Mase's blessing

We feel so blessed to have Mase! It's fun to see him getting bigger. Ben gave a beautiful blessing. I am so thankful that he holds the priesthood so sacred and is able to bless our children.



Cutie smiles!



His Grammas love him. He's so lucky!



This one is just funny...goofy Daddy :)

I figured it out!

Everyone keeps asking me how the adjustment is going with having 4 kids. I keep telling people that it's going ok. They seem to assume that what that really means is I am not coping well. Does it show on my face? Deep dark circles? :) Is my aura giving off stress?

Well, I figured it out! (By the way, this makes me a genius)

It's not necessarily that 4 is a lot more physical work than 3. They are all still healthy, loved, bathed, and taken care of. But MY EXPECTATION on how well those things are done has made me have to down grade. I can't clean the house a well as before. It's still clean, but not to my standard. The kids are still clothed, but the clothes don't match all the time, because I haven't gotten all the laundry done. Dinner isn't done when I want it to...it's chaotic where before I really strived to be more organized. Does that make sense? I stress more because I have to be on time. I just have to. So I'm not a very pleasant person while we are getting ready to go somewhere because I haven't adjusted to how much time things take.

I've always heard that when you have 4 or more kids it's just easy and adding one more is not a very big deal. I say this is true AND not true.

Ben asked me last night while we were watching a movie how many more we were going to have. I told him no more. He smiled at me and said...that's not true. He was fishing for a commitment from me. I told him he better not press his luck for a commitment because I would MOST DEFINITELY commit to NO MORE, which is not what he wanted to hear probably. Sounds to me like he needs to feed the baby in the middle of the night for a week and then we'll talk :)

Chunky Monkey

Mase is getting so big! He is loosing the newborn baby look, which kind of makes me sad :( He started smiling and cooing at me last week....time if flying by so fast!!

So I decided to weigh him on the scale today....

Mase's stats:

At birth 7 lbs 2 ounces.
Leaving the hospital he weighed 6 lbs 5 ounces.
At 2 weeks he weighed 7 lbs 5 ounches
Today, he is a little past 6 weeks and he weighs.....

13 pounds!!!!! In a month he's gained 5 1/2 pounds! Holy Smokes!! I thought he might be my runt, but he is making up for his inferior weight really quickly!!

Happy Birthday G-man!!

Oh how I love this kid! 6 years old today and I still can't get enough.

G-man is such a complex little boy yet he really isn't and is so happy to just be here. He is quick to hug, lives hard, and brings a special spirit to our home. He is the epitome of Ben and I mixed together...calm and inquisitive like Dad; curious and emotional like me. G-mans most overwhelming characteristic is his contentment with life, yet he has some spunk! He generally just observes and loves being. He is the kindest old soul that I know. We love you SO much buddy!

I hate picture day...but the end result is priceless

My cousin Kari took these pictures. Aren't they amazing? I may be biased :)

Firsts...

Playing catch up here....we've been running by the seat of our pants. It is HARD to juggle four kids! I'm not complaining. I LOVE it!

This is the first time Mase had a bath. He didn't like it much but now a days he's digging it!



G-man started kindergarten last week and he is loving being a 'big kid'. I didn't even cry because he was SO excited to go. Princess loves being a big sister and helping him find everything. After all, she is a seasoned 3rd grader :)

Here's a few pics of the first day of school

The baby has arrived!!!

We named him Mase B. He was born on August 12th at 12:04 am. He weighes 7 lbs 2 ounces and is 19 inches long. He’s got black hair and loves his binky (Yay! Ikey hated the binky!). We are ABSOLUTELY in love!!

Here are all the gory details of the birth! If you don’t want to read, just scroll down for some pictures! I won’t be offended.

For about three weeks I have had really strong contractions on and off. It’s been really emotional feeling like that was the day only to have them stop over and over. On Monday (August 10th) I had an appointment where I was going to have my membranes stripped (translation: really terrible exam that gets things going). The midwife told me that they were totally swamped at the hospital and couldn’t do it! I was really disappointed. To put the icing on the cake, my cousin went into labor that day and delivered, which made me want to be there even more! The midwife had told me to call the next day (August 11th) and see if it had died down at the hospital and to see if they would strip me that day. I called at 8 am and she said that I could! After the appointment I went and finished the school shopping! When I got home I felt crampy but no contractions. I needed to get this show on the road! Sooooooo…I mowed our lawn! All the neighbors kept coming out and offering to help me, but I just told them this was self imposed torture. I started contracting during and as soon as I was done, I told Ben that we needed to walk more. So we went to run errands. We went to the post office, shoe shopping, we returned clothes that I had bought that didn’t fit, and got some lumber from Home Depot for projects.

At this point it is 4:30 pm. The contractions are coming on strong. My sweet sister came to my house and took over and we headed over to the hospital. They put us in an evaluation room to see if you will change over time. When I got there I was a 4, which is still no change from my appointment that morning, but they can see the contractions are consistent. They said, walk around for an hour and we’ll see. I was so disappointed at this point because my body was acting different than it usually does. It usually takes a miracle to get the hospital in time :) . After that hour, I had dilated a ½ cm. She took pity on my soul and admitted me. I was so tired at this point and opted to get an epidural. They then broke my water. Now it is 8 pm. I was comfortable and able to sleep a little bit. My mom and Ben just hung out. They checked me at 10 pm and I was only a 5. By 11:45 pm, I was only a 5 ½. I got REALLY discouraged and just cried. I didn’t want to do this all night. About 11:55 pm I started feeling really icky. I just felt awful. I started shaking really bad and could feel the contractions. The nurse came in and decided to check me since I said “something wasn’t right”. She suddenly said, Oh my goodness! You are 10 cm. Let’s get the midwife! The midwife had gone into a break room and had just lain down to take a nap (Remember 10 minutes earlier I was 5 1/2? She said later that she was really confused and didn’t know how long she’d been sleeping. My nurse was awesome and already had the room set up for delivery (luckily). By 12:02 am I was ready to push. I pushed once and he flew out at 12:04 am, 19 minutes from 5 cm to in our arms! He is TINY compared to my other boys so it was pretty easy!

We are so in love! He does have a nice set of lungs and lets us know what he likes or not! We are so happy!!