October - Baby Liam

The most exciting event of the month was the arrival of our sweet baby Liam Ezra.  He came 5 days early on October 13, Grandpa Swingle's birthday and Friday the 13th.  My water broke at about 1:45am and I laid back in bed for an hour with contractions before going to take a warm bath downstairs.  By 4am I called our midwife to put her on alert.  The contractions were getting worse, so it took me about 20 minutes to crawl up the stairs on my hands and knees to wake up Kyle, who had drugged himself with Nyquil but woke up right away.  I stopped on almost every step on the way upstairs.  At 4:45 Kyle called the midwife back and asked her to head over, and he also called Emily and Sara to see if one of them was willing to come get the other kids.  3 midwives got here just before 5am and Liam made his grand appearance at 5:20am.  Jason Luna arrived just after he was born to pick up the sleeping kids.  Liam was our first water birth--he came out in the bath tub.  I was not intending to do a water birth but I had just tried to get out of the tub and had bad contractions mid-transit so I sat back down and out he came.  He is 9lb 1oz, 22 inches.  And oh so cute and chubby. 

When Tyler went back to preschool the following week he said he was worried that Liam would cry the whole time he was gone because he would miss him.  Swoon.  We were worried that Tad would be jealous and violent, but he is the most in love with baby Liam.  He wants to hold him all the time, and practically carries around a bottle of hand sanitizer to wash his hands so he can hold the baby again and again.  He pats his back when I'm burping him and loves to kiss his head.  Alexa is mini mom and says it's not fair that Tyler gets to be with Liam when she's in school all day.  She loves making little "nests" for him as she calls it--fuzzy blankets and stuffed animals so he's warm and cozy.  She is great to help take care of him.

We love the way Tad says Liam and have all affectionately started calling him "Baby Lum Lum."

Between Malori Balle and Mary Clark we captured cute family and baby pictures of the growing bunch.

I have grown close to a Rabbi in New Jersey who works on kosher certification for some of our contract manufactured products at Thrive.  We have had some great discussions about family and religion over the last year and I invited him to watch General Conference.  He watched part of the Sunday afternoon session and was impressed that there were women speaking and said he thought their remarks seemed very genuine and sincere, that they really believed what they were sharing and had a good message.  It was neat experience to discuss my belief in a living prophet and his belief in the importance of knowing the teachings of the prophets.  There are many similarities between Mormonism and Judaism to build upon.

The local public library has a puppet theater and the kids put on a show for me.  We took the opportunity to go there in the evening before bed so Kyle could have a few minutes to himself.  Tyler had all of the puppets beat each other up, Tad had them eat his hands, and Alexa narrated about all of them being the best of friends.

We celebrated my 32nd birthday this month and I'm continuously grateful for all we've been blessed with.  Kyle got me a Wimbledon tennis ball-turned bluetooth speaker, such a creative idea.

It's been a fun, spooky Halloween month.  We painted pumpkins with great friends and neighbors (the Wilsons), carved jack 'o lanters, made homemade witches brew with the Skankeys, and went trick or treating at Thrive and then with the Lunas.  Our witches brew ingredients included things like frog slime, dragon's breath, unicorn tears, snot, and crushed eyeballs and bones, blood, and troll pee.  It was awfully cute and fun.  I still remember my mom coming to make it with our elementary school class when I was a little girl.  Alexa dressed up as a witch and asked to have baby Liam as her black cat, Tyler was a glow in the dark skeleton, and Tad was a basketball player.  It was the first year we ditched the family theme.

In other news, Kyle (Parent Organization President) and Alexa got their school pictures taken this month, aren't they cute :)? 

Tad found the best seat in the house for cartoons--

September - Triple Crown

We enjoyed our Labor Day break from work and school.  We tried a bunch of pools in Orem and Provo and they were all closed, so we hit the splash pad, playground, and made fruit pizza.  Tad got into the frosting while the other kids and I were chopping up fruit ;).

Miss Alexa had a 1 mile race she competed in for school called the Triple Crown.  She ran the whole way and gave Cosmo the Cougar a high five after she crossed the finish line.

We had a ward camp out and based on the lack of sleep with Tad on our last camping trip and the fact that I'm 8 months pregnant, I sent the big kids off with Dad and took a rain check.  Tad and I made macaroni and cheese for dinner, went to the playground for a couple of hours, read lots of books, and spent the morning playing and eating waffles and fruit.  It was nice to have dedicated one-on-one time with Tad with no distractions and it made me want to do it more often with each of the kids.

Tyler and Alexa paid their tithing for the first time and were really cute about it.  Tyler paid $0.05 from his piggy bank and Alexa paid $0.25.  They filled out the form and gave their forms to the Bishop, which Kyle actually got to process and said it made him all choked up.  Then Alexa bore her testimony in sacrament meeting about how when we pay our tithing it makes Heavenly Father smile and how He loves us so much.  The Bishop cried.  And after church Tyler said Mom, look how strong I am and flexed his muscles.  I asked if it was because he had been doing exercises and he said no it was because he paid his tithing.

In other news, Tyler gave Alexa and I pedicures and manicures and it was cute and fun.  And we're at the final countdown with baby #4.  Pictured below at 37 weeks.