One

This is more "historical documents", but it has to be said....

One year ago this evening, Geoff was out of town on business, baby #5 was due in about a month (we never knew the sex of a child before it's birth), and the four children and I were heading to the Church for Cub Scout pack meeting where Eric was being honored with his Arrow of Light. During Pack Meeting, I waddled myself up to the front to say some nice things about Eric (as instructed by the Cub Master) and we had a good meeting. When it was over, a friend of mine who was a little further along with her pregnancy than I was with mine, were marveling at how us two very pregnant women were putting up chairs while several men stood around and chatted. We decided it was probably good, so as to bring on labor. Ha, ha, ha, we laughed.

Got home, put all the kids to bed. As I was leaving the last bedroom, a contraction came out of nowhere and stopped me in my tracks. I held on to the stair rail for support until it passed.

I felt a little bad and the pain came regularly, but I was sure it would pass. Geoff wasn't in town and it was a month early, there's no way this was labor! I took a shower in order to help with the pain. I laid down in bed and called Geoff on the phone. I told him that contractions were pretty hard and close but I was sure they would go away after I slept for a while. We talked about him getting on the last flight that left at 10 pm. I said whatever. At about 9:45, I realized that I needed to call the doctor and get to the hospital.

Awesome neighbors came over. Diane stayed at the house with the kids while I got in the car with Mary. She sped to the medical center, trying with no avail to keep the Pilot from bumping all over the place. I think she called Geoff while we were driving, but I'm not sure as I was pretty wrapped up in myself at the time. We walked into the maternity ward at 11:30 pm. I stopped at the nurses station bent over a contraction, and a nice voice (couldn't see her face) asked me if I wanted an epidural. I nodded fervently in the affirmative. She said: "as soon as you get in that room right there, you can have one." I wanted to run. The contraction passed and as I entered the room, I announced that I was taking my pants off because it was coming. I lay on the bed as nurses and techs moved frantically around me. Poor Mary was witnessing it all. You know at this point you don't care who is there. At one point, one nurse caught my hands and demanded that I look in her eyes and breath to keep from pushing. It worked (for a minute), she was good.

Thirteen minutes after we walked through the hospital doors, I had a bouncing baby boy. I fell in love at first sight (okay, first sight after he was cleaned).

I never got that epidural.

Until Christian was actually born and in my arms, it didn't dawn on me that Geoff was missing the birth of our child. Poor guy. He felt terrible. Even if he had made the last flight, he wouldn't have made it on time. The doctor barely made it for this one. Fifth child.

Geoff rented a car at about 10 pm when he got the call that I was on the way to the hospital. He made the five hour drive in four and got to the hospital at about 2 am, thanks to adrenaline and Clay in California with a two hour time zone difference.

Can I say again, I ADORE this baby! Happy 1st birthday, Christian.

Let him eat cake!

But only on his first birthday and never again in this manner.

Anyone who knows me at all, knows how stressful this was for me to stand by and watch (as you can tell a bit by my commentary). The anxiety over the mess almost made me need a Valium!

Yes, I chose the blue icing. I know. Back off.

Fall

With the beginning of a new school year, Fall is not necessarily in the air, but it is definitely in my head. It's really bad. It's only been one day, but in my mind, when the kids get home from school, they're supposed to change clothes and go play outside until dinnertime. No doing when that when it is 93 degrees and 88 percent humidity at 4:00 pm! Regardless, I'm in the mood for some cool, soup weather.

School was great for Logan and Maren.

This picture was taken while reading scriptures, a good 20 minutes before time to leave. Excited much, Maren?

Samy had to have her picture taken too, with her new lunch kit. She starts Pre-K in a couple weeks.

Off we go!

Eric had a bit of a different day.

He said he was frustrated and annoyed. He is attending a brand new school. There are new rules, new hallways, new classrooms, new everything. And it was tough to get a grip on. Bless his heart. He didn't bring his schedule print-out (that his mom told him to) because he memorized it. Turned out everyone was supposed to have a copy of their schedule. So he spent all of first period in the admin office waiting in line to get a new print-out. Then he was put into Beginner band instead of Honor band and spent all of second period working that out. Then the lunch schedules were all messed up, so he spent all of third period getting lunch (at least they let them eat!). I think after that he got a little more settled until the end of the day when there were all the rules about when and where you can exit the building... He'll be okay. Actually, he'll be great. Already his Junior High experience is 9000 times better than mine.

The good news is that he walked in the door an hour before last year when he took the bus to the old school. That is going to be good.

I love school. I love schedules. I love organization.

I love Fall - okay, almost Fall.

Happy School Days, Kiddlets!

Twelve

Our first born turned the ripe old age of 12 a couple days ago. Yesterday at church as we were singing goodbye to him from the Primary (children's class) and he was escorted by the Young Men (to the youth class), people asked if I was sad. No way. I love it. I love it for him! Remember back when you were the oldest and biggest kid in Primary and couldn't WAIT to get the heck out of there?

He was very excited. In Sacrament meeting (the general meeting) at church, the Bishop invited him up to the stand and had him recite his favorite scripture. I was so proud of him. Such a good young man. *sigh* Ah, they grow so fast....

Happy Birthday, Eric. I love you.

Where's Waldo

Wreaking havoc is exhausting.

Auto conversation

I was driving in the car with Logan and Maren just now. I was listening to some talk radio and they guy said: "I was reading a blog called..." and Logan said: "Man. I was hoping he was going to say Laundry Queen."

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Logan, but I'm not quite that popular.

Look what I do!

(No babies were harmed during the making of this film. No matter how it looks in the end.)



He's been doing it for a few days, but I am now just getting it recorded.

Fifth child...

The trip

Here's what happened: You know when you're on vacation, and you have a great time, and every picture you take you are thinking of a blog post? Then you get home and life starts up again and there's just too much to say and you can't figure out where to begin. So, vacation re-cap is going to be more of a cliff's notes version. You'll be okay.

Oh, plus, Geoff already downloaded all the pictures he took (800 on his camera to my ~12 on my camera) onto the desktop and I'm too lazy to transfer them over to my laptop to post them. Geoff is really the very good novice photographer. He's got all this vision and ideas and angles for shots and all. At about the gazillion temple we had to stop at for " another angle for a shot", I started calling him Ansel (as in Adams). He may have been offended. He'll be okay, too.

So here goes: Edouard tried his darnedest to ground us. The storm hit land earlier than expected and our flight was cancelled and pushed back later (closer to the storm hitting), so we called the airline to see what could be done about this. Not only did they move our flight up an hour earlier than the original one, but it was no a non-stop. Woo-hoo!

the happy travelers!

(I didn't care, seating arrangements - made by me - put me with the girls and Geoff with Christian, hee, hee, hee). Anyway, this meant that we had to haul out of the house an hour earlier than originally planned. Luckily, I am completely uptight and have mild OCD and it was not a problem.

We got into Salt Lake City and immediately headed for Carl's Jr. Carl's is one of our favorite treats when we go out west. Mmmmm, Carl's Jr.....

The next days were full of fun and adventure. Here's what we did:

• The zoo with Janet, Holly, Ronnie, and Hunter.

• Shopped at Park City (I refrained from buying a new Coach bag at the outlet -- it was tough)
• Wheeler farm, a farmers market and the Copper mine
• Benn took four of ours and three friends kids (by himself) to see Space Chimps. Watching Benn load seven kids into his Salt Lake County prison van was awesome. Not having to watch Space Chimps was priceless. (on this day, I stayed home and did laundry - remember, this is a vacation....)
• Hiked up to the Granite Quarry where they got the granite to build the SL Temple and Conference Center. The kids all brought home rocks. At the airport security on the way home, the lady says to me: "Are there rocks in here?", holding up Logan's backpack. I said: "They're granite rocks." That seemed to be okay with her, she didn't say another word, just let it through. I'm thinking, only in Utah....

On Friday, Clay drove up from California to spend the weekend with us. We spent a lot of time at Temple Square and surroundings. I LOVE the Joseph Smith movie at the JS Memorial building!

We ate, shopped some more, and let the kids swim at the hotel we got for the weekend.

Our last couple days there, we (and by we I mean Geoff, Eric, Logan and Maren) made an impromptu hike up a rather large hill/mountain -- I'm too far removed to know the difference -- in Draper near the beautiful temple being built there. Samy, Christian and I ran races on the grass in front of a golf/country club that we happened to stop at.

Samy won all the races, whether she was racing me, or her imaginary friends. The sad thing is that I really was trying. She's a fast little bugger.

One of the funnest things we did was to ride the ski lifts at Sundance. Beautiful. I wish I had pictures of that. Geoff may have taken some, but again.... lazy... I was looking to hang with Robert Redford, but he must not have been in town. We also went to the MTC and took pictures of each child in front of the Mission Training Center sign. It will be cute to compare these pictures with each of their respective ones later.

(Imagine pictures inserted here, they really were good, and we caught Christian standing - Laziness combined with computer retardation stinks!)

Since we were so close, we went onto the BYU campus. None of us are BYU fans, but I had heard there was a good candy center in the bookstore. It was decent. (Tip: never trust a candy recommendation from a skinny guy. - no offense, Bob.)

We also went to the dinosaur park/museum in Ogden as well as Hill Air Force Base. We've done these sites before and were anxious to see them again. Craziest thing: When we got out of the car at the dinosaur park, I was cold enough that I almost wished I had a sweater. What the heck!? August! It's the canyons, I was told. Who knew!

The night before we left, Geoff and I got to sneak away to the temple (because there is one five minutes from where ever you are) and leave the kids with Benn and Jan. So that ended on the perfect note.

The next day, after two planes, a three hour lay-over in Phoenix (Um, Phoenix, it is HOT in the desert and you live there, so you should know that you should have inside connections between terminals at your airport and not make strangers to your town walk outside from one terminal to the next without proper signage. I'm just saying.), a thirty dollar pizza, and a lot of coloring and Gameboy DS we were back home safe and sound.

Now I'm doing laundry.

P.S. Thanks, Edouard, for taking care of watering the lawn for us.

P.P.S. This is what Christian did about two minutes after he was put into the car. Every time. Poor whacked out baby...

A message to our friend

Dear Edouard,

We have waited ALL SUMMER LONG for our family vacation. You've formed yourself into a nice Tropical Storm and are making your way into a Category 1 hurricane. That's fine. You do what you need to do. We appreciate you taking care of watering our lawn while we are away. We've got someone to take care of the mail, so you don't need to worry about that. I would just like to ask that you maybe stall a bit and hold up in the gulf for an hour or so tomorrow morning so that we can get on that plane and have our nice family trip.

You're scheduled to make landfall right about when we are getting on the plane, see, and it would be really inconvenient to be stuck in the airport -- or heaven forbid, on the airplane -- for a few hours. If you could just hold back and do us this one little favor, it would be great. You're a gem. Good luck in all your endeavors.

Sincerely,
Nic