Tuckered Out

I have to say this is the cutest picture. He had been playing so hard...as you can see, and pretty soon it got quiet. This is what I found when I went to check on him. After the picture was taken I was left with the decision, do I leave him there amongst the toys or do I try to pick him up take the toy off of his wrist and put him in his cozy bed. I decided to put him in his bed. Even though he was sooooo cute on the floor. Then I cleaned up the mess so when he woke up he wouldn't trip over everything getting to the door to get out of his room. I figure sleeping is enough for him, he woke up two days ago with a busted lip? Guessing he rolled into his bed frame in the night.
Gracie is still sleeping a lot. Which I'm okay with. Although she is becoming partial to being held in her sleep. Most of the time as soon as I lay her down...she wakes up. Spoiled rotten that's what I have to say about that. Even at night she's been having a harder time. I don't know what to do with her. I have to admit I'm feeling the 4th kid. I have been so tired! I think it's because we've had so much change in such a small amount of time, with school starting and everything. Today, since I'm not going to church yet, I finally just took an hour. I put a movie on for the boys, and I snuggled in bed with her since she was already snoozing. I didn't sleep solid but I definitely got some rest and felt way better when I got up.
I had to let everyone see this picture. He loves her hair bows and flowers. I can't get over how cute he is!

I thought this picture of Gracie was super cute. She looks adorable in this outfit. Thank you Auntie Aubrey and Clara for the brand new hand-me-down. Can't get any better than that. This is also one of the rare times I've gotten her to actually take a pacifier. If she would use them she would be way happier, but she's good at making things difficult already. I think I'm breaking her in though, I just keep trying to get her to take it and finally today it seems like the effort might be paying off. I love how she keeps her hands up on her chest. I know all babies do this, but she does it and looks so dainty and delicate, just like a baby girl should be!

Pink??

Well the waiting is over! Thank Heaven. Our little girl arrived on August 30th, 6 lbs. 11 oz. We are so happy to have her here. She's beautiful, and all of her brothers think so too. I knew Ben and Brendon couldn't wait to have a sister but now that she's here, they are truly obsessed. All three are such proud big brothers. It's kind of been nice because they want to help me so much with her. I can say go put Gracie's diaper in the trash and they will. That's so nice for me, although most of the time Ben is going to be at school and maybe the "new" and "fun" of helping may wear away with Brendon. Billy, I was worried about a lot because he's such a Mommy's Boy, but all is well! He loves his little sister, and likes to touch her head and point to her and say "baby" and most of all he loves to bring me her pacifier. I know it has been a little hard for him to have my hands full...literally. He's so used to me picking him up and carting him around all the time. I think I held him more than the first two boys, mainly because it was safer for him to be held by me than it was for him to be at the reaching level of his older brothers, but other than that he hasn't been the green-eyed monster I really thought he'd be. Another thing to be glad about. Blake went back to work today....sad, but he only has to work tomorrow and then he'll be back on days off!

Gracie has been a doll. At least I think she's one every morning when I'm putting her clothes on...it's been fun. My sister-in-law says I'm obsessed with putting hairbands and bows on her...well she's right, but it's been a change I think I'm entitled to. Billy is also obsessed with the hair flowers. I clipped a flower in his hair yesterday while I was getting her dressed he thought it was awesome, but mainly he just wants to play with them. I'm sure if I left him with one long enough it would end up destroyed, so after a quick minute I took the flower away and put it back in the closet...yeah I scream fest then began, but nothing a Thomas the Train movie couldn't cure.

I think tomorrow is the first real complete day of reality for me. Today is Labor Day so the kids didn't have school, so we've kind of lazed around a bit. Tomorrow Blake will be at work and the kids will be back to school...so the first morning home with both the boys going to school. I'm sure it will be fine, just a little hectic. I guess I'll see how it goes...that might end up being a whole new post! Besides one doctors appointment Gracie hasn't left the house. Tomorrow we'll have to leave at least twice just for Brendon to be dropped off and picked up from pre-school. I still can't even imagine trying to go anywhere by myself with all 4 of them (Ben will have been picked up by the bus before I leave to take Brendon to school). I think it might be disastrous even if Blake was with me. I guess I'll have to learn sometime, I remember feeling this way after I had Billy, and it has all worked out, even though it's always crazy, so maybe...no...it's a bad idea, I'm never leaving the house by myself with all of them, except to go to church, where once I get there I have family to help me! Well enough of my blabbing. All you guys care about is the pictures! That's okay.

Pictures, Pictures!

The sad thing is that this is really taking some brain work on my part to remember how to do all of this! I've looked all over to find my CD from when I had the kids pictures taken last but to no avail. I can't find the darn thing anywhere. Not that it matters much, we'll be taking some new family pictures in October...I think...I need to call our photographer and set up a time. Isn't it sad, I already have Gracie's outfits picked out. Maybe that's not too bad, what do you guys think? But I do have some pictures of the boys to show ya. And just to let you know....these pictures are way out of order and I can't get them in the order I want...so for now...I guess be glad you have them. How nice is that! Billy loves trains and he is always playing with them. It actually drives me nuts because I feel like I constantly have a mess of them all over the house. Needless to say, he's having a Thomas the Train party tomorrow for his second birthday!
At least in this picture you can see his innocent sweet face. Just kidding, he's not innocent. Boy that red hair gives him a temper like you cannot believe. He has cured me from wanting any more babies with that color of hair! But he is awful cute when he's sleeping. Actually he's cute all of the time. Blake just gave them all haircuts on Monday night before the kids started school. His hair was soooooo long. It was the first time he had an at-home hair cute, and I have to say he didn't do too good. Screamed and cried the whole time, and kept trying to spit because he got hair in his mouth. It was comical. But with every cut of the clippers he looked more and more like his dad. It's pretty sad when the people in town recognize what family I belong to only when they see me with my kids.
This was Ben getting off the bus from his first day of school, which was just this Wednesday. He was pretty excited. Last year wasn't the best but we are excited for first grade. Pretty sad when your 6 year old says, "yeah it was a good day and guess what? My teacher was happy all day and didn't yell."
Blake took this picture of him walking into his classroom. It will be good he knows almost half of the class. We have a lot of kids in our ward in first grade and all but two are in his class, so that's nice too.
Picture in front of the school doors. It was hard for me. Blake actually had the day off of work so he came with me. He wanted to be the one to take Ben in and he wanted me to wait in the car with the other kids...so I did. Boy that was hard. I wanted to walk in so bad, but I knew Blake wanted to be able to do this. I just threatened to scalp him if he didn't take good pictures, cause you know he's a guy and sometimes they don't understand what a "good" picture really is.


Pictures before we left the house.
Brendon walking up the sidewalk for his first day of school. He was soooo excited to go to pre-school. He's been wanting to go, obviously, since Ben started. It's the same pre-school that Ben went to. I love it, he has great teachers and although a little more expensive than some other places in town, it's only a few minutes from our house and they are amazing there.

These are his pictures that I took of him before we left. I could cry...he looks so grown up, just like that. All he did was throw on a back pack and he looked so big. I also have to say that I think he is very photogenic, and so dang handsome! He also had a great first day which was Tuesday, the day before Ben's. I know that Billy loved running the roost while both of his big brothers were gone on Wednesday and Thursday. All I know was that it was a little quiet around here, but that will all change when the baby gets here!

The Internet!!!!!!!!!!!

Well as most of you know...I haven't been blogging on a regular basis. Blake and I haven't had the internet for about...hummm...2 1/2 years! How sad, but we finally got reconnected yesterday! Needless to say we are both way excited and our poor old computer hasn't had a chance to rest since. I'm so excited to get the chance to catch up with all of you and let you see how our family is growing and doing. I'll get some pictures up soon...but not tonight, to late for me. The kids started school this week, Brendon on Tuesday and Benjamin today. So we've been practicing getting up early the last two weeks or so. I'm sorry...guess I'm lazy but 6:30 sucks! Well I will say, I only have like 12 more days before our little Gracie Adele is due. We are anxiously awaiting her arrival.

Quick trip

Well Blake and I had to make a quick trip to Cali with the boys. We are at my Grandparents house in Apple Valley right now. My Grandpa took a turn for the worst about a week and a half ago and we thought we better come down to help my Grandma out. My Grandpa is doing better now but still not good...well considering everything. So I figured I'd skip ahead to St. Patrick's Day for the background because by the next time I get on...who knows it might be June.
Well I wish I had pictures to put up, but I don't have my camera with me. Like I said quick spur of the moment trip. Ben, Brendon, and Billy have all kind of been sick the last few days. Ben is better, Brendon I think has an ear infection, and Billy I think is doing better. Lots of humidifiers and tylenol/motrin. They are getting so big! The upside to the trip is taht I'm going to get to see my niece Clara again and my brother and sister-in-law. That's cool, and I will get to go to mu cousin's daughter's first birthday party, which is neat, because we hardly ever get to participate in that type of stuff with my family because we're so far away. Well I still need to put up pictures of the house, everybody loves to remind me about that. Hopefully we'll be getting the internet before the end of the year. That would be aaamazing.

Blessing Day

Well the blessing went great. It was nice to have so many people there to support us. We had dinner afterwards at our house. I was planning on more people coming but we had about 12 people that cancelled, so we had tons of food...which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Any ways I just thought I'd let everybody see how cute he looked in his little outfit. He looked like a little snow bunny to me, all warm and fuzzy. We took some pictures before we went to church. I was worried if we waited to take them after the blessing we would forget. I didn't get any halloween pictures because Blake was being impatient and told me I could take them after they got home...which of course never happened. I was so worried that he would scream and cry during the blessing, or that he would get hungry right before and be in the worst mood, but we were lucky. He was seriously in the best mood all day.

The Big Weekend

Well we just had kind of a big weekend and we're looking at an even bigger one coming up. First off we just had family pictures taken, hence the new header picture. I didn't notice until just now that they took it a little off center because they just crop them and fix them when you're viewing them. Overall, I think it's a pretty good picture. I'll put the rest of them on here, and then I've got some more of Billy but I don't have the cd of them with me, so maybe next time I get to the internet. I can't belive how big my boys are getting

By the way Ben's loving school. He loves to go, and I can't believe how much he's learning. Which is great because he doesn't like to do that stuff with me.

Brendon loves Ben to go to school too. He finally has a couple of hours a week where he can be the big boy at home. He also gets a little bit of peace and quit while Ben's at school too.
Well Billy's blessing is coming up this Sunday. I can't wait, we'll have a bunch of friends and family here for it. Blake's sister, Jill, is making his outfit and she doesn't have it done all the way yet, so now she doesn't want me to see it until it is done. I'm excited about it, what I have seen of it is adorable.