Christmas Day

Christmas morning came earlier than I remember last year. It could be that I have a newborn who was up two times before 7am. The kids were very excited and couldn't wait to go downstairs. We made an unofficial rule that the kids come to our room and we say family prayer before going down to see all the Christmas surprises.
I always love to see their sweet faces light up with excitement! This year Santa brought the kids exactly what they wanted. Ayden: Mario Kart Wii, Ellie: Ana doll from Frozen and mechanical pencils (this was a big decision for her all the way up until Christmas Eve. She couldn't decide what she wanted most. Mechanical pencils or Ana doll? She finally said as we tucked her in "I guess I'll be surprised in the morning because either one will make me happy." Santa was good to her and gave her both. Tate: Legos.

 

Santa brought Taters his very own Legos

reading the letters from Santa

the posed picture

My gift from Spencer this year was a project he had been planning and working on since October. Everyone from my siblings to neighbors to my kids knew what it was, but it was a complete surprise for me. I was very pleasantly surprised Christmas morning.

I love the red bow and the child that came with it

It's a chest bench for our room. It is the first in a furniture set that he's building for me. I'm so excited for it. He didn't stain or paint it because he ran out of time. While he was building this for me, he also designed and helped build another project for our neighbor's wife. They were at our house til midnight Christmas Eve working on the other project. Not only did he design and build mine, he went the extra mile and made it possible to surprise our neighbor. What a guy!

My sisters Danielle and Jillayne and her family joined us Christmas morning to open presents. We always open presents one person at a time so you can see what each person got and their reactions. With so many of us, it took quite awhile to open gifts.

Spencer got a new watch.

wouldn't be Christmas for Ayden without Cougar stuff

I caught Danielle off guard for a picture

Jillayne and Marlayna

me taking a pic of Jillayne taking a pic. Or it could be us both taking a pic of James!

Oh the anticipation

Mark J. opening Legos from Aunt Chris

 The next 2 pictures are some of my favorite. Ayden was so excited for the gift he got Ellie. She has been wanting dangly earrings for a while and I told her she was too young to wear dangly earrings. But Ayden found some that were Christmas related and appropriate for her age. He wrapped them up extra special and kept the secret for weeks. We were all anticipating her reaction of excitement but the first reaction we got was this one. She was confused and sad because she thought she couldn't have danglies and that Ayden's gift was ruined.


But then when she was told it was ok. We got this reaction!!

Jillayne and Loni in all our morning glory.

 I wanted to tease the boys this year and wrapped their gifts extra special. A few of Ayden's were wrapped in several layers of wrapping paper. And for Spencer I wrapped the package in 3 layers of wrapping paper, then several layers of duct tape, and then placed that in a big box that was wrapped a few times. I was hoping he would struggle to open it, but he cheated and got a knife.

 

Taryn slept through most of Christmas morning.

But then when she woke up, she was in a good mood and let Aunt Dani decorate her head

she's smiling not crying....promise!

After presents, we started breakfast. Spencer's family always did a big breakfast on Christmas morning so we've carried that tradition in our family. We had pancakes, eggs, bacon, juice and even Eggs Benedict that only Spencer and I would eat. Well, that's not true. Jillayne was nice enough to try it, but didn't really like it!
We were so blessed for Christmas this year. It was fun watching my children get excited for the gifts they had purchased or made. They drew us pictures and wrote special notes, those were our favorite gifts. I loved watching my children do extra chores to earn money to buy gifts for their siblings.  We kept our 25 Days of Christ tradition and did an ornament and scripture each night. The kids always made sure to remind us. I made sure to watch corny Christmas movies on Hallmark, don't know why but I love them. I loved that my family was able to share the holiday with us. Being so far from my family, it was nice to see them and spend some time together. We were so blessed from our Heavenly Father in so many ways. We are excited to see what this new year will bring for us.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve at the Shaw house started out a little different this year. Tate needed to have his adenoids removed and we needed it done before the end of the year because of our insurance deductible. The only day available? Christmas Eve!
We headed to the surgery center at 5:45am. Spencer had to work so my sister Jillayne came with me to help with Taryn while I dealt with Tate. I'm so glad she was there!

waiting to go back

waiting for the doctor and anesthesiologist

 Luckily, Tate was in a good mood and just watched Curious George until they were ready for him. He wasn't allowed to eat breakfast or drink anything and I was worried that would become a problem. But he never once asked and just cuddled with his bear until they took him for surgery.
The surgery was really quick and went well. The doctor told me that his adenoids were even bigger than she had first thought. At his appointment, she said his adenoids were a 4 on a scale of 1 to 4. But she discovered they were actually 25% bigger than she thought. So this was a much needed surgery. As she was talking to me I could hear someone screaming in the recovery rooms. Turns out it was Tate! He was completely out of control and not coherent at all. It was quite comical to see him that way especially because I left him in such a good mood.

trying to wake up from anesthesia

 The anesthesiologist said that toddlers are very cranky when waking up from anesthesia. And he wasn't kidding! Tate was thrashing around and crying incoherent words. He was particularly upset about the IV in his hand. And then upset about the bandage that replaced the IV. Finally, we were able to take him home and he cried and moaned for about 15 minutes before falling asleep. By the time we got home, he was back to being sweet Taters. He got to eat popsicles and drink juice and watch movies: he was totally happy!

cuddling and watching movies makes everything better
 

 By noon, Tate was feeling a lot better. He wanted to help make cookies for Santa. It's a tradition for our family that we make the cookies for Santa and I wasn't sure if he was going to want to help. He is usually my little baking helper and I was glad that he was able to today.

not sure why Ellie is wearing a coat to make cookies

 

the best part of making cookies!



After dinner, we started our Christmas Eve evening. We got hot cocoa and mini donuts and got in the car to go look at Christmas lights. We turned on Christmas songs and talked and sang while driving around the neighborhoods. Tate fell asleep during the drive so he missed the rest of our night. Once we got home, we watched the Forgotten Carols (my favorite) and then let the older 2 open one present. Bedtime went much quicker than usual as they were trying to get to bed quickly so they could see what surprises would be there in the morning!

 The day started out early and ended late, but I was very grateful for all the blessings my Father in Heaven gave me. Tate recovered quickly and we were able to spend the day as a family. 

First Day of Christmas Vacation

Today has been a lazy day which is a nice change of pace from the last couple weeks. Today started the kids' winter break and we all slept in a little bit. It was nice! The rest of the day has been spent reading, blogging, listening to music, playing the play station, and sledding. We have a small area right behind our church which is perfect for sledding. The hills are steep enough for sledding, but not too steep that little legs can't climb back up.

all bundled up

They all came back after about an hour. No frozen fingers or broken limbs, I'd call that a successful sledding day.

Growing too fast

I can't believe how fast my baby is growing. She is already 6 weeks old, where does the time go? She doesn't even look the same from her first day. She's changing so quickly. These pictures were taken by Spencer's sister when she was just over a week old.

 

And here's one from just the other day at 5 weeks. (crappy camera pic, sorry)

 

 

 

She's already smiling with cute little dimples. It's so fun to see her growing but at the same time it breaks my heart!

Her big brother Tate loves to take care of her. He is always giving her kisses and making sure she is ok. He loves to cuddle and hold her. And also help to give her a bath.

such a big helper

she looks so sweet in her towel

 

Birth Day

It's been forever since I posted anything and I finally have time while the little one is sleeping. I'll start back on the day Tayrn JoAnn was born.
We were waiting to hear from the hospital what time my induction would be. We didn't think I'd get in before the afternoon so we were having a lazy morning. We had gotten the older 2 off to school and were just hanging out. I got a call around 9:45am from the hospital saying they wanted me there at 11am. That was much sooner than we had anticipated. I quickly showered and got ready while Spencer gathered stuff for our bag. You would think with baby #4 that the bag would already be packed and waiting. Nope!
It was a different feeling driving to the hospital for the induction. With the other 3, we drove to the hospital in labor. This was still exciting, but the small amount of panic was gone from the situation. Spencer always stresses that we won't make it to the hospital in time. We live at least 30 minutes away and he always had a fear with each one that he'd have to deliver on the side of the road.
We got to the hospital and met our nurse. She was really sweet and thought it was fun that we didn't know if it was a boy or girl. She got me hooked up to the IV and Pitocin and then the doctor came in to break my water. That was around 12:30pm and I was dilated 4cm. So we figured we had a long afternoon and evening ahead of us.
During labor, I'm pretty happy and can carry on a conversation, for the most part (well at least I think so). Once the contractions get more consistent and harder, I shut up! But I don't get grumpy or mean (once again, at least I think so). I decided I wanted an epidural around 2:30pm. Spencer is kind of a wimp when it comes to the epidural and always has to leave the room. Usually getting the epidural isn't bad at all, but this time it was painful and uncomfortable. He didn't even wait until my contraction stopped. I was in the middle of a contraction and they laid me straight back. Not comfortable at all. And when he inserted the needle, he hit a patch of nerves or something because my legs totally jerked. And not just a little, but like "I can't control my limbs at all" jerking. It's funny now to think about it, but at the time I having a contraction and my legs were jerking around. And to top it off the nurse was holding my legs and stroking my head and trying to calm me. I felt like a horse!
About 30 minutes after the epidural, I started to feel what I thought was pain. I was feeling the contractions and pressure. So we pushed the epidural button like we were instructed. But after 10 minutes I was still feeling a lot of pain. I was also having heartburn really badly.  We called the nurse in and asked for something to help with the heartburn. She came in with a really NASTY drink to help. But all it did was make me throw up (also I was dilating to a 10 which we didn't know at the time). I told the nurse I was feeling a lot of pressure and she said "well, since you're already miserable with throwing up, I'll just check you really quickly to see where you're at." She pulled back the sheet and goes "oh honey! close your legs and roll to the side." Then she ran to the door and yelled for all the nurses. Spencer got panicked and goes "is everything alright?" And in the few short seconds of the nurse running to the door, I'm telling Spencer "I can feel it, the baby is right there. It's coming" He totally panicked! Luckily, the nurses came just in time. A nurse ran in, pulled up the sheet and literally caught the baby as she dropped on the bed!
All the pain and pressure I had been feeling was the baby ready to come. And when I was throwing up, it was in part because of the drink but also because I was dilated 10cm and ready to start pushing, we just didn't know that. Hindsight is 20/20! My total labor with her was only 3.5 hours.
It was really fun to find out what the baby was. Spencer kept asking "do I have a son or a daughter?" and then when he could finally see, he goes "I have a daughter! Loni, she's so beautiful!" I love that after each birth, he gets a little emotional and teary. It's such a sweet thing to see a daddy loving his child.

I LOVE this grumpy face!

she's eyeing him with one eye

Taryn was so sweet! She was 21 inches and 8 lbs 8 oz. And her cheeks were so chubby!! Right from the beginning all she wanted to do was snuggle and eat. When we called her siblings to tell them they had a baby sister, they freaked with excitement. They came to visit later that night and it was so sweet to see them as big brothers and sister.

My girls

Big brother. He loves her so much

Ayden has been captivated by her from the first moment

She's so tiny

I can't believe that I have 4 children. Our lives will never be the same and we are very thankful for our sweet little addition. Taryn is already spoiled with lots of attention and love. Her siblings love to hold her and kiss her. Especially the boys, they can't get enough of her. I am so thankful my Heavenly Father has blessed me with these sweet spirits.

A really quick Update

So it's been 3 weeks since my last post. That was the day of my induction and we were eagerly awaiting the arrival of our little one. I was induced at 12:30pm and 3 1/2 hours later our sweet baby girl was born! We are so excited to have Taryn JoAnn in our family. The kids love her and can't get enough of her. We love to just snuggle and hold her and of course lots of kisses! I'll post more later, but wanted to get a quick little something up.