First bath

One of the things I love about having a baby is that Dave always takes a week off work to help out so I can just focus on recovering and enjoying the baby. Yesterday after he made breakfast, got everyone off to school and went grocery shopping, he gave Chloe her first bath at home.

Look at all that dark hair!

She didn't like it, of course.

Levi loves having Dave home too. I've been a bit of a bump on a log the past few weeks, so he likes having dad around to play with. I'm impressed with how well he's adjusting to Chloe. Sometimes he's too rough near her, and that makes me nervous, but he absolutely adores her and loves to hold her and give her hugs and kisses.

All done! That feels much better.

Fuzzy after-bath hair!

The bath wiped her out for a few hours, so I dressed her up and took pictures. What a doll!

Welcome baby Chloe!

Chloe Louise was born on Friday, February 24th at 4:37 p.m. She was 7 lb 2 oz and 20" long. We are so happy she is here!

Overall the labor was long and boring. It's a good thing we packed card games. I was already 4cm when I got there at 8:00, but the nurses were so busy with other deliveries that the whole thing took forever to get going. My doctor broke my water around 12:45, the contractions got painful around 1:30, and then I had a wonderful epidural around 2:00. Here I am, feeling no pain, just moments before Chloe was born. She arrived in just one push.

My awesome doctor let me have my baby when I wanted. I chose to be induced the day after my parents got home from visiting Ellen in Hawaii. Dr. Yin always tells me things like, "You make this look easy!" I like her a lot. The boys got to meet her when they came later, and they shook her hand and thanked her for the safe delivery of their baby.

Admiring my beautiful baby girl. I just can't take my eyes off of her. It's hard to know who she looks like, but she definitely looks like one of ours. The thing that really sets her apart (other than being a girl) is all her long dark hair. I don't think Levi had this much hair when he was a year old.

She was super alert and looking all around her first hour, and then she got hungry and nursed great for 45 minutes.

My mom almost missed the birth when she went out for a quick walk. We had no idea I was so close (yay epidurals!) until the doctor came to check me and told me not to sneeze until they got the room all set up. So we quickly called my mom to tell her to come back.

Chloe is their 35th grandbaby.

My dad brought the kids down to meet their baby sister a couple hours after she was born. They were all SO excited. Unfortunately the sun had gone down by then, so I didn't get many good pictures.

Tyler's showing us her big yawn.

Our sweet nurse let the boys help her give Chloe her first bath. That was a lot of fun for them, and she told me afterwards that she was so impressed with their medical knowledge.

Chloe didn't like the bath so much.

The most unfornate thing about the whole hospital stay was that I had to share a room, since there were so many deliveries that day. The lack of privacy wasn't too bad, since there was a curtain; but what really bugged me was that I didn't get the window side, so I didn't have good lighting for pictures. That's my favorite thing to do in the hospital - take pictures of my new baby. So before I left I asked my roommate if I could go to her side to take a few pictures. But the lighting wasn't very good by then (this picture is kinda blurry) and Chloe wasn't in a great mood at the time. I figured I might as well go home.

We left when she was 24 hours old. My parents watched the kids all day, and they made us a huge "Welcome Home Chloe and mom!" sign. The house was clean and there was a wonderful ham dinner waiting for us. It was so good to be home.

Chloe woke up every couple of hours last night, but that was much better than when I was pregnant and had insomnia and couldn't sleep past 3 or 4 every morning. It was also better than being in the hospital when my roommate's baby screamed louder than any newborn I'd ever heard. Yep, it's good to be home.

Blue and Gold

Last week was the blue and gold banquet. This is the big annual cub scout birthday party, and we always start out with dinner - this year it was pot luck. My boys love church pot luck dinners. Dave and I aren't huge fans of them, but at least I get out of making dinner. I made a jello salad.

Tyler earned his Bear badge, which is cool because he got it done 2 months early - yay! Now he can work on earning extra stuff before he turns 10 and moves up to Webelos.


Black is slimming, right?? Here he's pinning the mother's pin on me.

See my huge finger splint? It is doing MUCH better now.

After awards and birthday cake they played a bunch of relay games. Tyler got to go first, since he had the nearest birthday.

They finished up with a funny game. All the cub scouts took off their socks and shoes, rolled up their pants and stood behind the chalk boards. Then all the parents had to correctly identify their own son's feet. At first it seemed really hard, but as we looked closely it was obvious. Tyler was #13. You gotta love cub scouts!

First haircut, finally!

I finally got around to cutting Levi's hair last week. He was SO excited. Every time I gave someone else a haircut, he'd ask for one too. But I just loved his cute curly locks and kept putting it off. I decided to do it on Saturday, when Dave could be here to help and take pictures; but his day was so busy that he suggested I have Spencer take the pictures instead. Wow! He did a fabulous job. I especially love all the different angles and focal points.

We put a movie on to distract Levi, and he did really well holding still.

I love this one! I think Spencer has such an artistic eye.

At least Levi doesn't have a double cowlick, like Dave and three of the boys.

Almost done!



What a handsome big boy!




I bribed him towards the end, when he was ready to be done but I wasn't quite yet. Now whenever anyone mentions the word haircut, he says, "Haircut, lollipop!"


He looks instantly older, but I do miss that curly blond hair.

Valentine's Day

I love Valentine's Day, and I especially like to make creative valentine cards with the boys. This year may be my favorite ones we've ever done. We got the idea from Family Fun, and they turned out so stinkin' cute!

We started out by taking a bunch of pictures of the boys holding an old mop handle. We did it in the dining room so we'd get the pretty red curtains in the background. I fit 2 images per 4x6 picture by doubling the canvas size on Photoshop and adding an identicle image to the blank side. Then I typed the words in white so they'd show up nicely against the dark red. I had them printed at Costco, and it only cost $8 for 60 prints to make 120 valentines. Not bad!

Then Tyler and Dallin finished the rest all by themselves (I mostly made Brennan's) this past weekend. They taped a lollipop to the back of the picture, taped the picture to some scrapbook paper I had, and wrote the names on the front. They were all very excited about their Valentine's Day parties today, except Spencer, who won't have any since he's in middle school now. Bummer.

Last night for our Family Home Evening treat I made the coconut cake that Marrisse posted on our family food blog. I tinted the frosting pink for V-day. It was very delicious. Then I broke the glass bowl I used to make the icing because it was so slippery, and in the process I sliced off the posterior DIP of my left index finger, i.e. the back of my last finger joint. I cannot begin to tell you how painful it is. A big chunk of my skin is gone, probably down the drain, exposing a very sensitive huge hole that bled forever last night. Dave spent 20 minutes cleaning out all the shards of glass from the garbage disposal. I was so worried he was going to cut himself. I woke up several times during the night with a horrible throbbing pain in my finger. Then I literally cried allegator tears when I peeled off the stuck bandaid this morning. Dave ran to the store before work to get me some lidocaine gel, telfa pads and a finger splint, and it is feeling much better now. So no fun heart-shaped pancakes for us this morning.

These are my favorite valentines of all. I love these people so much!

I especially LOVE Levi's face in this one!

They love it when dad reads books at night because he always makes them so silly and fun. I married Dave because he made me laugh. He married me because I laughed at his jokes. Now he makes our kids laugh too, and that makes me so happy.

Happy Valentine's Day to the best guy ever -- who cleans up my broken glass and takes care of my wounds and encourages my hobbies and lets me have as many children as I want and is such an awesome dad to them. I am so blessed to have you as my valentine!