“I done lost my tooth. That there donkey kicked me in the mouth” Not only that, but then Dad threw away my tooth because he thought it was just a bloody tissue. Mom and Dad went through the gross garbage three times and didn’t find it. Don’t worry the tooth fairy is omniscient and found it and left an envelop for Ariana by the garbage can. What a day!
I think this was the first birthday that I had a hard time with. I can’t believe my baby is 7 years old, didn’t I just bring her home from the hospital? It seems like I just watched her take her first steps or took her to preschool for the first time and worried about her the whole was home. She loved her birthday. Austin made stroganoff for her birthday dinner and she had an ice cream scoop cake. Yes, after all the work on the princess cake for the party the girls didn’t get cook cakes on their actual birthday. But they still got sugar, that’s what counts right? Ariana’s favorite gift this year was probably CDs, that’s a new one for me. That’s probably what brought on the sadness. The kids boogied all evening to the new music Ariana got. I can’t believe how old she looks sometimes. She’s going to be taller than me any day now! Not that that’s saying much!
The Birthday Patty
Since Ariana and Bria’s Birthdays are 5 days apart I talked them into a combined birthday party. While it was a made house for an hour and a half I think it worked out great! We had a cake castle and Snow White showed up at our princess party. The girls played snow white themed games and made princess crowns. All the party girls got pictures with Snow White at the party, which reminds me, I need to get those pictures to everyone and their moms! I thought it went off beautifully. Thank you Snow White (my sister Caitlin)for taking time out of your day. She also had three shows that day as Ariel in The Tempest. Also thank you Amelia and Mom I would never have finished those hats! Who knew they would have been so time consuming. And of course, thank you Austin Snow White would have been mauled, we would have had no pictures and a whole ton of other things would have been left undone without you! LOL I feel like I’m giving a speech! Cole wasn't quite sure what to do with so many girls around, but he held his own and Diana (thankfully) slept through the whole thing. It was a fun day!
Bria’s Birthday was great. She was so excited to turn five and the day was everything she wanted it to be! In the morning I asked her (jokingly) if she felt any different. I should remember that my kids can’t pick up on sarcasm most of the time. She said, “Yes! Let’s see how many times I can hop.” She preceded to hop and count. When she was done she said “Wow, I can hop more times now than when I was 4. Throughout the day I was told such things as “Five year olds don't sleep with a rail on their bed." I’m thinking that this five year old better because she rolls into the rail and the wall multiple times a night and I can hear her! The one that I hope is true is “Five year olds don’t suck their thumbs anymore Mom!” We’ll see if that one happens. My favorite was “My name is still Bria even though I’m five years old!” A few months ago I was trying to talk her out of sitting in her restraint style highchair. She’s short and it keeps her at the right height not to mention she has a huge challenge with change. She would not move out of it for Cole so I ordered a new nice one for Cole which matches the table better now anyway. On her birthday Bria insists it’s time for her to move out of her high chair now too. I wish I could remember all the funny things she said about being five because that is just a taste.
Austin made Bria sushi for dinner and she loved it. I made her a candy bar "cake" since she wants me to make a princess castle cake for her big birthday party on Saturday. I think one of her most favorite gifts was matching shirts for her and Diana, she's been dying to wear matching outfits with Diana.
We celebrated my birthday a day earlier. Austin was supposed to have a meeting late on Monday (my birthday) so we celebrated on Sunday as it was his meeting was canceled and we were able to spend my birthday together too. On Sunday, he made me a great dinner: fried chicken and yummy yummy mashed potatoes. I’m so lucky to have a husband that cooks so good. I made a pretty good light cheese cake, it was still high in fat and calories as well as good taste, but it was a light for a cheesecake! Yes, I made my own cake, but I wanted to. The kids had a blast helping me open my presents and trying on my new clothes. They made me try them on too. I have to say, Austin always seems to catch me with all the odd looks on my face when he takes my picture. Maybe it’s just that I am always making faces, ugh! Thanks for the great birthday family!
Diana’s first Big Girl Bath Today. She was tired of reclining in the baby bath. We tried the bathroom sink and it was awkward for the both of us, she loved the bath and with a whole two or three inches of water had a HUGE BLAST! I let Cole and Bria get in just as I was going to get her out. I don't think she's quite ready for a bath with them, but they all thought it was pretty fun. Bria held her for a minute for pictures. She thinks the bath is so fun and of course, is always happy for another photo op!
Austin's parents stayed with us this past weekend. We went to the dinosaur museum and then to get Sushi on Friday. The kids loved the dinosaur museum, Cole and Bria have really liked watching PBS's new Dinosaur Train show and so it was really fun for them to see a lot of dinosaurs. I just can't believe how big some dinosaurs were. The scariest part was some of the freaky ocean animals. I think I saw some glimpse of where Dr Seuss might have gotten some of his inspiration for some of his odd looking characters.
Saturday Morning Austin's parents watched our kids for a half hour so we could go running together. I totally loved it, I wish we could get out together to run more. Austin made us all him yummy pizza and we got to watch a good BYU win. Go Cougs!
Cole totally has his grandpa wrapped around his finger and made him do anything and everything he could think of, he had a lot of fun with Grandpa Hammer. He really didn't want him to leave this morning. The girls also loved having a bit of an early birthday with their Grandma and Grandpa and liked their gifts! Thanks Nana and Grandpa!
Finally, Bria's first day of school. She has had a paper chain she made to count down the days. I think we both thought today would never get here. She told Dad at least 5 times this morning before he left for work that today was going to be her first day of school and that she was so excited about it. It was pretty cute.
Mom was just fine with her staying at home forever but, Bria really was tired of being at home all the day. We were both excited today. She wasn't too nervous and looked so stinkin' cute! She had a fun day and told us all about it. She's only gone half the day, so Mom still gets to see her a lot which is nice. Cole misses her a lot. He's really not liking this school thing that takes his sisters away. But on an upside for him he gets full reign of the computer and TV if Mom will let him.
Today was a great day! Go BYU! It was awesome to see a good Cougar win. We were playing them tight even before Bradford went down, despite what all the headlines are leading people to believe. Anyway, here's what we did earlier today. About a year ago my uncle gave us this Oklahoma cheerleader outfit(they are OU fans). So today we dressed bozo up in the cheerleader outfit and our pre-game festivities included the kids beating on Bozo the OU Clown. I'm probably going to get in trouble if my uncle finds out. Good game Sooners! By the time the kids were done with Bozo he was pretty flat, he already had a decent sized leak, but the beating didn't help. Bria was so cute tonight at the end of the game. She kept yelling "GO BYU" and "I want BYU to win". She asked me if I wanted BYU to win too. I thought that it was funny that she was questioning me about which team I wanted to win.
We also partied tonight with a few friends and a lot of sushi and tempura here at home. BYU finished off our night with an awesome win, so it was a good night. Now if only Austin and I had a babysitter so we could go down to the airport at 2:30 in the morning to welcome the cougs home.
So this summer has been pretty busy. I haven’t updated the website since the beginning of June. I did 6 other posts today to catch us up a bit. I think this post I’ll just update a bit about what has kept all of us busy the past three months.
We really didn’t have much of a garden this year. We planted tomatoes. Luckily, we had the strawberry and raspberry plants and have enjoyed those quite a lot too. And our little peach tree gave us three whole peaches!
I am going to brag about Austin because he never would. He is down to 8% body fat. I think that is pretty incredible. His working out “hobby” goes perfect with his other hobby of cooking. He’s been doing some pretty incredible cooking lately. He’s the “Chef” for French Toast Wednesdays and Barbecue Fridays at work. I’ve heard that everyone is really impressed. This summer we’ve made some yummy burgers and pizza thanks to Austin. It took him only three tries to just about perfect his pizza crust. And we’ve made blue-cheese-filled ground beef and sausage burgers and some really good bacon mushroom cheese burgers with the same ground beef and sausage meat that Austin has been combining. He is really wishing there was some way for him to start a catering business or open a restaurant. Work is really going well for him. We’re working on a food page to share Austin’s (and mine I guess) recipes and creations.
I’ve worked out everyday for the past 18 weeks (excepting Sundays). I am really proud of myself. Austin is my biggest motivation, it’s hard to live with someone so fit and not be fit myself. It’s been good motivation. I am starting to notice a difference too. I haven’t done any of the digital scrap booking that I love since before Diana was born and I am starting to miss it. Hopefully, I'll start up again soon. Books have been filling what little extra time that I have, and I have really enjoyed lots of them. My favorites have been Jane Erye and Pride and Prejudice. I had never read either of them until the last couple months. Jane Erye is such a wonderful character, and there are so many lessons to learn from the book. It’s just a great read. I’ve already confessed to Austin that I have a crush on Mr Darcy. I’ve never seen any Pride and Prejudice Movie. So it’s not a certain actor, it’s the character in the book. I’m already over halfway through again, and my crush is growing. LOL! I never knew that I would like any of the Jane Austen books, but I do. I’ve read quite a lot more books, but those have been my favorites. My least favorite book that I’ve read lately is Wuthering Heights--I am not a fan. I also had the unfortunate experience of finding a few mice in our garage. We got rid of them, but it wasn’t so fun to find them. Here’s some pictures of the little ones that take most of our time.
Ariana has loved reading Junie B Jones books this summer. She’s also read (with Austin or I) The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian and she’s in the middle of the Magician’s Nephew. She loves them and really liked The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe movie too.
Bria has been learning to read more and more. She’ll come to me and try to make up words out of letters, too. She loves coloring and has made some great art projects. Ariana and Bria have done some pretty cool crystals and changing-colors science experiments this summer. She's ready to start school, but just like Ariana she was born just a few weeks after the deadline for school. So she'll be starting preschool in another couple weeks, and she has already made a paper chain to count down to the first day.
Cole has found out how fun it is to play on the computer. He really thinks the computer is his and always wants to sit with me when I am at the computer. It makes doing anything at the computer quite difficult. He loves playing kids' games on the computer. The other day when we were at the store he spelled out the name of the store. He’s as energetic as ever and is hard to keep up with.
Diana is growing like crazy. She still has her reflux but is such a sweet, happy baby anyway. She has started solid foods and now goes after everyone’s plates. Poor thing really thinks she wants what everyone else has. She has really started to scoot and roll around. I am always amazed at how far she can get. She doesn’t use her hands and knees so much as her chest/face and feet as well as a lot of rolling and arching. She will try elbows and knees some times, but not too often. She smiles and is happy with her whole body, and Austin and I are always so surprised that we haven’t dropped her when she gets so excited. She’s really starting to talk and babble a lot. Being number four doesn’t make it any less exciting. She is adored by her whole family.
I went and had the kids' pictures taken at the beginning of August, and they turned out fabulous! The photographer was great. The kids all loved posing and modeling, Diana included. It was so hard to narrow it down to the 14 poses we kept.
Today was Ariana’s First Day of School! I miss my Nani a lot. She is my little helper. She is always wanting to help clean or help with one of her siblings. She belts out the songs when she sings, just like I do. The only difference is she can sing better. Ariana and Bria are best friends, and it is so cute to watch them play together. She’s been looking forward to today for over a year. She’s been ready for first grade forever. Kindergarten was nice, but first grade is “cool”. She decided that she was going to eat school lunch today. They had pizza, and since we had pizza yesterday for dinner she skipped it and had a yogurt instead. That totally seemed like a teenager-y thing to do. LOL! Daddy makes much better pizza. The bike ride to school took a little longer than normal. She was nervous, but she came home with a full report of everything. What she had for lunch was by far the thing that she had the most to say about. She’s excited to go tomorrow. For lunch they’re having “something with mashed potatoes and gravy”, and she promises she’ll eat the main dish this time. She really wants me to wash her skirt so she can wear it again with another shirt tomorrow. I talked her out of it and told her she could wear it on Friday though. She looks so grown up. The house was so quiet today. I’m not sure about this growing up thing. . . .
Yesterday we went swimming with Aunts and Cousins, we really didn’t get an opportunity to take any pictures, but we had a lot of fun. Cole remembered not to slowly walk into the deeper water like he did last time we went to this same pool. About a month ago he was trying to get to the Lazy River through the big kids wading pool. He broke the rule and went past the rope. Of course, he had also ditched the floaty so he was just walking along. I tracked him down pretty fast, but he had walked so far that he had an inch of water over his head and coughed up a big amount of water. YIKES! So now he is extra cautious and so am I. Bria and Austin spent almost all of their time going in circles around the lazy river. Cole stuck with me and Diana in the kiddie pool with his cousin Ava. Ariana spent her time all over the place with Jade and also they took two very long showers in the locker room!
Last night Ariana and Bria camped in the backyard with Austin. We took the two girls’ twin mattresses and put them inside the tent along with a whole lot of blankets and some flash lights. They once again told lots of ghost stories. Ariana slept like a log and Bria slept like a donkey and Austin slept like a person being kicked all night by a donkey. He tried to cuddle with her, but donkeys don’t really cuddle well. Austin thinks he got about 4 hours of broken up sleep, but it’s more than he gets camping and he didn’t have to go anywhere so he’s happy. The girls had a blast. I was glad that someone had to stay inside to hold down the fort with the other two kids inside.
This morning Austin cooked breakfast on our pretend campfire and everyone really enjoyed it. Then we had my parents, two sisters, my grandpa and brother and his family over for Austin’s most delicious pizzas. He has perfected his crust and we’ve been trying to come up with some good “specialty pizzas”. Yummy, I’m wanting more just typing it now!
So this year we did a “stay-cation” with Austin starting a new job in April and then having a small baby we figured it would be a lot easier to do some fun things in Utah this summer. It’s hard to just be gone for an afternoon without messing up Diana’s sleep and naps, a whole vacation would have been interesting. We kind of forgot that is what we wanted to do and Austin ended up having just the weekend and two days before Ariana started school. Austin loved it, it was his favorite vacation because we weren’t worn out and needing more time when it was over to recover. Though three days after Austin went back to work I am still catching up from the laundry that I took a vacation from. Not to mention the fact that having a camp out in the backyard and going swimming definitely adds more laundry than normal.
Today was the first day Austin wad home. We went up to Sandy and went to the Living Planet Aquarium. We weren’t sure what to expect and if it would be much fun at all or if they would have anything really cool. We would recommend it for sure. It isn’t huge, but we spent several hours there and that seemed to be just the right amount to time. The kids were so into it, it was hard to get them to look at us for pictures, not to mention that no flashes are allowed in a big part of it. They have all sorts of different water animals and they even have a few sharks. Diana crashed at the end of our walk around the Aquarium. It was nice to be inside instead of heading to the Zoo and being outside in the heat.
For dinner we were able to go to a place called Sushi Express that is also in Sandy. Austin and I had been wanting to go there, but it is a bit out of the way normally. The sushi was great. And out of all the sushi restaurants we’ve gone to in Utah this was the first one with a Sushi Chef that was Japanese. It was very reasonably priced too, we’ll be trying to find a reason to head up there more often. We found out that Bria really likes Tako Yaki, they are these breaded octopus balls. Austin really likes them too, that might be one of the reasons she likes it.
That night we roasted marshmallows and had smores in the backyard. The girls also tried telling us some ghost stories and had us tell them some too. None of them were very good at all!
So the girls went to a Circus Summer camp today that the gymnastics place did. They had a lot of fun, but the real reason for this post is to show the coolest balloon animal that I have ever seen. Ariana got a dolphin hat and a poodle. Bria got a zebra and a normal hat and the girls brought home a snake for Cole.
We went on a hike on the 24th of July, Pioneer Day in Utah. Caitlin came with us too and it was a lot of fun. We went hiking up by Sundance to some waterfalls that we have never been to. Ariana and Bria are pro hikers so they were excited to go, but soon got tired and started the “I’m tired” chorus followed by the “Are we there yet whine”. Austin carried Cole on the way up and I carried Diana all the way up. On the way down we switched kids. It was a beautiful hike. There were still lots of wild flowers all over the place. It was so green and the path near a stream almost the whole way. The stream was so full that at one point the path became another stream and we walked through about three inches of cool mountain water on the trail for a good few minutes. It was a nice way too cool off. It was just over a mile which was perfect for the kids. The water fall was really pretty. Austin and I hiked down and took a picture in front of it and it reminds me of the time 9 years ago that we went to Multnomah Falls and had our picture taken in front of it too. I want to dig it out and compare how much older we look in that one.
On the 4th of July we did a few fireworks, but every time we stared one it would blow over and shoot at us, so we stopped just after a few. Austin packed the kids up in the car and went to watch the Stadium of Fire big firework display, but Cole fell asleep on the way and never got to see any fireworks. So on the 24th we had a bunch of fireworks left from not being used on the 4th. That night my Mom, Dad and two sisters came over and we had a firework extravaganza followed by some yummy banana splits.
Happy Birthday Austin! I think he had a pretty good birthday. Austin and I ended up going to a Real Salt Lake Game and sitting in a booth and we had catered food. They even had fireworks after the game just for him! OK, so it was really for Independence Day, but we can pretend. The funniest part of today was that Ariana kept on giving away what his presents were going to be. She gets so excited that she sometimes forgets that it is supposed to be a surprise. I told her I didn’t want to tell her what his presents were, but she promised that she wouldn’t tell. Of course she forgot. Oh well! He also had a yummy birthday pie. He’s not into cake a lot.
Today we went to the Orem Summerfest. We’ve gone to the Summerfest every year since Austin and I started dating. So, I guess that’s 9 or 10 years. This year was a lot of fun and definitely one of the more memorable ones.
We met my mom and sisters at the festival and bought a whole bunch of carnival tickets. I stayed with the older two girls, and my two sisters while Austin and my Mom took the younger two to go on kiddie rides. Well, Diana slept in the stroller while Cole went on the rides. Bria went on her first big carnival ride and had a lot of fun. I thought she wouldn’t like it at all, but she did.
Neither of my sisters wanted to go on the next ride with Ariana and Bria, so I went on it with them. As we got on it started getting cloudy, and the wind really started blowing. As this horrible ride that spins you in a million different directions was going, it seemed like the wind was picking up, but I couldn’t tell because we were spinning like crazy. Then I knew for sure that it was when we started getting pelted with cold water. I was trying to laugh the whole time, so the girls wouldn’t get upset. Bria was really hating the ride and with the weather abusing us, it made it even worse. So the ride keeps on going, and I’m thinking the "carnie" is never going to turn it off and we’re getting soaked and I am doing the dumb, fake this-is-fun-laugh so the girls aren’t upset. Finally, he turns it off and then we’re strapped-in facing the way the wind and rain are blowing from. The carnie finally comes and unstraps us, and I grab the girls' hands and start running to who knows WHERE, but we’re running. Amelia comes and picks Ariana up, and then I pick Bria up and we book it for the trees. We are absolutely soaked by the time we get there and Ariana says, “Mom your toenail polish is coming off.” I looked down--it was bleeding quite a lot. I was wearing ‘blood red’ polish on my toes, and it matched perfectly. As we’re huddling under the tree we look around, and it’s just chaos everywhere. People are running all over like crazy. Now that we’re safe under the trees we’re freezing and wondering what is happening with my Mom and Austin and my two little ones.
The rain and the commotion woke up Diana and my Mom, Austin and Cole all got pretty soaked too. They didn't have any giant pines to hide under, but they had part of a big truck that they were able to use to get a little shelter. Diana is wailing in the stroller, because she thinks she wants out into the downpour. Of course, she really wouldn’t like to be soaking wet. So she has to stay under the blankets and canopy, but she continued to protest very loudly. The other three got pretty wet, and poor Cole was shaking so badly. After getting in touch with Austin, he decides to make a run for the car several blocks away and pick us up. During this time I got to sit under the big pine tree with Bria and Ariana trying to keep them warm and listening to the big long list of things that Bria hates. Then rain, the wind, being wet, being on carnival rides when it is raining. Carnival rides that spin too much and don’t stop when you’re yelling “STOP! STOP!” And there were quite a lot more things on the list. I told them that they would look back on it and laugh, but I am not sure they believed me. Finally, Austin was able to get through the traffic to us and we went back to my parents’ house to dry off.
Thankfully, the afternoon cleared up and warmed up a bit, and we were able to head back and use our tickets. Ariana loves carnival rides and was really hoping someone would take her on The Zipper. We were all chicken. I went on it once, and thought I was going to die. I’ve decided as I have gotten older carnival rides aren’t as fun as they used to be.
Cole was pretty tired, and right before he went on the Tilt-a-Whirl with us he kept on wanting to lay down in the parking lot where we were waiting in line. He fell asleep almost right after we got off the ride and seemed to have fun on it.
The parade was a lot of fun, and all the kids enjoyed it a lot. Right at the end of the parade, it started looking like rain again. So we booked it back to the car. Getting soaked once in a day was enough for us. Luckily, we got back to the car before it starting raining, again!
A lot happened in May, let's see if I can highlight some of it.
The girls (Ariana and Bria) and I hiked to the Y for one of Bria's friend's birthday party. She was nice enough to let Ariana come too because Ariana has always wanted to hike to the Y. It was fun. I like huge in the pictures next to my small girls.
The Ariana and Bria had their end of year gymnastics spectacular. They did great, it was a lot of fun.
Ariana and Bria both finished up school and "graduated". Ariana was one of four kids that got to selected to sing a special song during graduation. She was so very excited and did so well.
Cole and Diana keep on growing. Cole is out to kill me and every day he convinces me (not that I ever needed much convincing) that four kids is enough and actually too much sometimes. Yesterday, he colored on the couch in three different spots with a pen, spilled nail polish all over him self (clothes included) and floor and one pee-pee accident. Today before 9, he peed on our bed--soaking wet (on accident), made all three of his sisters cry because he hurt them and had taken off his diaper and accidentally peed on our bath mat while I was in the shower. By 9:30 you can add dumping oatmeal over his head after he was fresh out of the shower while I was putting Diana down for her nap. God knew what he was doing sending him to a family with only sisters, it has not made him tame even if he does but on princess high heels every once in a while.
Diana is the most beautiful little baby girl and so stinkin' smiley and happy. She still has reflux, but with her little personality it doesn't bother her much. I think she might be the happiest baby I've had and I've had some happy ones. She definitely has her moments and when she isn't happy she will tell you about it for sure. She is so alert and has such beautiful eyes. In the slide show I'm including a picture of her watching TV, she does it in an interesting way.
The beginning of June we had some of Austin and my old roommates over for dinner with their spouses and or kids. We've known each other for 10 years. Actually, they've all known each other longer, I've just known them that long. It was a lot of fun. Hopefully, we can do it again. We have the most kids, I guess we're the craziest.
I added a picture to our main page of the kids all look at and smiling at the camera. I was surprised to get that. I also added a couple videos of the kids and Austin.
Happy Anniversary Austin! It's been eight years and four kids. I can't believe that I actually love you more than I did that spring morning eight years ago when we were sealed to each other forever. Thanks for being my best-friend, a wonderful husband and a great father. I tried to find pictures from each year, but it was hard and the baby needs to wake up to eat, but here's what I got. Love you!
Finally taking some time to add stuff to the website. Most of it isn't letting me connect, but I can add news, I just can't edit any other page. That is why I haven't updated sooner.
Life with 4 kids 6 and under and home almost all the time since Ariana is just in kindergarten is crazy, but not insane. Things are going well.
The kids love Diana. She is, of course totally beautiful just like all of our kids. She is pretty easy going, but not a fan of anything cold and she'll just tolerate the water in her bath. She is tough to get to sleep, but sleeps so much better than Cole did as a baby. We'd be up more at night with him then asleep at night. It's not saying much that she sleeps better, but at least she does. Some nights are great others are less than great. She's a cat napper, but rarely really fussy which is so nice. She has acid reflux like Cole, but she seems to deal with it better. I think that's the reason it is hard to get her to sleep sometimes. I am using this great stuff called Colic Calm to help her with her reflux. We used it with Cole along with other meds. I wanted to try and avoid the meds they had too many side effects to name.
Ariana just learned to ride a two wheeler.
Bria is reading really well for a 4 year old.
Cole knows all his letters and most of their sounds. His favorite is A because he screams "AAAAhhhhhhh!"
Austin just started working at a new company on Monday and likes it a lot. It's called Public Engines.
I've worked out every day except Sunday for the past two weeks. I think that's some kind of record since we've had more than one child. I am so excited about it.
A catch up post on April 30.
The kids had a blast on Easter and the day before. Way too much candy and very cute Easter Outfits. We spent Sunday afternoon and my sister Helena's house with lots of family and friends. It was a blast.
A catch up post, today is really April 30
Today we blessed Diana at church. It was hers and my first day at church since she was born. Grandma Jo made her dress, it's beautiful.
We also had Austin's parents with us for the week before. The kids always love when they visit and there were lots of tears after they left.
Our website is being really dumb and I can't update much, so that is why I haven't posted anything forever, today is actually April 30. I'm just catching us up.
Diana Mei was born today in the afternoon. It took us a couple days to actually decide on her name. If I would have written this post on her birthday, it would just be our little girl. Her birth went fabulously. Yes, I had her at home and yes it was on purpose. It took us over half the pregnancy to research and decide on it, it was an educated decision. It was the best for us and this pregnancy and I know homebirths aren't for everyone every time, but it was wonderful! I've never have had a pregnancy and birth where I felt as well taken care of and in competent hands as I did with this one. My midwife and her assistant were amazing!!! We loved it. It was so beautiful and perfect. I wish I had had the other kids this way. If you want to know more about Diana's birth, just ask me. Here's a slideshow of her first few days.
Happy Thanksgiving! We had way too much food this year, just like every year, but we had happy full tummies for 4 days even if Austin went over his calorie limit by a couple thousand. Luckily, I don't keep track of my calorie intake so I don't know how much I ate. Plus I'm running out of room for a lot of extra food. Luckily for Austin, he doesn't only get a chance to work out at the gym. When you live in a zoo and you're one of the zoo keepers, you get a lot of exercise!
Merry Christmas! The kids are so excited for Christmas. Monday they went and saw Santa twice. It's a long story. Cole totally loves Santa and is not afraid of him at all. We had the opposite problem with him: he didn't want to stop seeing Santa! They also got to go on a train ride while we were at the mall.
Last Saturday Austin and I went with my sister to see Twilight. I liked it ok. The cinematography left a lot to be desired. Actually, I had to look away a couple times because I was dizzy, but the casting was good except for the Quilleutes. The director did some funny things too. I'm voting for another director for the next one. So my sister got me a free shirt that says "Vote for Edward Cullen" on it. I wore it to the movie. It's probably the only time I will wear it in public. I'm not obsessed with him. I have a husband to be obsessed with! Things are going well on the baby front. I think I'm sold on chiropractors. I would be more sold if my insurance would pay for it! And here's a shot of Cole and I. I'm 26 weeks pregnant in it.
Ariana is enjoying school a lot. Of course, we think she is the smartest kid in her class or probably her whole age. She's lately been trying to get me to fix her hair in all these 'fancy' ways. I am not too talented in that area, but it's turning out ok. And here's a rare picture. Ariana fell asleep on the couch. She's our 'night owl' and was staying up late while Grandma was over. We were so surprised to see her asleep.
Bria's new thing lately is that she teaches Cole gymnastics every day. They have so much fun! It is so funny to watch. It is just a lot of rolling around and not much that looks like gymnastics. She also can tell anyone a story about "when she was a baby" or "when we lived in our old house" and has a million stories to tell. Austin and I really don't remember her stories the same way she tells them. For instance, she "cried all the time as a baby". We remember her hardly ever crying, and she had this funny little nasaly cry. It was like she didn't really even know how to cry. She can cry for sure now!
Cole is just way too cute for our good. He probably gets away with more because of his big innocent, chocolate eyes. He comes running to the camera and always wants his picture taken. He loves playing with his sisters and gets quite upset when they won't play with him. He loves reading books, and he loves to pretend he doesn't know what we're saying--so he can get away with the trouble he is trying to cause. He can run pretty fast if he's been told 'no'.
Our family had a great Halloween. Here are a couple of pictures of the kids. I also added yet another slide-show of Halloween. Ariana was a butterfly. Bria was a "princess-butterfly-robot-fairy", at least according to her. Cole was a tiger--complete with ROARS. The weather here was fabulous. The only thing that stopped the kids from doing more trick-or-treating was that Mom and Dad were tired. We went to two costume parties before Halloween, both of which Cole wore his costume the whole time with the head up, and we didn't get any pictures. Of course on Halloween he was not into the hood and kept it on for one picture that he wouldn't even look at the camera. He was super cute anyway. Cole loved his “candy” and would even yell “trick-treat”. The girls have been very possessive of their candy. Mom has gotten in trouble a couple of times, because she was caught with her hand in the bag.
If any of you ever wonder why our news entries are full of errors and hard to follow, sometimes you should see what I have to go through to type these up. Cole is climbing up and over me and then cuddling for a minute, turning around, trying to type and then starting all over again.
The pregnancy is still going ok. My hips are still out of alignment even with help from a chiropractor. While it is better, it is still far from comfortable. Both Bria and Cole are sad about how much less I am willing to hold them, but they’re killing me. Here’s hoping the next 16-ish weeks go quickly. Apparently, people think I’m “finally showing”. Austin says I’ve been showing for a while, which I agree with. I always feel like people must think I am always chubby to say I am now only barely showing at almost 24 weeks. Ok, not really.
I have finally started to gain weight, which is good, but I still don’t like to see those numbers go up on the scale. Here's a picture of Ariana and I showing off our tummies 6 weeks ago. I was 18 weeks pregnant.
Well, it's been 6 (and a half crazy) years since the first pregnancy. It's pregnancy number 5, child number 4 and girl number 3. How's that for a nifty pattern? She's looking great and the ultrasound tech even took a 3D picture for us even though we didn't pay for one or anything. She looks so precious. Bria is beyond excited and Austin and I can't wait to have another little girl. Ariana still doesn't know. Cole probably won't figure out for a couple of years that he'd rather have a brother! The only problem we're going to run into is her name. Good thing we have over 4 months to decide. We've never fought about names, but it might happen. LOL! Not really. Here are a few pic of her and the 3D one is on our main page.
Apparently, my hips are out of alignment which is why I can hardly walk and also is what I suffered from the last two months of Cole's pregnancy. I didn't know it was anything I could get fixed last time, but I am glad it is since I'm just half way through pregnancy and can't walk without tons of pain. I feel like a car needing to have my "alignment fixed". I've stopped losing weight, which is good because at 16 weeks I was still losing weight. It's still a chore to eat, but I am keeping most things down. I am still so tired all the time. I don't think this will go away for 20 plus years if ever!!!
Everything else on the Hammer front is going well. Ariana, Bria and I just celebrated our birthdays a few weeks ago and we had way too much cake and treats around the house. Cole is adding more and more word to his vocab and he is getting cuter every day if that is even possible. His fits are getting more and more "impressive" too. Ariana is becoming a math wiz and is figuring out more multiplication every day and Bria is starting to figure out how to write more letters and words everyday.
I added a new slide show of some September and late August pictures. I added a few of our new couches for Austin's mom, who hasn't seen them. I also added a picture of the paint and couch that we've put in the playroom; the sun made the picture turn out not so good.
Today I found the girls cuddling in one chair together watching TV and had to take a picture. It was really cute to see. They do get along for the most part, just not that close to each other. It's usually "Mom Ariana/Bria is touching me". So it was really sweet to see. There are first day of school pictures. And some pictures showing how grown-up Cole's becoming. He's blowing bubbles (at least attempting), climbing the play wall in the backyard, and helping me clean windows.
Too much has happened all summer and the website has taken the back seat. We’ve gone to the zoo; the girls had their end-of-the-year gymnastic performances; we went to Thanksgiving Point; we went to the pool; we vacationed on the Oregon Coast and in Beaverton; and lots of other things this summer. I will put some more pictures up to show all the different things that we’ve done.
We did get the trampoline fixed and the kids have enjoyed it all summer. It’s in a safer place where it shouldn’t blow away, but we still are going to get some stakes for it. We have decided not to put it in the ground, because Austin isn’t really too into digging a huge hole by himself. Plus we don’t really want it somewhere permanently. And we did find out it was because of our mishap that our neighbors put their trampoline in the ground.
Ariana is starting school next week, and we all can’t wait. Also gymnastics starts back up next week. Ariana’s favorite hair-do this week is having me crimp it every day. It reminds me of pictures of me from the 80s with my perms!
Bria will probably start preschool in another two weeks if I can ever decide what we are going to do for her. Bria has also lost her Woof-woof about 5 times in the past two days, once for a very long 24 hours, found in a zipped-up purse in the very messy playroom. The whole day he was lost there was lots of spontaneous crying. That night neither Bria nor I was allowed to sleep through the night. Austin probably didn’t get to sleep either. You’d think today she would hold on to him better, but he’s gone missing twice today with full-blown waterworks both times. I think I might tie him to her!
Cole is finally talking, and I never thought it would happen! His favorite word lately is ‘don’t’. He’ll just be sitting somewhere and kinda whine/chant it. Today ‘apple’ was a new one. He doesn’t say ‘no’ much, but loves ‘don’t’. He’s still signing some, which really helps me to understand him. He discovered The Wiggles two weeks ago and loves the ‘go-gos’ all of the sudden. He didn’t watch TV at all before this. It’s nice to be able to have him watch a little something and give me a break.
The garden is looking nice and kinda out of control. We have one spot that is just overgrown with weeds. I took a lot of them out and found 4 tomato plants that decided to re-seed themselves in the spots we planted them last year. So we have LOTS of tomatoes. Some of our sunflowers have grown 10 feet tall. I can’t believe how huge they are.
Today is going a lot better than yesterday. This is what happened yesterday: I had four boxes full of kids clothes from about 10 feet up fall on me while I was trying to get summer clothes out for Bria. I had killer cramps all day. Ariana felt "like jumping on something". Girl language for "I wish we had our tramp and no one can play right now". And I found stinging nettle in the garden. I wasn't wearing gloves and didn't recognize it until it bit me. No idea where that came from. This is our third year with the garden in the same place and we've never had any.
Good News on the trampoline front: I just ordered the replacement parts and it isn't going to be near as much as we thought to replace it. The company surprisingly doesn't overcharge on the price. I was quite surprised to find out the cost. It was a forth of the price that another company was going to charge me. Luckily this other company didn't have the parts so I had to look else where.
Our neighbors just had a hole dug for their tramp, I wonder if it had something to do with our bad luck. After watching them yesterday Bria and Ariana have decided that is what we need to do with our trampoline when it is back together. The only problem is I don't think we can get any machinery in the backyard to get it done. I don't think Austin will want to dig a 13 foot wide and 3 foot deep hole by hand! I think we'll just get some anchors for it.
Other Good News, at least for me is that Cole has started calling me 'Mama' instead of 'this'. It is so nice! Yesterday when he woke up from his nap he started on and off to call me 'mama'. Today it seems like it is sticking. YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHH!! I'm not 'this' anymore!!
Oh and we bought some plants for the garden, we're just waiting for it to stop being windy and rainy and we'll get them planted today! Looks like it's clearing up right now!
We had a wind storm last night. Check out our photos to see what happened. The sad part is our was the only tramp out of all of our neighbors 5 out of six of us have tramps. The miracle is that nothing else and no one else was hurt by this. It tumbled over our fence in to one neighbors backyard, into another neighbor and then stopped in the street next to the neighbors house, our house isn't even on the street it was on. Austin just happened to peek out our window at the time of lift off. It missed another tramp and a really nice new swing set along with a couple trees and missed everyone's houses and cars!!
It also worked out really nicely that one of our neighbors house that it landed by looked out his window as we were starting to move the tramp (to see if his was still there) and saw us. So he helped us move it back to our house to where it wouldn't hurt anybody or anything.
Mom and Dad were really worried to tell the girls about the tramp. The first thing they did when they saw it was laugh. I guess when you don't have to worry about the money and time involved in fixing it it's not such a big deal!
Our family is doing great. We are very excited that we are starting to see the end of winter. Any day now I am sure it will snow, and we'll have to bundle up. We are enjoying the great weather while it lasts.
This winter everyone except the baby managed to get through without anything more serious than a cold. Cole got pneumonia. That wasn't too exciting at all to say the least. He also had an ear infection to go along with it. It took 4 days before his fever was below 100. Three weeks later he had a double ear infection, but thankfully now he is perfectly fine. He's pretty dinky. At his 15 month check up (last week) he was just 19 pounds, 7 ounces. He's a ton of fun and trouble. He is running everywhere and up and down the stairs like crazy, not to mention climbing up ladders everywhere we go. He can get just about everywhere at the playground. He keeps me on my toes.
Ariana is doing great and is a big help. She loves to take Cole down the slide whenever he climbs up those afore-mentioned ladders. We only had one bad incident involving the slide. We were at our neighbor's house, and Ariana had been taking Cole down each time he climbed up. Well, Bria decided to climb up the slide. Ariana yelled, "Move Bria" and then quickly went down. Well, I had two screaming kids. Of course, bowling for Bria was hardest on Cole, and he had a good bump on his head.
Bria is really into pretend play right now. It is hillarious to listen to. She loves to play with her toes in the car. They will all be different people and go to the store or wherever. It keeps her busy while in the car and keeps me entertained. The only problem is that she stops when she notices I am paying attention or laughing. She also LOVES the trampoline that we just got, and I think she could play on there for hours.
Besides staying very busy with the kids and all that they do and the house, I have stayed pretty busy scrap-booking this winter. The past week I have started to get busy back out in the yard trying to get ready to plant our garden and finish planting things in the flower beds. Later this week I will be painting upstairs. I think I have chosen a color for our loft and the kids' bathroom. Eventually I will make it to our poor white-walled master bedroom.
Austin works a lot and spends all his extra time with the kids and I. He's a great husband! Maybe he'll want to add something else to it when he reads this and corrects all my typos (hopefully).
Merry Christmas to everyone out there! Our family is doing great. Yesterday we celebrated Cole's first birthday at Chuck E Cheese. We really thought we were going because the girls like going there so much, but we found out that Cole thinks it is pretty cool too. He was the life of the party. He loved watching the scary robots on stage, loved the pizza, the rides, the birthday song, the birthday cake and he even ripped the wrapping paper on the his present. Cole is also walking around like crazy and signs a handful of words and says a handful of other words.
Bria is pretty funny lately with hot sauce. She will ask for a specific kind of Tabasco sauce. She is following in her father's foot steps. She is also loving gymnastics class and practices all over the house.
Ariana is loving school and is loving learning to read and just about anything to do with school. My only problem with school is that we have to be out the door with three small children by 8:15 in the morning and it's hard for me sometimes to drag myself out of bed. In the past few months we have been able to bring home for the weekend the class spider, Hairy, and the class rabbit, Snowy. I took pictures of both so that I have evidence that I am a nice mom.
I am still trying to finish off updating the website, so I am sorry for the look and feel of some of it. It's a work-in-progress and really isn't at the top of any of my lists.
We've been a busy family, and I really haven't had a lot of time to update things. I think I am going to give the whole website a makeover soon, though. Here goes:
#1 Austin got a new job! The short story is he wasn't really looking, he got a phone call, an interview, an offer, we went to the temple and prayed about it, and we decided it was the right thing to do. He started working at a company called Heritage Makers the middle of June. He helps develop the software there. They are a story booking company. I love to digital scrapbook, so it was pretty exciting for me when he started working there.
#2 The kids are getting so old. Bria and Ariana will be 3 and 5 within the month, and they have both been placing lots of orders for birthday presents and what they want at their birthday parties. Cole is 8-and-a-half months old. He can crawl everywhere, and just a week ago he made it all the way up my stairs. I have to say that he was a lot more excited about it than I was. He is trying to walk and his favorite word is "dada". Oh, he is sleeping better and weighs 16.5 pounds.
#3 We finished our backyard. I will post some pictures in the next few days. I would right now, but Ariana thinks she needs to play on the computer. It is so exciting to have grass and sprinklers as well as the fence and other things we have in the backyard.
It is about time for an update. I posted pictures when Cole was born, but I have been so sleep deprived since he was born (3.5 months ago) that I just haven't had a lot of time to spend on extra things, like the website.
Cole was born at 4:38 am December 17, 2006 and weighed 7 pounds 3 ounces. He really surprised me because he was that small, I really felt like I was carrying a much bigger baby. He is such a cute baby and we are glad to have him be part of our family. Ariana and Bria love him lots and are great big sisters. It took us a while to figure out that he has acid reflux and then it took us a while longer to get the right med Rx for him. Until that point sleep was a joke and more often then not it still is. I usually get up with him 4 times a night, sometimes more sometimes less. I am just really hoping he grows out of this reflux stuff soon. He is already trying to sit up and at 3 and a half months old he is 13 pounds. He is so smiley and we can get laughs out of him so easy. Now if only I could get more then two hours of sleep in a row!
In other news, we are starting to landscape our backyard. I am so excited! I ordered some berry plants and Saturday we got our garden area all ready, now all we need to do is plant things. The girls are really excited and looking forward to having the backyard finished. They already have a sandbox set up for them and as soon as we get some things done in the backyard we will get their swing set set up. I think I am just as excited for that as they are. Hopefully within two months I can post some pictures of a finished backyard and hopefully we'll even have a fence up!
I also have pictures all updated and ready to go up on the website as soon as Austin gets dreamweaver fixed for me, I can get them uploaded on the website. Our kids are all so cute!
Nothing much to report. I put some more kid funnies on today and updated our main page with some silly pictures of the girls. I also added some pictures of some projects that I have done in the house. I painted and decorated the girls bedroom and I have painted the nursery. I still have a lot more to do in the nursery, well really my wonderful mom is going to make the bedding for it, so I am about done. The girls' room was one of their birthday presents and though I didn't really love the pink, I think it turned out really good. It looked even better before I moved Bria's twin out and put her in the toddler bed. She fell out of her twin and wanted to sleep in the toddler bed, so it's back in their room.
We are doing pretty good and don't have much to report. We have less than two month until the baby will make his appearance and we're looking forward to that. There's some pictures of my growing belly on his page as well.
Sorry to those of you that use Internet Explorer and couldn't guess. You are welcome to guess now, but it won't save your guess. Or you could write your name and guess in the name category. I am not going to try to fix it anymore than I have, sorry. I would suggest using a better browser, hehe. Because of how I designed the page to work and I only checked how it functions in Mozilla Firefox which is a better browser, it doesn't work that same. Sorry. You should be able to find out what we are having now though!
I am thinking about doing a name poll, but I promise it won't be complicated and whatever browser you use will work.
We've added some more pictures. Here is the new page for baby number three. Here are some pictures of Austin's Birthday. Also check back at this page on July 25th and see if you can guess correctly if we are having a boy or girl. Each winner gets a surprise prize.
I added some new pictures.
Just a little family update. We really haven't posted much since we moved in October. So I will catch everyone up.
Halloween: We moved in with my parents to wait for our home to be finished being built.
Thanksgiving and Christmas were great. Both Ariana and Bria had a lot of fun during both holidays.
March: Things finally worked out for us to move into our new home. We know that Heavenly Father was watching out for us and helped it all work out in the nick of time. We feel very blessed.
April: We were happy and very surprised to find out I was pregnant. We had been trying for 10 months, and I miscarried in December. So yes today, I am almost 15 weeks, and we are finally "announcing" it. I have just been a little more guarded with this pregnancy because of my miscarriage. And no, we don't care if it is a boy or a girl and will be just as happy with a little girl as we would about a little boy. As far as pregnancy goes I have been having all day morning sickness just like my other pregnancies. Even now I still feel icky more often than not, but luckily with the meds I am on I am not throwing up every day anymore. And I am getting some energy back, so I am feeling ok.
Today we are finally getting grass put in our front yard. We'll try to get some more pictures up on the site in the next weeks or so.
We haven't updated forever! We are finally in our new home and feeling very blessed! The girls are loving all the extra room, but missing my parents and sisters. We lived with them inbetween homes, which was very nice of them. THANK YOU!
In the time we haven't been posting we have had two friends get engaged. Congrats to Jen who will be marrying Stuart this summer! And also congrats to Brett who will be getting married in April! We are so excited for both of you!
We have a new neice, my sister had her second child. Congrats to Helena and Scott on the birth of Ava Jane on February 14th and she is so cute!
Congrats to my brother Adam who just got a firefighter job for Salt Lake! Wahooo!
Ariana is 3.5 and Bria is 1.5. Both of them are full of energy and lots of fun. Bria is adding new words to her vocab every day. Ariana and Bria are becoming best friends more every day, it is fun to see them play together.
We hope all is well with all of you. Drop us a line or come and visit!
Happy New Year, everyone! This is actually Austin updating the news for the first time ever. I figured I'd better do it since we don't have reliable Internet access where we are staying currently.
We currently are living in Athena's parents' basement in Orem while we await the completion of our new house. Framing was started last week on it, and we are so excited for it to be done. Hopefully we'll be able to put up some pictures of that sometime soon.
We've been very busy the last couple of months selling our townhome, moving to Athena's parents' place, finalizing things with the purchase of our new home, and staying busy during the holidays.
Ariana and Bria continue to grow and learn new things every day. They both keep us very busy, but give us so much love and joy everyday.
I don't know what else to say, so I'll stop for now. Please drop us a line anytime by clicking on the email links at the bottom of the page.
Happy Birthday to both our beautiful girls! Also congrats to David and Melanie on the birth of their little girl. Happy Birthday Audrey Brooke! She was just born on Sunday morning and she is so cute!
Ariana had a friend birthday party a week and a half ago. She had a lot of fun. We had a circus. They made clown face bags, painted their faces, jumped through the hoop like lions and some played carnival games. Ariana was so nice and let all of her friends help her open the presents.
Later that day we had a party for Bria. We had a BBQ and broke a piñata open. We had a lot of family and friends over and the girls love all of their presents. Thank you everyone!
Both of the girls had a check-up at the doctor today. Ariana is 37 inches tall and 30 pounds. Ariana has grown 4 inches and gained 7 pounds in the past year. Bria is 29 inches tall and 18 pounds she has gained 10 pounds and 9 inches in the last year. They were both really good for their check up, Ariana didn't cry at all when she got her shot. Bria is starting to "talk" more and more and is walking a half dozen steps in a row quite often. As she gets more mobile, I am starting to see that I am going to have TWO very active, very daring, and totally adorable children on my hands pretty soon.
Congrats to Bryan and Aubrey! They just had their first son on the 17th. Here are some pictures I took of him at the hospital.
Bria got a haircut today. She looks so cute and is growing up so fast. She moves all over the place and doesn't sit still too long.
Ariana got a new bike and is really loving it. She is still trying to get the pedals completely down, but before the end of summer I am sure we will not be able to keep up with her.
Here's our little update.
Bria is 7 months and 14 pounds, in about the 15th percentile. She just started food and loves just about everything, she is a really good eater. She sits up really well and is starting to try to crawl. She can scoot on her bum really well.
Ariana is a little chatter-box and uses all sorts of words. I guess you could say she can speak English fluently. I will often walk in to her room where she is just talking away to all her "friends". She has an amazing imagination, and she is always seeing mosters and such.
We are all excited for the summer-time and might try a couple camping trips. Ariana really wants to go camping and roast marshmallows. We also want to encourage you all to come visit us this summer, anyone and everyone. It's always a party at the Hammer Home.
We are doing good. The girls are growing more beautiful every day. Ariana is 28 months and a very energetic girl, pretty little too, she's about 25 lbs (with clothes on) and 35 inches tall. Very nice for having to carry her around. Bria is smiley and getting active, she has been trying to sit up and can roll over, but doesn't enjoy being on her tummy at all, so she doesn't do it much. Bria is 4 months old, 12 lbs 13 oz and 25 inches long. She "talks" to us all the time and Ariana and her have already started playing together, it is really fun to watch. They both adore each other!
Austin and I are just fine and we hope you all are doing good and are just as happy as our family!
Merry Christmas Everyone! We have some new pictures up. They are the first family pictures we got with Bria. We were kind of disappointed at how rude the photographer was, but they did turn out ok. As always, the girls look really cute. They also went to see Santa. That picture turned out really good. Ariana was so excited to see Santa, but when we got there she just sat on Santa's lap and looked around. She didn't say a word to Santa; she wasn't afraid either, just really quiet for how excited she was to see Santa. Now whenever she sees the picture she gets really excited, though.
Both the girls are doing great. Ariana talks and sings all the time. It is really fun listening to her after I put her down for a nap. She will sing in her bed for up to a half hour sometime. She is so friendly and out going and gets so excited when we have other kids over to play. Bria was almost 11 pounds at her two month check up. She is growing healthy and is so beautiful. She is happy and smiley and a really good sleeper. This last week she has been sleeping every other night for 12 hours without waking up, the other nights she will go for about 7 hours, eat and then go back to sleep for 5 more hours. She is really patient and loves to watch everything around her. She is already trying to sit up and her hair is growing really fast.
Austin is doing great. Handsome as ever, just check out our family pictures! :-) He has been reaaly good at keeping up on his jogging and working out even with the new baby and now the holiday season, and if I don't say so is in great shape. He is working hard and the Almuni Assocaition and still enjoys it, but we like it better when he is home with us. He is a great dad and the girls have a ton of fun with him. Ariana and he will play up in her room forever. He is also perfecting all sorts of food dishes and has become quite the good cook. It is sure nice to have a hubby that cooks so good.
I am not really doing much more than being a mom and a wife. I enjoy it a ton and feel very blessed that we have been able to work out a way for me to be home with the girls. I won't lie some days I need a break and think working outside of the home would be nice, but I wouldn't give this up for anything. Besides staying busy with the girls, I am on the Enrichment Board at church. I am in charge of our midweek activities which is basically a mothers group. We get together once a week so the kids can play and we can learn things. It is a lot of fun and work.
That is about all I can think up to tell you all, drop us a line if you'd like and have a wonderful holiday season!
Things have been pretty busy at the Hammer home lately. Adjusting to having another family member has been fun and busy.
Bria is an easy going happy baby. She sleeps a ton and has been smiling for a couple weeks and now she has started to coo and smile. It has been a lot of fun.
Ariana is talking in full sentences all the time and getting easier and easier to understand. She is very possesive of Bria and doesn't like anyone she doesn't know even getting too close to "her baby".
We just celebrated Halloween and Ariana had a blast. She got way too much candy and loved to go Trick-or-Treating. She was a lady bug and Bria was a pumpkin check out the pictures that I have put up.
We also blessed Bria this past Sunday. She looked so beautiful in her blessing dress. Her Grandma Jo made it, just like she made Ariana's blessing dress. After church we had lots of family and friends over for the rest of the day. We posted some pictures on her page of it.
We hope the rest of you are doing good. Though, I am not really sure how many people even read this, which is a little sad because I do spend some time on it. Not that you can really tell because it takes me longer to do things then it would Austin, but at least it is good practice.
Haven't written anything about Bria's birth. We've been busy! Bria Akari Hammer was born on her due date September 22, 2004 at 1:48 am she weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and was 20 inches long. Quite a surprise when Ariana was just 6 lbs 10 oz and 18.5 inches long.
Here is the short labor story. My water started leaking about 4 on September 21st, my birthday. But no contractions or labor going on. We got to the hospital at 10:20 that evening to check and see if it was my water, it was. Then we started walking the halls trying to get something going, even though I had been up and active all morning and nothing happened. My MW decided to break my forewater (water on the bottom) because I was just leaking from the top. Once she broke that I was at a 7 (had been at a 6.5 earlier in the day at my appointment) and it was about midnight. Finally the contractions started and were really strong and she was finally here in less than two hours!
We are doing great, going from one to two was not near as hard as none to one. Ariana loves her Baby "bea" and gives lots of hugs and kisses and shares her specail blankie. Bria is really easy going and content. When she is awak she is very active and loves looking around at everything.
I added some pictures from this summer.
Still no baby. I am not sure how much it means to anyone, but I am dialted to over a 5 and 90% effaced, very surprised this baby isn't here yet! Hoping soon!
We had Ariana's birthday party on Saturday Evening. It was a lot of fun. She seemed to really enjoy it and know that is was for her. We had a BBQ with just one other kid over (her cousin and friend, Jade) and some family and friends. We will try to get the pictures up soon, but we are still 35 mm people so the roll isn't quite finished. I might get some pictures off the digital camcorder, but that takes a little more work then I want to do right now.
Hopefully the next announcement on here will be our new baby!!!!
Well, it feels like fall is here. We finished off a fun summer by going to Bear Lake of a little vacation. It was really fun. Ariana loved swimming and going to the beach. We went to Minnetonka Cave, it is on the border of Utah and Idaho and you get to go in and take tours. It gets down to 40 degrees in it. It was really neat to see all the formations.
We are hoping that baby number two makes her appearance any day now. Ariana and I both have birthdays coming up this month too. It is a big birthday month for us. We will keep you all posted on the arrival of our new littlw one.
We have had a pretty fun summer. We haven't gone too far, but we have enjoyed it as much as we can. We forget to take pictures too often, so I don't really have any to post. We have gone camping and up to my sister-in-laws family cabin, gone to parades, watched fireworks, and played at the park a ton! Ariana just loves being outside and did great and enjoyed camping so much. She talks a ton and has just started to sing and make up songs and she knows all of the basic colors. Of course, we think she is amazing! I have been getting bigger and bigger (32 weeks pregnant) and Ariana is fascinated with my growing belly and is excited to be having a new "sissy" coming. Work is going good for Austin and we talk him into staying home with us for a day about every other week, we love that he has so many vacation days. We are also hoping to take a little vacation the middle of August, we are really hoping everything works out. Let us know how you are all doing!
Things are just normal around the Hammer household, which is definitely good. Ariana is loving summer time and playing in her pool and going on walks, mostly to the park so she can go on the slides. She talks so much and a few days back when we were at the park Ariana asked to use the bathroom and actually went! We weren't really "potty training" her when she asked so it came as a surprise. We are seeing where it is going, but Austin and I both agree it would be nice to only have one in diapers when the new little one gets here.
I am 26 weeks pregnant (or six months) and I am very glad that there are only three months left of pregnancy. Still have a lot to do and this pregnancy has gone faster, probably because I have Ariana to keep me busy and I am not counting down the days till I can stop working at a horrible job. She gets excited when we talk about a new baby coming and she says "baby sissy", but we'll see how it all turns out once she gets here. I just posted some new pictures of Ariana as well.
Also, Happy Father's Day to all of those dads out there especailly Austin's dad and my dad! And a BIG HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to Austin, he is a great father and hubby and we are so happy he is ours!
We are doing great. We had another ultrasound about a week ago and the baby is nice and healthy. I have added our Easter pictures and our May Family pictures, check them out!
I hope all of you mothers had a good Mother's Day. Mine was very nice. Austin and Ariana gave me a certificate for a massage, I am very excited to use it. I also added one more picture to the new baby's site. All I am going to say is that I was right. And we are very excited!
We had our ultrasound today! It was very exciting to see the little one. Everything looks just great with the baby and is measuring exactly on for the due date of September 22 which is what we have thought my due date was. Everything was perfect and developing normal. The baby was a little shy and we didn't get to see the baby's face so my midwife had us schedule another ultrasound so we could go back and look at the face and everything and make sure that all of the baby is ok. I am really excited that we will be able to sneak another peak at this one and actually get a picture of the face. Here are some picture of our new little one. Thery aren't the best since we have no face or profile pictures, but if anyone wants to see the video we have it. I am so excited, after having the ultrasound (and a healthy baby) and being at the halfway mark of my pregnancy this is getting more real. Now if only maternity clothes would fit me, I am too big for my normal clothes and too small for most maternity clothes. What can you do.
We wanted to say "Congratulations" to our friends that have graduated this past week. Congrats Aubrey(our sister-in-law), who received her degree in English and will start working on her Master's degree in the Fall at BYU. We are glad that her and her husband will be here for a whle longer. Congrats to Dave Stevens, who received his MAcc and will be moving to Chicago. We will miss him and his wife Sarah a lot. And congrats to Dave Wilson: he received his Juris Doctorate and will be in Sacramento, for now, studying for the bar. We will miss him and his wife Melanie a lot too! Good luck everyone and congrats on being done with school! We just wish you all didn't have to leave us!
We are doing great. We will have an ultrasound a week from today and get to take a peek at our new little one. I am 19 weeks, and the baby is moving around like crazy. Ariana is learning at least one new word a day, it seems like, and can communicate with us so much now. She just loves going to nursery on Sunday and playing with the other kids. We were able to have Austin's mom stay with us this past week, and we had fun. Ariana has decided to call her "Nana" and had a lot of fun playing with her.
With yesterday being April Fool's Day, I was thinking about posting that we had our dr. appointment yesterday and that we heard two heartbeats. However, I figured not too many people check this site on that regular of a basis, so I decided not to. Besides that, it was a pretty busy day, and we just really didn't have time. We took Ariana to The Wiggle's Concert up in Salt Lake yesterday afternoon, and it was a lot of fun. I know some people may make fun of us, but she loves them. And I think they are one of the better things on TV as far as what parents get stuck watching with their kids. This is their website for those of you that don't know who they are. Ariana had a blast, and Jeff Wiggle actually came right up to us. Ariana was pretty excited 'till he came really close and then got a little clingy to mommy and dada. That is how she is with Cosmo too. She thinks he is really cool at a distance but isn't sure what to think of him up close. We had lots of fun singing and dancing with the Wiggles, and it was great to watch our little girl smiling and dancing and clapping along with them.
Today we actually did go to the midwife, and we only heard one heart beat--which is great to hear. I have also been feeling this little one kick for the past few weeks, so I think we are getting another active one like Ariana. I am feeling pretty good, though I still feel sick sometimes. One thing that has helped me a ton with the sickness is seabands and not having to take those horrible prenatal vitamins. My midwife has had me on other vitamins, and they have been so much more gentle on my stomach. If only I knew that last pregnancy. We are going to have our ultrasound in four weeks, and we're pretty excited about that. I better run; I hear Ariana waking up from her nap. Take care everyone.
Things are going good for us. We actually ended up flying out to Vegas to be with Austin for his business trip. Tickets to Vegas are pretty cheap compared to other places. It was nice to stay in a nice suite and have a maid come by to clean everyday. It was a cheap vacation since the room and car as well as most of the food was paid for by Austin's work. We really didn't do much because I was so tired and Ariana just enjoyed playing around our room and turning on both TVs and jumping off all the furniture. Since I am pregnant (yes that is an announcement) it really was nice timing I have been really sick and tired it was really nice not having to clean up and having all of the food taken care of by Austin. It was really nice that we could be together as a family and Ariana loved looking at all the lights on the Strip at night.
Well, if you want to see the cheesy way I told Austin that I was pregnant you can check this out. It is really silly, but I wanted to do something before he asked if I knew so I tested a little early so I could surprise him. We are expecting out second little one the end of September and we are really excited Ariana will turn two that month and we will have lived in our house over a year by then. We have talked to Ariana about the baby and she came to the dr last week and heard the heartbeat, but I don't think she will totally understand till the little one is here.
Speaking of Ariana, she is doing great. She is 17 months old and cuter than ever. One of her favorite things to say is "two-tree" as in one two three and run around or jump off things. She is so adventurous and always so smiley, even if she has been sick. Out camera is broken, so we haven't taken many still pictures, but we have done a lot with our camcorder, we are still trying to compress files small enough to get them on the site. If I get adventurous I will try to take some still pictures off of what we have recorded the camcorder.
We have all been sick on and off this past month. So, that is the excuse for not updating the website with anything. Plus, I guess we are just a bunch of borring people, not really much to write. The only thing I can think of is that Austin is going on a business trip at the end of this month and we are all really sad. It is the first time that we will be apart in the three years that we have been married. It will be nice for him, I think he will get more rest then he usually does, which is good. Me on the other hand will be a single parent for a couple of days and Austin really helps out in the evenings, so we will see how it goes without him. Another option we have been thinking of is Ariana getting babysat and me going out or all of us going out. But it will probably be just Austin leaving, I really thought it was nice that we hadn't spent a night a part our whole married life. We will have to go for another record after this I guess.
We hope you all had a great New Year. Ours was very nice. We were able to get together with Austin's brother Bryan and his wife Aubrey and play some games together. And we were actually able to get to bed by 1, pretty good for a New Years. It used to be cool when we were kids and we got to stay up late, but now that we have to get up early with ours, I wasn't even sure I wanted to stay up till midnight, I know, I am quite the party pooper.
We also wanted to welcome out friend Steve(one of Austin's old roommates) back to Utah. He had been working in Louisiana for the past 8 months or so, but now he has a job in Salt Lake and we are glad that he is back out here. We were able to spend a lot of time with him this past weekend and it is just a lot of fun to have him back. Good luck with t he new job Steve.
I finally was sent Ariana's Christmas pictures so they are now on our site, check our her page to see them they turned out really cute. She is such a little princess.
It is cold and snowing here like crazy, I am already ready for the spring. Ariana just loves the snow and always wants to eat it. She will go and find her hat and gloves and try to put them on. For everyone that knows Ariana, they know she doesn't like hats or anything restricting, so it is so funny to watch her beg us to put them on so she can go out in the snow.
We hope that all of our family and friends out there had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was great. This was the first Christmas that Ariana knew what was going on. It was a lot of fun watching her open all of her presents; though it was hard once she opened one to get her to go on to the next.
Last night Austin and I made some mpeg files out of some Christmas video. We are hoping to put that on the website soon. Right now we are having a hard time getting it to upload, but hopefully we will be able to do that soon.
Today was Ariana's first time playing in the snow, check out the snow pictures. She had a blast and loves to eat snow more than any other food.
Hoping to be able to add a little more this time. I hope everyone's holiday season is going as good as ours is. Our home is all decorated and we are all ready to celebrate Christmas.
Today we went to take Christmas pictures of Ariana. While the lady was setting up the background Ariana went around the room finding all of the stuffed animals. We had a very hard time keeping the bears out of the pictures. In fact all but two of her poses ended up with teddy bears in them and several have SIX bears in them. They turned out really cute and all of the stuffed animals is just like Ariana, so they really are perfect and we can at least see her face in them.
Well, to catch up, we went out to Austin's parents' place for Thanksgiving. It was fun to go out there, we hadn't been out there in almost 3 years, though we have seen them several times since we have been out there. I was also able to meet some of Austin's friends from high school and that was a lot of fun, they were some nice people. Austin was sick almost our whole vacation though. So that was not too much fun for anyone, but what can you do.
I just added some more pictures of Halloween, check them out. More will be coming soon.
Halloween was a lot of fun, we all froze, but all looked very nice in out costumes. Ariana thought the idea of having a bag that was just for her that she could collect candy in was great and quickly became very possesive of the bag and wouldn't let mommy or daddy to close to it. And even though it was so cold and windy that we only went to about a dozen houses she got quite a lot of candy She loved to see all the kids come to the door in their costumes, but he wasn't sure what to think about Austin and his big grey beard.
A couple nights ago we had a major storm with wind getting as fast as 60 MPH and it blew down a big tree outside Ariana's window and another tree on the other side of her window lost a huge branch. We were pretty blessed that the wind was blowing the right way that it didn't go through her window or our neighbors. It is really sad that we don't have the tree out front anymore.
Hello all, life is going good. It is freezing cold here, just in time for Halloween, the snow just couldn't wait two more days. BYU football is just going GREAT, so great, in fact, that I am glad tomorrow is the start of basketball season. Austin assures me that Basketball will be good this year. We have been making a database out of our pictures and hopefully in a week or two we will have some new pictures up for all of you to see.
We are all ready for Halloween. Ariana and I are going to be Renisance Princesses and Austin is going to be a Wizard, really looks a lot like Gandalf. We will be sure to post some pictures. For family home evening we went to a place called Hee Haw Farms and went through their corn maze and did some other activities that they have there. Ariana thought it was really fun. Cosmo (the Cougar's mascot) ended up being there and Ariana just didn't know what to think of him, she wouldn't even take candy out of his hand, but at least she didn't start crying. We also carved pumpkins that night Ariana liked helping us get the insides out. Sje is in a phase where she has to pick everything up even if it is too big for her. So, she was trying to lift all of the pumpkins she was able to lift her little pumpkin up for a couple seconds, boy was she a mess.
I also have found out that Ariana is allergic to omnicef (an antibiotic realted to peniciln) which means she is probably allergic to penicilin as well. Almost two weeks ago she got really sick, this is the first time we had to take her to the doctor because of an illness (I think it has a lot to do with weaning) and she ended up having this huge allergic reation to the antibiotic. Poor little girl had an ugly rash all over her body. She is all better now, but boy is it no fun having a sick baby. I am really glad we were lucky to have such a healthy baby, the only time she saw the dr her frist year of life was for her well baby visits.
I redesigned the picture page today. Check it out. I think it looks a lot better. Now I am just hoping that Austin can teach me databasing soon or I can find a good tutorial (and time) so putting up new pictures won't be such a pain anymore.
The most exciting thing right now is that Ariana slept through the night last night. We are talking 12 hours, I woke up a little before 8 and realized that she hadn't woke me up all night, how nice. She had just started sleeping really good at night when she was two months old and then we moved twice in two months when she was three and four months old and she has never really slept good since. She had done up to eight hours, but this is the first time ever that she did 12, Austin and I were so excited, it is nice to be able to sleep through the night. Here's hoping she will keep doing it.
The only other thing I have to say is Cougar Basketball better be good this year because the Football Team STINKS! And if we have wasted our money on two bad seasons(football season and basktetball season = 2 seasons) Austin is going to have a hard time talking me into Season tickets for either sport next year. So GO COUGAR BASKETBALL!!!
There are a lot of things to update about Ariana.
Ariana's little "photo shoot" went really well last week. Hopefully, we'll get the pictures sometime and post them. Most of the people around at Austin's work place are women and they just adored her the whole time they were taking her pictures. She thought it was the coolest thing and was looking at all of them smiling.
I have updated pictures of Ariana with Birthday pictures. There are also all of her birthday pictures at her website . Her Birthday party was a lot of fun. She actually knew that the presents were for her and enjoyed opening them even though some of her older guests wanted to open them for her, but she didn't mind their help. She enjoyed the cake and actually for the first time started falling asleep in her high chair. She just loves baloons and she insists on bringing one of the milar baloons she got for her birthday everywhere with us.
Ariana also had her 12 month check up today. It went really well. She is 17 lbs (5th percentile) and 29 inches (25th percentile). She also got two shots and these were new shots she hadn't had before and they hurt a lot more then the others, poor little girl. As soon as we started to leave she got really excited that we weren't staying at the doctor's office anymore and was happy to find her baloon in the car waiting for her.
I have had several request for pictures of our new place and if you look at some of Ariana's birthday pictures you will be able to see some of it. I am working on getting more pictures, but our camera broke a month ago and it is harder without a camera. We will get some up soon.
We got our highspeed internet set up on Monday and since then I have added some new pictures. They still aren't the most recent of us, but the most recent that we have. I also made thumbnails since it was taking so long for some of the picture pages to load on people's computers. So that ought to help you all out. This weekend Austin is hopefully going to help me set up a database for all our pictures and I am really excited about that because it takes quite a lot of work to add new pictures and such right now and he told me that once I learn this data base stuff it should be a lot easier.
Austin called me today and some one at work asked him if they could take some pictures of Ariana for BYU's Homecoming baby contest advertisement or something. So I have been saying that she is going to be the "poster girl" for BYU's baby contest I am pretty excited. This afternoon I am going to dress her up all cute and take her in to get her pictures taken, let's cross our fingers that she is cooperative.
This weekend is Ariana's birthday party. We will post pictures as soon as we can and write all about it.
Since the last time I updated this a lot has happened to our little family. We have moved twice, well, kinda. The first move was into my parents' place where we lived out of suit cases for a week and a half. Next we closed on our house and moved in here. We are basically moved in now and things are looking good and mostly out of boxes, but we still have some settling in to do. Hopefully, we will get some pictures of our place up sometime soon. I am hoping that by the time Ariana's Birthday rolls around at the end of the month we will be all settled in for her party.
The day that we closed on our house was the day I had my wisdom teeth pulled, boy was that a lot of fun! I had IV sedation durring the extraction. I was on some pretty heavy duty drugs. When we walked into the Mortgage Company's Office, Austin had to help me walk because I was not steady on my feet. Our realator was really worried about me because I was totally out of it. It was pretty disgusting also. I was drooling blood and trying not to get it on any of the papers. I guess the good part about all of it is that closing on a home is supposed to be really long and borring, but since I was so drugged, it didn't seem too bad to me. Of course, I had no idea what I was signing and I signed stuff only because Austin was making sure it was all ok. It was quite a funny experience.
Well, tomorrow is moving day and none of us are really looking forward to it. It will be nice when we are all moved out and everything is taken care of it's just the process that isn't much fun. I will be so glad when we move into our house and we will not have to be moving and packing and cleaning so often. It actually looks like we might be closing on our house by the end of next week. So, we will be doing all this moving again in just a week, but it will be exciting and a lot more permanent. Till then, we will be in my parents' basement.
Yesterday we went to the first BYU Football game of the Season, they won. Their defense is looking good, but the offense is a little scary hopefully they will do better in the next game. It was a pretty exciting game, Steve Young's jersey was retired at half time. We took a lot of pictures, hopefully some of them turned out good. We'll try to post some soon Ariana seemed to like it, but it was such a late game that she was pretty tired durring most of it and actually slept most of the second half. She looked so cute in her little BYU T shirt.
Well, this is probably all that we will be writting till we are in our new home. Take care everyone.
We put this site up last week. I am really glad we were able to do it, thanks to our friend Steve. Austin has done some more cool javascript to the site and I like it a lot.
Today, Ariana is 11 months old. She is getting so old and more beautiful everyday, she is really becoming her own little person.
We have just been packing like crazy, we have to be out of our apartment, by this Sunday. I am just not looking forward to cleaning it all before we move out. It is no fun at all. I am glad that after we get into our home, we won't have to do this again for a while. With all of this moving I am not sure I will have much time to do anything with this website for a while and it still needs a lot of work.
The site is coming together pretty good right now. I still have a lot of pictures to add and find a better background, but everything else is looking good. Austin helped me and wrote some javascript for part of the page, he made some things a whole lot easier for me. This is still not online, but I will make sure that Austin gets this online this week sometime we think we know who we want to use for the page, I just told him we could wait a little so I could get some more done and then put it up.
Well, the most exciting thing going on with us right now is that we are in the process of buying a home. We have offered and accepted the counter offer and now we are just waiting for everything to be finished up, there is a lot that goes into buying a house. It is a cute townhome and we are really happy with what we have found. We are hoping to close by September 15, hopefully earlier though.
I have been working on this site this past week. We have owned the domain name for the past year and Austin is just too busy to be able to work on it. So, I got online last week and tried to teach myself some html. I am surprised that I was able to pick it up so fast. When Austin got home he helped me a little bit and showed me some neat things. I just hope I can get this website up on the internet sometime soon and also finish adding everything I would like to to it.
Austin just got a new job at BYU and he is really loving it. He is the webmaster for the Alumni Association and right now he is redesigning their website . Of course, that is what it looks like right now and he is making it look better this is the link to the one he is working on.
I am enjoying being a homemaker/stay at home mom. I work at the BYU bookstore whenever they need me to cover a shift or help out. It is nice to work every once in a while, but I really like being with Ariana. I am also learning how to make this webpage and looking for somewhere for us to live down in Utah County. We are hoping to find a house within a year and I am very excited about that.
Ariana is walking like crazy. It is funny when she gets tired you can really tell it because she starts walking around like a little drunk. She also is very attatched to a blanket of hers and it goes just about everywhere with her and she is getting good at not tripping over it while she walks. I don't understand how she wants to cuddle in her blanket in 90 and 100 degree weather, but what can you do. I am sure people think we are really strange when they see our daughter covered up in her blanket outside. She is just a lot of fun and we both can't believe in a month and a half we will be celebrating her first birthday.
We were married!
What a day!!
Mr. Austin Hammer was born
that's a good thing!!! :)
Today was a great day! Go BYU! It was awesome to see a good Cougar win. We were playing them tight even before Bradford went down, despite what all the headlines are leading people to believe. Anyway, here's what we did earlier today. About a year ago my uncle gave us this Oklahoma cheerleader outfit(they are OU fans). So today we dressed bozo up in the cheerleader outfit and our pre-game festivities included the kids beating on Bozo the OU Clown. I'm probably going to get in trouble if my uncle finds out. Good game Sooners! By the time the kids were done with Bozo he was pretty flat, he already had a decent sized leak, but the beating didn't help. Bria was so cute tonight at the end of the game. She kept yelling "GO BYU" and "I want BYU to win". She asked me if I wanted BYU to win too. I thought that it was funny that she was questioning me about which team I wanted to win.
We also partied tonight with a few friends and a lot of sushi and tempura here at home. BYU finished off our night with an awesome win, so it was a good night. Now if only Austin and I had a babysitter so we could go down to the airport at 2:30 in the morning to welcome the cougs home.
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