Hannah is 7!

On March 26 at 12:33 a.m., Hannah turned 7! I cannot believe it was seven years ago she joined our family. It has gone by so fast but yet it seems as though she has been part of Dave and I forever.

I remember checking into the hospital on March 25 and being induced. With Hannah's pregnancy, I was diabetic and had high blood pressure. When the mom has gestational diabetes the babies are more prone to being on the larger side. When Dave was born he weighed over 11 pounds. It was either 11 lbs 4 oz or 11 lbs 7 oz. When my Dad was born he weighed 10 pounds. There was no way I wanted a large baby so when the doctor wanted to induce me I was all over it.

Hannah was quite stubborn and after 15+ hours of labor, pushing on two separate occasions, and the lovely vacuum device, I was taken to the O.R. for an emergency c-section. For only weighing in at 6 lbs 10 oz, she surely did not want to come out!

After Hannah was born, it became a very scary time for me. I started to hemorrhage and became very ill. I remember Dave coming back to the recovery room to let me know that Hannah was alright and I remember holding her briefly at around 4:30 a.m. but other than that it's quite a blur. I remember Dave calling his Dad to come to the hospital to assist in giving me a blessing. I think this corresponded with me holding her around 4:30 a.m. because I vaguely remember them being in the room. Sometime around 8 a.m. I was given a blood transfusion because my levels were so low. It took a few days, but I was able to pull through. It was a hard and scary time but looking at Hannah now I'd have to say she's worth it.

I put Hannah's name in the Kix 96 weekday birthday drawing on Thursday morning. To our surprise she won! She won a free birthday cake from Shaffer Bakery, lunch or dinner from Papa Kelsey's, a surprise gift from Coppin's Hallmark, and an ice cream from Casper's Malt Shoppe. She was totally shocked when they read her name. You should have seen her face. This was a time that I wished I had the camera.

Thursday was pretty low key because we knew we were celebrating a day later at Chuck-E-Cheese in Layton. We loaded in the car Friday mid-morning, picked everyone up and headed to Layton. These are the ones that came to celebrate: Hannah, Me, Dave, Ashley, Nicole, Grandma Peterson, Alicia (cousin), Rachel (cousin), Nate (uncle), Bridger (cousin), and Sam (cousin). It actually turned out to be a fun celebration but I was exhausted by the time we got home at 5:30 p.m.

The presents consisted of Barbie Walkie Talkies, a beaded watch band and watch face, a princess pillow and lip gloss from Alicia and Rachel, two shirts from Grandma Peterson, a gift card to Walmart, and when it gets warmer we're getting a trampoline!!!

Hannah - we are so thankful that you are part of our family and we love you very much. I cannot imagine life without you. I am proud of the girl you are and am excited to see the girl you will become. I love your infectious smile. I love your desire to learn. I love seeing how willing you are to serve your sisters. You are a joy to have in our lives! Thank you for being part of our family.

We love you Hannah! Happy Birthday!!!!

Double Trouble

Hannah: "Mom? Can we drive the golf cart in the backyard."

Me: "Did Dad let you drive in the backyard yesterday?"

Hannah: "Yes."

Me: "Alright. Be careful though."

I bath Nicole and get her ready for bed. As I'm walking into the kitchen, I glance out the window and see that Hannah and Ashley have gotten the golf cart stuck in the mud. When Hannah asked about driving in the backyard, I did not comprehend that it meant right up next to the house in the mud. Hindsight tells me that Dave told them they could drive in the backyard but only on the grass. I seemed to have left out the "grass" part. I have made a note for next time.

As I get the camera and take pictures out the window, I see that they are using Dave's tools that were on the golf cart to get the mud off the tires and hoping this will help them get unstuck. Notice Hannah has Ashley getting the tires in the back because she doesn't want to get her shoes muddy.

I finally convince them that the golf cart is stuck and it's going to require Dad getting it out tomorrow (Dave happened to be at Young Men's). I tell them to get off the cart and start walking to the patio door. They look at me as though I'm nuts. They were expecting me to go out and get them. Whatever! You got yourself in the mud and you're going to have to get yourselves out. I will meet you at the patio door.

Here they come.....then all of a sudden Hannah's shoe gets stuck........of course she has on white, yes, bright white socks. Ashley stopped to help Hannah but ended up getting stuck herself. Hannah went back to get her shoes and to help Ashley. Ashley ends up having to go back to get her shoe that is stuck in the mud. Oh my goodness! It's total mayhem at the moment.

They finally get to the patio door. Yes, those are Hannah's nice "white" socks that ended up in the garbage. Ashely has a shoe on her right foot and it's her bare foot on the left. I know. It's hard to tell from all the mud.

Dave's response when he got home you ask? He laughed and thought it was great! That's because he didn't have to carry them one by one to the bathroom to find enough parts of them to put them in the bath and THEN clean up the mud from the sink!!!!!

All Ready for Church and No Where to Go....or so I thought.....

So, the same day I caught the girls on camera hiding/playing in the cabinet was also the same Sunday that Dave was away on his snowmobile vacation. I had myself prepared and ready for the on taking of church on my own.

Mentally, I had prepared a schedule in my head that we needed to follow in order to have everyone ready (ie. dress, tights, hair, teeth, etc) and out the door to be on time for sacrament meeting. I had my mom scheduled to come to sacrament meeting with us to help with the girls.

We were on schedule and doing great! I was rather impressed with myself. Nicole was dressed in her outfit with tights, her hair was done and would only the curls "fluffed" before walking out the door, and she was down for a morning nap so we could "survive" the three hours of church. Ashley and Hannah had their hair done and teeth brushed and were ready for dresses. It was now 10:15 and I'm ready to hit the bathroom to start getting myself ready. We have one hour and we need to walk out the door.

As I'm in the bathroom starting my hair, a thought keeps coming to mind of "When is Stake Conference?" The thought won't leave so I pulled out my Nursery schedule, which shows the lesson to be taught for the week. It says that Today (March 15) is Stake Conference, which starts at 10 a.m. It's now 10:20 a.m. Oh man! We were doing so good. We were going to be on time!

I walked out and thanked the girls for getting their dresses on but I had some crazy news. Today was Stake Conference so we wouldn't be going to church because we have missed it. Hannah started chuckling and fell on the couch because her crazy mother made them get ready for church and there isn't any. Thanks Hannah! You're not helping my self-esteem.

I picked up the phone and quickly called my Mom so she didn't start coming from North Logan for church that wasn't going to be. She herself was dressed and ready to go and was packing up dinner to bring over for after church. She too got quite a chuckle from my oops.

While the girls were dressed and ready to go, I took a few pictures of Ashley and Nicole (after she woke from her nap). Once Hannah found out we missed church, she was out of her dress lickety split. Needless-to-say, she avoided the camera.

Notice Ashley has on my necklace and my bracelet. She's my bling-bling girl!

Kind of an odd picture......where's the other foot?

Well, the story does not end here. Wednesday night was enrichment night for our ward. I am on the enrichment night committee so I was at the church early to set up and get food ready. As I was waiting for other members of the committee to come, I took some time and walked around. On the table by the Chapel were some flyers. One of the flyers was for the Mendon Stake Conference, which is on Sunday, March 22! That's right! We could have made it to church the prior Sunday and been on time. Stake Conference was the upcoming Sunday! My Nursery schedule had it on the wrong week. It sure is good we can laugh at ourselves!!!

It goes to show that there's too much going on in my brain! I can't keep it straight!!! I sure hope I can figure out when General Conference is!!!!

Who Needs a Toy Room........

Who needs a toy room.......when you can have a cabinet?

Two Sundays ago (March 15) Hannah and Ashley were playing house. They had been in and out; up and down playing before the crunch came to get ready for church. They had been awfully quiet for awhile, which usually isn't a good sign, so I went to check on them. I checked everywhere before hearing a giggle coming from the laundry room. They were playing/hiding in the cabinet.

Then, not long later I knew Hannah and Ashley were outside playing in the garage and I lost Nicole. I looked all on the main level and was calling her name but she wouldn't answer. I checked the stairs because this is one of her favorite places to play. I opened the door to the garage and asked Hannah if Nicole had managed to open the door and go into the garage (she has figured out how to operate the door handles). My last option was the laundry room and low and behold.....there she was! She had been back there and seen Hannah and Ashley in the cabinet so I guess she thought she'd take her turn.

It's Been Awhile

It's been awhile since I have last posted. There's laundry that needs to be folded and put away and the kitchen could use a little TLC but I have no energy at the moment, the girls are in bed, and Dave is off to young men's so I have turned on the TV to the Biggest Loser, kicked up my feet, talked to Ashley twice because she "just can't'' seem to go to sleep, and I've taken charge of Dave's laptop to update the blog.

I am not very good at writing a weekly family letter to our favorite Missionaries so I've decided that I need to do a better job of keeping the blog up-to-date so they have something to refer to to see how we're doing. I am extremely impressed with Janee and Linda for doing the weekly letters. Way to go you two!

No major happenings have been going on with our family so I'll do the run down on what everyone has been doing.

Dave has been fighting the cold and ickiness for the past two weeks. Two Fridays ago he did not go to work and this is when you know he doesn't feel good. He rarely takes sick days. He was also suppose to go with his Young Men's group for an over night camp out but he felt so terrible he didn't even do this. He probably wished he had because we had Alicia and Rachel (cousins) spend the night with Hannah and Ashley so it was a "total chick" weekend. He was a bit out numbered but handled it very well.

Last Tuesday, Dave came home from work to find that the sump pump in the crawl space was not turning off. It had been cycling for the past few weeks but now it was constantly running. He went down in the crawl space to find lots and lots and did I say lots of water. After a trip to Lowe's to purchase another sump pump and some 1 1/2 inch hose, both Dave and I were down in the crawl space after putting the girls to bed to dig a hole for the second sump pump and to sponge out the water from our water heaters. Once the second pump was up and running with the bigger line we were able to see the "stream" of water coming into the crawl space. The weather has gotten a bit cooler so the water has slowed coming in but yesterday we got another 16 inches of snow so I'm sure there will be more water by the end of the week when the temperatures start rising.

Dave is leaving Thursday and heading to Island Park for a snowmobiling weekend with some buddies. This will actually be the first time this year he has gone snowmobiling. It's a well deserved vacation. This will also be the first time the girls and I have been in Mendon by ourselves....hmmmmm....could be interesting.

Hannah has had some fun the last couple of weeks with cousins and friends. As I mentioned earlier, two Fridays ago Alicia and Rachel slept over. The crazy girls were up until 11 o'clock watching High School Musical 3 and then back up by 7 a.m. to get some more playing in.

Last Friday she went to a friends house after school for a play date and had a fun time. Especially because this friend has a dog. Yes, we have been under the pressure for a pet! We're holding strong though. No pets in the house and no pets outside until we have grass!

On Sunday we had our good friends Pete and Tif and Chris and Sue over for dinner, which made for six extra kids in the house and lots of playing for Hannah and Ashley. Hannah is still trying to recuperate from not getting to bed until 9:30 Sunday night and having to get up early for school.

Yesterday while leaving school, Hannah shut her thumb in the school main doors. Her thumb nail has turned blue and it really looks like it hurts. We're watching to see if we're (okay, Dave) is going to need to puncture a hole in the fingernail to reduce the pressure.

I am loving Ashley's cute little imagination. A couple of weeks ago when I dropped her off at day care she told me to tell Traci (day care provider) that Ashley was sick but MaKayla came in her place. As the days have passed, MaKayla has spend more and more time at our house and Ashley has moved to MaKayla's. On Sunday, Ashley even went to the front door and knocked to let MaKayla in. She has now resorted to calling me Michelle instead of mom because I am Ashley's mom and not MaKayla's. Oh how I would love to be three again and have an imagination like hers. She use to have a "friend" named Jenny. She was imaginary but very real to Ashley. Jenny could do anything. I mentioned to her on Saturday that I hadn't heard much about Jenny and she informed me that Jenny is sick and can't come over until she feels better. Where do they come up with this stuff?

Nicole might only be 17 months old but to her she is at least four. She tries to do anything and everything that the other two do. She is currently trying to get her eye teeth so she's a bit cranky and fevers every once in awhile but other than that she is a joy to have around. She has found her voice though and is very loud when she is cussing you out, which she did tonight all the way home from McDonalds because she was not ready to get in the car! Man, she was loud!

One more month and she heads to nursery. I cannot wait until this day. Don't get me wrong I love my girls but when you can go to church and actually make it through an entire lesson and leave knowing what the subject of the lesson was, it's a glorious day! I am in the nursery once a month and have been taking her with me so I'm hoping the transition will be smooth.

As for me, I'm still trying to keep my head above water. Some days I feel as though I'm sinking and other days I feel like I'm barely treading the water but nonetheless we trudge forward. I am looking forward to a weekend filled with fun "girl" stuff. With Dave gone my Mom and I have decided to take a break from the weekend cleaning and do some shopping and hit Chili's for lunch. We haven't done this with the girls for quite awhile so we're (I'm) looking forward to it.

Until next time, which hopefully isn't too far away.

Here's some most recent pictues.....I'm sad to say that I don't have a recent one of Ashley. Yes, I am feeling like a terrible mom at this moment. Note to self.....more pictures of Ashley (or should I say MaKayla) this week.

Hannah spend a couple of hours making this Giant book. She taped, cut, glued, and wrote a story to go along with it. She enjoys publishing books at school and at home.

I don't think Nicole is happy. What do you think?

Tubby Time! The favorite time of day!