Four years ago today...

(A few hours old)
I was sitting on the super uncomfortable black futon in our basement, watching reruns of 'Everybody Loves Raymond' on DVD, snuggling with a very sick 2 year old Clayton, and timing my increasingly painful contractions. I wasn't due for another three days, but I had a feeling that November 30th was going to be the day that my 2nd child was planning on making his debut. I remember calling the doctor's office when my contractions were about 5 minutes apart and having them tell me to 'take a warm bath and call again when the contractions were too painful to bear'. I remember being really angry at my doctor's office and wondering if it was too late to switch. Thankfully, as soon as I hung up the phone (seriously, it wasn't even 5 minutes later), my water broke. I called the doctor again and was, this time, given permission to go to the hospital. I remember calling Justin at school and having him and Rick come home together. Justin, to take me to the hospital, and Rick to stay with poor sick Clayton (Rick, that meant so much to me - you have no idea). I remember the ride to the hospital. I remember refusing the wheelchair and about 2 minutes later regretting that decision. I remember getting to the hospital room, asking for an epidural and receiving it. The epidural they gave me in VT wasn't nearly as strong as the one I'd had in NV with Clayton and I remember thinking, 'shouldn't I be completely numb?' I remember feeling ready to push and having my nurse tell me that it wasn't time yet. I also remember telling her that I was GOING to push and she either needed to get in the 'catcher's position' or go get the doctor. She sighed, checked me, and gasped. She confirmed that I was, in fact, ready to push and that she'd go get my doctor. I remember that when the doctor walked in I was really bummed out (there were 4 doctors in the practice I went to and she was the one I really didn't like). I remember pushing and hating every second of it (interestingly, he's my only child that I had to push with). I remember seeing him for the first time and thinking about how perfect he was, how much I loved him, and how much he looked like his big brother already!
(10 months)
Over the past four years that feeling of love that I had at Noah's birth has grown into something I can't explain. Noah is wonderful. Sometimes I feel a little sad for him because he's sandwiched in between Clayton, who commands attention because he's so outgoing and smart and Josie, who commands attention because she's the girl and the baby. However, when I look at Noah, I know that he's right where he's supposed to be. He adores his big brother. He wants to be just like Clayton and do everything that Clayton does. He usually doesn't have much of a problem letting Clayton take the lead. He's also a great big brother to Josie. I love to see him play with her when he doesn't know I'm watching. Of my boys I think that Noah will be the more protective brother bear.
(1 year)
At four years old, here are a few fun facts about my Noah:
-He's so sweet. He still loves to snuggle with me. He is always asking to hold my hand, even when we're just walking around the house! He's so affectionate, always giving hugs and sweet compliments.
-He's incredibly stubborn. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not.
-Of all my children, he has the best appitite. He'll eat just about anything. He loves fruits and veggies.
-He's smart. We were driving in the car the other day and Noah just started counting by 10's up to 100. Sometimes I don't appreciate how smart he is because Clayton usually gets all the attention in that department, but Noah has some good brains in him!
-He's artistic. I love to see the pictures he draws. He's pretty good too!
-He's a good little singer. He sings all day long. His voice is so sweet.
-He's a goofball. He loves to be silly and he'll do just about anything for a laugh.
-He's outgoing. He can turn on the charm and make friends anywhere.
-He loves animals. He's so good with Disco. Sometimes I think he'd make a great vet.
-He's easily excited. It doesn't take much to make him happy. All I have to do is tell him that it's a special day and that makes him excited. Sometimes a 'special day' just means that it's Wednesday, but it doesn't matter to him. He'll find a way to make it special!
-He's tough. Physically and emotionally. He can take quite a bit for someone his age.
(2 years)
I can't believe it's been four years. I love my sweet Noah Ben and honestly don't want him to grow up! Three was a trying age with him, but there were so many things I loved about it. I hate to let that go. I love Noah so much. I cannot imagine our family without him, he adds so much to our home! I love you Noah, I'm sad that you're growing up, but I can't wait to see who you grow up to be!
(3 years)
Since this post is a little long, I'll do a birthday celebration post later. I will say though, it was a fun day.
(Today: 4 years old!)

The Nativity Thief

Here's hoping that my decorations remain in tact and not hauled off in miniature dump trucks this season. Merry Christmas!

Oh Christmas Tree!

I feel like I'm completely skipping over Thanksgiving this year. It's not an unintentional slight, I just didn't photograph any of it this year. It was wonderful though. We got to celebrate twice! Once with the other first year residents and once with my brother and his family and one of the residents. Both dinners were delicious (Justin made the turkeys for both dinners and if you've never tasted his turkey, you're missing out). We had family, good friends, good fun, and tons to be thankful for. I feel as though I may explode at any moment, but it's not stopping me from picking at the leftovers!

Anyway, now it's on to Christmas! I am insanely excited today because we went to a tree lot this afternoon and got A REAL TREE!!! We haven't had a real Christmas tree in 4 years! We had a fake one in Vermont and that suited us fine but Justin and I both agreed that as soon as we were done with medical school we were going to be done with fake tree-dom. What we'd really wanted to do was go cut a tree down, but because of Justin's schedule, today was our only day for a week to get a tree as a family. Since I didn't want to wait any longer we went today. The place I'd found online did have a place you could go to cut them down yourself, but once we got there we learned that you could only go cut your own on weekends (boo). So we decided to peruse the lot and just get a precut one. We decided that next year we'll have to find a place to actually cut one.

The kids were so thrilled at the thought of getting a real tree. Clayton kept making comparisons between a real tree and our fake one. We all decided that the real tree won by a landslide!
On the way to get the tree.

Once we got there, we were immediately struck by how cold it was. It looked gorgeous outside, but looks were deceiving. As soon as we realized how cold it was, Justin and I immediately went into speed tree-hunting mode. At first the kids didn't seem to mind, but that changed quickly. We scouted out the lot, found the kinds of trees we were looking for, and picked out a lovely 7.5 ft. tall tree. I love it so much!


As we were paying for our tree, we realized that Santa was making an appearance at the tree lot! The boys were ecstatic!
Clayton wasted no time running down the list of things he wanted for Christmas. He's definitely got a handle on what Santa is all about!
Noah is still pretty awed by Santa. He mostly just sat on his lap staring at him and saying, 'Um...'. It was really cute!
I tried to get Josie to sit on Santa's lap, but she was terrified. She got a death grip on me and started whimpering as soon as we got close to him. So far she seems to be my only child who has been terrified of Santa.
All in all, we were only at the tree farm for about 40 minutes. They were a cold 40 minutes, but totally worth it!
Poor Jo! By the time we were ready to leave she was frozen. As cold as she was though, she refused to let go of her candy cane (she might have been terrified of Santa, but my baby's no fool - she still wanted that candy)! That darn candy cane though. By the time we got home, it was all over her hair. Grrr.
The tree is now set up in my family room and I couldn't be happier. The whole room smells so wonderful. It's definitely putting me in the Christmas mood! It's been so long since we've had this smell in my house that I just can't get enough. Plus, tomorrow we decorate! Yay! Merry Christmas!

Turn! Turn! Turn!

Growing up in Vegas did not prepare me at all for living somewhere with four real seasons (for that matter, neither did my four years in Southern Utah). When we moved to Vermont I was amazed at how hot 90 degrees felt when you factored in 90% humidity, I was awed with the beautiful fall and felt (and still do feel) that there is no where else on Earth that is as pretty and perfect as Vermont in the fall, was saddened and frustrated with the winter (snow is just NOT my thing), and was rejuvinated and renewed by the spring (June in VT...mmmmm). I knew that Indiana also had seasons, but I knew that they were slightly different than what we'd experienced in Vermont. Well, this week we got a (small) taste of what's in store for us over the next few months. We've had freezing cold days, some snow (WHAT), and days that were so perfect it should have been illegal not to be outside.

I'll start with the snow (since Indiana started with it). Last Friday we got snow. Real, stick to the ground, throw snowballs, build a snowman snow. The kids (and dog) were estatic. I, was not. They couldn't wait to go play in it.
I couldn't seem to find all of Josie's winter gear (I know we have it, I just have to find it) so she had to stay inside with me. However, she loved standing at the window and watching the boys play.
Lately, Clayton likes to 'strike a pose'.
Disco loved being outside just as much as the boys did.
Once the snow covered the ground the boys really got into it. They made snowballs, snow angels, and tracks all over the yard. I should have taken pictures after they came in. It was impressive how much ground they covered.
Sadly for the boys (but not for me) the snow melted the next day. The boys were really upset about this, but I reminded them that in a month or so there would be more snow than they would know what to do with. So all was not lost.

Once the snow melted, I think the state of Indiana realized that it was way to early for snow and, as an apology, this week has been GOREGOUS! Perfect fall days with no wind, temperatures in the high 60's, and plenty of sunshine. Lovely. Today was the most perfect of all. To celebrate what will probably be the last perfect day of 2010, we spent the whole day outside...doing yardwork. Okay, Justin did most of the yardwork, but we helped a little and played a lot! One of our favorite activities of the day was jumping in leaf piles.
I raked this little pile away from the house and Noah sat patiently on the back steps for about 20 minutes (which is impressive seeing as Noah usually can't seem to sit still for longer than 2 minutes) waiting for me to rake the pile big enough for him to jump into. He loved it and spent another 20 minutes jumping in the pile, walking through the pile, and sitting in the pile.
When Clayton got home from school he was saddened to learn that we'd stealthily hauled all our leaves into the woods adjacent to our backyard (such a wonderful alternative to bagging them). However, I firmly believe that when you have access to an enormous leaf pile, you MUST take advantage and jump in it. Which is exactly how we spent our afternoon. We trooped into the woods, found our leaf pile and just went nuts!
I know that this picture is blurry, but the boys were holding hands and jumping in the pile together. I loved it!
This pile was the largest leaf pile I've ever seen. Leaves everywhere! I'm actually really surprised that we didn't lose a shoe or something in that pile. It was perfect - and since it was in the woods and not our yard I wasn't worried about leaves spreading all over. The kids were in heaven!


Even Disco loved it. He'd run right through the leaves, and then nestle right in by the boys.
It was the textbook definition of the perfect day. We spent time as a family, our yard looks wonderful now (and ready for winter), and we made some great memories. I will be definitely be smiling when I go to sleep tonight!
(I realize that the window behind the kids is really fingerprinty and slobbery, but I have three kids and a dog, no matter how often I clean it, the window looks that way pretty much all the time.) I love these three and feel really blessed that we got to spend such a wonderful day together! Days like today are what's going to sustain me in the middle of winter!

Halloween

Halloween this year was quite an event. It lasted several days and offered many dress up opportunities. We love Halloween at our house. Dressing up, pretending to be someone else, going to parties, and getting free candy. Yep, there's something in it for everyone! Though our Halloween was filled with with activities and parties I only took pictures of a very small portion of it. Sad, but we'll survive.

This year for Halloween I was determined that I was NOT going to buy costumes. Thanks to having two boys in a row and some donations from someone in our old ward we have quite a stash. I looked through our costumes and came up with three good options. Clayton was going to be Wall-E (for the second year in a row), Noah was going to be a McQueen race car driver (an old costume of Clayton's), and Josie was going to be a monkey. Fortunately dressing up for my kids is so exciting that they don't really even care what they dress up as and they didn't fight me at all as I took away their freedom to choose their own costumes. So yay for free costumes!!

Our Halloweening this year started with Noah's preschool Halloween party. Sadly, no pictures, but he loved going and seeing how all of his friends looked in their costumes and he loved showing off his costume.

The next day (Thursday), we had a Halloween party at our playgroup. Again, no pictures, but there was yummy food, a cute craft, and tons of darling little friends in costume! We were also able to pick my parents up on Thursday! They were here to spend the weekend with us. It was the best gift ever! We love it when they come. Their visits are never frequent enough or long enough!

On Friday there was a party for the kids of the residents at the clinic. The kids (once again) got to wear their costumes. They got to watch a movie, eat a snack, be in a 'parade' for all the residents, and go trick or treating at all the office doors. The kids loved seeing Daddy at work and had a ball. While we were at the party, Grammy went to Clayton's school to eat lunch with him. It was such a treat, he got to show off his Grammy to all his friends! (Just in case you're wondering, Clayton was in school for all of these events. So sadly, the costume count is Noah: 3, Josie: 2, and Clayton:0)
These are our friends who came to the party at the clinic.
This little girl had some M&M's!
Yum, candy corn!
Friday night was our ward trunk or treat. It was an outdoor event full of good food, games for the kids, hay rides, a raffle, costume contests, and (of course) trick or treating. Unfortunatey, it was freezing!! I was really glad that I had chosen to wear jeans and a sweater instead of my costume!

Josie also decided that she was going to play a trick on us at the party. After the hay ride, I thought my dad had Josie and he thought that my mom had her. So there we were, in the dark and within walking distance of a pond, when all the adults realized that we had no idea where the baby was. I panicked! My mom told me to take the boys trick or treating and they'd look (which ended up being so inspired). I initially thought that there was no way I was going to be able to hold it together to take the boys around, but I did it. As we were making the rounds I heard a teenage girl in front of me talking to a woman who was going around with her own kids. She told the woman that she'd seen her daughter - to which the woman responded, 'my daughter is right here'. I quickly jumped in and asked if the little girl was dressed like a monkey in a tutu (yay for a distinctive costume). She confirmed that it was, in fact, a monkey ballerina. I told the boys to stay put and took off at a dead run. I found where she'd last been seen and asked if anyone had seen her. A few people told me they'd just seen her and we all spread out. Someone found her snuggling with a couple of black labs (they must have reminded her of Disco) a short ways away. I scooped her up and didn't put her down the rest of the night! I still have a little PTSD over this experience.

On Saturday there was no trick or treating, but the kids got to go to a pumpkin patch with my parents while Justin and I went to the Notre Dame game (go Irish)! Again, no pictures, but if you check out my brother and sister in law's blog, Kerstin took some amazing pictures of the pumpkin patch.

On Sunday we had to say goodbye to my parents. Clayton was heartbroken. I'm pretty sure no one has ever loved a grandparent like he loves my parents. He was practically inconsolable on the way home from the airport. This, of course, made me teary. I love the relationship my kids have built with my parents. It's so special. In order to ease the pain of their loss, we went trick or treating. The kids had a ball.
I had to doctor Josie's costume up a bit. I love this monkey costume and wanted her to wear it, but I wanted her to be girly at the same time. I ended up with this monkey ballerina and I love it!
Noah loves this costume. He literally wore it out this year. It has rips and stains in it and can never be used for Halloween again. It's now just a dress up costume. I love that he was so happy with it.
Clayton also loved his costume. He was so happy to be Wall-E again. I'm not sure I can get a third year out of this costume with him, but I'm grateful for a son who is so willing to wear the costume I've chosen for him and be happy about it!
Finally, I have to add these for my mom. She'd bought this kit for her and the kids to do together, but had to leave before they got around to it. She made Clayton promise that we'd make it and show her a picture. So I present to you, the gingerbread coffin:


It was a great week of festivities and I'm really glad that we were able to share it with so many friends and family. Now if only I could find a way to eat all this candy without gaining any weight...

Lately

As usual, I'm behind in my posting so I'm just going to drop in a bunch of random photos and narrate with what we've been up so far this month.
Clayton had his first concert of the year. It was so cute! The theme of the concert was 'Families'. Each class had to wear a different color shirt so the kids looked like a rainbow standing there.
These aren't the greatest pictures, but they're the best I've got.
Clayton was so cute, everytime he would look at us he'd wave and smile. I love how he lit up when he looked at us!
You can tell that Josie was excited to be there.
I am so proud of my boy. He did so well. I do have video of some of the songs, but I'll upload those in a different post.
This was picture day at Noah's school. I didn't buy any pictures, but he looked so cute and grown up that I couldn't resist snapping one of my own!
Justin and I found him like this the other night. He loves to curl up on Disco's pillow. Poor Disco, he probably doesn't even realize that this pillow is his.
We went on a field trip with Noah's class to the pumpkin patch. This was our second trip to a pumpkin patch this month. This pumpkin patch had a petting zoo, a nice playground, a corn maze, and pumpkins that you actually pick off the vine!
I just love this face she was so determined to climb up the slide!
The corn maze. It was really fun. We let Noah lead us through the maze and he had a blast. We got lost several times but it was worth it!
This cute girl enjoyed a ride from her daddy.
Although sometimes riding on daddy's shoulders is a little tiring.
Noah showing me how strong he is lifting his pumpkin.
Last Sunday my cousin Matt came down from Michigan for Sunday dinner. Between our family, my brother's family, and my cousin's family there were 12 kids. I didn't get many pictures but you can see how many kids there were. They had a ball!
We had people eating on every surface. It was so loud and messy and fun. Just like a family dinner should be!
Lately, the boys have been fighting so much. I keep threatening to take pictures of them so that they'd know how ridiculous they look. Today, I did it. Yes they look a little ridiculous, but it makes me laugh (they're fighting about making their beds).

She looks so grown up to me lately. Kind of sad actually.
A preview of Josie's Halloween costume. I took Noah's monkey costume from two years ago and turned it into a monkey ballerina. I love how it turned out. You can see that she seems to like it too!

So that's a taste of how our October has been going so far. Up next for us, a visit from my parents, trick-or-treating, and Justin's vacation! Stay tuned!!