Madison Kay Herbert

Our little girl was born a few days ago.  She was a few weeks early and weighed in at 7 lbs 5 oz.  She is so sweet and just sleeps most the time for now.   It took us until a few hours before we left the hospital to figure out what her name was.  She finally let us know that she was Madison.  We will call her Maddie, Although Jason has decided he will call her Mads.  We love her already.

Family Zoo Trip

We decided to head to the zoo this evening. I know, it sounds like I am trying to put myself into labor. I was not. It was one of those easy zoo trips, no hills, no double stroller, just an easy walk around the monkeys and elephants. The Dinosaur exhibit closes at the end of August and we had been waiting to go again until AFTER the baby was born, but then I had to come to terms with the fact that I could not have this baby until the end of July. So we went tonight.

 This is how our toddlers travel on all family outings. (last years zoo trip)

 How many pictures can I have of Noah on the peacock?  We will see...

I have one rule at the zoo.  Ride the train as soon as you get there.  A few times a few years ago I waited until the end to ride the train and something would always happen and we wouldn't get a chance to ride.  And it was the end of the world!  So I made a rule... always ride the train first.  Well, today I broke my rule.  There was a huge line - and I just thought, "we will ride it later".  Big mistake, I do have rules for a reason.  When we went to go ride the train they told us that only members of the "special party" could ride the train - NO EXCEPTIONS.  How do you know I am 38 weeks pregnant?  I almost cried.  My boys actually took it pretty well, the whined a few times - but after about 3 minuets they were fine.  But I was devastated that we couldn't ride the train.  My kids love the train.  All three of them smile so big the whole time.  And we had Jason with us.  I really was looking forward to our family train ride.  I will never brake my rule again!

For Brock

The kids were playing in the backyard and I was in the kitchen doing dishes.  Brock comes running in and says, "you need to go get your camera, your going to want a picture of this".  I had already put our camera in the hospital bag so we would have it at the hospital - and I didn't want to go upstairs and dig it out.  So I said, "just tell me what is happening" and "I will just come look" - but he insisted I not come look and just go get my camera.  So I did - unsure of why or what I would find. 

When we got to the backyard he said, "look, they are being so cute riding together, you need a picture."

I sure did.  Thanks Brock

And because she is cute. And yes, Noah does not have a shirt on.  Don't judge

Also, no baby.  I have been just dying all week wanting this baby so bad.  Emotionally I am so ready.  But as of today I now need to wait another week so Jason can take time off work.  Technically even if I have her next week - he can't even take off the time to be in the hospital when I have her.  That is insane!  So now I want to NOT have the baby until next Friday night.  Wish me luck.

Travis' Wedding

Jason's little brother Travis and Jeanne got married last week in the Salt Lake Temple.  Jason is really close to his brother - it was so much fun to be part of their special day. 

Now that I am writing about it I guess I should say that we almost missed it - and it was all my fault.  I had taken ALL of Jason's suits in to get dry cleaned a few days earlier (I blame it on nesting) and never picked them up.  He went to get dressed for us to leave and had nothing to wear.  Jason would never ever go to the temple in anything but a suit - and I had taken the suits to a dry cleaners on the other side of the valley (cheapest prices), we thought we could make it - we were wrong.  I started crying in the car realizing we were going to miss his brother's wedding because of me.  I would have never forgiven myself.  The wedding was supposed to start at 12:20 and we got to the temple at 12:25 (forget the whole 30 min. early thing) - we handed our car and kids off and booked it (as well as I can "book it" these days) down to the marriage waiting room.  Once we got in we found out the temple was about 15 minutes behind schedule - phew. 

Now to the good stuff - the pictures. 

Jason has 7 kids in his family and him and Travis are the only ones that live in Utah.  Most of them came for the wedding - including the cousins - so it was a fun week.  This little cutie belongs to Jason's older brother and is about 3 weeks younger than Megan.

This is Jason's family with the bride and groom (minus Jared - he couldn't make it out to Utah)

Here is the "whole family" who came to the wedding

The grand kids (minus Aaron) - this was smack dab in the middle of nap time - NONE of these kids have had lunch and it was like a million degrees.  I can't believe we got them all to even sit.

The reception.

My cute family

Jason's siblings

Our fam with Trav and Jeanne

The cutest little girl

The whole fam again

Jon and Jason with their little girls.  Here they are last year when Jon came out to visit.

Then we spent the rest of the weekend at Jason's parents house just hanging out.  The kids had SO MUCH FUN with their cousins.  Brock LOVES Kaleb - he has ever since he met him last year.  He talks about him at least on a weekly basis and wants him to be at every party.  He has asked for him every day since.

This picture was not posed at all.  Debby has this bridge over a waterfall in her backyard and we looked out the window and saw all the kids sitting on the bridge with their feet in the waterfall.  How perfect! We had a great weekend and wish we could see everyone more often.

Baby thoughts

I am at 37 weeks today.  I never thought I would make it this far.  I only carried Brock past 37 weeks.  The problem with expecting your baby to come early is that it makes for a LONG pregnancy every day you go past what you expected.  Strangely I have had a lot of false labor.  By false labor I don't mean contractions - I mean I was SURE we were going to go to the hospital, I was just staying at home to labor.  And then it just stops.  This has never happened before.  So that is making me anxious.  The past few days I have been just dying to have this baby.  Not because I am uncomfortable or that it has anything to do with my pregnancy, I am just anxious to have this baby.  Plus there are a lot of "issues" with people and when I have this baby. 
For example:

• Jason informed me that I had to steer clear of the week of August 2-7 because his brother was getting married and his whole family was going to be in town.
• Jason says I can't have the baby between August 22-26 because he can't even take one day off of work.
• My mom said I can't have the baby between August 6-10 because she was going to be out of town
• Jason's mom (who had agreed to take my kids while I was in the hospital) just decided to go on a cruse and is leaving on August 11 and won't be back until the 22 and then she starts teaching again.  So if I want her to be able to take the kids, I have to have it by the 11.

At this point I can not make everyone happy.  I don't know if they all know this... but I don't really have a whole lot of control over the issue.  But the best thing for our family would be to have the baby um... yesterday, today, or tomorrow.  But again, the baby has yet to ask my opinion.

So this was my attitude all week/weekend.  And then today I have switched. 

We had a stressful week.  We were crazy busy with wedding and family stuff.  My kids have not been home and on a schedule for about a week and by yesterday they had had it.  Especially Noah.  At dinner last night he started to cry because he had spilt his drink.  It was so sad that he was just that tired and emotional.  They needed some consistency, some quiet, and some attention. 

Today has been wonderful.  We have been home, just doing our thing and we have had the best day.  And I realized I am not ready to "rock the boat".  I would love a few more weeks with my three little kids, put some consistency back in their lives, before this baby comes.  I want to just spend as much time with them as I can just doing our thing.  I get like this everytime - so I am not too worried, because truth be told, it just gets better with each child - so I am holding to that, and hoping that after I have number 4 I will love it as much as I loved having 3.

Seeing old friends

Summer is usually a time of seeing old friends.  We almost always have a get together with some of our friends from Provo.  This year didn't work out so well for me.  Once I got all the kids in the car I went to start it and... dead.  It took about an hour and a half several phone calls to Jason and - luckily - my neighbor's brother-in-law (who just happen to be in town (only man home during the day in my neighborhood)) to get us on the road.  Then we had the 30 minute drive to Utah County.  by the time we got there, everybody else had left.  Except for the person we had come to see - Karen and her boys were there.  They were one of the few people who were in the 169th ward as long as we were (6 years... wow, too long).  Our boys are the same ages and Brock SAID he remembered Ethan - although they hadn't seen each other since they were 2.  We had a fun time - hopefully next year we can see a few more.

Noah, Brock, Ethan, Alex

Later in the month the girls in my family got together with the girls in the Ewell family.  These are some of our oldest friends.  My mom and their mom met when they were just young mom's with 3 girls each all about the same age.  Perfect friendship right?  All of us became friends and even though they have moved all across the country the past 15 or so years, we have still managed to stay close. 

Here are the 6 girls.  Katie, Me, Heather (right in between me and Katie in age), Brittany (she is 2 years younger then Ashley), Ashley (my sister), and Ashlee (their sister) - they are the same age and have the same name.  I am telling you  - our families were meant to be friends.

And the whole gang

Zoo trip with the Bell's

The Bell's were in town for a week and we actually got to see them quite a bit.  Usually it is only once each time they come out - but I think we saw them 3 times.  It was great!  We went to the zoo - of course.

Brooklyn on the ape

Brock and Payton

All the kids (plus Kar).  Brock, Payton, Noah, Lydia, Brooklyn, and Megan
This may look like we had our hands full (plus me being 9 months pregnant) - but it was amazingly easy.  All the kids stayed together and just ran from place to place.  Megan and Lydia did not want to be in strollers, they wanted to run with the big kids - and no one really wandered off.  It was pretty sweet.  We seem to always loose someone at the elephants - but not this time!

Lydia and Brooke

I could not stomach going into the reptile house - it smelled AWFUL - so we hung out outside and had a snack.

Brock tried to feed the T-rex a stick.  These dinosaurs at the zoo are more life-like than some of the real animals.  I think it confuses some of the little kids.

Here is some marry-go-roundness

Noah rides the peacock everytime.  It is just a bench that doesn't move.  Silly kid.

Chuck E Cheese

Chuck E Cheese is one of my kids' favorite outings.  I love it because I usually have coupons for a ton of free tokens - so it is a fun, free, hour and a half activity.  It is hard now because it is further away than in Provo - but we make it out there every once in a while.

This was Megan's favorite thing to do.  She felt like such a big kid!

Noah loves this car - it is one of those crazy ones that goes up and down and to the side.  Megan rode it too - and it made her pretty nervous.

Want to waste 30 minutes at Chuck E Cheese?  Play Ski-Ball with Noah.  This seriously took about 30 minutes for him to get all the balls up and over the hill.  He did not want any help.  He finally got all of them - he never got frustrated or felt bad.  He was just so excited when he did make one up and over.

Brock was very serious about our trip this time.  He is getting so big, he wants to keep all of his tickets and earn as many as he can.

24th of July

For our 24th Jason was working - so it was just me and the kiddo's.  We went to my Aunt Leslie's house for a BBQ and party.  She has one every year and it is always so fun. 

We did some sparklers - no burns this time!

Noah watched the fire works with his Aunt Ashley.  I don't know about these new laws in Utah allowing aerial fireworks - they are scary.  We had several "incidents" - some shot straight into the audience, we had fire balls falling down on us, and I believe a few children got burned (nothing severe) - but Ashley said that Noah was not one bit nervous. I sure was!

Sam and Megan - not the cutest picture, but at this age it is as much as you can hope for

Me and and kids

The audience had to keep scooting back further and further to be safe from these fireworks.  But it was quite the show!