Pictures with Santa

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Our tree is up, the stockings are hung, and the kids have been to visit jolly old Saint Nick.

David and Erik loved seeing Santa this year. We told them all about how Santa bring children presents, and they though long and hard about what they wanted to ask him for. When we went to the mall, there was absolutely no one else there to see him (it was in the middle of the afternoon on a school day), so the boys sat on Santa's lap for over 5 minutes just talking to him. They loved it! They both asked for "a real fish to go in the water" and also a train. It started out that David wanted a fish and Erik wanted a train, but both liked the other's idea as well.

So they had a great time, but the pictures were awful. Not one had both kids looking at the camera or even looking happy. And the cheapest package was $25. I wasn't about to pay that kind of money for a terrible picture.

Thankfully Santa Claus also visited our church Christmas party, so the boys got to sit on Santa's lap again. When asked what they wanted for Christmas, I was shocked to hear them both ask for a horse!! A horse?!?! Um, I don't think that's going to fit in Santa's sleigh this year...

Anna got a turn on Santa's lap too. She was as pleasant as could be expected of a 4 month old baby sitting on a stranger's lap. And I was able to snap some pictures of them, which aren't amazing, but they were free. =)

David and Erik sitting with Santa.

Anna meeting Santa for the first time.

Halloween Fun

Yes I know Halloween was a month ago. Yes I know I haven't blogged in over 2 months. I'm calling it the blogging paradox. The busier your life is, the more fun things you have to blog about, but you have less time to actually blog about them. Anyway, life with three kids is busy, but we're loving it.

Here are some Halloween highlights.

David and Erik with their pumpkins. They really loved pumpkins this year. So we took them to two different pumpkin patches. They loved them both.

Erik loved the Buzz cutout.

And of course David loved Woody.

They both loved the slides.

And bouncy houses.

And the loved, loved, loved the pond.

They spent forever looking over the edge of the bridge.

Here's why!

Erik also loved the hay.

And the flowers.

And of course, the pumpkins!! Erik like the "big, giant" pumpkins.

David loved the "little, tiny" pumpkins best.

Erik by a giant jack-o-lantern made from hay.

David with the hay jack-o-lantern. They both really like hay.

Anna was less impressed.

She is a cute little pumpkin though!

Look at those darling chubby cheeks! The boys loved when she wore her pumpkin onesie. Once they even corrected me. "It's a jack-o-lantern, Mommy. It's a pumpkin with a face."

Erik and David also liked playing dress up. Here is Erik as a super hero and David as a frog.

David with his jack-o-lantern. He loved his jack-o-lantern and kept wanting to hug it and give it kisses. And surprisingly, he really enjoyed scooping out the seeds and guts. He doesn't usually enjoy getting messy.

Erik and his jack-o-lantern. He wanted a scary face. I think it turned out pretty cute, but he was happy. (Bonus points to whoever guesses who carved whose pumpkins).

And here we all are dressed up for the ward Halloween carnival. Steve was the Cat in the Hat. David and Erik were Thing 1 and Thing 2. Anna was little Sally (the girl in the book with the big red bow). Kristi was the fish, you know, the one who tells everyone else to behave. It seemed fitting. David and Erik embraced their parts well. They ran around like crazy things all night long.

The boys had a fabulous time trick-or-treating for the first time. Erik walked right into the first person's house. I told him it wasn't our house, and he responded "Oh, it's not?" David, despite being told several times what trick-or-treating was all about, was still pleasantly surprised when the first person put candy in his bag. "Mommy, she gave me candy!"

Our camera ran out of batteries trick-or-treating, but we got some when we were home. Here is Mommy with her boys snuggling before bed.

Skeleton David, laughing about all the good times.

Skeleton Erik, ready for some sleep after a long, fun day.

Anna tries to roll over

Anna came so close to rolling over today! Here is a photo montage of her best attempt:

On her belly, ready to go.

Pushing up...

Leaning over...

Leaning...

Almost there...

So close...

Mommy help!!

A little help from Mommy.

That's better.

Anna Smiles

Anna continues to be a very happy and loving baby. She makes the sweetest cooing noises when she eats, and she smiles at everyone. She's such an angel!

Missy miss smiling at Mommy.

Pajama Time!

Pajama Time! by Sandra Boynton. If you haven't read it, you should. Here are my three amazing kids showing off their pjs.

Woody (David), cow (Anna), and Buzz (Erik)

The full body shot.

Weird things my boys do

Sometimes David and Erik are weird. Here are some examples. Please excuse the lack of pants and shirts in some of the pictures. That's just part of the weirdness. :)

David building a castle.

David in some buckets.

Erik "sitting in Anna's pillow."



Erik and David showing me their hands.

Bucket dancing. Hidda-didda-dah!

Big Brothers and Little Sister

Erik and David showing off their "glad faces."

Erik being a proud big brother and David adoring his little sister.

Giving their sister some smooches!

Baby Anna is here!

Anna Brielle Harris was born July 22, 2011 at 11:26am. She weighed 7lbs 12oz and was 21 inches long. She is the most beautiful baby. Here is the story of how she came into the world.

Thursday I was having contractions off and on, but nothing regular. My mom and I ran some errands and then that night we went to a card making class. We got home and the contractions were starting to hurt, so I ran to the grocery store to make sure the boys and my mom had some food, just in case. When I got home, I was too wound up to sleep, so we watched a movie. By the end of the movie, I was having some pretty good contractions, so we made sure things were ready to go and then we went to sleep at around midnight.

But sleep didn't come for me. Between the contractions and being anxious to meet my baby girl, I just couldn't sleep. Then at 2am, I got up to go to the bathroom and my water broke. And just like last time, once my water broke, the contractions came hard and strong. So we jumped in the car and drove to the hospital. We checked in just before 3am, and I was dilated 3cm. My contractions were so painful and really close, but Steve was great and really helped me through it all. I got my heplock and blood drawn, and by 5am I was more than ready for my epidural. Thankfully my blood platelets were high enough, so we were good to go. After my epidural, my nurse checked and I was 5cm. Things were looking great.

I was trying to get some sleep since I had been up since 7am the day before, but I just couldn't. So I just spent some quiet time with just me and Anna (Steve didn't have any trouble falling asleep once my epidural was in). At 8am, my new nurse (they had a shift change) checked me, and I was still only 5cm. We were both a little worried that I was going to stall, but she was super positive and encouraging. Right after she checked me, I felt the contractions get much stronger, and I really concentrated hard on opening up.

At 10am, my nurse came in and said that Anna's heart rate was dropping with each contraction, and because she was such a wiggly baby, they wanted to do an internal monitor to keep better track of her heartbeat. But when she went to check me, I was 9.5!! So she said it wasn't necessary and went to tell my doctor we were getting close. At around 11, I could really feel the contractions. They were painful even through the epidural and I started feeling the urge to push, so I called my nurse and sure enough, we were ready.

I pushed for about 15-20 minutes, and it was so hard!! I had forgotten how hard it was. Labor is well named. But again the nurses and my doctor were so encouraging, and Steve was amazing right there with me pushing me along. And then she was here!!!

Her cry was just beautiful, though very different from Erik's and David's. I don't know why, but I really expected her to look and sound like one or the other. But she's just her own beautiful little person.

The doctor put her on my chest and she snuggled right in. Even all messy she was the most beautiful little baby. Then a nurse wiped her off while I got stitched up. And then I got to hold her for an hour before they took her to get a bath. It was just so wonderful and healing to have her in my arms. I was smiling and crying and laughing all at once.

And it is amazing how different my recovery has been. I'm still very sore and tired of course, but nothing like last time. Last time I felt (and looked) like I got hit by a bus. But this time I felt so energized somehow. Which meant that I still couldn't sleep even though I knew I should. I finally did get some rest at about 10pm while Anna was in the nursery.

Our hospital stay was so great. The nurses were wonderful and so encouraging of my VBAC. My original nurse even came to check on me when her next shift started because she wanted to see how our birth went.

We came home Sunday afternoon, and we are loving being a family of five. Anna is such an angel baby. She is a great nurser and a great sleeper. I hope she keeps it up. She already has her daddy wrapped around her little finger, and David and Erik are very proud and happy to be big brothers.

Anna less than an hour old

So happy to finally have her in my arms.

I'm so in love with our tiny miss already.

David holding Anna.

A proud big brother. (Ignore the cookie crumbs on his mouth. It was hard to keep 2 three-year-olds entertained in a hospital room, so we resorted to bribery).

Erik likes to pet Anna like a puppy.



He also really enjoyed drinking from my big hospital mug.



Steve is so in love with his little girl.

Mommy and Anna, ready to go home!

Daddy and Anna. They are just smitten with each other!!

Everyone loves Anna, but Anna does not love her car seat. :)