Nauvoo, Indiana, and Kollins first plane ride

Koli, Nog, and I just got back from our trip to Nauvoo and Indiana were Koli got to meet Grandma and Grandpa for the very FIRST time!

I couldn't wait to see where Mom and Dad had been this past 6 months

and see all that they have been up to.

~~~

After what felt like the longest wait ever the time came to get on that plane and head for Nauvoo, and it was Incredible and worth the wait.

The spirit that I felt here was so strong I was telling Nog if he ever wanted I would move here. :)

We got the privledge of going to the Nauvoo Temple to do sealings.

I was amazed at the beauty inside, I felt honored to be here.

Since Mom and Dad Pearce serve in the Temple we were able to get a tour of almost every room inside. We got chills going in each one.

And with permission we were even able to go to the very top to Moroni and touch the bolts that hold him up.

This was the first time Nog or I had left Koli with someone other than one of us.

Mom got to watch her while Dad gave us the tour and she did so great, thanks Mom, and thank you Dad for the wonderful tour.

I'm so thankful we were able to go to Nauvoo to see the history of Joseph Smith and of all the Saints, and of course to visit Mom and Dad! wow I have REALLY missed them both and I can't wait to get them back in just a few short weeks, you two are amazing!

Here are pictures of our trip from start to finish.

~~~

I was wondering and kind of worried how Koli would do on her very first plane ride but I had absolutely nothing to worry about, she slept the whole way there.

It was pretty crazy,

I was trying so hard to wake her up to eat so her ears could pop

that girl loves to travel, she was a little angel.

Here she is stretching

and back asleep
I couldn't believe all the colors here.
Beautiful

This is in the visiters center by the Joseph Smith statue

haha here is Dad he was super excited about his acorns.

Awesome Family History

I LOVE this picture! After about a million pictures because I just can't help myself she is too flippin cute, she gave me this look. Like "Mom Stop taking pictures of me" I love this girl!

Mom, Nog, Koli, and Dad in the Black Smiths Shop.

Praire Diamonds (they mean true love, pretty much)

She's praying

Meet Ben and Rocky our favorite horses

You know in the Joseph Smith video they play in the Visiters Center were Emma and Joseph are under a bridge and it's snowing and they have there "first kiss?"

Ya well no big deal this is just that bridge.

Shoot I just realized we should have kissed under here too.Here we are leaving Nauvoo heading for Indiana. But first we had to make a stop at Carthage Jail.

I really loved being here.

Nog took this picture on the other side of the door through the bullet hole.

We made is safely to Indiana and the next day we went to park and went for a walk. This was our view as we walked can you believe places are this pretty?

I told Nog I would live here too haha

Thank you SO much Tyler and Amelia for letting us stay with you and for helping us get there!! It was a blast and our little twiner babies finally got to play. You guys are the best!

Here is Katcher behind a tree doing his business haha

This is what our lives would be like if we had twins.

Best pictures ever of the babes. I sure do love Keaton! haha oh Koli.

what the...

what's over there cousin?

So cute! I think he likes being a Daddy what do you think?

hahahah Koli is so scared

Love this!

This is us out on the town

Look at our fancy Moby Wraps Love it!

Can you find Koli in there?

Proud Dads

Such a great trip!

~~~

P.S.

I had to put this in here too.

Kollins got to finally meet her Uncle Justin and Aunt LoLo

and she had so much fun with them.

Kollins Faith Pearce

On Monday night when Nog and I were saying our prayers together we both felt really strongly that we were going to have our little girl in our arms the next day. And guess what about a half hour later at 12:15am Tuesday morning I felt my first contraction. I kept wondering am I going to know when it's a real contraction and oh yes I did know right away, there is no mistaking it for Braxton Hicks. I was so dang excited I ran to the toilet and saw some blood and jumped up and down and on Nog and even cried a little. I was finally going to have my little girl after all the waiting plus the extra 6 days past my due date. :) I wanted to call my mom ASAP but Nog said no haha he said “how about we let mom get some sleep since it's going to be a while for the contractions to pick up.”
In birthing class they said the number one thing and the only thing they wanted me to remember if I forgot everything else was to get my rest and take a nap when in the beginning of labor which sounds easy but people do you have any idea how hard that is when you are way too excited about having a baby you can NOT sleep. So me and Nog went out to the kitchen and made some food, some delicious eggs and toast. Then after he forced me, and I finally fell asleep. :) He's so great I'm so glad I got a couple hours in.
I woke up at 4am with the contractions getting to strong to sleep through. We called my mama and she came right over. When she got here we got our walking gear on and walked for a couple miles to try and get things going. I had back labor the whole time so with each contraction on our walk I would stop and put my arms around Logan while mom pushed on my lower back. Her pushing on my back felt so good and relieved so much of the pain! I don't know what I would have done if she wasn't there with Logan and I to help and coach me. This is the start of it all.

Mom pushing on my back. Poor mom I bet her hands were killing her by the end. She was so AMAZING!

Mom is telling our fellow neighbor "We are in Labor here"
After our walk I laid on the bed for a while, while having contractions mom laid behind me holding me and pushing on my back. Something about MY mom being right there next to me holding me, telling me I CAN do this, while experiencing the hardest thing I have ever done before changed my love for her. It has grown more than I ever thought it could.

After a while I wanted to change positions Nog took care of everything, brought in the tub and filled it all up while I was with mom.

Being in the water helped so much to take the edge off. For a while I laid on Logan with him holding me up. Towards the end I fell asleep between the contractions with Logan holding me, breathing with me, telling me I could do this.

I love my husband!

Heather and Laree came to drop off mom's phone charger. Mom asked if I wanted them to stay. I said yes, I'm so glad they got to be there with me. Even though I was zoned into all that I was doing, knowing they were there gave me so much strength.

This is right when she started to come. Logan has his hand under and can feel her head. They kept telling me to feel it too but I didn't want to at first because before when I was trying to I couldn't feel anything so I didn't want to be disappointed to not feel it again. Finally I did and could feel her entire head with all her hair. I was overwhelmed and said "My Baby"

Then came out this little miracle

My incredible reward

I've seen these pictures about 100 times and still every time I cry. I'm so overwhelmed that my loving Heavenly Father gave me her, this incredible little girl who is ours FOREVER. I am so blessed.

She is my little angel

Born on September 6th 2011 at 11:17am

(11/17 is my moms birthday, I love that)

8pounds 3oz 20 1/4inch long

Kollins Faith Pearce

Thank you to my midwives Stephanie and Jenn,

you two are incredible.

Tick Tock...

My friend who is 3 weeks behind me had her baby this morning.

People! what is happening?...

What's the date today you ask?

I'll tell you, it's not August 31.

It's September the 4th

And.....

No Baby.

Mom got in town last Sunday we have been having so much fun with her here.

I can't believe it's already been one week with her here.

We have gone on MANY walks (walking curbs included), drank weird drinks, she came with me to get a pressure point massage, then followed by a prenatal massage (which by the way felt AMAZING and made me very sore but VERY worth it.) I've gone swimming, Ate spicy foods, bounced on a ball for a LONG time, there's been romance :), i've used a pump (weird) and lastly my sweet mother preformed an enema on me SICK I know! But my sister said it worked for her so I thought hey why not.

Can I just say that that was the funniest experience I have had with my mom in a LONG time. Nog refussed to do it for me and I can't reach, you know what I'm sayin? I was laughing hysterically while my mom was singing to me the itsy bitsy spider. Nog was in the other room cracking up he said hearing the audio was pretty great. What a great mom I have haha.

Even though none of these things worked the memories that were made while doing them all are priceless.

My mom was supossed to be leaving today BUT she isN'T and I am soooo happy about that! She is going to stay until later this week. She has some people from work covering her Tuesday and Wednesday shifts so that mean this little girl needs to come before she has to go back on Thursday. She is sacrificing in missing work and the money that comes with it. She is pretty dang amazing to do that for me wouldn't you say?!

I would!

Heather is having car trouble as well so that means she is going to be staying too until Tuesday. They haven't quite figured out who is going home when or how yet but it will all work out.

It's been so fun seeing my little niece, Brielle. She is the most content happiest baby ever! Really it's amazing she does not make a peep. Macyn is right up there with her in being the perfect baby. I've loved spending this whole week with them all. Makes me kinda glad I am late so I can get more time with them. :)

Kyler saw a sign yesterday while she was driving with Trent that said something about Labor Day on it, Ky said "Dad, when is labor day?" He told her on Monday. She said "you better tell Aunt Annie make sure she knows about Labor Day" haha how fitting would that be if I had her on Labor Day right?

Well, all is going great here we will keep you posted on when little miss Kollins wants to come out and see everyone. :)

Preparing...

So I am now 34 weeks!!! 6 weeks LEFT!

I've been really bad at writing on here so now 3 months later I'm back hah.
Really all that has been going on is being busy working and working on Koli's room. Which we now have completely finished! (besides some decorations on the walls) bu,t I really LOVE it! Me and Nog have been working on it for 3 weeks and just finished. While we were painting Nog kept saying I can't believe I'm going to have a pink room in my house, I never thought that would happen. But now that it's all done he loves it just as much as I do.

I also just had my baby shower this past week that Laree and Patti threw for me it was awesome! I got so many cute little clothes I loved them all so much that the second I got home I tore all the tags off and threw them in the wash. After I started folding and organizing I realized I have like a billion outfits that are newborn and 3 months too many that she can go through I'm sure. I probably should not have immediately tore everything off and maybe exchanged some for different sizes but Oh well. Nog says I'm impatient, I guess that was proven true. But at least I'll have plenty of clothes for the other girls I'll have someday and I figure I can just change her 2 or 3 times a day so she can wear all of them. :) It all feels so much more real. Not that my belly isn't enough proof. I still can't imagine having my own baby though. Kinda weird but I can't wait until she crys and the only person she wants is her mama.

Here are some picture of my belly, the shower, and the before, during, and after picture of the process of her room getting done. :)

-Picture of my belly at 34 weeks-

Me and Nicole (my old friend) I hadn't seen her in forever! I was SO happy she came! We are just two couple weeks off from each other.

I didn't get a whole lot of picture of everything and everyone. It was so good seeing all the people come for me and Kollins. That made me feel good :) I wish I had pictures of all the food and everything. Laree did such a great job setting everything up it looked amazing.

Kels, Me, Wendy, and Marlene
Regan, Me, and her Mama
Patti made this Diaper Cake. I actually looks like a real cake. It's so cute! And she even put my absolute favorite animal on the side.
I came to work and saw this on the table. Clarissa and Beth did this for me :) I Love it! I don't think I'm going to take these apart until she HAS to have them.
Mama Pearce made this cover for this pillow. I just got it in the mail :) can't wait till I got a baby on top of there.
Look her first piggy bank.
I got a surprise the night after my shower! Pat and Brian came over with the group gift. Nog set it all up right away he was so excited he kept driving it all around the house. Literally, it was pretty cute.
And here is the start to her room process. I had this paper up on the wall for a while before we did it.
The day we were finding out what we were having Jay was in town and he was staying with us. He said "don't even call me to tell me what it is cause I already know it's a girl" and he was right. :) So when we pulled into the drive way we saw this sign hanging up. We were laughing so hard and left it up outside for like 2 weeks. Then I finally brought it in and put it in her room above her crib. haha Oh Jay Bee I sure do love him.
(Just in case you can't see it that good there is a picture of a girl in a skirt on the bottom right corner with a big smiley face above)

So I got this idea from Ree she did this in Dads old house and I always loved it.

What you do is tape off the wall to make it look like diamonds. Then put drywall on the whole thing.

So that when you peel the tape off you have a different texture. Then later we reput the tape over the same part and fou painting the wall so that the diamond lines would stand out better.

Lastly to add a finishing touch I put little metal flowers on all the corner.

after we pulled the tape off

painting the top part pink and bottom part white before we put up the chair rail and trim...

and...... WAALLLLLA

You can see the blanket Ree made for me by hand to the left pretty amazing! It's my favorite.

Thank You so much everybody for your love and support and for coming to the shower.