First Day of School

Holy smokes! What is it about kids in school that makes time fly?! I feel like the toddler days/years dragged on forever. Now I feel like I send the kids to school and I blink and it's Christmas. Once again it was overcast on the first day so we did pictures inside.

Lucy started Kinder with Mrs. String (Mallie's kinder teacher). We love her and the "bee" class!

Mallie started 2nd grade with Mrs. Sardella (Ashton and Hannah's 2nd grade teacher). She is just the best and we are thrilled for a third year with her.

Hannah started 3rd grade with Mrs. Oliver. We didn't know her but heard she was wonderful and requested her for Hannah. She has turned out to be so kind and just what Hannah needs.

Ashton has Mr. Morrison this year. He has 6 of his own kids (so he totally gets our family) and is just about everything a 4th grade boy could imagine. He makes learning fun and he loves those kids.

Lucy turns 5!

Lucy turned 5 this year right before she started Kindergarten. We let the kids have birthday parties with friends on 5,8 and 10. We asked Lucy who she wanted to invite to her birthday party and she said she didn't want a party she only wanted Brielle to come to a pizza/arcade place with us.

This is Brielle. She and Lucy have been besties since the month we moved to Texas. That's three years now! These two love to wear matching outfits and miss each other like crazy if they don't have play-dates often enough. Brielle got her a best friend's necklace and kitty ears for her birthday.

 Here Lu is at Mr. Gatti's racing David having the time of her life. That smile just gets me!!

 We came home and had cake and ice cream.

 As tradition Lucy was the only helper in decorating her cupcakes and boy was she proud of those babies!

 On her real birthday she opened her presents, Shopkins are all the rage at our house these days.

 It's so weird to describe a middle child as the "baby" but it's 100% true. Lucy has so many traits of a youngest child. Maybe we'll just call her the youngest of the first half of the family. She is my little shadow. Wherever I am Lucy goes. She loves to play with her siblings but if she can snuggle up next to me somewhere she'll stop playing immediately. It breaks her heart to be in trouble and she usually tries to pawn off her chores on someone else. She is as sweet as can be and is one of our more timid kids. She is just the best. We love Lulu!

Mallie turns 7!

Even after a brand new baby life keeps rolling along! 6 days after Hattie was born Mallie turned 7. Her birthday was on a Sunday this year so it was low key and at less than a week post partum I was grateful she didn't mind. Mallie was born a little homemaker. She loves to organize and have things perfectly clean. Baking is one of her favorite hobbies and she baked her cake and decorated it almost entirely by herself. 

I can't talk about Mallie without talking about how she is Rachel's little mommy. 

Rachel probably weighs only 15 pounds less than her but she carts her around on her hip everywhere. Rachel loves her and knows she can convince Mallie to do just about anything for her. Mallie is so dang competent and independent at all she does that we forget she just turned 7. She loves to play games with David and I and is always asking us to pull out a board game when there is downtime. We love her so much for all she adds to our family!

Hattie's Birth Story

Isn’t it funny that when you think you have things figured out it never goes according to plan? A 7^th pregnancy that happened sooner than we expected didn’t really throw us for a loop but the due date/birth sure did.

Hattie’s due date was supposedly July 17 so we started to plan accordingly that she’d come a few days early. I had 3 YW and a couple of friends on call starting around July 10^th. These poor awesome people were leaving their phones on every night for us. I owe them big time. Especially when my due date came and went. After going to my 40 week appointment on Tuesday the 18^th and finding out I was still 2cm I called David and said my due date was definitely off and that they wanted to induce me on the 25^th at 5am. Joy. The good news that came out of that is that we called David’s brother and family and told them it was okay for them to come that weekend to visit like they had hoped because I was pretty sure I wasn’t having a baby anytime soon. I felt big but I wasn’t feeling like my body was close to having a baby. I’m so glad I did. They came in town on Friday morning and we had a fun filled weekend. Then comes Sunday where I gave my on call crew the news and David and I lined up the Easton girls for an early Tuesday morning induction.

I was coming to grips with an induction but I still really wanted to avoid Pitocin and a long stay in the hospital on the 25^th. So when I woke up with a contraction around 2am that got me straight out of bed I was so grateful. I had lots of painful contractions the last week but all of them stopped after an hour or so. I had a few strong contractions and then tried to get back in bed when I got a break thinking I better sleep this off. They came on and off for an hour or so nothing super consistent but definitely painful. Around 3:45am David started to stir and I told him it was the real deal so we needed to get ready. At 4:07am I called a couple of my YW who were on call. David headed out to get them and while he was gone in my typical fashion I realized I was already in serious labor and we needed to get to the hospital fast. This seems to be a theme with most of my babies that I wait just a little bit too long. In my defense it had been just 2 hours since the contraction that woke me up so things were moving super-fast. David rolled in with the Easton girls about 4:25am we gave them quick instructions and then headed downtown to BAMC which is a 20 minute drive with no traffic. About 10 minutes into the drive I started to have contractions pretty close together and held the handle and kept saying “Oh shoot, oh shoot, oh shoot.” David started to drive faster and I told him we didn’t have time to get pulled over. It was the first time I had the urge to push in the car and I just kept thinking I don’t want to have a baby going 80 down the freeway but I certainly wasn’t going to have David pull over. I knew my water hadn’t broken yet so I was okay for a little while longer. We pulled into the hospital about 4:50am. We went straight up stairs and the first registration window took way too long for us being the only ones there.

Finally, they took me into a room and I had to leave David behind. I don’t know why at this hospital they make the husbands wait in the waiting room til we are all hooked up and officially admitted. This happened with Rachel’s birth and it bothered me. So when a super nice nurse put some monitors on my stomach pretty quickly and checked me and said “Oh wow, there is a bulging bag of water and a baby ready to come out”. I said someone go grab my husband. She said, “I’m going to run and go grab the doctor, if your water breaks hit this red button” and she flew out of the room. Not 30 seconds after she left I had a strong contraction so I stood up because I think laying down through contractions is the worst thing in the world. Well, guess what happened the minute I stood up? Gush, my water broke right there on the floor. Now, this pregnancy did indeed throw me for a loop but there is one thing I know about having already had 6 kids naturally, when my water breaks the baby comes less than a few contractions later. Anyone remember Lucy being delivered in the bathroom by me because I forgot about that call button? I wasn’t ready to repeat that experience so I hit the red call button less than a minute after the nurse left and said my water just broke. The nurse ran back in and I said, “I’m so sorry for the mess.” And she said laughed that I apologized and said "no problem" and I asked for please someone to go find David. So when a second person walked in she sent them out for David. I had another contraction while I was standing there and I literally crossed my legs hoping to keep the baby in til David arrived. David came in a couple minutes later and I was so relieved. After the nurse had cleaned up the water mess she knelt down and tried to put an IV in my hand while I was standing there and then I said, “oh hang on a second there’s a lot of pressure” and she said, “from me or the baby?” and I said, “the baby” then I reached down and felt her head just as the nurse asked if I could get in the bed. I said, “nope she’s coming” and the nurse delivered her while I was standing right there and the doctor walked in just as the rest of her was delivered and stepped in to help make sure the cord was long enough to put her on my chest while I sat down on the side of the bed. I kept looking at David who had been in the room all of two minutes saying, “what just happened?” even for me that delivery was crazy. She was born at 5:06am 7lbs 4oz and 21 inches long. The nurse afterwards said, “that was so great, I haven’t delivered a baby in a while, so thank you so!” The doctor likewise kept saying she loved those types of deliveries and that was awesome even though she only was there for the very end.

 Still in shock. Seriously, we were dying that it happened so fast.

 David is the best. He makes this whole 7 kid business seem normal.

 The nurse and doctor from the delivery came in to say hi before I left the hospital. They were so awesome.

Here she is fresh out.

We had a few names on our list during this pregnancy and Hattie went in and out of the favorite spot. I wanted to see her before we decided on a name and pretty quickly we knew she wasn't anyone but Hattie. Rae is my mom's middle name and we have a theme going of two syllable girl names with a one syllable middle name. We didn't do it on purpose but we decided we'd better stick with it for girl #5. We love her already!!