He's Here!!!

Grant Heber

9lbs 4oz 21 inches

That's right, our monster baby is here.  Took him long enough.  I've decided that our boy babies are just stubborn about being born.  Not that our girls were all that early, but there were earlier than the boys.  I didn't go over this time, but I made it exactly to my due date.  I had awesome nurses, but I must say this: don't tell a woman in labor to stop pushing when the baby's head has started to come out, especially if she hasn't had an epidural cause it just isn't happening.  Luckily the on call doctor runs fast and is a good catch.  Everyone was surprised at how large he was.  I had been told to expect another 8 lb baby, but not quite as big as Bradley, and that estimate was from an ultrasound at 34 weeks.  The doctor who delivered Grant guessed that he would be 8 and change so was shocked when the nurse put him on the scale.

The lovely after delivery picture, no Grant isn't actually screaming, and my expression is weird because Brandon had already taken a picture but the flash didn't go off and I was ready for the first one but not the second one.  Our really awesome home teacher came to sit in our house while the kids slept, and ended up talking to Britton in the wee hours of the night and holding Bradley.  

 The kids were all really excited about baby Grant.  Britton didn't complain much about us not using the name she wanted.  This was after school for Caitlyn and William.  Brandon was good enough to make sure they got there on time and did their homework.  All while I relaxed at the hospital, can you call it relaxing when they have to come check on you every four hours or so?  And poor Grant kept getting pricked on the heel because he was so big and they were worried about his blood sugar dropping too low.

 Just waiting to go home.  Don't you love the chubby cheeks?  He likes to be on his side, a little strange to me because none of the other kids went to their side from the get go.

 Bradley insisted on his own picture after climbing on the bed.  He has been pretty good about there being a new baby.  And it is cute to hear him try to say Grant.

 Britton insisted on her own picture, with the couch.  I'm not sure why the couch is important and I have no idea why she is posing like this but she said the picture was good.

At home.  I was just excited to sleep in my own bed.  It is nice that the beds in the mother/baby area are more comfortable than the beds in the labor/delivery area but that doesn't actually make them comfortable.  There may not be a whole lot of activity on the blog for a while.  I am personally planning on sleeping a lot of the time that Brandon has off from work.  And in case anyone wants to know, Grant is just a name we really liked and Heber is a family name from my mom's side of the family and Brandon's grandma's also.

39 weeks

So we are a week away from my due date.  I have had people at church look amazed that I am that close, and they always ask if I am just done.  I just have to shake my head and tell them that I'm not surprised that I am still pregnant, none of our kids have been even a week before their due dates.  I am hoping that I don't go over my due date like I did last time but I'm not holding my breath.  But we did discover something.  Brandon was trying to get the kids to settle down for family home evening so he had every stand up, stretch their arms up high, and then bend over and touch their toes.  Guess what?  I can touch my toes.

 

 I made Brandon take a picture just so I had proof.

Yep, seven days before my due date and I can touch my toes.  This is partly because the baby had dropped down a bit but still, I can touch my toes.  I was really excited.

Labor Day Weekend

Just thought I would share some of our adventures from Labor Day weekend.  Brandon ran in the Dirty dash with some coworkers.  It was supposed to be in August but then the race had so many people sign up they had to move to a bigger venue and the race was moved to Labor Day weekend.  So we had to get the kids up early, which they don't really like, but they really enjoyed the ride because of what we saw out the windows.

 Hot air balloons.  Brandon thought this picture was funny, but since we were driving it was purely accidental.

 Every Labor Day weekend the city hosts the Balloon Classic. 

Three days worth of hot air balloons.  Two nights they have a Glow, the balloons stay on the ground lit up by their burners.  We didn't take the kids to either one of those.  The balloons didn't launch Sunday morning, I think because of weather, but they did go up Saturday and Monday.

 Brandon and his coworkers all clean before the race.  And looking so happy.

Just waiting to start.

 The kids were not happy about all the waiting but we finally saw them.

 At the finish line.  Which was more water than mud.

Dirty at the end but still looking pretty happy.

Monday we decided  to try and see the balloons take off.  I only agreed because the balloons take off here in town.  My mom was always threatening to take us to the balloon festival in Driggs, I say threatening because she told us we would be getting up around three in the morning.  Because there was a weather delay we did manage to get to the park before all the balloons had taken off.  Unfortunately there was no where close to park so Brandon dropped us off at the corner and we watched and waited for him to find us.

Even from the edge of the park we were able to hear the burners and watch the balloons take off.

 The Wyoming balloon.

 This was Caitlyn's favorite balloon because it had a unicorn.

 All the balloons were in a field in the middle of the park and they were all inflating at the same time.

 Brandon found us and we moved closer after eating donuts.

 The kids liked the Smokey Bear balloon.  It was the only shape balloon, but all the balloons were gorgeous.

There was so much to look at it was hard to get the kids' attention.  Bradley was in seventh heaven, he kept yelling "hot balloon" and he still wonders where they went.  It was fun to see them floating around that weekend.

August Celebrations

I should be better about getting things up when they happen, then I wouldn't have to lump everything together.  On the other hand we kind of lumped everything time wise during the month of August.  We celebrated our 9th anniversary.  I realized that I have been pregnant for four of our anniversaries, would have been five but Bradley was born in July.  We ate Chinese food, watched The Hunger Games and Brandon went to work.

The next day was Brandon's birthday.  Brandon claims that because of this he will never forget our anniversary.  He had to work early on his birthday, and it was the first time in about eight years that he had to work on his birthday, but that meant we got to have cake and ice cream with everyone that night.

 I found this cake online last year and cannot find the site anymore.  But the cake is surrounded by KitKats, just stick them in the frosting, and has Whoppers on top.  The cake was chocolate, and I probably should have used a white or yellow cake because it was a little bit of a chocolate overload.  But the kids were excited, mainly because they were pulling candy off the cake for the next couple of days.

 Such a handsome fella.  Can't believe he is 31 right?

Shortly after Brandon's birthday is William's birthday.  See what I mean by the lumping of events?  William was really excited that his birthday was during school, every other school year school started after his birthday.  So he was excited to take snacks and be there on his birthday.

 We surprised him with a bike before breakfast.  The girls managed to keep it a secret for three weeks.

 Everyone ready to take William and Caitlyn to school.  Mostly happy.

Because of Brandon's schedule, which is great for errands and stuff for me and the little kids but not so great for the ones in school, I have convinced the kids that birthday dinners and cake and ice cream will be on Saturdays.  William wanted pizza and ice cream cake.

 The ice cream cake.  I got an awesome recipe for ice cream cake from the book Devil's Food Cake by Josi S. Kilpack.  You can find the recipes from the book online.  It is called Died and Gone to Heaven Cake.

Inside the cake.  William requested chocolate ice cream.  Of course now the girls are starting to put in requests for their birthday cakes and dinners.  It is hard convincing Britton she has to wait three months.  But we made it through August.  I can't believe William is 8.  He was very excited that his birthday was on a Tuesday because Scouts is on Wednesdays so he got to go right after his birthday.

My Weekend Alone

So this weekend something really exciting happened.

Haley got married!

So Brandon's sister got married and we are all really excited for her.  The kids absolutely love Aunt Haley and they are pretty excited about their new Uncle McKay.  Now the hard thing about this, for me anyway, was the fact that their wedding day was a month before my due date.  Needless to say I had an issue with driving that far at 36 weeks, and flying wasn't an option, so the plan was for Brandon to drive.  At first I thought he was going to be our lone representative but then he started talking about taking the kids out of school so they could be there too.  And then we saw on the school calendar that they had testing days leading up to the wedding weekend so they only had to miss one day of school but were gone from Thursday to Monday.  So then I thought Brandon was going to just take the older two, but of course Britton wanted to go and then I thought I was going to have a relaxing weekend with just me and Bradley.  And then Brandon said, "Why don't I take all four?"  I told him he was crazy but I wasn't going to fight him all that hard.  So Brandon loaded all the kids up and they took off and I spent the weekend by myself.

Here are some pictures of their weekend.

 Their colors were yellow and teal so I made the girls some skirts from this tutorial and then I made ties for the boys and Brandon and the baby.  I made the ties with a pattern from The Ribbon Retreat.  If you have this pattern I have to warn you I've had to play with it a bit.  The first time I made a tie for Brandon I used the insert to make the tie longer and it was way too long.  So for Brandon I have to use the pattern pieces for the 7-10 ages, but this is too long for William.  The 1-3 age tie length works great for Bradley but is a little short for William.  So for William I split the fold in half on the pattern pieces.

 The whole reason they made the trip.

 There was a lot of staying up late, and dancing.

 More dancing.  The kids really like McKay.  I was lucky enough to get to meet him when I took the kids out to my parents for spring break.  And he was great with them then also.

Dancing with Aunt Haley.

So that is how they spent their weekend.  Okay that wasn't everything but Brandon only took pictures on the day of the wedding so I don't have pictorial proof of other activities that were participated in.  Brandon did say that everyone loved the kids.  I think that might be because they were the only little kids there, they are the only grandkids on that side of the family.  That isn't to say that there aren't loved on my side of the family, but the novelty of small children may have worn off a little.  So you might wonder what I did with my weekend.  So here you go.

 Yep, I made a blanket.  But not just any blanket, see here.  It is a lot of sewing.  So spent Thursday sewing, pretty much all day.  I did take some breaks to finish the laundry.  And I got all the baby clothes washed.

And after the sewing there is the cutting through the back layers, rounded the edges, and put some bias tape around the edge.  So that is the last baby project since I put an edge on some swaddling blankets made from cotton gauze.  And for the rest of the weekend I slept as long as I wanted, went to church all by myself, and got the grocery shopping done before they got home.  Brandon now agrees with me that he would have to be crazy to drive that far with four kids by himself.  I don't think he will be volunteering for that anytime soon.

School days

That's right, school has started for us.  Don't they look ready?  Their first day of school was August 2.  Is that crazy early for anyone else?  William only had about 7 weeks of summer vacation.  Basically just June and July.

 Our great big kindergartener.  The schools changed this school year and kindergarten is full day.  Which is great in one way, William picks Caitlyn up from school and they come home together so I don't have to be right there when the bell rings.  So far she is loving it.

 Britton is now talking about when she will go to school.  Two more years of that I guess.

 Third grade, wow.  I can't believe he is in third grade this year.  He loves school, thank goodness.

 Everyone had to have their picture taken.  I love this picture, mainly because it reminds me of Crystal.  For those of you who know my little sister, if she smiles really, really big her eyes tend to disappear. (Love you Crys!)  So this smile of Bradley's definitely comes from my side of the family.

All the kids together on the first day.  Why Britton is wearing long sleeves on a hot day, I have no idea.  And don't you like how Bradley is still in his pajamas?  This happens on a lot of mornings.  Britton and Bradley are trying to come to terms with being the only ones home.  I'm hoping that they figure out how to play well with each other.

Sunprint Shirts

So about four years ago I was flipping through channels while waiting for Brandon to come  home from work, something I still do, and I got caught up in some crafting show on PBS.  That is what happens when you only have over the air channels, but luckily PBS had four digital channels.  Anyway, I saw them do this really cool thing with fabric paint.  So I got some and we made shirts at a family reunion and then I promptly forgot about them.  When we moved I realized that I still had them, and I thought that this summer might be a good time to use them again.  And I managed to use them twice.  So money well spent right?  I may have to actually try using them as fabric paints instead of just doing the sunprinting but for now that is all I have used them for.  So here you go.

Okay, so first things first.  The paint is Setacolor Transparent fabric paint.  I found it at Michael's, but I don't remember how much it was.  Only the transparent colors will work, from what I have read.  I have four colors, red, yellow, blue, and pink.  I bought the pink because I couldn't mix pink.  But you can mix the colors together and it works just great.  If you are doing sunprinting you have to water the paint down.  I read somewhere that it was suggested a 2:1 ratio, water to paint, but you can water it down as much as you want the colors just won't be as vivid.  Then you need something to paint, natural fibers suggested.  I went out and got a couple of packs of undershirts so the kids could do this a couple of times.  Wash whatever it is you are going to be painting.

 Here is my watered down paint.  Since I was making shirts for Independence Day I was just using red and blue.

 My washed white shirt.  Inside the shirt I have a piece of cardboard with a plastic bag over it.  This is so the paint doesn't bleed through.  And you have to wet the fabric down before painting.  So I just sprayed it really well with a spray bottle.

I have no pictures taken during the actual painting process.  The watered down paint and the damp material makes the paint spread and bleed.  So it gives it a tied dye effect.  But you can leave more white between sections.  I was working fast because Brandon was at work and the kids were all over the place.  After you paint you make a design with whatever, I spelled out USA in pennies.  Press your design into paint so it sticks.  If you are using paper designs you may have to place something heavy on them if it is windy.  And then you put it out in the sun.  It can be done inside but it works faster outside in the sunlight.

 The coolest part, where you have placed your objects turns white.  The paint is drawn to the sunlight.

 So here is the whole design.  Not really fancy, but I had some unsupervised children whilst I was doing this so I went for simple.

Naked baby "helping" is completely optional.

We did shirts twice this summer, I mostly did the USA shirts by myself, and we had friends come paint with us one day.  And I took absolutely no pictures of that process.  But here are a couple of our shirts after.  We used stencils and craft sticks and canning lid rings.  Britton had used lots of colors on her shirt and then spilled the blue paint, so that is why the one shirt is mostly blue.

Once the paint is dry you heat set it, they suggest an iron but I have found that if you throw them in the dryer it works just fine.  Of course I tried to make a couple of shirts and wasn't happy with how they turned out, so I washed them in super hot water and bleach and the paint didn't budge at all.  So the paint has staying power.  And it doesn't feel like a painted shirt so it acts more like a dye.  So there you have it.  And the paint was still good four years after the purchase.