David and Shawna Z's Family

The 5th kid!

2011-07-11T03:34:00.001-07:00

Hello All! I know it has been an extremely long time since I have posted anything. That is primarily because it has been a hard year in the Z family. Many of you have probably seen on facebook the posts I've shared about my health and pregnancy this year. Well it all started......

With my stupid gallbladder! So, many of you will remember my unfortunate Clare pregnancy. Here's a little reminder. She was born 5 weeks early because of my high blood pressure and thyroid problems. I spent 2 weeks in the hospital being poked and prodded. During that time they were doing ultrasounds of my liver because my liver enzymes were out of control and found that I had a bunch of gall stones. Well after Clare was all safe and sound outside in the world the doctors told me I should have surgery and get my gallbladder removed.

It is, by the way, very common for women who have just given birth to have their gallbladders removed. Well I was really tired of doctors doing things to me by that time and wanted nothing to do with surgery. So, I found some alternative treatments and was doing very well without surgery. However, enter pregnancy #5 unexpectedly, the gallbladder kicks into high gear and I acquire more stones than my body knows what to do with.

So, I start passing ALOT of stones and we head to the emergency for the 1st time. They send me home after the stones have passed and 3 or 4 days later I'm back after having passed more stones. During that time the pain intensified enough that I passed out three times at home. Once in the bathroom, once in the kitchen (where I sprained my tail bone and hit my head pretty hard), and a third time on the bed and luckily David caught me before I rolled off. I was also throwing up uncontrollably and totally dehydrated. Thankfully, I have super awesome friends that took my kids and allowed us to go back to the hospital really early in the morning.

By the time we got to the hospital I was pretty out of it and so they gave me alot of drugs both to stop the pain and throwing up and did alot of tests on me. What they found was that one of the gallstones had jumped into my pancreas and given me pancreatitus. They also hooked me up to a bunch of heart monitors to see why I was passing out all the time.

During that first hospital stay they kept me off of any food and I was only IV liquids and alot of pain and nausea medicine. The stone eventually made its way out of my pancreas and they decided it would be safe to remove my gallbladder during pregnancy. The hang up a the time was that I wasn't far enough along. Going under anesthesia isn't safe for the baby in the first trimester and they wanted me to wait until I was 16 weeks along to do the surgery. At the time I was only 10 weeks and waiting 6 weeks seemed like a daunting amount of time.

They also found that my heart does something called a Vagal response. Which means that when I am in extreme pain or having severe nausea my heart slows down enough that I pass out or my heart kind of stops for a second. Apparently it scared the nurses a couple times in the hospital and I had now idea why they were suddenly checking on me immediately after I had thrown up. I never actually passed out in the hospital, but every time I threw up there my heart monitor freaked out. So the doctor was joking about it the next day.

After the first 5 day stay I was sent home and my wonderful cousin Melissa Thorne came to stay with me and help take care of the kids. That was wonderful because I was not doing that great. That was the first time in my life I realize I could not function on my own and take care of my family. Very hard for me. I was on a very low fat or no fat diet and really I could barely eat anyway because my digestive track was all messed up from these stones. But I was hungry all the time because I was pregnant.

I went back into the hospital a week after I was released from the hospital for my 2nd stay. My pancreas still wasn't super happy and I was passing more stones all the time. They had to rehydrate me and remove me from food again. There were two great things about that stay. First I got the same room and nurses I had the first time I was there and second I got a new surgeon. The new surgeon said she would do the surgery on me when I hit 12 weeks of pregnancy. It was a full month before the other surgeon would perform the surgery and that was fantastic. They also sent me home after 3 days with pain medication, so I could pass stones at home and take care of the pain myself.

I saw the surgeon the next week and we scheduled the surgery for the following week. In the meantime my husband, ward and friends took care of my kids daily because I was totally incapable. I was very week and couldn’t eat much, plus my pancreas and gallbladder were still painful. I passed more stones and just tried to hold out for surgery.

Surgery finally came and I was ready! I had never had surgery, but the surgeon was great and my surgery was laparoscopic and since I was 14 weeks along the baby wasn’t large enough to be in the way of my gallbladder. My surgeon had actually performed the surgery on several other pregnant women and I was just thrilled that this was coming to an end. My mom arrived the day before the surgery and we were ready to go! It took an hour to take that stinking gallbladder out and an hour and half later I woke up in recovery gallbladder-less. Yay!

It took about a week for all of the residual nerve pain to go away and a couple extra days to wean myself off of the pain meds. My mom stayed for two weeks and by the time she left I was on my feet and doing really well. My pain was totally gone, I was sleeping well and miracle of miracles, I could eat! I bounced back pretty quickly from there. I was still having some morning sickness, but I had all kinds of nausea medicine which kept me doing well.

By the time 4 weeks, post surgery, had passed I was back in the saddle again. The only worry we had was the baby. My OB wanted to make sure that nothing had injured the baby during all the drugs and surgery. I was definitely concerned about that. I received a super fancy ultrasound and they found that everything was great! What a relief after everything that happened. The baby is still growing strong and I’m doing really well and I feel great.

So here are some pictures from my fancy ultra sound! I did not include the one of the boy parts, but yes we are having a 3^rd boy. Enjoy!

This is the sweet thumbs up I got from our boy. It was actually two thumbs up!

I took it as a sign!

This is the front facial view. Notice the Jake size head!

Here is the first footprint. That is one long foot!

Moving Right Along...to Clarissa!

2010-11-07T10:03:00.000-08:00

Shortly before the 4th of July my sister Clarissa came to visit us! She came for a whole month and we all had a fantastic time during her visit. She got to watch our spectacular neighborhood fireworks and light a few of her own. Fireworks are against the law in our hometown, so this was a new thing for her. She really loved that! This picture was taken at the zoo. We have a family pass for the zoo and we had a really good time there with the kids.

The Point Defiance Zoo has a room full of parakeets. You can purchase a popsicle stick with bird seed on them and feed the birds. Sammy actually held onto her stick while this bird had a snack. The kids love this stuff!

We also went strawberry picking with Clarissa. I try to go every year and make freezer jam from the berries. We had a good time and Clarissa had never been berry picking before, so it was a good out door activity.

We also went beach camping at Pacific Beach while Clarissa was here.
Pacific Beach has a small camp ground and a quiet and remote little beach. It is the perfect place to go camping and have some beachy fun with the kids. We had a great time. Our good friends the Roeths came with us, which made it super fun! We all got sunburned, as you can see, because as I completely forgot, you get the worst sunburns in overcast weather! Ahhh...

Clarissa and Jake getting ready for a hot dog over the fire.

Sammy with Becca, Eleanor, and Rachel Roeth

The whole gang roasting hot dogs with sand on them. Not the finest meal I've ever had, but definitely the most challenging. We should have gone to the hamburger stand in town! The kids had a great time though and thought our many mishaps were funny, until they had to eat crunchy hot dogs!

Back Again! A Summer of Fun!

2010-11-07T09:34:00.000-08:00

After a very long hiatus, I have decided to start blogging again. I have had several requests and will try to do some catch up. My first effort will show the super fun weekend I had in Cali for my birthday.

Baby sis Clarissa and I on the train to the Getty Art Museum in LA.

Mom and I in the gardens at the Getty. It was a really beautiful day!

My sweet little neice Jillian in her blessing dress. She was blessed while I was visiting and I was extemely excited to meet her and be there for her special day. She is my very first
neice and a special little gal!

The Many Costumes of Jake

2010-04-15T20:46:00.000-07:00

I have recently been going through all of my digital pictures in an effort to try and complete my boys' baby books. Whilst making that effort, I have stumbled upon a wide variety of pictures of Jake dressed in strange and wondrous costumes. I thought you might enjoy the trip down memory lane with me.

Sammy's Baptism

2010-03-09T22:31:00.001-08:00

So, here are the pictures you've all been waiting for. The day that Sammy has been waiting for finally came and she was baptized. We had a whole bunch of family come from So. Cal. for the blessed event and it was a really fun week. Granny arrived first and kicked off the festivities. The kids love having her here and spending some quality Granny time!

Then my Dad, brother Chris and sister Clarissa joined the group. We spent Saturday in Seattle at the Science fiction museum and EMP. We also hit the Crab Pot on the water front for a little crab cook goodness, as you can see below.

There was much tickling to be caught up with. As you can see Papa was a primary target. Even during his nap. I admit, I suggested it, but the boys thought it was a great idea. They tickled my Dad for a good 5-10 minutes before he actually woke up!

My inlaws arrived Friday night with David's brother Ben and David's sister Erika rounded out the party goers on Saturday morning. Saturday evening we had another pizza party and opened presents from all of the family. Sammy got her first set of scriptures with her name on them from David and I. She loves them and spent the entire 2 hours of stake conference reading them and pointing out scriptures to me. Love that girl!

This funny little picture of Clare was taken after she opened her present from Granny. She got Abby Cadaby from Sesame Street, which she loved, but she hates the flash on cameras and always closes her eyes (just like her Granny), so I caught her winking in this picture and thought it was too cute to exclude!

Here is the family gathered before Sammy's baptism. The baptism was fantastic. David is a great dunker and got that girl completely under on the first try. Grandma Z. gave the baptism talk, Grandpa Z. gave the opening prayer, Uncle Chris sang Baptism accompanied by a harp (very cool), Papa gave the Holy Ghost talk, Granny directed the music, and Aunt Biss gave the closing prayer. It was very fun and a really nice afternoon!

Here are Sammy and David in their white clothes. Sammy is wearing a replica of my baptism dress. She tried mine on and decided that she wanted one just like it for her own. So I made her one. Luckily my mom had given me the pattern years ago and pack rat that I am, I still had it! She looked beautiful and told me after the fact that her soul felt sooo clean. I can't believe that my baby has gotten baptized, but here we are. She did a great job and is a wonderful girl!

Sammy's 8th Birthday

2010-03-09T22:00:00.000-08:00

Sammy's Birthday was a day to remember. She is such a crack up! She wanted French toast for her special birthday breakfast and wore her old soccer t-shirt because it has an 8 on the back. Here she is after breakfast with her brothers, wearing the birthday head piece she made out of pipe cleaners in the shape of an 8. She did alot of fun things for her birthday. She and her sister got their ears pierced. We have been trying to talk her into it for years and this time when we paced the store at the mall that pierces ears they had Hello Kitty piercing earrings. That apparently tipped the balances and so it was done. She cried more than Clare, but she is very excited about it.

Since her birthday was on a Friday she got to have her birthday party on her birthday. We invited 10 friends over for a Dinosaur themed birthday party. Leave it to my 8 year old girl to pick a dinosaur themed party! So here is the cake I made, which she and all of her friends loved.

We had a really good party and I got alot of feed back from parents saying that their kids had a really good time. The boy sitting next to Sammy in the picture below it Hunter. He is in her class at school and she has promised to marry him when she grows up. He followed her around the entire party. Really cute stuff! Anyway, we had pizza, a pinata, pin the tail on the dinosaur, a dinosaur egg hunt, and a find the dinosaur game. All in all, I think it went pretty well!

Clare's First Birthday

2010-03-09T21:40:00.000-08:00

Clare's first birthday was a fun time. Here she is holding her favorite birthday gift, her baby from Granny. She sleeps with it every night and loves it all the time. Baby was her first word after Mom and Dad.

We had a party on New Years day for her birthday and had some friends from our ward over. I made her our favorite 4 layer lemon cake and she loved it!

Over all it was a fantastic day for our girl Clare and she had a really great Birthday!

Merry Christmas from the Z Family!

2009-12-17T14:07:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas Everyone!
In an effort to become more green, we have decided to make our yearly Christmas letter online!

As many of you know we have had a crazy year, as usual!
Last Christmas I was hospitalized with complications from my 4th pregnancy, so we kinda missed out on our 1st Christmas in our new home. However, we received a fantastic late Christmas present, in the form of Clare Marie Zitzelsberger. She was born on New Years day 2009 and though she was born 4 weeks early, she was healthy and perfect. We were all super blessed to have Granny Thorne fly in the day before she was born and take care of us for two weeks. It was a little harder to recover from this delivery, so we loooved having Granny here!

David ,especially, has had a busy year. He is the Cub scout master in our ward, in addition to working on his Masters degree and being elected the HOA president. He still works for Microsoft and has continued to enjoy his job. I think he enjoys all of the things he is involved in and we get to see him now and then.

I've spent most of the year just trying to keep up. Four kids has definitely been a challenge for me, but I have managed to keep making some jewelry here and there, as well as keep up with my two callings in Enrichment and the Activity day girls.

Sammy is as vivacious as ever. She is forever making things. Just like her mom! She is in the 2nd grade this year and loves her teacher Mrs. Meeks. She is doing very well and continues to work hard and enjoy school. Sammy is excited about her impending baptism and is looking forward to turning 8 years old. She played soccer again this fall and is still a day dreamer on the field. We might try gymnastics in the spring!

Jake is 5 years old and doing great as well. His speech continues to improve by leaps and bounds. He works hard to practice and make himself understood. Jake is still his father's son and loves all things Star Wars, computers, soccer and Transformers. He loves his preschool and is learning sign language and spanish. His is a very smart boy!

Josh is my sweet little flirt! He loves to flirt with all of his babysitters at church and is definitely a Thorne boy! He loves to play catch and race cars and is such a good helper. He helps his siblings with all of their chores. He is two years old and definitely mischievous, but he is so sweet that he really makes up for any struggle.

My sweet Clare is fantastic. She is such a mellow little gal that she plays nice with everyone and is always the object of much sibling affection. She has struggled with some of her gross motor skills, but she is doing physical therapy and progressing much more quickly than we expected. She has truly been a blessing in our family!

We hope that you have been as blessed as we have this year. We love you all and hope that the year to come is wonderful for you all!
Love, The Zitzelsberger Family

September Fun

2009-11-17T13:03:00.000-08:00

September brought the beginning of school. Yaaayyyy! I was so excited when school started and I think the kids were too. Thank heavens for school. The kids were bored and Mom was going crazy and salvation came in the form of school.

Here are the first day pictures!

We had some fun visitors in September too! Uncle Charles and Aunt Erika came for Labor Day!
We went to Chuck E Cheese for Jake's early birthday celebration. Here he is with his new
Snake Eyes mask and his green frog cupcakes.

Erika and I also took a little trip out to Forks, WA. We had a great time tootling around and taking pictures. Erika is a huge Twilight fan so we experienced all of the Forks goodness.

This was Jake's actual birthday! We had a great time. He got a new
Razor and bike for his special day!

Our wirl wind tour of California!

2009-11-14T09:04:00.000-08:00

Sorry it has been so long since I blogged and I now have a back log of pictures to share and tell you about. So lets begin with the high light of our summer. Our trip to California was fantastic! We had a really great time seeing our friends and family!

This is Josh with his cousin Basil having a great time at Granny's house. They were born 2 months apart and had a fantastic time playing together. Below is a picture of Sammy at the beach. We took a couple of beach trips. This one was at Carona del Mar with friends, but we also spent some time at Santa Monica beach with Uncle Steve!

We also went to the Santa Ana Zoo with Aunt Erika and Aunt Stacy! We loved that day! It is such a great little zoo and we had a great time there with our cousins Tom and Ben.

We also went to the Circus with Aunt Stacy and cousin Ben and Uncle Chris, Lauren and Granny. Our cousins Jacque and Azure came too. The kids loved the elephants and tigers the most and had a really great time at the show.

One of the big high lights of our trip was Uncle Chris coming home from his mission in Baltimore, Maryland. It was super fun to hang out with him and play rock band all the time. We love Uncle Chris! We also got to spend some seriously overdue and splendid time with our best friends the LaRue family, who now live in Idaho. We partied with them in the pool and celebrated Daddy's birthday. A fun time was had by all and we were ready to come at the end, which means it was good! Thanks to all our friends and family in California for playing with us this summer! We love you!

Clare and her Aunt Erika. Do they look alike or what?

Experience the Music & Science Fiction Museum

2009-07-03T15:39:00.000-07:00

So today we went to the Experience the music project and Science fiction Museum. It was super cool! Not only is the building beautiful and designed by Frank Gehry (love his metal goodness) of Disney Concert Hall fame, but the kids totally loved it. Lots of really interactive kid stuff with a large quantity of cool adult stuff.

Here is one of the cool adult things. For those of you who love the recently deceased Michael Jackson, here is his original diamond glove and shiny jacket. Totally awesome 80's pop goodness. They were doing a tribute to him and showed a concert of him wearing the glove and jacket--- singing Billy Jean. IT WAS GOOD!

They have a ton of interactive instruments with kid friendly tutorials that show the kids how to play. Here are Sammy and Jake both taking their turns on the drums. They loved it!

They also had this cool Jim Hensen exhibit. The kids loved seeing the original muppets and Sesame Street characters. They had a cool theatre there too with muppets that the kids could play with while the audiance watched. Very fun.

My kids love Fraggle Rock, so here they are with some of those puppets.

This is a monter fur wall. It was one of 4 or 5 walls covered with fur. The kids had to feel each one. I'm sure they contracted several deseases from this, but what are you gonna do.

The Sci-Fi protion was fun for everyone too. They had a bunch of Star Trek and Star Wars stuff. David was getting totally geeky with it. This is everyone with the original robot from The Day the Earth Stood Still. David was lovin' this stuff!

We all were excited to see R2-D2. It was definitely a fun family event! We're gonna have to take Chris here if he comes to visit. He's gonna love it!

The Father and Sons Campout

2009-06-05T18:34:00.000-07:00

As you can see we had alot going on in the month of May. The fathers and sons campout was a big deal for the boys. They all went this year but I think some enjoyed it more than others. Here is a picture of Josh, clearly not enjoying it.

Jake was having a great time!

Jake met some fun new friends to play with and spent a large amount of time playing with them.

They had a great time and when they finally got home Jake did not want to leave the car. Mommy had to coax him out and he wanted to leave for another camping trip right away.
Boys will be boys!

Catch up with Clare

2009-06-05T16:21:00.001-07:00

As you can see Clare is loosing her luxurious hair! She now has a mohawk and a pinwheel around her cowlick and that's about it. Luckily she has hair growing back in but it's super blond so she just looks half bald anyway. So she's going to be wearing alot of big hair does from now on!

Here we are on the couch after her late night feeding. She's not very coherent but you can see a front view of the mohawk.

This was Sammy's little Piglet outfit. I just thought it was a great picture. There's Clare wearing Piglet with her tummy hanging out and showing what a piglet she is. Cracks me up!

This is her fashion statement picture. It had finally warmed up enough to put her in some of her new and super cute summer clothes. So her she is sportin' her cuteness.

Clare had an eventful month in the food department. She began eating baby food. This is a picture of our trial run and she did pretty well with it. You can tell she really liked it but just couldn't get her tongue organized enough to swallow. She is freakin' cute!

Josh's 2nd Birthday

2009-06-05T15:14:00.000-07:00

Josh's Birthday was an intimate affair this year. We had some gourmet pizza, that wasn't very good and some wonderful cupcakes, that Sammy found in her cookbook, which look like frogs.

As you can see, Josh thought those cupcakes were the best!

Josh received some great birthday presents, as you can see from the victory dance he's performing above. He loves balls and cars and he got plenty of both!

Granny and Papa sent him this yellow soccer ball and a cool batman car! He was vrooming that all over his new cars and trains rug.

Overall, it was a great day!

Catching up!

2009-05-13T18:59:00.000-07:00

Ok, in an effort to catch up and appease the family members who hunger for pictures of my sweet children, I am posting some rather belated pictures.

This Easter was hard, fun and miraculous! Clare came down with RSV a couple of weeks before Easter. She would cough so much and throw up her food. She turned blue several times when she was coughing and the doctor simply told us that we couldn't give her any medicine and to just wait it out and she'll get better in a couple weeks. Well forget the doctors! I gave my baby cough medicine, rubbed her up with vicks and I also gave her breathing treatments. We had a few nights when David and I took 4 hour shifts to watch her sleep and make sure she kept breathing. Needless to say it was scary for us. Clare is so sweet and she got so sick and she was only 3 months old. The miraculous side to the whole fiasco was that while I was taking my 4 hour shifts, I was sewing Easter dresses. My mom always made my sister and I matching dresses for major holidays and I thought it would be so fun! So I actually did it this year. The dresses turned out great and the girls looked adorable!

These next few pictures are just some cute ones that I snapped now and then. Ya know everyday kinda things. Josh sucking his finger, Clare showing of her super sweet ginning skills, Sammy with a normal smile, and Jake just as sweet as ever! Dang it, I have cute kids!

This picture shows Jake wearing the much loved Dragon costume. We first acquired this costume for Sammy's 3rd Halloween. She loves that costume still and when we first got it she wore it everywhere. Well she talked Jake into wearing it this time. He is only a year older than she was that first Halloween, but he is substantially larger than she was at 4 years old. You can tell by Jake's face that wearing that costume is just a little painful. He took it off shortly after the picture was taken, but I thought it was pretty funny. Jake will do just about anything Sammy puts him up to.

Biss in the House!

2009-04-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

You can always tell when Clarissa has been at my house because all of my children suddenly have mowhawks. Even Clare got a mowhawk this time! My little sister Clarissa came for a visit over spring break. We had the best time with her. Not only did she and I see a couple of movies, but we did alot of daytime activities with the kids. We went to the Space Needle and had fun at the Wirligig, we played at IKEA, and we went to the park a couple times. A great time was had by all and the kids are still asking when Aunt Biss is coming back again.

What makes me tick...

2009-04-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

So I was reading another blog today and read this quote. It described my inner workings so well that I had to share it. This is what makes me tick....

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before. . . .Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty. . ."
~Dieter F. Uchtdorf

I have always called myself a maker of things, because I start going a little bonkers if I don't make something every now and then. But honestly, President Uchtdorf hit the nail on the head, I'm a creator. That is what I love and that is what I do.

Fun times in Idaho!

2009-04-03T17:07:00.000-07:00

Sammy, Clare and I went on a little trip a couple weeks ago. We went to the wilds of Rexburg, Idaho. We visited Aunt Stacy and Uncle Sam and our best friends the LaRue family! We stayed with the LaRues and spent alot of time doing fun activities. This picture was taken at our birthday party. We celebrated all of the recent birthdays that we missed by staying up late, watching movies, having a slumber party (Moms and Kids), and having delicious birthday cake. A fun time was had by all and we were all really tired the next day!

Sammy, Alexa LaRue, Cora LaRue and Clare

We took a trip to the mall in lovely down town Idaho Falls. They have a play place and we spent some time playing there and then went to the park afterwards for lunch.

Sammy & Alexa

This is my super cute nephew Ben Knecht being silly!

Here I am with Clare and my sister Stacy and nephew Tom, who is also super cute and was giving his Aunt Shawna some serious love while we were visiting.

This is my best friend Heather LaRue and her youngest Kenzie. Kenzie was born after we moved from California, so she had never met me before. At this time she wasn't so sure that I should be trusted, but by the end of our stay I had won her over.

We had the best time in Idaho partying with our friends and family! I was sad to go home because we miss the Larues and Knechts all the time, but we will party again!

Clare's Blessing!

2009-03-06T09:39:00.001-08:00

Here is my gorgeous girl on her special day! It was so nice to have Clare's blessing in California so that all of her family could meet her. We loved performing the blessing in our old ward with all of our friends and family there. It was wonderful! Thanks to our great family that paid for us to come down it was a day to remember!

Clare looked so beautiful! She was a little tired before church, so she looks like she's about to nod off, but her dress was soo pretty and she is such a pretty girl that we couldn't resist snapping a few pictures while her eyes were open! Great Granny even got a chance to hold her and pose for a picture.

After church we took more time to take pictures. Here she is with her mom.

A sweet picture with Granny and Papa Thorne.

Grandma and Grandpa Zitzelsberger had a turn as well. They were very happy to have another grandaughter, since there are so few girls born on the Zitzelsberger side!

Here we are together. All six of us in the David & Shawna Z Family!

Our wonderful Daddy, David, gave Clare a beautiful blessing.

Here is Clare with her second cousin Claire.

Here is Clare with her Great-Uncle Jim and Great- Aunt Roselyne. As well as Sammy's favorite of my cousins Jeff Shutts! We had a great day!

Fun at the Santa Ana Zoo!

2009-03-06T08:52:00.000-08:00

We went to the Santa Ana Zoo the day before we left California with Aunt Erika and Aunt Biss. We had a great time! We rented a wagon to pull the boys around in. They really liked that. Especially Jake, who wasn't feeling so hot that day, poor boy.

We also went on the little train ride they have. The kids always enjoy that! Even Clare got to ride with Aunt Erika.

We also went on the new and exciting carousel that they have at the zoo. They have really nice carousel animals. The dragon that I rode on was really pretty. The boys rode in the eagle's nest and Clare and Aunt Erika rode on the swan bench. Sammy liked the elephant of course and Aunt Biss got the Black Panther.

The Santa Ana Zoo has the perfect amount of wild life to fill one morning. They have plenty of cute monkeys, birds and turtles. Sammy was very excited that they also had King Julius. Ya know, the lemur from the Madagascar movie that sings "I like to move it move it." The kids also enjoyed this red bird who was picking at this turtles rear end. They thought it was hilarious!

Fun at Scandia!

2009-03-05T20:07:00.000-08:00

We went to Scandia for some warm weather fun in California. Sammy and Jake are right at the perfect age to enjoy a family fun center, so we had a blast! Granny and Papa came with us and it was a fun day. David, Sammy and Jake had a great time on the bumper boats! Everyone got totally soaked, especially David, because the bumper boats have water guns on them. The kids thought that was great and of course Dad is the favorite target. Surprisingly David had never been on the bumper boats before and we fulfilled a childhood dream of his that day!

Josh really wanted to go with everyone else on the bumper boats. Sorry!

Sammy and I had a great time on the Go carts. She loved going really fast. It scared Jake and that's why we don't have a picture of him on the Go carts.

The kids went on alot of fun carnival rides.

Clare and I had fun feeding. That is the only excitement she had there!

We had a great time miniature golfing. It was the kids first time going, and although they got tired of it about half way through, they really had fun during the first part. True to form Granny, who wins every game we play together as a family, had the lowest score.

Even Josh wanted to try it out. We had to get him his own ball so that he would stop stealing everyone else's ball.

A Multi-Party Birthday for Sammy!

2009-03-05T19:17:00.000-08:00

Sammy turned 7 on February 26th and, lucky girl that she is, had 4 birthday parties! This is her first party which happened at school. Sammy is in 1st grade, so this is a big deal. We had lemon cupcakes with strawberry frosting. Sammy picked it! She also got to show her class her baby sister Clare. It was very exciting!

Sammy's next party actually took place on her birthday at a Lewis park in California. All of her old friends came and we had a great time eating more cupcakes and playing!

Sammy's next party was at Granny and Papa's house in Claremont. All of our family came over for dinner and Granny made Sammy a special cake shaped like a flower. She got lots of fun presents and had a really fun time with her aunts and uncle!

The last party took place in part at Chuck E. Cheese, which is one of Sammy's favorite places to play, and the rest of the party was at Aunt Erika's house. We had a special Barbie cake and ice cream at Erika's house and opened all of the wonderful presents. It was fun to see her uncles and aunt as well as Grandma and Grandpa! What a fantastic birthday!

Head Gear

2009-02-10T12:53:00.000-08:00

Sammy made this cute little crown for Clare before she was born. She cut the picture out of the Friend Magazine and colored it and then sent it with David to the Hospital when I was there at Christmas. She wanted her new sister to be able to dress up as a Princess. It was really sweet! She made a card and wrote out the instructions for me so that I would know to put it on baby Clare when she was born. She is a loving big sister and great helper.

Here is Clare ready for a day out with her little outfit and matching hair do.
She is falling asleep in her Daddy reclining chair. But she is making a dedicated effort to keep those eyes open.

This head gear is a super cute gift from Heather LaRue. We were going with a floral motif that day and thought this flower and headband combo would be cute, and what do ya know, it is!

The kids lovin' the Clare!

2009-02-04T19:28:00.000-08:00

It took Josh a really long time to warm up to the Clare,
but it happened and now he is my little helper. Anytime he sees me feeding
Clare he is sure she should have all of her blankets and
suckies all at one time. It is very cute and I'm glad that
he has adjusted so well.

It took Jake no time at all to love the new baby.
He tells me all the time that his muscles are big and he can hold
baby Clare all the time. He just doesn't pay attention to how he is holding her.

Sammy is definitely the loving big sister. She wants to
change her diapers and take care of her all the time. It is very sweet!
She is always willing to help with anything to do with the baby.
She is a great big sister!

My Girl Clare

2009-01-27T10:08:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our new blogg! I decided that it was time to have one of our very own and since the most significant thing to happen to us recently is the birth of our 4th child, Clare, that is what we are starting out with! So here is Clare Marie in all of her week old glory! She is a sweetheart.

Here is the whole group of troops the morning that Granny left. My mom, aka Granny, stayed with us for two whole weeks and helped me recover and take care of the kids. It was a God send! I don't care what anyone says the older you are the harder it is to have a baby! This one really knocked my socks off and with out her we would not have survived. As you can see Josh was not very happy about baby sister then. He likes her alot better now.