My Boys

Here are some fabulous pictures my good friend Whitny took for me. Jack is wearing the outfit he was blessed in. It is the same outfit we had Brody blessed in.

Operation Nap Time

So "Operation Nap Time" is going pretty well! I put Jack in his crib yesterday for another try at a nap alone. My limit has been 30 minutes of crying before I go get him and hold/rock him back to sleep. I really didn't want him to cry any longer than that. Hooray! It only took 29 minutes! Then I put him down for his next nap (because he takes 3 or 4 a day) it only took 15 minutes. Then I got really brave and laid him down for the night while he was still awake and he did cry, but it was only for 5 minutes. AND he slept for almost 9 hours!!! Sooo, today he is falling asleep after only 5 minutes of crying. I know I sound like a crazy and obsessed mom with this, but I have needed this sweet little boy to take a nap by himself for quite awhile. I hope he falls asleep soon without crying. He'll figure out soon enough that naps are a good and pleasant thing. The laundry is getting done, as well as the dishes and other things that have been sorely neglected by me. I love being a mom and I love these kids of mine.

The days are going FAST!!! The kids have gone back to school ALREADY. Jack is 3 months OLD! What to do?!?

We finally moved the crib into the "playroom". Now the daunting task of getting Jack to "cry it out" and get him trained to fall asleep on his own during the day. YES, I am still holding him for naps during the day. The little charmer won't sleep on his own during the day. I lay him down nice and sound asleep and POP open his little eyes. Now he needs to learn how to do it on his own I guess. I remember doing this with Madi. It was hard. I don't like it. However, this mom of 4 needs to get this house back in order, and the only way that is going to happen is if Mr. Jack takes a decent nap on his own.

Madi is in 6th grade. Oh my. I can't believe it. I can't possibly be the mom of a 6th grader! She is trying to talk me into letting her do band or orchestra. I think gymnastics takes up enough of her time with 12 hrs a week. She is such a good big sister to her little bros. She loves them and helps take very good care of them.

Ellie is a 4th grader. My girls are so big! She is coming along on the cello. She is starting a new dance class next week. We'll see how she likes it. I think this will be the first time she is in a dance class without one of her good friends along. Maybe it will help take some of the shyness out of her.

Brody is in his second year of preschool at QC Elem. I am letting him ride the bus, much to the disapproval of dad. I don't see the big deal when it picks him up directly in front of our house and drops him off DIRECTLY in front of our house. All under the watchful eye of ME. He loves it. Plus I don't have to get Jack in and out of the car a billion times a day.

Sorry for such a long post. I needed to catch up!

You know you are the mom of 4 kids when it takes you almost 4 weeks to post about the new little one. Our beautiful Kyler Jack arrived on April 30th at 3:03 am. He weighed 7lbs 13oz and was 21 inches.

I went into labor Thursday 29th and right about the same time I was going to come into the hospital, they called for me to come in for my scheduled induction. That was super convienent! Even though I was contracting every 2 or 3 minutes they still put me on pitocin. Labor really began around 11:30 pm. The baby was really high and facing up, so we thought we were in it for the long haul. 3 hours later at 2 am I decided to go ahead with the epidural. I got pretty sick during the procedure. Fortunately that helped bring the baby down, and I dilated from a 5 to a 10 in about 20 minutes. They hurried to call Dr. Beck in at 2:30. He turned the baby face down, I pushed once to get his head out, and one more half push to get the rest of him out. Probably my easiest labor...sorry Ellie...Jack beat you by about an hour. I have been blessed with easy deliveries. We think Jack looks more like Ellie. He is a beautiful baby like the rest of our kids.

We have been so blessed to have 4 healthy wonderful children. Life is good. Our family is complete. I couldn't ask for more!

Easter Picnic and Easter Morning

Kevin took all the kids up to Montezuma's Well for the annual Rice Family Easter Picnic.

I wasn't feeling up to the drive, so I stayed home. They all had fun going on hikes, hunting for eggs, playing in the water, and enjoying family. Despite a little bit

of sunburn, they all had a really great time.

Getting goodies from Grandma after the egg hunt

Steve, Jody, Laura, Ellie, Shea, Madi, and Morgan

They all went on a hike to Montezuma's Well.

Brody and Carson with Grandpa.

Enjoying all the Easter basket goodies!

Easter Eggs

These are the eggs we did last year. I couldn't find the

egg dye that I bought, so we just used food dye. I really

liked the colors much better than the store-bought kind.

We decided to make our own Easter egg dye again this year.

I think the colors turned out really cool. They look a lot

brighter in person. We just used food coloring instead of the

coloring tablets that come in the kits.

Kevin took the kids on a hike Saturday at Hawes Loop. He was super pround of the sun as a background shots. He also really liked the one with Brody and 3 Robin Eggs candies in his mouth.

Counting Down

I am officially counting down the days/weeks

until our new addition arrives. I know this picture is kind of blurry (Ellie took it for me), but I'm about 32 weeks here. Huge, I know. We have all of our baby equipment ordered, bought, or borrowed and ready to go. I'm almost 35 weeks now, so hopefully that means baby will be here in about 3-4 weeks! Now for names. Do we have any picked out? A few, but none that I'm sure of yet. This happened with Brody. We just couldn't figure out a name until he was a day old!

March is here!

Where has the time gone? Suddenly I'm only about 8 weeks from my due date and realized that I am not ready for this little one to arrive. I have been so busy organizing and nesting that I haven't gotten anything ready for the baby! No bed, no diapers, no blankets, or burp clothes, or bottles, and did I mention binkies? You get the picture. I better get busy.

Some fun things that have happened is Kevin's sister Jody got married to a wonderful guy Steve on Feb. 27. They had a fun wedding at the Phx. Zoo. Our kids got to be in the wedding, except when it came down to walking down the aisle, Brody didn't want anything to do with it. I would love to share pictures of how fabulous everything and everyone looked, but I couldn't convince Kevin to go back out to the car and get the camera. I'll have to wait until the wedding pics come in, and then hopefully be able to post them. Everything was so beautiful, especially the bride!

We also have some big changes that may be coming our way, but I don't want to post about that until we have everything finalized. It's been a very exciting month to say the least.

Finally, I have to give my very sweet husband some kudos right now. I don't think I could have a better man in my life than him. He does so much for me, especially right now when I'm huge and tired and all those other wonderful things that come in the last trimester of a pregnancy. Now for example, I woke up on Sunday morning to hear him downstairs doing the dishes. Shortly after that (I'm still in bed being super lazy) I hear the vacuum running. We had such a busy Saturday and the house was a mess. He wanted me to wake up and not feel like I needed to clean up. He does this for me often, and I could go on for a long time with the list. I should also thank his mom for raising him to know how to take care of a home. I love him!

I hope to post pics next time!

Happy Birthday Ellie!

Ellie turned 9 today. On Saturday she had a birthday party with her friends and cousins at Carter's Gymnastics. They played games and jumped around the gym. Then they had pizza, cake and ice cream. After that they played and jumped some more. I think we sent the kids home very tired.

This is the cake I made for her birthday party. She wanted a soccer themed cake. Kevin and I tried to figure out the best way to make a soccer ball and decide little mini ones would work the best (since I didn't want to carve out a round tier). He had made all the little shapes for the balls and I colored them in. It was pretty fun having him help me with a cake. I think he should do it more often. (It keeps me more relaxed.)

Today Ellie celebrated by waking up to decorations and opening presents. Then we went to Dunkin Donuts for a hot chocolate and doughnut breakfast. This afternoon she was spoiled with a trip to the nail spa for a pedicure. Then we all went out to dinner at YC's Mongolian Grill (her choice) with all four grandparents. We hope she had a wonderful fun filled weekend of celebrating. She is a wonderful girl with a very sweet spirit. We love her very much!

Here goes!

So here goes my very first blog post. I've been thinking about doing this ever since I saw a gift someone gave to my sister-in-law this Christmas. It was a bound book with all of her blog posts from the past year. I thought how fabulous that was! Scrapbooking has gone out the window for me (oh about 4 years ago). I am doing this mostly for me because how much easier is it to keep track of you and your family's life digitally? I am assuming it is much easier since I haven't done it yet. My very talented friend is going to help me jazz it up and look super cute, so hopefully the next time I post something it will be super cute. By the way, that is our latest family pic taken by Shannon White. I didn't get Christmas cards sent out this year, but if I did, this is what you would have received. I'll try harder next year.