Happy Lame Birthday!

Poor Mike had the lamest birthday this year (yes, almost a month ago.  Seriously so behind here!).  Spencer was exactly one week old.  I dropped my mom off at the airport early that morning, we watched conference all day.  Our good friends, the Greer family, brought us dinner that night and it was delicious! They even made Mike cake.  They brought all the food over and hung out until the Priesthood session.  I had zero presents for him to open. He bought himself something the week before, but I usually have the kids pick out stuff, yeah didn't happen. Needless to say, I felt like the lamest wife ever.  Mike was a good sport about it all and obviously understood the situation, but I still felt bad.  Next year will be better!

Giant Toddler

I was trying to get a decent picture of Spencer....


Luke came along and thought he needed a ball...so helpful...


I got some cute ones of Luke and gave up on Spencer....


Then he laid down where Spencer was and didn't fit on the blanket at all.....


When did my other baby get so big?  Just last week, Luke was so little.  Bring home a newborn and Luke feels like a GIANT!

Coolest Grandma Trick

My mom makes balloon animals.  It's pretty much the coolest thing for a Grandma to know how to do if you are 5, 3, and 2.  My mom came and helped for the last week of pregnancy and first week of newborn life.  It was perfect timing!  She rescued me from a horrible last week.  She came in and took over my house, got kids to school, fixed meals, cleaned the house, and did the laundry while I laid in misery on my bed thinking my eye was going to explode.  She even read to me at night (future post about my cluster headaches).  How about that for a great mom?!  So grateful for a mom that is willing to come and work when needed.  She still got to play a little.  They did balloon animals every other day or so, she took the kids on walks down to the duck pond to feed the ducks.  They had picnics in the backyard and read lots of stories.  Even as an adult, it's always nice to have my mom around.  She also made me chocolate chip cookies twice. :)  Yay for an awesome mom!

New Wheels

We finally have a vehicle we can all fit in.  During Mike's week off, he went and bought a van.  We are loving that no one can touch each other and we can all ride together. 

More Spencer

Some funny things about Spencer already.

The moment out of the womb, he had his legs straight and arms out.  Most newborns curl their legs to their bum, not this kid.  He likes them straight out and long.  He was so wiggly already.  Constantly moving when he was awake, not big movements, but always moving.  He was my wiggliest kid in my tummy....to the point he was more active than all 3 other pregnancies COMBINED! I couldn't believe it.  It's been fun to watch him this last week.  His movements are getting pretty big for such a young baby.  He loves to lay on the floor and kicks and waves his arms like a 2 month old.   He doesn't like to be swaddled.  In fact he gets really mad.  And has an incredibly loud cry for a newborn. 


The kids got to come up to the hospital again on Sunday to visit for a while.  The only reason his feet are up was we were touching them. :)   I love this picture of Isabelle and Spencer (and his leg rolls). He loves watching the kids.  He is so alert and awake.  He studies faces and really watches whoever is holding him.


Notice the kids....Luke and Isabelle touching and noticing the baby....Michael has the iPad.  This sums up the two times the kids came to see the baby.


Hello chub!


Luke said Spencer the first time, and it was ADORABLE!


So hard to get a real picture of what a newborn actually looks like!  Every picture, it's not quite right....This still isn't totally him, but it's close.  He looks SO different with his eyes open.

Welcome, Baby!

Spencer Jay was born last week at 9 pounds 2 oz and 21 inches long.  He has a smallish head, but fat on every other inch of his body.  Fat rolls on his legs and arms.  He even has back fat and cleavage.  While he is an ounce smaller than Luke weight wise, he is much fatter, Luke's weight was just in his head and arms.  I cannot get over his chub.  Loving it!  This adventuresome pregnancy is over!  I have lots to fill in from the last 2ish weeks as my head issues get better every day, I'm almost back to normal.

My 2nd to last day being pregnant.  I was scheduled for an induction Friday morning.  Got up before 6am, got ready to go, showed up at the hospital at 6:45 for them to tell me too many babies had been born and there wasn't room for me and to go home.....not what every pregnant woman wants to hear. While I completely understand, a phone call would have been nice!!!!  My doctor had me come in and he was beyond irritated they sent me home and rescheduled my induction for a rare Saturday induction.


I got a phone call Saturday morning, saying it was still busy, they wouldn't cancel, but they bumped me back to noon.  I was worried how long this one was going to be, as my other two inductions were 12+ hour ones. However, this baby was ready!  Things started after noon and he was born at 6:16. By far my shortest and easiest labor and delivery.  It is my reward for the last 6 months.  Haha!  Enjoy the picture overload.....




My mom brought the kids to the hospital soon after.  It was ADORABLE seeing all the different reactions. Isabelle, instant love.  The happiest big sister.  She was choking back tears.  "I'm not crying."  She said she was so happy the baby was here and trying so hard not to cry.  It was so tender.  Then later she said, "I don't know if this is a dream or if it's real!  I hope it's real!"


Checkin him out.


Luke is also completely enamored.  He said, "Baby out!"  And every time he sees the baby, over and over and over again, "HI, baby! HI baby! Hi baby!"  and "Hold it! Hold it! Hold it!"  He sounds like a broken record.


Michael asked to hold the baby once, then saw the iPad and then could care less about baby.  He sat glued to the iPad.


This picture of all my boys makes me happy.



Our first family photo of 6!  It took so many pictures to just get everyone looking at the camera!  So happy to have Spencer in our family. Spencer was supposed to be Luke's name his whole pregnancy, but when he came out, it just wasn't Spencer....This is Spencer. Welcome to our family, baby!!!!

Baby Fight Club

Luke's face always looks terrible!  He's a super active boy that seems to always be getting hurt.  Sometimes other people's fault, but often just his own.  Looks like he seriously goes to a baby fight club.

Last week he got a black eye.  The pictures didn't turn out well, but his face was so funny!  He had a busted lip, a black eye, 2 big scratches, a massive goose egg, and then just 3 regular greenish/purplish bruises.

Gotta love crazy little boys!!!!

Too Much TV

Look how his places is set.  Yes, he does this all by himself.  He puts everything in it's right spot and is crazy OCD about it. If I only put a fork on the table, he goes and gets the rest of the stuff.  He also has not been a fan of the paper goods we have been sporting lately during survival mode. "The fork goes, here, the knife goes here, the cup, napkin...etc"  I asked him how he knew all that.  "I learned it from TV."  Is that a proud mom moment?  When we are in survival mode and the amount of tv he has watched in the last 5 weeks is enough to make me sick, I have to think, "Well, at least he learned something."

I Guess They Do Catch Something

Playing with blocks, Isabelle said, "Look what I made!"  I had her tell me about it.  "It's the Jaredites crossing the sea to the promised land.  The blue is the water, and the triangles are the boats." She then proceeded to tell me the story and that it was one of her favorites.  So often, I feel like what we try to teach our kids is going in one ear and out the other.  Sometimes I wonder why we even try?! Then they surprise you with stuff like that.

Isabelle does love scriptures in general.  We were having issues with going to bed.  I put scriptures on my laptop in the hall outside the kids' bedrooms when they make it to bed on time. Isabelle loves it.  She often will cry if she's gone to bed too late and I won't let her listen to scriptures.

We also have some animated scriptures recorded on our tv.  One Saturday morning, Michael came to our room, "I HATE Jesus!"  Mike and I looked at each other, What?!  "Sister only ever wants to watch Jesus movies!  I don't always want to watch Jesus! I want to watch Cars!"  It is often what she chooses any day of the week if she gets reign of the remote.

I love seeing her love the Scriptures.

Happy Birthday "Woot!"

Luke turned 2 last week. This little boy makes me so happy.  His vocabulary has gone CRAZY the last 6ish weeks.  He barely spoke words, just yelled sounds or was quiet.  Now, he will say anything.  He just points to things and says what it is, words, words, words, all day now.  He says his name "Woot."  We asked him who's birthday is it, "ME!" and how old are you, "TWO!" Holding up his first finger and thumb.  A few things I don't love, "MINE!"  Yes, it is always yelled. and "NO, WOOT DO IT!"  Also always yelled. But he's still cute.

We started with breakfast balloons, book, and candle. He was so cute when he saw his balloons on his chair for breakfast.



I didn't actually shop for his birthday book this year, obviously.  He doesn't really like stories.  He likes photograph books.  He's going to be my non-fiction kid.  I tried to read this book to him lots of times throughout the day and he got all excited, "George!" but one sentence in and he was off my lap for a different book he liked, with real pictures, none of this illustrated, story business.  He did sit and look at the pictures a few times, just wouldn't let me read it to him. My big kids, however, love his new book.

Then we had our normal school, preschool, chaotic day.  Mike came home from work and then we had some of his favorite foods for dinner, chicken, stuffing, peas and grapes. Then present time!  He got a small basketball.  This kid went NUTS!  He was jumping and yelling, "BALL! BALL! BALL!"  If anyone got close to it, he yelled and got very protective. He also got a big car ramp, a couple of cars, and some more GeoTrax pieces from our Craigslist buy from a few years ago.  We've almost given the boys the whole lot.  He was a happy happy boy.  They've all been great presents!




He wanted a basketball cake.  Not my finest cake by any means.  I was rushed.  (Isabelle had a school project. I'm going to have to figure out how to do beginning of the school year stuff and Luke's birthday because I have a feeling I will be doing lots of "All about me" projects on Luke's birthday.)



Luke is such a fun little boy to have around.  He likes to sing.  Anytime he sees a picture of Jesus, he sings, "ahhhhh BEAM...." and sings Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam.  He likes Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the ABC's, but he sings along to lots of the music in the car.

This last month he has learned lots of new tricks, talking, climbing out of his crib and he opens doors and the fridge.  I put a fridge lock on because every time I turned around he had cheeks full of grapes (and the awesome diapers that go along with it).  He's very interested in the toilet, and asks to sit on it alot.  I'm not super encouraging on this note these days. The first day he could open doors, he came out of his room a few minutes after I put him down for a nap, dragging his blanket, "I no night night."  It was cute, but didn't get him out of his nap. :)

He makes the funniest faces.  He has a very expressive face.  Funny this coming from the baby that only had 2 faces for MONTHS.  Every Sunday whoever sits behind us in church makes a comment on his expressive face.

He has the teenager whine down already.  He protests with the high-low-high, "MAAA-AAAAAAA-MMMMMYYYYY.

He loves to play in the truck.  Anytime he gets unbuckled he runs around.  He's very tricky to catch and then has to be literally dragged out every. single. time. Close the door and then it's a tantrum all the way into the house.  He's a mess every time we come home from something.

He asks to "rock rock" all day.  He loves to sit with me in the rocking chair.  I love to have him sit with me in the rocking chair.  However, with my disappearing lap, he's getting so frustrated he can't get comfy, which makes him ask more often, like it won't be there next time he asks.

He loves milk, which comes out, "Noke." He loves to brush his teeth.  He loves to dance. He loves basketball.

One of the funniest stories about Luke that I never wrote down anywhere.  We were at some friends house for the 4th of July (apparently never blogged it!). There was a little girl a few months younger than him.  They played so cute together playing Legos, Luke so cutely touched her back.  The dad of this little girl, jokingly said, "Hey Luke!  Keep your hands off my daughter."  Luke looked at his Dad and pointed his finger and started shaking it, yelling toddler gibberish at this dad.  It looked like he was saying, "Look here, you!  I'll touch your daughter if I wanted to touch your daughter."  He completely told this Dad off.  It was hilarious!

Oh, I love this little boy!