Wow, how time flies!

Life has been such a whirlwind since Evan was born, and time seems to just be flying by! I cannot believe that in less than a week, I will be back to work again. Evan is almost THREE months old now and my Elliebelle will be 5 in a little over a week! Sheesh, if only I could slow down time. Just a little bit.

We made it through the 2009 Holidays just fine and we're now looking at starting another new routine. Obee will be staying at home with the kids (spending half the day in the car transporting to and from school and Evan to my work for feedings) while I'm back managing the tax office. I'm looking forward to getting back to work, but sad to be away from the kids for some many hours over the next four months. I'm sure it will pass quickly, as it does every year though! I'll go ahead and give a brief rundown with pictures of all the latest and greatest (did I really just write that? ...lol) over the last few months:

October:

For Halloween we had a Ninja, Cinderella, a bunny rabbit, and a duck at our house. We went very LOW maintenance on Halloween this year and pulled ALL the costumes right out of the playroom dress up box, except for the Cinderella costume that was given to us by a friend! Very easy! The kids had a great time trick or treating. Jordyn did the first street, then decided it was all just "too scawry" for her and stayed in the stroller for the remainder of the night. The kids all chose to trade in their candy to the Halloween Fairy who brought them a fun spongebob Operation game in return.

My mom came over and babysat for Obee and I so we could get out for a few hours to attend my friend Lupita's Halloween party. It was sweet of her to come watch the kids and it felt good getting out just the TWO of us. I went as a nerd and Obee as a cub scout. ;)

November:

I'm lucky enough to have met some very talented photographer friends through my midwife who is also a photographer. The three of them came over to our house when Evan was 5 wks old and did a beautiful photo shoot. Here are a couple of the photos from that:

Hayden earned his Bobcat award in cub scouts, along with 5 of his belt loop awards and three pins for things such as Basketball, soccer, baseball, ice skating, and learning about a foreign culture. We are very proud of how hard he worked to earn these things!We spent Thanksgiving at my parents house this year, drama free for the most part...yay! We wanted leftovers, so we invited them back over to our house the Saturday afterward for another thanksgiving meal. I think we'll all be fine waiting another year to have turkey and stuffing again! If you know me, you know that the highlight of Thanksgiving for me is actually the day AFTER...black Friday! I went out with my hardcore shopping team and got almost all of our Christmas shopping done that day.

December:

It actually snowed in Rocklin and Loomis this year! Hayden was so excited to build a snowman (a small one hee hee) at school during recess, and Jordyn got to play at Gramma's house in it! I think I was 5, the last time it snowed THIS much around here!

Christmas Eve and Christmas morning were at our house this year. My parents, Niece Haley, and two of my brothers even came here at 6am on Christmas morning to join us in the present opening. The kids enjoyed so much having their Gramma and Grampa here! Afterward, we all went out to breakfast and then over to my parents for the rest of the day. It was a really nice day and I cannot believe that we're already about to begin 2010! I hope everyone has a happy and safe New Year!

And Jordyn and Ellie decided to end 2009 with something spectacular...like rolling in the mud! They almost make it look like something we should all be doing!

one week photos of Evan

Our little guy is already one week old today! I cannot BELIEVE how quickly the time is going by. Knowing that Evan is our last, I have this desperate need for him to slow down and stay as little as possible for as long as possible! Today I attempted to do a photo shoot, which I'm finding is pretty much impossible around here! Either there isn't enough natural light, he isn't sleepy, or when he IS sleepy, one of his siblings will run in and wake him up trying to help me take the pictures or loving on him! I really underestimated how tough it would be to do newborn pictures on my OWN baby! Hopefully Ellie and Jordyn will allow me to try again in the morning. I have some poses in mind that I really want to try out on him before he gets too big to be nice an squishy and bendable! Here's the few I DID get today that are okay though...

One Day Old

First bath with Daddy

Welcome Evan Gabriel Boungnasiri

Today at 1:58am we welcomed our sweet baby boy, Evan, into the world! He was born here at home, into the hands of his mommy and welcomed with kisses from Daddy, Hayden, Ellie, Jordyn and Gramma!

Evan's birth was beautiful and I'm so happy that we were able to have another great home birth where we could all be a part of welcoming him into our family! My contractions began about 11:30pm, and we called the midwives and my mom to come on over right away since they were very intense like the ones when Jordyn was born. After Jordyn's birth (about an hour of Labor) I had said that I would have preferred a couple more hours of labor this time. WELL, I got what I wished for I guess! My total labor was 2 1/2 hours long. Although it was quick and everything worked out perfectly, Evan's birth took more of a toll on my body than Jordyn's did. His water bag never broke and it took SO much out of me pushing it out! In some ways it felt like I had to give birth to two babies because I had to push that out until we eventually broke it, and then HIM!My mom woke the kids up before he was born, and they were so excited to be a part of everything. They all rubbed his head and kissed him while we were still in the tub, and then when Evan and I got out, we all cuddled up in the bed together for awhile until they had to go back to bed and get some sleep for school the next day.

We got the tub and everything all set up the night before....

We set the video camera up on a tripod on top of the bathroom counter to make sure it could not get tipped over, and nobody would stand right in front of it this time! Before my mom and the midwives arrived, we kept track of the contractions online on contraction master.... Here we are hanging out between contractions, about a 1/2 hour before Evan was born. I love t his picture because we both look so excited and happy about the impending arrival of our little guy!

First Kisses!

This is my absolute FAVORITE part of having a home birth! The whole family cuddling up in our bed and getting to know our newest member of the family!

We also feel very lucky because Evan had somehow made a double knot in his cord! The midwives said they had never seen anything like it before, the way he had it all knotted up more than once. It was quite interesting to see. If this picture is too graphic for you (cord and placenta) sorry but don't look.....

39 weeks...and no baby yet!

Well, this is officially the LONGEST I've ever been pregnant for. I never thought I would make it past yesterday, just based on when my other three arrived, but apparently I have set myself up for a little disappointment! Who knows WHEN this little one plans on making his/her appearance. I'm getting anxious to meet this baby, and while I am not really minding the fact that I'm still pregnant, what is driving me crazy is the whole not knowing WHEN it will all happen. Geez, I'm such a control freak! It's hard though, making plans for our week and not really knowing which plans we'll be able to keep or not. Hopefully the full moon tonight will have some effect on us and set labor into motion. Every night we put the kids to bed telling them that this might be "the" night and preparing them for what will happen when mommy goes into labor. I'm hoping for another super quick delivery like Jordyn's (well, maybe two hours instead of just one hour would be nicer) so that the kids will be able to sleep through everything until the moment when the baby is coming out. That worked out so perfectly last time. I'm so happy to be having this baby at home, like my girls were. I can't wait for that time after he/she is born and the whole family is snuggled up in the bed admiring our newest family member. I'm so hormonal right now, that I'm almost in tears just thinking about it!

A couple of weeks ago, one of my midwives who loves photography, and two other photographers got together to do our first maternity shoot on a mom who was pregnant with twins. Tomorrow morning we're all going to meet up over at the midwives home and go over the pictures that we got, and then deliver them to the twins mom and dad. I'm going over to their house a little earlier though, for my prenatal appt. This one BETTER be the last one I have to go to before baby arrives! Hopefully, my body will have made some progress showing that this baby is going to arrive soon. :)

Oh, and I'm REALLY not looking my best in this picture! None of my shirts are long enough to cover my belly anymore, and we were just getting ready to go on our nightly walk. The girls were already in their PJ's.

Just Because

I love this little girl so much!

38 weeks

I'm 38 weeks now. I went in for my midwife appointment today, which I thought would be my last before this baby is born, and was still only dilated to 2cm. Ugh! I was really hoping for some more progress on that front, but oh well. Obee has been working over at their house all month, remodeling their bathroom and putting in a new shower for them, etc. He STILL isn't done and I don't think the midwives want me to have the baby (and Obee either for that matter) until he's finished at least the shower so they can use it. I don't really blame them, but c'mon, I'm really getting tired of waiting for him to be done with this project. It's partly my own fault because I've been having him work fewer hours than usual so he can pick Hayden up from school everyday. I guess it's a trade off, because I am so tired in the afternoons and really don't feel like waking up a grumpy 2yr old from her nap to go get Hayden and then going through the whole homework routine and trying to keep the girls entertained at the same time thing by myself in the afternoons!

I think this baby will be our biggest yet! My belly is getting so huge. We've been talking daily walks everynight with the kids, and it has been some nice family time together before they go to bed. Some nights are easier than others, depending on how tired the kids are and what the day was like! I find that I want to walk "longer" than the rest of the family, so we've started having Hayden ride in the bike trailer stroller and the girls in the double jogger. That way we don't have to worry about anyone freaking out in the middle of the walk because they're tired and grumpy. :)

As you can see, I had to take this picture of my OWN belly! I don't know how some ladies do it. I could not take a clear picture of myself for the life of me! Anyway, this is the best shot I got, standing in the bathroom trying to snap the shot before the kids came in and wanted to take pictures of their own. lol

The Tie Dye Project

Well, since the baby isn't here yet, and Obee was working today, I decided it would be a great day for the kids to make some gifts for the baby! Our neighbors across the street just had a baby in July and brought us over a huge stash of newborn clothing (mostly boy stuff) the other day. They also gave us an awesome baby cradle and a giant bag of newborn pampers swaddlers. Between those, and the newborn diapers I got on clearance at Savemart a couple of weeks ago, we won't have to hit the cloth diapers for quite awhile this time!

Anyway, my point was to mention that included in that huge stash of clothing they brought us, were a gazillion white newborn onesie's. We decided it would be fun to use a few of these to tie dye for the baby, as a gift from his/her siblings! I was able to buy a tie dying kit at JoAnne's for only $7.99, which included all of the dye's, rubber bands, instructions, and gloves. It was our first attempt ever at tie dying and the kids has a blast! They loved it so much that we even tie dyed a few other items (like their socks) later in the day. Ellie has been begging to do it again, so maybe we'll do another round of tie dying later in the week too!

The best part about it, was that each outfit came out SO differently! The kids all did a great job, and the baby has a very special outfit from each of them now. I even dug in and made one for him/her too!