This Just Makes Me Smile!

Randomness

The boys had lots of fun halloween art from school this year.  They know they get to put all their stuff on the wall for everyone to enjoy...and then I get to recycle it.  :)

Molly fell asleep on the floor.  Under Sam's feet.  Between the stool and the bar.  I guess she was pretty tired!

I have no idea how Will (4 years old) managed to get this on...it's a 3 month snow suit!  

Molly figured out how to climb in and out of the crib...so she ended up on the floor a few times.  After she managed to completely trash her room.  I got pretty tired of putting her toys and clips away every day!  So glad she's in a princess bed now!

Our little family!

Thanksgiving

The only thing I took pictures of on Thanksgiving was people holding Jake.  And only two at that.  We had dinner with the Foutzes, and then we visited the Claytons since we had cousins here from out of town. But no pictures, so just imagine how much fun we had.  :)

Clearly, Melissa enjoyed this much more than Jake did.  :)

Elizabeth thought it was fun to hold him for about 5 seconds.  Which is actually pretty good for a 2 year old!

First Bath!

Jake had his first big boy bath at 3 weeks.  Because it took 3 loooong weeks for his cord stump to fall off.  I think Molly asked me 10 times a day what was in his belly button.  She also used to ask me 10 times a day, "Mommy, what are lion names?"  Meaning what are the names of the lion cubs in the Lion King book that I love.

He didn't cry, but he didn't love it much.  

Love this little boy!

Jake's Other Mom

Baby Jakie is so lucky to have two moms!  Molly loves to hold him and give him his binky.  I love the progression.

She was holding his binky in (notice how serious this is...she actually took her own binky out to concentrate on Jake!).

She was enjoying herself...don't think Jake was!

Success!  Binky in and no crying.  What a good mommy!

Finishing Halloween...

4 kids is busy, to say the least.  Besides all the usual kid stuff, I decided to completely redo the boys' old room for Molly.  With a one week old baby.  Sane?  Probably not.  Every surface was repainted...SO many times.  Between the previous owners and our boys, the walls were pretty trashed (mostly from the previous owners, honestly).  I think I filled hundreds of tiny holes.  Who staples stuff to the wall, seriously?!  We were so eager to move in initially that we just never got around to painting it for Sam.  Oops.  Anyway, today I worked on recaulking and painting base boards in the bathroom, and next I'll be redoing a dresser I just bought for Molly.  Masochist.  That's the word to describe me!  So...here's the rest of Halloween.  I'll post pictures of Molly's new room soon, it turned out cute!

 Sam's school parade!!  That was seriously a whole lot of effort to get there with a 2 week old baby and a 2 year old...just to see Sam for 3 seconds.  Don't get me wrong, it was worth it, look at that smile!

 We always have to trick or treat on the lane, and we got to see our fun Anderson cousins!  Will, Josh Anderson and Sam.  Cute boys!

 Aunt Chris (Josh's grandma) and Grandma Tigger were so cute with the kids!

And it's just not Halloween without our annual visit with LaRae Rasmussen!  We love LaRae, she's amazing!

The kids went trick or treating with our buddies the Nielsens.  We're so lucky to have such great friends right next door!  Mike said that Corbin called Molly his butterfly.  :)  I stayed home to pass out candy, so no pics of all the kids.  Mike and I enjoyed the 12 pounds of candy the kids got this year.  No wonder I stopped losing baby weight!

Happy Halloween!

Spiderman, Caterpillar, Fairy Princess & War Machine!

Sam totally kills me.  Jakie is 13 days old in this picture!  We had so much fun at my sister's office party, I love that she invites us every year.  This is at least the 4th year we've gone, and the pictures are definitely my favorite part!

Sweet Baby Jake!

Our sweet baby Jake is here!  It's been so fun having this new little angel baby in our family, we love him so much!  We started his birth day celebrations with a birthday celebration for Grandma Grace.  Jake's birthday is 2 days after Grace's, which is funny because Sam's is 2 days after Lon's.  The kids had so much fun playing with Osie and Jane!

Grace was on call for us the morning of the 15th.  When I called the hospital at 6:00 am to see if they had room for  me to be induced, they told me to call back in a couple of hours.  Then they called me back and told us to be there at 8:00.  I was so happy!  I panicked at the thought of not eating all day while I waited around for them to have room for me.

As soon as Jake was born they put him on a warm towel on my chest.  It looks a little gross, but it was actually really neat.

Our healthy baby boy!  6 lbs 10 oz, 19 inches, born at 1:14 pm.

So, not to be outdone by his siblings, Jake's delivery was far from the relaxing, fun, easy deliveries that I always hear about.  Here's how it all went down.

Mike and I got to the hospital at 8:15 am on Oct. 15th.  I chatted with my nurse, got changed, gave her information, and settled into my bed for my IV and epidural.  After a failed attempt in my left arm, and a failed attempt in my right arm, my nurse grabbed someone else to give me an IV in my left hand.  I got started on a bag of fluid and antibiotics, and at about 9:20 they started my pitocin.  I started having contractions right away, and after about an hour or so I told them I wanted my epidural.  With my history of fast deliveries I didn't want to risk not getting it.  :)  And since I was dilated to a 4 when we got there, I knew there wouldn't be much time!  (Interesting...the nurse told me that a 4 is considered active labor.  Since I was dilated to a 3 just a few days before, Jake was probably coming that weekend either way)

Mike and I were watching the U v Pitt game when the doctor came in to administer my epidural.

Lesson:  If your doctor is a U fan, turn off the tv.

As soon as the medicine started flowing, my right leg went numb.  My left leg never went numb, so I told my nurse.  She put me on my left side and said that should help.  When my left side still wasn't numb she told me that as long as I couldn't feel my contractions then I'd be fine.  I had a sinking feeling that she was wrong, but I really hoped she wasn't.

Lesson:  Sometimes you really, really want to be wrong.

After a while I started feeling a lot of pressure.  After a few more minutes it started to get really uncomfortable.  Then I started feeling A LOT of pressure and it was getting really painful.  Just from the hips down, mind you.  Mike called the nurse in to check me, and I was full on ready to deliver a baby!  She called my doctor in, and after a few minutes of pushing, Jake was born!  Sunny side up. Amazingly, I just tore a little off to the side, and it probably only took 5 stitches to put me back together.  (My other posterior babies did some pretty extensive damage).  Pushing him out was more painful than not having an epidural at all (I would know since I didn't have an epidural with Will).  When Will was born the doctor made me wait to push for a few minutes so he could numb me a little.  Well, since I had an epidural, why would he numb me?  Ring of fire?  Now I know what that means.

Lesson: You can push a baby out really fast when you're not numb!  And then the urge to kill the doctor that messed up your epidural but will still charge full price...that urge will begin to subside.  

We were both feeling much better at this point!

I fell in love pretty quick.  One look at that face and I melt!

Will was so excited to hold his brother.  Except that it's hard to concentrate on babies when cartoons are on tv!  Will was so funny, the first thing he said when he walked in and saw Jake was, "Hey, he has spiky hair!  Like me!"

Aunt Jane with her newest nephew.

Still hard to believe...we are a family of SIX!

Our beautiful babies!

Jake's delivery was kind of a whirlwind...intense & not quite what I expected, but we're so happy he's here!  He's an amazing baby...calm, sweet, beautiful, and so fun to hold! 

Bear Lake--Clayton Week

Clayton Week was pretty small this year, but we still had lots of fun!!  We made it up in time for the demolition derby in Lake Town.  Sam was an only child the last time we did this (we had tons of fun!), but I'm not gonna lie.  One kid is so much easier.  The action was pretty slow in between rounds and the kids got really bored so we ended up leaving early.  But still, there's nothing quite like a demolition derby!  I still had fun, even if the kids weren't into it!

Molly and Jane are buddies.  Molly was trying to blend in with the locals (notice the adorable cowgirl boots).

We had some cousin time with Osie and Claire on the beach!  Jake was having a nap, and Steve & Beth's boys hadn't come yet.  There are so many Clayton cousins, but this wasn't the year to see them all.    We were about 75 family members short!

We also played in the pool lots.  Will decided to become a fish!  He has loved swimming since his lessons earlier in the summer.

All 5 & 2/3 of us!  I couldn't get in the hot tub with everyone else, but sticking my legs in was about all the heat I could handle anyway.  Mike tells me all the time that I just radiate heat.  Thank goodness this has been a mild summer...perfect for pregnancy!

The kids LOVED playing tennis with Nelson and Seth.  And I loved sitting on the bench and watching all the fun.  :)

Molly got into my liquid lipstick, which only comes off with eye makeup remover.  Luckily Jane had some!  I kind of love her Gene Simmons look.

We had so much fun playing with the Vances and Steve & Beth's family!  It's always so great to see our cousins, even if they were few in number this year!  We always have fun at Bear Lake!

First Day of School!

Sam started FIRST GRADE this year!  He is totally loving school and his teacher Mrs. DiPietro.  He's easy to wake up in the morning and is always excited to go.  It's so great!  He heads to the bus at 8:30 and gets home at 3:50 every day.  School has been wonderful for both of us!  :)

Will started his second year of preschool with Miss Chris!  He LOVES preschool and even gets to go with three of his buddies from the neighborhood.

We are lucky to carpool with such great friends!  Lexi, Payton, Gemma & Will.  :)

Pioneer Day Parade

On July 16th our Stake got to participate in the Days of '47 youth parade downtown.  We drove down with our buddies the Nielsens.  Our ward was pretty hard to miss in our bright lime green shirts!

We waited forever.  And ever.

Will's first balloon popped, so he was VERY careful with his second one!  He sat in the stroller to wait the rest of the time.

The closest I could get to lime green for Molly was her binky and hair clip.  Good enough.

It was hot so I brought a spray bottle to cool off with.  The idea was to mist the water, but Sam drank some too!

We walked about 4 blocks, and we even made it on the news that night and the next week, and we graced the cover of the LDS Church News!  We were also in this online article about the parade.

 This was the picture on the Church News cover, only they cropped it so we're a lot more visible.  :)  I'm on the right side pushing the red stroller.

I'm blocked by a balloon in this one, but you can see Sam, my stroller, Ava, & Jami.  Fun!

Will and Molly stayed in the stroller for the entire walk.  It made my life so much easier!

When we got to the carnival at the end of the parade, I lost all of the kids at least once.  The boys I lost 2 or 3 times each.  It was really stressful, but fortunately we didn't stay long!

We hung out with the Nielsens and Risers during the carnival (aka Where's My Kid? Fest).  We're lucky to have such great friends!  (Those are the Sanders girls in the pic, but we really spent our time with the others.  Pictures are minimal since I spent so much time looking for kids!)

The parade was a little crazy, but it was fun to participate and remember our pioneer ancestors!