Christmas 2008

Hmm! Where to begin? ...my blog is so behind...

Let's start with Christmas 2008

First there was Jasmine's preschool program.

and at the end there were two surprise guests...
The bad news is Jasmine decided this year that she is terrified of Santa. The good news is, for whatever reason, be it the fact that he brought along Mrs. Claus to ease the tension, or perhaps it was peer pressure from her friends, maybe it had something to do with the fact that he was giving out presents to each child that he called, or the fact that there was an audience of wide eyed parents staring at her. But for whatever reason, she just sat there frozen in her seat and then...when he called her name...she actually sat on his lap! And my dad snapped this picture.

I never got a picture of Shayden with Santa because something came up each time the opportunity arose, so this will have to do.

The Green Elephant Party.

My high school friends get together each year for a fun gift exchange. Love this tradition! Becky did an awesome job hosting this year and we missed those gals who couldn't make it :(

Then Christmas Eve.

The traditional Guatemalan dinner of Paches at my sister's house. The kids entertained us with a wonderful program. Then put on their new pj's.

Christmas Day

The kids enjoyed their presents as you can see.Later we enjoyed our traditional Shrimp Etoufee at our house.

Making sugar cookies for some neighbors.

Going to see the lights at Temple Square.And Tayvee's Christmas shirt pretty much sums up the best part of the holidays...FAMILY!

Tayevion Newborn Pictures

My friend Leisha took the awesomest pictures of Tayevion when he was one month old!!! Check these out and check out her website here.

Thank you so much Leisha! You are amazing at what you do!

Christmas in New York

For the last three years we have taken the kids to experience the magic of Christmas in NYC. This year I couldn't go (and believe me, I thought about it) so Jonas took the older kids by himself.

They definately had a blast as you can see, even though they never actually got to see Santa at Macy's :(

They love spending time with their dad!

Here are some fun pictures from the one day trip (they left at llpm on Friday and got back at midnight on Saturday)

Random Sampler

I feel like so much has happened but at the same time all of my days look exactly the same that they run together and I forget what day it is.
My life basically consists of eating, sleeping and of course nursing a baby.

Here's what has been going on.

I guess what we've been feeding him is working because he is growing...

He sleeps a lot.

But he also cries a lot.

Here he is with his "angry eyes". He puts them on quite often to scowl at us.

Jasmine made him a cute little crown. It's supposed to say I love you sooooooo much...
She loves her brother very much and one day she says she wants to be a baby again and the next day she says she wants to be a mom.

She takes good care of him.

Basically you can sum up Tayevion's life this way:

The other day Shay said "I don't think the baby likes us very much. He only likes you." And I guess that from a 7 year olds perspective that is a pretty accurate assessment, I mean he doesn't interact very much of course and when he is awake, he cries most of the time.

***

Thanksgiving came and went, we went to my sister's home and all of her inlaws were there. My parents were in Texas this year visiting my brother's family. Here are the kids performing.And finally, 4 days before the baby was born, my friend took these really great pictures of my pregnant belly. I have always wanted to do this and never have. Here is just one.

Thanks Michelle!

Finally Halloween 2008

We came home from the hospital on Halloween day around noon. So thankfully the kids were still able to go trick or treating with dad that night. I stayed home with the baby, of course, and handed out a few pieces of candy.

After finishing the first Harry Potter book, Shayden decided he had to dress up as him. My sister graciously supplied both of our costumes this year, so that was easy. Jonas made him a really cool wand to go with it. I think he looked so handsome.

Jasmine was a "Shiny Blue Dress Princess." It took a lot for her to call it that, for a long time she was just going to be a "shiny blue dress". My sister has a collected over the years with 3 girls in Ballet and Halloween costumes, about a zillion princess dresses. Jasmine loves to go over there to try them on, so this year, I told her she could pick any dress out of this collection to wear for Halloween. She picked this one. Can't say I didn't try to talk her out of it. She wouldn't have it.

And what about this cute little guy? He had to have a "first Halloween" picture too. He's a penguin in case you can't tell.

Baby News!

Well our so called "November baby" decided he just couldn't wait to join our family and wanted in on the Halloween fun!

I am happy to announce the birth of our cute little son, Tayevion!

Born on October 29th, 2008 3:35am wieghing in at 7 lbs 11 ounces (good thing he was 10 days early huh?!)

He is so healthy and snuggly and sweet as can be! We are loving having him in our family.

The proud mama and papa:

Here's how it all played out:

I had been having tons of contractions all of Sunday and Monday, but I went to the Dr. on Tuesday morning and she said that although I was almost at a 3, I was not effaced and the baby wasn't fully in position yet. She said "I think you will be fine until after Halloween". So I left reassured that things were going to go as planned. Yeah right. So that night I went to this Halloween thing with my kids and the whole time I kept having these really hard contractions. Some were to the point that I had to actually stop what I was doing, and concentrate. It was really wierd and not fun, especially because I kept thinking that this was more false labor and I was going to have to go through this every night for a week. Little did I know I was in early labor. So I left that night and went home and of course of all the luck I couldn't get a hold of Jonas to tell him I wasn't doing good. He was working late. Finally I was able to talk to him and he rushed home. We called some family to tell them what was going on just in case, and made arrangements to take the kids to my wonderful friend Chandelle, just in case. I kept thinking things were going to slow down and go away but they didn't and I had a really hard time wrapping my head around the fact that "this was it", I was really in labor!

Well to make a long story short, I was in pretty active labor because by the time we went to the hospital at 1am I was at 7cm and he was born 2 1/2 hours later! Those two and a half hours felt like an eternity, by the way. But overall it was a very good experience, I didn't even have to have an IV, no catheter (which to me is like the worst part ever), and not even any tearing. But best of all I have a wonderful, alert and content little boy as a result. So worth all the effort!

Recovery has been great and I enjoyed the time at the hospital where everyone is really to wait on you hand and foot. Now I am home and reality hasn't yet hit. Soon I am sure. I have 3 kids!

Here's a few more fun pictures:

The kids were thrilled of course and it was so cool to see the look especially on Shayden's face because you could just see all these emotions in his eyes after waiting for so long for this to happen. And oh it was so funny, the first thing that Jasmine said to me was "Mom, you tricked me." And completly surprised I said "How did I trick you?" and she said "You told me the baby was going to be born after Halloween!" I gasped and said "I did trick you!" Of course then I explained how I didn't mean to and that baby's sometimes come when you don't expect them to, but it was so funny because so many months ago I needed her to have a reference point, so that she would stop asking me if the baby was going to come that day!

Another cool thing is that he was born on my brother's birthday! So that will be a cool bond that they will get to share!