Cameron's Blessing

We blessed Cameron on February 22nd so that my Mom and Rachel could come up and stay for a week and go to both Cameron and Kayleigh's blessings. We had lots of fun, and of course lots of good food. Thank you everybody for helping out. If it wasn't for you, I would not have made it to church on time (which is pretty sad because I have 1:00 church!) Ü
After a week of staying up late playing games and chatting...my family was pretty tuckered out!

Happy Birthday Carter!

Well, the highly anticipated day has now come and gone. My little Carter-Cutie is now 6 years old. Carter has been informing me all month that it is his "special day." Especially when I would tell him he couldn't do something. When it finally was his "special day" I did let him plan out the day's events and boss everyone around. The meals he chose were:





"The Biggest Breakfast Ever"-
Pancakes (He chose the biggest AND the smallest one)
Raspberry Yogurt
Toast?
Apple Juice

Lunch -
He would have chosen squiggly noodles...but we were out, so he chose:
"Cheesy Quesadillas" made with corn tortillas. NO sour cream!
An Apple, not cut, because he wanted it to help get his loose tooth out.

Dinner -
Spaghetti with no onions, mushrooms, or tomato chunks.
Salad

I think his favorite part about choosing the menu was that he got to help make everything. He's a great helper and he loves to mix, measure, and pour things.

We celebrated Carter's Birthday a little early because my Mom and Rachel were in town. He wanted a Millennium Falcon cake, and this is what we came up with. Steve had the brilliant idea to make it out of cupcakes, and Laura did all the detail work. I know...I know...I'm always pawning off the hard stuff, but I think I did a great job slathering the cupcakes with purple metallic gray frosting! I didn't take any pictures of him opening his presents at that party or at Grandma and Grandpa Stewart's on his actual Birthday, but Carter scored some much needed clothes (How do they wear through the knees of their jeans SO fast?), lots of activity books and markers, Spongebob Legos with TONS of pieces (Thanks Steve and Jess!), various potato heads, a transformer that looks like a cop but is a bad guy so they tell me, 2 Ninja Turtles (Shredder chopped the arms off of a couple of his old ones), and Diego Chutes and Ladders. Thank you everyone for helping make this a fun and memorable Birthday for Carter!

Happy Valentine's Day!

To Celebrate Valentine's Day we...

decorated rice crispy treats...

I stole this idea from my friend's blog. Aren't they cute? They were delicious! We gave some to Carter's teacher and ate the rest. (Yes, Carter's in that phase where we can't get him to smile normally.)

made valentines for Daddy...

Carter's includes a picture of Mommy and Daddy kissing on their wedding day, and the ever popular television and X-box combo (his favorite thing to do with his Dad). Lydia and Meleah's are a little more abstract as you can see.

and ate pink heart-shaped pancakes.
I hope everyone had a fabulous Day of Love!

25 Random Things

I got this tag on facebook and decided to copy it on here if for nothing else than to move the massive pregnant woman a little further down on the screen. Here are 25 random things about me:

1. I can't stand to have dry feet or socks on when I go to bed. I put lotion on every night right before shut-eye. I even have to make my husband put it on for me when I can't do it myself (after c-section, etc.), which is only a big deal because my husband hates feet. 
2. I like to play with my food. I split my bananas into thirds, peel every last membrane off my grapefruit, peel my grapes...
3. I usually eat one thing on my plate at a time until it's gone, and I can't stand when two different items are touching.
4. I'm horrible at decorating my home for several different reasons: I'm creatively challenged, and I hate spending money or cleaning time on things that don't have a function.
5. I'm a reality TV junkie. I love American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, Biggest Loser, Iron Chef America...you name it, I've seen it.
6. This won't come as a surprise to my family or High School friends, but my middle name is Arvilla, and no, it's not pronounced Arviya.
7. I've had more embarrassing moments than anyone I know. This might be partially due to the fact that
8. I'm a scatterbrain. I forget/lose EVERYTHING.
9. I have to do something either fun or productive on Saturday or I am not a very happy camper.
10. I'm somewhat obsessive about the time I spend with Randall. If he isn't at work or at school, he'd better be with me. (Or at least have a pretty good reason not to.)
11. I hate cleaning. Especially bathrooms.
12. I love shopping whether it's for groceries or clothes for my kids. Lately I've been a big fan of online shopping since dragging 4 screaming kids around to the stores is somewhat unappealing.
13. I'm a sucker for a sale, and I LOVE to find a deal. Even if Lydia already has 4 pink sweaters, if it's under $2 I'm buying it.
14. One of my favorite things to do is watch home videos. Whether it's my hubby rocking out to the air drums when he was 5 or something we filmed last week; I love it all.
15. I delivered Meleah naturally in my home. That was RANDOM.
16. I LOVE to eat out. I realize that it seems like everyone does, but Randall would actually prefer a home cooked meal most of the time. Then again, he's not the one that does the dishes. Ü
17. I'm extremely indecisive.  People probably think that I just don't dare to give my opinion, but the truth is: I really don't care whether we go to Subway or Arby's.
18. I hate fighting, whether it's physical or verbal. It makes me very uncomfortable. I can't stand to watch boxing on TV.
19. I've never had stitches, a broken bone, or a bee sting.
20. I love to stay in hotels. Once again, one of those things that pretty much everyone loves. What can I say? 25 things is a lot!
21. I love being from a family of 11, and I obviously plan to have a large family myself. Not quite that large, though. Ü
22. I loved High School, and look forward to the day that my kids are in High School so that I can live vicariously through them.
23. I hate dirt. It gives me the chills just thinking about it. Whoever invented sand boxes was an idiot. Same goes for chalk boards.
24. I love to cook. I would do it a lot more often if it didn't make such a big mess.
25. I love to go on long walks. Especially if I have someone to chat with and if my kids aren't crying or telling me they need to go to the bathroom.

As usual, I tag anyone that wants to do this.

Be Thou Humble

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. My internet has been out of commission and it's been driving me crazy! Thanks Cari, for helping me get it all figured out! I'm a total blog-aholic, so I'm very happy to have it working again. I've been dying to share some of the adorable pictures that Lincoln took of Cameron while we were at the hospital. We have such talented friends! For those of you that don't know, the adorable baby in the picture with Cameron is Liam, Lincoln and BreAna's little boy. It's going to be so fun to watch them play together like Carter and Logan have over the years.

So, I guess I'll share some of the experiences I've had with my sweet Cameron so far. I've decided that Cameron has been sent here to humble me, for several different reasons. First of all, the delivery. There was a little confusion with my due date, which I thought was the 2nd, but ended up being the 1st. I kind of expected to go over, and I didn't really mind because I wanted his birthday to be as far away from Christmas as possible. However, I was still very grateful to be getting some regular contractions throughout the night of the 6th. After receiving very little sleep, Randall and I dropped the kids off at my in-laws and headed for the hospital the morning of the 7th. Here's where the humbling part comes in. Once we got to the hospital (a 35 minute drive by the way) they checked me and said that I was dilated to a 4, but my contractions had totally slowed. They observed me for an hour, and then sent me away! I've heard of this happening to other people, but since I've delivered 3 children, including one natural delivery, I thought that I would never have to experience it myself!

After being rejected from the hospital, I talked to my sister-in-law on the phone about how my contractions had slowed and that I felt them more in my back than I remembered with Meleah...which meant the baby was possibly posterior. Hoping to fix the problem, I laid in this crazy position my midwife showed me last pregnancy that helps turn a posterior baby. It was during the time that I was laying in the back of my Honda with my bum in the air (thank goodness I have tinted windows!) that I started thinking...this is not how it's supposed to happen with your fourth delivery!

After losing all feeling in my legs and feet, Randall and I went to Olive Garden and ordered the spiciest/most garlicky thing on the menu. At this point my contractions had completely stopped and we decided to head home. Randall went to his parents house to be with the kids and dropped me off at home to take a nap. I slept like a rock for three hours, then shortly after waking up I started having very consistent contractions that were fortunately not like the back labor that I'd been having the night before. They were coming about two minutes apart so Randall came and got me, and we headed back to the hospital. A little over an hour and three pushes later, my beautiful baby was born! All in all, I couldn't have asked for an easier delivery, and I loved my stay at the hospital. There's nothing like being waited on hand and foot and being able to doze in and out all day without any screaming children in the background.

The weekend after we came home was also very fun, with lots of family visiting, and Jana and Rachel staying with us. However on Monday when life went back to normal, I felt a little overwhelmed (when I say a little I mean a lot) and I had my second humbling experience in the form of an enormous emotional breakdown. I've always been a fairly level-headed person that's not really too prone to tears, but on this particular day...I could not stop crying. Fortunately my sweet in-laws came and saved the day by taking my kids and making sure that Carter got to school. It's really hard for me to accept help from others, but after a day of just being able to hold and enjoy my new baby, I was feeling much better. I chalk the whole experience up to hormone changes and lack of sleep, which leads me to my next humbling topic...why doesn't this kid sleep at night?

It literally took us two years to get Carter to sleep through the night in his own bed. Since then, I attributed my success with the girls to my excellent mothering skills. I'm now discovering that my girls just really liked to sleep and didn't mind if they were in the cradle rather than cuddled up between Mom and Dad in their bed. Cameron has decided to be more like his brother and wake up at extremely regular intervals to be fed and changed and put back to sleep only to wake up ten minutes later if I should dare to put him into the cradle. Luckily he's so dang adorable, so all the long nights are somehow worth it.

Last night Meleah was bringing potatoes that I had peeled from the table to Carter who would then wash the potato and hand it to me to be chopped. All the while Lydia was sitting on the floor by Cameron shaking a little rattle over his head to keep him happy while we were making dinner. I couldn't help but think "we got this!" I'm going to try to remember that moment when I'm feeding Cameron for the fifth time at night, or when Lydia and Meleah are competing to see who can make the most high-pitched, mind-numbing screams while I'm trying to get Cameron down for a nap. If that memory is not enough then I can always read this scripture:

D & C 112:10
Be thou humble;
and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand,
and give thee answer to thy prayers.

He's Finally Here!

Cameron Michael Stewart

Born January 7, 2009
8 lbs 0 ounces, 19 inches

Merry Christmas!

So...you know you're doing your Christmas post a little late when Sunny 106.5 isn't even playing Christmas music anymore. Oh well! The fun started early this year as the empty boxes started piling up in my living room. (Gotta love shopping online!) The kids had a blast playing with this train/car/boat/spaceship/airplane. I don't know why I even bother buying toys in the first place. I should just get in touch with a box manufacturer and save a few $. Just in case you're wondering, Carter's not practicing to be a cheerleader in these pictures, he's just pulling the horn for the train. Ü

We spent Christmas Eve at my Grandpa Jensen's house for the last time, and it was so much fun. Tara borrowed some nativity costumes from her ward primary and they looked awesome. Much better than the towels and baby blankets I would have come up with. I wish I had pictures, but I videotaped it instead. Meleah and Lydia were angels and Carter was a wise man. Of course, Meleah only wore her costume for like .05 seconds but it was kind of an inappropriate costume for her to be wearing in the stage that she's in right now anyway. Ü They all opened up their jammies from Grandma, and were so excited to put them on right away.

We opened presents on Christmas at around 9:00 am. I know the day will come when my kids will wake me up at dawn, but my tired pregnant body was really grateful that they slept in this year. They actually woke up around 8:30, but I held them off reading stories upstairs until Grandpa, Jana, Rachel, Laura, and Dalton could get there. Carter asked Santa for a real motorcycle with hundreds of spots (don't ask me where he got that from) but he was still very happy with the Leapster that Santa actually brought him. I tried to explain that he doesn't have a drivers license yet so he wouldn't be able to drive a real motorcycle, but he just figured Santa would bring him that too. Maybe next year.

Lydia and Meleah also loved their presents from Santa. Lydia got a wooden dollhouse, and Meleah a Dora sofa. Santa must have known that the girls are constantly fighting over the Dora chair that we already have, and hoped that this would help prevent some of the hair pulling and hitting that has been going on. Meleah seemed perfectly content to sit in her Dora sofa and eat Pez all morning. Well, at least until her dispenser ran out, and she had to go on the hunt for someone else's stocking.

We had a nice, relaxed day playing with all our new toys. Thanks go out to Laura, Dad, Jana, and Rachel for making the day more fun, and helping undo all those dang twister ties they put all over the toys!

The Stewart family gathering was put off until the next day due to bad weather, so we got to extend our festivities until Friday. We all had tons of fun, and are a little tired and sad that Christmas is over. Lydia keeps thanking me for bringing Christmas and asking if we can have Christmas again. As tired as I am, I would still be okay with that! Luckily, we have something else to look forward to in the very near future. Now we just have to decide if we should spell the baby's name Cameron, Camoran, Camran...any ideas?