Today was Chloe's first dance recital. She has been taking lessons at the Orem Rec center since September and she absolutely loves it!!! She had a rough start and I thought she was going to need dancing special ed, but she has picked up and done really well. It has been fun for her to make some new "girl" friends and have an extra activity to fill up some of her time. She thrives on structure and routine and it has been really hard to keep her busy since I quit work. Starting school helped, but dancing has really given her an extra little boost. I think that it has really helped her to feel special since the baby came. She goes to dancing every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:00-4:50 and every day in between she is asking "Do I have dancing today?". I wasn't so sure about the teacher in the begining but she has really done such a good job teaching all of these kids. We are going to miss her during the next session of dancing while she takes off to have her baby. All of the girls did a great job remembering the dances and knowing what they needed to do. I am biased, but I thought our little Chloe was a beautiful little ballerina.
She got so many fun presents and she has been having a blast playing with all of them. She got a pillow pet and a barbie movie from Nana, a new outfit from Jeni and Gabe, a Zhu Zhu pet from Aunt Kris and her family, a Walmart "credit card" from Grandma and Grandpa, some puzzles and a picture from Abigail, and Toy Story 3 from mom and dad. Money is tight this year and I was worried that she wasn't going to have such a good birthday, but I think that it has been one of her best. Andy took a half day off of work on her birthday and we went to Trafalga to use up some tokens that we had gotten over the summer and we took her to Walmart to use her "credit card". She got a Rapunzel book for her tag system and another Zhu Zhu pet.
On Halloween night we got all dressed up and went to the mall to trick or treat. That was crazy!!! I can't believe how insane people can be when it comes to getting their kids a little bit of candy. I think next year we will go back to the usual walking around and knocking on doors. Hopefully the weather will be better. After the mall we went to my mom's house for stew, and then on to Grandma and Grandpa's house to visit.
It was such a fun night and we were so lucky to be able to see Amie and the kids plus Casey & Nieka and their cute girls for a few minutes. I think that Abigail really enjoyed her first Halloween.
Yesterday was such a special day. I am feeling so many emotions right now that I think I might explose...Happiness, Joy, Exhaustion, Longing...the list can go on and on. We have been so blessed with this precious gift. She has been the best baby. She hardly cries at all unless she is hungry or tired. She has been sleeping through the night for several weeks now. She has brought a very special spirit into our home, and it was so great to be able to celebrate that spirit with our family and friends this weekend. It is so nice to have times like this to remind us of how blessed and loved we are. We have the best of the best when it comes to our family and our friends. We could never ask for better. We got to spend Saturday with my family mostly because my mom scheduled family pictures for us since we were finally all in the same place at the same time. We were only missing one of my niece's and her husband. This is the first family picture we have had done since Andy and I got married. Our family pictures will have a lot of new faces, but they will be missing one of my favorite faces. This weekend has found me thinking about my daddy alot, but I have also felt his spirit with us so strongly. I know that Abigail carries some of his spirit in her. It is hard to explain, but I know without a doubt that she was with him and he is the one who handed her to us the day she was born. Ok, this is getting way to sad. We were celebrating after all!!! I want to thank everyone who was able to be there to make this day so great, especially those of you who drove so far and gave up your whole weekend to be here for us. All of you made this a wonderful day. We had family and friends from Idaho, Wyoming, Vernal and California. I know it was a sacrifice for all of you to come and I am so grateful that you made the trip. It was great to see you even if I didn't get to spend as much time visiting with you as I would have liked to. We owe a special Thank You to Tristan and Kristy for coming down to help us cook our yummy food in the middle of their vacation with her family. This was truly an amazing day for us and we will have some great memories from it.
Chloe is such a ham and I can't believe what a big girl she looks like in her pics. Where did all of the time go? 
I had never been there before because the first time Andy was going to take me there on a date and the mountain caught on fire the day before. It was so beautiful and we had so much fun "climbing the mountain". 
This is the first time we had really taken Chloe hiking and she had so much fun. The baby slept most of the time in the Snuggly. We didn't get a lot of pictures because the camera ran out of batteries, but we had a great time in the sun spending time with our little family. I can't wait to see what the rest of the summer will bring.
Abigail Ruth was born at 8:31 a.m. on May 12, 2010. She weighed in at 7 lbs. 9 oz. and measured 18.5 inches long. We went in to the hospital at 7:00 a.m. to check in and get prepped for the c-section that would bring our baby girl ino the world. 
We were a little nervous since we didn't know what to expect from a scheduled birth, but all went beautifully. After all the poking and prodding that preceeded the actual c-section, Andy and his dad gave Abigail and I a blessing that all would go smoothly in surgery and we would all be healthy and safe. Then we walked back to the sterile white room that would change everything. I was given my spinal while Andy was taken to change into his surgical clothes so he could come in. The anesthesiologist asked if I was feeling any nausea and I told him no, but I did feel a little light headed. Before I knew it he was putting some medicine in my I.V. and telling me I had to keep my eyes open. I was passing out from the spinal. Andy was finally brought into the room and I was telling him about what had happened and it happened again. I really could have done without that part, but as I came out of it the second time the doctor was making the incision. All of a sudden there was fluid spraying everywhere. I could hear it hitting the sheet that was blocking our view of the gore. The doctors and nurses were all saying that they should have worn their golashes to work that morning. It was crazy. All of a sudden the anesthesiologist told Andy to cover his head because he was lowering the sheet so I could see Abigail coming out. He lowered it really fast and then put it back up so I didn't see anything, but I was glad he at least tried. Then we heard the most beautiful cry ever. Chloe never cried when she was born, so it was music to my ears to hear Abigail screaming her lungs out. 
They took Andy over to the table where the baby was while they finished sewing me up and taking care of me and then he brought her over to me. She was practically perfect in every way and looks exactly like her big sister did when she was born. They took her to the NICU because her oxygen saturation was a little low because she was having a hard time adjusting to room air after being in so much fluid for so long. One of my doctors had told me a couple of weeks before she was born that he thought she was going to be over 9 lbs. since I was measuring big. Luckily he was wrong. We left the hospital on Saturday the 15th and have now been home for almost 2 weeks. 
She has been a really good baby. She only cries when she is hungry or tired, she hates having her clothes off or getting her diaper changed, she HATES bath time, and she is an AMAZING sleeper. She is so snuggly and we absolutely love having her here. Chloe has been such a good big sister. She wants to be a part of everything and always wants to help whenever we will let her. 
She loves holding and kissing her baby sister, and Abigail LOVES her "Sissy".
The pizza and breadsticks were delicious! We had so much fun eating and hanging out together.
We got 25 tokens with our food and thought that would be plenty for Chloe to have a good time with, and while Andy was teaching her how to play Ski Ball a man came up and put about 200 more tokens in Andy's hands and told Chloe to tell her mom and dad thanks for bringing her to Pirate Island. We assume he was one of the owners. This however meant that we had a lot of tokens to play with, so we all had a lot of fun. The only games I played were Ski Ball and Whac-a-Mole since I am too pregnant to do much else at the moment. 
Andy and Chloe played a lot of games. Chloe loved riding the motorcycle game and almost beat Andy at Air Hockey....almost! 
We ended up with just over 300 tickets for her to trade in for prizes. She chose a pirate sword and eye patch, a stick on tatoo and roll of smarties. Next we were off to the theater to see the movie. Andy and I were not especially excited to see it, but we were very pleasantly surprised by how good it actually was. Chloe sat through pretty much the whole movie and I am sure she will be telling everyone all about it for a long time. We were all pretty much exhausted by the time we got home, but I am so glad that we got to spend this special day with just her before she becomes a "Big Sister".
The whole Group 
Doing The Cheer 
The "Viking" 
After the baptism we took all of the kids to Kangaroo Zoo! I had forgotten the camera, so I don't have any pictures to post. You will just have to take my word for it that all of the kids had so much fun. They ran, they climbed, they slid and they sweated. Then they all crashed for a good nights sleep!!!
Hunter John Thomas. Born 12/30/2009. He is so adorable and it is so fun to have another boy in the family. 
