She is finally here. Emily Jane arrived at 9:45pm Friday, April 23rd. That puts all three of our girls birthdays in April! She weighed in at 7 lbs. 3 oz. making her my second largest baby. But she has the most hair of all my babies and in the right light that hair is very red. I realized that all my kids have been born with different hair colors - so we'll see what this shade of red turns into. 
The kids all dote on her. She is swarmed with kisses all day long - especially from Andrew. They are fascinated by her cord and her tiny diapers. When we first got home from the hospital Mack asked me how long it would be till she opened her eyes. He was surprised to find that, unlike many mammals, human babies open their eyes right away.
The kids all dote on her. She is swarmed with kisses all day long - especially from Andrew. They are fascinated by her cord and her tiny diapers. When we first got home from the hospital Mack asked me how long it would be till she opened her eyes. He was surprised to find that, unlike many mammals, human babies open their eyes right away.
She is proving to be a poor sleeper, but other than that she is wonderful! I am optimistic that the sleeping will get better soon. We are still adjusting to the reality of 5 kids, but we love having this little baby in our home.
The Princess Cake.
This is the dress I made her. It has the same fabric as the ones I made for two of my nieces - so someday (when baby Rachel fits hers) we can have matchy pictures.
Okay this picture has nothing to do with her Birthday and is just repeating an old theme - but she came down the stairs like this the other morning. She has the swimsuit strap stuck around her neck and she actually slept in that tutu - so strange. I love this silly girl - Happy Birthday Kate.
I put candy in plastic eggs then the kids hid them from each other. It took about 10 minutes but the candy kept them occupied for the next hour.
I have always done the egg stuff on Saturday and focused Sunday on Christ. Saturday we have a few small traditions we carry out but I have always struggled to find something fun to do with the kids on Sunday that carries the Easter message and that I would want to repeat year after year. This Sunday morning I got out of bed before anyone else (this baby was keeping me up anyway) and made donuts for breakfast. While getting them together I had an idea. We have a big picture of Christ hanging in our home. I took it off the wall and hid it in the van. I then put a note on the wall with the scripture reference Matt. 28:6 "He is not here: for he is risen" we talked about how scared and sad the disciples must have been to find Jesus missing. Then I kind of made a scripture scavenger hunt. The kids loved the challenge of finding the scriptures, reading them, and figuring out where the next clue was hidden. It also gave me their undivided attention to bare my testimony of our Savior. Maybe I have found my Sunday tradition.
She is turning 3 tomorrow, but for the past 3 weeks she has been telling people "I not 2 any more". We hadn't even talked much about birthdays- she just decided she was moving on.
The best moment at the zoo was with the Amur Leopard. He was pacing on the ground and started chasing the kids back and forth so we stopped to pose in front of him - then he rose up against the glass. I love Andrew's face in this picture as he realizes what the leopard is doing.
The other kids figured it out one by one.
Here the leopard is staring Andrew down. Looks like a pretty tasty snack -huh.
The leopard jumped up on the glass over and over. The kids loved it. It was intimidating though to see how much bigger the cat was than my kids. Good thing the glass was thick.