October

Things we did in October.. .

More football.  Tristan's team is done now, but Oliver's team (the one Daniel coaches) made it to the playoffs, so we could still be going to football practices/games through the end of November.

The kids entertain themselves with their notebooks during the games.

When Oliver's not playing, he is a good sport about drawing Star Wars guys for Henry (Ollie is our resident expert at drawing Star Wars guys).

Daniel's 33rd birthday. 

The kids made several cards, as usual.  Here's one of Oliver's - a dinosaur roaring out the words "Happy Birthday".  I love the little dino chef on the island with the cake.

On the inside he wrote a cute little note and then drew a picture of two dinosaurs imagining blasting off from earth in a rocket, right as a giant asteroid destroys the planet.  At least I think that's what is going on.  I'll have to ask him.  I'm not sure what it has to do with birthdays - I think he just wanted to stick with the dinosaur theme of the card.  He's big on birthday card themes.

Lizza and her friend celebrating at Chick-fil-a after they finished lesson 50 in their reading lesson books.  Elizabeth is now on lesson 80 - only 20 more to go!

Lizza and Henry are good drawing buddies.   

Cynthia/Cindy/Cindy Lou/Lulu.  We love this little girl!  She is my easiest baby ever. 

I love when little newborns lay on their tummy and scrunch their bottoms up, so even when you pick them up they stay in a little bundle. 

One week old:

Cynthia was born 5 days before my 30th birthday - best present ever.  It's weird to think that only ten years ago on my 20th birthday I was 7 months pregnant with Tristan.  Even weirder (scarier?) is that on my 40th birthday I'll have a 19-year old, 18-year old, 16-year old, 14-year old, 12-year old, and 10-year old.   

Here are a millon pictures of all the kids holding Cynthia.

When they weren't holding Cindy, the kids were having fun getting ready for Halloween.  They had mixed feelings about the pumpkin guts.

Rachel's faces were cracking me up.

Henry eventually decided he was going to be brave about it.

They tried on lots of different variations of possible Halloween costumes.  Lizza couldn't decide between a fairy. .

Wonder Woman/Super Girl (with weapons added) . . .

And a mix of the two.

Henry went back and forth between Batman, Darth Vader, and just a regular "fighter guy", as he calls it. Mostly he just wanted to practice "flying" by jumping off the couch in some sort of costume.  Flying is one of his new goals in life - he often includes a "please bless me to fly in the sky" in his nightly prayers.

He decided to make our Halloween more exciting by splitting his head open two days before (he fell at the park).  He had to get six staples in the back of his head.  Getting the staples in was awful (for him and for me).  I'm sure someday he will be proud of his battle wounds, though.

And he was still able to go the ward Halloween party that same night.

Cynthia did not go to the party.  I stuck some bunny ears on her and let her pose by a pumpkin, and that was it for her first Halloween experience.

The annual Halloween candy draft (they dump all their candy into a big pile, sort into different kinds of treats, and then they each get to choose 15 pieces).

I always think it's so funny to see what the first-round picks are.  At least Tristan and Oliver have started choosing from the candy bar pile.

That's pretty much it for October.  I left out the trip to Seaworld that we did the day before Halloween, but I think that's going to have to be a whole different post.

She's here!

In case you've been wondering, we have a new baby!  Cynthia Johnson Mott was born at 1:43 a.m. on Monday, October 18th.  She weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces, and was 20 inches long.  We just got home from the hospital yesterday, and are both doing great.

If you're interested, here's the long and detailed birth story (if not, skip straight to pictures):

On Sunday I started having contractions about every 5 minutes while I was at church.  They weren't painful or anything, but I did wonder if they would turn into something real.  When I got home from church I walked on the treadmill for a half hour to keep the contractions going.  The rest of the day we kept going back and forth between thinking it was going to happen and thinking it wasn't - by Sunday evening, they were starting to feel more like actual labor contractions, so we got all cleaned up from dinner and put the kids to bed early.  Then we just sat around and waited.  The contractions were starting to feel more uncomfortable, but the timing was getting more sporadic.  I really wanted to wait until the last minute possible before going to the hospital (probably not the smartest approach on a sixth baby, but I always handle labor much better in my own home than when I'm laying in a hospital bed.  I feel like the labor before I get to the hospital doesn't really have to count for some reason). 

Anyway, I had decided to wait until I was pretty miserable before leaving to go to the hospital, and that never happened, so around 10:45 I just went to bed.  Even though the contractions had been building up until then, I thought for sure they would stop while I slept, and maybe pick up again the next day, because I've never gone into labor in the middle of the night before.  Sure enough, about 10 minutes after going to bed, they stopped, and I was able to go to sleep.  About an hour later, I woke up, not from a contraction, but because Elizabeth was yelling at the top of her lungs for me to come upstairs and tuck her in (still not sure why she needed this).  I walked upstairs, tucked her in, and then walked back downstairs, and I guess that was all it took, because as soon as I got back in bed I had a really big contraction.  Exactly two minutes later I had another one, and after a few more two minutes apart, I woke up Daniel and told him what was going on.  I gathered up my things and he called my friend Debbie, who came right over.  I wasted about 10 minutes trying to tell Debbie every last random detail that she might need to know if she ended up needing to help the kids get ready for school in the morning.  She and Daniel finally convinced me that everything would be fine and we should probably get going.

We got checked into the hospital around 12:30.  When they checked me I was dilated to a six (which made me happy, because I had been dreading that I would only be at a four or something).  The contractions had continued to come every two minutes since they started, but I was able to cope with them okay.  I had read a hypnobirthing book that had some really helpful breathing exercises/methods in it, and I felt much more calm during the contractions than I have during some of my other labors.  After about an hour I did get to the panicky "oh, no, I can't do this anymore, what was I thinking, how much longer is this going to go on?" stage, but soon after that I felt like I was ready to push.  My doctor checked me and I was at a 9 plus.  When her head came out, the cord was wrapped around her neck, so they had to stop and cut the cord, but after that she was born quickly with no problems.  She was born at 1:43, so exactly 2 hours after the first big contraction at home, and only 1 hour and 15 minutes after getting to the hospital.

It was the best feeling after she was born.  I was so relieved to be done!  For some reason I had really been stressed out about the labor the last few weeks of this pregnancy.  The nurses were laughing at me because pretty much the first thing I said after she was born was something like, "Oh, I'm just so glad I never have to do that again!" (we're pretty sure 6 is our limit).

Anyway, she is healthy and happy and we all love her.

Here are tons of pictures:


Me right before leaving for the hospital.  Trying to smile, even though I'm pretty sure I was having a contraction right then.

With our new baby girl:

Happy mom:

Tired baby:

Daniel brought everyone to see her on Monday after the older kids got home from school:

They were all so excited to be able to see her and take turns holding her (some of these pictures are from the first day they visited, and some are from the second, which explains the different outfits):

Tristan:

Oliver:

Rachel: 

Elizabeth:

Henry:

Dad:

Still happy (and tired) mom:

Me with my six children.  Yikes!

Cynthia.  We think she looks like Rachel in real life (except with dark hair), but in pictures she reminds me a lot of Henry.  We'll see - I always think my kids end up looking way different than they do the first few weeks.

 

At home from the hospital:

Where everyone is so happy to have her!