babies in Utah

Utah has the highest birth rate in the nation, at about 21 babies born per 1000 people. We will soon do our part to keep Utah's birth rate high. It is funny to me how noticeable it is as well. We went to an arts festival in Logan recently (we got Olsen's name drawn in leather brush art to hang in his room), and I had never seen so many pregnant ladies and small children in one space before.

I think there are some advantages of living in a town where lots of babies are born. The Women and Newborn Center in the hospital is very nice, and the labor and delivery rooms don't even really look like hospital rooms, with their wood floors and flat panel tvs and even a futon that folds out for the dad. However, I don't really have anything to compare it to, so perhaps all labor and delivery rooms are nice these days. Although in the documentary, The Business of Being Born, they showed some hospital L,D,R rooms that looked quite dreary. I thought the documentary was very interesting and emphasized the importance of knowing what you want in labor and also being able to know what is best for the baby under different circumstances.

We have about a month left! We almost have everything I think we will absolutely need, plus things we probably don't need as much. (We have a plethora of clothes that were given to us by various people who had baby boys not too long ago.) We still have to finish decorating his room and making some improvements to the house (like ceiling fans!). We are also trying to do a little landscaping in our front yard with some native, drought-tolerant vegetation. Plus, I need to get a lot more research done before the baby comes, yikes...

peacocks!

I haven't blogged in awhile, which is kind of a shame, because I had wanted to chronicle my summer for my own remembrance. We've had a pretty good summer so far. We took a short trip to Texas to see our families and I got to see Mariann and her new daughter, Raley. Then we went to Missoula, Glacier NP, Yellowstone NP, and Grand Tetons NP - a trip that I really enjoyed. Lately, we mostly have been enjoying summer in Logan and working on our yard, house, and the baby's room. It's my goal to try and finish the baby's room by the end of next weekend. But today, I decided to blog because after we got back from our walk, we saw two peacocks on our porch. As we approached the house, the peacocks took short flights until they were on our roof. We watched them for awhile until they flew to our neighbors' roof. We're not sure where they came from, but they made me laugh.