Trick-or-Treat

Halloween was a lot of fun. We went to El Morro's Boo Blast. Nobody could believe that I was out and about. Stella stayed home with Grandma Jeanne while Mike and I took the kids. I was absolutely exhausted afterwards but had fun with my kids. The kids went on every ride and played games. They even went through the haunted house. The were absolutely terrified of the unknown while we were standing in line. We looked like awful parents dragging our kids in there against their will. Mak and Perry were gripping my hands so tight, after we got in it wasn't so bad. They even let go of my hands and walked ahead of us. When we got out of the haunted house they kept bragging about it and acting tough. "That wasn't scary at all.", "That was so stupid." It really wasn't scary, even Bentley wasn't afraid.

For Halloween we went up to Michelle and Tony Kimball's house for a Halloween Party and Trick-or-Treating with all of the kids friends from church. This was Bentley's first year that she actually trick-or-treated and she loved it! She was running as fast as she could behind everybody trying to keep up from house to house and she was carrying this huge bag and would not let us carry her candy! Mike and I were laughing so hard at her enthusiasm.

Bentley Bumble Bee

I taught Bentley to go around saying "bzzzzz STING!" and she'd poke people really hard. Oooops

Roman was a fire dog.

October Bake Night

My friend Amanda organized a bake night. It was so much fun! It was a few days after I had Stella and I was so stir crazy since I hadn't been out of the house yet. We made chocolate chip pumpkin cookies, carmel apples, and carmel popcorn balls. It was so fun to see my girlfriends and hang out. Stella was the star of the night and stole the show. Thanks Amanda for all your hard work and putting together our bake night and letting us destroy your kitchen!

Mia, Sierra, Amanda, Patience, Me, & Lia

Princess Stella

Happy Birthday Princess Stella!

I thought the day would never come, but it did! I woke up at 2:30am with contractions. I thought it was a false alarm, since I had had consistent contractions 3 times prior to these ones that had all stopped after a few hours, so I didn't bother waking Mike and tried to sleep in between them. Around 3:30 I woke Mike up begging for an epidural! He started timing my contractions. Once he had woken up I had one 15 mins. apart than 10 mins. apart, than 4 mins. apart. At 4am he quickly called our doctor while I called our friend Mia to come watch the kids and get Makayla off to school.

Mia showed up in less than 5 minutes and the doctor said to head to the hospital. With that, we were off.....in the wrong direction! Mike turned the wrong way on Pacific Coast Highway! He was very calm and put together except for his sense of direction (I think thats my favorite part of our birth story).

We got to the hospital at 4:30am where my doctor was already there and waiting for me! They took us to the womens center to confirm that I was actually in labor, even though I told them I was. I was dilated 4 cm and my contractions were 4 minutes apart. They moved me into a delivery room, and about 30 minutes later the anastegologist was there to give me my epidural. I don't remember my epidural ever being so uncomfortable but I'd never had one before my water broke and my contractions were excruciating.

After the epidural it was smooth sailing. Dr. James hung out with us in the delivery room until Stella was ready for her grand debut. We talked a lot about nothing and my hubby was so calm. The spirit was so strong as our little girl came straight from heaven. I've been playing church hymns just to try to keep the spirit so strong in our house.

The hospital didn't let kids in to visit because of the swine flu so the kids had to wait to meet her but it gave us some good bonding time. Mike actually took a whole week off work and it was so great having the family together and just hanging on the couch together.

Of course Makayla has adjusted fine to Stella as well as Perry. Bentley hasn't been the least bit jealous but she did want me to feed her her sippy cup for about five minutes than was back to normal. Roman took two sniffs of her and walked away. He doesn't even seem to notice her. I'm sure he fears the day that she tries to ride him like a horse and pull his ears and tail, and poke his eyes.

I am the proudest mom. My house is a wreck, I'm exhausted and my kids are crazy and life could not be any better. This is what life is all about.

Roman's Dragon Costume

I am getting a little carried away with halloween costumes for Roan this year. This is only one of them. It's so hard to not by him these funny costumes! They never make doggie clothes in his size and it kills me! I think doggie clothes are absolutely ridiculous but seeing my horse walking around in them cracks me up, and he doesn't seem to care. The kids are constantly playing dress up with him, so it's time that Roman got some dress up thats not a hot pink princess cape. I am so sorry for the abuse you have to take from this family Roman, but you look so dang cute!

A Few Funnies

1. A few weeks ago Makayla had 3 friends over after school. I picked them up from the bus stop and was immediately bombarded with baby questions, I immediately went into panic mode.

The conversation:

Me: "Hi girls, how was your day?"

Mak: "Good."

Friend 1: "Where are you going to deliver your baby?" (This girl is 7 and used the word deliver.)

Me: "Saddleback Hospital."

(I was so hoping already that that was the last of this conversation and frantically trying to find another topic but was drawing a complete blank in my state of shock!)

Friend 2: " Why are you delivering it?"

(Oooooh my gosh!!!!! What do I say! Another topic, another topic!!! Why am I drawing a blank!?!)

Friend 1: "Thats where my mommy delivered me."

Me: "Oh, thats great, so what'd you learn at school today?" I was trying to play it cool.

Friend 3: "You never told us why you deliver the baby at the hospital!"

Me: In a panic I said "Because the mailman can't deliver it to the house since she won't fit in the mailbox, so the doctor delivers it at the hospital!"

The car was silent. Oh thank goodness!

2. The animal hospital called while we weren't home. They left a message on the machine. I started playing the message it went something like:

"Hi, this is Laurie from the animal Hospital".....and Perry got so excited.

"MOM! STEWA'S AT THE HOSPITAWL, WETS GO GET HER!

"No, Perry, that was the animal hospital."

With a very confused look on his face he said "Stewas at the animal hospitawl?"

He thought she was delivered to the wrong hospital.

3. Last week we were driving to dance. Bentley was screaming for absolutely no reason for 5-10 minutes. I tried putting her window down, singing, feeding her. I got nothing. She was just very mad about something. After 5 minutes of her high pitched glass breaking screaming on the freeway, I slammed on my brakes and stopped the car. (That was always terrifying to me as a child!) I put the car in park and started yelling at my 19 month old. She quickly quieted down. I sat on the side of the road for a couple minutes calming myself down, my kids were in absolute shock at my reaction, when Perry says "Mom, I can't wait for you to have Stella so your crazy war zones will give me my mommy back." He meant to say crazy hormones. I felt like the worst mother in the world.

A Little Confused

Bentley and I were looking at pictures on the computer and we came across last years Christmas pictures with Santa Claus. She started telling us who was who and when she pointed to Santa she said "Jedus." I guess the are kinda the same person, or the same concept. Santa is just a little heavier.

Tanaka Farms Round 1

Mak and Perry were gone for the weekend so we rounded up Bentley and took her to Tanaka Farms for a little bit of fall fun. We went on a tractor ride over to the petting zoo where she pet every single goat and had a little conversation with each and every single one of them. The goats loved her hair bows and tried to have a little taste of them, I guess we shoulda coughed up a few bucks to feed them. After the ride we went and looked at the pumpkins. Bentley was fascinated with the scarecrow, of course my crazy little girl wasn't at all afraid. She was so tired after just an hour that we decided to go and that we needed to come back with Mak and Perry.