Colbi's First Snow Day!

... and probably my third. When the only states you have live in are Arizona and Hawaii, it's safe to say I haven't been around snow much. But wow is it beautiful!

Tyson and his dad went hunting in the backyard again today (the second day of the hunting season) but the deer were all hunkered down for the snow. As they should be.

We built a snowman. It was ugly cuz all the leaves stuck in it. But Tyson said they are always ugly. Major letdown ha. Then we came in and ate waffles and hot cocoa. Tyson chopped wood outside and built a fire and we got to watch one of our movies we scored on Black Friday.

Every time I look out the window I'm surprised at how beautiful the snow is as it collects on the tree branches. I don't think Colbi was very impressed with the snow, and she really didn't like her little nose and cheeks getting cold. Pounder was definitely afraid of the snow at first, but I think he liked it after a while. He demolished our snowman quickly after we built it by taking bites out of it and trying to knock it down. It was fun while it lasted though.

Recently, I have wanted to punch the nurses at Colbi's doctor appointments. Now don't get me wrong, I am so grateful for modern medicine, but having to watch while your little girl gets immunized pushes my limits of what I can handle.

She wasn't happy at all. Good thing we don't have to go back for more for 2 more months.

Good news though! Colbi weighs 9 pounds! That means she doubled her birth weight in 2 months! Keep growing little one!

Baby Blessing

Last Sunday was one of those days when you look around and wonder, "how did I get here so fast?" We had the privilege of giving Colbi a name and blessing in our ward here in Pennsylvania on the 14th. My family was able to fly out to support us and spend the weekend with us. 

The circle of priesthood holders that participated in the blessing were Tyson, his dad, my dad, a member of the bishopric, and 2 other men in our ward that Tyson is friends with. And my 11 year old brother, Ammon, got to hold the microphone. Although it was a small circle, it was such a powerful experience. As a new mother, it's hard to prepare yourself for the sweet feelings you experience as you watch your husband take your new daughter in his arms and pray to our Heavenly Father on her behalf. The blessing was tender and simple, but is a blessing I hope Colbi will live in harmony with her entire life.Love, pride, reverence. It was truly an amazing day.

My New Wedding Band

When Tyson and I got married I wasn't interested in having a wedding band. I loved my engagement ring and thought the simplicity of only having one ring on my left hand was elegant and pretty. Besides, my ring was a solitaire with two little diamonds on the sides, and wearing another ring would cover up one of those diamonds. 
However, after being asked a dozen times when my wedding was by people who assumed I was only engaged, I began to rethink my decision.  

Fast forward two years. Tyson and I had a very simple 2nd anniversary since it came about 2 weeks after Colbi was born. We decided to go out to eat at the Cheesecake Factory and Tyson's sweet mother offered to watch Colbi while we were out. Needless to say, I didn't even make it until our food arrived before I started freaking out about being away from Colbi. We got our food to go (including the cheesecake which was obviously the real reason we wanted to go there) and we headed home. Taking turns holding our newborn and eating cheesecake while sitting on our bed really made our anniversary wonderful and complete.

To solve my indecisiveness about getting a wedding band, Tyson decided to take matters into his own hands. He MADE me a wedding ring. Out of a silver quarter. It's beautiful and compliments my engagement ring perfectly. Plus, how many girls can say their husbands made their wedding ring? Not many! I'm a lucky girl to have a husband who would go through so much effort to make me happy.

...Yup, I shoulda pursued a career being a hand model

One of the best parts is that you can see the words "Quarter dollar," "Liberty," and "United States" on the inside of the band

Is it just me?

As teenagers (or even before then!) we start to realize that most of our parents "catch phrases" are, well, dorky. Somewhere around this age we promise ourselves that we will never do or say these lame things. After all, we are destined to become really cool adults. 

And then BAM! You have a baby. I think something about speaking in that "baby voice" turns on the need to insert lame phases into everything we say to our non-judging babies. And voila! We are transformed into the dorky parents we always knew we wouldn't become. I personally blame the severity of my transformation on the fact that i have 4 younger siblings, so I was around that "baby talk" for most of my childhood.

Poor Colbi gets referred to as "sugar pop," "love bug," "sister," and "lover." She gets greeted with a "hehwo!" and gets asked if she wants to eat "ninners" when she is hungry. I tell her that I am "sahwy" when she cries. 
Annnnd it's all nonsense.

Now I'm not blaming my parents for doing this to me, as I expect they had to come to the same terrifying realization of the nonsense they were saying, just as I have now had to.

Sweet Colbi, your mom is, in fact, lame.

Phew, now that that's off my chest, here are some more of the photos my talented friend, Katie Sabbah, took for us:

Introducing Colbi Jean

Well Baby Girl is 2 months today and I have had such good intentions of introducing her... but somehow time has gotten away from me and I am just barely sharing her with the world. 

Our sweet daughter was born  on August 13. I think I have an impatient little girl on my hands because she decided to come about 5 weeks early. Well that's not totally true, I guess the doctor decided she needed to come that early. I guess that's not really true either, as i guess my body decided she needed to come early or it was going to throw a tantrum. EITHER way, it was quite a surprise and we were slightly extremely unprepared. 

August 13th went a little like this: I woke up in the middle of the night with a horrible headache. This was the 3rd night in a row this had happened, and I wasn't a huge fan of it. Tyson had to leave for work at like 6am but he was up long before then being the sweetheart he is and rubbing his pregnant wife's shoulders. After he left, I took a shower and got ready for the day and sat on the couch staring at the clock. I was impatiently waiting for it to be 8 o'clock so I could call my doctor and see if I could get in to see her today on account of feeling like I had been run over by a train. 8 o'clock came but I found out that my doctor's office was closed that day (go figure) but the nice lady on the phone found me another doctor that my insurance would take so that I could get checked out and make sure everything was okay. I called that doctor, but unfortunately they couldn't get me in until around 2pm. 

Well, I'm not that patient, so I got to the doctor's office around noon. I only had to sit in the waiting room for about 45 minutes feeling like I was going to die before the doctor could see me. When they took my blood pressure, it was obnoxiously high ( I dont remember exactly what it was then but somewhere around 175/95- not good). I have never had high blood pressure in my life, even during this pregnancy so this really scared me. The doctor checked me and said I wasn't dilated or effaced  at all but I needed to head over to the hospital to get monitored. His parting words were "Who knows? You might even have this baby a little early."

I went out to my car and called Tyson at work to sob to him how I had to go to the hospital and I told him what the doctor had said (At this point I thought that by "early" the doctor still meant in a few weeks). I think my crying elevated my blood pressure even more though because I started kinda losing my mind. literally. It was terrifying. I couldn't figure out how to close the car door. But when I finally did, i still thought it was a good idea to drive myself to the hospital. Granted the hospital was only a few hundred feet away, but still! I somehow found the parking garage, but then my mind wouldn't tell me how to decipher where a parking spot was. I drove in circles and finally just decided to put the car in park. I walked up to the hospital but couldn't find the entrance...that I was standing right in front of. I called Tyson again totally freaked out. I guess I scared him enough for him to leave work and borrow his friend's car to come be with me to get "monitored" at the hospital. After walking aimlessly around the hospital, someone took pity on me and walked me up to the L&D unit. I got there, changed into a gown, and got strapped to a few machines. 

Tyson arrived shortly after that and was just in time for the doctor to come in and give me the news that I had developed preeclampsia and that it was pretty severe. She told me that I had 2 options, to try to induce me or to have a c-section. After telling me that, she said I was most likely "uninducable" and that actually wasn't really an option. Well great! C-section it was. They prepped me for surgery and Tyson called both of our parents to tell them what was going on. I then was praised when I vomited up my breakfast because apparently surgery isn't good to do when there is food in the stomach. Go figure.

They wheeled me in the operating room and gave me an epidural. Everyone in the operating room was really nonchalant about everything and were just carrying on normal conversations. I think this really helped me not freak out. Honestly though, I hadn't quite wrapped my head around the whole thing yet. Tyson came in wearing scrubs and they told us that we were going to be parents in less than 10 minutes. They started the procedure and Tyson decided that not only would he like to watch them cut into me, he would like to take pictures on my iPhone of the whole thing. Thanks honey?

At 4:10pm I hear my little girl scream and they lift her up over the blue sheet so I can see her. My little girl didn't seem very excited to us and I couldn't really see her with the the bright lights shining in my eyes and the who-knows-what dripping on my face. Then they whisked her and Tyson away and I just laid there getting stitched up and trying to comprehend everything that had just happened. I got wheeled into some recovery room where some very mean nurse stabbed me multiple times trying to get another iv in me and then starting me on some magnesium something-or-other that was supposed to protect my brain from having seizures. All it did was make me very loopy. and sleepy. and I don't remember much of the rest of that day/night. 

The next morning was very hazy too. I remember being given a picture of my little girl who didn't have a name. A picture. Well gee thanks! And then when I wanted a glass of water and maybe some breakfast, they reluctantly brought me some ice chips. Best ice chips ever. And then I slept and slept. 
Sometime that afternoon they asked if I wanted them to bring in my daughter...i really wonder if any mom has ever said no to this. Seemed like a dumb question to me. I was already jealous that Tyson got to go visit her in the nursery and feed her! I mean, come on!  This wasn't fair!.

My new baby and I stayed in the hospital for 4 days before we were released. This gave us time to finally settle on a name. We decided to name her Colbi Jean Marostica. We had referred to her as Colbi almost as soon as we had found out she was a girl but I'm not sure if either one of us really had planned on naming her that...After she was born, nothing seemed to fit her as perfectly as Colbi did, so it stayed. Her middle name Jean came from Tyson's sweet Grandma who passed away earlier this year.

Colbi was 4lbs 8 oz when she was born and 18 1/2 inches long. So tiny. But we were relieved to find out that she didn't have any problems. She is perfect :) She didn't even have to stay in the NICU. 

Although Colbi's birth didn't go as planned, I am so grateful for how smoothly everything went and that our precious little girl is healthy and strong.

These pictures of our sweet Colbi were taken when she was just a couple weeks old by one of my wonderful friends, Katelin Sabbah.

Baby Marostica

I suppose it is about time to announce our next adventure (as if you didn't know already)! Tyson and I are expecting a little GIRL in September! We couldn't be more thrilled :)


We are definitely still struggling with names though- who knew picking part of an individual's identity before we even meet them could be so hard? But we have about 10 weeks to figure it out so I'm not panicking just yet.

Farewell to Hawaii...

Hawaii will always hold a special place in our hearts because it is where Tyson and I both got our under-graduate education...not to mention where we met, fell in love, and started our little eternal family (and yes Pounder counts in that family)


Leaving the island was very bitter-sweet because it holds so many memories, yet we were ready to start our lives on the mainland and to tackle adventures outside of Laie.

Pounder!

If you haven't met Pounder yet, you are sorely missing out. Hes our 10 month old fur-baby with quite the personality. When we adopted him, he was about 10 lbs and seriously the cutest thing ever. Observe:

How can you not fall in love with that cute little face? Pounder was named after one of Tyson's favorite beaches that we lived near in Hawaii ( I was pulling for Kamehameha... but Pounder stuck). However, he has really started to fit his name as he has gained over 75lbs in the past 7 months! Yes, that means our little baby is a mere 85 pound beast.  A 'pounder' indeed.

I love looking at snapshots of our cute puppy! He has gotten so big and can be so stinkin naughty...but we can't help but love him. His favorite things to do recently are to play fetch in the creek outback with Tyson, protect the backyard from birds, squirrel, and deer, stomp in his kiddie pool, and eat fireflies out of the air.

And... of course he likes to create messes and dig up the flowers. Did I mention that we love him in spite of his puppiness?

Visitors in Hawaii

Living in Hawaii for 3 1/2 years had some perks.... one of which was that friends and family always wanted to come visit the island us! The pictures I took were few, (shocking I know) but they really hold some great memories.

My younger brother, Austin was able to come stay with us for about a week, and since Tyson was still on break from school, we had a lot of time to spend showing him around.

Of course we had to take him to Matsumotos  for some shave ice...with ice cream on the bottom.

Another day we spent the entire day beach-hopping so that Austin could see some of our favorite beaches,  and so that we could visit some that we hadn't gotten to try-out yet. Our friends, the Griffiths, went with us and it was just one of those perfect days. The boys body-surfed all day while Jenna and I hung out on the beach and chatted ( and ate fried banana!)

Here are the boys eating at one of the Kahuku shrimp trucks. 

Tyson, Austin, and Johnny also spent some time playing football in the sand.  It's amazing the lengths they will go to in order to catch that ball. Ha I mean, sand is soft-ish, but it will still give you a nice 'rug-burn' and diving into it will inevitably lead to a mouthful/eyeful of sand ;) It was sure fun to watch though.

I'm sad I don't have any pictures of New Year's that we celebrated while he was here. We went to Kawela Bay with some of our close friends to have a bonfire, BBQ, and watch the fireworks that Turtle Bay put on. It was such a nice way to bring in the new year, and it was a little extra special having Austin there with us.
Unfortunately, we also didn't get pictures of the hike and surfing trips that we dragged him on, but just take my word that they were eventful!

Another notable visit (that I have documentation of) was when my Mom and youngest brother and sister came to visit us when we were living in Punaluu. This was shortly before we left the island for good so it was a good time to visit :) The picture above is of Jillian and Ammon enjoying some sun and water.