Easter

There is something about an egg hunt that is just so much fun for the kids. The week before Easter there was a neighborhood hunt at a nearby park. It was fun to watch Russ and Annie figure out how to do it. Annie got the hang of it but pretty much just took her sweet time. Russy struggled to get the eggs into his bag so I had to go out there and help him. I'm sure some of the parents were annoyed with me, but I just knew that he would freak out later if he ended up with just a few eggs and everyone else had a lot.

We tried to help Jane with a strategy of what to do so she could maximize the number of eggs, she ended up doing pretty well for her, she is just not an aggressive sort. We couldn't find our easter baskets so we were the white trash family with the Walmart bags.

Russy had to unstuff his immediately and try to eat all of the candy as quick as he could. It was cute because he called the chocolate eggs footballs.

It was fun becuase we had our cousins in town to visit so they came to the hunt too. We never win anything so I just gave all of our raffle tickets to Lizzy to go and listen for prizes and she won three! I think she must be one of those lucky people, we will have to have her win us prizes more often!

Clara is actually in this picture too, she is in the sling I am wearing. It has become one of her favorite places to be. Especially becuase she really dislikes her seat so whenever I have to take her places I have to put her in there.

I wish I could have been in the picture too but alas I was in the car nursing. Story of a moms life.

It is always so fun to have cousins visit!

We had another hunt the day before Easter at the church. This one was good because each of the kids were only allowed a certain number of eggs so there wasn't the mad dash like there was at the other one.

We even splurged on the kids and bought them the dollar buckets at Walmart.

 

I love this picture of Jane and Russy waiting for the hunt to start.

We had to do the obligatory egg coloring. For some reason it is like carving pumpkins for me, I always want to do it wth the kids but I am never good at planning it and the all of a sudden I realize the holiday is upon us and we haven't done it yet. This was the first year that Russy joined us doing it and he absolutely loved it. He made sure to make a green ninja turtle one, becuase they are one of his new favorites.

 

 

 

I love the joy that kids have in doing these activites. I love how they look forward to them and think they are something extra special. It sure makes me want to do more stuff with them like this when they love it so much.

It was a great Easter. We had an egg hunt in the house this year because it was raining. I love how my kids are not hard to please. I guess that comes with having a big family and not being able to give them whatever they want. The kids wanted an egg hunt rather than having the Easter bunny come, which is always fine by me especially since I have noticed everyone is going overboard and acting like Easter is another Christmas and giving their kids these giant gifts.

I love to see all my kids together and know that my whole family is here. What a great feeling that is!!

 

 

Runner girls

The school always does a fundraiser called a Jog-a-thon, where they have the kids run laps for a half hour. It was the week after I had Clara so Kevin was home so I was actually able to go and watch the kids do something at school. Something I don't get to do very often because I don't have anyone to watch the crazies at home. Nellie ended up having a dentist appointment during her running time, but she was really happy because she really hates running.

It was really fun to see Janie running because she isn't really all that into running, but because I was cheering her on she ran her little heart out. And every time she ran by me she would give me this big grin.

Lizzy lives for this. She was so excited and bound and determined to be the winner for the girls in her grade. The problem was that she was going up against one of her friends that is also into running and also trains every day for soccer and softball so she is in great shape. Lizzy was disappointed that she came in second, but I told her that if she trained as much as her friend that she would have easily beat her. Lizzy is pretty serious about wanting to be a runner so I think we will have to take more time with her to cultivate this passion of hers. She really does have the natural ability.

 

 

 

Our Baby Clara

Our sweet little Clara was born on March 18 at 7:56 am. She ended up making it to her scheduled c-section date. She weighed in at 6 lbs 12 oz which was my smallest of my full term babies. I was measuring really small at my appointments so they had me do an ultrasound at 36 weeks to make sure it was ok, and of course she was measuring right on. It's just the way I carry them! My doctor thought she was going to be really tiny, but she was a decent size. It is funny because he has delivered the last three and every time he pulls them out he says, that's a big baby! I think because of the way I carry he thinks they will be smaller than they are.

The delivery was probably my worst other than Nellies. It started off with 4 attempts to get the IV in which may not sound like a big deal but it was seriously horrible. I was in tears. I wanted Kevy to come and hold my hand after the first failed attempt because it really hurt, but then he had to leave and sit down because HE was going to pass out! I have really great veins so that's what made it so surprising that they weren't working out! I remember almost having a panic attack with the fourth attempt thinking if this doesn't work I'm going to melt down. Thankfully it did though. On the operating table I was in so much pain. Partially from an air bubble that went in under my diaphragm. The same thing happened when I had Jane. It seriously is one of the worst things to experience! It feels like your heart is being crushed! I don't know why it was so painful but I just remember thinking " please be over! I don't know if I'm going to make it!" They had to end up giving me morphine on the operating table, which is not good becuase I don't do well with morphine and sure enough I was throwing up all afternoon.
This was the day before I went in, and the last day I will ever be pregnant for my whole life, which is so great but it also is the tiniest bit sad to know I am at the end of my child bearing. It is one of the biggest parts of my whole life and to know it is over brings the tiniest pang of sadness. But I am also looking forward to the next chapter in our family's life!

I remember when I looked over and saw her I almost thought "that's not my baby she has black hair!" Lizzy, Jane and Anne were born with dark hair but not this dark! I honestly thought Clara would be another blond since it went every other, but I love her dark hair!

It is always such a special couple of days in the hospital where we get to just be Kevy and I and our new little one. Then I end up going crazy becuase I hate the hospital environment and I just need to get home where I feel nice and cozy. But there is nothing like the first day of a child's life, it is so incredible!

 

The kids loved coming to visit. They were all so very excited to meet their new sister.

This was heading home. You can't tell from this picture, but she is just so tiny in her seat!

Russy is just over the moon out his baby sister, he loves her so much!!

 

 

 

She has her own look that is very different than the other kids, but I'll bet she will start looking like the rest as she gets older.

 

Clara has ended up being a colicky baby and it has been a really difficult adjustment for all of us. There have been some pretty hard evenings and many breakdowns on my part, but I am still so grateful that we dared to have our final baby that was waiting to come to our family! We all love her so much! And that feeling like someone is missing is now gone! Now that we have our sweet darling Clara!!

 

Sickies

 

It has been the worst winter ever for sickness! It has been one solid cold and runny nose for just about everybody, but especially Annie. The poor baby has always been so healthy and was actually my baby that went the longest without getting sick. She was 9 months old before she got a cold. And she didn't get too many last year.

But this year has been a totally different story! From the beginning of November until now Annie has had a runny nose all but maybe two weeks. It has been so sad! She and Russ have also had many a fever and cough not to mention ear infections for both. I feel like I am at my wits end. I know that there are a lot of people that have much sicker kids than me, and we have always been so heathy, but not this year. It also doesn't help to think we are going to be having a newborn here in a couple of weeks. Yikes! I am praying that we can get over it all by then. For my sanitys sake!

 

Presidents Day

It is so much fun to have holidays that both Kevy and the kids have off. I try and always plan something fun to do on those days. We had gone to this huge park a little over a year ago with the kids and had a blast so I figured it would be fun to go again. I packed picnic and we ate there. When we got there to eat Russ was being a total wack job and didn't want to eat with us, he just wanted to go and play on the toys. Such a little stinker! He really thinks he can get away with whatever he wants, and we are really having to make a conscious effort with him being the only boy at not spoiling him too much and giving in to him.

Nellie is always so sweet and plays so well with Russ. He was wanting to play with sticks and she just went along with it.

I may be biased but these sure are the cutest kids I ever saw!!

It's crazy to think we are adding another little monkey to this group!

One of the main reasons we came to this park was to feed the ducks, but the geese that were there and the seagulls just overtook the whole thing and we couldn't even feed the ducks. In fact there was one goose that was really scaring me and was chasing me down, so I ended up just pretty much chucking the rest of the bread and running away, becuase I was genuinely scared!

The kids did get to look at the ducks and had fun watching them, after the bread was out of the picture.

 

 

Kevy did a weight loss competition at work and he won it! He ended up losing over twenty pounds! I was so proud of him and his hard work. When I took this picture of him and Annie that day I realized how different he looked!

 

I sure love this guy so much and I am so glad I have him beside me for all of life's craziness!

 

Valentine's Day!!

I know that Valentine's Day isn't necessarily the most exciting holiday, but I actually really love it! Some of my favorite family traditions are on Valentine's Day. It was also so nice this year that it was on a Saturday so we could spread the two traditions out over two days. It made it much less stressful on me! On Friday night I made my annual Valentine's dinner for all my loves! I always make the same thing, homemade pizza and our special Valentine's jello but it was really fun again as usual. I even got out the goblets for the sparkling cider and the kids thought that was really neat!

Our other tradition of making and decorating cookies for our friends was a success again. The kids just love to make theirs so special for their friends

 

We let monkey girl decorate one as well, but with all the licking etc. we thought it might be better if she just ate it herself.

Lizzy took hers to her two church friends. I am really grateful that she has some really good church friends.

Russy took his to ColeMason, our neighbors that are so nice to us and give Russ so many cool clothes and toys.

Jane took hers to her little boyfriend Maxim and to some other girls from the ward. It is a little hard that she doesn't have any girls her age at church but there are some older and younger.

Nellie made hers for her church friends as well. It is so nice to have such a good community of people at church! We love our valentines traditions and can't wait to do it again next year!

 

The Police Station

It sure is fun that daddy works at the Police Station. The kids, especially Russy think it is pretty cool. We were able to go one day to a barbequethey were having for police and their families. They had out some of the "vehicles" as Russ calls them. Kevin taught him one day to call them that and he has been doing it ever since, it is too funny. Here the kids got to sit in the hummer that is used for SWAT.

The kids all had fun sitting on the police motorcycle.

 

 

Russy was a chicken and wouldn't do it at first until he saw his sisters do it and then he was all over it.

I think he liked sitting in the "police truck" as he calls it the best. Annie decided she needed to join him in it as well.

 

Janie's Stuffed Animal Party

it was a year for Jane to get a friend party and she was really excited about it. She first wanted to do a frozen party but since she was inviting some boys and since she did a frozen cake last year I steered her in a different direction. She loves stuffed animals and since most kids, boys and girls do too, we decided to do a stuffed animal party where they could bring their favorite one.

I also learned my lesson from doing Lizzy's party that we wanted to keep it short. So we made it an hour and a half, and it ended up being the perfect amount of time. In fact this party went so smoothly it made me hate birthday parties a little bit less!!

The one thing that was a little bit difficult was that Jane saw these penguin cupcakes that she really wanted me to make for her party, but they ended up being really time consuming to make. I first had to dip marshmallows in chocolate for the bodies and try and stick on the tummies while they were drying and I kept accidentally making them touch so chocolate got everywhere and and then I couldn't find candy corn for the feet so I had to try and form feet out of starbursts which was ridiculous. Anyway Jane thought they were cute so it made it worth it.

We had a really cute owl piñata for the party, which Janie just loved because she is in the owl class at school and has just fallen in love with owls.

It was super exciting for Jane to open all her presents and get so many new toys and things.