Eight is Great

Monet turned 8 today. She had a really fun birthday! I was just thinking about how grown up she looks, and went digging through pictures and found all of these. I love looking at all of my babies again.

Monet had really squishy cute cheeks and loved to suck her thumb and cuddle.
Here she is all ready for Easter. I loved this dress on her.
She had a very eager big sister Elise, however, Monet loved having Elise hold her about as much as Simone loved having Monet hold her.

Monet started smiling (true smiling--not just gas) REALLY early. Here she is grinning at mommy at 2 weeks old.

Elise's first time holding Monet

Little Thumbsucker

Gotta love those blue eyes
We loved her little crooked grin

Just after her first real haircut

Cute little dress from Cam and Channy's wedding

She loved to hold Miles. She'd always hold onto his foot or his hand. Whatever she could reach. In his carseat, he'd automatically stick his hand out to hold onto her. It was very sweet. And when he woke up, Monet would run into his room to be with him until I came to pick him up.

Monet's Birth Story

I was in school full-time, working and had just moved into the house we built when Monet was born. It was a very busy winter! I had a couple of presentations I couldn't miss for school and really didn't want her to be born before I had those. I was dilated to a 3 the first time my midwife checked me several weeks before my due date. By the week before, I was already a 4. She ended up being born 5 days early. I was thrilled about that. It was perfect timing.

The night before she was born I felt completely normal and told my sister I didn't think it would be anytime soon. I felt pretty sure I'd go to my due date. The next morning I woke up and was so tired, I turned Snow White on for Elise and tried to eek out another hour of sleep on the couch.

At about 9:00 am I started feeling these little contractions that were different than the braxton hicks that came pretty regularly for most of my pregnancy. After a little while of steady though painless contractions, I called my mom and my mother-in-law just to give them a heads up. Then I woke up Jared who had worked a graveyard shift the night before, and told him that I *might* be in labor.

I figured I would probably contract for most of the day. So I made plans to go buy some dishes I'd wanted. After a little bit, I realized that going to the store didn't sound fun after all. LOL. I called my mom to come out and pick up Elise to take her to a neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. I thought we'd have lots of time at the hospital and was still planning on being in labor most of the day at least.

I started getting really hungry and decided to eat Jared's leftover cashew chicken. It tasted SO good. I was worried about not being able to eat once I got to the hospital. By the time my mom arrived at 11:00 am, I was needing to pause and hold onto something during my contractions. I was definitely ready to go to the hospital. On the way I was feeling pretty awful and I just wanted to cry at the idea that I would be doing this all day. I felt that I wouldn't be able to do this all day and was scared.

We arrived at the hospital at about 11:15 and I was grumpy and in pain. We checked in and I was irritable with all of their questions and completely distracted by the contractions and really couldn't answer anything. Then, without ever being checked, I was placed in a triage room to be on the monitors and recieve antibiotics. It was at this point that I really started feeling annoyed. The strap on the heart rate monitor was under my belly and very uncomfortable. It didn't feel right to lay down so I was standing next to the little bed and that was very uncomfortable. Jared finally asked someone to come check me. Yipee. I was dilated to an eight. Sweet relief. I knew at that point it wouldn't be much longer and suddenly the pain didn't feel so discouraging.

A couple minutes later, I felt like I needed to push and was brought into the delivery room. Two pushes and Monet was born less than a half hour after arriving at the hospital. She was "born in the caul" since the sac was still intact as her head emerged. She was 8 lbs, 14 oz, just about the same as Elise.

I felt so great after having her. I kept thinking someone was going to pinch me and I'd wake up and have to do it all over again. It just seemed too easy. I was not expecting it to be that quick. It was so much harder and longer the first time around. With such a short labor, I wasn't tired. I had plenty of sleep the night before. Elise was able to come to the hospital with my mom and sister to see her new little sister Monet. We held Monet for a nice long time before they needed to warm her up. And since it was a Saturday we got lots of visitors, and Jared's mom even brought us an Easter dinner in the hospital the next day.

I loved when Elise came in to see Monet for the first time. It was the longest I'd been away from her and my heart just ached to hold her. She just hopped onto the bed and started talking to her new baby sister. She even had some daisies for Monet.

We had to stay at the hospital for a couple of days because of not having time to recieve the full course of antibiotics. They also found that Monet had a hole in heart in addition to a PFO. She still has a hole between the ventricles of her heart, but it doesn't cause any problems for her and she's always been perfectly healthy.

Anyway, that is the story of Monet. I admire her determination and her eagerness. She stayed pretty tiny and petite when she was little, but it appears she is growing out of that. Regardless, she'll always be

"My Little Monet"

White Trash Disneyland

On our trip to California, we decided to take the kids to Knott's Berry Farm. I loved it! No lines at all, tons of roller coasters and good big kid rides for Elise and Monet. Cheap and fun. I only learned later that Knott's is kinda the "white trash" Disneyland where all the poor people go. What does that say about me? LOL. Anyway, it was a really fun day. And as far as the crowd, let's just say that it was far and away more tame than anything you'd find at the Utah State Fair or Sugarhouse park on the 4th of July.

You can't beat the Ghostrider, Silver Bullet, and Super Scream. Those are MY kind of rides. They had a big boat ride just like Lagoon's Tidal Wave, and the swings (kinda like turn of the century) that is my favorite non- roller coaster ride ever. Feels like flying. Here are Elise and Monet on the Ghostrider.

Although I would have loved to go to Disneyland for Miles and Simone's sake, I really become impatient with all the slow-moving boat rides and all that. Space Mountain, Star Tours, and the Roller Coaster at California Adventure are really the best rides there in my opinion. Elise loves the roller coasters too, but she was kind enough to take Simone on lots of other little kid rides. I love her face in the car picture. She looks like she's having a blast.

Jared thinks it a sacrilege that I don't like Pirates of the Carribean. He even likes the Tiki Room at Disneyland and that proves to me that his love of the place is due to nostalgia. He associates Disneyland with his childhood. Getting mint juleps, pineapple smoothies, heck even taking dates the the Blue Bayou, it is all that nostalgia that makes it great. I mean who needs Mickey Mouse when you've got Snoopy? ;) Simone didn't even know who snoopy is, but anything big and furry and dressed up in a dog costume is sure to win her heart pretty quick.



Jared, with his mad basketball skillz won all the kids a stuffed animal. They were pretty excited.



Simone and Miles were pretty exhausted after playing hard for 8 hours. Simone slept right through dinner at Souplantation. Then cuddled with daddy while he caught up on all the March Madness games back at Nana and Papa's.

Grandma J

Jared's Grandma passed away this past week. Her health had been failing for awhile now, and I can only imagine how much she loved being reunited with her husband who passed away 19 years ago, Grandpa Mel. She was very devoted to him.



The funeral was almost like a mini-reunion for the rest of the family, which I'm sure made her very happy. It was neat to drive out to Inglewood to see where they lived in the good old days. It doesn't look much like it did back then, but sitting up on the hill in the cemetary and looking out over the rolling greens hills, you can imagine what it was like before it was urbanized.

I loved hearing about her life, and the tributes that her children gave her. It is neat to see a glimpse of what life was like when she was a mom like me. When I hear the stories about their parties, fishing trips and the neat poems and scriptures she loved to memorize, I see how some of those fun traditions have influenced the following generations and I want to carry on those traditions with my kids too.

My favorite story about Grandma J is that she made it to the last couple months of a pregnancy before she realized she was even pregnant. Apparently she didn't like going to the doctor, but finally relented when she thought she had a tumor. She then got the unexpected news that she was pregnant! I've always thought that would be the perfect pregnancy. So little time to have to wait.

Another moment that really struck me was a story about when her teenaged son told her she was a great mom, and she responded with, "I only wish that were true." Seriously made me tear up. I think we've all identified with that feeling on more than one occasion. But she WAS a great mom, and it is comforting to know that even great moms feel that way sometimes. He responded to jokingly, "You have to be a great mom, look at what great kids you have!" Despite the fact that he was kidding, it really is true. When you see her amazing children, you know what a fabulous mother she was.

She was a very thrifty lady, and apparently her husband used to say, "the reason I have a nest egg instead of a goose egg is because of the chick I married."

I loved going to her home and seeing her "grandchildren" wall. It is amazing! She had 4 children, 27 grandchildren, and 28 great-grandchildren so far. I sent her some pictures of my kids a few years ago for her to add to the wall, and she was so sweet. She sent me a thank you card and was just really appreciative to get those pictures. Lots of "joy and rejoicing" going on in her home.

We love you Grandma! Say hi to Grandpa for us.

Our own personal Paparazzo

When my mom was in town after watching our kids during our trip, she mentioned that there weren't enough photos of me in the house. So she made it her mission to remedy that. Everywhere we went, she was snapping photos. It was kinda like having the paparazzi following you around. She even takes pictures at Costco. I get a bit impatient sometimes, and we sisters like to mock her picture taking tips lovingly, "lean forward, stick out your neck, chin down!" But truly, she does have some good tricks to looking better in pictures. We like to tease her about it, but in the end, we are always interested in seeing what shots she got.

Here is the lady behind the camera, with Demetrios in Las Vegas:


And some of the pictures we got while she was here:

My Little Valley Girl

Simone gets herself all dressed these days. I lay out her clothes (they are too high for her to reach) and she puts them on.

Often her pants are on backwards, like in the picture above. Little skinny girl doesn't have much of a behind, so I guess either way works.

So today, we had this conversation as I am turning her pants around for her.

me: Simone, where are your undies?
Simone: Oh, they were dirty. TRUST ME.

I couldn't help but bust up laughing. The way she talks just is funny. I pick her up from nursery, or babysitters, and am always entertained by their accounts of her conversations with them. She likes to use slang. I should be a little more mortified that she says things like: "I was totally like, WHAT THE HECK?!" But I am too busy laughing.

Our Cruise

We got home Monday from our cruise. It has been over five years since we did a trip like this and it was so fun. We loved every minute of it. Jared's parents took all their kids three years ago, but I had just had Simone, so I stayed home with the kids and Jared went. I was really happy that I was able to go this time!

We sailed on the Liberty of the Seas with Royal Caribbean. It is a huge ship. There were tons of fun things to do onboard. Our two at sea days saw lots of rain, but even so we were totally entertained with all the stuff to do onboard and all the great company. We went ice skating, boogie boarding, hot tubbing, climbed the rockwall, had a b-ball shooting contest (I watched Jared cream the 8 year olds. LOL), did some awesome karaoke, and worked out at the fitness center to earn those extra desserts--okay, we probably didn't even come close to working them off, but it was fun. Jared is gearing up for a contest at work to see who can lose the most body fat. So he was doing his best to pack on the pounds before we got home and the contest started. Our waiter was shocked when we only ordered a dessert to share on our last night. He brought us two anyway! It was hard to come home and have to cook and clean. But seeing the kids made up for it.

It was pretty amusing to see people's reactions to our huge family-we had 17 people in our group--and that was missing a few. I forget what a shock that is to most of the world. In Utah, no one is really surprised to see a family that size. I realized when I got home that I don't have a single picture of everyone together. It was really fun to spend a little more time with all the siblings. We are pretty spread out these days, and are usually running after all of our kids when we are together. So it was nice to get to talk with everyone at dinner. Boy families are so fun! I could just sit and listen to them talk for hours. I was so entertained. Totally different than a family of girls--a lot more crack jokes, no one worrying too much if their shorts fall off while on the flow-rider--stuff like that. It was funny!

Our ports:
Costa Maya, Mexico--We spent the day relaxing at the beach. Jared and I went waverunning in the ocean enjoyed some Mexican food.
Belize--We hiked in the jungle and went cavetubing. The jungle was beautiful, and we enjoyed seeing a new country. We even got offered lots of marajuana--(we declined lol)
Cozumel--The water was especially rough, so instead of going snorkeling and kayaking, we took a taxi to the other side of the island, which was calmer, and explored some really gorgeous beaches and had the best guacamole I've ever eaten.
Grand Cayman--we sailed out to stingray city on this cool little sailboat and fed the stingrays. I wasn't too thrilled about it at first (Steve Irwin anyone?). But it was fun! Probably my favorite day. The snorkeling was the best I've ever seen. Jared informed me that it wasn't in fact all that good. Hundreds of beautiful colorful fish in the coral reef isn't that good? I was impressed even if he wasn't. It was so cool. We saw a ton of huge iguanas.
Miami/Hollywood Beach--We rented a car and cruised all over Ft Lauderdale and Miami on the night before the cruise. Then spent the day at the beach before our flight home. Jared was so excited to have a Primanti Bros. sandwich. I've been hearing about those famous sandwiches with the fries right on the sandwich for years.

We were nervous when we found out about the earthquake in Concepcion. Jared's little bro Jon is serving a mission there. But fortunately they were prepared and are safe. Phew!

Thank you Mom and Dad for taking us all on this wonderful vacation, and thanks Grandma Nancy and Angela for making my kids happy we were gone! They loved all the sleepovers, movies, swimming, dollar store excursions, and nights out on the town.