Catch-Up

It has obviously been a long time since we have posted anything. Here are some pictures of Christmas. The food is our Christmas Eve dinner. We decided to always have French food for Christmas Eve so this year we made steamed mussels and ratatouille and for dessert the traditional Bouche de Noel.

Brant and Cloe's Birthday Party

Brant and Cloe are now 3 years old. We had a little party for them at our old house the day after we moved. The house was all clean and we were completely moved out so we had the entire party in the front yard and in the garage. We rented a mini bounce house, but it broke the day before the party so the rental company gave us the larger bounce castle for the same price. Danny twisted balloon animals and we got some young women from the ward to do face painting. Brant requested a Toy Story cake and Cloe wanted a pink princess caslte cake. I did my best to fill their orders. It was especially difficult since we moved the same week. They didn't turn out like all the awesome ones I saw on the internet, but the kids were happy. There is also a pic of William in a diaper - just so you can see how chubby he is.

Fishing on the 4th

Here are some pics from the kids first fishing expedition on the 4th of July. Very little fishing actually took place. Brant fell in a swampy part of the lake thinking it was a grassy area and got wet up to his waist. We had to take off his pants and underware. Luckily his baby brother is huge and Brant could wear his pants. They looked like capris on Brant.

Disneyland

Here are some pictures from our trip to Disneyland. We met up with my brother Sam's family and had a great time. We spent 2 days in the park and a day at the beach. We all had a great time. I will post some pics tonight and some in the near future.

Windy Days in IF

Hello Family and friends. I think we have moved to perhaps the most windy place on earth. It was finally a little sunny today, but the wind was so bad that we couldn't stay outside for very long. I decided to take some pics of the kids and a video of William trying to roll over. He has done it twice now, but it was almost a week ago. He doesn't do it in the video, but he sure looks cute. Brant is giving him words of encouragement in a very strange voice. ENJOY!

William Update

I finally took some more pictures of William - the first since he has been home from the hospital. He is such a GREAT baby. He eats well and sleeps as good as you could hope a newborn would sleep. He weighs over 10 pounds already at 2.5 weeks. Brant and Cloe were about 3.5 or 4 months old when they were that big.

William Has Arrived

William is here! I will post some pics and then later tell about his birth.
Here is me about a week and a half before he was born.

Here are some pics right after he was born.



Here are some pics of when Brant and Cloe came to visit their new brother at the hospital.




Here is the story of how he came into the world. Last Tuesday I had my last doctor's appointment. They told me I was dialted to a 1.5 and could have my water broken the next day if I wanted to. Because I had a c-section last time and we were going for a normal delivery this time (called a VBAC) there are some extra guidelines as far as what can be done to induce labor. Danny's mom flew in at 11pm Tuesday night and at 2:30 AM on Wed. morning I started having contractions. At about 5 AM we went into the hospital. I still wasn't dialated more than a 1.5 so at 8 AM they broke my water. Because they wanted to make sure my contactions wouldn't die down once I got an epidural they wanted me to wait until I was dialted to a 4 before giving me one. This didn't happen until about 1 PM. So I labored "naturally" from 2:30 AM to 1 PM. It wasn't too bad until the last hour or two when I thought that the next contraction would probably make me vomit everywhere and make me pass out.
Once I got my epidural things were great, but still very slow. My labor and contraction length finally met the criteria where they could give me some pitocin. By 8 or 9 PM I was dialated to a 5. The next 3 hours passed and I dialated the rest of the way. They let me contract for one more hour to let the baby descend more on his own. Or at least that is what they told me - part of me thinks it was because my doctor was delivering 4 other babies that night and they were trying to schedule things out. Whatever the reasoning it worked becuase I only had to push through 4 contractions and he was out! 8 lbs. 5 oz. 20.5 inches long. He is perfect! We came home Friday night and all is going well - at least with the baby. We are trying to help the kids (mostly Cloe) adjust still.