Sophie's School Fun

Last week Sophie's class celebrated the 100th day of school by dressing up as 100 year olds. Chad took a piece of old pallet and chiseled her a monogram cane the night before. Best dad of the year award right there!

Last week Sophie had brought a book to school and when she got in the car on the way home she told me she had read it to her friends. I just said oh that's nice Sophie good job. Little did I know she read it to the entire class! Apparently everyone is her friend haha. I received a nice email from her teacher Mrs. Malm:

"Hi Rachel!  
I don't know if Sophie told you, but she brought her Gingerbread kid book to school today because she wanted to read it to the class.  She's always been a great reader, but watching her read to the whole class completely confident, no fear or hesitation, with voices, hand motions, facial expressions, etc. was just the CUTEST thing and I was so incredibly proud of her (especially thinking of how young she was way back at the beginning of kinder when I met her!!)!!  Thank you so much for letting me be able to have the joy of having her in class again this year and seeing how much she has learned, grown, and matured!!"

She is definitely her father's daughter as I was always way too shy to do anything like this. She is so lucky to have such an amazing teacher! Mrs. Malm is awesome and she has gotten lucky enough to have her two years in a row. It is going to be sad next year.

Last night we went to the first grade winter play. It was very cute they were snowflakes and snirts (snowflakes with dirt). Sophie did a great job on her part and singing all of the songs.

 

We are so proud of our first grader. She is doing so well and lately does her homework all by herself. It is crazy to think how big and independent she is getting. I feel old. 

A Lot of Random

We have finally renewed our zoo membership after 2 years. We kept thinking we were going to move and so we put it off.......well we are still here so we have been going to the zoo! I felt so bad the first time we went Easton was so excited and thought it was the coolest place ever. He doesn't remember us going all the time since he was just a baby. It made me realize how much we were living in limbo.

Sophie is loving school as always and is quite the perfectionist. She missed one word on her spelling test for the first time ever a few weeks ago and it was a bonus word. She was beside herself and vowed she would do better. Haha I explained to her it was okay and she didn't have to be perfect but she now practices her spelling words more. She has been an awesome helper with William and is always reading him books and holding him so I can make dinner.

Lydia has become a huge helper which I love! She is always asking me what I need help with and jumping to get things for William. She is so good about playing with Easton and doing what he likes to do. She is quite the trooper playing trains until Sophie gets home. She is loving preschool and is excited to start kindergarten next year. Chad keeps reminding me it will just be me and the boys at home next year....what?! That's crazy.

Easton has all the sudden become a big kid. He dresses himself and washes his own hands after dinner. He has even gotten better about listening and actually doing what I ask him to do without me repeating a thousand times. He is always talking about cars especially Eleanors (model A's). He has it in his mind that he is going to have a blue Eleanor and he is going to put it in our garage and move Dad's Eleanor out. Chad told him he has to find his own place and so he decided he would ask Papa Miller so his blue Eleanor can live with papa's truck.

I think we have finally gotten into a routine with William and 4 kids is starting to get well easier. Four kids is hard man.

The kids love William to death and have been so good helping each other while I take care of William.  Easton will hold him sometimes but mostly talks about how William is going to play cars and trains with him when he is bigger. The girls love to read him books and Lydia especially loves to sing to him. She says he only likes Rock-a-bye Baby when she sings it haha.

On Saturday we went downtown to Dillenger Days where they celebrate the capture of a famous bank robber back in 1934. They have Model A's lined up in the street and reenact the capture of Dillenger. The kids loved playing at the Train Depot. They have a real steam engine the kids can climb on  and the kids favorite was an electric Thomas Train next to it that runs back and forth. They chased Thomas up and down the steam engine for a long time and were sad to leave.

They had a little jail to take pictures in. It took a lot of convincing to get the kids in there. Apparently they thought I would lock them in and leave.

William 1 Month

It is crazy to think that our little William is already 1 month old!

He is such a sweet baby and has started to coo and smile when you talk to him.

His siblings of course love him to death and are constantly asking to hold him. I have lots of help.

Poor Sophie wishes she was at home instead of school so she can snuggle him all of the time. He is getting stronger too and has started holding his head up more and is always trying to lean forward.

Lydia is obsessed with doing William's hair. And who can blame her when he has so much! She helped me do his hair into a appropriate hairstyle for the Hawk the other day...

Happy one month William!

Merry Christmas

The kids have done really well adjusting to the new family member. The girls are super helpful holding him, getting his pacifier, and all that fun stuff. Easton just ignored William's existence for the first week. But he has finally started to warm up to him by talking about him and then finally at 2 weeks old Easton wanted to hold him.

I took him to get his newborn screening done and they had to poke William's foot. Easton looked so worried and kept asking "did she hurt William Mom?" Chad asked him if he wanted to beat up the nurse for hurting his brother and he firmly said "yeah!"

William enjoyed his first bath and all the little spectators hovering over him in the bathroom haha.

On Christmas Eve we went to Grandma and Grandpa Millers. Grandpa was awesome and took some family pictures for us. Trying to get all four kids to cooperate was quite the feat haha.

We had a yummy dinner on our fancy china and watched a video on the nativity. We read Twas the Night Before Christmas to the kids and heard sleigh bells outside! When the kids ran out the front door we found a bag of goodies and some evidence of Santa.

The kids opened their Christmas jammies from Grandma and Grandpa Clayton and were all ready for Christmas!

Christmas morning Chad and I had to wake up all the kids. Who sleeps in on Christmas morning!? They were excited to see their gifts from Santa.

Easton loved his tractors.

And the girls have been wanting Frozen Fever dresses for a long time now.

They had a blast tearing through the presents. Easton was like a machine and we couldn't stop him from just opening everything.

Chad and I surprised the kids with a kindle. We have always told them they would never get one but when a killer deal happened on Amazon we couldn't pass it up. They were all thrilled.

And we pretty much didn't hear from them the rest of the day. I think we will have to regulate their time on them or we will never see our children.

William Hawk Clayton

The end of this pregnancy was quite stressful with the umbilical cord varix (swelling in the cord). This meant risk of blood clots and losing the baby. So after 5 weeks of 10 stress tests, 15 ultrasounds and lots of prayers and tears we were ready to have this baby. A huge thank you to both Grandmas who babysat numerous times so I could make all of these appointments! There was no way I could have done it without them! The doctors would not let me go past 37 weeks due to the risks so on December 6th we headed to the hospital to be induced.

I labored for 9 hours with every single one of my kids whether they were induced or natural so I pretty much planned on having the baby at about 4pm. Haha nope! He wasn't reacting well to the platocin so they had to turn it off for a while which slowed things down. And by 7:45pm I knew he was coming and of course.....no doctor....she was 15 minutes away. "Don't push!" the nurse said. Ummm yeah okay but with every contraction he kept coming and I wasn't pushing. In the end I'm crying because the baby is being delivered with 3 nurses staring at each other like they don't know what to do. Chad is petting my face trying to comfort me and after the baby was halfway out on the bed the doctor came running in and basically just picked him up and handed him to me. Chad and I laugh about the whole scene now, but it sure wasn't funny at the time!

We didn't know the sex and when the doctor lifted him up to show us we were excited to have another little boy!!! Curled up in my arms Chad looked at him and said "William" and he immediately looked over at Chad. That was it he was definitely William!

William Hawk Clayton was born on December 6, 2015 at 7:59pm 6 lbs. 12 oz. and 19 inches long.

We were so excited to have him here and the worries over. He was perfect. Until the next day all was well until doctors kept coming in saying they needed to do all these different tests on him because of the varix. Chad and I tried to stay cool but I was a wreck inside and I'm sure Chad was too. They took his blood to test for blood clots because that's a risk. The scariest was when we had to walk down to the nursery for a Echo. Apparently with varix babies there is risk for heart defects. The cardiologist was very nice and let us watch and thank heaven William was just fine and the blood tests came out great too. We were definitely blessed and I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who watched over our little William.

The kids came the next day and the girls were instantly in love.

Easton insisted it was baby Gavin (his cousin)!!! He noticed right away that the baby was gone out of my tummy. He kept saying to me "that's a baby mom."

We ended up having to stay a little longer at the hospital because William wasn't eating. I had plenty to give him but he just wouldn't eat. After the lactation consultant came in we discovered that he was acting like a premie and just didn't have the strength to nurse plus he was badly tongue tied. So I had to pump and then feed him a bottle which was much easier for him. With him eating they finally let us go home!

The kids were happy to be home and William got a sense on how life was going to be like pretty quickly. They immediately swarmed him haha.

A few days later we took him in to get his tongue clipped and now he eats great! So far he is such a good little baby and the girls love to hold him. Easton had a rough first few days and wanted nothing to do with William. But he has gotten better and at least will talk about William. When we leave the house he will shout "Let's go Illiam!!"

Welcome to our not so little family William!