Ryan & Valerie & Liam

Christmas and other things

2011-02-02T13:51:00.005-07:00

Can I just start by saying Christmas is so much more fun with a child. Even a 5 month old child. It really is! Liam got a couple darling ties for church (from http://peanutposh.com), clothing, reptile puppets, a sled and more clothes from his grandparents and great grandparents. We love it all!! I need to take a picture of Liam with his tie. It's 100% adorable. I can't wait until the day that Santa visits our house for Liam. That will be something!!

January has been cold, gray and COLD! Utah and the inversion that happens in the valley makes for ugly scenery this time of year. Thank heaven for my gym membership to keep me pumped and motivated. I love going there. AND...We were very fortunate to head to Snowmass CO to go skiing a couple weekends ago. It was one extremely awesome experience for me! Ryan's been many times but I never had. I love Snowmass. That resort is amazing. The upkeep of the runs and the vastness of the mountain is crazy sweet. I hope we get to back again next year. Liam did a fabulous job on the car ride. He slept for a majority of the time and it made the drive to and from so much less stressful than I thought it would be! Thanks sweet baby boy.

My birthday is coming up...February 15. I can't believe I am so near to the end of my 20's. So sad, but life has treated me so well so far. I can't complain.

Tis the season

2010-12-17T16:05:00.005-07:00

We went to New York City 2 weekends ago. That was Liam's first time on an airplane and he did a good job on the flight there and back. We stayed at the Embassy Suites in the Financial District and had a dazzling view of the Hudson and Statue of Liberty. We were across the street from Ground Zero too. It's a fabulous hotel for the Manhattan because there are 2 rooms and they are normal-sized Embassy Suites rooms not Manhattan-sized rooms and you get free breakfast. Unfortunately that will be our last stay there because Hilton is changing the hotel to a Conrad starting Jan 5. I am major bumbed. No more spacious rooms for Manhattan unless we miraculously can afford penthouse suites next time week go...(in my dreams)

It was bitter cold in NYC with temperatures around 37 and then an added windchill on top of that. So cold! All New Yorkers were dressed in their long black coats with scarves more for necessity than style. But the boots on the New Yorker ladies were fabulous! So many different boots to look at. And leggings too. The long coat with boots and leggings is a fashion trend in the winter in NYC . I love it! I also love that there are Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts on every street corner because I got my fix of Peppermint Hot Cocoa and Hazelnut Hot Cocoa while we were there. Toasty and Delicious.

While I've been to NYC over a dozen times this time was different. Walking and Subwaying through NYC with a stroller is a whole new experience. Ryan and I became experts at lifting the stroller up and down the stairs in the subway. One time we had to break down the stroller and pass it through the entrance gates because there wasn't an attendant at the station to open the handicap door! We just made it work.

Rockefeller Center was fabulous. The tree was gorgeous. 5th Avenue was the best street to walk down. All those ritzy shops with their Christmas displays were eye candy. My favorite windows were Bergdorf Goodman and my favorite building decor was Cartier. There were millions of people everywhere we went! So many people; Except for Central Park. We didn't run into many people there. NYU campus was fun to see. And the Washington Square Arch. We saw it at night but still a fun and different thing. I'd never been to the part of the city before.

Liam would eat in the coffee shops or restaurants then fall right back to sleep in his stroller as we pushed him around. It really was a good set up. I am grateful Liam decided to play it cool and just sleep. It gave us the chance to see stuff and not worry about Liam freezing. He was just warm and cozy all cuddled up in his stroller and hidden from the world.

We didn't get many pictures but here are a few:

We did it again!

2010-11-05T08:14:00.004-06:00

We went to another pumpkin patch on October 30. This time was with Ryan's family at the pumpkin patch in Santaquin...

Pumpkins, Family and a Duck!

2010-10-23T13:36:00.003-06:00

A couple Saturdays ago we went to Wheeler Farm with my whole family to take a hayride, go through a corn maze, pick a pumpkin and look at the animals! Liam was dressed as an adorable little Duck!

Daddy and Baby

2010-09-11T17:23:00.005-06:00

Today Daddy and Baby had a little play time. I documented with photos! Take a look...

Our sleeping little boy

2010-09-05T14:53:00.001-06:00

Liam loves changing his clothes

2010-08-28T16:49:00.001-06:00

Liam Photos by Azure B Photography

2010-08-25T16:20:00.005-06:00

My wonderful friend, Brienne, (http://www.azurebphotography.blogspot.com) took some darling photos of Liam last Thursday. Let me tell you doing a newborn photo shoot is a difficult thing! I kept telling my son on the way to the session that was going to be a newborn torture session. Obviously he had no clue what I was saying but I just wanted him to be prepared. We got to Brienne's and he was asleep then I took him inside and BAM! he woke up and despite our best attempts he never fell back to sleep during the 3 hours she took photos. Silly Liam! If he just would have slept it would be have quicker, not as messy, and maybe...just maybe the baby- hanging-in-the-scarf photo would have worked. :)

Here are some photos:

Our Baby is HERE!!

2010-08-15T16:37:00.007-06:00

Please welcome the newest addition to our family: Liam Ryan Lusvardi. Born at 4:50pm on Tuesday, August 3, 2010 weighing in at 9 lb 7 oz and measuring 21 inches long. He is a beautiful little boy!! I was induced at 8:30 in the morning and started pushing at 2:45pm. He had a bit of jaundice and so for 3 days we had to use a Bilibed at our home and he had to be in it 66% of the time. No fun! He also was a big boy so my milk wasn't enough for him at the start which made him have really low blood sugar. So the hospital nurses had to supplement with bottles. Good for his health bad for the nursing. But he has now recovered from all that and is doing SO SO SO wonderful. Now if we could just work on his sleeping habits during the night. He has this fussy time in the early morning hours that just drains his mom and dad. Granted he's only 12 days old so we'll get it figured out eventually. We just love him so much! Prepare to be overwhelmed with photos:

Just a few moments old. Look at that face!

Proud Daddy

New parents and their little baby boy!

With my wonderful doctor

Grandma Conover is all smiles with her first grandbaby

Close up

And now for the main feature lots of Liam photos:

My Carseat Canopy

2010-07-22T09:56:00.009-06:00

I promised I would show you pictures of this carseat canopy and here it is...finally! I finished this project last week, but I have been so tired that I haven't had any energy to share my crafting moment with you all. Being 38 weeks pregnant sure is difficult. :) Using several different blogs and I came up with my own very slightly varied version of how to put this thing together. Thank you to all you wonderful bloggers for giving me direction on how to do this!! Especially: http://just-because-i-am-me.blogspot.com/2010/02/car-seat-canopy-tutorial.html and http://www.sweetnsassygirls.com/2010/02/how-to-make-a-reversible-car-seat-covertentcanopy.html

For my carseat canopy I decided to make it 2 sided so I could use either side. I found these lovely materials at the quilt shop in Gardner Village. While these materials aren't the norm for a baby canopy, I fell in love with them and decided I didn't care if it was a bit unique. I think I measured the material 33x40...something to the effect. I can't remember very well with my pregnant brain. I rounded my corners using a big bowl and took the lower half in a little more so the material wouldn't touch the ground. I also decided I wanted to add ric rac to it as well. For my handles I measured them 2.5x8. I used velcro and to decorate the handles I found big brown buttons.

Side note: Ric rac while it is absolutely adorable will add time on to your project. I am a novice sewing person so it made it difficult for me but I knew the darling outcome would outweigh the length of time I added on to the project because of the ric rac.

Here are the pictures:

My maternity photo session!

2010-07-15T12:51:00.010-06:00

Correlating with the last post here are the photos of me that Brooke took! (http://brookeashleyphotography.com). Joy was kind enough to let me use her blue shirt hence the twinner look going on with me and her.

Second Shooter

2010-07-02T10:59:00.007-06:00

My wonderful friend, Brooke, is an amazing photographer. I talk about her talent quite a bit! (brookeashleyphotography.com) She is visiting from Las Vegas this week and took some maternity photos of me. She brought along another fellow pro photographer from Bloomington IN named Joy! (joyalicephotography.com) Well it just so happens that me, Brooke, and Joy are all pregnant with boys! So Brooke and Joy took pics of me and then Brooke took pics of Joy and I was able to be a second shooter and learn some more things from the pros. It was awesome! The photos they took of me are in the editing process right now but as soon as I get them I will post a couple for you to see. Here are a couple of my favorites of Joy's that I took:

Crazy with Crafts

2010-06-28T18:58:00.009-06:00

Hee hee! What a corny title, but totally true. And I'm still not done "crafting." Let's start from the beginning. I don't remember how the idea originated but I do know my mom had heard of making your own burp cloths from cloth diapers using scraps of fabric. I thought that sounded like a fun thing to do. So I immediately googled fancy burp cloths and POW! I received a gazillion results. After perusing through several, several pages I decided what I wanted to do. First thing I wanted to do was dye the burp cloths different colors. RIT is not the way to go apparently because it always bleeds no matter what. So my mom and I went with acrylic paint! The result of the dying was fabulous and super easy. The messy part came when we hung the dyed cloths out to dry. Here are some pictures (not of the messiness though):

Once they dried I took them home and dried them in the dryer to hold in the paint color. Then I washed them and dried them to make them soft for a little baby! My mom gave me lots of scraps of fabric and I went to town measuring, cutting, ironing, pinning and sewing the scraps on the newly colored burp cloths.

BTW yes that is my sewing machine! I got it 7 years ago as a wedding gift
and just pulled it out of the box last week!

I had a great time making them. I know what you're thinking...'but these are burp cloths for crying out loud! Why are you making them all fancy? ' I have an answer for that: because I WANT to. That's all. :) Now here is the final result of the burp cloths for your viewing pleasure:

Fun stuff huh?! Now the other crafting moment I had last week was making a baby receiving blankie! Again I went a little overboard because I added a little ruffle on the edges (and that added an extra 2 hours to the sewing project) but boy did it turn out darling! My mom totally helped me every step of the way on this blanket. I used that wonderfully soft minke material and a satin binding ribbon for the ruffle. Here is the result of that:

Stay tuned. My next crafting moment stars a car seat canopy - double sided with ric rac! Again, I see something fun and then I take it up 2 more notches to make it that more difficult!

Jell-O Brain

2010-06-20T18:37:00.003-06:00

This weekend was extremely relaxing. We hung out at the pool Friday and Saturday. We literally did like nothing this weekend. Today is now Sunday and we are hanging out in the house doing nothing again! We are starting to feel like our brains have turned to Jell-O. Here are some Ryan poses to show how a Jell-O Brain can occur.

Then here's a picture of me. 33 weeks and counting!

What will he look like?

2010-06-17T15:54:00.005-06:00

With only 7.5 weeks left to go I can't help but imagine what our little boy is going to like. I am getting so excited and so anxious to see his cute little face! So here's a picture of me and Ryan as little tikes...will he get my brown hair or Ryan's blond hair? Will he get my dark brown eyes or Ryan's green/blue eyes? It's so fun to think about!

Then here's the latest pregnant picture of me. This was taken 2 nights ago. I can't believe I am nearing the end. Baby stuff is all I can think about.

Kelsey's Graduation Photos

2010-06-11T13:18:00.003-06:00

9.5 weeks left!

2010-06-02T13:11:00.006-06:00

I haven't "blogged" in quite some time. I am 30.5 weeks pregnant and it's starting to uncomfortable again. When I say again I am referring to the first trimester. First trimester was uncomfortable for reasons like: nausea, very frequent potty breaks, bloating, headaches, and heightened sense of smell. Third trimester is uncomfortable for reasons like: big belly gets in the way of bending over, ankles have a tendency to swell if I am on my feet too long, always thirsty, severe backaches, can't sleep, and can't get comfortable sleeping.

With all that being said, I am so excited to welcome our little boy into our family. In the end it's all totally worth it. I love to feel him move around. It's such a surreal thing to feel a little fetus moving inside your womb.

This week is my last week of work. It is a bittersweet thing for me, but I have a greater calling that is around the corner and that is motherhood! I will be entering into unchartered territory and I am nervous but I have lots of sweet friends and family I can go to for questions and support. For that I am grateful.

Ryan and I have the Lil Be's room basically complete. The room is painted (no voc paint was used for the worrier in me), crib/bedding is set, glider is in place, and we have a dresser and even a small chairbed thing so I can sleep in the room with baby until I no longer feel paranoid to leave him alone. I hope others can relate to that!

Here are just a few pictures from the last several months:

At my sister's wedding on April 15

Me and Ryan at the SL Temple Grounds

16 weeks pregnant

30 weeks pregnant

Lil Be's Crib and Bedding

21 Weeks Pregnant and Counting

2010-03-29T11:49:00.004-06:00

My friend in Las Vegas, Brooke, took this photo of me over the weekend! Thanks Brooke!
www.brookeashleyphotography.com

Graceland

2009-11-05T15:18:00.001-07:00

Causey Reservoir

2009-07-13T14:41:00.002-06:00

Summer Is Here!

2009-07-01T13:27:00.000-06:00

Summer Time!

Just Thinking

2009-06-29T21:41:00.003-06:00

I can't believe Billy Mays died. I got to meet him while I was working in Boca Raton about 1.5 weeks ago. He was a very nice guy and asked me if he could buy me a Pinewood Float to drink. When I asked what that was he said it was water with a toothpick. Pretty funny! We had a good laugh. He had been filming his TV show "Pitchmen" in Boca Raton that day and was staying at the hotel I was staying at. His death goes along with my sister-in-law, Kristan Lusvardi's, death...Both Kristan and Billy are a reminder to me how fragile life is. Overall the month of June has been interesting but I have learned a lot and my testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Plan of Salvation has been strengthened with all that's happened.

Billy Mays!

2009-06-18T17:35:00.000-06:00

Invitation to view Valerie's Picasa Web Album - Kristan

2009-06-08T11:46:00.001-06:00

You are invited to view Valerie's photo album: Kristan

Kristan

Jun 8, 2009
by Valerie

View Album
Play slideshow

If you are having problems viewing this email, copy and paste the following into your browser:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=vclusvardi&target=ALBUM&id=5345003686483310465&authkey=Gv1sRgCLzJiJGClMXrswE&invite=CJW_ncIG&feat=email

To share your photos or receive notification when your friends share photos, get your own free Picasa Web Albums account.

Aloha

2009-05-28T17:24:00.009-06:00

We just got back from the most relaxing vacation ever! Where'd we go?? You guessed it: Hawaii. We 2 days in Oahu at the Ko Olina Marriott Vacation Club, thenwe were in Kauai on the North Shore at the a little blue house on the beach for 5 days, and finally we spent 2 days at the Westin Ka'anapali on Maui. It was absolutely, 100%, the most relaxing and wonderful trip on the face of this planet. Ryan and I snorkeled, hiked, swam, and soaked up the sun to our heart's content. We also ate a lot of ONO food too. We didn't get really fantastic photos because we were so lazy on this trip but I found a few for your viewing pleasure: Spouting Horn: a blow hole near Poipu on Kauai

Hiking the Kalalau Trail in Kauai (it goes along the Na Pali Coast)

Ryan on the Power Line hike in Kauai

Power Line hike with the Hanalei Valley in the background

On the horse at the Hyatt in Ka'anapali, Maui