Lincoln's First Ball Game

We've been pretty terrible at keeping you updated on here, especially since Lincoln was born. Who knew life got so busy after you have a kid?

But don't worry, I'm here to update you on the important things! Ya know, like Lincoln's first time at the ballpark! 

It's been well documented (mainly on Instagram) that Lincoln is a Rockies fanatic.

Here he is at three days old in his Rockies gear (he chose his outfit, I swear!) while watching the game on TV:

And here's a recent one from last week where he's even more intrigued by the game:

And we learned just a couple days ago that he'll lift his head higher and hold it there for longer during tummy time if the game is on TV and he wants to see it (sorry, we didn't have a camera handy for that one, but know that it was cute and funny).

Last night the Grand Junction Rockies, Rookie-level affiliate of our beloved Colorado Rockies, came to town to take on the Orem Owlz, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to take Lincoln to his very first baseball game.

We went a little early with a baseball and pen to try and get a few of the guys to sign. I figured it would be a fun souvenir for Lincoln later in life to say, "This was from your very first baseball game. All these Minor League Rockies signed it for you!" But of course at Brent Brown Ballpark the visiting bullpen is impossible to get close to, so I hung out by the dugout to try and snag at least one of the top prospects. And I succeeded! 

Lincoln's first autograph and first souvenir!

I had screen shots of the roster on my phone, and was looking at jersey numbers and cross-referencing my list, and I spotted Tyler Nevin hanging out in the dugout. Tyler was the Rockies third pick in the draft this year, and number 38 overall. He is also the son of former Major Leaguer Phil Nevin, and currently ranks as the number 24 prospect in the Rockies organization. I called out to him, tossed the ball and pen down into the dugout, and he signed it and tossed it back. Not a bad souvenir for little Lincoln!

While I was getting this signed, Lincoln was drinking from a bottle. And then napping. He woke up in about the second inning, and we moved from sitting down the left field line to sitting in the outfield where we could spread out more, stand up, take more pictures, look around, etc.

And Lincoln loved it! He absolutely loves being outside (yay!), and he seemed to enjoy the baseball too! 

Shortly after he woke up:

With Mom:

With Dad:

With all of us:

Wait. We didn't get one with all of us. Why didn't we get one with all of us?!?!

But look at how locked in he was:

Recognize that look? Same one he had as he watched the Colorado Rockies on TV! What a cute kid.

And the four and a half innings we lasted before his bedtime were pretty good, too. The Rockies pitcher, Dakota Behr, had a no-hitter going when we left. And lost it that inning, right after we were gone. I think we're good luck! The Rockies were winning 2-0 when it was time to go, and went on to win the game 8-2.

I also got a few good pictures from the game. Hopefully between the pictures, and the souvenir, this will be fun for Lincoln to look back on. His first baseball game! It was certainly a fun one for me.

Owlz manager explaining the ground rules.

Rockies LF Cole Anderson makes a diving catch in the first inning.

Dakota Behr finished with 5 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 0 R and the win.
When we left in the middle of the fifth, just one Owlz runner had reached (E5).

RF Sam Hilliard takes a swing, connects, and... Grounds out.

SAFE! 1B Collin Ferguson with the double.

And we were treated to a nice sunset over Brent Brown Ballpark.

Lincoln Timothy Smith

It all started Thursday night (June 4) at about 7:30 p.m. Actually it all started about nine months ago, but we'll skip that bit and fast forward to the part you care about. 

I had a couple softball games starting at 8 o'clock that night, but around 7:30 Shantel started to feel sick and have some cramps so she stayed home. I offered to stay with her but she insisted she was fine and that I should go to my games. I did, but kept checking my phone between innings to make sure she didn't need me. 

I got home shortly after 10, and Shantel still wasn't feeling great, and then at 10:40 pm she discovered what a real contraction feels like. It didn't seem fun. In spite of that, Shantel decided to try and get some sleep and we finally went to bed around 11:30. 

Orem Community Hospital is a very serene place at 1 a.m.

But that didn't last long. Shantel was awakened at 12:22 with more contractions. A few minutes later she went into the bathroom and at about 12:40 a.m. I woke up when I heard the bathroom door open, and Shantel told me that her contractions were about five minutes apart. For about 15 minutes we sat there trying to decide if we should go to the hospital yet because the contractions weren't lasting for a full minute and they hadn't been five minutes apart for an hour yet. But fortunately for us we got our answer at 12:56 when her water broke! We jumped up and grabbed everything we needed and were out the door in just a couple minutes!

We arrived at the hospital at about 1:10 a.m. And checked in while Shan dripped uncontrollably all over the floor (sorry, that's kind of gross, but it was also kind of funny). 

Anna was the initial nurse who helped us and checked the water break to be sure it was actually amniotic fluid that was leaking (which made us laugh because it was either that or Shantel needed to be re-potty trained which we were pretty confident wasn't the case). After that we got to our room and we were introduced to Corrina, the nurse who would be with us until 6 a.m. 

Room 117

Shantel was dilated to four centimeters and they said that since this was our first we could likely expect to dilate at a centimeter an hour (so six hours of dilating and contractions) and then one to three hours of pushing. Our doctor wasn't on call that night and wouldn't be there until about 7 a.m. which really was going to work out perfectly since we were told to expect to have the baby between 8 and 10 a.m. at that expected rate. 

Around 3 a.m. Shantel decided she was ready for an epidural as the contractions were getting more painful. Ryan, the epidural guy, came and stuck that giant needle in her back, but then about 30 minutes later the pain still hadn't gone down so he came back and gave her an extra dose, which did work, hallelujah! Those contractions did not look fun in the slightest. 

After all the tests and Shan getting hooked up to all the right monitors with all the right drugs, Corrina said she had some papers to fill out with us and things she had to go over. She told us that she would just go over one or two things on her list and finish the rest later so that we could get some sleep. She sat down and barely started when two other nurses rushed in. 

They could see the heart monitor placed over the baby and noticed it was no longer getting a reading, which means the baby had moved downward and was on his way out. That wasn't supposed to happen until at least 7:30 that morning, but here we were at about 4:25 and Shantel was fully dilated and our baby was getting ready to come out! And so we (and by "we" I mostly mean Shantel) braced ourselves for one to three hours of pushing. 

Shantel pushed with one contraction, and then with a second contraction a minute later the nurse (Anna) turned to me while I was holding Shantel's leg and said "There's your baby's head. Do you want to see it?" "I don't know, do I?" I decided to take a quick glance and got my first glimpse of our little baby!

Then Shantel pushed one more time with the next contraction, and apparently she's a natural at this because the nurses had to stop her before the baby came flying out without the doctor there to help. So everything paused for about five minutes while we waited for the doctor to get there, our baby's head halfway out already.

Dr. Wayne Young, the on call doctor that night, arrived and with one more push our little baby boy was born into the world. 

Lincoln Timothy Smith was born at 4:40 a.m. on June 5, 2015. He was 20.5 inches long and weighed 7 pounds 5 ounces.

The first family photo!

If only that wall wasn't in the way of my shot...

His first bed! Albeit a very temporary one.

Just hammin' it up for the camera.

So content to be with Mom!

And I think he looks even more like me now, at almost a month old.

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A few quick notes for the sake of memory:

It didn't take long to discover that he's a smart kid! Or a really hungry kid that learned quickly out of desperation. But probably both! Shantel fed him for the first time at 5:35 that morning and he latched on first try, which apparently doesn't always happen. He ate for about 30 minutes before burping and switching sides, where he once again latched on almost immediately.

As expected, Lincoln's weight dropped down to 7 pounds even by bed time. That weight was the same in the morning, and was down to 6 pounds 13 ounces when we left the hospital.

They had a nourishment closet for husbands that had an unlimited supply of chocolate milk, pudding, jello, popcorn, cereal, etc. It was awesome.

Denise was our nurse during that first day until Corrina came back for the night shift. (Those two were definitely our favorites from our time there, with Debbi a close third). Jana was very briefly assigned to us Saturday morning but quickly switched out due to an influx of patients (I only met her when she came to introduce the new nurse because I had been sleeping). Debbi was our nurse on Saturday during the day, and then Andrea was our final nurse that sent us off when we went home, including helping us get Lincoln in his carseat for the first time. We left the hospital at 8 p.m. on Saturday, June 6.

In his carseat and ready to go home!

It was a rainy day, but a perfect day!

Stories from Pregnancy

Pregnancy is a fun time, and we've each had our fair share of pregnancy brain moments (yeah, it affects expecting fathers too). I figured it would be enjoyable for our future posterity to read and enjoy some of the things that happened during those nine months. I've forgotten some of the funny stories I'm sure, and some of these won't be hysterically hilarious, but hopefully will provide at least a little entertainment.

The Cravings

Honestly, Shanny's cravings weren't too wild. She suddenly liked pudding, and there was a stretch where she was constantly dying for corn nuts, but it hasn't been anything too wild like "I NEED BRUSSELS SPROUTS WITH GRAPE JELLY RIGHT NOW!" She usually would just crave something, like Thai food, and would keep craving it for weeks until we could get to that Thai restaurant. 

But the best cravings moment came pretty early on in the pregnancy. We were sitting on the couch one day when suddenly she turned to me, smelled me, and then declared that I smelled like this particular Chinese restaurant in South Jordan. I had never been there, I definitely didn't smell like Chinese food, but suddenly she could smell that place and wanted a number three with five extra egg rolls (her family's standard order). That place was about 40 minutes away, so we didn't make it that night, but the craving didn't subside until Keith, bless his heart, went up there to get dinner for his family and brought us some as well.

My second favorite cravings moment came probably around the six month mark of the pregnancy. We had eaten a pretty big pasta dinner around 6:30 or 7 o'clock. Then at about 8 we're watching TV and Shantel sees some pancakes on the screen and instantly wants some. So after our show ended she made herself waffles. After a pasta dinner. At 8 o'clock. But she had to have waffles right that second.

She also developed a cookie addiction for pretty much the entire pregnancy, to the point where I actually had to hide all the unopened packages of EL Fudge (we bought several when they were on sale). But don't worry: she also ate lots of pears, oranges, apples, and even some asparagus.

Snacks

While we're on the subject of food, I want to point out the second greatest benefit of pregnancy - the first being the child that comes at the end, of course. But the second greatest benefit? SNACKS. 

I love it! We go to church, and I always get hungry halfway in, but if I pull out an apple in the middle of Sunday School people look at me like, "Seriously, dude? In church?" But if my pregnant wife pulls out some snacks and then shares with me, there's no judgement! It's wonderful!

An Open Letter to Lauren

This letter is to Lauren, who ruined one night of sleep about four months into the pregnancy.

Dear Lauren,

If you don't want to give your number to the drunk guy at the club, don't. But please don't give him my wife's number. He'll call at 2 a.m. and he won't stop calling until she answers. 

Shantel handled it well though: "This isn't Lauren. This is a pregnant lady sleeping!" Even that drunk guy realized he had made a big mistake. He never called again. 

Of Moab and Missed Exits

This one is entirely on me.

We made it, and it was beautiful!

I had the idea that we should take one last little vacation before the baby came, so at about seven and a half months we decided to take a trip to Moab. Neither of us have ever driven there, so we used Google Maps and went on our way on a Friday evening after work. From our research we figured it would take about two and a half hours to get there. I looked at the directions and interpreted them to say "Take I-15 to I-70 and then you're there." But two hours into our drive we realized that they were actually saying, in the most confusing language possible, "Take I-15 to US-6 to I-70." The exit to get on US-6 is about five minutes away from our house, but it took us two hours to realize that. So about four and a half hours later we arrived at our Motel 6 in Green River and ended up with one of the best night's sleeps you could ever have! (Seriously.) Probably because we were exhausted from all the extra driving and arriving at 11 p.m. instead of 9 p.m.

Oops!

But Arches National Park was BEAUTIFUL and we had an incredible little vacation in spite of my somewhat large blunder.

The drive home took just two and a half hours.

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So there you have it, a few of the funny moments from our pregnancy with Lincoln.

We're Having a Baby!

As I'm sure you know by now, Shantel and I are having a baby boy in June! This is the story of how everyone found out about it.

Naturally, it started with Shantel. I knew she was "late" but it turns out I wasn't aware how late. She took a pregnancy test (Sep 29, 2014) and found out we were having a baby! Of course, she couldn't wait to tell me, and she had been prepared for this moment for a while and already had a plan in place. 

She quickly and secretly change into her Colorado Rockies Carlos Gonzalez t-shirt and went into our back room. I had no idea what she was doing, and she gave me no reason to be suspicious. But she came out of the back room with a gift bag in hand. 

Now I was really confused, and slightly concerned. Had I forgotten one of the many gift giving holidays? Was I supposed to have gotten her something as well? Going forward did I need to be more prepared with gifts on hand like Ricky Ricardo? (If you don't know what I'm referring to, it's worth watching the first few minutes of this I Love Lucy episode, until there's about 20 minutes left)

She sat down on the couch next to me and I opened my gift. It was my Todd Helton Rockies shirt. Thanks, love! Just what I always wanted! A shirt taken from my personal collection!

Then she informed me that there was more. So I dug down deeper into the bag and pulled this out:

I was floored. I turned to her and asked "Really?"  She emphatically nodded her head in the affirmative. I began to cry. Who knew a little onesie could make me cry? But these were happy tears. I was so excited that we were going to have a baby! 

And the tears didn't stop there. I've cried many times since then. Basically anytime I think about our baby I start to tear up. I'm tearing up a little as I write this. I cried when we had our first ultrasound and saw our little baby for the first time. Thankfully the room was dark and I wiped away the tears before the nurse could make fun of me. Shantel knew. And she makes fun of me. But early on in this pregnancy especially, I've just been weepy and emotional with all the excitement!

But enough with my emotions, back to announcing it to everybody...

Ashley, Shantel's sister, had already had two babies in this area, and they were on their third, so we wanted their advice on doctors and just about everything else, and we decided to tell everyone early so that we could choose a doctor with their help. 

So we devised a plan, and here's what happened (which of course are two different things)...

Shantel's family was heading up to the family cabin for General Conference weekend. We decided this would be a good opportunity to tell them all as most of the family would be there, with the exception of Keith, Ashley, and their two boys who we knew we wouldn't convince to come, so we figured we'd just tell them on our way home or something. And we still didn't have an actual plan of how we were going to tell everyone. 

You see, the whole thing was so last second that we didn't have any idea how to make this announcement. Shantel's mom asked us to bring carrots, so really our plan consisted of handing them baby carrots instead of full carrots and seeing what happened from there. Thankfully, that isn't what happened. I'm not sure that's what we actually would have done, but it's pretty much the best we had come up with. And that would have been kind of lame. 

Sometime between devising this half-baked plan and our departure we learned that Bri and Derek probably weren't coming either. They were helping Bri's boss move their hair salon to a new location. So we stopped by to see if we could convince them to come, and then if not, to give them the exciting news. We stood there and talked to them for quite a while, and couldn't quite figure out if they were going to join us at the cabin or if we should just tell them right then. Long story short, they decided to come, so we kept our secret a little longer. And let it be noted that we carpooled for the two hour drive. That will be important later in the story, and not just because we couldn't continue planning how to make our announcement because we were no longer alone. 

We arrived just in time for the priesthood session of conference, so Shantel and Brianne dropped Derek and myself off at the church and headed up to the cabin. I, of course, made sure Shantel wasn't going to tell anybody anything exciting without me. She didn't even have a chance though - not that she would have - because there was some extended family there that night and we were telling immediate family only at this point. So, lucky for us, we had an additional night to prepare. 

We had a lot of fun that night, especially our game of Capture the Flag in the freezing cold that had a surprise ending which is still classified. I can't reveal any more details than that, but know that it was fun.

In the morning (Oct 5, 2014), with extended family gone, we put our new plan in motion. We had come prepared with our Rockies shirts and onesies, a clothesline, and clothes pins so that we could take pictures in preparation for future announcements of this baby. We decided to use those for a more exciting announcement than baby carrots. 

Shantel kept everyone distracted inside while I strung the clothesline, with Rockies attire for three, between two trees just outside the cabin's kitchen window. We figured once everyone finished their breakfast and cleaned up their dishes someone would look out the window and see the clothes, get excited, and then everyone would find out in that moment. 

Boy were we wrong. It didn't happen like that at all!

Before anyone noticed, we realized that Braxten's friend Landon was there. He's so much a part of the family it didn't even dawn on us that he wasn't actually related. But we decided to go ahead with it anyway, we'd just swear him to secrecy like everyone else. 

People cleaned up their dishes and nobody seemed to even glance out the window. Derek stepped outside for a minute but then when he came back in he had his back to the clothesline, pointed at something the other direction, and didn't say a word about our announcement. We were starting to wonder if anyone would notice. 

Then a few minutes later Bri and Derek came and found us and Bri got all excited and hugged Shantel and congratulated us. Here's what happened:

Brianne and Derek needed a place to watch the BYU football game the Friday night before. We were going to that game, but let them go to our house and watch it. Shantel also gave them the password to our computer, forgetting that we had windows open with baby stuff clearly visible. So they already knew and hadn't said anything! They kept it a secret during our whole conversation seeing if they were going to come to the cabin, the entire time they were trapped in the car with us on the drive to the cabin, and overnight until Derek saw our announcement and went and grabbed Brianne. I don't know how they never said anything to us before then, especially during the long drive up! I probably would have called them the minute I saw it if roles were reversed. But even though they knew, they still were keeping it a secret until someone else looked outside. 

The Sunday morning session of General Conference started, and we were all gathered around the TV to watch, with exception of the boys who were loading up the truck so they could get back for the afternoon. Next thing we know, Jaren comes through the door with a curious smile on his face, comes and sits next to us and asks, "Is this some sort of sick joke?" We just started laughing, and we talked in vague terms so nobody had any idea what was going on. Apparently Landon -- of course it was him that saw first, right? -- saw it and called out to Jaren, "Uh... Jaren, come over here!"

And with that, Landon, Jaren, and Braxten all knew. But that little coded conversation sparked some curiosity in Kortlyn and Tiara. They eventually found their way over to the window and saw the clothesline, but Tiara would absolutely not believe it! She kept saying "I'm not falling for this again." Apparently some of Shantel's other siblings have tricked her, because we sure haven't tried to trick anyone into believing we're having a baby! Kortlyn didn't say much of anything, but Tiara was continually insisted - for about 15 straight minutes - that we were trying to trick her and she was not going to fall for it. Eventually, we convinced her to go find Shantel's phone and look through the pictures so that she could see the one of the pregnancy test. She did, and was finally convinced!

Somewhere around this time Jaren came back in and told us one end of the clothesline had fallen, but Braxten was going to tie it back up. I hadn't tied too strong of a knot, just a basic slip knot, because I didn't think it would need to withstand the wind for over three hours. I thought it would take about 15 minutes, tops! But fortunately the boys caught it and fixed it before it ruined everyone else's opportunities to discover it.

It was getting really fun seeing everyone's reactions individually, and there were three left to go! Shantel's oldest sister (Kleresa), mom, and dad still had no idea, and we were on the edge of our seats every time one of them ventured near the window.

Jeff, Shantel's dad, was next to look out the window. He stared for a while. He looked up, down, left, right, straight ahead, every single direction. We knew he saw it. It looked like he had stared directly at it. There was literally no way he hadn't seen it. But he turned around, expressionless, and didn't say a word. Everyone died with laughter as he remained silent and made no acknowledgement of the display outside the cabin window.

Eventually, after the morning session of conference was all over (and please, forgive us for being such a distraction during that session! We really thought everyone would see it as soon as breakfast was over!) Kleresa and Natalie finally wandered over to the window. Kleresa saw it and quickly realized that only Natalie was left so Kleresa helped prompt Natalie to look out the window. It took a lot of convincing but she finally looked out the window, saw the clothesline, and proclaimed, "Whose crap is that?!" This coming from the woman who had raised her daughters to always be lady-like in speech and action! We were all so shocked by that reaction we about died with laughter. It was one of the funniest things I think any of us had ever heard or seen. 

So now everyone that went to the cabin knew and could openly congratulate us! We got the pictures we wanted to take, and it was all a lot of fun.

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We were supposed to have dinner with Keith and Ashley that Sunday night but had initially cancelled on them when we decided to go to the cabin. But since everyone was leaving earlier than we anticipated we asked them if we could still come over. They kindly obliged.

We didn't really have an exciting plan for telling them, but we decided that Keith would probably make some wisecracks about how we needed to have a baby, and he didn't disappoint! So we slipped it in and now everyone on Shantel's side knew. 

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Now we just had to tell my family, but for that we did have a good plan! We (and by we I really mean Shantel) took one of the pictures we had taken at the cabin and created this postcard to send to my parents:

Cute, right? (And yes, I can say "cute." I'm going to be a dad!)

So we sent that postcard to them early in the week and waited as it made its way across the country to my parents' mailbox. It made it there on a Friday (October 10) and my parents both texted us while we were at work and then we called on our way home.

We still needed to tell my sister, though. We decided to wait and try and tell her until we could have her over for dinner. Of course, when you invite someone over for dinner that you haven't invited over for dinner before it might raise some suspicions, so it wasn't the ultrasound on the fridge that clued her in, it was just the invitation. That and her overdeveloped baby radar. She can see a baby is coming from miles (or months) away!

So now everyone in our immediate families (and Landon) knew, and of course we were all very excited!

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Of course, there's also the story of how we found out we were having a boy. To be honest, it was a bit of a surprise! We both wanted a boy first - me because I'm convinced boys will be easier, and Shantel because she wants a protective big brother for his future siblings - but we both thought it would be a girl. The night Shantel told me we were having a baby I had a dream about our baby girl, and ever since then I was convinced we were having a girl. Shan was on board, as well, as her instinct was telling her girl as well.

When we went in for the ultrasound (Jan 12, 2015) the technician got everything ready, then started the ultrasound and immediately said "Well there's your boy! 100 percent!" Apparently our little boy isn't the least bit shy! The technician told us that she was going to let suspense build a little bit before she told us, but little baby Smith was ready to reveal himself!

Later that day Shantel had a major realization: "No wonder I'm so hungry all the time! It's a boy!"

We couldn't be more excited for our first child, a little baby boy due on June 2, 2015!