Kibri's Birth

Our sweet little Kibri Ann Birch was born on June 24, 2015 at 8:16 in the morning. We were so excited to finally have a little girl join our family! We arrived at the hospital at 6:00 that morning to check in and get situated in Labor and Delivery. I was finally taken back to the OR at 7:30 that morning.

After getting the spinal placed, they started surgery at 7:58. This is doctor Loewen.  She delivered Mason, Porter, and Kibri.  She is an absolutely amazing OB! Over the years she has taken the time to get to know me and my family.  She knows my kiddos names and was so excited for us to finally get a baby girl.

It only took them 18 minutes to deliver Kibri.  Which, considering the amount of scar tissue with 4 previous cesareans and the fact that Mason had taken almost 40 minutes to deliver, this was great. I love that you can see the clock in the background of this picture with her birth time.

She was our "cheesiest" baby and had so much vernix.

She weighed in at 7 lbs 13 oz (the scale changed after this pic) and was my second biggest baby, barely outweighing Porter who was 7 lbs 11 oz.

The delivery went really well for me, but it was the first time that I'd ever become nauseated on the operating table.  The anesthesiologist assured me that it was normal and was surprised that I'd never had it happen in any of my cesareans before.


Meeting her was heavenly.  The first thing I noticed about her was her teeny, tiny, perfect nose.

After we got back into my room in L& D and after I'd had skin to skin contact with her and nursed her, Jeff sat and held her.  I looked over and noticed that he was crying.  He's never cried at the birth of any of our other kids and it really takes a lot to get him to cry. It melted my heart!

After we got upstairs to my postpartum room, my Mom and the boys came to meet her.

After they left, Kibri got her first bath.

We got her dressed up, took some pictures, and then the rest of our family stopped by.

 We ended up staying in the hospital 6 days because I developed an illius, which means that my small intestine never woke up after surgery.  It was the most horrible pain that I'd ever been in and I remember just crying even after I'd had several doses of morphine.  She is so worth it though!

Kibri is One Month

I know that it has been so long since I have posted on here.  I'm wanting to come back soon and blog this little girl's birth, but for now here is how she looks at one month old.  She is such a little doll and we love her so so much.  It is so fun to have a little girl in our family and she has brought us so much joy. She has a head full of dark brown hair and pretty blue eyes. Her nose is the cutest thing and she has cute chubby cheeks.  

Jonas Turns 6!

Back in May our little Jonas turned six. Its hard to believe he is already that old.  He woke up on his birthday to find a nice large present waiting for him.

It is something that he'd been begging us for for over a year.  It was something that Jeff and I thought was way too pricey for us to justify so we asked grandparents to pitch in...

When he finally opened it, he was beyond excited to see his very own Lego Star Wars Millennium Falcon!

It took him and Daddy about two weeks to put it together and it was a super fun project for them to share.

For Jonas' birthday celebration we went to the newly opened Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point where he got to do things he loves like climb! Seriously, this child is such a climber!

We all had so much fun and we truly are thankful that we live close to so many wonderful attractions.

We finished off the day with family over for dinner and cake and then we launched off rockets at the Amphitheater in our subdivision.

Jonas' Kindergarten Graduation

It never fails that the school year always go by so quickly.  Who told these kids that they could go and grow up so fast, because I certainly didn't! Since I've been terribly behind on blogging, I thought I'd do a quick round up of Jonas' Kindergarten experience. 

 First of all he had a fabulous teacher named Mrs. Willson.  She was perfectly matched to Jonas and they got along really well. She was very soft spoken and just all around sweet...he needs that kind of a teacher. I was able to volunteer in his classroom quite a bit, going in to help students pass off their Alphabet Crowns and to work with them on their handwriting.  I was also able to help with his Halloween, Christmas, Valentines, and Spring parties. In November my Dad came to visit and was able to go to Grandparent's Day at the school with Jonas and Carson.  It was a real treat as Grandparents Day is usually a little awkward for us since all our Grandparents live in Idaho and can't come.  I was also able to see him at school quite a bit as I volunteered to switch out the AM Kindergarten's Take Home Reading books and I often went to his class to get the crate or return it.

I drove Jonas to school everyday this year as I was uncomfortable having him ride to school with the B track kids (Carson is A track so on a different bus).  I did let him ride the bus home everyday and the boys and I would walk Oliver (our dog) over to get him off the bus.

This school year I also watched my friend's little boy after school three days a week.  He happened to be in Jonas' class so it worked out really nice.  We definitely had our struggles at first getting adjusted to each other (he has all sisters and was a little overwhelmed with all the male ego going on at our house!). Overall it really was a great year for Jonas and he thrived. In fact he absolutely excelled in reading and was reading on the same level that Carson had been on half way through his 1st Grade year.  He sure was sad when school was over and said he missed his teacher a lot.

Way to go Buddy!

Boating at Strawberry and Utah Lake

So I know these posts aren't at all in chronological order, but that's what happens when you get behind on blogging:). So last July we went up to Strawberry Reservoir with Jeff's step-dad.  It was a three day weekend, and we spent most of our time boating and fishing.  I've always loved the water (and boats) and it is so fun to see my boys' excitement to go boating.  We sure are thankful for Larry's generosity in taking us boating and wanting to spend time with our boys.  It means a lot.

These boys loved to ride up front and get splashed.

Lots of fishing.

I love this guy.

 Carson tried wake boarding! Its crazy that he's old enough to start doing things like this.

This is most certainly my kind of camping. Maybe its because I spent so much time camping and rafting with my dad when I was little?

We also went tubing at Utah Lake one afternoon.  Its nice to live so close to a lake.

This is Jeff's  "I got too much water in my face" look.

We can't wait for summer to get back to the lake.

Topaz Mountain

In October, Jeff's sister invited us to go to Topaz Mountain with her and her boys.  Our goal was to gather together a bunch of Topaz to give to Jeff's Dad for Christmas.  The day was perfect and the weather was mild (I couldn't imagine trying to do this in the heat of the summer, yuck). Topaz Mountain is about two hours south of our house in the middle of the Utah desert.

At first we found pieces of Topaz just laying in the road.

Kris, Mason, Alex, Jeff

Then we ventured off into the sage brush to look.  The boys saw lots of lizards and even a mud puppy. Thankfully no rattlesnakes though!

 The boys were in heaven all day long and kept asking when we could come back.  My boys love to be outdoors…have I mentioned that? Especially when they are looking for rocks.

Fall Overview

I decided it was time to get last fall blogged…even if that means a lot of blurry phone photos and un-edited photos out of my camera. To start out with, I love this little guy.  And the fact that he can rock about anything I put on him, especially skinny jeans and thermal shirts. He's gonna be a heartbreaker. 

We went hiking in Salt Lake to their dog park that is in a hollow with a bunch of pioneer ruins.  The boys (and Oliver) loved it and when the weather gets warmer, we will definitely be going back.

Porter fell in love with his Pete the Cat book.  I found him asleep like this quite a bit.

The new Lego Store opened up and the boys were in heaven.  Heaven.

We took our annual trip to Gardner Village to see the witches and get some caramel apples. I seriously love that we have made so many new traditions since moving to Utah…and that Utah has some pretty fun things to go do.

We also took our annual hike up the Mormon Trail in East Canyon. We hit it at the perfect time and the leaves were so beautiful.

Oliver came along on the hike, but his little doggy legs couldn't make it the whole way.

 I love these boys so much!

This made my heart melt.

We also spent a lot of time canning this fall and made sooo much applesauce. I was so busy I never got a picture of all that we did, but we did 26 quarts of applesauce, 15 quarts of peaches, 24 pints of plum jam, and 15 pints of peach jam. I'm already planning on doubling that for next fall as we are already out of plum jam!

We started early buying Halloween costumes. (Yes, I know you'd think with a degree in Home Ec that I would make them, but seriously, college killed any desire I have for clothing construction.)

We were able to get some nice pumpkins at our ward garden to decorate our porch with.
The boys love pumpkins!

Grandpa Larry gave the boys riding lessons.  He's done a lot of volunteer work at a Montessori school up in Park City and in exchange they let him use the facilities to teach our boys.  They absolutely loved it and Larry pointed out that Jonas has natural talent with horses.  Hopefully the boys can get some more lessons in when it gets warmer.