Tragedy No. 1 At least one or two people at a time in our household have been sick pretty much every day during the month of March. My turn started a couple weeks ago with a tickle in the throat and soon grew to a sinus infection of epic proportions. The day that I began to wonder if my teeth were going to fall out from all the pressure, I decided it was time to bite the blasted bullet and go to the doctor. This was also the day I started to consider drilling a hole in the left side of my face in hopes of some relief. So I made an appointment for the early afternoon and the time came to go. I loaded up the three youngest (two of whom were already on antibiotics, to give you an idea of the kind of week we'd been having) in the trusty old van and took off. During the two minute ride to the doctor's office, Bryn became alarmed by the presence of a fly in the van. She asked me to vent the back windows, which I did. To my dismay, the back window on the passenger side fell down of...

I tell you what: recovering from giving birth is no joke. Having done it 3.5 times now, I don't know how those farm women in the 1800s with 12 children did it. That said, it is happening. Slowly, but surely I'm seeing little signs of beginning to get the good ol' bod back. I can roll over in bed now in less than 15 seconds, for example. Progress! It's been enjoyable hearing from friends and family since our little new arrival. Everyone has been so kind. Two of my very faves: This from Nate's grandparents: "2 boys and 2 girls. How clever of you." And from an old coworker of Nate's: " I really like Old Testament names.  You always can be sure they will sound good over a hospital loudspeaker paging a famous surgeon, or a bailiff telling the people in the courtroom to rise, for Judge Asa W_____.  Benjamin has the same nice heft (or he can use both names)." Someday when I'm old I want to write things like that to people when they have bab...

First off, I must say that the timing was impeccable. That very day I'd turned to mighty prayer as my last hope of ever having the baby. I begged that if it wouldn't mess up the grand scheme of things somewhere down the road, just please, please  let the baby come. And that very morning, there were noticeable and somewhat consistent contractions. Also, it is crazy that Nate's mom got here when she did. Of all the days and hours and minutes she could've arrived, she picked the perfect moment. Nate and I were able to head out the door like 30 minutes after she got here. After simultaneously being in labor and caring for all the kids all day, I needed that. Really bad. And I was strep B positive, so had to have penicillin at the hospital. The ideal timing for it is to get the penicillin, have it in your system for four hours, and then have the baby. And it was just about right. He came about four and a half hours after the i.v. And it was on his due date. Seriously...

We had Nate's family over for a cookout for the 4th this year. Everyone came except Abbey and Devon, who were in St. George. It was really fun. Really hot and lots of ants, but really fun. A smashing success, even. Preparations were interesting without a kitchen, but it all worked out in the end. The kids played and played and played outside while the rest of us sat around and ate too much. Add's arm all bagged up. Trinity is a superhero. Sonnet is our niece who is deaf. I have never met anyone with a more expressive face. It just tells the whole story. Zoom these two in. They are just delightful. In the one above she is so excited to have found a chicken feather. And in this one she's pretty much in paradise. Cloudy, grass-clipping-ful paradise. Leah looking festive. I am ridiculously proud of the cake in the bottom of this picture. It's from a box and so is the frosting, but it's so pretty! And the cake part is red, white and...

The time has come to announce to the world that I'm running a half marathon! That's 13.1 miles for those of you keeping score at home. While I was still expecting Leah, one of my best friends in the ward asked me to run one with her and I was pretty stoked. In the painfully long last weeks of pregnancy the thought of starting my training for this race was about the only exciting thing my miserable, mopey, gargantuan self could think of. Getting started running again was rough, but I grabbed another friend and we forced ourselves to get out and walk/run three times a week until we built up some stamina. I've been good about running three times a week for several months now, and I'm at the point in my training where I'm doing two short runs during the week and a long one on Saturday morning. The race is in a month and I'm right where I want to be. I told myself toward the beginning, when running for ninety seconds straight seemed impossible, that if I could wo...

"Nate! My water broke!" "When?" "Just now! Get some towels!" I tried (and succeeded somewhat) to protect our bed and carpet from the sudden tidal wave as Nate stared stupidly at the linen closet (his words, not mine.) What seemed like 45 minutes later he finally handed me a bath towel which was soaked within seconds, followed by another one, and then a third. I'll cut him some slack, though - it was 1:00 on the dot on Monday morning, May 7th, and it'd been a pretty rough night. False labor contractions had been bothering me all Sunday afternoon and as the night progressed they remained painful and inconsistent. Ugh. Luckily, "The Happiest Millionaire" was on KBYU, and it really was as good as I remember it being from my childhood. I might have even guffawed a few times when they found the pet alligators frozen in the conservatory,  in spite of my 3-days-overdue-gouging-my-eyes-out attitude. Nate and I debated on whether to go to t...

I went to sacrament meeting by myself today, since Michelle was home with a couple sick kids. I chose a rather prominent seat, third row from the front and dead center of the chapel. During the sacrament, I dropped my pen through the crack between the seat and the back of the bench. Not having Addison around to crawl under there and pick it up, I leaned forward and reached back under the bench to grab it. It was farther back there than I thought, and I had to extend a little further than I expected. A little further than my center of gravity allows for, it turns out. Next thing I know I'm falling nose-first into the carpet, then lying on my side, half curled up, arm extended, cheek impressed in the floor. I'm only lying there for a nanosecond before jumping back up and sitting in my seat. As I turned beat-red, hoping no one noticed, I see the first counselor in the bishopric hiding a grin, and the youth speakers practically crying with stifled laughter. With any luck, I've ...