Gorgeous Girl

So, I have a teenager, and she is gorgeous. And that is scary. But she is amazing and is for sure one of my best friends and is a good girl and such a great example to me. I am blessed!

Oh, and she's a dork! :)

The Giraffe

So, my kids all had a favorite toy, but none of them really had a stuffed animal. Our cute neighbor lady gave this darling giraffe to Grant at my baby shower and he loves it! We lay it next to him and it sings him a lullaby and gets him to sleep. I need to come up with a name for said giraffe because he's too cute to be called giraffe and is the topic of many conversations at our house. On the other hand, I kind of want to wait and see what Grant would name him, but I don't want him to be swayed by us calling it "giraffe".....what to do, what to do. But seriously, is this a cute kid or what?!

I love him!

Jaundice. UGH!

So, because Grant was born so early, he got a pretty bad case of Jaundice. None of my other kids had this at all, so I was pretty worried. We had to go get several blood tests and we also had to lay him in the sun every day for two hours! I'm so glad that is over. He seemed to really enjoy actually, but I was always worried he would get too hot. The tricky part was, we have so many trees surrounding our house that it was hard to catch the patch of sunlight! It was only available for a few hours a day, so it was kind of a pain. He came through it just fine, FINALLY, after about 6 weeks of it!

Jerk

We are SO in a fight! You don't even care how I feel, you are selfish and I never want to see you again! Please take my number off your speed dial. You have stood me up ONE too many times!

Baby Grant

So I had invisioned the way I wanted the birth to go. We wanted to have our 3 older girls and my best friend here to witness the birth, and I really wanted to have some great pictures and video of the big moment. Well, you would think that after THIRY ONE HOURS of labor we would have PLENTY of time to get ready and get everyone here. Well, Grant had his own ideas! Because of so many false alarms and such sporadic contractions, everyone went home to get some sleep, have a shower and take care of things. Well, I was only having contractions about every 10 min. At about 8:30 on the night of the 7th (I started contracting the morning of the 6th), they started coming heavy and strong. Melody (our AMAZING midwife) finally let me get in the water. Jay and Melody were frantically calling for back up and I was frantically calling for help with pain relief, but after only a few HARD contractions and one or two pushes, Grant Jay was born at 9:08pm on July 7, 2009. 5lbs 5 oz, 18 inches long, born at 36 and a half weeks-breech, but absolutely perfect!

WAY Behind!

Haha! No pun intended. I am so far "behind", but I want to get the important things in, so here we go! These pictures are SO not flattering, but alas, they are part of the story. So little baby Grant kept trying to come early, but there was a problem: his feet were coming first! So my midwife came up with this Chinese torture position to get him to turn. Seriously, thi s was ALMOST as bad as the worst contractions! I had to stay in this position for 20 min. YOU try it 8 months pregnant! Well, he never turned, but he did pull his feet up, so it was worth it in the end. I think we were watching Wheel of Fortune or something when I was doing this.

Picture Tag!

So I have no idea why my font is blue or underlined, but I have spent 20 min trying to undo it, and it is just gonna have to STAY! So, this is a picture tag-tag to you all! I love tags because I am not creative enough to come up with blogging ideas on my own. Go to your pictures, pick the 6th picture out of the 6th folder, post it and give a description.
This is Jay and I on our honeymoon in the Redwood Forest. One of the coolest places I have ever been! We are at the top of a tram at the top of the forest, and if you look closely, you can see the ocean above the mountains. My honeymoon was the best!!! Jay spoiled me rotten and we had an absolute blast! I want to go again!!!

Brigham's Baptism

So I am slowly catching up on our lives the past two months. Brigham was baptized, on his birthday, and the day turned out to be perfect!!! We were a little worried about if it was going to happen or not, but he REALLY wanted to be baptized on his birthday, so with the help of a super aunt, the day went off without a hitch! He is such a sweet spirit and I am so proud of him and the person he is becoming! I made this cake- not nearly as fancy OR delicious as Traci's, but those ARE football candles. I was pretty proud of that!

We had a lunch after and everyone came over for it. It was so fun to get together! (Jay looks disgusted in this picture for some reason. :) That is my brother Nathan, his daughter Bethany and my mom in the background

Brigham decided he wanted to have Jay baptize him. They really have a good relationship and I am so grateful to Jay for being so wonderful to my kids! I could not ask for a better husband!

My brothers sang "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus", and Nicole gave a really great talk! It was a great day we will always remember!

Update, finally!!!

Wow, so I have not worked all month, and I told myself that I would blog at LEAST once a week, and here it is a month and a half later....Needless to say, we have had lots of things happen since then....

First of all, my baby turned 8 years old on Feb 28th! We had a fun friend birthday party, took him to Olive Garden for dinner, and he got baptized! Traci made the cake and it was DELICIOUS and Brigham thought he was the luckiest kid in the world to have a real football cake! The kid is obsessed with football! We had a football themed party, and I think he got 5 footballs from friends. I must say though, of all the tasks as a mother, I HATE putting on friend birthday parties! I always stress and stress about it and I am always worried we are going to run out of things to do until their parents come. But, this one was really fun and they had a great time.

New baby Pic

So this is not MY baby, but look at this picture!!!! I WISH I had a picture like this of my baby! almost 17 weeks, and I can't believe how much they change in a few short weeks. I am really not sure what I am having. After thinking it was twins for so long, I don't know what to think anymore!

Speaking of babies, mine turned 13 last week?!?!?!?!? I feel incredibly old! And boy, is she a teenager! She is gorgeous though and I love her and thank the Lord every day for her in my life! She teaches me SO much!!!

Baby

So I am 14 weeks today. I think it is incredible how fast they grow! This is what it looks like today, and it is amazing to me that in 4 short weeks it will have changed enough that we will be able to tell the sex!

I am scheduled to have an ultrasound tomorrow as I have been having some complications, so it will probably be much later that we actually see what it is, but I can't wait to see it anyways! It really is a miracle!

Ode to My Piano

So I finally have the piano of my dreams.....but I never have time to play it! It might sound funny but I really really miss the hours and hours and discipline of playing scales, arpeggios, Hanon etc, to the incessant ticking of the metranome. That is what I miss the most! Don't feel bad boys; I also dearly miss you: Chopin, Prokofiev, Beethoven, Saint-Seans, but I am a technique addict! I never get it when my students complain about this part of practicing. But alas, someday I will have the time again to perfect my talent with my beautiful Yamaha, but it is suddenly feeling very, very far away.

I Want to Live Here.....

And do this.......

NOT here.......

Doing this.....

Happy New Year!

I am so happy that it is a new year and that I have the opportunity to make this one even better than the last! I want to share the things I experienced in 2008 and the things that I learned from them, mostly so I can look back and NOT make the same mistakes, and also to always remember to be grateful!

-This was the last year that all of my kids were in elementary school. I learned that elementary homework is easy and do-able! I also learned that I will miss when I cannot go and help in their classes anymore.

-I lost my last living grandparent. I learned that this was a great gift that I have been given, having ALL 4 of my grandparents up until I was 26 years old! I am also unbelieveably blessed and what incredible people they all were, and how much they touched my life! But I think the most important thing that I learned was to take advantage of the small moments, as I will always cherish some of the last quiet moments I had with my sweet grandmother and the infinite wisdom she imparted to me with a few small words. I love you Grandma!
-I was sealed to my best friend for ever and ever! Without a doubt the best part of 2008, if not of my lifetime up until now! I learned that if I am patient and trust that the Lord knows what is best and that He does things in His time, blessing beyond belief will come. I never could have imagined in all my life being this happy and so blessed! I love you Jay!

-I got a real job for the first time in my adult life. I have learned that I really took for granted all the years I had to be at home! I miss it! I have also learned how amazing people can be and how blessed I am to be working with such loving, thoughtful people. I know that is not the case for many, many people. I also learned that I still love my baby brother and that he is a great boss, but he knows deep down that I am really still the boss of him. ;)

-I have seen many people that I truly love go through some really tough things. Through this I have learned how truly blessed I am and that I should never complain! I have also learned through their great examples about what is really important in life!


Things I want to accomplish and become in 2009-
-I want to lighten up and be able to laugh at life and at our kids instead of always wanting things to be perfect. It's not gonna happen Lyns, so face it!
-I want to grow a healthy, happy baby and be a good mom to all 7 kids!
-I want my relationship with my husband to grow stronger everyday and always show him how much I love and respect him!
-I want to be a better friend!
-I want to be more spiritual and get rid of all the clutter
-And lastly, I want to be more GRATEFUL!