An attempt at family pictures

Mike and i have been talking for a long time about how we really need to get some family pictures taken!! unfortunately I havent really been on top of it so it hasnt ever happen! Saturday Morning we woke up and it was so beautiful outside so mike decided we needed to just snap a few at a park somewhere before it gets too cold in this town! After watching conference we tried to hurry and get everyone ready but of course it took longer than we wanted so we decided to do it after the second session rather than right before... eva got a little nap but then we had to wake her up to leave so she was crying pretty much the whole time we were there... no lunch and woken prematurely from a nap- not a great combo :) still not a complete waste of time! At lease we got a couple of all of us and some cute ones of other combinations of us!

 Halle- our little model

 He's getting TOO big TOO fast!!

Poor Eva... at least she's still so cute even when she's sad

Birthday Girls!

We have had lots of fun this summer! Eva and Halle both had birthdays! Eva wanted a GREEN birthday so i created a GREEN jungle birthday! She had lots of fun and felt really special on her big day!

Halle has really been loving Jake and the Neverland Pirates lately so she wanted a PIRATE birthday! She wanted to be dressed like Izzy from the show. The kids LOVED the treasure hunt and the pinata! Halle got tons of great gifts! She has the best friends and family! She was extra excited that Nana and Papi and Michelle could be there!

Noah James Smith Birth

It has been so fun having a new baby at our house! He is the sweetest, cutest, most perfect little thing  I've ever seen! Friday, February 22nd (2 days after my EDD) early in the morning (about 5ish I think) I was woken up a few times with painful contractions but they were far apart so I just feel back asleep after each one. Then at about 7am Halle and Eva woke up and came in our room and mike got up to start getting ready for work. After being awake for about 30 minutes I realized my contractions were coming about 7 minutes apart and were definitely real labor pain. So, Mike called into work and said he wasn't coming in. All morning I was having contractions, some were pretty painful others were not as painful and I would get worried at times when I had 2 or 3 in a row that weren't painful that I wasn't really in labor! I was getting kind of frustrated because the contractions weren't getting closer together or MORE painful and I new it had to get worse before I was actually ready to have the baby. So I started going up and down the stairs, and walking around the house a lot, and we decided we were going to go to target so I could at least get out and walk around more and be distracted with something. So I took a long shower and finally they started getting worse. After my shower I labored in my room by myself for awhile and was having some good contractions but still, nothing really bad, so I finished getting ready and told everyone to get ready to leave for the store. I kept walking around and did the stairs a few more times and then really quickly the contractions started coming really close together (like 3-5 minutes apart) and REALLY painful, at probably like 1 o'clock. After about 30 minutes of this I told everyone we should probably head to the hospital instead of the store. So Mike's mom took the girls, and me, mom and mike headed to AF to the hospital. When we got there I was so nervous that I wouldn't be progressed enough for them to let me stay but I was dilated to a 5! YAY and such a sigh of relief! We got all checked in and in a delivery room then I got my IV and told the Nurse to call the Anesthesiologist so I could get my epidural! He came in and gave me the epidural at 4:40 and dilated to a 6 and usually it takes about 15 minutes to kick in but once it was in I didn't feel another contraction, which was SO nice!  Then at about 7:15 I think, I told my Midwife that I felt like he was getting really low and I might be ready to push, so she checked me and said I was dilated to a 10 and I indeed was ready to push, SO they got everything out that they needed, called a couple of nurses in and I started pushing at 7:40 and he was born at 7:55! When his head came out he was super blue and purple and his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck really tight which was kind of scary but the midwife was really calm, which made me not too worried.  She said she couldn't get it back over his head  so she would need to cut the cord right then. So she got it cut and right when she did he totally twisted around and got a little color back told me to push one more time and the rest of his body came right out. She put him on my chest but he wasn't really making any noise or moving and was still pretty blue/purple so after like 5 seconds she said he needed to go with the nurses to his little station to the side. they were rubbing him and giving him oxygen but he still wasn't crying and responding so they pushed the CODE button and a bunch of other nurses and doctors ran in to help but right when they came in the door Noah gave a big scream and screamed until he came back to me :) Apparently he did not want to be work on a lot and he just wanted his MAMA! :) Looking back it should have been a lot more scary but in the moment all the nurses and my midwife were so calm that it didn't seem like there was really anything wrong. At the same time hearing his first cry was like a breath of fresh air and made me cry from joy that I had a perfect little baby and everything was alright :)