Deer.

I don't think I'll ever not love seeing all these deer outside our door. That is unless one of them attacks our kids, then I might not love them anymore. They just chill in our yard and eat all the grass. It's fun here in our little piece of wilderness in the bay area.

Friends and Cousins.

A week ago, Kaylee came for her monthly trip to drop off Olive. I've said it before, I hate that she has to bring Olive every month just from that stand point that it is inconvenient to drive such a long trip every month, but I love seeing her and the kids. I wish that we could see Olive more, but that's the way it works. The kids are always sad when she leaves, but it has given them a chance to get to know Will better. It's nice because they include him when we're talking about them. I'll say Olive and Kaylee and then Camry will pipe in....And Will! That picture on the right is the only one that I got of Will this trip.

Olive left her Bolt and I was worried that Claira wouldn't give him back, but Claira put on her nice face and gave it back. And Camry wanted to have her hair just like Olives. Gotta love matching cousins.

This picture if of them from a few months ago on their first trip out. It's crazy how kids grow in just a matter of months.

The day after Kaylee and Chris left, Jana and Ben came! It was a party weekend! I just love them and love their kids and wish we still lived close. We would be sitting around talking or game playing and think....where are the kids? They're just off playing somewhere. They play so well together. Hardly any fights or hurt feelings.

The older half of our kids.

Of course we had to take them to our park. It was a little chilly but the kids didn't mind.

Pacen thought he was pretty cool hanging upside down. Then benji had to get in on the action.

Ben and Jana taught them how to play Sardines.

This is what life is like with two babies. A baby strapped to you so you can help the other one. Jana is a very good mom and is super patient with her kids.

We love our friends and cousins. Come and visit anytime!

Baby Roman is here....finally.

(Photos courtesy of Marc's phone...I love technology.)

Saturday morning we got the call that Emily had finally gone into labor. It was like 8 am so I figured, okay, probably around 7 pm or so he'd probably be here. I couldn't have been more wrong! Try by 7:52pm of the next day! She was in labor for 40 hours! She is seriously a super woman and did it all...including over 2 and a half hours of pushing...without an epidural. The doctors eventually had to take him via C-section. Roman sadly couldn't fit through my sister's tiny hips. That's what you get for being the skinny sister! :) But seriously, my sister is a champion. I love that she was determined from the beginning to do it all naturally and studied and took a hypnobirthing class and had it down. I don't know too many women who can do what she did yesterday. Really she's amazing.

Since I had been gone, I hadn't checked my google reader so when I read through a bunch of posts today, the common theme was "Thankful." So, since I didn't do a thankful post I'll say that I am thankful for C-Sections. Really we live in a wonderful time with modern medicine where they can see that things aren't going right and they can have a baby out in 20 minutes. I know that Emily was disappointed with having one, and I think any woman would be, especially after 40 hours of labor, but she really should be proud of herself after what she did accomplish (and I know she is proud.) And now she has a beautiful, healthy baby boy. A rather large baby boy weighing in at 8 lbs. 12 ounces and 19.5 inches long. I wish I had the other picture of him that showed his arm....he's so chunky already! And I'm thankful for Emily and Marc. I was just sick to my stomach all day thinking about them going through such a long and hard labor. It was like Emily was my child or something and I was just so worried. But I know how well they worked together all day. I know Emily couldn't have gotten that far on her own. They made a very good team, and a very cute baby! I can't wait to see him and hold him and love him. I'm excited to be able to help her and play 'mom' for a few days.

What was kind of fun, too, was that my Emily (Emily Robins...I always refer to her as "My Emily" when I'm talking about my sister and her) was also in labor at the same time! She texted me early Sunday morning and said that her labor had started and ended up beating Emily by a few hours. When I got the text that she had already had baby Michael I was sad for Emily that she was still in labor. But that is also the difference between baby number 1 and 2. But how fun to have two of your closest friends in labor at the same time! Emily R. said today that when Roman joins the church later in life, he and baby Michael can be roommates at BYU. :)

Isn't he just adorable?!?!? Man I can't wait to get back down there!

Happy Thanksgiving

Well, we are here in San Diego playing the waiting game with Emily. She's now three days over due and we're just patiently waiting for this baby to decide to make his debut. Until then, we'll have Thanksgiving. You know, the other reason we're here.

On Friday, Kaylee and Chris came down and we saw Harry Potter!!! It was fantastic, although a little too quiet of a movie to have a newborn attend. With every little noise she made Than gave me the death look. And then when Kaylee, Chris and I were trying to eat popcorn we all got the death look, too. Eventually, I got up and moved down so as not to ruin the movie for everyone, and as I did, it was like no one would move their legs for me and I was tripping and seriously kicking popcorn buckets the entire way across the aisle. Fiasco. But worth it. Oh, and Peggy, em's MIL, was babysitting for us and Will puked all over the place. Awesome. I hate the arrangement that Kaylee and Chris have with Zack to bring Olive down once a month, but I love that we get to see them so often.

On Saturday, we were totally lazy. We headed out to our first Farmer's Market and spent way to much money on locally grown produce and yummy spreads. Then we ate our weight in garlic spread while watching the BYU game. Just a lazy Saturday and we got ready for Jana and Ben to come!

So, Sunday and Monday we got to hang out with Jana and Ben and the kids. I miss them. My kids miss them. Why can't they just live in the WC with us? Oh wait, I know. Because it costs a ridiculous amount of money to live there. It was fun to play games but really not that fun because I lost every single one. I didn't even beat Jana in Boggle. What the heck. I like that now Jana can picture where we live when we talk. It's a good place to live just too expensive.

Monday night we drove down the SD and have just been hanging out. We went shopping yesterday. Can I just say how I am beginning to be completely anti-black Friday. Why is Walmart open all day today? Why is Toys R Us open at 10 and Old Navy open at midnight? It's like you can't even pretend to sleep the night before. It's a little out of control. But that's America.

Now I'm getting ready to make Thanksgiving dinner. I won't lie. I've been pretty sad this trip. I just miss mom so much still. And we haven't really had a real holiday here since we had Thanksgiving in Maui and Christmas at our house, so this is like the first one and it just is what it is. It just feels so much more like mom isn't here. That must sound stupid because hello...she's been gone for over a year, but the house just doesn't have 'her' in it anymore. She would just make everything special even in all the chaos. She'd have the house all ready and make us super yummy food and have games ready for the kids and just have that mom excitement. It's just not the same without her. And I know we can't expect it to be, but it just makes me sad. It was like on Meredith's blog the other day when she said something like How am I supposed to be the parent when I still feel like the kid? Anyway...i just wanted to complain a little. I miss her. But it's not like it's not fun, it's just different. And we're making it work. And i'm sure that the food will be fantastic since I'm cooking. :) And we are going to have plenty of entertainment since BYU TV is replaying the last three BYU vs. Utah games and Than wants to watch them all. That just shouts Happy Thanksgiving to me. So, Happy Thanksgiving to all. Hurry and eat so you can go shopping in a few hours. :)

6 week Gentry.

We have Gentry's new stats! She is such a chunk and I love it! She weights 11 lbs. 12 oz. and is 23 inches long. She is still very happy and content and will give you smiles pretty easily these days. And she's started a new schedule the past couple days. She's been letting me sleep until 4 am and then she eats and goes back down again until 7 am. I LOVE that! As long as I go to bed at a decent hour life is good. But it's really not hard to go to bed early because I'm so dang tired all the time. 4 kids is busy.

Everyone asks me if having 4 kids is a lot harder than 3, and it is and it isn't. I feel like it would be a piece of cake if I didn't have a schedule to keep. When you have to be up and out the door with all the kids by 7:50am its a little difficult. If I could just hang out in my pj's all day and let the kids play, life would be perfect! Darn school! For instance, yesterday I woke up and got dressed, got Pacen and Gentry dressed, fed Gentry, got Pacen breakfast, made Pacen's lunch, got the girls up, had to get Pacen off to school, come home and bathe the girls, put some laundry in, get ready to teach preschool, have the preschool kids come at 9:30 am, feed Gentry again, do preschool until 12:30 pm, make lunch for the girls and me, feed Gentry again, rotate and try to fold laundry, head off to Pacen's school for a parent/teacher conference, luckily Peggy (Em's MIL watched the kids for me), run to the store, pick up the kids, take them home and get them ready for soccer (I really don't like putting on and off kids shin guards and cleats), feed Gentry again, drive to soccer, watch soccer (the kids really love their soccer), come home, throw leftovers in the microwave for dinner, help Pacen with his homework, feed Gentry again, do PJ's, scriptures, pick up the house before Kaylee got here, and have time for root beer floats before the kids went to bed. Then Than got home from scouts and I finished the laundry, and we watched the office and fell asleep to 30 Rock. I was so tired by the end of the day, but luckily have the perfect baby that let me sleep a little and guess what....today I'm not doing anything but go shopping with Kaylee and Chris and go watch Harry Potter tonight! Hopefully Gentry will love her first movie going experience.

Monster Hair 2.0

This is what we wake up to every morning. It's crazy monster hair! It is very reminiscent of this. It looks like this mostly after a good night's sleep, but there is a little tamed down version that comes after naps. Claira has super cute blond, curly hair when it is brushed. When it's not, she looks a little crazy.

2 year olds really are the best. They are full of energy and happiness and craziness and are learning new words all the time and exploring. Claira just makes us laugh. I feel bad for Camry because she's in the stage where we laugh hysterically at something that Claira does and then she tries to do it and she gets nothing. It's hard being 4. The other day I was putting Claira to bed and we were doing the little I love you game as I'm closing the door (you know....I love you...no, I Love you...no, I love you most...etc) and as I'm closing the door Claira says, "I love you, Stinky Head!" Thank you, Than! It was so cute though. Only Claira can call me stinky head and get away with it. Well, until she's Camry's age and it's no longer cute. :) Claira always says, "Heeeeeyyyyy, me toooooooooo." You can say, "I'm going to hurt myself," and she'd say, 'Heeeyyyyyy, me toooooo," with her voice going way up and down on the hey and the too. And she has the perfect pouty lip. I need to get a good picture of it but it only comes out in those real, special times. :)

While I was posting this super cute Claira picture, I thought I'd give a little photog lesson. The first picture I took was the real dark one. The window is to the left of her and so I thought the light wasn't that bad because it wasn't like she was standing directly in front of the window but when I looked...way too dark. So, I turned Claira around and put myself in between her and the window with the window at my back and got a wonderfully lit picture. And luckily for me she gave me another cute smile. I get lots of compliments on my pictures on my blog (and I really appreciate that!) but it's not without trial and error.

And the other lesson learned is that no girl should ever be without four necklaces, two bracelets, two wands, her phone, purse, and crown.

Blessing Day

On Sunday we blessed Gentry. And apparently she wasn't very happy about it because she cried all morning! She was super fussy for the first time in her little life and it had to be on the day when there were lots of people in our house. You could just tell that her tummy was hurting and she was uncomfortable. So, after she cried through her blessing (all of my kids have), and puked all over me when we got home, she was much happier. But even though she was crank-baby, it was still a sweet experience. I love that Than is worthy to give her a blessing. I love the spirit that you feel in those moments. I am blessed to have this little sweet baby in our home. We just love her.


These are the only pictures we took the whole day. Here's the tip of the day...stand up straight for crying out loud! It only makes you look fatter when you slouch. I almost didn't post these but I gotta keep it real. I'm a fatty. Blessing days are so busy with family that it's hard to take pictures. We'll have to reenact it sometime so I can get a pictures of Gentry in her dress when she's not screaming.

This is what happened in our house tonight. Baby toys are the coolest!

And once Gentry was out of there, everyone fought over it. You can see that Claira was not amused.

We also had to RE-watch the BYU-CSU game.

Yep, I said RE-watch. Was Than here...nope. My little boy is a football nut. He wore a black bracelet on his arm the other day because "that's what JJ does." He draws out football games all the time on this little white board and today he said that it's half time and he's going to finish the game tomorrow but the score right now is 28-0. Until tomorrow...I can't wait to see who wins.

Joy of Veterans Day.

We were on the go this week! And I have to say that the time change is killing me! Maybe it was the combination of being busy and the time change but I'm not a fan. I've been way tired. Than was out of town in San Diego and sometimes I just like to fill the schedule so we all just go to bed early from running around so much.

Monday was awesome because my Aunt Leslie came to visit us! And we got to meet the new love in her life and he is great. We chatted, walked to the park with the kids and they played football with Pacen and he was in heaven. Then we ordered some great chinese food and the day was already over. I seriously need to go back to Maui to visit her soon. It's already been a year since we went and I think it needs to be a once a year ritual for us.

Tuesday was a Zoo day with Camry's little preschool group. I will be honest...I was not that impressed with the Oakland Zoo, although they did have a cool bat habitat. Those dudes were huge! But the day didn't start out great since I couldn't find my keys and I had to phone since Than had the charger that we share. And then I found my keys that had fallen behind a little bench in our kitchen but that wasn't as good as the other day when I found them in my car. Argh. I think my problem with my keys is that I have a lot of things to bring in from the car when I come home...ie...four kids....that I don't think about my keys because I'm already thinking about the next thing and making sure the gate is shut so Penny doesn't get out and blah blah blah. Anyway--the zoo. It was fun but I was just being grumpy that day. And my shoes were hurting my feet and that never makes me happy.

I love the look on Asher's face in this last one. It's like, "Holy Crap That thing is HUGE!"

Wednesday we just hung around the house. Pacen didn't have school on Thursday thanks to Veteran's Day so we had a little party that night. The norm. Popcorn. Movie. Blankets. It doesn't get better than that.

Thursday was my first of many visits I'm sure to the Jelly Belly Factory. You really can't go wrong there. It's free and they give you a bag of Jelly Belly's at the end. You can't beat that! And you get to wear awesome paper hats.

This was the crew. I went with Carrie and Rachel. There were 10 kids between the three of us. We were practically our own preschool.

Proof that Gentry was there. She's my little jelly belly. Seriously she's getting so fat. I love it.

Pacen and Asher. Even though they are two years apart, they play really well together. They are the only boys and have to stick together. Plus, Asher loves to just watch Pacen play the Wii. Pacen couldn't love anything more than that!

Thursday night included soccer, and then Than coming home...yeah! Thanks to a Furlough, Pacen got to stay home on Friday, too, and we really just stayed home until Than got home and then we ventured out to your favorite store and mine...Costco. Gentry is being blessed in church tomorrow so we had to get some snacks for people to munch after church. Than's parents and grandparents came down today and we've just been hanging out. Than ran 20 miles today for his marathon training. I really am proud of him for doing this. It's time consuming, but what an awesome thing to do. BYU won again today. Utah lost again today. It's been a great Saturday!

Random Pictures

I take a lot of pictures. Really??? I don't think anyone knew that. Here are just some that I had taken over October and November that I hadn't posted. Some are even from the hospital and some are just a few days old. I sure love these kids....all four of them. There are moments that I feel a little overwhelmed with the responsibility of it all, just making sure that every one's needs are met, but it all works out and there really is just a lot of love in our house even when Camry, Claira and Pacen are running around the house screaming and chasing each other. There's a lot of laughter, a lot of crying and whining, a lot of learning, a lot of cleaning, a lot of diapers, a lot of laundry, but most importantly, a lot of love.

For the life of me I can't get this picture to upload correctly.