Auntie Sarah

We are lucky that Auntie Sarah lives only a few freeway exits away from us. She was Jane's first and only visitor in the hospital and has helped me out many evenings by holding the sleeping little one so that I could do some things like write thank-you notes and get a few things done around the house. Jane LOVES to be held while she is sleeping and so it seems fitting that is what she is doing in both these photos.

What I love about the photo below is that you can see that Jane loves to have her hands free and put them in weird positions while she sleeps, like in little fists in the air or by her face. Luckily, she hasn't scratched her face too much yet.

We were sad when she had to be away for a week while she got over a cold but it was great that she got better before my parents came. And we thank Sarah in advance for the baby sitting that she has already offered to do :-)

We so miss Auntie Cynthia and cannot wait until they can meet (exact date TBD)!

Visit from Nana and Grampy Stults

My parents came out to visit. My mom was scheduled to come out on the 8th, my due date, and my dad on the 10th so I had initially thought that with my luck, since they already had their plane tickets, Jane would possibly arrive after they left on the 14th. Fortunately, Jane came well before their arrival. This is the first grandbaby for my parents and so they were over-the-moon in love with her even before she came and she is totally their princess now.

Both my mom and dad were hoping for a girl- my mom in particular said that she was happy it was a girl so she could buy things because if it was a boy, she wouldn't have bought anything :-) - and my dad loves little baby girls, especially having 3 of them. I loved that my mom decided how we should refer to them in their new roles even before Jane was born- she would be called "Nana" and my dad would be called "Grampy" (or "Grumpy" depending on his mood she joked).

And Nana has been spoiling her rotten already. Once my mom found out it was a girl, she started buying items for her like cute little sparkly sandals to blankets to tutu skirts to ballet slipper socks. And we haven't even seen what Jane's Christmas presents are yet :-) And then, some of the kind members from back home also sent baby Jane some gifts. She is one lucky girl.

I am happy that Jane was good for Nana and Grampy while they were here. She was then difficult for us during the night but I would take that any day to have her in a good mood for other people. We made some trips to Target, Ikea, Round Table Pizza lunch buffet, Los Gatos for Opa and Icing on the Cake, but most of the time was spent at our apartment feeding, playing with, and holding a sleeping Jane.

My mom perfected the art of calming Jane with what she calls the "newborn shuffle"- she even sang a little song while doing the bouncing movements around the room. My mom also found that Jane likes the first 3 verses to "I am a Child of God" but not the 4th verse (she immediately started crying and stopped when my mom stopped singing).

I love this picture of Nana and Jane looking at each other and having a bonding moment.

Sadly, Jane was not in the mood for a photo shoot with Nana- we took about 10 different photos and this was the best one of Jane (which leaves a lot to be desired)

Grampy was so worried about little Jane being in the NICU that he repeatedly called us for updates as to her condition, even when he was still at work. He loved looking at her, even while in the car seat sleeping, on the first day but he refused to hold her because he was taken aback by how tiny she was (my sisters and I were all at least 8 pounds) and he was afraid to break her. I told him that if she had survived several weeks with William and myself then he would be fine, but it wasn't until William just plopped her into Grampy's arms that he finally was ok with it. Here is a photo of that moment- and Jane actually cooperated this time.

And then he was fine, holding her and doing a special running/bouncing movement that I should have gotten on camera- it was priceless.

He also loved to hold her while she was sleeping, though he would give her to me or my mom when she started to fuss.

Now that I am a parent, I have an even deeper gratitude for my mom and dad as I realize just how much they love me through the continual sacrifices they made on my behalf throughout my life. I also now know how much they worry about me and only want my happiness.

We look forward to more time spent with Nana and Grampy!

First Restaurant Trip- Buca di Beppo

Jane's first outing to a sit down restaurant happened last Saturday when my mom and dad- Nana and Grampy Stults- were in town visiting. My dad had his birthday earlier in the week so we went out to eat at one of his favorite places, Buca di Beppo, and Jane was a champ! She stayed asleep the ENTIRE time- even during most of the restaurant singing happy birthday to my dad.

Nana and Grampy were pleased with how well Jane did as I was never so good at restaurants when I was that age.

The family shot- it totally looks like Jane isn't even here because she is hiding behind William.

Here's another shot with "proof" of her being there- you can see the car seat on the right of William. So this is one of the first pictures of our little family- though you can't even technically see Jane.

Grampy before attempting to blow out the candles (don't ask whether or not it happened on this attempt :-)

And the deluxe brownie sundae- which was huge but of course we were able to finish it.

My dad's first birthday as a grandpa and I am happy that he was able to celebrate it with his first grandchild.

She's Cutest When . . .

. . . She's Sleeping, is a phrase that we have repeated many times over the few weeks since her birth. And we have a plethora of photographic evidence to prove that claim- and these are in order of her birth age. William likes to say, "she's cute when she's quiet and I'll probably be saying that for the next 20 years".

This is one of my all time favorites- she is already learning how to pray (and it is a good shot of all of her hair- we think it is strawberry blonde)

Such a little Angel

We have included LOTS of photos of the baby because we know that is what everyone is most excited to see now :-)

Daddy's Girl

In the 3 weeks since she was born, it is obvious to me that she has captured the heart of her daddy. I love William even more after these past few weeks because he truly has been the best dad and an even bigger help than I had imagined.

At 3 am on Black Friday, he braved the crowds at Wal Mart to get all of the miscellaneous items that we still had not gotten (aka crib sheets, baby bath tub, and a whole slew of other stuff) and he came back with some adorable onesies that fit her (she was much smaller than many of the "newborn" items we did have).

Many thanks to Google for the generous paternity leave as he was able to stay home and help out during the first week after her birth. It was so nice to have someone else to hand her off to feed her or rock her to sleep as we struggled to adjust to our new roles and responsibilities as parents. He is the best at playing with her when she is awake. He does tummy time in the air, throws her up and down (which generally calms her down), does leg and arms strengthening exercises, and just has so many interesting things to entertain her (much more than mommy).

He has also taken care of her at night or in the morning so that mommy can get some more much needed sleep. He also makes sure that mommy gets enough to eat and drink and asks me multiple times a day what he can do to help me out. I am more in love with him than ever and wonder how I got so lucky to be married to an amazing and incredible guy like him. And Jane is super lucky to have him as her daddy.

Here is an assortment of photos of daddy and his little girl

And William will be ensuring that she know how to do at least basic computer programming :-)

Jane's First Thanksgiving

It was so incredible that two days after her birth, we were able to bring her home on Thanksgiving day. This meant though that we did not have a very spectacular meal but at least it was out of the hospital :-) Auntie Sarah joined us as well and we dined on some pumpkin ravioli from Costco which was delicious but the wild mushroom risotto that we had gotten there was super disgusting. Definitely not the ideal type of Thanksgiving for Jane's first but definitely a funny adventure and one story that we will love to tell her about. We weren't even supposed to have her here yet so it was a very meaning filled day of gratitude to have her here.

This is the first photo of myself and Jane together- please excuse just how terrible I look

And I was able to do one handed eating even on day 1 because I just wanted to keep her near us. We promise that next year will be better food wise!

Jane's Hospital Stay

Jane spent her entire time of our two day stay at the hospital at the NICU. I saw her at about 12:30 am on Wed. Nov. 23rd and by then, she had out all of the tubes and I got to give her some of the pumped breast milk. It was so nice that she only had an iv for antibiotics and then a heart monitor by that time so I'm so glad that I don't have the "live" memory of her on the respirator- the photo was traumatic enough for me. That was the first time I cried following her birth was when I saw that photo. Only two people could be visiting her at a time so it was either William and myself or my sister Sarah. BTW- there are zero photos of me with Jane at the hospital and I'm ok with that as most of the time I was with her I was trying to breast feed her (which was a different set of struggles). She was primarily fed formula while in the NICU and so she is still great at taking a bottle now :-)

Daddy feeding her

Auntie Sarah holding her


The super cute sleeping baby



The beautiful flowers from Auntie Sarah and Nana and Grampy Stults that lasted for two weeks

The NICU is an interesting place- this was my first experience with it and I feel that the staff took great personal care of Jane and were so helpful. But, at the same time, it is a painful place to see all of these little babies, many of whom are struggling for their lives. Especially on Thanksgiving day, it was heartbreaking to see the little baby girl next to us end up not being released and her parents walking out disappointed as they had even brought in the infant car seat. I think that it would be so hard to leave the hospital without her baby, yet many of these parents do it for weeks or months on end.

I was beyond touched by the selfless acts of charity provided to these infants. Jane received a hand knitted pink/ivory cap and an ivory blanket that she was able to take home. And then, another parent made a special Thanksgiving gift for each child in the NICU because her two boys spent months there and she was only able to take one home with her. I totally cried when reading the story about these boys and was so moved that someone would take the time to bring some happiness into the lives of other NICU kids and parents. Many thanks to the kind founders of Pirate Power for doing such a kind act.

The adorable turkey cup

and Thanksgiving bib

We are so thankful that we got to take our little baby girl home and celebrate our first Thanksgiving together as a family at home.

Jane's Birth Story

WARNING- this post will go into detail (though not too much :-) about the process as well as have a difficult image of little Jane from the NICU. Just wanted to alert you to this sensitive information

On Monday night, November 21st, after I got home from work, I was just feeling a little off- different from how I had been for the rest of my pregnancy. I decided that I should finally watch the birthing and medication videos that my OB/GYN had recommended just in case. Overall though, I felt fine and we went about our night in the typical way.

I woke up the next morning, November 22nd, at 6 am (my usual time) and I was going to go out on my 30 minute morning walk. I was having some contractions and so I decided to skip it today and just stay in bed. When William woke up at 7 am, I told him that I was having some contractions and we started to time them and they actually were 5 minutes apart and so he decided that he would not go up to San Francisco but instead work from Mountain View. So, today my co-workers had organized a special party for me to celebrate the upcoming arrival and I know just how much planning and effort goes into these and so I felt bad just completely canceling at the last minute so I actually went into work. Yup, I showered, did my hair, and got dressed in my pregnancy work clothes.

I got into work at about 9:15 for the 9:30 am party and I told everyone that I had some contractions this morning. They had said "wow" and we talked about when my family was coming and about how I thought that I would be "late" in giving birth since everyone- even random cashiers at Target- told me that I would probably be over due. I had a few grapes- the only thing that I had eaten that day- at the party and they also took the last photo of me in my pregnant glory with my co-workers. Everyone was so nice- my boss bought me a box of See's chocolates and my co-worker Caroline gave me a pretty purple orchid- and then afterwards, I went back to my desk to take care of a few things. My co-worker and other qualitative researcher Mary, who is a mother of two grown children, then came up to me and said that I looked like I was in pain, as the contractions had kicked up a little bit following the party. She asked if I could talk through them and I said yes, but she, Caroline, and even my boss Ming, all came over to me and told me to just go home. I picked up some baby items from another co-worker who gave me her old swing, bouncer, and Snugli and then went home.

The contractions started getting more and more painful but I had heard that first time labor can take days to progress so I thought that I had time. The contractions got even closer and more painful that even the recommended positions weren't working and so I called William and told him to come home and that we needed to go to the hospital. The Kaiser hospital is only about 20 minutes away but I had several painful contractions on the way there that I had to grab the arm handle above the window. I was afraid that I might get sent home but literally as we got out of the car and started walking into the hospital, my water broke at 12:15 pm. I mean it wasn't a trickle but a huge gush. Fortunately, I had my black work pants on so you couldn't really see it but I was just thrilled that they would not be able to send me home- that I was actually in labor. Having contractions while walking into the hospital was not pleasant- fortunately, I had William, to hold onto.

As we checked in to Labor and Delivery, the immediately took us back to a room and as kind of an ominous foreshadowing, as we walked there we heard the guttural scream of a woman in the throngs of the birthing process. When we got into the first room, they checked me to make sure that it was amniotic fluid that had broken (yes) and that I was only 4 cm dilated. I found that lying on my side and gripping William's hand was the only way to get through the contractions. I said that I wanted an epidural ASAP and so in the mean time, they gave me an IV dose of pain medicine which did help to take some of the edge off.

They then transferred me into a birthing room where they told me that there was a line for epidurals- it was a busy birthing day- and that the anesthesiologist would be with me as soon as possible. The drugs had worn off and I was in a lot of pain. We then called my mom and had her call the rest of my family and William called his parents and had them notify the rest of the family as the contractions were getting closer together and much more intense. Finally, the anesthesiologist came in and was able to administer the epidural. I had a brief involuntary jerk reflex in my leg that scared William as I wasn't supposed to move but things were ok. I started to feel some relief, meaning that the edge was taken off and the left side of my body started going numb, but my left side never did. Only a few minutes after the epidural, I felt the need to push. I told the nurse this and she said that they would check me again and this time, I was dilated to 9 1/2! She started getting me into preparation mode for pushing and labor. Now, pushing was difficult for my as my right leg was not numb and so it kept shaking uncontrollably due to the pain and so I felt like it was impeding my ability to push. They asked for the anesthesiologist to come back to give me some more medicine, but she didn't make it in time.

The nurse kept telling me to push, push and finally she then says- "Stop- don't push anymore- we need to get the doctor" which is really hard to do when your body is telling you that it wants this baby out. The resident and attending came in and got gowned and then the pushing began. I honestly have no idea how long it was but finally, I gave a big guttural scream and then she was out- I didn't see it but according to William, she literally shot out like a cannon and the doctor nearly fumbled her due to the speed and how slippery she was.

They immediately put her on my chest and I knew that something was wrong because although she was wide awake, she wasn't crying. She was on my chest for a minute or two before they took her away to be weighed and looked at. A pediatrician later came in and examined her and said that she was having some some breathing problems and so they were taking her to the NICU. I sent William to be with her as the resident and attending spent the next HOUR stitching me back up (the not so fun part of a super quick delivery).

I fortunately did not see her while she had the breathing tubes and respirator in- the photo that William brought back to me broke my heart.
Fortunately, she only had to be on the respirator for about 5 hours. William said that when they were putting it is, she didn't like it and so she kept ripping out the nasal tubes and just struggling.

My overall experience of the birthing process was that it was even more painful than I had imagined- at least I had some drugs in my system to take the edge off. Props to all of those women who do it naturally as it is really painful. Also, props to all of those women who are in labor for DAYS- my shorter one was bad enough that I can't even imagine just how exhausted you might be after all that time. I also never got mad at William- he truly was such a great help and strength through it all. I don't know what I would have done without him there and I am grateful that my contractions started early enough in the morning that he stayed in Mountain View instead of going up to the city. I truly am even more in love with him after this process.

Announcing the Arrival of Jane Katherine Kunz

It has been way too long since I have posted but things will definitely be more regular now that our baby girl is now here.

Jane Katherine Kunz was born on Tuesday November 22, 2011 at 4:45 pm weighing 6 lbs 11 oz. She was able to make it home for a later Thanksgiving dinner, something that both of her parents are most grateful for.

Her official due date was supposed to be on December 8th so she was early at 37 weeks and 5 days (though theoretically "term" although the due date is such an imperfect science) so we were really not prepared for her to get here so early. My mother was over her due date for all 3 girls and had to be induced, as well as several of my friends who recently had babies locally (3 in total) were all over their due dates as well so I just assumed that would be the case. Also, my parents bought tickets out to come and visit for Dec. 8-14th and so I thought that with our luck, she would be born the day that they left. Someone asked William while he was at church today what I did to get her here so quickly and my response would be that I planned to work up until December 2nd so we were just not fully ready for her to arrive.

Locks of Love

For most of my life, I have had long hair. Boston was the first time that I was "adventurous" and cut it, with much coaxing from my friends Jamie and Sarah, to shoulder length, which at the time was a big deal.

We did a wedding slide show and William saw some pictures of me with long hair and commented how much he liked it and so I decided to grow it out again. William had been teasing me before we were pregnant that it seems that most women chop off all of their hair before having a baby and of course I said it wasn't going to be me. But, after a few months of not liking my long hair at all (it doesn't curl as well as my friend Inger's and so I could really only do it straight which was getting boring), I decided to donate my hair to Locks of Love. This was my first time donating to the organization and my sister Sarah has done it several times before so I decided that I would do it with her this time.

What is amazing was that I was able to get a FREE haircut. I cannot begin to say enough about the wonderful stylists at Barberia Salon. Mimi, my stylist, gave me an amazing haircut complete with layering which in the week and a half since it happened, I have been able to style on my own (which is saying a lot because I am not adept at doing hair).

Here is a before shot showing how long it was (excuse the wet hair as I needed to wash it before getting it cut)

The cut pony tail ready for donation
And, now for the big reveal
From the back- you can actually see my neck! It's so short that I can't even pull it into a ponytail, which is a good thing since I was sporting one of those every few days with my long hair since I didn't know what else to do with it
So far, I am "adjusting" pretty well to the change. It was weird at first to see my silhouette with short hair and also to wash my hair and have nothing there. But, it is definitely an easy cut to style- just a little round brushing, a few swipes of the magic Chi hair straightener, and it's good to go. I am shocked by how quickly I am able to "do" my hair and have it look decent.

Anyways, the jury is still out on whether or not this will be a permanent change. I really liked how my hair was shoulder length as it left me with plenty to do, but this is definitely very welcome right now.

Strawberry Recipes from the Web

I absolutely LOVE food blogs. I am mainly a baker and not a chef and so most of the recipes that I try are of the sweet nature. I bought several pints of strawberry's from the Los Altos Farmer's Market last week and had fun using them in some delicious recipes.

Strawberry Sorbet: The original post is about a Strawberry Basil Sorbet but that didn't sound appealing to me so I just left the basil out and it was delicious. My only suggestion is to make sure that you puree and pretty much liquefy the strawberries otherwise you will end up with hard frozen chunks in your sorbet. This was so good that we polished it all off in one night (at least now I have the excuse that I am pregnant!!)

Strawberry Country Cake: I have had this before and it was delicious and so I wanted to make it again. This recipe from Ina Garten is good, but here are a few tips. I halved the recipe to only make one cake and then I sliced that one cake in half and decorated with whipped cream and strawberries. However, you should DOUBLE the recipe for the whipping cream (and use powdered sugar instead of granulated) because otherwise it is a bit too much cake. I also didn't follow her recipe exactly because I didn't want to buy the actual lemons and oranges to make the zests and so I just used lemon juice but you couldn't taste the citrus like others have said.
Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream: the original recipe itself is from David Lebovitz who has an entire book about ice cream, sorbets, and the like and so I knew that it had to be good. And it did not disappoint. I made sure this time that I liquefied the strawberries (I didn't have quite enough as recommended in the recipe- a few had gone bad) but it was still so good. It was best in my opinion when it came directly out of the ice cream maker before putting it in the freezer to harden. At this time, it had such a soft, creamy texture with only the slightest tang from the sour cream. It was still good the next day, though it needs to sit out for a little bit before eating- which I am generally not patient enough to do so I just eat it when it is still hard- and it is still very good, though not quite as magical as when it first comes out. I am already dreaming of using this recipe with fresh PEACHES.

I was very happy that all 3 turned out because I have had some baking disasters with some recipes off the internet but these all did not disappoint so I thought that I would further share the love ;-)

My Internet Baking Debut

My co-worker, Jackie, is a great and budding photographer and so I was completely honored that she asked if she could take photos of me baking something to get some practice.

I warned her repeatedly that there is absolutely ZERO natural light in our apartment. She shrugged that off but when she came, she realized that our little place literally does not have any natural light. Yet, she handled things like a pro- the photographs of our kitchen and our apartment make it look 1000 times nicer than it really is. William especially was blown away by how good the photos turned out.

"The Red-Haired Baker and Her Cinnamon Buns"

Even as I look at her photos of the cinnamon rolls now, I have a craving to make them. I used my favorite recipe that I have posted about earlier which I highly recommend. However, I feel bad that my weird expression messed up her final shot- and we even went outside to take it in the natural light. I hope it tasted as good as it looked in these photos. Thanks again for the honor Jackie of showcasing my baking on your blog!

The Mystery Spot

After an ice cream pit stop at Marianne's in Santa Cruz (and I HIGHLY recommend the peaches and cream flavor- so light and creamy), we went to the Mystery Spot.

This is an iconic bay area landmark and you see it advertised everywhere through the signature bumper stickers that they place on the back of people's cars. My sister Sarah had gone earlier in the summer and had said how fun it was so I knew that we had to go.

For those interested in going, make sure that you book your tickets in advance- either online or on the phone. I called the morning of, at about 10 am, and they were sold out until 2:48 (they have tours every 12 minutes). We tried to go another Saturday without calling and we got there and it was sold out so I learned my lesson.

How to describe this place called the mystery spot. It was featured on the cover of Life magazine back in the 1940s due to its "unique gravitational anomalies" as they call it, as evidenced by this tree that straddles the gravitational line and has changed it's growth pattern due to it.

William prefers to call it, it's more optical illusions. The best though was that he was explaining to me how he thought one of the demonstrations worked and then our guide then dispelled William's exact comment with another demonstration. We think it is genius that they have their guides dressed in the same colors as national park rangers to help give them some additional authority.

It really was just fun to stumble around and test out some of these unique experiences. I did not participate in many of them since supposedly your sense of balance is thrown off during pregnancy and I didn't want to take the chance of falling. I just could not stop laughing because of how funny most people looked even standing around, like William is.

Sadly, this photo does not do justice to how incredible it looked to see William leaning backwards in the air yet was still supported due to the logistics of the place.

The only drawback to going on a Saturday is that the groups are very large and so you do not have the chance to try out all of the experiences yourself- we at least got to watch them be done by the guide and others. The house on the mystery spot is totally crazy with unique angles and slopes which makes for some interesting visuals. The guy on the end in the orange was actually super tall yet when placed in this area, he seemed to be about the same size as everyone else.

I loved that each guide carries around a level to show you that things, while they appear to be crooked, are actually straight, adding to the illusion of the mystery.

All in all, it was entertaining, but I am glad that we went to the railroad as well because I might have been a bit disappointed if we had made the drive all the way down for just the Mystery Spot.

Roaring Camp Railroad

Following my trip to Alaska where I rode the the White Pass Railroad through the Yukon territory (it was incredible- I can't wait to post pics!!), I am now very into riding trains. Fortunately, William, the trooper that he is, accompanies me on these adventures.

My co-worker Caroline told me about her steam train ride through the redwoods near Santa Cruz called Roaring Camp Railroad and I so wanted to do it. I did make the mistake of having us take the 1st train at 11 am because the fog and not yet burned off, but fortunately, we were able to see some blue sky for part of our ride.

I loved that you had to walk through a covered bridge, which seemed to transport you back in time . . .

We were able to see them fill up the train with water from the tower partially seen in the upper right hand corner. It is amazing how much they filled it with because we saw lots of steam sent off.

We sat in the open air cars at the very front right next to the engine. A word of warning though- this is the "splash zone" because you get pelted with water drops (not very bad but I was glad that I didn't do my hair that day :-)

I LOVED having the open air car because it provided you with the experience of feeling right in the heart of the forest.


Just look at how adorable our conductor is! He totally looks like something out of a movie. He was a wealth of knowledge who told us that steam trains in the west run on oil while steam trains in the East and Europe run on coal. There was a lady in our car who was a huge train enthusiast- she was wearing a t-shirt for the Skunk Train, another steam train, and she was filming most of the journey so that she could get some good sounds for her cell phone ring tone. She asked our conductor if this train recycles the oil and he told her that it was too expensive and that in fact, it was way too expensive to buy oil here in California given all the regulations and so they go to Nevada to get the oil. We loved just how completely honest he was about everything (I did feel bad for the lady because she did seem somewhat disappointed by his comment)

I was pretty ignorant about this as I literally thought that steam trains only ran on steam, but as I quickly learned, when they have to do a very tough job, like pushing a long train filled with passengers

in REVERSE up the hill, it needs much more power. The photo below of the black smoke was of this event.

The train travels through the redwoods but not on a circular loop. The train has to literally back up and down onto a separate track to go to the upper part of the redwoods. During these parts, we kept saying "I think I can, I think I can" because it was obvious that this train was working so hard to push everyone. The blue sky finally emerged on our way back to the station (evidence below) and I absolutely LOVED this whole experience.

The video below shows the steam coming from the train both from the top pipe for the most part but at the end of the clip- there is a huge release of steam from the sides to get rid of excess pressure before they go down inclines. There is also the iconic whistle.


And for people with kids who love Thomas the Tank Engine, they are doing a special ride out with Thomas next week. The ride is pretty slow and we saw the whole range of ages from little babies to toddlers to pre-school and it seemed that they all enjoyed the one hour and 30 minute ride (it is a bit shorter than that- they do give you one stretch break half-way through in the redwoods).