Euphoria

My beloved hospital stay was cut short.  I love the hospital stay because there is a euphoria of love and gratitude that is a feeling I'm only able to produce in a {maternity} hospital room.

Love for your husband, for the marriage and for the family you have.  Love for this hew little bundle that you never really can conceptualize will bring you some much happiness until they're here.

Gratefulness for the life you have and the opportunity to be a mother. 

I'm sure it does not hurt either that food, water, ice, meds, your baby for that matter, all just magically show up as needed.  Your bed will produce ANY position you deem comfortable and the only thing you have to do . . . is sleep and hold your perfect baby.

Ruby passed her carseat test and her heart test and we got the heck out of dodge.  

We chose to leave early because dang it, it was Christmas Eve and we had 3 more kids we love.

And these are the only pictures I got of Christmas 2015.

But it was a good day complete with all the traditions . . .

and a real baby Jesus for the nativity.

Halle Halle Halle

Oh Halle, Halle, Halle.   She is in loooove with the doggies. 

 

She needs those "leeeshs" at all time to hopefully capture one of those doggies.

 

We had to help the puppies "tag in" for their quality Halle time.   But all faithfully fulfilled their responsibly and were heavily rewarded.   

There really has been nothing so cute as the sound of "where's the puppies" and "BEEEER" and "the little one" (Sophie) screeching through the house all Christmas break. 



But 4 dogs AND a Halle . . . mad chaos. 

Christmas 2013 - - - the parts I remember anyway.

I waited too long  and now I can only tell about Christmas through the few pictures I snapped. 

 

Christmas Eve - Traditional Sugar Cookie decorating.  Some peope (everyone except Halle) decorated and some people (Halle) just ate them. 

 

At the end of Christmas we all claimed to have not gotten to eat of the cookies and I think that we all deducted that everyone saw Liv eating one a couple of different times.

 

Christmas Morning . . . This pictures make me swear to do better at getting cute Christmas PJs.  Halle and Tess look adorable and then there's the big hole in Liv's knee and the tie dyed shirt for Ad . . . 

This was a year of Legos.  

 

Addie really wanted some Sperrys . . . we wear the same show size now, so I wanted her to have some Sperry's too. 

The perfect "Olivia" hat from Grandma Hatch. 



 

Addie got a quilt from Banna.  She was the only one without one so far and that had not gone un-noticed, but it was all good since she got the biggest one yet.  

 

Tess, the cutest little Christmas munchkin crawling around.

 

Banna taught the kids how to play Chinese Checkers.

And we all went to see Frozen together. 



Chrstimas Cards 2012

I like having this on my blog, so though it's March, I'm just going with it . . .

Addison (9 ½) – Continues to know everything (and she’s only 9 so it will only get worse), is in Competition Cheerleading (Ansen really wants to die a “cheer Dad” sweatshirt), she’s a reading fiend, she played outdoor and indoor soccer, has really expanded her culinary horizons when she filled in as “mom” for a good portion of the year, and is in training to be the best babysitter this neighborhood has ever seen.


Olivia (6 ½) – Our peaceful, quiet, careful child . . . ha, ha gotcha. Our loud, recklessly happy, crazy and - boy do we love her for it - child is in tumbling, has great confidence since apparently every boy in her class “is in love with her” . . . what a drag, right?, played soccer with this awesome coach (me), reads now . . . like all my texts out loud to me to be “helpful” which is not so much “helpful”, and actually really loves sewing with me.

Drew (3 ½) – Has a few obsessions right now. First and foremost, Ariel . . . the mermaid (we just have to assume he has a thing for redheads), second, mermaids, and third, the dumb iPad. However, we’re trying to foster his love of pirates in any way possible. We have to take what we can get and run with it. He started preschool, wants to know who is on the agenda to play with everyday, is actually really good at drawing (mostly mermaids) and played itty bitty ball. Oh and, I almost forgot . . . he can write his name . . . our youngest one yet and we think he’s amazing for it.

Ashleigh – I spent most of the year recovering and at Physical Therapy. I pretty much know my Physical Therapists like I know my brother. While I sat for literally months on end healing, I read every DIY blog known to man and was sure we could have our house completely “re done” as soon as I could just walk . . . we’ve yet to tackle even one project I had in mind, but I did get a palm sander . . . so we’re half way there, right? I’ve spent a lot of time sewing since I could sit and sew and it was pretty much the first thing that made me feel like a person this year. But so gratefully I’m back to work, room mom, carpools, cooking, coaching, shopping and you know . . . motherhood.

Ansen – Ansen ran the family the “dad way” while I recovered, went on several “business trips” involving the Dodgers, Lakers, Giants and various golf courses (I was at PT), went on an official vacation to Maine to see his family, and had his dreams come true when he got his Yankee Stadium seats. I love the phone calls I get from Steiner Sports (the Yankees authentic memorabilia store) to verify that everything was good with my recent order(s) – the home number is on his account :).

Christmas 2012

Now it's been too long that I don't remember all the details, but the pictures kind of help. 

Christmas Eve was the traditional Fondue dinner, Nativity, sugar cookies and . . . . ta da . . . bedtime at a reasonable hour. 

What's a re-enactment of the Nativity without a wiseman with a new self bought Christmas toy? . . . my favorite part of the whole night. 

The poor kids had to wait around while Matt was in writing cards for Lisa's gifts . . . we made them keep waiting until we found out that's all he was doing.

Drew was super excited (luckily) for his Jake and the Neverland Pirate ship. 

Actually he was just super excited about everything . . . even clothes.

Olivia got all she ever wanted . . . her American Girl Doll - Kate. 

Her Christmas was totally complete.

Addison was pretty easy to please too this year with Toms and some new fake glasses (Liv broke her last set).

Ahhh . . . I love this.

My mom came up with some creative ways to give cash this year . . . we pooled all our money and got Ansen a generator and me a silhouette.  Life is good.

Just Dance 4 . . . we all just stayed in out PJs the whole day long.  Good day!

This picture was the day after Christmas . . . but we decided to give Legos a try and it's a hit. 

Christmas morning we got to talk to Jeff  - breakfast became "rushed" when Banna realized that her baby was going to call soon. 

Our abandoned chairs after our time was up and we had resume our last Christmas without Jeff.

And family Christmas pictures before we sadly all headed out the door for our separate homes.

Lisa, Ansen and I got the memo . . . funny.

Oh there we go . . . got it. (thanks for that one, Matt)

Some December-ness

We made gingerbread houses with the Roberts. 

We had our 3rd annual Christmas donation neighborhood party and President Belnap helped us out as Santa.

It was the only "Santa" we saw this year. 

It was cold that night, but the kids did not seem to mind in the least . . . there were suckers, hot chocolate, treats and snow. 

The adults stayed huddled (smartly) around the fire pits. 

If the air wasn't cold enough, Olivia decided to carry around this big ball of snow for good measure.

And then we met for breakfast at Kneaders (with apparently everyone else in Utah County) and headed to the donation drop off with a packed car (and 3 more). 


And right at the VERY beginning of December (actually . . . I think it had to be the beginning of November) we had Ryan, Kendall and Halle here.

And we made our annual carmel apples . . .

The school singing concerts - Ansen came this year and was surprised that "that's all there is after all that time waiting . . . "  Yup. 

This is all we got of Addie before the camera battery died. 

And we grabbed Olivia in the hall with my phone. 

Class Parties Gallore.

A little Christmas minute-to-win-it for the big kids.

Crafts, games and treats for the littles at the "Polar Express."

Addison went skiing with the 4th grade and peeked our family interest in skiing - more on that after the holiday.

Another late night at Banna and Branda's.  Can't beat the hot tub over there . . . and I got my CPE (Continuing Professional Education) hours finished up during the movie so win-win.