Happy Birthday to You Mega Moo

Megan is now 5 years old. She's been counting down the days until her birthday for a couple of weeks now. She informed me a few weeks ago that I could get her something "beautiful or cute" for her birthday, "but not something awesome." We got a kick out of that one. Her preschool class took a field trip to Hoots (a fun place with bounce houses obstacle courses and a huge blow up slide). She took some birthday cookies with her to celebrate. Then on Sunday she woke up bright and early ready to open her presents (she had two presents wrapped from grandparents and sitting on a shelf for 2 weeks - what a temptation - but she stayed strong). She was completely and totally enthralled with everything she got: Ariel doll, a new baby doll, a panda pillow pet, a little barbie mermaid, Hello Kitty figurines and coloring book and a pony (to put on top of her cake). She asked for a "ponyland cake" and since I have no idea what that is, I made a rainbow cake with green grass and a little pond and put two ponies on top....and apparently it was just what she wanted. Her cousin Rachel came over for dinner and playing last night and brought her another little pony. She came in to me last night before she went in to bed and said, "Mom, I have to tell you something." Then she stomped her foot and said, "Best birthday ever: a present from Rachel and I get to bring my drink to bed." (I don't usually let them take their drinks of water to bed). HE HE HE. I'm glad it was great for her.

Some "AWESOME" things about Megan:
Favorite foods: Macaroni and cheese and fruits and vegetables
Not so favorite foods: potatoes
Favorite movie: Winnie the Pooh (the new one - this is what she told me). She doesn't really have one movie that she wants to watch over and over again - she likes almost all the animated shows we have
Favorite TV show (watched on Netflix): Dragon Tales, Dora, Backyardigans
Favorite color: She says brown, but she also loves pink.
Favorite song: Jar of Hearts
She is a great helper. If I ask someone else to do something, more than half the time Megan will jump and and run to do it before they can. She is also the child who will clean up rooms by herself without being asked the most (by far). There have been so many times that she walks into the house with a pile full of stuff from the van, which she has been cleaning out. She LOVES to hold her baby brother and will ask me over and over again until I finally let her. She loves to play with ponies and barbies and stuffed animals and little character figurines and on the iPad or computer. She plays make believe games with her brothers and sisters and loves to play with Bruno. She is still learning her letters (that's my fault - she must be my third child....HE HE HE), but she catches on to things pretty quick. She loves to practice writing her name, and one of her favorite past times lately is coloring (she will sit and do it for hours, literally). She is the social butterfly of the family: everyone knows her and loves her (seriously all sorts of random people in our ward will make comments to me a(bout Megan). She loves to wear skirts and doesn't mind me doing her hair every day (in fact, just the other day she asked me if I would teach her how to do hair). She is a sweet, happy, energetic, fun girl and we couldn't imagine our family without her.

This is a great picture. Nathan was picking at the frosting - look at all their expressions.

Pumpkins, Parties and Pirates

We did all sorts of celebrating this year:
Fri: Rt 66 School Parade and class parties. That night was the school Fall Festival
Sat: Carved pumpkins, Sean made his chili and we went to our ward Trunk or Treat party (and came home with all sorts of extra candy)
Sun: Just ate candy
Mon: Megan's preschool Halloween performance and potluck. That night I took the kids trick-or-treating to Walmart and Beehive Home Assisted Living. That night we had Family Home Evening and talked about the Holy Ghost (appropriate, don't ya think?).

And I think we went through about 15 costumes between all the events:
Sean and I were Fred and Wilma Flinstone.
Caelan: Taylor Swift, a Vampire (gone soft - she didn't want to wear the collar or teeth) and a witch
Ben: Ninja and the Grim Reaper
Megan: Clown, Princess and a donkey
Nathan: Bob the Builder, Shrek and a pirate
Austin: Bat, an alien and Tigger

She looks so grown up in this picture. Yikes.

Megan and her best bud - cutie pies

Our Shrek

Carving Pumpkins. I gut them and Sean carves.

Fred and Wilma (I think we are dating ourselves because most of the kids had no idea who we were).

The crew.

The Grim Reaper

ET Pumpkin (I think this one was my favorite this year)

Awesome Halloween pumpkin

The pirate and the donkey

Adorable little Tigger

Pumpkin Patch

We love to go to the pumpkin patch. It's like the intro to Fall (and we LOVE Fall) and the beginning of the holiday season. We found a fun little corn maze pumpkin patch to take the kids to this year. We meandered through the corn maze (and had to find little dinosaur stations along the way), the kids climbed on huge piles of hay, they pet some farm animals (and Megan picked up a chicken), we ate cinnamon roasted almonds and pecans and fresh fruit smoothies and picked out a few pumpkins to take home. Fun times.

Happiest 10 Years

Sean and I celebrated our 10th anniversary last week. Can't believe it's been 10 years already, but in other ways I feel like we have been together for a whole lot longer than that. I guess time flies when you're having fun, right? In 10 years we have:
-Both graduated from BYU
-Owned or been in possession of 11 cars plus a scooter
-Lived in 5 states, 7 cities and 11 addresses
-Brought 5 children into this world
-Visited 19 temples and been temple workers
-Hiked the Tetons, Grand Canyon, The Subway (in Zion Nat'l Park) and Mt. Whitney
-Vacationed in Hawaii, New York, Victoria Island (Canada), Florida, 8 National Parks, and 2 Mexican Riviera cruises
-Experienced loss (a miscarriage, my Mom, my grandma Sorensen, my great grandma Blatter, Sean's Grandpa Dick)
-Gotten jobs, lost jobs, transferred jobs, etc
-Served in LOTS of callings in the church: everywhere from Nursery leader to Student Ward Bishopric member
-Snorkeled in Catalina, White water rafted the Snake River, 4-wheeled in Southern Utah, ziplined in Cabo, rode bikes down Palomar mountain

-And also enjoyed all the little things: driving to and from CA and AZ for family events (we could probably do that blind folded), watching Netflix movies at night together, making fudge every Christmas time, camping (whether it's big trips or short over nighters), Sunday afternoon walks as a family, working on household projects, exercising together, texting each other throughout the day about little things, holding hands, carving pumpkins into awesome shapes (I do the removing of the "guts" and Sean carves), sitting outside on summer nights, playing with our kids, quick ice cream runs to Walmart and all the other small things that make life feel full.

10 Years Down - and an ETERNITY to look forward to....

Ben's Lost Tooth

Ben knocked into something last week which made him cry (he's not usually a crier when he gets hurt, so I knew it must have hurt in just a certain way). He said his mouth hurt. I looked in his mouth and noticed that his bottom tooth was loose (whatever he hit knocked that tooth loose). I told him that if he wiggled it around it would probably come out in the next few days. The next morning he woke up with a hole in his mouth - his tooth had come out during the night. Caelan helped him find it in his bed. He was so excited to get to put it under his pillow. Our tooth fairy isn't very punctual - she missed the first night, but did come the next night. Ben found a silver dollar under his pillow, plus she even left the tooth too. He was thrilled. And he is looking so great with his little toothless smile.

The Balloon Fiesta

Sean's sister and her friend came into town for the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. We decided that we didn't want to wake up at the crack of dawn and be out in the cold so early in the morning with a one week old newborn, so instead we just found a dirt field right by the Balloon Fiesta park and watched the balloons launch from there. It was great - no crowds, we didn't even get there until 7:40 AM, it wasn't too cold by then, we ate cinnamon rolls in the car and we still had a fun time watching the balloons go up. It started to get windy about halfway through so lots of the cool huge balloons that we saw last year didn't actually fly: they blew them up on the field but they didn't go up into the air, so we didn't see those, but we had fun watching all the others. Afterwards we went over to the Botanical Gardens where they were having a Harvest Festival: we watched them make fresh apple cider (and bought some to take home - YUM!), rode on a wagon pulled by a tractor, saw the animals and made a corn husk doll.

Austin Thomas

Our little baby is here. Actually he has been here now for a little over 2 weeks. I woke up on Sunday morning (Oct 2) at about 5 AM feeling some contractions. I was four days late at this point. They weren't too hard, but they were definitely contractions, and since I don't ever get Braxton Hicks, I was pretty sure they would eventually turn into some action. I got out of bed at around 6 AM because they were getting more and more consistent (not hard, just a little more regular). I got dressed and started to pack my things. I wanted to wait things out at home for as long as I could, so I just hung out at the house and waited for things to get more serious. A couple hours had gone by and the contractions weren't getting any harder or closer (they were still very easy to get through). They they actually started getting farther apart (this was a little annoying). I decided to take a walk down the street - which definitely helped while I was walking, but when I got back home and sat down they were irregular again. Sean kept asking if I thought I was ready, but the labor didn't seem hard enough or close enough to go in. We live 30 minutes from the hospital so I also didn't want to wait too long, but I had never waited too long before (my labors have never been super speedy ones or anything). So, at 10 AM we turned on General Conference and started watching the morning session. After the hymn in the middle (around 11 or 11:15 or so) I felt a good one, and then another one right after. I actually had to get up and brace myself for these. I went upstairs and had another one, and another one after that. At this point, I thought we had better head to the hospital. We dropped the kids off at our friends house at 11:45 and headed to Albuquerque. I had some good contractions on the way there, but still very manageable. We checked into the admissions desk at 12:33 AM. They sent me into the triage room to monitor me and this is when the seriousness began. The contractions started coming right after another and were getting harder and harder. They hooked me up to the monitors (which are totally uncomfortable - I mean I know why they do it, and especially this time when our little guys heart rate dropped pretty low at one point - but sitting up with monitors around your belly is not a very comfortable way to be in labor). I knew I didn't want an epidural but I asked about getting something else for pain. The nurse said that the midwife was on her way and would check me and then we could do something about the pain. The midwife came in - I had another strong contraction at which point my water broke. She checked me and said, "You are ready to have a baby." I was fully dialated and the baby was in position. They wheeled me up to the delivery room and had me change beds (YIKES). Pretty much the moment I got on the other bed I started pushing - the feeling to push on this labor was stronger than any I have ever had. I even gave a little yell (which surprised Sean - I'm usually not too vocal when I'm in labor) and then I pushed that little guy out. He was born at 1:00 PM (27 minutes after we got to the hospital) - BEST LABOR EVER (mild and easy at home and then BAM - painful but quick at the hospital). Sean said the room was kind of chaotic - people setting up and getting things ready - I didn't notice a thing....he he he. Everyone there was great - pretty much let me do things how I wanted and were just there to help me in any way they could. There was some meconium in my water so they had someone from ICU come up just to make sure everything was fine with the baby (it's procedure). He came out quiet, but then did some good screaming and yelling (the nurse from ICU quietly left). He laid on my belly right after he came out and while I finished up. He was perfect! He weighed 7 lbs 8 oz and was 21 1/2 inches long and had the longest fingers. We stayed in that room for a couple hours and then moved up to my recovery room. He was a great little eater - nursed for 40 minutes like a champion. I went home the next day at 1:30 PM. It was a great hospital stay: nice and fast. Sean went and got the kids and they came to visit on Sunday evening. They were all in love and wanted to take turns holding him. We didn't really have a name picked out and weren't even sure about one until later that night when we decided on Austin. And his middle name, Thomas, is also Sean's middle name. He is a perfect little guy: usually very calm. He has moments when he is so alert (especially for a newborn) and just looking around taking things in. He sleeps okay at night - gets up to eat often but then goes back to sleep until about 6 or 6:30 in the morning when he likes to wake up for a good couple of hours. We are so happy to have him here and healthy.