Savanna's Blessing

We blessed our beautiful Savanna Rae on April 10th and I'm finally blogging about it!  We blessed her a little earlier than normal because my parents were already here for my cousin's wedding.  Unfortunately, the weather wasn't as cooperative as it was for Carter's baptism so we all had to squeeze into our little house.  It was still a really fun day, but I have to admit I'm a little relieved to be done with the baptism and blessing.  Now I have 2 years until I have to plan another event like this!  As usual I didn't take enough pictures, but here are a few that I did manage to take -

Easter

This year we went to Vegas a week before Easter to see RaeLeigh get baptised and have our Brown Family Easter Hunt. We had lots of fun, and really enjoyed the warm weather. 

 

And I thought getting a picture of my 5 kids was hard!

No, Carter is not a ninja or Raphael...he's an "exercise guy."  Just so ya know.

This is the best picture Randall got of Meleah that day, and yes her shoes are on the wrong feet.  It's should be a 50/50 chance of getting it right, but that just doesn't seem to be the case.  I'm thinking more like 90/10.

The Turpin family gave blank Mighty Muggs for the hunt, and the kids (including Ben) had a great time decorating them.

The following Monday we dyed Easter eggs for family night.  I have a little anxiety over this now that I have so many kids to keep an eye on with countless cups of dye just waiting to be dumped over.  I still love it because it's a tradition.  If my mom could do it with 8 kids every year then I can do it with 5.  Apparently I cut off the top of Randall's head in this picture. He's just too stinkin' tall!

We had an Easter egg hunt on Saturday with the Stewarts and it was so much fun.  The kids loved getting MONEY in their eggs.  Unfortunately, I'm a complete idiot and I forgot to take pictures!!!

The kids loved their Easter baskets.  I think the Easter Bunny might have gone a little overboard this year.  He must be a sucker for a sale like I am. ;)  Carter wondered why he didn't eat the top and the bottom of the carrot he cut up for him because rabbits usually eat the whole thing.  I told him he was probably full since a lot of kids leave carrots for the Easter Bunny.

We also attempted another picture with all 5 kids.  I'm actually pretty happy with this one. 
I love Easter time, with all the beautiful flowers and the trees blossoming.  It's such a great time to think about Jesus being resurrected.  I'm so grateful that because of Christ we can also be resurrected and live with our families for eternity.

SIX!

My sweet Lyddies just turned 6 and due to our new arrival, we celebrated (and blogged) a little late this year.  I think she still had a great Birthday even though Randall and I were at the hospital with Savanna. She was so excited to meet her new sister and have 2 sleepovers with Grandma and Grandpa Stewart. 

We had already gotten together for cake and ice cream with the Stewart side the Sunday before, and we celebrated with her the day we got home from the hospital with some new Barbie sets and balloons. 

 The next day we had my family over, and on Saturday we took her to Olive Garden for her "Birthday dinner."

I have to say a big thank you to Tara and Jackie for making the cakes for her parties.  Also to Taryn for helping find all the princesses in the girl's toy bins and washing them for me.  You guys are awesome!  This year she asked for a cake with "all the princesses" and this is what we came up with.  I can't believe I didn't get a picture of the inside of the cake, because Tara made it have pink and brown zebra stripes.  It was so cool!

I hope she didn't mind sharing some of the attention with her little sister because I'm pretty sure that's how it's going to be every year from now on.  I never minded sharing my Birthday with my "half twin" Ben, who was born at 11:59 pm on my second Birthday...so hopefully she'll be like me. ;)

Lydia's also had some fun things happen at school recently.  Here are some pictures of her receiving her Student of the Month award.

And here she is all dressed up for Mismatch Day.

I can't imagine our family without our beautiful, sweet little Lyddies.  She is such a good girl, and loves to be a big helper.  She loves to play games as a family and always says things like "It's okay if I lose, because I'm still just having fun." in her soft and sweet little voice.  She's very cuddly and loves to give kisses and snuggle on Mommy or Daddy's laps.  I'm so grateful for my Lydia.  We are extremely blessed to have her.

Savanna Rae Stewart

 Savanna Rae Stewart

7 lbs 9 oz

20 inches

3-22-11 @ 11:22 pm

We are so happy to welcome our little Savanna to our family.  After having a few scares this pregnancy (profuse bleeding at 14 weeks and ecogenic bowel), we're relieved to announce that she's perfectly healthy!  The ecogenic bowel can be a sign of an infection, a blockage, cystic fibrosis, or down syndrome...but hers was apparently just caused by the bleeding.  This pregnancy has been quite a roller coaster, from thinking that I was having a miscarriage, to countless ultrasounds, meeting with specialists and genetic counselors, and now having a beautiful baby girl with no health problems (aside from a little jaundice).  We're SO blessed! 

The delivery went really well.  I had contractions throughout the night of the 21st, but they weren't very regular...so I sent Randall to work.  I continued to have contractions throughout the day and they started getting pretty regular around 5:00.  I was afraid of getting rejected from the hospital like I did with Cameron, so I waited a while before heading in to the hospital.  I also think I was still a little bit in denial because I NEVER go into labor early.  Cameron was 8 days overdue!  So going into labor 9 days early was just crazy to me.  By the time we gathered everything up, dropped the kids off at Grandma and Grandpa Stewart's and went in to the hospital it was 9:30.  The hospital accepted me (yay!) and I got my epidural and had my water broken by about 10:30.  I got a little nauseous...threw up once...then had a baby after 1 1/2 pushes at 11:22 pm.  I thought we were going to have a double birthday (Lydia's Birthday is the 23rd) but apparently Savanna wanted her own day.  I'm still going to combine their parties, so she might as well have taken her time!

We are LOVING all the dark hair!  It's totally worth all the comments I've been getting about the mailman, milk man?, UPS man...

The kids LOVE to hold her and are SO excited that she's finally here.  They have been very gentle with her and I haven't noticed any jealousy issues so far.

It's been pretty tough the last couple of years, but it's now officially impossible to take a perfect picture with all 5 children.  Oh well!  They still look adorable.

Carter is 8!

We've had a really crazy couple of weeks celebrating Carter's 8th Birthday.  First of all, Carter was SO excited to be invited to the scouts Blue and Gold Banquet even though it was a few days before his Birthday.  They had a contest for cake decorating and I decided that it would probably be easier for him to do fondant than frosting since it's play-doh-esque.   It's a good thing that we started early, because it took Carter a lot longer to color and roll out the fondant than I thought it would.  Even though it ended up taking HOURS, we had a great time.  He won the award for "Best Overall" and was completely bursting with pride.

That weekend was his "Birthday weekend" and we took him to Texas Roadhouse for his Birthday.  The next day we got together with the Brown side and on Sunday we gathered with the Stewarts.  I've gotta say, I'm a little tired of cake at this point.  Carter got a new bike, a couple of Wii games, a new shirt and tie, a light bright, and some action figures.

The following weekend was even more exciting.  My little Carter-Cutie got baptized!  He was so happy, and I loved seeing Randall use the power of the priesthood to help him take that monumental step towards eternal life.  We had great support from family and actually managed to fit about 70 people into our house for lunch afterward.  Luckily the weather was pretty nice so we were able to spill out into the back yard a little bit.  I really should have taken more pictures of everyone, but I was too busy chatting.  To all of you that were taking pics, please feel free to send them my way.

I feel so blessed to be Carter's Mom.  He's been so much fun, and honestly quite easy to raise (with the exception of potty training).  He's very good about "choosing the right" and obeying all the rules.  He even loves to correct others when they're not doing what they're supposed to do...no matter what they're age/size.  He's always coming up with big ideas to recycle garbage stuff and turn it into something useful like a spaceship, or a pencil holder.  He loves to help me when I'm making dinner by being my "chef" or "waiter,"  and I can always count on him to go get a diaper or put a movie on for the little kids.  I can't believe how big he is, and I love seeing him turn into a responsible young man.  He makes me smile every single day, and I love him more than ever.

Bed-Time Prayers

Cameron

- High-pitched incoherent mumbling

Meleah

- Please bless I can find my doll/Mom/Dad...
- Please bless I get owies
- Please bless Mommy can get the baby out
- Please bless that Mom can take us to the store sometimes, and at Walmart...and we can buy a few new toys.

Lydia

- Please bless that if a bad guy comes, Daddy can kill him.

Carter

- Please bless that I can shock people (I'm assuming he got this idea from a movie about Nephi that he likes to watch)
- Thank you for all the wisdom in my body
- Please bless that I won't drowned too much tomorrow

Poppers!

 The only good thing about receiving a clock this size in a box THIS SIZE is that you get a ton of these...

So...for now we're having lots of noisy fun.  Daddy will figure out how to fit the enormous box into the constantly overflowing recycling can later.