Christmas 2009

Christmas this year was a little different for our family. It was the 1st Christmas we've had a newborn in our family (the other kids were almost 1 on their 1st Christmas). That added a bit of a different perspective. For one, I was determined to keep things more simple this year. Santa didn't go too crazy on the gifts (which was fine, since Brynn and Collin were most excited about the candy in their stockings than anything else). We had very few Christmas decorations either. I had decided that I didn't want to bother getting any of our decorations out of the attic, so our only Christmas tree this year was a 2 foot fake one without any decorations on it. Since our stockings were also in the attic, I made some simple, new ones out of some leftover fabric I had. I actually liked how they turned out, and will probably use them again next Christmas. A few other little things, and our decorating was considered done for the year. Dave and the kids didn't seem to mind, and it was so much less stressful for me. This was also the first year that I had almost all of the gifts bought and wrapped in early November. All of these things meant that I was able to focus less on the "Santa/gifts" part of Christmas and more on Christ and what the holiday really means to me. I definitely want to try to keep things simple again next year and have our family emphasize the real reason for Christmas. Of course, we'll have our regular Christmas tree and more of our decorations next year.

Once again, we felt blessed to have so much of our family nearby to celebrate with. On the 23rd, we went to Dave's mom's house and had a nice dinner with his family (minus Laurie and her family who live out of state). Unfortunately, despite bringing my camera, I forgot to take any pictures over there. Photography seems to slip my mind alot these days unless I see someone else with a camera and remember to pull mine out. However, we had a fun evening with them.

On Christmas Eve, we had dinner at my parents' house with some of my dad's side of the family. This has been a family tradition for as long as I can remember, and included our traditional meal of lasagne, as well as enchiladas and tamales. Yum! We stayed over there later than usual, so we could welcome my brother Brian and his family into town. They were only staying for 2 days, so we were glad to get the extra bit of time with them. Then, we headed home so we would be sure to be asleep before Santa's visit. Brynn has never been so eager to go to bed. I was tempted to ask Santa if he could come by every night, just to make bedtime easier.

On Christmas morning, Brynn woke up and didn't realize that it was Christmas day. She hung out with Eden and I in the family room until Dave woke up. We woke up Collin just before 8 AM and after everyone was dressed, we went to see if Santa had been by. I could tell that Brynn was questioning whether she made the naughty or nice list this year, because she was really unsure if there would be presents. She was also really concerned that Eden might have been awake when Santa came, causing him to have to leave. (This was a topic she brought up multiple times in the days leading up to Christmas.)

Santa did come bring us presents!

Checking out the gifts to find the ones for her...
Collin found his pile!

The first things Collin found were some Thomas the Trains. He was so excited about them that we had to keep asking him to put them aside to open his other gifts.

Dave multi-tasking--holding Eden while getting video of the kids (that is not a funky hat on Eden's head. It is a decorative bowl that was sitting near her.)

Brynn was so excited to find a candy cane in her stocking, and even more excited to find 2 more. Gotta love how easy little kids can be to please.

"Glubs!" I guess since we live in the desert, gloves are a fun novelty item. Brynn and Collin were excited to find these in their stocking.

A tired daddy and sweet baby...

Our best gift this year...

After we had our own little Christmas at our house, we went over to my parents' house to celebrate with my family. We made a big breakfast, which has become a Christmas tradition with my family. We had 3 extra guests this year. My brother Brian's mother-in-law Graciela, Brian's sister-in-law Angie, and Angie's husband Sean came into town with Brian and Natacha.

My sister Alison and her husband Travis...

My brother Justin with his son Trance...

My mom checking out one of her gifts...(for Christmas, my parents asked for a scrapbook page from each of their 4 kids to add to the scrapbook we did for them last year).

My brother Brian with Eden...(This visit was his first time meeting Eden. Note the cute booties she is wearing. They were one of the gifts Eden received from Brian and Natacha's family, and were handmade by Natacha's grandmother in Argentina. Eden also received a dress, a few sweaters, a couple pairs of booties, and a couple pairs of shoes, all knit by her grandmother).

Eden looking stylish on her 1st Christmas. She happened to coordinate with her carseat.

After the gifts were opened, we hung out at my parents' house for awhile and just visited and relaxed. My dad offered to rock Eden to sleep, and did such a good job, that he fell asleep as well.

Brynn had so much fun playing with her cousin Micaela. Since they haven't lived in the same state in years, they don't get to see each other very often. However, with each visit, they get along better and better, and have become good friends.

One of the things Brynn and Micaela loved doing was drawing on this table at my mom's. It has a dry-erase surface, so when the smaller kids (ie, Collin) aren't around, they can draw on it. When I went to check on them, I found this drawing by Brynn. It has a picture of Dave, me, Brynn, Collin, and Eden. She even wrote Collin's name in a fancy script. She was obviously proud.

How Eden spent most of her 1st Christmas...I love how she often sleeps with her hands tucked around her face. And I just love those sweet little lips and those squishy cheeks!

In the afternoon on Christmas, I headed back to our house for a couple hours. We brought Micaela with us, so the kids could have more time together before Micaela had to go back home the next day. They were so cute when they cuddled up together on Collin's little couch to watch one of their new DVDs...

We definitely had a nice Christmas with lots of new memories created. However, one thing to note for next year: Santa is going to have to step up his game in the sneaky-ness department.

More December Photos

Brynn absolutely loves having a baby sister! She is always kissing her and tries to be so gentle with her. In fact, I find myself frequently asking Brynn to back up a bit from the baby or to wait until Eden wakes up to talk to her. She's been a big help with her little sister.

Eden meets her Aunt Cyndi...

And her Aunt Kim...

My sister Alison also came for a visit...
A visit from my Grandma and Grandpa B...

On December 14th, Brynn's dance class had a little recital. Her teacher, Miss Sheri, transformed her garage into a dance studio and Brynn has been taking classes for about a year now. Brynn is funny about dancing in front of people. She either wants us to watch her for dance after dance, or else she refuses to do anything. So I wasn't too surprised when she refused to do about half of the dances during their recital. However, it was fun to see the ones she was willing to do. Here she is with Miss Sheri and the rest of her class...




During December, we made sure to let the kids make a gingerbread house. This is a Christmas-time tradition that the kids LOVE. Anything that involves candy, and they get excited!

Too bad I didn't capture the final product, because that gingerbread house ended up covered in frosting and candy. The problem was, that there was quite an overlap between them finishing the house and them eating it. Oh well! They obviously had fun!

At least somebody is getting some sleep around here...

More Funny Things They've Said...

The kids continue to keep us smiling with the funny things they say. For example, a couple months ago, Collin and I had to wait in line at Walmart for 3 HOURS to get the H1N1 vaccine (I know the vaccine can be a controversial topic, but that's not part of this story). As you can imagine, keeping an active 2 year old happy and contained to a small area for 3 hours proved to be a challenge. Add in the fact that I was 7 months pregnant and it was...interesting. As we got toward the last stretch of the line, we were both getting anxious and restless, when Collin climbed up on my lap, got right in my face, and declared, "Mommy, you a superhero. You can save the world!" I have to say, that cute little guy of mine made the whole experience worth it right there.

Speaking of Collin...he has some trouble pronouncing different letters. One letter combination he struggles with is "spr". He pronounces it as the "f" sound. One morning, he was asking me for "fire". We both started getting frustrated when I couldn't understand what he wanted. When I told him he couldn't have fire, and began going into the safety issues associated with giving a toddler fire of any type, he pleaded "No, fire". After a few rounds of this, I realized the poor kid was simply asking if he could have the sprayer (the water sprayer we use when doing Brynn's hair).

My kids have also taken on the duty of "Bad Word Patrol". They don't seem to hear when I ask them to clean up their toys 5 times in a row, but as soon as someone utters a word like stupid, kill, hate, or butt, they stop what they are doing to correct the offense. The funny part is that they always respond with "You don't say (insert offending word), you say bum!" Apparently bum is the universal bad word replacement. So if you overhear me saying that I bum cauliflower, or Dave says that he bums getting cut off in traffic, you will understand. Which brings me to my next observation. It is really hard to explain to a 4 year old how sanitizer works when you have to say "bum" instead of "kill".

Dave has always liked to keep Collin's hair really short. Recently, Dave finally agreed to let Collin's hair grow out just a little bit longer (as in, just long enough to need to comb). One morning, Collin came out of his room sporting his first true case of bedhead. I got Brynn's comb out and proceeded to fix his messy hair. As I did so, in a completely monotone and emotion-less voice, I hear Collin saying, "Ouch. Ouch. Ouch." His hair really isn't that long, so it didn't take much for me to realize that he must just think that is part of the haircombing ritual, since that is what he witnesses every morning as we comb his sister's hair.

And finally...yesterday, after not taking a nap, Collin came out of his room with a cute yet mischevious look on his face. When he got right in front of me, he put his hands up in the air, and said, "Ta da! That is how you get out of there!" You see, we sometimes lock his bedroom door for a few minutes when we put him down for a nap. If the door is unlocked, he will often walk right out of his room without a nap. However, if he sees that the door is locked, he will usually go right back to his bed and go to sleep. His bedroom door was still locked this time, so I wondered how he had gotten out of his room. Then I remembered that there is also a door between his room and the hall bathroom. It is usually kept locked, but someone must have unlocked it, allowing for his "ta da" moment. I have to admit that he was so cute when he came out, that I overlooked the nap for the day.

Eden at 11 days old

So in love

We are just loving this squishy, sweet little girl.


Pictures taken when she was 6 days old.

She's Here!

We welcomed our little Eden Chloe into the world on Monday, December 7th. We are so excited that she is finally here, and we are all adjusting to life as a family of 5. Eden was born at 3:28pm and weighed 7 pounds 8 ounces (our tiniest baby by about a pound), and was 20 inches long.

Here are the details, so feel free to skip this paragraph if you aren't interested:

We were scheduled to go in for an induction on Sunday, December 6th at 9pm. We called just before to make sure they had a bed available for me, and luckily they were between waves of deliveries, so there was. Dave's mom Cheryl came over to stay with Brynn and Collin, and off we went. Once at the hospital, we got checked in and set up in a room. Around 11:30pm, they put in the Cervadil to soften things up and told me to get some sleep. I was completely exhausted already, since I had only had 3 hours of sleep the previous night, but somehow I only managed about 3 hours that night as well. Around 7:30 Monday morning, they removed the Cervadil and told me to order breakfast because they were going to start the pitocin. Shortly after, my OB came by and broke my water and the pitocin was started. Luckily my nurse let me have a bit of breakfast any way. The next several hours went by as my contractions grew increasingly intense. I finally asked for the epidural late that morning and was told there was another mom wanting hers right then too. I told the nurse I would wait until after the other girl got an epidural and then I would have mine. I was told it wouldn't take long, but apparently that means around an hour. When it was finally my turn for the epidural, they said I could only have one other person in the room. Dave graciously (insert sarcasm) volunteered to let my mom be the one to stay in the room. I actually didn't mind, since I was still remembering the 1st time I had an epidural and him yelling "Wow, that thing is huge!" about the needle/tube that I was trying to pretend wasn't being shoved in my spine. Let's just say that staying calm in any kind of medical situation is not really Dave's thing. After the epidural, I was resting comfortably for awhile. Then I started feeling the contractions a bit. It was weird, because my left leg and bum were completely numb, but the left half of my stomach started to feel every contraction. Not fun! As it got progressively worse, the anesthesiologist was called back in and I was given some more pain meds. Of course, that was all right around the time that they told me I was dialated to a 10 and it was time for the baby to come. Yikes! Luckily (?) there happened to be another wave of deliveries and it took what seemed like forever for the nurses to get everything set up. In fact, the nurses that helped in the delivery weren't even my nurses, since mine were having to deliver another baby at the same time. Just as the new pain meds were kicking in, my OB came in and it was time to evict our sweet little girl from my warm cozy belly. After pushing through only 3 or so contractions, Eden was born.

The first thing I noticed about her was that she had dark hair, and much more of it than our other kids had when they were born. She was also so much smaller than they were. She had little eyebrows and cute squishy cheeks. So cute! What a crazy rush of emotions it is to have a baby! We are so happy and excited! Dave immediately started taking a ton of pictures and video of her, and posting them for our friends and family to see. Definitely a proud dad! I was in a daze of happiness, relief, and exhaustion, as well as overwhelmed by now being responsible for another little human being.

Eden has been such a joy. She is a good baby, and doesn't cry very often, unless she is hungry or has a tummy ache. She sleeps quite a bit, and loves to be held. Her brother and sister are doing pretty good with her too. When they first met her, Brynn immediately wanted to hold her and kept smiling and telling Eden how beautiful she is. She couldn't stop kissing Eden's little velvet head. Collin kept getting in Eden's face, and yelling "Hi, Baby Eden!". Then he would do the same to my tummy. After a few explanations that there is no longer a baby in my tummy, he would continue to say shout it to Eden. Since then, Brynn has staked her claim on the baby, and wants to hold her throughout the day. Collin is somewhat indifferent, but likes to give her her pacifier when she cries. He does tell me to put her down, so he can get on my lap sometimes. Poor guy just got bumped from his role as the "baby" of the family. Despite the sleepless nights, messy house, and feeling claustrophobic from having to remain housebound, we are doing well. I am excited to see how this new little one will be as she gets older. I can't wait to see the personality she develops and the friendships she will have with her siblings. We really feel so blessed to have been given our little Miracle #3!

Meeting my new little one (I am just going to hope/pretend that my double chin is simply a result of the positioning of my head)...
My mom with her newest grandchild (#7)...
My Dad and Eden...
I need to add a picture of Dave's mom with Eden at the hospital. The pictures of her are on Dave's camera and I haven't uploaded his pictures yet (these are all ones my mom took).

My Grandpa L meets Eden...
Grandma Bertha with the baby...
Eden meets her brother and sister...
They were so curious about everything, including her "weird belly button". After inspecting Eden's, they both had to show me that they didn't have an umbilical cord like Eden.
Lots of kisses for the baby...
The kids presenting their gift to Eden. They had made her a unicorn at Build-A-Bear a few weeks earlier to give Eden. Eden had presents for them as well. Brynn received a new doll with doll clothes and accessories, while Collin got a stuffed dog from Build-A-Bear.