Stuff

This is Adam's second tooth to loose, only he hasn't lost any on his own, instead he's had to have them pulled. For some reason his grown-up teeth are coming in behind the baby ones before they're even really loose. After they get pulled the new tooth quickly moves into place. I hope we don't have to do this with every tooth.
Not sure if you can tell or not but I can now put Grace's hair in braids :D Yay!

Me and my mohawk man, a snow fort, plus me and all five

Everyone at church thought we cut Ben's hair to look like a mohawk, but we didn't. We shaved his head on Christmas Eve not even one month ago and his hair is growing back fast, only it's growing back as a mohawk. LOL The strip of hair down the middle of his head is growing faster then the rest. I'm not sure if you can tell that well in this picture, but here's my little mohawk man!

Dan and his brother helped Sarah and Adam build this cool snow fort today while Jack, Grace, Ben and I stayed inside by the fire. :D Jack and Grace later joined Sarah and Adam outside to play when the building was complete. Ben and I stayed inside by the fire again, but I briefly went out to take this picture. It's much nicer by the fire. LOL

Well, atleast the rest of us are smiling. :D

My attempts...

At capturing a smile

We'll try again later...LOL

Happy Birthday!

Our little "Gawk" (Jack) man, as pronounced by his older siblings when he was born, turned 5 today! I can't believe he's already five. It seems like yesterday I was posting about his 4th birthday and now here we are 1 year later. Happy Birthday Dude!

My Boys

My Girls

Best Buddies!

This is Ben and his buddy, Coby. Ben was born weighing 9 lbs 9 oz and Coby was born exactly two weeks later weighing 6 lbs 6 oz. As you can see Ben is HUGE next to Coby! LOL

Christmas PJ's

I had to put these pictures of Ben in just to show you that he actually does look cute, even without all that hair. LOL

The New Ben

BEFORE



AFTER


That's what happens when all the men in the house want the same hair style. I can't exactly say Ben wanted it, but I know his dad sure did!

Payback

Last night while Sarah was wrapping the gift for her class gift exchange for school the next day, I told her about the time I was in 3rd grade and had a gift exchange too. I told her and Dan how in my class we could either choose an unwrapped gift or choose a gift that someone already opened. Meaning we could just take a gift away from someone. I know it sounds mean. So anyway, this one girl in my class opened a package of different colored mechanical pencils, which was something I had been wanting, so....instead of taking a new gift I took hers away from her. I felt terrible, but I did it anyway. Later that night I felt so bad about doing that and I think I even cried about it, so my mom and dad bought some new mechanical pencils and I gave them to her the next day. Both Dan and Sarah told me how mean that was of me and so unlike my character to do that, but that it was nice of me to buy her some new pencils. Anyway, when Sarah got home from school today she told me how her gift exchange went and can you guess what happened by my post title? So she tells how she opened a gift of....that's right...colored mechanical pencils, and a girl (this girl actually brought the pencils in) took them from her. Right out of her hands. Sarah wasn't bothered by it because the girl offered her a trade. She took what that girl had, which was little toy puppies (similar to littlest petshop) and a bracelet. So how's that for payback? What would make this story even more bizarre would be if this little girl was the daughter of the girl I took the pencils from way back when, and it actually was a payback.

Brag Post

This just came in the mail:

To the Parents of Miss Sarah C...

Announcement of Sarah's nomination:

Dear Parent:

Your daughter, Sarah, has been nominated to attend the National Young Scholars Program (NYSP) ... Sarah was personally nominated by her teacher from among all other students.

Sarah's teacher recognized her as a student with the scholastic merit and leadership potential to attend this unique program for the nation's most exceptional 2nd and 3rd graders. Sarah will join other high-achieving students at this very special program......

I have enclosed a press release that you may distribute to your local media in order to share with your community the exciting announcement of Sarah's plans to attend the Program.

We expect to enroll an outstanding group of young high-achievers with a wide variety of backgrounds from all across the country. Sarah will benefit beyond measure from being recognized among this magnificent group of our nation's future leaders.

This comes from the National Center for Early Academic Excellence. We are very proud of Sarah. She had no idea about this nomination. I don't know how many other students from her class or school have been nominated, but she is flattered none the less. It is being held in DeKalb, IL in the summer time and they are inviting her to stay in the University dorms for the week during the program. The only downside to this is the expense, $1,870! Yep, that's right, almost two grand for this trip. The expense does not cover travel or anything extra she may need while there. It's just for the room, food and the 24-hour supervision as parents are not allowed to accompany their children. So I think she will not be attending. She is fine with that and totally understands. This is a great achievement for her and we are keeping the nomination papers in the hope chest so she can look back on this later in life, plus we are going to brag her up to the grandparents and of course on my blog! LOL Proud doesn't even begin to describe how we feel about her. WAY TO GO SARAH!

Merry Christmas

These were the best 3 pictures out of all 26 I took trying to get them all looking forward and smiling. I am grateful to have a digital camera, otherwise I would have wasted a whole roll of film. LOL

Candid moments

Birth Story

Well, so much for my dream of a 3 hour labor cause this was my longest labor...13 hours. I count from the time I start contracting at home not the time I check in the hospital. It started around 8 am Friday morning, the day after Thanksgiving and we ended up checking into the hospital at 12:30 in the afternoon that day, and I was 3 cm dilated. We waited a few hours for the epidural so I could move around, but a few hours later I was only 4cm so they gave me the epidural hoping it would relax me enough so that I would dilate more, but a few hours after that I was only at 5cm so they decided to give me some pictocin to get things moving. He was in a face up position so I had back labor and that is the reason for the longer labor time. I tried walking around to get him to move but he would only move alittle so with the pictocin they thought he would get more uncomfortable with those stronger contractions and want to move into position. Well, at 8:20 pm they started the pictocin and around 8:30 I got up to go pee. It took several minutes to sit up and get to the bathroom and then several more minutes to get control of my bladder long enough to pee. The epidural had my bladder all numb. LOL Anyway, so around 8:40 pm I was trying to walk back to my bed from the bathroom and had the strong urge to push, the nurse freaked out and rushed me back to the bed afraid I was going to drop the baby right there. Dan helped me back into bed while the nurse called for help and I started involunterly pushing. I had muconium (sp?) when they broke my water so they needed all the peds and everyone there at the birth which was looking like it wasn't going to happen. The nurse was freaking but she managed to get everyone there except the ped. When the midwife checked me I was fully dilated so I really started to push and 15 minutes later he was born at 8:56 pm. I went from 5 cm to 10 cm and pushing in less then half an hour. If he wasn't face up for so long I probably would have had that 3 hour labor I was dreaming about. The midwife thinks when I got up to go pee that the baby turned into position so it went fast from there. I think I used the term, "that was intense" several times after he was born. LOL So there ya have it, my birth story.

He's here...

Ben Samuel Clark
Born: November 23, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Weight: 9 lbz 9 oz
Height: 21 1/2 inches

Birth story to follow...

Nope...

Not yet...that's all I am gonna say! LOL

Still here!

Well I am two days away from my due date and nothing new to report. I've had a few contractions here and there, but nothing to let me know "it's go time"! My last appt was two days ago on Wednesday were I found out I am still 1cm dilated, which I already expected to hear. I have another appt this coming Wednesday morning and then a NST at the hospital at noon. I have a scheduled induction date for the following Monday, Nov. 26th at 1pm. So if he doesn't come the day before or on Thanksgiving I'll be eating turkey at home, which I would much prefer anyway. Dana asked me how my other labors went so here are my stats...
Sarah's labor was 12 hours total: 1 hour pushing time. She was 7 lbs 14 oz.
Adam's labor was 10 hours total: 45 minutes pushing time. He was 8 lbs 2 oz.
Jack's labor was 7 hours total: 10 minutes pushing time. He was 9 lbs 13 oz.
Grace's labor was 5 hours total: 27 minutes pushing time. She was 8 lbs 8 oz.

So if I continue shaving of two hours each time then I should have a 3 hour labor, right?
Ha! I hope it's only 3 hours and 7 minutes pushing time, and I hope he doesn't weight too much over 8 lbs. I know I know wishful thinking! Oh well, what else do I have to think about while I wait for him to come!

Photo Faces

Grace 2yr
Sarah 8yr
Jack 4yr
Adam 6yr

One week and counting...

Hopefully I will have this baby sometime this week. With schedules and such, this week would be perfect, but we all know that babies never come when we want them too. Next Sunday is my offical due date according to the ultrasound, but according to other facts it wouldn't be until November 23rd. We choose to go with the ultrasound due date, not just because it was sooner, but because it is most accurate. It would be nice to be home for Thanksgiving instead of eating turkey in the hospital. We shall see what happens!

Look who's two!!

Happy 2nd Birthday to our darling Grace or ChooCha as nicknamed by Jack. We love you Beauty!!