my life with 3

Blogging tonight sounded like fun and it's been a long time! My little Angel who was formerly known as Olivia, now known as Lydia, is already almost 4 months old!! And yes it's true, we changed her name. But anyhooo, life with 3 has been so great. I don't remember enjoying having a baby this much so she must be a good baby. We just love her!! I also had lots of help when I had her so I think that helped the transition sooo much. Lincoln and Lila have adjusted so well too which helped, plus Seth's schedule wasn't overly demanding when we had her which seemed like a miracle. Things just work out ya know. It's just amazing to see how Heavenly Father blesses our little family everyday.

The time has flown by and I'm way too behind to post pictures of everything but I'll try and recap for my own sake. My Mom was here for 2 weeks then my sister came. I felt so lucky! Then Seth's parents came and we were feeling adventurous and went out to Mackinac Island in Michigan which was so beautiful. It was kind of nice to get out of Toledo, especially for Seth, since he has pretty much lived at the the hospital since we moved here. To stay sane with the heat, (and yes I've already adapted since living in Phoenix and 80 degrees is too hot, haha!) I took the kids swimming a lot. Our new thing this summer has been riding down our little hill on our bikes. The kids have gotten pretty good on their balance bikes and I love watching them ride. We also got to go to Oregon for a week with Seth's family.

Lincoln has now started pre school and speech so we are getting into more of a routine and things feel busy. We are blessed. I'm thankful for every single day that I get to spend with my kids.

Here's a few pictures but I'll have to post pics from our trips another time.

 Every second that Seth has off he wants to spend it with these kids. He is such a sweet Daddy.

 LOve this smile and the dimple!! She is the sweetest baby. Lydia is fitting right? I love the name and I love this girl!

 I was determined to do a half marathon and the only one I could find on a Saturday was Sept. 1st so I trained for it but didn't end up actually registering and just did my own with the help of my support crew (Seth). Can you see my fierce competition? Yogi was the best training buddy I could have asked for. That dog loves to run! I spared you a close up picture, I looked awful! This trail is so pretty and it goes forever.

I'll never forget Lincoln's squeal going down these hills! He loves it.

 Lila tries to copy LIncoln's screams and it's hilarious too. She's a dare devil.

 The ladies. Love my girls!

 They just looked too cute one Sunday morning to not take a picture.

These two are the best play buddies. Lincoln loves his hat from Uncle Aaron!

I also got to go to Emily's wedding in California. I love this picture with my sister and my Mom, however I wish I would have gotten a picture with the bride!! owell. I can't tell you how many pictures I wish I would have gotten since I had Lydia. I guess there are too many distractions with three kids to remember everything. The wedding was beautiful and I was happy to finally get to meet Donovan.

That's all for now folks, until next time!

Our new baby girl

Little Olivia Lucy was born on June 7, 2012

weight: 7lbs. 15oz

length: 20 3/4 inch

Her due date was June 4th so I was very anxious to get her here but was having NO signs of labor. We ended up at the hospital in active labor at the exact same time that I was set to be induced. The timing was perfect. I had wanted to go into labor on my own this time since I haven't ever had a very good experience with being induced. Well, this time around was a very different experience indeed. I was planning on getting the epidural but when they told me I was already at an 8 I thought, what the heck, I think I can do this on my own. I ended up being at an 8 for a long time but it really wasn't bad. They gave me some nubane which made me drowsy and I was able to nap a little in between contractions which helped a lot. I had a mid-wife this time around too which I loved. Seth was skeptical, being in the medical field and all, but we will always go to a mid-wife in the future. She was so great and we couldn't believe how much she was in the room with us and just how helpful she was with everything. I think I was so focussed on getting to the end that I didn't even think about what the end was going to be like and that is one thing I will better prepare for the next time. It felt CRAZY. I totally lost it. I don't remember any pain though which is weird. I just remember panic. Seth had to seriously hold me down to the bed so I wouldn't run out of the room, which, how I thought I could do that at the moment is beyond me but I just wanted outta there. She came fast and she couldn't have been more perfect. It's such a miracle. That dark hair had us both a little shocked after having 2 blondies. She was a real screamer in the beginning. I don't think she wanted to leave Heaven. All of the nurses commented on what a diva she was. She wouldn't eat and she wouldn't sleep so the first 18 hours were pretty rough but once she started to eat things were fine. By the time we were leaving the nurse told me she's never seen such a good baby, and that's not what they were saying at first!! We love this little girl and we feel so blessed to have her as a part of our family.

The Grand Tour

I was bummed that Seth had to work today, don't ask me why b/c it's not a new thing for him to work Saturday's but sometimes it just feels like we don't get to see him enough!! Anyway, I decided I needed a reason to get the house picked up and something to do since it's rainy out so I decided to take pictures of our house. The kids were actually good helpers too. We live too far away from a lot of our friends and family so now even if you can't come and visit, you can feel like you've been to our house, so welcome to the grand tour! It's not anything special but it has been perfect for us. Our Landlord did some fun painting of colors that I would not have picked but have ended up loving.

 We didn't have anything blue so before we left AZ so I bought some really cheap apolstery fabric from this awesome store and my Mom and I came up with this for the bed and curtains.

 Lila's room is my favorite. I love the purple and the murals painted on the walls. Wish I could take it with us when we move. We bought the twin bed for when Lila is ready to transition from the crib but so far she's happy to be in the crib and I'm happy to keep her there, but I just wanted to be ready for when the baby gets here....so yup, I guess that's an official blog announcement. haha, I'm not very good at announcing these things, but yes, I'm preggy preggers. We are expecting another girl June 4th. Yay!!

 Lincoln boy's room! My Mom just helped me finish that blanket for his bed. Yay for finishing something!! It's got little animals on it and the back is a dinosaur sheet. He loves it.

 Who would have thought to do such a bright red bathroom!? I just happened to have all this stuff that matched before we moved so it worked out. I'm so glad I had a place to put those bird paintings that I love from Shannon in our AZ ward.

 This is Seth's little study/workout/ tool den. He got pretty shelf happy but it's nice to have a place to put all his books and tools.

 This is our front door entry but nobody uses our front door b/c you park behind the house so we have people come to the sliding door in the back.

 The kitchen. It's nice and open and has a huge sink.

 We hardly ever go in this room that I call the futon room. It's behind that wall at the front entry. Our greatest idea was to hang those curtains along the back wall so we could have somewhere to stash our storage boxes like Christmas stuff since this house has NO storage. It worked out pretty good and I'm glad we have a place to hide our junk! (I made the futon cover and pillow with some other apolstery fabric that I bought before we moved so it cost about $10!!) All the furniture in this room, besides the hope chest,  we got next to a dumpster so it was free. haha. no shame. Everything we own is used, free, or from ikea.

 I love this dining room table that we found on craigslist when we moved here. I love that it has a leaf if we have lots of people over, which actually did happen one time. The pots in the corner are going to be my attempt at growing some herbs but I need to get a sunlight for them.

 This is where most people enter the house and where we spend most of our time.

 I love the coat rack that seth made over there by Yogi. It's been very handy. Don't mind that bikes. I finally set up my trainer!

 This is the bird feeder and bird house that my Mom and Dad set up for us while they were here. I love that they used this stick that they found in the back yard. They are avid bird watchers and have peaked our curiosty in birds. It's been fun so far and I've seen about 4 different kinds of birds come to it (I still need to work on identifying them.) I'm surprised Yogi didn't scare them away.

 This is at the back of the house when we first moved in. It's the only picture I really have of the house that is now our home sweet home.

Hope you enjoyed the tour. Come and visit us anytime!

January pics

Tell me these cute little faces don't just make you smile. Lila is in love with babies all of a sudden, it's very cute! This one is almost bigger than she is.

Yep, just chillin in a little tuppeware.

They love doing puzzles together. Lila mostly just loves taking all of the pieces out and then putting them back in the box.

Lincoln is my little cookie monster. He really liked the cookie dough this time around.

This was at what we call Yogi Park. It's just lots of open space with hardly ever any people so we often take Yogi there to run around. The kids have fun playing on the bleachers and in the baseball diamond.

First good snow!

It was fun to actually get some snow that we could play in! This was back in January. Unfortunately, it wasn't snow man making snow but it was perfect for sledding. We feel pretty lucky to have a little hill right outside our front door! The kids loved it!

December pics

I was cleaning Lincoln's floor so everything was on the train table, including them!

Playing on Daddy's ipad is a special treat.

reading Christmas stories with Daddy.

We watched the Phillip's kids overnight so they could celebrate their 10 year anniversary. It was so fun! I'm still laughing b/c I took them on a walk just as something to do and to see some Christmas lights but it ended up being a 2mile walk! They were so tired! It was a good way to make bed time easy I guess. haha.
My kids are not ALWAYS in their pajamas I promise but they seem to get their best play times in the mornings before they get dressed or I just that's just when I think to take pictures. Lincoln LOVES playing with his dinosaurs and is always thinking of new things to do with them.

The kids found these hats and I guess they thought they had to go hide and wear them. It was pretty cute.

Just my happy Lincoln.

Lila loves to read books!

Taevin and Lincoln are the cutest little buddies!