He's here!!!

Big sister Brooklyn and big brothers Blake and Gavin are proud to announce the arrival of

Preston Milo

Born Saturday, December 27, 2008

8:01am

8lbs. 9 oz.

20.5 in.

We're all home, healthy and doing well! Everything went great with the c-section and I would have to say that was the easiest one yet, although I did have one little blip when the lovely "spinal headache" showed up on Monday. Not fun having a raging migraine the second you sit up and practically the only thing that magically helps is lying flat on your back! A quick visit from the anesthesiologist and an epidural blood patch later, I was good to go. :)

I was most surprised by the amount of hair Preston has because Gavin was pretty much bald!! And we didn't escape the funky hair "issues" with this one, either! He has a double crown on the back of his head! He's a pretty good size baby for being a week and a half early - he surely would have been over 9 lbs had I gone to term! Although 8 lbs 9 oz SOUNDS decent size, it's amazing how tiny he still is! You forget how small they start out!!! After staring at the baby and comparing pictures of the other kids as babies, we think Preston mostly looks like Blake, just darker. You can also see a bit of Gavin, so maybe a good mix of the two boys? We shall see in the next couple months who he evolves into.

Life is good and I'm so glad that we have been blessed with another tiny spirit in our home to love and care for!!

Now some pictures ~~

Last belly shot, taken right before leaving for the hospital. I know I look tired; I got less than 5 hours of sleep the night before! Oh yah, I got my hair cut a couple weeks ago, too! :)

Fresh out of the womb! Mommy, Preston and Daddy

Hanging out in recovery, waiting for MommyGavin gets to love on his new lil' bro!

Checking out the baby

Doing what newborns do best!

All dressed up and ready to go home!Not sure whether he's liking the carseat, but he was a good boy
on the way home and didn't make a peep!!

Can't get enough of this little munchkin!

We have a DATE!!!

We'll be meeting our little mister on Saturday, December 27th!!! C-section is scheduled for 7:30am, which means we have to be there bright and early at 5:30am for prep! *yawn* I can't believe in a little over two weeks he'll really be here! No name yet either.....

Showing off the baby belly

What a way to kick off the holiday season! :)

Last Monday night (December 1st), Brooklyn and Blake's school had their Winter Sing. They had been working on their songs for the past few weeks in music class and I was privileged to hear bits and pieces before the actual performance. ;) I fondly remember performing in the very same event, year after year, in elementary school. Now it was MY turn to have little ones up there on stage! I couldn't have been more proud!!!

On stage

Giving a big-belly "HO! HO! HO!"
(check out the cutie on the bottom far right, LOL!)

All dressed up! No smiles.Listen to these cute lil' kindergarteners!! How could this not put you in a jolly mood?? Enjoy!

On Call

Once every six weeks, Matt is required (for work) to be ON CALL for a week. Up to this point, it hasn't been too bad, just a few calls after hours, nothing serious.

The week of Thanksgiving was Matt's week to be on call. Well, he was actually supposed to be on call the week of Christmas, but he switched with another OD because I'll be hugely pregnant by then. Since the office was closed on Thursday and Friday due to Thanksgiving, people weren't able to just schedule an appointment and come into the office like they could on any other Thursday or Friday of any other week.

I am not kidding, Matt's phone must have beeped (he gets a text from a call center) a HUNDRED times that week!! We groaned OUT LOUD every time! Luckily, not every call requires a trip to the office. Some people he can just talk to and figure out how to tide them over until an appointment can be made during regular business hours. The CRAZINESS started Tuesday night when Matt had to leave just before the kids' bedtime to see a patient and he didn't return home until after 10:30pm. Thanksgiving day, he had to go down to the office TWICE. Friday, I swear it was another THREE times, including one that required us to cut our plans short with friends that evening, drive home to get Matt's car so he could go to the office, I had to drive back out to my mom's house to pick up the kids and then drive back home and get them in bed all by MYSELF when I was beyond exhausted. Yes, these people all needed care at that moment. But aren't people supposed to be EXEMPT from having emergencies over a holiday weekend??!?

I LOVE Matt and I LOVE that he LOVES his job and is dedicated 110% to helping the patients he sees to the best of his abilities. I just don't LOVE when he's on call! ;)

Twilight, the Movie Event

My little sis, Brittney, and I saw Twilight opening day. Neither of us could wait any longer than that! We caught a 9:30pm showing and I can't believe I actually stayed awake!! There were plenty of die-hards there and a couple of guys that I'm sure were dragged into coming along! I was really excited to see the movie, but I didn't go in with high expectations just because movies hardly ever do the book justice. And just a disclaimer- I'm not completely obsessed with the whole Twilight series like a lot of people are. I just really, REALLY enjoyed the books and had to see the movie! :)

All in all, I thought the movie followed the story line very well. However, I can't say that I was super impressed. It was just *eh* for me. Obvsiously low budget. Too many of the actors didn't jive with the characters I'd pictured in my head. Alice was the most perfect match, though!! How cute was she?!?!? I wanted to feel much more passion and desire between Edward and Bella. And the vamps were FREAKISHLY white!!!!! I seriously almost laughed OUT LOUD when Carlisle appeared on screen! It was like he was dipped in flour!! The first half of the movie was a little slow going but it picked up in the second half. I LOVED the baseball scene and the end of the movie was cheesy, but a perfect set up for the next movie.

Of course I'll see future movies that are released and probably buy them as well. I can't wait to see where they go with the rest of the books, especially the last one!!!

$$ BLACK FRIDAY $$

{this is not what I looked like yesterday morning!}

I'll just preface this by saying YES, I am crazy!!! Good. I'm glad we got that out of the way. ;)

I LOVE shopping on Black Friday!! Heck, who am I kidding -- I love shopping on ANY day!! I poured over the ads, listed out the items I was interested in getting at each store on a post-it note and attached the post-it to the corresponding store ad. There was no one item I just HAD to have, but there were a lot of things I WANTED to have. LOL!

My stops for the day included:

KOHL'S - Opened at 4:00am. I arrived at the store at 2:30am and was 10th in line! Told you I was crazy!!! ;) It paid off because I got *ALMOST* everything I wanted including a keyboard, a bedding set for Matt & I (hooray!), a new memory foam pillow for Matt. various bath towels, a rug, a couple kids books and a throw blankie for snuggling on the couch in the evenings. The only thing I didn't get was a 600 thread count sheet set for $40, but I'll be heading back for that next week and using my Kohl's cash that I acquired. Let's just hope it's back in stock by then; I'll be one happy girl!! I stood in line for over ONE HOUR, but it really didn't seem that long. I did good!

TARGET - Opened at 6:00am. I was in line outside the store at 5:45am with HUNDREDS of other people. There were two entrances and 3 minutes before the doors were supposed to open, a Target employee so kindly tells us that they will only be opening the OTHER doors, not the doors I'm waiting in line at. You'd think they could have had a sign or said something maybe 10 minutes before they opened??!? This created a mad chaotic rush as people were hustling to the other line, but then just decided to cut in front of people that had been waiting much longer when the doors opened. I waited politely until a good majority of the line had gone in before I entered the store. I had grabbed a cart, then quickly ditched it in the toy section when it was apparent there was no way I was going to be able to navigate through the masses with that thing + my pregnant belly. I got all the items I had intended (6 to be exact) and headed to the front to check out. The lines were super quick and I was outta there! Probably because half the Queen Creek population was back in the electronics department!!!

TOYS R US - Opened at 5:00am. I think I got there around 6:45am. Lots and LOTS of people, of course!! I do have to say that they are very organized with the crowds, only allowing certain amounts of people in the doors at a time, then keeping the check-out line around the perimeter of the store as not to clog up the aisles for the people still shopping. Again, I got every item I wanted, plus one extra. ;) It felt like I was in line for forever here!!! I'm guessing probably 45 minutes or so.

HOME DEPOT - Don't know when they opened and I only wanted ONE item here for Matt. I got it and was in and out of there in less than 10 minutes. Not busy at all!!

I made a quick trip inside a different Kohls on my way home just to make sure they didn't have the sheet set I wanted but no luck there. :( And the line was still insanely long to wait for just one item.

I was home shortly after 9:00am. I'd have to say my experience was pleasant over all! I didn't see any pushing and shoving and everyone seemed to be pretty polite. It would have been fun to have someone to go with, but people in line were friendly and chatty. And I did happen to see THIS lovely blogging friend and her hubby! I can't imagine those who stand in line for HOURS for the limited number big ticket items!! If we ever want one of those, I'll for sure be sending Matt in cause I'm not mean enough to fight through! ;)

I did go to bed at 9:45pm the night before so I got SOME sleep, but still had to take a nap and then was EXHAUSTED by 8:00pm last night! Oh, the sacrifices we make for good deals!!

I Am Thankful

I know Thanksgiving is over, but I was busy yesterday and didn't have a moment to express my thoughts and feelings on my blog. So here I am, a day late.

My kids are in love with the Charlie Brown movies. I've always been a fan too for each holiday (Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas) and bought the trio of DVDs to have for our very own. But I never realized how many times the characters say the word "stupid" until Gavin pointed it out EVERY.SINGLE.TIME by saying, "We don't say stupid," or "They said stupid!" This coming from my sweet two-year-old that says "stupid" at least 15 times a day. We're trying to curb that, albeit unsuccessful at this point.
So Tuesday night, we had psuedo-FHE. We watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and then we talked about things we were thankful for. I asked each child of mine to list three things they are thankful for.

Brooklyn ~*~ leaves, turkeys and flowers ~*~ HOW FESTIVE!!

Blake ~*~ my brothers and sister, toys and Heavenly Father ~*~ At least we're doing SOMEthing right as parents!!

Gavin ~*~ Jesus & Joseph (????), cake and cars ~*~ Gotta love the toddler mentality!

Look what I picked up from school earlier this week!!! :D Gobble, Gobble!

Brooklyn felt bad that Gavin didn't have a turkey hat
so she hand-crafted one for him all on her own! What a loving sister!! ;)

We had a very nice Thanksgiving linner (same concept as "brunch" except between lunch and dinner times) yesterday with my family. Lots and lots and LOTS of food and yummy desserts! Stuffed myself full!!!

Here are my thankfuls, in no particular order::

* I am thankful to have a hard-working husband that supports our family and wants nothing more than for me to be able to stay at home with our kids.

* I am thankful that we're done with school and have moved on to the next phase in our lives.

* I am thankful that Matt has a good job, especially at a time where the economy is suffering and many are struggling to make ends meet.

* I am thankful for each one of my children and the unique personalities they bring to our family.

* I am thankful for this sweet new spirit that will be joining our family in less than 5 weeks.

* I am thankful for my beautiful home - my OWN home!!

* I am thankful to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the peace and happiness it brings to my life on a daily basis.

* I am thankful for my goodly parents and each of my five siblings.

* I am thankful for Matt's family, that they are such a wonderful addition to my own family.

I know there are countless other things to be thankful for. My list could be a mile long!! I'm glad that we have a holiday set aside for us to pause and remember all these wonderful blessings in our lives!! I hope everyone had a great Turkey Day!

{the word "thankful" looks weird, like it's spelled wrong, after typing it out that many times!!}