Utah Trip

We went up to Utah for a trip the week before Thanksgiving for Braeden's brothers wedding.  The first day we spent driving to St George with a quick stop in Vegas to visit Braeden's brother Glenn and his family. Wish I had taken more pictures! Chesni and Glenn's daughter Alexa were best buds and seriously look like they could be sisters. We spent the night in St George and finished the drive up to Layton the next morning. We got to meet Uncle Trenten's fiance Stephanie during last minute wedding preparations. We were so excited to meet her and look forward to getting to know her better. The next day was wedding craziness, which is the very best kind. With trying to keep three kids from running rampant I didn't get many pictures from the wedding but here one from the wedding and a few others from our trip.

Niece and nephew shot, they will make great parents!

Aspen and Grandma Steph

Chesni LOVED Jack and luckily he was very patient with her carrying him around a bunch :)

Aspen just loved Uncle Trent, tons of smiles and coos!

Aspen with my Grandma Stolle

I'm not sure how I didn't manage to get a better picture of us with McKenna, but we stayed with them a second, or at least that's what it seemed like! She was up and playing with the kids when I got up, such a great Aunt! We also had a super quick visit with my brother Breckon (wish I had been better at taking pictures), and with our friends the Olsen's. Fast trip, but still fun.  We love any time that we get to spend with our family and friends!

Aspen Lynn

 I had a baby!  I can't believe I am just now posting about this, but life with 3 kids has been kind of crazy.  Aspen Lynn Hayes made her debut on September 11th, 2012 at 2:33p.m.  She weighed 8 lbs 6 oz and was 21 1/2" long.  She has been such a sweet baby and so even tempered. Jaxon and Chesni LOVE her and more than once I have had to remind them not to smother her.  I ended up being induced 4 days before my due date.  My OB was concerned about her weight as several ultrasounds had shown her to be in the 85 to 90th percentile.  Truth be told when they said she was probably going to be between 9 and 10 pounds I was a tad bit concerned myself.  It was a super easy delivery though and from the time the doctor came in and told me to push to the time she was here was less than 5 minutes.  It was so much fun to be surprised with her being a girl!

My wonderful neighbor asked if she could take Aspen's newborn pictures and she did such a wonderful job!  Here is a link to her website if you are interested in having her take your pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbbella/.  I will try to post more pictures soon and give more of an update on how we are all doing.

We love our neighborhood!!

 We seriously live in the coolest neighborhood.  Which is good because it takes FOREVER to go anywhere else :)  Okay, so more like 20 minutes, but we are still so grateful for all the fun the neighborhood provides us.  A couple weekends ago our Saturday went as follows:
  A local Boy Scout group comes each year and lets families go canoeing!  They had 6 canoe's in the lake and the line went pretty quickly.  So first thing we headed to the lake, which is a couple miles from our house. Braeden and Mom took the kid's out on the lake while I stayed safely on the shore.  I figured with my current lack of balance and coordination I would be more of a hindrance than a help.  Next year...  Everyone had a blast and the kids discovered that canoeing isn't so scary, it is actually kind of fun! 

 After canoeing we went home and decided we needed to make a trip to the pool.  Our neighborhood has a big pool and water park right by the lake, and they also have a satellite pool at the top and bottom of the neighborhood.  We went to the pool and had an enjoyable swim.  Grandma even helped Chesni get brave enough to leave the steps of the pool (with her floaty on of course), and by the time we left she was kicking around on her own! She want from, "I want to hold you!", to "I want to swim!"  I need to get a picture, I am so proud of her!  And what perfect timing too.  Now when the baby comes I will be a little braver about taking the kids to the pool :)

We finished off the night with a free movie on the lawn also put on by our neighborhood.  Every other Saturday they play a free movie on a big blow up screen via projector. They have free popcorn and there are other concessions that you can purchase.  We have done this a couple times now and the kids love it!  The above picture is of Braeden trying to sleep while keeping both kids entertained :)  Jaxon was being fairly calm and just laying on Daddy, but Chesni was determined to get him to play with her. 

Overall it was a great day!  Thanks Rancho Sahuarita!  We appreciate all the family friendly things you make available to us!

The local wildlife

 We were driving along one of the main roads in our neighborhood shortly after moving here and we saw 3 horses, one of which was looking very pregnant.  It struck us as odd but then we saw an older couple in a truck pull over near them and figured they were their horses and had somehow gotten out of their corral.  About 2 weeks later we saw them again, but this time there was a foal!  They were grazing in a field near the entrance to our neighborhood.  And we realized something, these are wild horses!  That's right, we have 4 wild horses roaming around our neighborhood (it is a large neighborhood at over 3 miles from end to end).  There are lots of wild areas where there are no houses, just water runoffs and some walking/biking paths.  We see them often and Jaxon and Chesni are both pretty sure they are their horses.  The baby is hiding behind it's mommy in the first picture, but you can see it clearer in the 2nd.  Obviously they have no fear of people, they just move out of your way if you try to walk/drive by.

I never realized how many bugs live in the desert. Big ones. Chesni came up to me holding a (dead) almost 3 inch beetle the other day!  Nasty! Should have taken a picture, but I was too busy freaking out about her touching it.  And this morning on our walk we came across the above praying mantis.  Jaxon was very excited to see this particular bug because we saw one when we were in Georgia as well so there are some things that don't change when you move :)

Our New Adventures

 You would think that by now I would have oodles of pictures of our new house, but apparently we only hang out in the backyard because those are almost all the pictures I have.  The move to Arizona went pretty smoothly, although we did discover that if you are driving across Texas in 100+ degree weather, you need to take frequent breaks to let your engine and gas tank cool off.  Our car sputtered to a stop in-the-middle-of-nowhere-Texas, and wouldn't start for about 20 minutes and then it miraculously started!  We stopped at the next gas station to let Braeden catch up with the moving van and gas up and a very nice employee informed us that the roads get so hot and give off so much heat that your gas will actually evaporate in your tank, causing some problems for any engines that run off gas in it's liquid form :) We topped off the tank, waited for a bit, and were able to complete our journey with just a couple more stops to cool off the car. 

We have been so happy to finally be settling into a house that we will be staying in for a while!  The kids love the backyard and are out there at least a couple hours every day.  Not a very exciting backyard if you ask me but apparently there are all kinds of monsters, bugs, and funny sounding birds to entertain for hours. 

Here the kids are watching the birds sitting on the house behind ours

 Shortly after we moved in we added the pool in the back so there wouldn't be quite so much begging to go to the big pool every day.  In the picture with the kids sleeping together you can see the corner of a super cool sand castle that is painted on their wall.  I will have to take some good pictures of their room, it really has the coolest paint job ever!  Complete with pirate ship, sea monster, mermaids, dinosaurs and more.  Jaxon is convinced it is the coolest bedroom ever.  We also live right across the street from the park you can see the kids riding their bikes around.  There is a park and then a big grassy area with a path that goes all the way around it.  We head over there almost every morning so Mom and I can get our walk in and the kids can get some energy out riding their bikes and playing on the playground. 

Our other big news since moving to Arizona is that we bought a minivan!!  Seeing as how there will be 3 children and 3 adults living in our home very shortly we needed something a little bigger than our 5-seater Avalon.  We got a Toyota Sienna and we love it.  The kids love the doors that open at the push of a button and Jaxon likes that he gets to sit in the back with his very own cup-holder and secret compartment.  When I take pictures of the kids room I will try to take one of the van as well. 

Whew!  I think I am all caught up on our news!  Good luck getting through all the posts, there are just a few new ones :)  I would say that I would try to keep up better but let's be honest, I'm having a baby. Maybe once I figure out how to have 3 kids and still be semi-organized I will be a more consistent poster.  In the meantime, enjoy the new posts!

Baby #3

 This pregnancy has gone by so fast!  I can't believe I am already over 35 weeks.  I always used to say that I have super easy pregnancies and nothing ever goes wrong.  Apparently this child decided to mix it up a little. We started out normally and then at my 20 week ultrasound they told me I had placenta previa.  They said no exercise and no lifting (this is just before our 2 moves!) until it resolved and scheduled another ultrasound for 28 weeks.  That ultrasound ended up happening just a few days before our cross country move from Georgia to Arizona. 

20 weeks (I miss my hair!!)

 

 

33 Weeks (I swore I would never take pictures of myself but it seems that is the only way to get any pictures of my pregnancy)

At my 28 week ultrasound they said the placenta had moved all the way up towards the top of my uterus so I was free and clear of any complications.  Keep in mind that this time around we have decided to wait and find out what the babies sex is when baby is born, so more ultrasounds are torture!!  Once we made it safely to Arizona I found a new OB and went in for my routine appointment.  There was some trouble getting the ultrasounds transferred from my other doctor so they decided to do a growth check just to be sure, THANK YOU!!!  During the growth check (done at 32 weeks) they found out that baby was now measuring over 2 weeks big, whereas at my 28 week ultrasound baby was about 6 days big, and I have polyhydramnios (a fancy shmancy way of saying I have lots of amniotic fluid).  So now I am having weekly NST's and biophysical profiles done on the baby (done by ultrasound).  Can I just say how hard it is not to give into the temptation and have them just tell me what I am having already?!!  REALLY HARD!!  We are struggling with baby names and if we could just narrow it down to boy or girl names it would really help out, but I will be patient...

So far it just looks like I will be delivering baby early, but they are taking it a week at a time right now. As long as the baby stays looking healthy and stable and isn't getting too crazy big we will try to wait until closer to my due date. I am contracting like crazy already so I am hoping I will go into labor on my own and not have to be induced. But it would be really great if baby could wait at least 2 or 3 more weeks so Braeden can get some big projects done at work and ensure that he will be able to take some time off to enjoy our new little one.

Jaxon turned 4!

For some reason I can't get this picture to rotate for me, so just turn your head to see how cool Jaxon is.  He is pretty sure he is the coolest 4-year-old ever!  For Jaxon's 4th birthday we had a BBQ and water party with all of our friends.  Somehow I didn't manage to get any pictures documenting the day, apparently I was too busy running around getting food ready and chatting.  It was so great to have all of our friends there and to spend one last afternoon visiting with everyone.  Jaxon misses all of his friends from Georgia but he is making new friends here in Arizona as well.  He was pretty excited to see how many boys his age are in our ward!  They even had to split the sunbeam class up into a boys and a girls class, yay for so many potential friends!

Jaxon is slowly become less of a picky eater.  At least he is willing to try more things, though he may only take a few bites.  He loves to sing, real songs and songs he makes up as he goes along.  I love all the music and am thinking about starting a little music exploration group with some friends his age.  We'll see how I'm feeling about that after the baby comes :) 

Jaxon's favorite pastime right now is to pretend he is an animal, most often a cat.  I love seeing his imagination take off.  Not many toys are necessary for him to keep himself occupied for hours.  He also loves going to the pool, playing with friends, and reading books.  Oh, and he is a champion bike rider!  He rode his bike over a mile and a half the other day before he decided he was too tired to keep going.  We are going to have a mini Olympics in a couple weeks and I have a feeling he is going to be ready for that bike race :)