Lights

We had a request to see the lights on the new casa. Well ok. Christmas came and went and it was great! But here's our exterior illumination display for 2008. I plan to double it next year (at least).The plastic snowman on the roof is buried half way. This was after the first couple storms.

Christmas Card Faux Pas

I am a bad bad girl and didn't even attempt to get Christmas cards out this year. How dare I?! But that doesn't mean we are not thinking of you and hoping all is well with you. I hope this can count as our card. We love you all ....well, most of you! (Kidding! God bless us, every one!)

Santa's Flying Choppers Now

Merry Christmas from all of us! I hope everyone is more prepared for this holiday than I am. With Max coming into our life, Christmas really snuck up on me. But it is always easy to get into the spirit after Andys' works' Christmas party. Every year Santa and Mrs. Claus (except she had to stay at the North Pole this year) fly in courtesy of AirMed to the screaming delight of kids. He gives them a wonderful gift and is EXTREMELY jolly! After a party like this, the kids have been so excited. Last night I crept up to their bedroom door and listened to Ella and Zoe singing Rudolph and Frosty and Jingle Bells to each other and giggling the whole time. Ella would tell Zoe all about how "Santa is magic, so he will make us a chimney that he can come down" with Zoe responding, "REALLY!" It was so cute and the excitement welled up in my chest just as strong as if I was 5 too!

Twelve

Four weeks today. 12.0 Pounds!!
What, is he in some kind of hurry?

Daddy's Boy!! (with scientific proof)

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family website - Roots

Max's Debut, A Star is Born!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Hey, watch our little video! (Mom, click on the arrows under the pictures to view pages!)

Balloons, Babies and Neil Diamond

So, it has finally come to this. I should just get the Depends out now, because there is no turning back. I am officially the big 3-0. Thirty! This wasn't supposed to happen to me! I've already called Bea Arthur and I made the cut to become an official Golden Girl. Yippee.
There was no way around this horrific event, but surprisingly, there was no depression and renting of clothes like I thought there would be. In fact, thanks to my wonderful husband and sweet girls and the newly arrived darling Max, it was my favorite birthday ever, REALLY.
It started early, Max was to distract me in my bedroom while the others got everything ready. Zoe would come in every few minutes just to say in her adorable 2 year old voice, "Happy Birthday, Mommy!" and give me a hug. Finally I got to come downstairs, to be greeted with an entire house FULL of balloons! 30 exactly. Each color with signifigance. And a huge signs designed and decorated by the biggest up and coming artists, Zoe and Ella. An enormous breakfast of M&M waffles, eggs and bacon and sausage. Ella had been so excited and told Andy that they had to dress in their best clothes for the "party." so they all were! Max is just over a week old, so I wasn't up to doing a whole lot, so we partied at home. Andy knows me so well and always puts a lot of thought into my birthday presents, and he surprised me with a 30th edition of The Princess Bride ( I highly recommend reading it, it's even better than the movie.) AND tickets to Neil Diamond! I am so stinking excited! My parents and grandparents and sisters family came over for cake and ice cream that night, and it was so nice to sit and visit and feel normal for the first time in 10 days. I know it doesn't sound super exciting, but it was so wonderful and Andy knew exactly what I needed.

So, a side note away from the birthday mumbo jumbo, my beautiful baby is 10 days old already. Why can't they stay little for just one second, seriously? He finally is off of the bili lights, after 6 days. It was no fun at all, but I am so greatful he is getting better! I just wanted to show off how he gets cuter everyday!

Billy Something

So I guess Max wants his name to be Billy Ruben. He didn't say that, but he turned yellow. So here's our little treasure in a UV light contraption. Another heel bleeding tomorrow will tell if it's working. We sure hope so. We feel lucky and blessed to have him here and otherwise healthy.
I'm going in there next. I'll be so tan. I can't wait.

Maximus is home!!!

Don't I just have the cutest family? I can't imagine life in our house without Max, and that was only, what, three days ago? He is so beautiful and sweet. He is eating and pooping great, but, unfortunately we all have to go through getting sleeping patterns down, right? I want to show him off to everyone in the world and yet in the same breath I say, "Stay away! Wash your hands! Don't get him sick!" Yes, I am one of those moms. So I will show him off on this blog, where RSV can't reach him. Course, maybe now he'll just get a computer virus, hu! (Bad joke, it was Andy's.) Anyway, here is my gorgeous baby boy, and I could not be more in love with him!

The girls are fascinated with the basinette and could not wait to rock Max in it.







Play Video (This is for Mom who didn't know she could play videos on the blog before! Love you, Mom) This is Max's first night in this crazy world at about 4:00 a.m. I was burping him and he picks up his head and looks around! He's only hours old, he shouldn't be able to do that! What can I say, the boys a genius. (Sorry its so dark. Hope you can see it)

Max

Three doctors, three hospitals, three cities, three kids. Here is the third. Mr Max.
I cropped out his privates - he would want that
He was 9 lbs 4 oz. 21" long. Chubby little guy, eh?

So we went in at 7:30 and got all settled. The Doctor performed an *amnionotomy* and contractions picked up. Epidural went in ok, but became occluded. Then when it "broke loose" it hit Sarah hard. Can you say loopy? She'll kill me for writing this. But she did pass out for a sec a couple of times. A little scary, but it definitely made her less anxious. And pale. And unable to see. And confused. But she was great. Max began his lifelong commitment to breathing at 1:30 pm or so. 1:36? I dunno.

And so Zoe's world is flipped, she seems to be wrapping her head around the whole concept.

Ella gets it and she seems pretty exited and happy.

Grandparents were there to welcome the three chinned chunker.

Things went really really well! Sarah is feeling really good compared to the two previous ventures in childbirth.


I'm happy as the proverbial peach.
Lots of support and love from family and friends. And lots of texting. Boy are my thumbs pooped. rotfl lol ty ibs pta ;) dnr rotc vbac nib moo. Whatever.
So we did it all for the blog. Clear back in February we were like - "Hey, lets have a baby so that if we ever start a blog, we can put a post all about the whole experience and then lots of pictures and videos so that everyone will see our awesome baby making skills." And that dream can finally be realized here at blogspot.com.
Love you. Peace out. Bring on the crying and pooing and no sleep and then bring Max home.

Snow

Here I sit on the eve of a life changing event. Tomorrow, water will break and we will meet our third child and first son (unless it was just a girl teasing us from the ultrasound.) Pretty exciting!

We've really got a rhythm right now. Ella is señorita independiente. Zoe is pretty low maintenance, as far as 2 year olds go. Things function well. Zoe's been free of charge for pretty much all the activities and she and Ella enjoy the same level of entertainment. But all new challenges will arrive within hours. It's gonna be fun. Stay tuned for updates...

Anyways, we awoke this morning to four inches of snow. I'm so glad the purchase of this house included a snow blower, there's a lot of driveway out there and since Sarah was making excuses about her snow removal duties, I got to try it out. So we played in the snow for the sole purpose of having something to post on the blog. I shall henceforth call such activities "blog fodder." It's probably an incorrect application of the term, but that's what I'm going to call it.

Here's a picture of a snowman that Ella and Zoe made.

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet....

This Halloween was so much fun. We went to Park City and did the Trick or Treating on Main Street. They shut it down to cars and go from store to store. It was packed. They also had tons of dogs in costumes in the road doing a dog parade. We went to see the firemen (Andy was supposed to be working) and made it back to Heber to start all over again in our neighborhood. What a haul! I think we are instituting a 80% parent tax on all candy this year!

I think Zoe looks a little excited, what about you?

Andy went as scary "Dexter", the serial killer from TV. If you know who it is, he looks just like him in his costume. If you don't, which no one did, he just looked plain scary. Me, I went as a 40 week along pregnant woman.

Grandma Avery made the darling "Ella the Elephant" costume. Ella decided all by herself that's what she wanted to be. No princesses for her!

Leaves at Grammy's House

Zoe, Ella, Ashlyn and Shamri. Four blonde autumn beauties!

We love the fall! Have I mentioned that a million times yet? We were at my parents house today and their backyard was full of huge, crunchy, crinkly leaves just waiting to be tossed and jumped on and stuffed down someone's pants!!! It really is worth all the itching later on, isn't it?

These are my sisters, Emily and Laura, and my sweet neices, Charly, Ashlyn and Shamri. I'm the fat one sitting down who couldn't stand up for the leaf fight! (2 1/2 more weeks!)


You don't want to get in a leaf fight with my sisters. You'll be cleaning your pants out for hours!

Ella couldn't wait to build the leaf pile back up and start again!

BOO!!!!

Last night Andy took the girls on the Heber Creeper, or "Haunted Train" as we call it. (I don't even know if that's what it is!) They were so brave and had a blast. They always have so much fun with their dad. But once the scarey masked spooks got on the train with them, Ella said, "Dad, this was a baaadddd idea." and that her "bones were shaking in her body." Oh, Ella! If you're wondering why they are just coloring their pumpkins, instead of carving them, it's because there was no time to carve and make it to the train on time, but Ella couldn't go ONE MORE DAY without doing pumpkins!!!! She even prayed the night before, "Please let us have fun doing pumpkins tomorrow. " A little bit OCD, but incredibly adorable!

Hot chocolate before the ride!


Keeping warm in Dad's coat. I think Ella's deciding whether or not to be scared!

What a cute witch and black cat!

Ellas Halloween Pictures

"Oh Look, A Princess!"

'Tis the season when the crisp autumn breeze sends colored leaves racing across your lawn, as if the ghosts of halloween are practicing their scares out on them. Spookables are hung up in windows, and pumpkins belong anywhere but in your garden. And when you step outside at dusk you get a whiff of the smoke unfurling from a lone chimney somewhere mixing with spices and scents leaking out from a cozy indoors, and there couldn't be a better smell in the world.

We went and had lunch up at Cascade Springs. Ella was so excited, I think she feels the same as me about this time of year. She said, "You could tell I was excited because I

was running, hu?" Yes. That and the fact that she jabbered on and on and looked at every single sign they had posted and pointed out every single "pink" colored leaf!

And just in case you are wondering, yes, Zoe is wearing a Cinderella dress. She just got it for Halloween, but we'll see if it makes it that long because she has to wear it every single day starting from the second she wakes up. It's so much easier to just let her wear it!

It was beautiful up there. We copped a squat on a log and had sandwiches, making chit chat with all the old couples walking by enjoying the gorgeous weather. It's funny, EVERY single group had at least one person that had to say, "Oh look, a princess!" I guess, because, hey, what else are they going to say? It was a gorgeous day. Thanks to Andy for taking us!