Happy Birthday, Jared!

 A few days after Abigail and I came home from the hospital, we celebrated Jared's 9th birthday!  I somehow found time to cook him the dinner he requested and made him his chocolate cake while Alan took the kids out for some fun times.  They went to a children's museum and then up to Grandma Stout's house for a movie afternoon.

 Jared got a ton of gifts this year!  Star Wars swim towel and t-shirt, several new games (Harry Potter Clue, chess, and Stratego), some books (including the Peter and the Starcatcher series), and a fancy rocket that shoots up 1100 feet.  (We recently launched it for the first time--it was amazing!)

I love this boy!  He is growing up so fast.  He soaks up everything he learns and reads.  He is such a responsible boy and a good big brother to his three little sisters.  He's looking forward to 4th grade!

First Days at Home

The first few weeks of a new baby's life are a blur.  She is so cute and cuddly, but honestly, it is so hard to be in survival mode.  I recently told Alan that since I've been in such a fog, I feel a bit ripped off and would like my summer back, please.  Ha ha.  

I love to look at these pictures.  I can already tell that she has gotten quite a bit bigger already.  

Our little burrito

I love putting Abigail in outfits that Maggie and Evy also wore.

LOVE this picture!

Jared is such a great big brother

A visit from Aunt Emma

A nighttime cuddle 

Abigail in the Hospital

Here are some of the pictures from our stay in the hospital.  I have omitted most of the unflattering pictures of me, which are unfortunately from the first few minutes of Abigial's life.  She was so beautiful!  The hospital has recently changed things so that the moms get to hold their babies even longer before the hospital takes them away for shots and things.  I got to hold Abigail for hours and hours before they first took her away from me! It was wonderful.  

Last preggy picture!

A few minutes old

The kids came to visit with both Grandma Stout and Grandma Curtis that first afternoon.  They all doted on Abigail.

First visit from Jared, Maggie, and Evelyn

Grandma Curtis

Grandma Stout 

Grandpa Stout came to visit on Day 2

First family picture

Perky and alert!

July pictures

 Grandma Curtis bought my girls matching flag dresses for the 4th of July.  They both love them and still wear them weekly.

Cute girls before church one Sunday:

They really wanted me to take a picture of their hair, but it's not actually that fancy.  They just loved the flowers in it.

Evelyn rarely takes naps anymore, but I still make her have a "quiet time" in her room every day.  In July she actually took a few naps. Here is a picture of her asleep on her floor, surrounded by her favorite toys.  She also recently took a nap on her closet floor with the door closed, and also sitting upright in her hamper with her blanket over her head!  She was so sweaty when I found her and transferred to her bed.

While we are on the topic of Evelyn, it is worth mentioning a couple of rascally things she has done since Abigail was born.
1) She decided to use our diaper pail as a toilet for a couple of days.  Yes, there could have been worse places to choose, but by the time I found out, there was pee everywhere!  It had leaked through the bag and got all over the inside, too.  It took me a while to rinse and air it all out.
2) Just this week during her quiet time she colored all over her closet door and the border around her closet with a purple and a magenta crayon.  That has NEVER happened to me before with any of my kids.  It took more than a half hour for us (she helped!) to clean it all off with magic erasers.  Sigh!

This picture doesn't do it justice

3) Alan took Jared, Maggie and Evelyn to a Stout family reunion in Southern Utah a couple of weeks ago, and Evelyn banged her nose pretty badly on a metal bunk bed while she was (presumably) bouncing on the bed.  She had a bloody nose, a swollen nose, and two black eyes for about a week.  I actually thought it looked a little crooked, so we took her in to get an x-ray to see if it was broken.  Luckily it wasn't.  These pictures from Alan's phone don't do it justice.

4) During the same reunion mentioned above, Evelyn fell asleep on the couch at a local church at a Stout dinner (NOT on Sunday), and wet her pants while she was asleep.  Alan went to the store later that evening to buy baking soda and sprinkled some on the wet spot, but since the church was far away from where they were staying, he didn't ever make it back to vacuum up the baking soda.  Oops!  I bet some people were sure surprised the next morning when they went to church!