{Easter 2012}

Happy Easter!

{Don't you just love Parker's smile???}

Our little family enjoyed a wonderful day at church, followed by lunch at my Mom & Dads then some kite flying....



and some tractor modeling...her idea :)


Pretty low key.
But the way we like it.

My kids have very little patience with me when it comes to pictures. Especially recently now that Paige is getting a lot heavier for Taylor to hold :)

{Paige Sarah}

Yes, it is true. I am a slacker.
Our cute little baby was born, blessed, is now 2 months old, our oldest turned 6, lost her first tooth, had a dance recital, Christmas came and left, and the New Year arrived. All without me blogging about it.

So now I need to play catch up:

{The birth of Paige}
Short(er) version:

We thought it was time 2 times before she actually arrived. Yes, I went into the hospital hoping to leave with a new little one only to be sent home. It's not like it was my first kid. She's my third. Contractions both times were two to three minutes apart. I was in PAIN!

My doctor's appointment the Tuesday (22nd) before I had her I was 75% effaced and dilated to a 3. He told me when the contractions were close to go to the hospital. I made a little comment that he would probably just send me home again. He assured me he wouldn't. So I went home. Suffered the rest of the day and through the night. There was a time that night that I was having so many contractions I thought I was going to die. But I knew if I made it until morning I can get to the hospital, the Doctor wouldn't have to get out of bed and he would let me have the baby :)

7:30 am came around (23rd) and I told Troy we better start getting the kids up and ready. We dropped the kids off at my Mom's around 10:00. And for the third time headed to labor & delivery.

This time after getting "checked" and hooked up to all the monitors the nurse came in and told us the Doctor told her to get me completely settled in......we were going to have a baby!

About 10:30 my water was broken. Throughout the entire pregnancy I had my mind set on no epidural, like with Parker's delivery. After I was in the hospital the first time. I changed my mind. The nurses were instructed to start me on pitocin. I refused to let them start the pit until the epidural was in!

At 11:30 the pit was started right when Mr. Fritz was giving me the epidural.

Checked at 1:10 and I was a 5.
By 2:00 I was feeling a little pressure 'down there' but I knew the nurse was going to be there in 10 minutes. So I didn't call the nurses in.

2:10 rolls around and the nurse comes in. I was ready.
She knew how fast Parker came into this world that she wouldn't let me push until the Doctor got there. She starts getting the room ready while we wait for him.

He arrives and one push later. We have a head.
One and a half pushes after that our sweet little Paige is in the world. 2:19 pm.
No pain and super easy. Epidural was heaven.

7 lbs. 4 oz.
19" long.
(@ 39 weeks)

Our biggest and longest baby.
(Taylor: 6 lbs. 13 oz. 18" long @ 36.5 weeks)
(Parker: 7 lbs. 1 oz. 18" long @ 38 weeks)

Shortly after she got here Troy started making phone calls. The best was when we called Taylor Jane. She has been waiting for SO LONG for this little sister. The whole month of November she kept asking me if I wanted to have this little baby. Of course I did, but it wasn't that easy :)
She informed her she had a little sister and she very quiet. "Okay, want to talk to Parker?" then as she hands Parker the phone Troy hears her in the back ground running around in excitement. So cute.

The doctor's were all going to family dinners (Thanksgiving) the next day that by 7:00 am my doctor was in and I was discharged. By 7:30 Paige's doctor was giving us the okay to leave. She had to still get her hearing test done so we didn't get to officially go home until close to 9:30-ish.

She has been a wonderful baby. At about 15 minutes old she was ready to nurse. We go about every 3 hours between meals. She is currently sleeping 6-7 hours each night (HEAVEN!) She goes to bed around 8 and usually after I get Taylor (Parker on Mon/Wed) off to school she is up. She usually only takes one long nap during the day and then little cat naps the rest of the day.

3 weeks old::


One Month::


We went in and got family pictures taken the week after Christmas. Parker was a little stink. (More pics later when I get all of them. Or you can see them on FB)


We blessed Paige on New Years Day. My sister from Belgium was in town and so it was perfect to bless her while she was here. I made her dress. Leading up to the blessing day she was pushing 5 days without a stinky diaper. I knew it was because she wanted to make a mess of her blessing dress. The day before we had a blow-out....on Grandma's lap. But I was happy! ;)




During the blessing she was also filling her drawers. But luckily it all stayed inside the diaper.

We did not really stay up and celebrate the New Year. Troy woke me up at midnight, "Happy New Year" by 12:10 we were both out of bed cleaning up throw up in Parker's room. (Saturday morning was Taylor's turn).
My dear sweet friend Courtney made all the food for the blessing (how awesome is she?!?!?) If Gina wasn't in town and Courtney wasn't going through so much making the meal for us I would have pushed the blessing. But we didn't.

Every one that came to the blessing lunch pretty much got the flu. Sorry family!
It also made the rounds in our family. Luckily Paige was skipped.

Life with three so far has been okay. The oldest two are so noisy sometimes we forget about sweet little Paige and when the room finally gets quiet, that is when we hear the little cries. Poor thing! But that is very rare.
Taylor is still very obsessed with her little sister.
Parker has had the hardest time with the new addition. He was demoted and he didn't like that one bit. He also became a true terrorizing little boy. Little Troy I should say :) But we love him.

At seven weeks, she weighed in at an even 10 pounds. I think I only feed our kids cream. They chunk up pretty good.

This pretty much sums up the last two months of little Paige. Minus her two month pictures. Which will be taken and hopefully posted soon.
She is a complete duplicate of Taylor. We see resemblances every day and looking through baby pictures.
It's makes me curious if she will be a mini-clone of Taylor as she grows up!

Taylor turns 5

Yesterday my first born turned 5.

It's hard to believe that it has been 5 years since I became a mother.
Depending on the day, it's felt like I have been a Mother for f.o.r.e.v.e.r.
But on other days, it's like I blinked and it's been 5 years. Wow.

To celebrate her big day, we headed to Utah.
Well, not just for her birthday. My nephew was graduating from Fire School so we made it a double whammy.

We went to Troy's favorite thrift store shopping: D.I., The Pepperidge Farm Thrift store in Richmond, The Fun Park where the kids ran around the place.

My niece Calista won 1,000 tickets on her first token! (She should go to Vegas!)





Opened up a couple presents:

Goldilicious from Grandma & Grandpa


Belle & Horse from my nephews.



Hit my nephews graduation.


Kody & my Dad. The metal piece behind them was Kody's class' (all 9 of them!) project.

Congrats again, Kody!

Then afterwards, we went to eat.
Appropriately, The Firehouse Pizzeria, was the restaurant of choice.

Nice face Braden.

End it with a ph'zzookie m&m cookie/sundae for Taylor's birthday celebration.

Phew.

Then we headed the 2 hours home.
Hit a MAJOR snowstorm and had to drive pretty much blind (good thing for rumble strips!) the last half of the way home.

Double Phew.
Nothing too major for the little 5 year old, but that day is coming. Sunday to be exact.

Happy Birthday Taylor Jane!

Pumpkin Patch 2010

It's a family tradition to go to the pumpkin patch with my sister and her kids and have Grandma & Grandpa come too. Grandpa was a poop this year and stayed home.....

This year it was on the 29th of October, but we made the trip to pick out some pumpkins!


This little munchkin was OBSESSED with "Baby Pumpkins" every time I turned around he had found another one. Most of them were rotten!

Taylor's first pick:

Of course Melissa's boys find a big ol' pumpkin across the field and have to haul it back to the wheel barrow.
Keegan was nice enough to carry it for Landon....

Speaking of Landon: He got this hoodie sweater that completely zips up to look like this:

Kind of creepy huh?!?!?

He is just so stinkin' cute!

And guess what! He found another baby pumpkin!

Taylor's second & final pick of the day. She didn't make it too far before I had to help her!

After all the pumpkins were picked out it was over to take some group pictures.
Parker found one of his favorite: Baby Pumpkin and started banging on EVERYTHING with it.

Attempting group pictures.
Ashton (top left) "The sun is in my eyes!"

After a few more pictures, we moved my kids out of there and Ashton down to get the sun out of his eyes. The sun followed him :)

One funny one. Ashton still trying to see straight.

Final shot of the day: Me & my kiddos. I love them so much!

Something Messy....Stress Free!

If you know me, you would know how much MESS stresses me out.

A.L.O.T.

I love to can peaches, but I absolutely HATE the mess it makes!
Last year, I was pretty much at my wits end and I decided I will not can anymore because I can't handle the messy stress.

Kid you not. I am THAT BAD.

Troy came home last year near the end of my canning process and asked why I don't can OUTSIDE?

Outside? You can do that?

Fast forward one year and this is what I did this past Saturday....



OUTSIDE! Yay!



I was even lucky enough to have a hubby that wasn't working much and was NICE to help me do it all!
Even Taylor got in to all the action.

Then she got bored and made a sign that we had peaches to show all the passing cars....

No one stopped, but she thought she was pretty cool. :)


When we were done, we took the hose and washed it all down.

AND My house stayed clean......Heaven.

You won't find me canning inside my house again.

Dinner Dilema

On the menu for dinner:

Steak
Baked Potato
Corn on the Cob

I have 3 potatoes in the fridge. When I go to put them in the oven, one is bad. Only have 2 for the 4 of us. No biggie.

Buy 3 corn on the cobs. Kids never eat a whole one anyways. Go to put them in the boiling water, one is completely spoiled and end up with 2. Just great.

My package of steaks has 3 steaks in them. One for me, one for Troy and one to split between the two children.

As I am dishing up plates:
I get half of one corn, half of one potato and one steak.
Kids get half of a half of corn, half of a half of potato, half a steak

Half way through our meal, Taylor wants more steak. I give her some of mine. Then she wants thirds and more corn. All of which comes from my plate since Parker is scarfing down all his food.

Dinner has been over for 10 minutes and I am still hungry. I NEVER run into a problem of not enough food AND both kids eating all their food so that there is no left overs.

Maybe it's time for me to start cooking full portions for all 4 of us......

Grandma's Funeral {In Pictures}

It's hard to write about funerals.
There are so many emotions.

So instead, here are the pictures I took at the cemetery/dinner after wards....


All the Grandsons were the pallbearers, three of which were my brothers...

Jeff

Jason

Jeremy

Honorary Pallbearers: The Grandsons in-law (that were there)

My Dad & His siblings...

Donna, Rusty, Ron, Glen (Dad)

All the Grand kids, minus two. My oldest sister Gina lives in Belgium and wasn't able to make it and one Grandson passed away a few years ago.

Now add in all the Greats. (Minus a few & 3 Great Greats)

One more cute picture of my cute/shy little baby boy :)
It was a sad day, but I know that she is where she wants to be.....with Grandpa.