Back to School

I can't believe that I am a mom to a second grader. A second grader! 

At the beginning of August, it was time to get back into a routine and send the kids off to school. Ethan was more than ready and excited to head back to the classroom. His teacher this year is Mrs. Rollins and she seems to be really good for Ethan. She demands and expects a lot of her students....perfect for our Ethan! 

He was clearly thrilled to be taking pictures. Classic boy. 

Ellie on the other hand threw out every pose she could think of! 

She started preschool the week after Ethan started school. She goes to a cute preschool in our neighborhood and her teacher is Miss, Juliette. She LOVES school and lives for activities like this. She goes 3 times a week in the afternoons- love afternoon preschool!! 

She is a social butterfly and comes home from preschool telling me about all the play dates that she has set up with her preschool friends. 

She is just a little ray of sunshine! 

More Wolf Creek, UT Pics

When I dumped all the pictures from my phone on my computer, I found a whole bunch of pictures from the Chapman Family Reunion. So they are all out of order but at least they are getting documented. 

On our way up to northern Utah for the Chapman reunion, we stopped by in St. George, UT for the Barlocker Reunion. Justin's grandma was a Barlocker and this reunion was all her siblings an their posterity. It was huge! It is so cool to be a part of such a rich and long standing LDS family. Almost all of Justin's siblings could be there...we are just missing Barrett and Chanda (and their spouses..and kid).

Up at the Chapman reunion, we played lots of family games and outdoor sports like ultimate frisbee and volleyball. 

Justin is such a good daddy. He loves his kids. 

The minute to win it games were a whole lot of fun!

Ethan is quite competitive. I have no idea where he gets it from :)

There were also many classes that we could attend during the day. Each person taught different classes and showed us their talents. Aubrey taught us a fabulous bread making class that Ellie got to help demonstrate just how easy it is to make pretzels.

We also went to card making, essential oils, origami, and a few other really cool classes. I was lucky enough to teach aerobics every morning too!

Ellie made a new friend with her 2nd cousin Raia. They are cute little friends. 

Chalene and Caryn had fun trying out new finger nail polish on Dad. We all laughed pretty hard and I think he'd be pretty embarrassed to see this picture! Good thing he doesnt really read my blog :)

Ethan and Ellie had fun finding all sorts of reptiles/amphibians around the pond area while everyone was playing volleyball. 

With the road trip up to Utah, my feet became pretty huge and swollen and stayed that way until we came back home to AZ. For some reason I always swell in Utah when I'm hugely pregnant but I never have in AZ. Weird. After the 14 hour car ride back home, and being 38 weeks pregnant, they were gigantic and jiggled with every step! This picture doesn't even do them justice, I need a before and after!

When we finally got back home, it marked the end of our summer travels. We had been traveling for almost 2 months straight all over the country. It was the best summer but considering Ethan started school a few days after we got home, we had to call our travels quits and stay put for a while. I think everyone was wiped out!

July and August Photo Dump

 I just dumped all my photos from my phone on my computer so all these pictures are kinda all over the place. 

The monsoons came and always bring tons of debris with it. Luckily I have a good sweeper to help me clean up the mess. He cleans better with just a diaper and a Dora backpack on.

 Behold the ripened state of a pregnant woman heavy with child....

37 weeks pregnant. 

We bought annual passes to the IDEA Museum in Mesa and whenever we were in town in the summer, we always made sure to go. Air conditioned fun while enduring the blistering hot AZ summer!

Mason especially loved playing Linus' piano. 

After living here for 2 years, I finally got around to decorating our formal room. Well, at least half of it anyways. I'm still trying to decide what to do with the other half where our piano is. We put in crown moulding and the plank wall and my sis in law, Stephanie, helped me put the colors and stuff together. I love it. 

 The kids went back to school early August so while Justin was in Guatemala (or somewhere foreign), I took the kids out to ice cream as a back to school treat.

 The week I was due with Cameron, I took sweet Ellie out for a mommy-daughter date for pedis and manis. I thought she would love it but unfortunately she got a lady that kept telling her to be still and sit still in a thick vietnamese accent that Ellie couldn't understand. I mean, she's 4. I think she did pretty darn good!

It was still fun to get out and have some one on one time with my favorite little girl. 

I went crazy and chopped a good amount of my hair off that same week. 

I actually really, really love having shorter hair. May I also add that it is SO wonderful that my neighbor, Angie, is a rockin' awesome hair dresser. It's pretty awesome that I can use the baby monitor and get my hair done during naptime!

A few days later, Cameron was born (see older post for details). 

Milk drunk at about 3 days old. 

Ellie is one of the sweetest people I know. She is naturally loving and caring and can always be found carefully taking care of her siblings. I caught her sweetly talking to Cam on the bed one morning....she just makes my heart swell with love!

 All our kids get jaundice bad enough to where we have to go home with a bili blanket. Cam was no exception. We just called him our little glow worm. 

I have a ton of pictures with this cute kiddo...I guess when you are hanging out together 24 hours a day, it's normal. 

The kids have just discovered how much fun it is to limbo and we sometimes have limbo-ing parties in the evening. 

I LOVE cuddling with a sleeping baby. 

Blurry picture but I just have to document the amazing dinner that our neighbor, Lily, brought over for us soon after Cam was born. Lily is from the Dominican Republic and is the sweetest lady. I guess she was talking with Justin earlier in the week and he told her that he was going to be out of town the coming up week. So to help me out, she surprised me and the kids with a yummy authentic Dominican dinner. 

We were amazed with the amount of people who provided us with dinners. The relief society set up dinner for 4 days and we had people calling and asking to bring  us dinners for 2 full weeks. Amazing. We felt so loved and are so grateful for the wonderful people we live near. So blessed. 

Ellie's battery ran out on the 4 wheeler and Ethan pushed her all the way home. I guess they do love each other sometimes!

The weather is starting to cool down over here (meaning, it's in the high 90s) so we like to be outsie any time we get! It's funny seeing all the families come out of summer hibernation when we go to the park. 

 Ellie was so proud that she put on her swimsuit all by herself. She even found her Peruvian beanie to go with it! :)

Once Cameron started to get down a schedule of sorts, I could do activities with the kids again. Playdough, painting, drawing, and coloring are always easy favorites to do. 

I felt brave and took everyone to Costco for lunch one day too. They were pretty excited since we never do this. 

Any one else enduring college football season at their house?! :) I'd say, Justin has a pretty good game watching buddy.

Cameron Lee Smith

I am still trying to catch up from the summer on this neglected blog of mine, but I should probably write about our sweet little Cameron Lee that joined our family a few weeks ago. 

 

He was born on August 14, the day before my due date, at 10:31pm. 

8lbs 1oz (our biggest baby!)

20in long

I had this baby au natural. No epidural, no pain meds, nada. Yes, it was by choice due to complications with previous epidurals post partum.  

So because I know my dad, grandpa, and brother in laws occasionally read my blog...I'll keep the details G rated :)

I was having contractions for weeks and was by this time, really ready to have this baby!  I went to my doctor's appointment that morning and had him strip my membranes. I could tell that my body was totally ready and well on it's way to labor so i didn't mind having him jump start things a little bit. 

Things really didn't start happening though until about 6pm that evening. I could tell that my contractions were starting to pick up and become consistent. I decided that I didn't want to make dinner that night an so we all hopped in the car and headed to Zupas. 

The car ride was a bit painful and I was having to semi-breathe through contractions so we opted to just pick up the food and bring it home. I could tell though that we were going to have a baby that night!

By around 8pm, I needed to lay down during the contractions. At about 9pm, I hopped in our tub. It really is a true Aqua-dural! Somewhere around 9:45 ish, I was hot in the water so I got out of the tub. Once I got out of the tub and dressed, my body started shaking during contractions, I felt nauseated, and I knew it was time to head to the hospital.  My contractions by this point were only lasting around 60 seconds and were 2-3 minutes apart...so by the "book" it was too early to go in but I knew my body and knew we had better boogie to the hospital. 

The 7 minute ride to the hospital, was probably the worst and longest car ride of my life! Contractions picked up big time and I was now moaning through camel back contractions. We got to the hospital, walked past a super full waiting room, and went into admittance. I don't think I opened my eyes the whole time I was in the office and I was just trying to relax my shaking body through moaning and deep breathing (I'm sure I was quite a sight!) while she asked us question after question. The lady then told us that they didn't have any room in triage and to take a seat in the waiting area. This is when I piped up and said something to extent of, "There is no way I am going to labor like this out there in front of all those people! If I have to wait can you find another place for me?!" They lady said to hold on and went and got a nurse from L&D. The nurse took one look at me, asked me what number baby this was (I just held up 4 fingers), and she got a wheel chair and wheeled me back to Labor and delivery. 

Everything from here on out is kind of a blur. I know they were asking Justin all sorts of questions, and I hadn't opened my eyes the whole time... I was just trying to keep my body relaxed! They got me to the room and I crawled up on the bed....I didnt even change in a hospital gown. I delivered in my regular clothes! They checked me and I was at a 9 and fully effaced. I heard one nurse ask the other if she was prepared to deliver this baby and honestly I didn't even care if my doctor made it there or not at this point! 

When we got to the hospital is when I started experiencing some MAJOR back pain. I asked the nurse if it was normal to have that much back pain and she said, "Well, it is if the baby is sunny side up." Sure enough...he was. It was at this point that I said I wanted an epidural, or anything to help me manage the intense back pain! My labor nurse looked at me and said, "Hun, this is the hardest part. You are almost there. You can do this! I believed her and I think chanted "I can do this. I can do this" while trying to get through the contractions. She was AMAZING. Her name was Erin and she was phenomenal in applying hard pressure to my lower back with each contraction. 

My doctor was there in less than 10 minutes of getting into the room, broke my water, and I started pushing a few minutes later. You definitely know when you need to push! I thought it was incredible how your body truly numbs itself down there while you are pushing. I definitely still felt intense contractions pushing that baby down, but as far as the "ring of fire" I don't think I felt it.  Justin said I had a death grip on his arm though while pushing!

 After two pushes, our little boy came out to meet the world! I think this might have been the first time I opened my eyes for the whole 30 minutes that we were at the hospital! The doctor held the baby up and said, "Ok dad, what is it?!" And Justin said "It's a BOY!! Everyone else was right!" He was then placed in my arms.   I think I was half laughing half crying, still trying to wrap my brain around what I had just accomplished and I told Justin "This is so amazing!!! But I don't think I ever want to do this again!!" Haha! Writing this a few weeks later, I think I would actually do it again. Recovery was SO easy. No tearing, no numb legs, no tweaked back, it was amazing. My back was a little sore though from all the back labor but nothing compared to what it has been for me in the past with the epidural. 

My motives of delivering this baby natural were not to be "super woman" but I must say that going through natural childbirth is empowering. I definitely felt a sense of accomplishment knowing that I endured something so hard!

Of course he had jaundice, just like our other kids,  and had to be under the bili blanket for about a week, but he is fine now  and is slowly losing his yellow coloring.

The kids have all adjusted really well to a new baby and a sleep deprived mommy. I really haven't had any issues with the kids acting out or anything. Mason has become a lot more busy and into things but at least he is happy doing it. 

Ethan was NOT thrilled about our name choice. Apparently, he knows a Cameron at school and he isn't a nice kid. We told him that he can now see that there are nice Cameron's in the world too. I think Ethan's over the name thing by now :)

Cam is now 3 weeks old and is such a good little guy. We've had a lot of trouble with nursing and after week 2 of it not getting any better and me being ripped to shreds, I gave in and went to a lactation consultant. After nursing 3 other babies, I knew something wasn't quite right. Turns out Cam is tongue tied which is why I am in SO much pain. We are getting his frenulum snipped tomorrow which will hopefully fix my our nursing woes. 

Every day he keeps getting cuter and cuter and definitely favors Ethan as of now. He has two dimples which are going to probably get him out of trouble in the future...I pretty much melt at the

 sight of them :) He does pretty good sleeping. He eats every three hours but goes right back to sleep at night. I can't complain. 

We love him and are so grateful that he is a part of our family!!! I cant believe we have 3 boys!!