Saturday, December 4, 2010

Here comes...

Santa Clause!
Lilly wants:
her brother and sister to stay out of her face,
a new binky and
lots and lots of milk.

Claire wants:
a "Repuzzle" (Rapunzel) dress,
(go see the movie...it's darling!)
lipstick, bracelets, and
a pillow pet

Porter wants:
Footballs, legos,
Nintendo DS, the Wii,
and a pillow pet.

We'll see if Santa pulls through!

p.s. are your kids as obsessed with pillow pets as mine? why didn't I think of that???

Thursday, December 2, 2010

A Name and a Blessing

Since most of Mark's family was in town for Thanksgiving,
we decided to bless Lilly.
We gave her a name, and Mark gave her a sweet father's blessing.

He blessed her with a happy heart,
a strong body,
A love for her siblings,
a love for her mother,
grandparents, and the generations that came before her,

And most importantly He blessed her with a love of the Gospel.
It was a wonderful experience with a wonderful spirit present!

These pictures make me smile!
She is just precious
Mark's sister also blessed her baby Samuel,
by the time we got the two together,
they were NOT happy, they were through with the photo shoot...
and so was I!

and just for fun...this was Claire (5 weeks), on her blessing day, same dress!
(I was nervous it wasn't going to fit, but it was perfect...
and do you remember that hair? oh that hair!!)

Giving Thanks

The Monday (for FHE) before Thanksgiving
we traced Porter and Claire's hands for the tree trunks
cut out leaves and then just let them say what they were thankful for.
I think they turned out pretty cute,
and the kids just loved this...

I love that Porter's is written all by himself.
I also love that he thought of these all by himself.
Jesus, cousins, friends grandma's and grandpa's...
he loves tiss (or tennis) but he loves football most!

Obviously I wrote Claire's for her, but she thought of them!
Some of my favorites are
Jesus statue, nursery, going outside, tuesday's with grandma
and especially her Happiness. So cute!

We had a wonderful thanksgiving with Mark's family...
you know it's a good time when you don't even see your kids for four days straight!

Ballet dance recital

We love watching Claire dance around the house
So you can imagine our excitement and love for her recitals!


(Double click to watch in youtube)

She has four more!
YAY!!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Happy Halloween

Halloween is so much fun with little kids...
1. Gardner Village to see the witches
(Porter LOVED witchy-poo!)
a witch sitting in an outhouse reading a newspaper

2. We all loved Cornbelly's

3. Porter and Claire dressed up for their school
(thought the wig would be cute...totally wrong! but once it was on her, she would NOT let me take it off!)

4. Adobe Halloween party!
Thanks Uncle Scott
(I may have lied to Claire and told her that the wig was broken! am I mean?)

5. Halloween night
visiting grandpa
counting candy
Lilly couldn't get enough of grandpa

Happy Halloween!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Ai Vida...

as Irma would say "Ai Vida"
translated from Portuguese "oh Life!"
(Mark baptized Irma in Portugal, we LOVE her dearly!)
Mark and I often use this phrase.
You can take it however you'd like,
but Mark and I see it as LIFE...what a great life!

Sometimes life goes too fast
okay not sometimes...ALL of the time!
Wishing I could freeze time these days.


  • To answer Porter's five million questions about animals, life, the gospel, days of the week, birthdays, why we do this, why we do that!
  • To listen to him pray, to remind us to pray, to help Claire pray. For him to pray for each of us by name, for his cousin who just recently broke her femur, for his other cousin who is in the hospital recovering from surgery.
  • To watch him so full of life, sometimes I think it's impossible to have that much energy.
  • To watch him draw with so much concentration his tongue is out.
  • for hugs and kisses each morning and night!


    • To hear Claire sing Once Upon a Time from Sleeping Beauty, I am a Child of God, Jesus Wants me for Sunbeam...(I cannot even think of how many more songs she sings!)
    • To catch her talking to her stuffed animals as if they were children. "No, I did not call your name, please go back and sit down!" or "That was not nice, now you will go to time out." or "ohhh that is so annoying." (seriously not so cute sometimes, that last one is all my fault!)
    • For her to think that "It's not morning yet, because my mommy is not awake!"
    • To watch her change from Cinderella, to Sleeping Beauty, to Arial, to Belle, and then back to Cinderella all in a matter of two minutes.
    • For her to want to help me with EVERYTHING I'm doing
    • to watch her "feed" her baby, the way I feed Lilly

    • To wake up at 4 in the morning to feed Lilly
    • To have her at my side at all times and to never let her go
    • For her to smile through her binky as I'm singing to her while rocking her back to sleep
    • To listen to her coo, and desperately try to talk back
    • to watch her discover things for the first time, like her hands and feet.
    • for her to smile at Porter and Claire because she's now beginning to recognize them.
    • At this age, Lilly is a constant reminder of how miraculous life is.
    See what I mean?
    How do I freeze time?
    So grateful, so blessed, so happy

    Monday, October 4, 2010

    St. George

    We went down to St. George this last weekend to...
    See Tarzan at the Tuacahn Theatre
    A-MAZING
    (not so much the 2 hour and 40 minute run time with three small kids!)
    The theatre is outdoors and is beautiful up against red rock.
    I highly recommend going.
    next year they're bringing The Little Mermaid
    Anyone want to make a trip of it?? :)

    But we mainly went to see
    my Sister in Law run like the wind!
    I am still amazed (but mostly jealous) with her 3 hour and 26 minute finish time
    in the St. George marathon!
    Someday I think I'll run again...but probably NEVER that fast.

    A great quick get-away!

    Congrats, again, Kristy.
    Love you so....

    Thursday, September 23, 2010

    Lilly update...

    We are off supplementing!
    hallelujah

    Lilly is only nursing about thirty minutes all together
    which leaves me with LOTS of extra time
    (is that possible with two other kids?...it's debatable!)

    Either way, we're so happy and relieved that the once little bean,
    is becoming a medium sized bean!

    So if you see us walking on the street please comment
    on her double chin. :)

    8 pounds 8 ounces
    Doesn't she look happy about that?
    We are too!
    Love her smiles these days

    So You Think You Can Dance?


    Claire started dance class a couple of weeks ago...
    and is LOVING it.
    (personally, I'm just loving her in the outfits)

    There are so many things I love about these pictures

    1- She looks so happy with cousin Emily
    2- the pictures are blurry, which means she's moving
    3- this is the first day of dance,
    before anything Ms. Janet has taught them,
    and she's dancing like she knows what she's doing...
    and I think she does!
    4- her tongue is out because she's concentrating
    just like Porter does!

    Cannot wait for the recitals!

    Tuesday, September 7, 2010

    School is Cool...

    For Claire too!

    Miss thing walked right in...
    didn't even look back.

    We struggle with the forced smiles
    (who doesn't at this age...very frustrating!)

    She's making friends
    and learning at the same time,
    what could be better?

    Such a big girl!

    Monday, August 30, 2010

    School is Cool...

    ...For Porter!

    He is a big kindergartner now. He loved it, every minute of it.


    Love the thumbs up! (and the face!)

    We were a little late getting to class today,
    (I need to set my clocks ten minutes forward, so that I'm five minutes early to wherever I need to be! Why do three kids take so long to get out the door :))
    And Ms. Nelson was already reading a story. Porter threw his backpack on the hook, took his coat off and RAN to the mat.
    Which, obviously, I'm happy about but he wasn't even sad to see me go!
    I may or may not have cried driving off!

    Last night, after Mark gave Porter a father's blessing
    (which Porter informed Mark when he was done "I almost fell asleep dad.")
    I told Porter that he needed to make two new friends and come home to tell me about them. Porter looked at me and said "no mom, I'll make five new friends!"
    Great buddy!
    When I picked him up, I asked him who his friends were,
    P- "well I only made three friends."
    M- "That's great, what are their names?"
    P- "Fritz, Marlin, and Skim"
    M-"Can't wait to meet them!" :)



    Saturday, August 28, 2010

    Lilly-bean

    So here we are almost five weeks after Lilly was born,
    and I'm just getting around to blogging about her entrance into this World!
    Better late than never right? :)
    (feel free to skip the writing,...I have a lot to say!)

    The night before going in to the hospital.
    Porter was excited, but I think Claire knew her world was about to change for good!

    The hospital called me the night before to tell me that I was the third induction scheduled the next morning. They start calling at 5 am, and if I didn't hear from them by 10 am to call them! Not really something you want to hear. (With Porter and Claire they told me an exact time to come in 7:30 am for both) So I was pretty bummed out thinking that they weren't going to call me in the morning. So Mark, My mom and myself stayed up talking...thinking that we wouldn't get called and that we wouldn't go in until the afternoon sometime! NOT SO...I got a call at 5:40 am from the hospital asking for me to be there by 7 am. So I was tired, and shocked, but the adrenaline was starting to come. Jumped in the shower and hurried to get Porter and Claire up, fed and dressed. My mother-in-law took them for the day, which they couldn't have been happier about, which made it much easier to leave them!

    On our way to the hospital!

    The waiting game!

    We arrived at the hospital at about 7:15. By 8:30 I was all hooked up. I was at a 3+ and 70% effaced. I was just waiting for Dr. Terry to come break my water. (with Porter and Claire I arrived at the hospital at 7:30, Dr. Terry broke my water by 7:50, had the epidural by 9:30 and both babies were born by 11:30 am, give or take a few minutes!) So I expected it to be the same this time around. NOPE! I didn't get my epidural until 11:50 (before my water was broken) and Dr. Terry didn't come in until 1:25 pm. So there was a LOT of waiting around. It was fun to chat with my sister, mom and Mark, but after a while we were all kind of getting bugged that things weren't progressing! After breaking my water (like I had expected) I was ready to push a couple of hours later. At 3:35 pm baby girl was born. Weighing 7 lbs. 14 oz and 19.5 in. long.

    She was beautiful! I was more emotional this time around! I was just happy to have her here safe and sound and in my arms. I was a little shocked (and still am) that my second girl looks like my son and not my daughter...go figure!
    It was also weird not to have a name picked out for her. (with Porter and Claire we knew the name almost immediately after finding out the sex). So we just called her baby girl until Mark and I could agree. He loved the name Lucy and I loved the name Paige. And we were both vetoing each others choice. The name that we did agree on was Elizabeth! So for a couple of hours we called her Elizabeth...but for some reason this just didn't feel right. So we slept on it for a couple of nights!

    Mark, My mom, Aunt Lilly, and my sister in law Amanda
    (sad that she had to leave before we took the picture)
    were all in the room when Lilly came.

    Porter and Claire first meeting their new sister.
    They loved her from the beginning...
    Porter said "Mom, having a new baby sister is so fun!"
    Claire said "Is my baby born yet?" and "I wanna hold my baby!"
    Claire did NOT like that I had to stay in the hospital, she would cry when they had to leave, which broke my heart!

    Hospital Days

    This is one of my favorite things about giving birth-being in the hospital.
    I love everything about it!
    I sort of don't even mind being woken up five times in the middle of the night by nurses!

    In the hospital we were all just sitting there, when this man came and started washing the window...on the outside! we were on the third floor, so he was pretty high, and it was actually really cool to witness.

    On our way home.

    So about the name...
    We were so back and forth. It was really annoying to be in the hospital, to be feeding your baby, changing her diaper and not knowing her name. I remember feeding her and looking down asking myself "what is your name baby?" Well the morning I was to leave, Mark came the room and we hashed it out. One of us said "how about Lilly?" (which was a contender, a couple of months before, but kind of forgotten). And that just felt right. The question was should we name her Elizabeth and just call her Lilly? In the end we decided if we are going to call her Lilly, why not just name her Lilly...so that's what we did. She is still named after my twin sister, which is what I wanted from the beginning, either as her first or middle name. It felt so good and was such a relief to write Lilly Christine on the Birth Certificate form.

    And so you have it...the Birth story!

    Fast forward a couple of weeks,
    and one things for sure...Lilly is LOVED!

    She will be 5 weeks on Tuesday, and we're still worried about her weight!
    At two weeks she had dropped a whole pound, down to 6 lbs 13 oz. and five days later was at 6 lbs 10 oz. So weird when I can hear her drinking and she has regular diapers and nothing else seems to be wrong! The Pediatrician was more worried that I would lose my milk, because I guess she wasn't draining me completely. So I've had to pump after I feed her, to make sure my milk keeps coming...just what I've wanted to do! ha!
    Other than that small detail, She is the sweetest little girl. I just love her! Not like I've loved my other two newborns. Don't get me wrong, I love Porter and Claire to death, but I guess I just know that this newborn stage doesn't last, so I'm trying to soak it all in.
    So blessed to have added another sweet spirit into our family!
    We Love you Lilly Christine...

    Thursday, July 29, 2010

    Lilly Christine...

    IS HERE!
    July 27, 2010 @ 3:35 pm
    7 lbs. 14 oz.
    19.5 inches

    Because I know you're all wondering how we came up with the name...
    which took us until discharge to agree on...

    Lilly (after my twin sister Elizabeth or lillybeth)
    Christine (my own middle name)

    First family photo
    a LOT more to come,
    too tired to write!
    busy nursing,
    cleaning,
    chasing after two others...
    but so happy and blessed!


    Monday, July 26, 2010

    T-E-N-N-I-S

    Porter enjoyed this last week of tennis lessons!
    I almost cried the first time I picked him up and was watching him,
    such a big boy, made me proud!

    When I picked him up he said
    "Mom, Dad was eight when he started tennis lessons,
    and I'm only five!"
    (meaning "I'm going to be so much better!")

    The Serve

    I love the tongue sticking out in this picture!
    Such concentration...
    Hopefully this will be our ticket to Wimbledon some time in the future!!!