Memories

The girls and I had a night up while Tyler was doing a 24 shift. We watched "Flipper". This started a conversation that lasted throughout the whole movie so just to sum it up for you:

Annie: Mom, I want to go to Ohhiee.
Mom: Where is that Annie?
Annie: you know, where the ocean is.
Mom: Oh, do you mean Hawaii?
Annie: That is what I said mom, Ohhiee.
Mom: Maybe when Dad is all done with school and actually makes money we can go.
Hallie: Like when I am 12 or something?
Mom: Yep
Hallie: Good cause I am not ready to go swim with the fish yet.

The rest of the night was figuring out what fish and sharks where in the water and if it was safe for little girls to go there. Hallie is our little worrier so of course she doesn't want to go until knows it is safe for her to be in the water.

I love having little moments like these with my kids. And I love that they are old enough now to hang out with me while Tyler is working. Such a fun time right now.

In the end

It always turns out better than we hope for. We somehow learn things that we didn't know we needed to learn and when we look back we smile! Well, at least I did for yesterday. We had a great day. We played, watched movies, danced, and even wrote letters to Santa. And at 5 Dad came home! (the schedules got mixed up, not a 24 hr shift)
I loved having my kids home with me. It even made me want to keep Hallie home all the time. It is always more fun when she is with us. She was very good at entertaining us most of the day. I think she was a little giddy from skipping school. I think every kid needs a break from that every once in awhile.

Thanksgiving and Christmas found our house!

For Thanksgiving we had our awesome friends drive out from Kirksville. They must really love us to make the 13 hour drive! Plus, Aimee was 25 weeks prego with TWINS! Thanks for making the trip, we absolutely loved having you here!
We had 13 adults and 7 children. Pretty full house but it was a blast! The kids loved having there own little table!
Somehow I didn't get a picture of the food but believe me it was awesome! And can't forget the 2 dozen donuts we ate the day before! We found an amazing bakery that has mouth watering donuts that you can't just eat one!
Everyone hanging out with stuffed belly's
Tyler and Aimee Smith! Love you guys.
Ryan and Jack Jack chillin on the couch
It was one eternal sleepover for the kids. They loved sharing a room and waking up to each other. You should have heard the giggles every morning!
First off, this was at 1:45 a.m. so we are probably looking a little tired! Me, Aimee, and Christine! Of course we did the black friday shopping. Aimee and I drove to target at 4:50, saw the line and drove right back home. No stopping or nothing. Christine on the other hand was in line and waiting for us! She is such a trooper. Thanks for the great Thanksgiving Gals! Hope we get to do it again next year.


Christmas is the best time of year! We set up our tree and decorations and it feels Magical somehow. I really love this time of year, not to mention it also includes my birthday so that makes it all the better!
Where's Barry?

My morning

I know it is only 6:50 in the morning but I have been up since 3:30 so I thought "why not blog?" I have 2 children throwing up, one full of gas, and one excited that she doesn't have to go to school cause Mom doesn't want to spread what we have! Oh and did I mention that Tyler left at 4 this morning and won't be back til 8 tomorrow morning (stupid surgery rotation).

How is that for a morning so far?

2 months old

Natalie turned 2 months last month and I am just documenting it so I have it on record! She is now 12 lbs and 231/2 inches. Which puts her in the 75% for height. Hooray! She is so much fun right now. She smiles so much and talks to you like she is having a full on conversation. She is starting to become more of a Mommy's girl and Dad is not to happy about it! But what can I say, I have all day to convince her of my ways!


Here is Dad trying to win her back to being a Daddy's girl but it didn't work!

Remember that awesome quilt I won a while back? Annie loves it and decided to snuggle Natalie up in it one morning. This is how I found them! Annie said " I just sang her a lullaby until she fell asleep." So sweet.
Isn't she so precious?

She really is an angel baby and has made me realize how fun the newborn stage is. She is sleeping most of the night all ready and wakes up super happy and ready to play.

Hello December

But what happened to November? I can't believe a whole month went by without me posting, especially cause my cute little boy turned 2 on November 12th. Well, here goes to making up for it. Sit back and enjoy the ride cause it might be long.

Happy Birthday Barry! You weren"t too happy about us singing to you and making you open presents. Who would be though? But once you opened them and found that they contained balls, you were beyond thrilled!
Your face when you saw the awesome cake
Just to sum up what you have been up to lately:
You learned to fold your arms during prayer (even manage to still eat while folding the arms)
You developed a love for balls and is one of the 4 words that you can say!
We found that you love chocolate cake just as much as the rest of us. Also, you eat your dinner better when at the little table with the girls. You really want to be big now that Nat is here.
Not only chocolate cake but any kind of chocolate will make you smile!
You love to pretend you are a dog and crawl around and even lick us.
You love to watch movies. Some favorites are: Toy Story, Cars, How to train your Dragon, Up...ok, pretty much any movie will make you happy. And notice the blanket, you picked it to be your favorite. Yes it has hearts on it. I did make you an awesome green blanket but you will have nothing to do with it.
You do scream and cry a lot lately but I think it is because you have so many girls around you all day and have to let out the boy in you somehow! Screaming is much better than hitting, oh wait, you have started to do that too!

WE LOVE YOU Buddy!!!

We love to give to others....Right?

The other day I told the girls we were going to go through their toys and get rid of the ones they don't play with. Hallie looked at me and then tears just started flowing. "Why would you get rid of our toys mom? We love all of them." So I tried to explain to them that we would not be getting rid of the ones they play with, just the ones that never are touched anymore. Also, that we wouldn't get rid of them but we would give them to kids who don't have toys. Hallie was not giving up and started crying even harder. She didn't care that other kids needed toys. These were her toys and she wouldn't give them away.
So being the mean mom that I am, I made them go down to the playroom and put all the toys in the middle that they never played with anymore. A few minutes later they came up and said they were done. These are Hallies words "Mom, it was so hard for me to give up the toys, but my heart kept telling me that other kids needed them."

Want to see all the toys they gave away? The ones in the middle are what they decided on!
Do you think we need to work on teaching our kids to give to others? After a lot more "teaching" them to give, I told them we had to give more than what they had, so I went down with them and went through all the toys together. My girls love stuffed animals and play with them a lot. Hallie at one point brought her stuffed zebra over to me and said "Here Mom, I really want to give this to a little kid who will love it like I do." then she started giggling and smiling a lot and said "Wow, I can't stop laughing, my heart is so happy that I am giving this zebra away!"

Lesson Learned!

Blessing Day + Update

We blessed Natalie today. As Tyler puts it "She is official now." It was a beautiful blessing and of course she fussed through the whole thing but we still love her!
So thankful to have a husband who is worthy of giving our children blessings. It was especially neat today. With every child Tyler has tried to win them over but it never works. They have all favored Mom much more. Except little Natalie. She absolutely adores him. He has gotten smile after smile from her and when he holds her she just stares at him and goos! Little does she know that she already has him wrapped around her little finger and could get anything she wanted out of him. Don't you love the blanket my Mom made for her. It is absolutely beautiful. My mom has made one for each of my children and I cherish them.
Natalie has been such a joy in our family. She has such a sweet personality and is full of smiles. She loves to be held and loves everyone to love on her. She already smiles every time Dad and Annie talk to her and even Mom and Hallie can get a smile every once in awhile. She puts up with us (Barry) kissing her and poking her. We love you Nat!

Update on the rest of us

Barry: has been sick for awhile now with a cold and it moved to his ears. Remember he has tubes. Well, one tube either fell out or just got infected cause he has a really bad ear infections now. Poor little Buddy. He has been crying constantly and not sleeping at night. Now that we have medicine for him he is returning to his normal self. Happy and eating a lot! I love this picture of him sleeping in his crib.

Hallie:
Participated in her first school Halloween Parade and party. She loved it. She was so worried that I wouldn't make it to the party that she made her teacher call me and remind me of it. We made it! Annie and I got to go with her to her classroom and join in the fun of the party. Hallie was so excited and showed us every little thing she could manage. This is her with her teacher, Mrs. Loew, who she absolutely loves and things is the best teacher ever. I would have to agree.

Annie:
What more can I say then the pictures! She is a spunky little girl and everyone who is around her falls in love with her. She is the best helper with Natalie and loves to hold her. She loves preschool and is already starting to sound words out. She really wants to be like Hallie so has done everything much sooner that Hallie did. She gets to choose her own clothes everyday and it is quite hilarious to watch. Never imagined some of the creations she comes up with. I will have to capture some of them on camera so you all can see!
Bree:
Getting a better handle on 4 kids and loving the fact that Natalie does so well during the night. I spend most of my days at the Doctors office or driving kids here and there. Hopefully I will be back to running in the next week or so and I am so excited about that. Just wish I had a running partner to go with. (Amy, Marci, Aimee, or Megan want to come join me?)
Tyler and I watched the movie "Super Size Me" and I have officially banned fast food from our diet. We have gone strong for 2 weeks now, which is good for us cause we love pizza night! Sorry, no picture of me. Somehow I manage to stay out of the shots!!!

Tyler:
Half way through OB rotation! We will all be glad when that is done with. Has officially decided to go into Internal Medicine as a hospitalist. His I.M. Doc that he followed really liked him and said he would have a "high" chance of getting into the residency here. He loved working in the Hospital and loved the Docs he worked with. Looks like Ohio will be our home for the next 6 years!
His free time is spent playing with us and cuddling Natalie! If you want to see a picture of Tyler, then come out and visit us!

The best things in life

Life is hard. There is no getting around it, it is just plain hard. We all have days that we want to give up and cry or even just walk away from everything. I have those days a lot lately. Tyler started his new rotation this week and lucky for us it is OB. He leaves between 4:30 and 5:30 and doesn't get home until 9 or so. Long day wouldn't you agree. So with the new baby and all, my days have been a little hectic. Plus, we have all been fighting a bug around here. My body aches from head to toe and we have all had really bad colds. Add to all of that very little sleep and you get a good, clear picture of our life right now.

But some things make it all ok. We had an especially hard day yesterday. Natalie was throwing up, Barry crying all day, Annie bored out of her mind, Me aching like you wouldn't believe, and Hallie just along for the ride! Tyler had been gone since 5 and wouldn't be home again til 9. It was the ward Trunk or Treat and My girls had been looking forward to it all week. How could I tell them that I was to tired to go or not up to taking all 4 kids by myself. So we got our costumes on and got in the van for the 30 min. drive to the church. We had fun and the girls were so excited to be there. By the time we got home we were all beyond tired so straight to bed the kids went. I was bathing Nat and in walks Tyler. He looked so tired but thrilled to be home. His day was not much better than ours. 2 deliveries, 5 c sections, and 63 patients seen. Wow!

I told him to go say good night to the kids cause they were missing him. Annie prayed that night that our family would soon be together again! I could hear Tyler up talking with them. After about 15 minutes he came back down. I was on the couch feeding Natalie and he came to sit by me. I asked how they all were and he said" We have the best kids in the world." Tears started coming and he just kept saying how wonderful they were and how much he missed us all day.

Funny how a precious moment like that can make everything great. Yes, life is hard but we have each other to pull us through. I am so thankful for Tyler. He is the sweetest Dad ever and we love him to pieces. I love that he still misses us when he is away at work cause we sure miss him!

Dad and Barry eating steak for breakfast. Men will be men!
p.s. might not want to mention this post to Tyler. I could be in real trouble
here for mentioning a certain act of water coming out of the eyes!

I won!

I have to admit that I have never won anything so it is blows my mind that I would win something so awesome for the first time! SewSara had a give away for this
beautiful quilt and I had to join in on it because if you know Sara, she is
absolutely amazing with her sewing skills. One day when my husband
is out of school I will buy many a quilts from her,
one for each of my children and me!

More Pictures

I made my kids go out with me to get some fall pictures for us. Of course, I don't dare take Natalie out yet so we did a quick picture of the 4 of them in our house (previous post!) and then we went down the road to an awesome bike trail! Have I mentioned that we live in an absolutely beautiful part of the country. Fall is gorgeous here. I have never seen so many different colors on the trees.The only way to make Hallie smile a real smile was to have her say Jackson! My first intentions with these pictures was to do a black and white photo. I saw someone have one with all the kids wearing black and it was so pretty but once I took the pictures I couldn't do it cause the colors were to awesome. Oh well, maybe next time! Here is a cute on of Nat right after her first bath! Love that little face....