Sydney's Blessing

Sydney was blessed Sunday, November 4th. The boys were very excited to see Sydney all dressed up. It was nice to have most of my family there for the blessing. I was very excited to see my grandparent, that they made the drive down for there great granddaughters blessing. Afterwards we had just a small get together with just family at my parents house. The food and company was great! It was a beautiful day and I feel very blessed.

How Time Flies

I can't believe how time flies sometime. One month makes a huge difference. Looking at how much Sydney has changed made me reminisce over my other babies (ignore me in the pictures). 

Can you tell them apart?

Student of the Month

Carter was awarded the Student of the month for Courage! I am so proud of him. Carter has come a long way from last year. He has worked very hard. I also know his Teacher Mrs. Simon has been really great for him this year! I feel like my prayer have been answered. The whole family came to the assembly to support Carter in his achievement.

Halloween Fun

I love how Halloween seems to get extended over a week or so rather that just one day :)  Our boys got to have a trunk or treat/carnival at their school. My super heros! They had so much fun and got a nice little stash of candy.

Our ward also had a trunk or treat/carnival. There even was a spook alley which my boys LOVED! Grandpa and Nana came to enjoy the festivities, which was nice to have them help me with the kids. Carter was having too much fun being a scary Green Lanter. He really wanted to be something scary but we didn't have a scary costume, so I got some face paint and fake blood (which seemed to do the trick). Carter stopped trunk or treating and spent most of that time by my car trunk trying to scary the people coming by :)

Jake took the boys out to go trick or treating on the actually Halloween. Needless to say the boys scored on tons of candy.

Stewart Family Cabin

We were invited to spend conference weekend with the Stewart family at their cabin in Duck Creek.
I was a little worried about the drive, since it was our first trip since having Sydney. She did surprisingly well and made it in one piece :)
Jake and I fell in love with the cabin! It was perfect and so much fun! My boys were in heaven, playing outside, building forts, riding four-wheelers every chance they got. It made us want to go to PineValley soon. Great company and great food, what more can a girl ask for (and you know how I love my food). I loved how each family rotated meals. We ate so well, I could kind of see how polygamy could work ;) J/K
We didn't want the weekend to end. It was so nice to unwind and spend time with the family.

First Day of School

                       

August 28th was the boys 1st day of the school year. Since Sydney came early and threw us for a loop, the 2nd day of the school year was the boys 1st day of school. it's been nice that Jake took the  week off of work so he did all of the dropping off and picking up the 1st week. Devin started Kindergarten and Carter started 2nd grade. I can't believe how big they are getting! We are very excited for the school year, they both have great teachers!

Our Baby Girl

I can't believe that a week has gone by since I went into labor with Sydney.  This was something  that I definitely didn't plan for, We had a date set to be induced and had it all worked out how it was going to happen. But somewhere in the back of my mind kept feeling that this one was going to be different that my other babies, and not just because she is a girl. And so far everything from the pregnancy, labor, and Sydney herself, everything has been different. I was pretty excited to have a week of the boys in school and for me to have just some me time before I had the baby. 

Last weekend I was struggling emotionally and physically, frustrated about everything and purely uncomfortable. That Sunday I was still just feeling off. Sunday afternoon I felt like I had been having more contractions than usual but it wasn't until that night where it seemed I was having them back to back. so I finally started to time them, not telling Jake because I was afraid I was just freaking myself out. After much debate and texting Aubrey for some advice I decide to just go ahead to the hospital. Afraid that they would send me home and  also afraid that they would tell me I was in labor.

I was dilated to a 3 1/2, 90% effaced. The hospital called the Dr to see what he would like to do. It was decided to keep me at the hospital and start me on antibiotics for my Group B strep. They wanted to make sure I would be able to have 2 doses of the antibiotics. They told me I could have my epidural at any time, so I made sure it was done before they broke my water so I wouldn't have to deal with the labor pains. Once the 1st dose was done they broke my water and as time went on kept feeling my contractions getting more intense. After a while of still feeling contraction and  still having complete feeling in my lower half we got the anesthesiologists to come it to see if he could fix my epidural. He pumped me with more drugs that didn't work and by the 3rd time the nurse went to get him it was too late to do anything else about it so I had to go natural.

I was so not mental and emotional ready to deal with what it would be like to go through labor without any pain medicine. Jake was such a great support, reminding me to breath, holding my hand, and cheering me along. I know I couldn't have done it without him. I don't think I have ever screamed so much in my life. I couldn't wait for it to be over!  Poor Jake had to listen to me crying saying, "I want this to be over," "I don't think I want any more children," etc.

It was a very emotional night/morning. Needless to say I was very grateful when Sydney came out and that my Dr. was awesome and took good care of me. Sydney was born 2 weeks early at 6:00 am,  August 27th, 8lbs (my biggest baby yet), 20in. long.

Curtis Family Reunion

We have been sooo excited for this reunion! Jake’s family lives all over the country, so it’s hard to get everyone together.

Our boys have never been to a parade, so they got to go to there first one! It was fun watching the kids run and try and get the candy, Devin even scored a T-shirt :)

        

  It has been probably about 9 years since I have been to temple square. I wasn’t sure how exciting the boys would be about it but was surprised how much fun they had with it. It was cute to see them asking questions and asking me to take a picture of them by the Jesus statue :)

I think it was nice for them to see what the temple looks like from the inside since the have a model.

I had to take a picture of this quote, I just loved it.

We went swimming several time at the community pool. The kids LOVED it!

The kids were constantly playing outside. It was non-stop fun with all of their cousins! Heather was great about coming up with games for the kids to play. They even came up with an obstacle course! They played water balloon volleyball, water balloons, smash ball, foam hockey, foam fencing, ladder ball, jumped on the trampoline, and make snow cones!

The boys were wiped out every night :)

Jake took the boys to the Hill Aerospace museum, while I napped (good man).

Of Course, we did sparklers and fireworks to celebrate the 4th! Sad that we had to leave the next day, but we had sooo much fun spending time with family. Looking forward to when we can do another!!!