I haven't blogged in 4 months. I'm soooo behind and here's the reason why...

... I had a baby!

After several pregnancy related health problems and a week on bed rest I ended up having to be induced at 37 weeks.

Grayson Briggs was born on August 26th....

...and it's been a whirlwind of craziness ever since.

It's been 4 1/2 years since we've had a little newborn in our home so all of the kids were super excited to get to the hospital and check him out.

And of course, Dan is one proud papa.

Here are a few of my favorite pics from Gray's first week home.

Of course having a new baby does not mean life will stand still for you while you get adjusted. Nope, not even a little bit. While I was in the hospital I remembered thinking I feel great, I'm doing pretty good. I found myself walking the halls doing laps, with the baby, out of boredom, ready to get outside and back to the real world. But one quick trip to Target on my way home, after being discharged, proved that I wasn't as ready for the "real world" as I thought I was. I stood in Target while everyone zipped and raced by me. The outside world felt so fast paced. I felt slow, sick, tired and out of place. Definitely not back to my 100% like I thought I was.

When I arrived home my kids were on the same fast track as the people in Target. They were very excited for school to start and couldn't wait to go school shopping and have our special back to school dinner, they tried to bring several neighbors into my bedroom while I was nursing and much much more. After a few tears from yours truly Dan announced to the kids, "Mom is getting some time off and everything would have to be postponed for a few weeks." It all just felt a little sad to me for a few days :( We'll just call this my "Adjustment Period".

August 31st Back to School...

and since no back to school outfits were purchased and no back to school pictures were actually taken of the kids this year we'll just use these beautiful pics Jenne took instead :)

Alaina- 7th Grader (even though she looks like a junior)

Playing Volleyball and trying out for choir this year.

Ky -6th Grader

Playing basketball and LOVES to read.

Hailey -4th Grader

Playing soccer and a HUGE help with the baby.

Kase -2nd Grader

Playing soccer and a big time people person. He has a TON of friends.

Hudson our little preschooler.

He loves school and is always making our family laugh.

Jenne also took newborn pics of the baby at 11 days old.

A couple weeks after school started I felt like I was back in the swing of things...

We had our fancy "Back to School Dinner" and introduced our family's theme for the year.

"Our home is a Heaven on Earth".

I returned back to being a "soccer mom" I guess you could say.

2 kids in soccer, 1 kid in Volleyball and 4 kids taking piano lessons. Oh boy!?!

And my daily life always includes these guys.

Which is always entertaining!

September 22nd- We had a quick b-day party for "Dan the Man" and bought him cool presents like underwear and socks :)

October and November were pretty much a blur. Dan was going to school, working 15hrs a day, servicing all of his lawncare customers, getting 800 sprinkler blowouts done and running his other businesses. Then homework on top of that. So pretty much I was a single mom of 6 for a while but here are the highlights.

Sunday, October 9th- Grayson's baby blessing.

October 14th- Preschool pumpkin patch trip with Hudson.

October 30th- Family over for dinner and pumpkin carving.

October 31st- Halloween/Trick or Treating

November 3rd-Alaina's first choir performance. (Top center)

November 17th- Breaking Dawn Event

November 24th- Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We hung out with family, ate turkey, took the family to a movie and Dan spent an hour or so watching football with his eye's closed ;)

(A well deserved nap I'd say, with how busy he's been lately)

November 25th- Grayson is 3 months now and super smiley :)

November 26th- A trip to the Kelly's for a Thanksgiving get together in Ritzville.

That super fun trip wraps up November.

And since this is the longest blog post known to man I think I'll stop here for tonight. I'm feeling pretty good about getting caught up on 3 months worth of blogging. I'll save the month of December for tomorrow night and then in January I think my New Years resolution may need to be something about staying on top of my blog.

The summer of no pictures

Our summer is finally winding down. The kids just attended the last of their summer sports camps today. Now I'm just hoping they forget that the fair will be in town next week; I would love to just avoid that one altogether.

This summer I have been SUPER pregnant, SUPER big, SUPER hot, SUPER sick, SUPER cranky, and SUPER uncomfortable which has turned me into a SUPER lazy picture taker. I haven't taken any pics of the kids this summer because that would require lugging my camera around and moving from place to place to get a good shot of them. About all I've been able to muster up the energy to do is haul a camping chair to the general vicinity the kids are, and parking it for a few hours to watch them play. Sad, I know, but oh sooo true.

Since I don't have any pictures for proof, I asked the kids to make me a list of all of the fun things we did this summer. Here's what they came up with, in no particular order.

Swimming

Tennis Camp

Volleyball Camp

Boating with cousins

Waterpark

"Real Paying" babysitting jobs for Alaina

Illegal fireworks on the 4th

Beehive Camp

Going to work with Dad

Sleepovers at Grandma's & Grandpa's

Boyscout Camp

Shooting off rockets

Chuck E Cheese

Camp Kiwanis with the Roses

Band Camp

Mom's Birthday

Summer School

Basketball Camp

Playdates & lateovers with friends

Swim Lessons

Silverwood

Golf Camp

Going to the library

Ice Blocking

Family BBQ's

Pedicures

Roller Skating

Rope Swinging into the lake

Bowling

Playing at the Park

Scouts & Mutual Activities

Fishing

Sandbox fun and homemade slip & slide

Camping with the Armitage's & Madder's

Backyard Movie Nights

Sleeping on the Trampoline

We didn't do a lot of out of town stuff or any big major vacations this summer. But the little local stuff adds up to a busy and full summer, FOR SURE. I am glad that they had fun and that their lazy, pregnant mom didn't totally ruin everything for them:)

36 weeks

Today's ultrasound didn't produce great pics of the baby because it's getting a little cramped inside my old belly. The ultrasound tech printed me a profile picture of the baby's face but his knee and foot were covering half of it so you couldn't see much. The baby was grabbing his toes so the picture she printed of his foot is a big mash up of toes and fingers.

When I arrived home from my appointment the kids were excited and then quickly disappointed when they couldn't decipher the body parts they were looking at in the pictures. I decided to go online and find a 36 week picture so they could get a good idea of what is going on with the baby inside of me and this is what I found. My kids were amazed by this picture and had lots of comments and questions after seeing it which was fun.

Hudson of course had to giggle and make a silly comment about the babies private parts and Kase just said, "Man... our baby should do gymnastics. I think he'll be the most flexible kid in our whole family." :)

Health wise the baby is doing great. For the last month or so I've been struggling with high blood pressure so they are watching that pretty closely right now but other than that things seem to be going pretty well and we are definitely coming into the home stretch now. Yeah!

Grandma & Grandpa Mount's Anniversary

Grandma and Grandpa Mount invited the whole family up to Cheney to celebrate their Anniversary and birthdays this weekend. They took everyone to Silverwood on Friday.

Holy Cow! Can you believe that? I'm not sure how much fun they had at the park, but all of the kids had a blast!

The kids wanted to start the day off with a bang, so they chose Temors as the first ride of the morning. Hudson was tall enough to join them and was super excited to try out a BIG roller coaster.

Here are the kids before the ride...

And during :)

Dan and Hudson before the ride...

And during :)

Hudson ended up deciding that Temors was a little too BIG of a ride for him and said it made his face go like this...

We then headed over to the kiddie section of the park to get his confidence level back up.

Dumbo, trains, flying airplanes, and log rides here we come.

Kase and Kaden throwing up some gangster signs.

The second part of the day was spent at the water park, which the kids loved.

Their favorite thing this year was the wave pool...

and the huge family style tube slides.

On Saturday Grandma and Grandpa Mount got everyone together for family pictures and then spoiled us to a fancy catered lunch.

The best part of the weekend for Dan and I was hanging out with family, some of which we haven't seen since our early married years. Good times.

Thanks for the great weekend Grandma and Grandpa Mount and Happy Anniversary!

Cooling Dad off after work

Dan had a little surprise awaiting him in the backyard when he came home from work today.

The kids mission: "Super Soak the Dad"

Dan was taken down pretty easy by our 4 year old. It may have had something to do with it being close to 100 degrees today, but then again Hudson has be working out :)

Mission Accomplished!

Rose weekend

All of my sisters and brother were here for the weekend so we turned it into a little mini family reunion of sorts. We went ice blocking, had burgers and shakes for lunch at the Bombers stand, swam in Aunt Kathy's pool, had a BBQ at mom and dad's for dinner, then games and movies for the rest of the night. (Plus a cousins sleepover on the trampoline, with an outdoor movie last night) Glad everyone could make it, Dan and I and our kids had a ton of fun.

Happy birthday to me.

When I woke up this morning I didn't so much feel another year older as I did another year more pregnant. This baby is taking over my body and TUMS are my new best friend. I feel way to old to be doing this. I definitely notice a huge difference from having kids in my twenties to having kids in my mid thirties. Holy cow, what an adventure.

Most of this last week I've been on a little bed rest recovering from a minor surgery I had done. A surgery I'll not go into other than saying, It's been a real "pain in the butt" If you catch my drift :) Ugh.

But today is my birthday, I have family in town and I'm ready to celebrate!

Plans for today include... movie with my girls, pedicures, lunch date, and a dinner date night with the rest of my fam. Should be fun!