She's Here!

Joe and I went into the hospital at 8:00am for me to be induced.

Despite all the contractions on Christmas day, I wasn't that far along so the induction took longer than expected.  We kept busy by watching the home improvement network and Joe was kind to take attractive pictures of me:)  I had been really busy with primary and Christmas and I realized I never really slowed down to prepare emotionally or mentally for a baby so the wait was kind of nice.  They didn't start pitosin until that night and it seemed like it went fast after that.  

 Lily was born on December 27th and 12:14am.  She wanted to wait to be a birthday present for her dad:)  She weighed 8 lbs and 5 oz and was 20.25 inches long.

I just cried when they handed her to me.  I was touched that she was finally here and perfect.  I also cried because it was such a long road while I had so much to do with my calling and as a mother.  The other reason I might have cried is because that seems to be my response to most things more recently:).
  

They took Lily for a little bit because she had some fluid in her lungs affecting her breathing.  This is her and I after she came back from the nursery.  They said the fluid was from her coming out in one push.  The time in the birth canal is supposed to squeeze a lot of that fluid out.  She choked a little during the night with us, which made us nervous, but it didn't happen again once we got home.

The proud siblings.

 Lily before going home.

Christmas Morning

The kids were kind and let us sleep in until 7:45.  That was a nice Christmas present to us.

Hannah's big present was a "Happy Family" dollhouse.  She was excited, even though she found it a week early.

Lincoln really likes the Angry Birds game he got.  Now we just need to find the missing angry birds:).

Aunt Laurie was so nice to surprise us with a quiet book she made.  We can tell she spent a ton of time on it and the kids love it.

 I was having contractions all day so the picture of me sitting in the background was about right.

Joe was good to play with the kids all day.  They had a lot of fun.

Christmas Even Happenings

 I was very pregnant.

 Joe made a delicious Christmas Eve dinner

 Our friends were so nice to invite us and another family over for a nativity reenactment   I'm very grateful they did that.  It made it really fun for our kids and I was a little distracted with the thought of giving birth.  (Hannah was a sheep and Joe was a shepherd if you can't tell.)

November Student of the Month

Here's Rachel standing to be honored for being the student of the month in Mrs. Dalenberg's class for November.  She tries very hard to do her best and we're proud of her.  (Just in case you were confused...My friend was kind to take this picture for me, which is why it's so clear:)

Pre-Christmas Festivities

Here are our Christmas gingerbread/cracker houses.

Rachel and I were one team...

 Hannah and Joe were the other team...

 

and Lincoln was having a rough night and didn't get to make one.  We were sad we had to follow through with that punishment.

My life in October and November

The primary was over the Ward Christmas party and despite my best efforts to delegate, I was very busy organizing the party. We made care packages for children at the Shriner's hospital.  The theme was, "What shall we give to the babe in the manger" and made our service our gift to Christ.  

 Above is one of the stations: Painting parts of toy wooden cars.  We also made stuffed dolls, oragami flowers, and cards.

Here are all the care packages ready to go. 

Biggest Fort Ever

It's always fun finding ways to entertain kids while Rachel is at school...especially when pregnant.  The request on this cold December day was that I make the "Biggest for ever!  Bigger than the whole entire world!"  Done.

First for Hannah

In November Hannah had a couple of firsts.

 Hannah's first black eye:  This picture doesn't show it in all its glory.  We think it was Lincoln's fault.  Hannah gets her shots in at Lincoln so I had a hard time feeling too sorry for her.

Hannah's first bed: Hannah moved out of her crib in the closet to make room for the new baby.  We tried it before with disastrous results, but to our surprise, she's been doing really well this time.