Sunday, June 26, 2011

I've been wanting to get on here to write for a while but just haven't mustered up the mind power to actually come up with anything interesting. This little baby inside of me is sucking out my brain ( what's left of it anyways after the 5 previous ones did there best to rid me of it!).

Random things that I can somehow remember that have happened since my last post. They will probably not be in order of when they actually took place. I'm too lazy to look at a calender to try and recreate the order of events.

{1} There is in fact a real live baby inside of me! I heard the proof! The little heartbeat was be-bopping away in the 160's range:) Such a fun moment! I LOVE hearing my babies heartbeats for the first time!

{2} As most of you know- I have had to deal with Blood Pressure issues since they made their appearance when I was pregnant with the Oyster (Owen). I've been on medication since then and have figured I would always be on it. But when I found out I was expecting again I stopped taking the med mostly because there was a warming to NOT take if you are pregnant. I hoped that things would be ok until I would go to the Dr. So when I had my first appt. my BP was really high- like 160/96 or something. They figured I was just freaking out a bit from worrying about what my BP would be like at the drs. They let me lay down for a few minutes and took it and it had dropped quite a bit. So now I'm just monitoring it myself and it hasn't gotten out of control as of yet. I"m really hoping I won't have to go back on the meds because the ones I can take when your pg have annoying side affects. Please pray that I can avoid these this time around!

{3} Last night at last minute we decided to go to the carnival in a nearby town. They kids were super excited and I just really wanted some mini- donuts! When we got there people were lining up for a parade that we didn't know was happening. We had some really happy kids to get parade candy and they made out like bandits with all the sugar they were able to score! The kids got to go on a couple rides each ( because when you have 5 kids I gets spendy really, really fast!) They enjoyed the ones they got to go one and Ethan was screaming and Blake was pretty scared but they had a blast.

{4}I feel like I'm getting out of the sick stage of this pregnancy. I usually have a bad day every other day now. I'm 13 weeks now so I'm guessing it should end very soon ( I'm hoping!). I'm so tired though- I have to try and get a nap in everyday or I end up feeling really sick by the evening. Its nice that Owen and Audrey still take naps and I can usually get the older boys to watch a movie or  do something quiet while I rest.

{5} Ben and I are looking forward to this week. We will be celebrating our 10th anniversary on Thursday. We have always said that for our 10th we would do something BIG like a cruise or a some other amazing vacation. But when you add 5 kids in, more bills than you can handle and Ben's busy work schedule with no vacation time trying to make that dream possible isn't very easy or realistic. I had at least hoped to get out of this state! But alas, it was not meant to be. I'm just thankful that we are able to get away, just the 2 of us, for some fun and be able to relax. We are doing it major cheap-O! We are going to pull our camper to Taylor's Falls and go camping and maybe some canoeing, go on a ferry boat tour, try the Alpine slides and if I can convince Ben, maybe some go-carts:)  I am sooooo excited about this time we get to spend with each other. We haven't went anywhere just the 2 of us for longer than one night since we got married so this will be a very big treat! I'm so thankful to Ben's sister and her husband for their willingness to stay with our kids for a couple nights and fro Ben's parents for taking them for a night also. It is insanely difficult to find people to watch all your kids for 1 night much less 3 nights!

{6} We have some new pets. I do not like them. I despise them. Raccoons. Two of them. A couple weeks ago we had a whole family of them living in a tree next to our house. Ben went out with his manly self and disposed of them in a typical manly way. With a gun. Of course it had to be his biggest, baddest gun because let's face it, he really doesn't have enough chances to use that spendy, scary gun enough. While he was out ridding our place of those pesky varmints, I was crouched on the floor covering my ears from the scary thought of him missing the raccoons and the bullets going into the house. Thankfully my Benny is quite an excellent shot and was able to get a few of those naughty things including a big mama coon. Unfortunately, this left a bunch of baby raccoons wandering around our yard wondering where their mama went. We killed a couple of them but then the boys decided they wanted them as pets and caught 2 of them with fishing nets and put them in a pet carrier. They've been feeding them and yesterday when I demanded that they let them go, the stinky little things refused to leave. Now we have to raccoons sticking close by our place. I'm really hoping they leave so this Mama doesn't have to take things into her own hands and dispose of those creatures! Coon Skin Hats anyone??!!

So now Audrey just informed me that she has a messy pants so I'll leave you for now and hopefully continue regaling you with all the very exciting happenings of our crazy household. ( being very sarcastic of course, our life is not very exciting- just loud!) I will for sure be writing some mushy stuff about my dear Hubby this week, I'm sure you all can't wait to read ;-P.

Friday, June 10, 2011

{Newborn Photos} Paizli

You might remember the pictures I took of my sister Jaclyn when she was pregnant.

She had her baby!!!!!!

Little Miss Paizli Adelle is here!!!

I had the most fun taking pictures of her. I think I was there for 4 hours. It took a while to get her to sleep but after that it was like a dream taking photos of her. She was like a little doll, so perfect! I could have spent even more time taking pictures of her but the card on my camera (which is actually quite small) only held about 300 shots.

Paizli is so absolutely beautiful. It made me very anxious for my little baby to get here:)

I had a very hard time picking out the pictures I'd share with you but here are my favorites....









 I love her little face in this one...she look like a little baby elf:)

































{Newborn Photos} Jacob

So about a month ago, I had the opportunity to photograph a little sweet new baby boy.
Up until then, I hadn't taken pictures for anyone other than family  so when this mama asked if I'd take her baby's pictures when he was born I was really quite nervous about it but really excited too! I hadn't taken any pictures of babies before ( besides my own) and none since I had gotten my DSLR camera.
The family was very pleasant to work with and they were patient with my own inexperience. I think things went well and the pictures did turn out good:) Although the little guy decided he wanted to be awake during his session, we were able to get some good shots of him. His mama told me afterwards that he slept for hours! He just didn't want to miss out on all the fun I guess:) He is one cute little guy!































Thursday, June 9, 2011

Happy (belated) Birthday to my girl!

I'm extremely late is posting this. I will take the bad mom award for this. But I have been feeling pretty lousy lately with this pregnancy going in full force right now so maybe I have somewhat of an excuse.

Happy 2nd Birthday
Audrey Elizabeth!
( her birthday was last Friday- you can get on my case if you must! naughty mama!)



You are such a blessing to us. You are indeed our little girlie-girl! Always loving anything frilly, pink, and sweet! You are so beautiful. Your smile lights up our hearts and gives me the butterflies! I love how your little girlie arms will wrap around my neck with a big hug and your kisses are the sweetest thing ever! Your brothers are so in love with you, they can't believe how fun it is to have a sister. They would protect you with everything in them. You are Daddy's little princess. He loves his "girl"! We love watching you as you are growing out of being a baby and into a little girl. We look forward to seeing what a beautiful little lady you will become. Happy Birthday my sweetie pie, I hope you know how much you are loved and cherished! 

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We had her birthday party at a nearby park and invited lots of cousins and friends to celebrate with us.
It was a very sticky, humid day, but we had lots of fun!


Little stinker was trying to sneak a cupcake before everyone got there!


We went though almost 6 gallons of lemonade! I did say it was hot out!


I made 72 cupcakes and there were only a handful left!


Mama and the birthday girl:)


Audrey and Owen with a few of their cousins.


She was so ready to blow out those candles we didn't even make it to the end of the song:)



Only part of cake Audrey will eat....the frosting! She gets that from her Daddy!



She received many lovely things from her guests. She loved every single thing!


And she ate almost an entire tube of chap stick!


Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Can you guess what this means???


Audrey is sporting a new shirt these days.
She's pretty excited, as are her brothers.



That's right!
A new little baby will be joining this crazy bunch!
We are due December 29th.
And we are pretty excited about it too!
Can't wait to see who this little person will be:)
( you might have been wondering why I've been so absent on the blog here the last couple weeks....been extra tired and not feeling the best. Plus, I've been DYING to tell you all and just couldn't think of anything else besides this new little one growing in me that would be worthy of talking about and didn't want to slip and blurt it out until I was ready!)