It's a GIRL!!!!!!

Saturday morning, at 2:29 am, our newest little addition arrived! We are so happy. It was a bit of a rough deliver... more than I was use to. She ended up being posterior (facing forwards, instead of to the side) which made it take quite a bit longer, with a fair about of pain, especially the very end) but she made it and she was definitely worth it all.

This post took a little while to put up because we were working on the name, but now it is with great pleasure that I introduce Anela June (hereafter referred to as A in our blog). She weighed 7lbs 15oz and was 21" long. According to just about every visitor's comments (and her dad's), she looks just like D and CK. I certainly don't disagree with them, but I don't necessarily see it... I just see my sweet little baby that I love to hold.

Here she is just after getting weighed with her dad:

Dave, A, and Me
(I know how pretty I look in all of these pictures, but hey! I just had a baby!)

me and A

A

We got to have some visitors yesterday. Here is her cousin, Evelynne holding her.

Her brothers and sisters were very excited to meet her for the first time.
Here she is with L

CK and A

With D

CK and KL cuddling with me. How fun for me! All the sweet little girls.

Little sidenote: See the cup that KL is holding? It had some juice in it that the nurse had given me. It was pretty much gone, but every time KL saw it, she was sweetly pick it up and hand it to me and say "hewe mom!" I would thank her and she would give a big smile and "Youw wewcome!" I would then take a sip of the very watered down with ice juice and give it to Dave to put up. She would immediately find it on my table then give it back to me until I finally told Dave to put it where she couldn't find it. She was so sad she couldn't help by giving me my juice after that!

Here is KL with her new little sister. We think she will really enjoy having a new sibling to boss around! When it was time for them to leave, she was so very concerned that they weren't taking the baby with them. I saw real panic in her eyes, but I promised A and would come home in a couple of days.

A and B (now where's C? Heehee! It is possible that I'm still a little tired...=slap happy :)...ok, maybe I just have a really dumb sense of humor. )

One of the funnest things about having A when I did is that she was born close to 2 other girl cousins. I mean REALLY close!! My brother Brent and his wife, Kierra had a baby girl on Thursday night. Meanwhile, my next brother Mark and his wife Beth have been in the process of trying to adopt a little girl. I got a call while at my OB's office on Friday, that the birth mother had gone into labor and was about to have their baby! When I heard that, I figured I would ask my doctor to strip my membranes. A short time after that, I got word that she had the baby. Sure enough, I went right into labor and had A early Saturday morning. So... my parents got 3 little granddaughters in 32 hours of each other. As great as all that is, it gets better. Mark and Beth's birth mother gave birth in the same hospital as me and has been right down the hall so these little girls have already started playing with each other.

Here is Beth and baby Ava, with my sister Jill and A

Jill with both little ladies (don't you love all of Ava's hair?)

More fun cousins... Jill had her baby girl in August. Here is Lily (who just a couple of days ago was so little) with Ava and A.

The little girls having their first slumber party. (ok, they didn't actually spend the night, but they did look cute together sharing their little baby cribs).

Beth was somewhat offended by the fact that I hadn't brought lots of girly clothes and A was just stuck wearing regular hospital clothes. She fixed that by running down to get some new clothes for her to wear.

My parents dropped by after coming from the other hospital where my sister in law delivered. Here is my dad holding A for the first time. My mom is holding Ava. My mom had seen A before... she was with me when I had her. It was the first time she had been with me for one of my deliveries and she and Dave were both great supports through it all.


One final pic. This is just me and my baby. I was laying there this morning holding the sleeping baby thinking of how I wish I could freeze this moment forever. It is such a wonderful thing to hold and look at this sleeping miracle. I feel so truly blessed to have her, and my other kids. Motherhood truly is the greatest thing in the world! I'm sure Dave thinks fatherhood is pretty special too, but since I can never experience that and compare, I'm sticking with my claim about motherhood. I remember a few months ago after visiting my sister in law at the hospital just after she had her baby coming home and calling a friend on the phone. We were talking about despite feeling more physical exhaustion and pain then any other time in your life, being there with your new baby is the most special, peaceful time you could ever experience. My friend came up with the word perfection. Perfection. That is how I'm feeling right now.
Thanks to everyone for your love and support! I wish all of you far away were closer to share this with us, but we feel your love anyway and hope you feel ours.

Happy Birthday, Mariana!

Today was my little sister's 20th birthday. My parents were out of town, so Jill and I got to plan the party. Mariana is a great person and we are so thankful to have her in our family. She was born in Moldova and has been our family for 5 years. She is such a wonderful fit and we couldn't love her more. Especially the kids. KL cries and cries every time she leaves. Mariana is always willing to help us out with whatever it is we need. She has such a beautiful smile and personality to match. I just hope that we were able to make her day special enough to show her how much we appreciate and love her.

She and I started our day off by going to get pedicures.

Don't our toes look cute?

We had a picnic at our park for dinner. Here she is holding little Lily... she is always holding someone's baby!

Singing happy birthday...

Blowing out the candles. Just before she blew them out, CK informed her that she was allowed to ask people to help her. Of course, CK is so kind that she didn't want to make Mariana ask, so she just helped volunterily!

Happy Easter! Ok... so maybe we are a little late. Still, I hope you all had a fun Easter. Here's a little bit about ours.

The kids got their Easter Baskets a little early this year. Typically, the Easter Bunny comes and leaves the baskets on Saturday morning, which is different for mostly people, I recognized. We do this so that on Sunday Morning, their focus isn't on the candy/presents, or anything else. However, this year, the Bunny came even earlier. He came on Friday! That was because the boys had games on Saturday morning and we figured it might make the morning run more smoothly.

Saturday, we did our annual egg fight, which I have already written about. Later that day, we went over to my parents for our annual Easter Egg Hunt for the kids at my parents house. Here is my little niece, Lily all dressed up for the occasion.

I just love how her 2 little teeth really complete the bunny look.

Here is KL finding one of her eggs.
CK lovingly placing one of her precious eggs in her basket.

B... he was very selective about what eggs he would pick. He doesn't like chocolate, so he put all of those back. Also, my mom had put some eggs out that had beaded necklaces for the girls. He was also very careful not to get any of those. Here he is checking to make sure the egg he found was acceptable.

L got a big balloon in one of her eggs.

The next morning, I let the girls wear their special skirts that they had been drooling over for the last few months since I bought them. They really were thrilled to be wearing them... they just weren't particularly thrilled with me at the moment...

I just like this pic of KL. :)

Annual Egg Fight

Every year, we have our annual Easter Egg Fight. This is a tradition that Dave brought to us. He did this growing up with his family, and he has lots of great memories doing this as a kid. It has become something that everyone in our little family now looks forward to. Everyone picks out their hard boiled egg and then you take turns hitting each other's until there is only one left unbroken.

L, Dave, CK, KL, Lee (D's friend), B, D

This year, the winner was...

She was so excited to be the winner! Dave usually prides himself on winning (mostly because we all swear he cheats), so when he goes down, everyone cheers. This year, it was fun to see CK so happy with her champion egg! She was the only one who could crack daddy's this year!

Birthday!

Last week was my birthday! We had a fun night with the kids. We started out by taking the kids out to dinner to Red Robins. They loved it. To them, Red Robins is the height of dining excitement. For awhile, it took the awhile to see it that way. For quite a while, Chic-Fil-A was the pinnacle, but we were finally able to convince them to try something else, and they are sold!

After dinner, we came home and the kids enjoyed a fun little dance party.

My parents came over a little later and brought me a cake! It was my favorite... Swedish Almond Pound Cake! YUMMM!
Here I am with the best things in my life.

B was kind enough to take this picture of me with my parents. For the record... that is my dad and I really appreciate him coming by too. :)Blowing out my candles.

It was a great day. My mom and sister had come over earlier in the day to help me clean up so I could have a clean house on my birthday... my one birthday wish. My other little sister had come over the previous 2 days to help clean out all my closets and my pantry. What a treat! Once again, I'm thankful for all the wonderful people in my life and all the birthday wishes I received. How lucky I am to have another year with such great people!

Sickies

Last week, the 2 little girls were sick. It was a fun-home bound week. We were quite happy on Friday when everyone woke up and there were no more fevers, or pink eyes. Nonetheless, there are always funny things that seem to come when the little kids getting sick. Here is one of them...

CK came home from school on Monday saying her tummy hurt. I got her a little thing to sit on and had her wait by the toilet. I went back after a little while to check on her only to find out she was asleep. I just couldn't resist the picture.

Dude and Shalae

Last weekend, my baby brother got married! Crazy!! Technically, he isn't my baby brother in more... we have since added 2 more brothers younger than him, but since he was the last one I got have as a baby, he is still my baby brother. He has always been so much fun to be around. His name is Erik, but he has always been "dude." A few months ago, Dude started bringing a special girl around the house--Shalae. She quite a doll and we love her. They got engaged on Feb 15... that's right! Just over a month ago. They were trying for a slightly later date, but when you are trying to schedule around 10 siblings on just one side alone...well, it gets tricky. After a few failed attempts at other days, they settled on March 20. It was a bit of a mad rush to get everything ready, but it turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous day!


While we were waiting for them to come out of the temple, KL tipped over stroller and sat down. I guess she was after more of a "recliner" affect.

Just coming out of the temple. Does my brother seem a little happy?Shalae modeling her shoes. Love it!

B and Z. Their hair isn't done because they had come straight from their football game. Our neighbor picked them up and brought them. They are such good buddies and so lucky to have each other!

I'm not quite sure why she was pouting here, but I still thought she looked cute.
I think it was because it was Shalae's family's turn for pictures adn I told her she couldn't stand by Shalae (who was quite the princess...even more of an attraction for KL!)

The "Pug" side of the family/friends posing for our picture. Isn't nice to know that in my current state, I can stand out so well in such a large crowd of people?

As we walked around to the other side of the temple for more pictures, all the little girls just gathered around the happy couple. I kept trying to get a picture from the front, but in my condition, I just couldn't move fast enough. At one point, KL was up on Dude's shoulders. I wish I could have got that. My brother assures me that the photographer got plenty. Maybe I'll post that later. Still... it was cute to see the crowd of little girls trailing after Shalae.
Grandma and Grandpa, Shalae, Erik, Mom and Dad

My dad's parents were there too, of course, but my grandma wasn't feeling up to waiting around for all the pictures, so they left before all the fun got started.

Erik, My Grandpa, Shalae

My grandpa was the one who sealed them.

Here we are trying to get all the kids together.
I just laugh at the look on Sam's face as he "tolerates" all of us adults!

Erik and Shalae and all the nieces and nephews

CK, Shalae, EvelynneErik and my mom

While everyone was taking pictures, my sweet little nephew Gunnar was having fun playing with the dirt/wood chips around the trees. I just couldn't resist taking his picture. Isn't he cute?

Shalae really wanted to whole thing to be casual. She didn't want a typical formal wedding reception. So, casual was stressed. The theme was that of tropical beach party. It was lots of fun. They had a fun little place to stick your head in and takc pictures. Here are CK and Evelynne.They really did a great job with the decorations. It looked really great in there. This is the "Ice Cream Sundae" table. As you can see, it wasn't easy keeping the little kids away from it!

Dave and KLD, CK, L (holding Shalae's nephew), Anna

My family... yes we are getting pretty big. Crazy thing is that there are still 5 people who aren't even married yet! Can't imagine what the family picture will look like at the last wedding!Our little family:
Me, B, D, Dave
KL, CK, L

My sister Mariana at the entry, welcoming all the party-goers

I had bought a bunch of these flower clips for everyone to wear. As people would leave, and as we were cleaning up, everyone would just come and clip them in my hair. I could've have gone and got the box for them, but that seemed too much effort. I started looking pretty ridiculous though!

KL had lots of fun all night long. She just loves to dance. I kept looking over and finding her like this... Occasionally, she would ask Dave or I to dance with her. But even if we weren't up for it, it certainly didn't stop her!

Anyway it was a great day and we are so happy to welcome Shalae into the family.
We love you guys!