Welcome to the world....

Isn't she so new you can smell her?

Meet my beautiful niece Poppy Louise Jackson!
These pictures are not in any great order but I will explain the best I can.
Poppy was snuggled up to mommy while the nurse was listening to her. She found the nurses knuckle, I guess her rooting instinct was working:)
My beautiful sister Brooke invited me to come in the labor and delivery room to take pictures of her daughters birth. Brooke's water broke at 12:30 pm on Sunday and she was pushing by 2:20pm. I would like to tell you that I am not insanely jealous but I am!!! What an awesome delivery. Not to mention she looked GREAT! She didnt' even break a sweat.

Our mom and sisters were invited to be in the room while Poppy's mom and dad welcomed her into the world. I can tell you that their was not a dry eye among us. It was totally amazing. Kennan was audibly gasping and sobbing while Paige watched in amazement....I don't think she can hold off long to have her first after that. My mom cried as she watched her 5th child and 3rd daughter give birth to her 12th grand baby. As for the pictures I took, they may be a bit blurry because I couldn't see through my tears.

We keep telling Paige that women in our family are not usually like Brooke, no stretch marks, water breaking, and fast delivery's......so don't plan on it.

Here is Poppy one day old......I know the picture is out of place but what can I do?

One of the most emotional moments during the day was when Dustin's parents brought Minie into see her mom and new sister. This was Brooke's reaction at seeing the big sister.

I'll tell you what, these girls are lucky to have these fantastic parents. Oh, and could these two baby girls look any more different?

Poppy looking at daddy for the first time.

Poppy's stats are:

weight: 7lbs. 6oz.
height: 19 1/2 inches long

First bath....This is where I feel cheated. I have four beautiful children but never once did they bath the baby in my room so I could watch. Brooke got to watch everything, and Poppy never left her sight. They also play Brahms Lullaby over the loud speaker while they walk the baby and mom to their hospital room. How cute is that?

She didn't like the bath but she loved getting her hair washed!

Bathed, dressed, warmed and sleeping.....Oh, I love her so much already! It might make me a bit baby hungry myself.....

First family photo.

Thank you Brooke and Dustin for this amazing experience. I have birthed four children but never have I really gotten to see a birth....seeing that I am always doing the work. It was so touching and it will stay with me forever. Poppy will always have a special place in my heart. Brooke you are beautiful, and I was so proud of you. You are an amazing mother and I admire you in so many ways....photography just being one of them:) I hope you enjoy the pictures....I have a whole CD full of them. Love your little family!

Princess Shiner.....

Miss Priss was running around last night after dinner, when she fell and hit her eye on the corner of our recliner:( It was an instant black eye. She cried until she fell asleep. Luckily, Jen and Geena came over and brought a special band aid to help her. It seemed to work. She woke up with her eye pretty much swollen shut.
I have 3 boys and this has NEVER happened. Of course it would be my pretty little girl. Tucker told her he can hardly look at her because it makes his eye hurt. That made her cry and then he felt bad and tried to make it better.... She keeps asking me if we can put band aids over it so no one can see it when we go to pre-school. Poor girl. We could be looking pretty black and blue at our house for a couple of weeks. I am afraid this looks good compared to what it could look like in a few days.

P.S. Happy 3rd Birthday Jude!

LoOk.....

Well look who finally decided to join our blogging world........

Pre-School fun with Miss Debbie

This is Miss Debbie's 3 year old class. Can you spot my daughter in the picture? Yes, that would be her sporting her "mean witch face". I love Debbie and she has done a fantastic job with all three of my children so far. Gwyn LOVES her Miss Debbie! These are some pictures of things we have done for her pre-school class.
This is our little photo shoot before we hit the Pumpkin Patch. I have to document that if you ask Gil what is on his shirt he will tell you "a Hic-cup". Every Skeleton is a hic-up because of our kids favorite Halloween book Skeleton Hiccups. Somehow he lost the skeleton and just held on to the hic-cup part. Bob and I find this VERY entertaining so we ask him as much as possible. We have other people ask him, and then they look at us like we are crazy....why? doesn't everyone read Skeleton Hic-cups 20 times day? Oh and on a side note...I love skinny jeans on Gwyn:)

We had a great farm tour guide lady who took the kids around to the animals and gave them lot's of interesting facts about animals. Gwyn's personal favorite was the pot belly pig "Bacon" we heard about him all weekend long. Gil LOVED all the animals....he was kissed by a llama, pecked by chicken and licked by a goat. He was in heaven.

Gwyn practicing her best Witchy look.

This is Gwyn and her friends Adler, Mason, and Marissa, she was happy to be able to be with the four year olds!

Her she is answering questions.....I love her bum from behind!

Gil felt like there was just to much talking so this is what he did instead of listening to farm lady.
Have I mentioned he is obsessed with pumpkins.....actually if you ask him what he is going to be for Halloween he will tell you a "punkin" or "supeman". Yeah, he is going to be Peter Pan.
One little try to for a vintage looking photo.....I need a little help with it I think.
Here is miss Debbie' class again.....
Here is Gwyn and her girly friend Janessa. These two could boss each other around everyday:)

China Baby Ballet

Today for dance Gwynnie had to dress-up for Halloween. She wanted a change from her witch costume. I picked this little number up in China Town with my sisters and mom this summer. I think she wears it well...something about the eyes:)
My favorite part of Gwyn and dress-ups is her ability to alter her personality, in other words, her ability to act. I definitely think there might be some acting classes in her near future:)

I "heart" China Town!

Just because.....

Sometimes I love her.....other times I really want to run FAR away from her. This weekend was a good one.

Halloween Preview

Here are my little trick -or- treaters a few days early! I LOVE this picture because it is so true to form for all of their personalities.

Mr Gilly Bear as Peter Pan.



We went up to my mom and dad's for a quick visit. Bob and Tucker went to the BYU game with Grandy and Grandpa. Amber and Chase were having an adult Halloween party that we went to later that night. My mom babysat my kids and threw them a mean Halloween party while we were at ours......She is so fun.


Gwynnie witch! My mom made her the skirt and necklace! She adores this just because Nannie made it.


She was all about the party!



I made her hat....I have to admit I am pretty pleased with the way it turned out.


Abe the GREAT Wizard. I love Abe because he always has his own ideas about what he wants to be. I really enjoy this boy.


He insist that he must play his character really serious. What do you think? His costume took me the longest to make, but to see his face when he tried it on made it all worth it.

Oh My!!!! This is my Indiana Tucker Jones. I think he looks so handsome in these pictures, he totally posed this himself.....heart breaker in the making, or just breaking my heart:) He really wanted to be Indiana Jones last year until we found Jack the Pumpkin Kings costume. So this year we hit the DI and raided a few closets and this is what we came up with for Indy. He keeps lamenting to me that he should have been Jack this year and Indiana last year because there wouldn't have been very many last year, and EVERYONE will be it this year. What can you do?

Indy and Bella the little lamb.....Tuck just holding his newest niece. She is YUMMY!

Gabi and Bella as Little Bo Peep and her Lamb. They are beautiful girls. Brad and Vanessa came right before Bob and I left for our party so I only got to take the girls pictures.....I missed the rest of my nieces and nephews:(

So here is our crew sitting pretty nicely for me. I have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised to see how okay my kids were with me making their costumes. I usually only do store bought and to save money this year we got creative.....it's was really fun. I could really learn from them. Thanks mom and sisters for making the kids night great. Amber and Chase your party was GREAT! Thanks for bugging us enough to get us up there!

Flag Football...

(Tucker's tough football pose)

Tucker decided he would finally try a little Flag Football.....Football has not always been his favorite sport. When he was younger and he and the boys in the neighborhood would be playing football, he would say "I'm not feeling the football spirit today." But when his soccer team approached him on playing flag football he was in. I know he is a big kid but truly his love is soccer.
He is really enjoying flag football, I think it must just be the tackle football he doesn't love. Here he is ready for a little action.
Tucker and his team mates.....yes he might be bigger than the rest of them. On Tucker's left is Mikaeda Puriri (Michael Puriri's son from my hometown) fun to run into them again.

Gil is Tucker's biggest fan......he enjoys these games if you can't tell by how grubby he is.

Heater...

I love the first day we turn on the heater. I love the way it smells. This morning Bob turned it on and all the smoke detectors went off.? I know we are in a warm climate but we have opened our windows at night and our room gets freezing cold. I love it with my warm down comforter on us, and snuggling in. It is a little hard to get out of bed when it's that cold though. One of my favorite memories of growing up was when mom first turned on the heater, and thinking it was the first sign of winter.....I love when a season change finally hits us!

On my mind....

So I am freaking out about food storage....I have just recently decided that we should really acquire one. I know that the Church has been preaching about for as long as I can remember and at times Bob and I have had a pretty good supply, but somehow I just let it go. It might be that it is so expensive to feed my kids as it is that, anything extra seems like a lot. I could blame it on four kids but really that isn't an excuse. So here I am freaking out, staying up at night thinking about it. It's a good thing Bob is so calm, because we would both be crazy. So after I hit a case lot sale yesterday and blew my grocery budget I do feel a little better. If anyone has any expertise I would love to know. This whole economy thing is frightening.

I have also been reading a lot lately, (I am trying to stay away from spending money) I have to say I feel a little burned out, this is something I thought I would never say. But I have read way more than I will admit to since August. I do have to say though I read a book called WildWood Dancing by Juliet Marillier...and it was amazing. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys a little adult-ish fairytale.

Don't even get me started on Halloween .....This is the first year I have decided not to buy them costumes. My mom did send a darling tutu skirt for her Witch costume....we will see how the rest of them turn out right? It's just one night. Right? I will simplify things.

A really random side note, while I was getting ready this morning at 6:45 am (Gwyn was awake way earlier than I like. I like to get home from my walk/gym and get ready in peace and quiet.) We had the Backyardigans on. I love this show. I love their music, but most of all I love their dancing. I am telling you they can dance and they are so fluid in their movement. I caught myself just watching while I should have been getting ready. I know that they are cartoons but I don't care their choreography is amazing.....

So all that important stuff being said here are few things that have made Bob and I laugh the last few weeks:

~Bob was asked to talk about his mission for the primary activity and bring some food from the mission field, and pictures, and whatever else. Abe was in his group and was listening all about his dad's mission. One of the neighbor boys asked Bob if he could see his picture in the photo album so he showed him. His comment was that Bob looked really different. Abe immediately followed with "yeah, he's really let himself go!" Bob busted out laughing and I can't tell the story with out laughing. Oh Abe.....

~Abe came home from school a couple of weeks ago with a sweet new line.

Abe: Mom if I find a girl I like Duke (his friend) gave me something to say to her.

Mom: Really? What would you say?

Abe: Do you have a Library card? Because I am here to check you out! (with finger in gun shape pointing at me.)

Mom: Laughing so hard I am crying.....smooth buddy!

~We had some Pot Stickers from Costco the other day, and Gwyn LOVED them. She kept saying to me, I want another Sticker Pot please.

~My friend Carami was visiting with a couple of her kids, her youngest son Asher is Gil's age. When my neighbor came over to meet them, Gil announced as soon as she walked in the door, while pointing to Asher, "he's trouble".

~Gwyn bugs me to death about having a baby, it is never ending. She tells people all the time we are having a baby next week. Yeah it's great. Bob finally told her a couple of nights ago , that "we can't have another baby until she is really good for mommy, and wants to help. That means cleaning up your room, being nice to your friends, and not being naughty." That has really gotten her to quiet the baby talk down.....Thank goodness. Although yesterday she told me she is really trying hard to be good:) Sometimes I want to sell her to the Gypsies other times I can't get enough of her.

Just a little picture of Gwyn in her darling outfit from naartjie! Thank you Kennan!

~

Conference Weekend...oh how I love thee!

I love conference weekend, because I love our family time. We visited Kolob, we watched our friends run the marathon in freezing, wet conditions. We sat on our couch and watched our beloved Prophet speak to us, and all of the other wonderful apostles speak. What a great weekend! I made some yummy treats, our breakfast Sunday morning was pecan carmel french toast..mmmm. I love the fall.
We tried to make it more fun for the kids, so we pulled out a little game of BINGO for them. This actually really worked for the older boys. Gwyn thought that coloring the pictures was fun and Gil ...... just thought the buttons were fun. Hope everyone else had a great weekend.