Blessing Daylen

Today we were able to bless Daylen at church. It was another great blessing and I am so grateful Derek honors his priesthood and is able to perform these blessings for our children. I am grateful for the blessings our Heavenly Father chose to give our sweet little Daylen and I am confident he will be (and is) an amazing addition to our family. We were able to have my grandpa Terry in town as well as Derek's dad, brother Jared and two of my brothers-in-law, Sam and Evan here to participate. I am grateful for their willingness. I am so grateful for the opportunity the Lord has given me to have amazing and beautiful children. I could not live without them. I am so blessed!!

Ashlyn turns 4!

My little girl is four already! I can't believe it. We are so happy we have this firecracker in our house. Some fun things about Ashlyn:
1. She is hilarious, I can not even describe it.
2. She is very sensitive. She doesn't like when people are upset.
3. She loves to sing and pretend.
4. Whenshe grows up she wants to be a teenager. (I died laughing when she told me that).
5. She is 39 1/2 inches. 75th percentile. That's a first for my kids.
6. She weighs 32 pounds. Still at the bottom of the weight class, no surprise.
7. We found out she too, like her sister, has kidney reflux, but worse. We are awaiting doctor recommendations to see if she will have surgery or just medication.
8. She has a hard time focusing, but comes up with the funnest thugs to play because of it.
9. She loves school and does really well at it.
We love our Ashlyn!!!

We moved!!!

After a long and crazy 16 months I finally can report that we have "moved" to Arizona. Despite the fact that I have been here more than a year and Derek for 10 months, for the first time we have a place to call our own. We are renting a cute little house with plenty of space inside, including 4 bedrooms and a playroom. We are missing the yard we would like for the kids, but when you rent you can give a little. While we are overwhelmingly grateful to my mother for allowing not only her child, but an entire family of 6 to live with her so long, it is a relief to be on our own again. We are still unpacking odds an ends but we have already filled up so much of this space. I am not sure how we survived before. I know it is only through my Heavenly Father and I can not forget how much comfort we have recieved as we have waited for this trial to somehow be at an end. While life isn't perfect yet, it is amazing and I have so many things to be grateful for!

Warning: no pictures yet

We lost all our pictures due to a lovely computer malfunction so we currently have no computer to download pictures from our cameras. I promos though... I will update the posts with pictures.

Daylen McKay Farnsworth

He finally made his debut! I was scheduled for an induction on Friday. Well - Saturday at 3:30 a.m. I got the call that they had a bed for me. So, at about 4:30 we arrived at the hospital and started our check in. At a little before 5:30 they started my pitocin drip. It was pretty boring so I ended up falling asleep from about 7:30 to 8:30. At 8:30 the contractions were getting a little bit uncomfortable and I was at a 5 so they broke my water just before 9:00. Derek came back from picking up breakfast just as they were starting my epidural, minutes later. They had some trouble, once again, with my epidural. After Derek spent about 20 minutes holding me up he told the nurse he needed to sit down. He didn't get to eat and was feeling light-headed. About a minute later he crashed to the ground and took a little nap for a few minutes! Apparently he can NOT go without eating. This is number two out of four... so he doesn't have the best odds. Anyway, I digress... After assuring them I was not going to jump off the table to get Derek they continued to try to get my epidural. Soon after, I felt the needle go in and a shooting pain down my leg. This is where it gets interesting! I start feeling really weird and the guy doing my epidural is concerned that I am already feeling numb when he says he hasn't given me anything but lidocaine and I should still be good. Well, next thing I know my body collapses on the bed, my bp drops super fast and I can't breathe. They shoved some medicine in and got my heart rate back up and gave me oxygen. Then they informed me that he missed the epidural space and I just got a spinal! So, they sat around freaking for a little bit while I couldn't move - which is the wierdest feeling. Then my doctor came in to check me and I was ready to go - all 10 centimeters. So, without being able to feel too much I pushed and a few minutes later we got an amazing baby boy! His chord was wrapped around his neck 4 times but we didn't know because he showed no distress. We are so blessed and grateful he came out perfect! He was 6 pounds 14 ounces, which is my smallest baby! He was 20 inches and born at 9:56. Not too shabby for a morning's work. I am so grateful it all went well and despite the doctor's constant checking to see if I had a spinal headache, we both were great!

Bryce is 2!

I can't believe my baby is 2! He is such a joy and is always so happy. We are so lucky to have him in our family. This year we kep it pretty low key and just played in the pool - where Bryce loved it!! Some tidbits about Bryce:
1. He is an awesome talker. I was worried because he wouldn't talk at all, but then one day he went to 5 plus word sentences! His vocabulary is awesome and he speaks very well.
2. This kid has an awesome knack for sports. He continues to pla basketball and soccer daily and has even added football into the mix. He shoots from like 5 feet away and can still sink a basket. He throws a football with more spiral than me and dribbles his little soccer ball while running around.
3. He is a tease! If you get up from a seat and he is around he will run to your spot and giggle when you come back to find your spot taken.
4. He is always happy. No one in this house can resist his charms!
We love our little Brycey!

Preschool graduation

Hailey and Ashlyn finished another year of preschool. They really loved Ms. Christie and both learned so much! For their last day today they gave us these really cute books of everything they did and gave us a little presentation. For Ashlyn's they showed us all the letters and their sounds, recited the pledge, went over the calendar and the other cute little stuff they do each day. Hailey's class had a mini graduation, went over small words, calendar, pledge - and my favorite - recited the preable complete with sign language from memory. Both girls have progressed so much and I can't believe Hailey will be starting kindergarten in just a few months!

Disneyland!!!

Now that we are so much closer to family in California we used the excuse to visit my wonderful grandpa to go to Disneyland too! It was a quick trip, but we got to do everything we wanted. We spent Friday at Disneyland where we met princesses, fairies and rode everything on our list. We found out Hailey is an adrenaline junky. Once she rode her first coaster, it was all she wanted to do. Ashlyn was scarred by the yeti so she voted for the more animated rides. Bryce was hilarious! He did really good for the morning but by the afternoon every time we went onto a ride that went inside he would just keep saying, "get out, outside." it was so cute. On the Alice in wonderland ride it goes in and outside, which was the funniest because everytime he thought he got out we were right back inside again. The kids were total troopers and made it all the way through the fireworks.

Saturday we made a quick drive to Huntington beach and then spent the day with the Joneses. It was so good to see all the family we missed while across the country. Even though the trip was quick I am so glad we got to see family and the kids enjoyed their first trip to Disney. Hopefully we'll have more to come.

Easter 2011

This year I am grateful to take the time to reflect on what the atonement really means with my children. They are old enough to understand a little more and I am so glad I get to teach them about how the atonement fits into the plan of salvation and the love and sacrifice of our Savior. It is exciting to read about his resurrection. I am grateful for the atonement and the opportunity it gives us to be whole again. I am so grateful for repentance, the opportunity to improve ourselves and rely on our Father in Heaven, what a blessing.

Growing so fast

This last week I finally gave Bryce a real haircut. Despite his thin and whispy blonde hair he has really needed one for a while, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. But, shaggy over the ears isn't my thing so we finally cut it. He did AWESOME! He sat the entire time and didn't really move or get scared when I used the clippers. He's such a little man and I wish I'd have gotten a good picture of his hair spiked up with gel; it is his favorite. He loves when we do it and will sit in front of the mirror and just say handsome over and over. I love this kid!

Good-Bye Saab

I guess all things must come to an end. The other day a man ran a red light and totalled Derek's precious Saab. He is doing fine and only hit his head on the driver side window. He hasn't had a complaint yet. But, our car is completely wrecked. And while the car wasn't anything glorious to me, I now realize the error of my ways. We got a settlement on our car for much more than we paid, which would seem good in theory, and I guess it is. But, now I realize how great the Saab was!! It had 30k less miles than cars its age, ran perfect and we hadn't put any money into it. Plus, Derek really loved that it was convertible, which to me was just funny because it wasn't that cool of a car. We can not replace what we had for even the higher amount we got on the car. Dang it. Luckily, we are borrowing a family extra until we decide how to replace it. Just add it to the list. Oh well, at least Derek is completely fine - which is most important.

family pictures

Oh so long ago at the end of October we had our family pictures taken before my oh-so-talented sister-in-law galavanted off to Texas. She was so gracious to send all of our family pictures she took, but alas when I finally remembered to post them I can NOT find the cd. Hopefully this will be remedied soon but for now I've updated the ones off of her blog. She does great work and if you are in San Antonio check her out! redbucketphoto.blogspot.com. When they do surface - I promise to show off how big my little ones are getting.

Today ...

As I sat today looking at other blogs and reading up on all the families I miss, I mad a decision that I would just write something today. I have been terrible at it. For a while, not having much to say. Then, too upset to say anything. After, the time too far gone and finally, too much to explain. But, though I am sure most have no idea what I am talking about. It is just fine with me. The short of it is this... life is good, but I still lack the words to explain in appropriate terms how our crazy life has been the last 8 months. After more than 5 months of Derek having to stay in Philadelphia for two, yes two, patients he was able to return at the end of September and stay in October. We waited until January 28th for a diploma and have two jobs - which we are grateful for and extremely excited about!! They are both part time here in the valley and we will (hopefully) eventually get to buy out one of the doctors who is retiring soon. Both are great situations. We are still living with my good 'ole mom and probably will until Derek has a few pay checks under his belt. We are having another little boy who will get to join us in July. We love life and are settled into Arizona, but for me not any sort of groove. I still feel that permanent sense of temporarity and just can't seem to organize my life the way I used to in someone else's house - but it's all good and I am sure I'll get back into it now that Derek has began working this week. Here's to the future!

Bobbie's Wedding

While I don't have the lovely spread of pictures taken from Bobbie's wedding this last week, we did manage to get a couple on the phone. We are so excited for Bobbie and Sam and are extra excited they are finally married and the waiting is over. They are a great couple and we love them! The pictures though, are mostly of my cute children and the cake I made for her wedding. But, we did get one of the beautiful bride.

Hailey turns 5