5th Grade States Fair

Abby has been working on her project for months. She chose California, because that is where she was born. She did a lot of research and a lot of work to put this together, then all the kids showed off their displays and taught the other children at school about it. Good job, Abby.

Baby #6

I don't even know where to start on this one. If you are really interested in the details of what it is like being pregnant five months after a stillbirth, I am happy to share,just ask. I will simply say that after an experience like ours, and after all the stories I have heard, read and seen, the innocence of pregnancy is lost. I know for a fact that bad things can happen, and that they can happen more than once. We had wanted to try again to have another baby after losing Lauren. I could not see leaving our brand new crib empty and just packing it all in and quitting. Also we had been so looking forward to a baby, and that got taken away from us, especially the girls. It did happen a little quicker than expected. Of course, Scott was 3 days into 2 weeks in Las Vegas. I was alone and took the test at 3 am when I couldn't sleep. The amount of anxiety I immediately felt was crazy. Of course I was excited to be pregnant, but I wanted a baby so badly and it was so scary wondering if things would work out this time. I soon became quite sick and exhausted. I was still struggling with some other medical issues. Things were just day by day, minute by minute. Seeing that little plus sign, I could not even imagine getting to twelve weeks, and "safety" from miscarriage. Then fourteen weeks and passing where we had issues with Whitney. I finally started to feel a little better physically. I finally started to feel like this might happen. We had hidden our news from most people. I wore stretchy pants a lot. I flew to Canada for my Grandma's 100th birthday, terrified that the flying or something would cause problems. I wanted to tell people but we weren't sure on when. We mostly wanted to get to a point where we felt comfortable telling the girls first. We did not want info to get leaked to them, or have them be the last to know. I did tell a few close friends and family. Their support and happiness for us lifted me a lot. Finally we got to 18 weeks. We told the girls on a Monday night. They were so excited. We did not know the gender yet, so they guessed. All but Isabel and I said girl. I had a feeling it was a boy. One reason:because it was our first child born in an even year. And another was my indifference to ice cream.
We went that Thursday morning to my checkup and took the girls. They all wanted to see what we were having. It ended up being a boy and a few people were shocked, including Scott. Everything looked good. My doctor and I have a plan to monitor the baby extra and probably induce early. My 20 week ultrasound was also good. This is reassuring, but on the other hand everything was fine with Lauren, until all of a sudden it wasn't. But I know I can go in any time I want. I bought my own Doppler to listen to the heartbeat which has been very comforting. I now feel more kicking, but it is still light. He seems to be very active, which is good. For the first while, I really cut down on what I was doing, said no to people and eliminated what stresses I could. Now that I am feeling better, I am actually happy to be so busy with the holidays and all of that. I am just hoping time will pass quickly until this little guy is in our arms safely. I know it will continue to be a roller coaster ride as we go through this first year of grief and a pregnancy, but we are trying to be positive as best we can and take things day by day. We thank all of you who have been so supportive and happy for us, it means so much. I can feel your strength and prayers when I am weak.
So, we look forward to starting a new chapter with a five year gap, a boy, blue stuff and life with a baby again. Having this one doesn't make us miss Lauren any less, in some ways maybe more but we know that things will work out as they should, we know that if we hadn't lost Lauren, this little man would not be coming right now and I know he is special. I hope he will heal our hearts with cuteness.
We are still working on names, the girls have a lot of ideas that are mostly from favorite books and TV shows. We will figure it out, as we always do. Right now, he is Baby Brother.

Christmas Tree 2013

 This is not the tree we actually chopped.....we went out to get our tree in a bit of snow and chilly temps. It was fun and the girls really looked forward to it. They have been bugging Scott for a while now.

 Whitney can make snow angels

 Sara grumpy about something, I think it was that we told her the tree had to thaw out, so we wouldn't be decorating it immediately. Poor kid, life is hard. But she did great most of the time.

 The tree is one of the sappiest ever,hence the sheet covering the carpet. I even wore gloves to do the lights. But it is pretty and smells great. This year the girls could do most of the decorating, and they loved it.

Snow Days

 Scott pulling the girls around, they loved it.

 The snow fort Abby built with a little help, after the snow people were falling she used those to build this up higher.

 First big storm had perfect snow for playing in. I even decided to quit taking pics from the porch and play,too. Scott was at work.

 working....

 The girls posing beside their snow selves. Thank goodness for old bags of carrots. They actually made a lot of it on their own. It is nice to have them growing up and being able to actually dress themselves for the most part, and spend time playing in the snow, and build their own things.It is finally getting to be more fun and less work,yay. A good day.

 Dad

 Baby Brother

 Mom

 Abby

 Isabel

 Sara

 Whitney

Lauren with her little halo.

Basketball 2013

 Isabel played her first year of competitive Jr Jazz. She played with 3rd and 4th graders. She had a lot of fun, made a few baskets and did great.Her team was unofficially called the Black Widows

 Abby played with the bigger 5th and 6th graders, which was a little intimidating since they were mostly older and bigger than her. But she also made a few baskets, some steals and improved a lot. They played full court and so she ran a lot. She had fun,too, and we will keep working on improving for both of them. There is a lot to learn but they both did great.

Petroglyph and Dinosaur Track hike

 Newspaper rock...where we have been many.many times but the girls still love it. After that we continued down the canyon, following some directions to other petroglyphs. One was "the trail is by a rock that sticks out." ummm....the whole canyon is rocks. So we went wandering down the wrong canyon, then finally found the right one. We crossed Indian Creek and walked along to the petroglyphs. We then walked back down the streambed\wash and found the little dino footprints. It was fun and cool, the sun began setting and it was beautiful, I wish my camera skills were better to capture the colors. Good times and memories with the girls. I am glad they all love the outdoors as much as Scott and I do.

Halloween Twenty-Thirteen

I will mostly let the pictures speak for themselves.....

 Grandma CC sent a halloween gingerbread kit. How nice was it that this year I just opened it all and let them do it on their own.

 carving, we had to do it in shifts between Scott's work and piano lessons, but we got everyone finished and happy with their designs.

 our little seed separator

 Whitney at her joy school party...so wish I had brought the video camera, they sang the cutest little songs.

 Ready for trick or treating

 Ketchup and Mustard packets

 With the jack-o-lanterns

3 out of 4 in the air is the best I can expect. Happy Halloween!