It's birthday time at our house!!

For the longest time in our family we each had our own month to celebrate our birthday.  Neil had September, Sarah June, Rebecca July, Bethany May, Julia February, Matthew December, Emma October and David was November.  This worked great until MaryAnne and Dallin were also born in November.  Three November birthdays and they are all in a row besides (2002, 2004 and 2006)  Then Joshua decided (well the Dr.'s decided) to share December with Matthew. Lydia wanted to have her own month so she waited until January to be born.  It is interesting to me that we have all the girls birthdays (January-November 4th) and then we have all the boys (November 12th to December 31st).  I knew when Lydia wasn't born in December that she would be a girl instead of a boy because of where birthday fit.  Well we are right in the middle of birthday season at our house.  We have seven birthdays between October 20th and January 5th, plus Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.  It seems like it is one party after another right now.

MaryAnne turned nine on the 4th of November.  She has one amazing birth story.  She was overdue and we were schedule to have her induced on the morning of the 5th.  About 8:00 on the night of the 4th I started having contractions, but they weren't too hard.  We decided to go to bed and go into the hospital in the morning. You would think I would know better by our 7th baby.  I don't know what I was thinking.  I woke up about 10:00 and told Neil the contractions were coming harder and I couldn't sleep through them any more.  We called our friend Jeanette Cox, who was planning to stay with our children in the morning and asked her to come now instead.  She lives a little ways from us and by the time she got there I was in transition labor. It was a quiet drive into the hospital, I was feeling every bump down our dirt road.  We don't live too far from the hospital and it was a good thing.  We had called the hospital before we left to let them know we were coming.  We checked in quickly and were walking down the hall to the delivery room. When she heard this story my sister in law, Molly, asked why I was walking instead of riding in a wheelchair. I honestly hadn't even thought of asking for a wheelchair. As we were walking the nurse asked is I needed to stop and wait through a contraction. I told her that if I stopped we were going to have a baby right there. She told me to just keep walking.  As I walked through the door MaryAnne made her entrance without any doctor around. It was quite exciting for a few minutes.  The best part about having a baby that fast is that you don't have to get an I.V.  She was a beautiful, healthy little girl.

MaryAnne is full of personality and spunk. She really keeps us hopping with some of the things she comes up with.  She loves horses, playing with friends, and reading Addy books.  She makes her opinion known and likes to be listened to.  We are grateful to have her in our family.  For her birthday she really wanted to try a cake with polka dots.  We gave it a try and it turned out pretty good.  We baked mini cupcakes and colored with really bright colors.  Next, we put the cupcakes into the pans with the batter and baked the cakes.  When we cut the cake it looked like polka dots.  I think it would work better with a donut hole pan to make the polka dots more round.  MaryAnne's birthday was on a Monday, and  a busy one at that.  She wanted ham for dinner.  Right after dinner we had to leave for a family service project and then Family Home Evening.  We had her cake for our Family Home Evening treats.  It was a good, but busy day!! Happy Birthday, MaryAnne!! We love you!!

Halloween 2013

 Ok, a confession to start off the post with.  I am not a good halloween mom.  I don't really like much at all about the whole day, but I try and make it fun for my children.  I guess I do like carving pumpkins.  We had a good time carving the pumpkins we grew in our garden. We didn't get as many as last year, but there was one for each child plus some extras. I finally tried using a template and I thought they turned out really good.  We'll have to remember that for next year.  We carved them on Monday evening for our Family Home Evening activity.  The children picked out the template they wanted earlier in the day and we put the outline on the pumpkins so when carving time came it would be fast and easy.  It always seems like carving pumpkins runs later than I plan, so I was really glad we did the prep work early.  They turned out great!!!   It was a cold and windy night when we finished so I didn't get any good pictures of the pumpkins lit, but they looked spectacular.   Emma, MaryAnne and Dallin love dressing up with their best friends our next door neighbors, Emma, Linda and Adam Andreasen.  This year Emma and Emma were darling M&M's (I thought their costumes turned out very cute) Linda and MaryAnne were PeterPan and Tinkerbell, Adam and Dallin were a dragon and a knight.  Julia wore her cloak and carried her dagger. I told her she was a hobbit.  She ended up staying home and not going with us because she was babysitting Junior.  Matthew thought he was too old to dress up.   Bethany didn't go with us, but she went as a Renaissance maiden to the Young Single Adult ward dance the week before.  Joshua was a dragon and Lydia was Cinderella. Lydia didn't feel very well that night and she was sad that she didn't get to eat any of her candy.  David couldn't decide what to be until the morning of Halloween.  He finally decided to be a s'more. It turned out really easy and cute.  The children and I did downtown trick or treating and then the church trunk or treat.  They came home and did the annual candy trade with each other. It is a tradition they love.  The day turned out busy, and I didn't win any mother of the year points when I didn't let them go into the church and do the carnival. It was more than I wanted to do with hungry, tired kids.  We came home and had dinner instead.  

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State Cross Country Meet

Matthew went with the Cross Country team to Sheridan yesterday to run in the final meet of the season.  He was excited to make the varsity team as a freshman and get to run at State.  He told me he didn't want to be last. He took 67th out of over 100 runners.  He ran the course in 19:59 so he took about two minutes off his time on the same course at the beginning of the year.  Great job, Matthew!!  I love to watch you run!!!  Here are a few pictures from the Conference meet in Cody the week before. We didn't go to Sheridan and watch, but we were thinking of you and cheering you on from home.

Waiting for the race to start

And their off

Great job, Matthew!!

All I want for Christmas

Friday evening as I was making pizza for dinner (By hand, because my mixer died earlier in the week) Dallin came over and told me his teeth felt funny.  He hasn't lost any teeth yet, even though he will be seven in about two weeks.  I looked in his mouth and saw a permanent tooth coming in behind his baby teeth.  We went and showed Neil and discovered the two baby teeth were loose and ready to come out. He was brave and let Neil pull both teeth right then.  Now Dallin can really sing All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.  I'm sure he wants more than that, but he was really excited to be the first child to lose two teeth instead of just one at a time.  He was a little sad because he dropped one of his teeth and we haven't been able to find it again, but  the tooth fairy still came. He was excited to find his money under his pillow from the tooth fairy.  Now he has a really cute little toothless grin.

Smashing pumpkins

We grew pumpkins in our garden this summer. The children enjoyed picking out their pumpkin and bringing them in the house until time to carve them.  They've been in the house for awhile now.  They are sitting on our stairs down into the family room. They make pretty fall decorations and a great climbing challenge for Joshua and Lydia.  They can tell you exactly which pumpkin belongs to each child.  Sunday evening as we were eating ice cream together I noticed Joshua standing at the top of the stairs, somehow he had moved on of the bigger pumpkins (Julia's) across the dining room and to the stairs all by himself. I still don't know how he managed to move it without anyone noticing.  He was poised to give it a shove down the stairs when I noticed what he was doing. Unfortunately, I noticed a half a second to late to stop him.  The next thing we heard was a thump, thump, and then a smash as the pumpkin went down the stairs and smashed at the bottom.  At least he picked Julia's so no one was too upset about their pumpkin being smashed, and at least it wasn't the neighbor's pumpkins.  It was kind of funny. Leave it to Joshua to smash the pumpkins.

Emma Lee Waite

Emma was our surprise early baby. She came two weeks early and I was in denial of being in labor because I had never had a baby early. Neil and I took the children to the Powell football game that night. We went home at half time and put the children to bed. Neil thought we should go to the hospital but I didn't want to get sent home. I figured by our 5th baby I should know if I was in labor. We finally decided to go to the hospital, but it was the one year anniversary of the Billings Temple. The temple was open for 24 hours straight and our ward had the middle of the night sessions. Everyone we had planned on watching the children were in Billings attending the temple. We finally got a teenage girl from our ward to come over. We got to the hospital about 11:10 and Emma was born at 11:58. We weren't sure if her birthday would be October 20 or 21. Neil liked the 20th because 10/20/2000 is a pretty cool birthday. She sure was a pretty baby. I was glad to have her here safe and healthy.
 Our sweet little Emma Lee turned thirteen yesterday. She is a sweet girl and works hard to make sure everyone is happy. She is a good sport about sharing her king sized bed with a little one or two at bedtime. Joshua and Lydia love to have turns sleeping with Emma. Emma is playing in the band for the first time this year. She started a year late, but she is doing a great job of catching up. I will try and upload a video of her concert from last week. They did a great job playing. Emma had a busy week last week with a band concert on Thursday evening, a birthday/volleyball party on Saturday, and her birthday on Sunday. She helped clean up the downstairs on Friday evening instead of watching a movie with the other kids so it could be ready for her party. We enjoyed getting to know some of her friends she has met at school this year. The girls seemed to have a good time together playing games, eating pizza and watching a movie. There were 16 girls at our house for the party. Emma wanted cupcakes with volleyballs on them for the party. I think they turned out pretty good. Emma was happy with them, and that's what really matters.

Joshua's film debut

When we went to Doctor Wiggins in August they approached us about featuring Joshua for a fundraiser for St. Vincent's Healthcare. I agreed because Dr. Wiggins and his staff are very important to me. I remember before we brought Joshua home the first time wondering what we would do about his checkups. I thought we might have to make trips back to Salt Lake on a monthly basis at the beginning. I was really worried about that for a couple of reasons. 1)I would have to do it by myself during the school year (Neil gets lots of time off, but you don't get to choose when you get it off.) 2)I wanted to know that we were close enough to see a doctor if Joshua had a need that a pediatrician couldn't handle. When Dr. Burch at Primary Children's told me that they were arranging a followup visit with the pediatric cardiologist in Billings I was amazed and so grateful that we could see a doctor in Billings. I have complete confidence in Dr. Wiggins. He is amazing!!! He reminds me of President Eyring in looks and in his calm, peaceful manner. He really does do all he can to help these special heart kiddos. I also love his nurse, Melissa. She is so good with the kids. I think she could be a child photographer if she ever wanted a different job. She is so good and patient with the kids and amazing at getting them to smile. Dr. Wiggins and his office have become important parts of our life. This didn't start out to be a post about pediatric cardiology, but I just wanted to let you know the reasons that we consented to doing this video. Actually, when Dr. Wiggins asked me about featuring Joshua I thought it would be a billboard in Billings and would just involved pictures so I agreed. When I found out they were coming to our house to film our family and do interviews I seriously considered backing out. The children hope that someday I will learn to say no to newspaper interviews, and fundraising videos. I think I should take their advice and say no in the future. Anyway, I don't really like my part on the video, but I do feel grateful to share Josua's story. Emma played in her conference tournament on Saturday in Cowley, Neil went to watch her play. Her team took 2nd and she was happy about it. The girls really have gotten a lot better throughout the season. They had a great time and learned a lot. Emma made some good friends and had great coaches. It is fun to watch her play. Matthew ran here in Powell on Thursday. Neil teaches on Thursday evening so he didn't get to watch much of the race. Matthew didn't feel very good. I love to watch him run, maybe it is that I am glad I'm not the one out there running. One of the dads cheered his son on by hollering "Hurt Good." I think that is a good definition of running. We also had our practice for the Primary Sacrament Meeting program on Saturday. We had a good turn out and I feel good about how it will go on the October 20th. We practiced earlier than normal because the 19th is Super Saturday. I will be glad when we have the opportunity to share out thoughts and songs on the 20th. (It is also Emma's 13th birthday) Thirteen years ago when I planned the program to be finished before she arrived in November she came earlier than I thought and I had a week old baby to take to the program and we also blessed her that day.