More Hospital Pictures...

Mia is now 36 hours old and we are loving her more every minute! I can't stop staring at her and her cuteness - she is seriously a doll. We look forward to heading home in a few hours and sleeping in our own beds. We will, however miss the great hospital food - if you think I'm kidding, I'm not - this hospital has great room service!

Trying on her first headband!


Mia has had a lot of visitors - her brothers and sisters and cousins and Grandpa were all visiting yesterday and then were back again this morning. Kate was not so sure about Mia for the first little bit - when Meredith asked her where's the baby? She pointed to herself and scooted away from Mia. Eventually she warmed up to her a little!

All of the cousins admiring sweet Miss Mia

I love this picture!

And this one - so precious!

Finally a picture of Daddy and Daughter

The kids love the bathroom door in the hospital room, it's a giant white board. I'm not sure if kids are supposed to draw on it or not, but i loved my pictures and the kids were well occupied.

Baby Mia Arrives!!!

After three days of hard work and on and off again contractions, we were finally admitted to the hospital on Saturday afternoon, July 10th. I was dilated to 3 cm when we arrived and after being admitted, had dilated to 4cm but wasn't progressing much beyond that. The doctor decided to break my water and get things moving along. Things didn't move along so well, so Pitocin was started around 7pm and...
5 hours in and not feeling too bad...

At least the glitter toes were still lookin pretty cute!

The epidural was started around 10 pm and labor continued... By about 12:15 I was able to feel horrible pressure like I needed to push. We tried upping the epidural to numb the feeling but it didn't work. Contractions were coming about every 2 minutes or less and with each contraction came the same horrible pressure. I clung tight to the arm of the bed, meanwhile squeezing my legs together so I wouldn't accidentally push the baby out! (Not that that would have actually happened but in my irrational state, that's all I could think of.) I knew I was getting super close and at 12:50 the nurse checked me and I was ready to go. For some reason it took another 20 minutes before they actually had me start pushing. 2 practice pushes with the nurse and my doctor was called in at 1:20. As he was getting suited up he had me push, only to tell me stop almost immediately because Mia was already halfway out, I think he barely caught her!

She came out screaming and ready to eat almost right away!

Before her bath and shortly after delivery

Sweet Mia Bella, right after being bathed

The kids came Sunday morning to see their new sister - they are all in love with her, even Zac could not stay away from her and wanted to hold her right away.

Mia Bella Ashton - July 11, 2010 - 1:24 am - 7 pounds, 10 ounces - 21 inches long

Dr. Layton - the best doctor ever! I seriously love him and am so grateful for the great care he has taken in delivering our last 3 babies.

Funny Comparison

As I was posting the ultrasound pictures yesterday I kept thinking how much it looked like Brynley. So I scanned through some pics from the day Bryn was born and wanted to post a comparison shot of Brynley and Baby #4 still in utero.

Brynley - less than an hour old:
Baby #4 at almost 36 weeks:
Hmm, it will be interesting to see her in person and see how much they really compare but I think the resemblance is pretty amazing!

For Comparison here is Zac a few hours after birth:

35 weeks, 5 days

Today I had what will probably be my last ultrasound during this pregnancy... the end is near... She is looking great and weighing in at 6 pounds, 11 ounces, the doctor thinks this is actually a little low and thinks she is closer to 7 pounds! She is very healthy and pretty much ready to come at any time, I am hopeful she will be here sometime in the next two weeks - I just need to talk my doctor into it! As I was driving today I noticed it was 112 degrees outside - yes I am ready to not be pregnant any more, the heat is killing me!!! Enjoy the pictures of little miss chubby cheeks!

The ultrasound tech gave me about 30 pictures as it is very rare for a baby to be showing off her face this far along and she was amazed at the pictures she was getting. I can't believe I will actually meet this little lady soon!

I'm thinking she looks exactly like Brynley!

10 Years Ago Today...

I married a pretty great guy! Little did I know how great our lives together would actually be - I always dreamed of a fairy tale life with a happily ever after and I believe that 10 years in - I got exactly that!
This is one of our engagement photos:

And here we are today at breakfast:
Our life has certainly not been perfect and I am sure there are many obstacles still in our way but we are in it together - all of us! Andy continues to spoil me daily and is always beyond thoughtful when it comes to making me happy. I remember 10 years ago waking up the morning of our wedding freaking out - I thought for sure I had made a mistake, what was I doing? I was only 21, Andy was 26 - practically an old man! I remember walking into the Portland Temple and Andy was sitting there waiting with his parents, he had a huge grin on his face and I could hardly look at him - our lives would be changing forever and sometimes I don't deal well with change! Thank goodness I didn't listen to the butterflies and I went ahead with the wedding - because the rest of the day was pure bliss. And the 10 years since have been a wild ride that I wouldn't step off of for a minute!

Andy took us all to breakfast at one of our favorite breakfast spots - The Flight Deck Cafe at the Gateway airport. It was a nice way to spend the morning together.
Brynley thought we needed a picture of the two babies in the family:
Hayden - 7 years old
Brynley - 4 years old
Zac - 2 years old
And not to leave out the next member of the family - Baby girl at 32 weeks
Happy Anniversary Andy - I love you more today than yesterday!

End of the year dance recital!

At the end of April, Brynley had her final dance recital for the year. She has been so cute at home practicing while singing her song! She did a great job but never smiled the whole time! We will have to work on that for next year - I think she was just really concentrating!
Hayden was very patiently watching every dance!

Bryn's teacher (Miss Misty) also works on tumbling and had the girls do a little bit of tumbling. Unfortunately, Bryn's cartwheel is not so good - Though I'd say she has at least 15 - 20 pounds up on all the other girls in the class so I'm not surprised that her little arms can't hold her up!


After the recital - what a cutie! (I think I'm starting to see some resemblance between the two of us!)

7 Years ago today...

...our sweet baby Hayden joined our little family! He made quite the entrance and for those who don't know the story - I am going to give a quick recap of the day leading up to his birth:

It was Tuesday May 20th - the last day of school and my last day of teaching before having my baby. Hayden's due date was 3 weeks away and I was looking forward to a few weeks of relaxing on the couch before the big day! The kids were dismissed around noon that day at which point I went to work trying to finish packing up my classroom. I was really quite huge at this point but still getting around pretty well. Andy was planning to meet me at the school when he was done with classes around 5pm so we could finish packing up together. Once he got to the school I felt so sick to my stomach - I figured it was because I hadn't eaten all day and all I wanted was a steak! So instead of working, we left to go out to dinner, even leaving my car in the parking lot and heading to Black Angus.

When we got to the restaurant it was so crowded, why on a Tuesday night before 6 was it so stinkin crowded??? So I sat down to wait for our table, after a few minutes I really thought I would pass out because I was so hungry. Andy was feeling really bad and got me a loaf of bread from a hostess who took a little pity on me! The bread was wonderful, it helped me feel a bit better pretty quickly. After waiting in the lobby for about 20 minutes our name was finally called and I would finally get my steak and potatoes! We got about half way to our table when I heard a small pop, like a balloon popping and suddenly water was gushing down my legs. I sort of freaked out and told Andy I think my water broke! Meanwhile people are staring at us - I had a knee length skirt on so you could just see the water puddling on the floor as I tried to keep my legs together while waddling to chair I saw 5 feet away. I grabbed the chair and sat down. Turns out I grabbed the chair from a table where a very young couple were on a date - they looked at me pretty wide eyed!

The hostess didn't know what to do, neither did I or Andy - this had never happened to us before! Andy asked if they had any towels in the back and so she ran and got some. I started wiping down my legs and kind put a few between my legs as I stood up, another huge gush, and I sat right back down. How on earth would I ever be able to walk out of this restaurant??? Eventually Andy convinced me that I just had to suck it up and do it! And so a few minutes later we headed back out the way we came in - people were clapping and telling us congratulations, it was so unreal. As I walked out of the restaurant people were coming in saying, "Is it time???" We got to Andy's car and put a few of the towels (that the restaurant let us take) on the seat of the car before I sat down, then we headed home to get the hospital bag!

Andy called triage and they told us to come in right away even though I was having no contractions, but the water kept pouring out. I was measuring over 6-7 weeks ahead during the pregnancy and now we know why - I had huge amounts of extra amniotic fluid - it was amazing. The rest of the story is basically that I spent 17 hours in labor, in the hospital on pitocin before Hayden finally entered the world on Wednesday, May 21st! I was glad to have that surprise 3 weeks early - I totally didn't expect it! He weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces. Here are a few pictures from the days after Hayden was born:


We are so thrilled with the young man that Hayden is becoming - he continues to amaze us each and every day! He is already talking about turning 8 next year and getting baptized - time sure flies!
Hayden was so proud last month to get his picture taken at BYU - he is totally set on going there - we cross our fingers that he will someday!