy again this time but oh boy was he in heaven.  Thank you Peter for stripping him down to his diaper prior to giving him the ice cream bar this time.  Harlow loves the Larsen gang & they just adore him.  I'm glad we have this tradition of coming up to Dave and Sheri's house every Sunday morning of general conference.

Uncle David took us all to see buffalo & elk.  It was pretty cool.  Goodness they were smelly and surprisingly not as big as we imagined...except one huge buffalo.  Like ginormous!!

JiuJitsu Master Nathan

So proud of Nathan.  Having never done anything like this before Nathan decided to take a JuiJutsu class this semester at BYU.  He was pretty nervous for the first class but after that day was done Nathan was a fan and enjoyed the class more and more as the semester continued.  As part of the class you had to help or participate in a Grappling Tournament.  Again, having done nothing like this before Nathan was pretty nervous.  March 30th - The day of the tournament, "I'm gonna get creamed Lizz" - said on our drive out to Orem.

I set up the camera so I could video record him.  Wrestling the camera and Harlow was quite the task.  In one of the matches I ended up asking someone close by to watch him for me.  Surprisingly, I was super nervous.  We had grappled together at home (fun date nights!) but I had no idea how he would do against these other grapplers.  He was in the Beginner category for 140-160lb weight class men. 

Nathan came out and did very well.  Totally surprising and thrilling us He won his first match!!! and did it with an arm bar!  "No Way!"  He had actually won, like he really did it!  He had a chance at this!

The second match lasted over 19min and in the end he lost. 

He was able to grapple once more for the chance of placing third in his bracket.  Needless to say that after the nearly 20 minute long match just before this he was pooped.   They gave him 15-20min to rest which did help some. He won this match but this time with a triangle choke!  We were going nuts! I was going nuts!   He hadn't been creamed!   He placed 3rd!!!

It was a blast to watch Nathan grappling.  I grew up watching my brothers wrestle through high school and didn't care for it all that much.  This was different.  The grapplers were all very respectful.  Many/most gave each other hugs and praise after their matches.  As I looked across the gym most wore smiles.  There was just a different feeling about the whole thing - I liked it.

 Nathan's "Corner"