Baby Connor

To help avoid having a 4th of July baby I decided to be induced. I was originally planning on going to the hospital on the morning of the 1st but at my appointment on June 30th my doctor stated he preferred to start the induction at night. Well I had lots to accomplish before the evening as a result, including the finishing of Gunnar's birthday blanket (because I knew I would not work on it after Connor was born)

Here is the final baby bump picture :) and maybe the only intentional one the whole pregnancy.

This was by far my easiest labor and delivery. It was only 4 hours of labor from the time I was hooked up to the time of birth! I did have to push a little more as the cord was wrapped around Connor's neck three times and under his arm. It took him a few seconds to start breathing (approx. 30 seconds), which was stressful for me of course. It was a great relief to hear him cry! He arrived at 1:47 am and I was certainly exhausted by the time I got to my new room and to sleep by 5:00 am

Here he is after a little cleaning

and on the scale which ultimately balanced at 8 lbs 8 oz and he was 21 inches long.

Here is Bryant with the new little one :)

Here he is in the nursery awaiting his full bath. This is the first time I have ever been taken to the nursery. My nurse brought me down stairs in a wheel chair holding Connor and I got to deliver him to the nursery before heading to my room. It was a nice change.

Here he is flexing his strong muscles :)

I love this picture of him. He is so serene, which really matches his personality thus far. 

We got a surprise visit from my father! He was on his way home to Arizona from Idaho and stopped at our house, which was empty of course :) Due to his traveling around he didn't get the memo that we were in the hospital so after a phone call he came over and got to be the first person to meet Connor, which is pretty cool since he is not likely to see him until we come down in October :) It makes me smile to watch my dad holding an infant

That afternoon, all the kids came to meet their littlest brother! Tucker had lots of fun holding him and talking to him.

Brylee's maternal instincts kicked in and she didn't want to give Connor up!

Hunter really likes to rub Connor's feet. He thinks it is cool that Connor calms down with a nice foot rub :)

Gunnar's response to seeing Connor was "Baby, Mine!" Thankfully, no jealousy and just automatic instinct to claim his brother as his and love him to pieces

And of course everyone wanted a second turn to hold him!

Brylee and Gunnar decided this rocking chair made the perfect horse

Here he is all ready to go home :)

All of the kids have been great about washing their hands with soap before touching or holding the baby. We'll see how long it takes for Connor to get "sick" ;)

Here he is on his first day outside. Every time we do something, everyone exclaims that it is Connor's first time doing such and such. It is really cute.

Brylee learned how to scale the clothesline this day too. I really wish I had a place to store the clothesline so my kids would stop sitting on top of it.

Here is Brylee being a great big sister. I was working on dinner and Connor was not happy about being on the floor any longer so Brylee found his pacifier and started rubbing his cheek and telling him everything was okay. It was super helpful!

Gunnar has learned Connor's name and now says "My Connor!"

We were graced with the presence of my Mother, brother Jared, sister Natalie, and two of her friends from July 6 to July 12. Natalie and her two friends were attending a stay-at-home EFY in Orem so I only saw them for a few minutes in the morning and night. Jared was great at playing with my children. He learned he doesn't have a limitless supply of energy unlike my kids and I had to teach him that it was okay to tell them that he needed a break. Going from a life of solitude and quiet to a visit with my rambunctious children can be quite the shock to the system :) They all have fond memories of getting ice cream from the ice cream truck and wish that Uncle Jared and Grandma Wendy were here to buy them ice cream again whenever the truck pulls into the circle. (I don't know why the ice cream truck thinks that 8 pm is a good time to drive around but it gives me the ability to tell my kids that they are already ready for bed). Tucker is also constantly talking about MarioKart 7 that Uncle Jared had on his Nintendo 3DS. It was great to have family here with a couple of extra hands. 

And it turns out that Connor was really good at helping fold all the laundry after the guests left :)

June June June

June brought a whirlwind of activities! I wanted to take the kids to do lots of things before I had the baby because I knew I would not be up for much after having him. We went to Seven Peaks (a water park we have passes for) multiple times a week in the month of June. Thankfully, they have free life jacket rentals. I didn't get the life jackets the first two times taking all the kids by myself and it was a little unnerving trying to keep track of all four. Having the life jackets brought a lot of peace to my mind, especially when in the wave pool. I didn't have to worry that Tucker or Hunter would get swept under the waves and they were glad that they could go deeper without me since I had to stay in the shallows with Brylee and Gunnar. 

We attended the Utah Lake Festival again this year. Here are pictures of the kids making hand shaped fish, for one of the crafts.

Hunter didn't like the shape of the hand fish and so he had me cut him out a simple fish with a roundish head/body and triangle tail.

Then they decorated fish for fish hats. These three children decided they didn't want theirs to be hats but just wanted to decorate  single fish. This also provides you with a nice picture of the size of my belly. I don't have very many of them because I am usually the one behind the camera, especially with all the extra hours Bryant has been working. Thankfully he has his Saturdays off now so he gets to come with us to things like this :)

Gunnar loved his hat and continued to wear it around the house for at least a week or two after the festival

The following week we attended Cindy Ogden's 60th birthday bash. Bryant, Brylee, Gunnar, and I had lots of fun dancing with the live band music!

I really like this picture of me and Brylee. Her hair looked so good that day!

Gunnar had lots of fun running around all the dancers and if you watch long enough you will even see him get into the spirit of the dance.

Here is a short video of Brylee dancing with Bryant :) I love these two

Keith and Cindy also had a bounce house for all the kids to play in. This is where Tucker and Hunter spent a lot of their time and where I was constantly concerned that Gunnar would get smashed!

Brylee found herself a comfortable perch

The kids got to go to a friend's birthday party at the BYU Bean museum. They got to see some real animals as part of the party. I learned that a terrapin is a turtle/tortoise that lives in both the water and land. It has nails on its toes like a tortoise to enable it to dig in the sand but can also swim like a turtle.

This is the snake they all to to touch!

And this was a gila monster (or some other lizard, i don't remember anymore). It was really big and strong and tried to escape out of the employee's hands on a couple of occasions because it was a bit scared.

Since I was still pregnant on Hunter's birthday, we threw him an impromtu birthday party. We met with friends at the Provo Splash Pad and let the kids eat as many popsicles as they wanted. I got lots of compliments for knowing how to throw a great summer party :P

Here is Hunter on Sunday, his actual birthday. It is crazy to think that this boy is 5!

I made this awesome Batman cape, thanks to pinterest. It has "sleeves" for his arms so that the cape opens when he raises his arms and he doesn't have to tie anything around his neck! I love that he loves to wear it all the time. Unfortunately, it is summer and the cape is black so he can't wear it outside for very long.

He also got a bike. It is a small 12 in bike that I almost decided to save for Gunnar for next year but decided that because it was small it would be easier for Hunter to learn to ride without training wheels because he will be able to easily reach the ground to balance himself. The training wheels are currently on because I can't run to keep up with him to help him balance.

Bryant was being very silly and calling all the parts inside the bike box by different names. The pedals were gernades, the instructions were a coloring book, and the seat was a rocket ship. It was cute that Hunter thought to believe him despite knowing that the parts were for a bike.

Hunter really wanted a chocolate, chocolate chip cookie cake for his birthday. So I found a recipe and made him one with M&Ms in it too. It was WAY to sweet so that even Hunter decided it was too sugary to eat. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don't. I had no problem throwing the majority of it in the trash.