Hello Again

Well I thought that I'd try to update this thing once a month... I guess that I'd better do it soon January's almost over. Here I sit trying to type with only three children that want to help! I guess that that's not too bad of odds seeing how usually they are all trying to help. I really have avoided doing this because I wanted my blog to stay in order. I really didn't want to jump around, you know, dates and events tell a story and usually stories are best told from start to finish. With that in mind I hope that you can understand why I haven't posted. The longer you go with out posting the more you have to post about and the longer it takes to catch up! Please forgive this very lame attempt to share with you the last 8 months. Can I just say that summer came and when it did I turned into a very hot, cranky, and tired pregnant lady. It took ALL of my energy to TRY to keep up with my five small children. Anyway, swimming lessons were successful and trips to the park for lunch were a blessing. In June I travelled ALONE (yeah!!) to the valley for a Sisters weekend! It was a lot of fun excepting I ended up in the hospital because I was having back labor. (Maybe we were having too much fun!) After a few shots of tributaline (sp) I was good to go. My Mom took me to the airport later that day just to learn that my flight was cancelled so we ended up driving home. Actually, it was nice to have my Mom and little Sister visit, the kids really enjoyed it. A week later we celebrated Grace's third birthday. She is as cute as can be and she knows it which can be a bad thing. She is ALL GIRL! I had my doubts seeing as she is completely surrounded by brothers... Absolutely no worries here.
In July, we headed back to the valley to do the Temple work for me brother that died a year ago. It was a really special experience. I was grateful to be able to attend, even if I was 9 month prego! We also spent several days "playing" instead of going to the cabin in Greer. We did all the things the kids love. We went to the lake, to Chuck E. Cheese, had a marshmellow gun war at the park dressed in camo, Grace, Bella, Grandma J, and I went to see Alice in Wonderland at the Dinner Theater, and the boys even got to play Rock Band at Uncle Rich's house.




On July 25th we were blessed with our sixth child, Faith Emmalee who weighed in at 7lbs 2oz and honestly I'd have to go look to see how long she was. I can say that her bright and smiley little face appeared before us at 6:44 p.m. I can remember that because it was exactly 1 hour after the doctor broke my water. The nurse you see was getting quite irritated with my constant pleas for drugs. The way she kept looking at me told me what she was thinking...."Look lady, I could hear her say to herself, I just checked you, when we broke your water 30 minutes ago you were only a 4 and just barely that... you still have along way to go just suck it up." Well I got that same look at 40 minutes, 45 minutes, at about 50minutes later I got up and went to the bathroom, came back and got in bed and 60 minutes after they broke my water I warned the nurse that something was feeling strange... she finally consented to look to see what was going on and as she did I let out a scream and out came little Miss Faith. She fell right out on the bed. Truthfully, I think that the nurse was more surprised than I was. NO Doctor, NO baby warmer, NO delivery clean up kit, NOTHING. Just me, the nurse, Scott, and little Faith. Mass pandemonium then broke out and in all my trips to the hospital I've never seen that many medical personnel in one room before. Thank heavens that a little while later everything had calmed down and Scott was able to go home to put all of the other kids to bed!
In August, Conner decided that he wanted to be home schooled so we started out on that new adventure. (We had been talking about it prior to his decision- so it wasn't completely unexpected) Tate started 1st grade at the local elementary,Jacob started kindergarten, and Grace started dance.

We blessed Faith in September. It was so wonderful, as it always is, to have family stay with us for this special event.
In October Scott & I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary at Disneyland with all of our kids, and my siblings, and their kids! We were there for the Johnson Family reunion. We had a spectacular time, okay, it was a really fun time but the drive was very long.

On October 25th we lost our nephew, Shane Cory Figueroa. He was killed by a drunk driver while on duty as a Phoenix Police Officer. While we know that he is in a better place, we still mourn his lost tremendously. He and Scott were very close (Shane was in our wedding line when we got married) and he as often stated that it wouldn't have been any harder for him to deal with had he lost a brother. So we both now share a common void. We were in the valley for the funeral on Halloween so the kids got to trick or treat with their cousins.




In November we finished up the soccer season
and had a very nice Thanksgiving Dinner with Scott's family. It was sure nice to have Mom and Dad Skousen home off their mission. We also did some Black Friday sale shopping and went Christmas Tree Hunting.

Of course December was filled with birthday's and holiday festivities. Tate turned 7 on the 14th, Ethan turned 2 on the 17th, and Scott turned thirty something on the 20th.

We even squeezed in music performances at school and Conner's piano recital.
We had a Christmas Eve party at our place, a family party at my Mom & Dad's on the 26th and celebrated Scott's parents 50th wedding anniversary on the 27th. We toasted to the New Year at Curt & Jeannine's (Scott's brother & wife) and finally arrived home on the 4th. All in all we had a great time celebrating although honestly, it was exhausting. So how's that for in a "nutshell!" I am grateful for a new year and a fresh start...now only if the baby would take a bottle and sleep through the night!!!!
(all of our Christmas pictures are stuck on my camera! Hopefully I'll be able to get them off soon!)