Baby Quinn

Pictures by Evelyn at Freckles Photography

Life

Better late than never right? This last few months have been a whirlwind. So much happening all at once I'm just barely getting a chance to catch my breathe. So here come some updates finally.

I'll start with the good news :) Quinn, boy # 4, was born on March 4th. 7lbs 11 oz and 20.5 inches. Labor was great! When we had Clayton we had a home birth and I thought anything other than that again would be miserable. But we had Quinn at Orem Community Hospital and it was such a great experience. My labor was induced at about 1:00 in the afternoon and by 4:34 I had my sweet baby in my arms. And contrary to what you might think since we went so natural last time, I DID have an epidural, and it actually worked!!! It hasn't done that since I had my very first baby so it was so great.
I love that hospital, everyone there was so nice and caring and it was good to have a chance to relax a little before coming home to the chaos.

We got home Sunday and our great friends brought us meals for a few days till my mother in law as able to come. She stayed for a week and it as such a wonderful blessing. I have so many friends who don't really like their in laws, I feel very fortunate to have such great ones who I absolutely love. Sue took such great care of us, and I loved having the company. It's so nice having someone to talk to during the day other than little kids. I was sad to see her go home, but I know she had a lot waiting for her there. She does so much with so little thanks. Thank you Sue. For being so wonderful and for helping us when we really needed you. And for making it possible for my mom to not have to stress about us and just be able to take care of my Dad.

Now here's where life gets crazy. 2 weeks after Quinns birth I took the boys in to the Dr. just for some routine things, shots etc. While we were there we had Parkers iron tested since he'd been looking kinda of pale and sickly lately. I hadn't noticed it as much but everyone was starting to comment on how he looked so I decided we'd better just have him checked. Well it was so low we were sent to the hospital that afternoon and admitted and he received a blood transfusion! It was so scary, I felt terrible for not realizing how sick he was. But the next morning he had more energy than he'd had in months and the color had come back to his face. But the question still yet to be solved it why and how he was losing blood. We've spent the last few weeks getting test after test done to figure it out without a lot of luck. But hopefully soon we will have some answers.

3 days after Parker got out of the hospital Dad lost his battle with cancer and passed away. I'll do a separate post on this.
That week was busy getting ready for the funeral and the next spent visiting with family. And now other than dr. appts we are enjoying the quiet, well as much as we can with a house full of cute boys ;), and trying to get into a routine and figure out life again.

When Parker was at the hospital my good friend Evelyn was watching the kids and as a gift she took these sweet pictures of Quinn for me!!! She's done almost all our pics int he past and again she did an amazing job. Thank you Evelyn! You are such a great friend. These pics make my heart melt when I look at them and bring much needed smiles to us all.

Science Fair

This week was the school science fair, and even though it was mainly for the 5th and 6th graders they let all of the kids 1st and up participate. Parker was really exited to make a project for it. Here did it on magnetics and made a little rollerblader that moved around the cones by magnets underneath. What was the reason Parker was so motivated to do a project? Icecream. That's right, they promised every kid who participated icecream so of course we had to do it. And I think he did learn a bit along the way so you can't really be upset about that. Only 2 kids from his class participated and he was so proud to be one of them.

34 weeks!

The count down is on, 6 more weeks! I keep praying this little boy comes a little bit early, mostly so I can walk again, but since the last 4 babies came just after their due dates we're just hoping he gets here safely. I can't believe I'm doing this for the 5th time, each one has been harder that's for sure and I'm excited to be done. I'd really like to think that 4 boys will be enough for us and I can enjoy the rest of life pregnancy free. But I think almost everyone wants to believe they are really done when they are in the midst of the 3rd trimester lol.

The boys are getting excited to meet their new brother, and Clayton is enjoying the last few weeks of getting to be the baby, oh if only he knew what was about to happen. Poor kid, he's so young, I feel kind of guilty having another so soon when he still needs me so much. Although I'm sure once Jack gets here that Clayton will seem huge to me and not such a baby anymore.

I don't feel like a very photogenic person normally, so taking a picture pregnant when my face is all puffy and my belly huge is not so appealing to me. But here you go, this is the one and only pic I'll post of me and the belly. Let's just hope that over the next 6 weeks only the baby grows and not me, I don't think I could carry around much more.

Birthday Boys

:: Warning :: Excessive bragging ahead ::


This is always a busy week at our house. We have 2 birthdays to celebrate. First is Parker's.
I can't believe he turned 7 this year! How did my baby boy get so grown up? I have to say that I absolutely love this age. Parker is the greatest kid. He's always willing to help with whatever you ask, does his homework before you can even check to see if he even has any, and he is so smart! He's one of the top readers in his class and is breezing through the math they are learning. He is always coming home to tell me something they started learning at school and wants to know why everyone doesn't already know it. It seems most the stuff they go over he's already figured out on his own. Right now we're trying to decide if we should move him to a different school, like a charter school, so that he can be challenged a little bit more. But in the meantime he is loving feeling like he's at the top. He likes to tell me all the time that he's the smartest kid in his class, I'm sure there are a lot of others just as smart, but I'm glad he thinks highly of himself :)
One of the best things about Parker is that he is so thoughtful and sensitive. He's not sensitive in the way that he gets offended easily or cried a lot, but if I'm having a hard day he can pick up on it and will do little random secret things all day to help. I've found my bed made several times with a little paper heart on top. He even changed the laundry load for me once, including folding the clothes from the dryer and putting them all away! And I didn't even know he was doing it until I came upstairs to and he was just waiting for me to help put in the soap for the new load and turn everything on. What 7 year old kid does that?! So he's awesome and I wouldn't trade him for any other kid in the whole world.

Parker and KC have chore charts they have to do everyday and Parker's figured out that the "reward" for doing all their jobs is not really that great and negotiated himself a better deal. They each ahve about 8-12 jobs a day, some are really simple like brushing teeth and getting dressed, those are mostly to help KC remember what he needs to do. But some are harder like doing dishes, taking out the trash, and cleaning bathrooms. It is so nice to have kid getting big enough to really help! So anyway they get a sticker for every job they do adn when tehy get 100, which takes a few weeks, they can pick out a toy at the dollar store. Well since those toys usually break within the first hour they have them Parker wanted to know if he could just have the dollar instead so he can save it for a better toy. So he's building up a nice little stash of money and likes to count it everyday to see how much closer he is. He has a picture up on his bedroom wall of the toy he wants, a fancy Star Wars lego ship.

Our other birthday boy is Aaron. He took the day off work today so he could go to the family history library and do some scanning and research. Sometimes I think family history is a weird hobby for someone his age, but he sure loves it, and it could be worse right? He could be glued to the computer or video games all day. And it's fun to see how excited he gets when he connects with someone new to share info or comes across just the thing he's been searching for.

I'm glad he's out enjoying himself today, he's had so much going on at work lately, then some health issues - brought on by all the recent stress I'm sure, and a pretty pathetic pregnant wife who spends most the day sitting around and sleeping while the house just gets messier and messier. So he's spending a lot of time taking care of everyone else and doesn't get a lot of free time.

Aaron was born 13 weeks premature. He wasn't supposed to be born until April. Can you imagine having a baby at only 27 weeks? It's scary to think about now let alone 31 years ago when they didn't have nearly as much of the medical technology that we have today. Aaron really was a miracle baby to have survived, and I'm so glad that he did. I don't know what we would do without him. He's my very best friend and such a wonderful husband and father. These sweet boys of our absolutely adore him. And so do I. He works so hard to do what he believes is right and to make us all happy.

Happy Birthday to 2 of my favorite boys. I can't imagine life without you. Thanks for all that you do and for being you!