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!

Happy Birthday Party Miss Lydia

Lydia's birthday isn't until the 14th but since we were scheduled to have a baby on the 6th, we decided we better do a party for Miss Lyds on the 5th. She wanted an Elsa Birthday party complete with snow flakes, Olaf string cheese, and Olaf souvenirs. And of course my Cupcake Wars loving girl had specific instructions for her cupcakes. Strawberry cake, light blue frosting, a white chocolate snowflake and Elsa. I did my best not to disappoint as she had these cupcakes picked out before Sophie's birthday haha.

They played freeze dance to all the favorite Frozen songs which they loved. We also played Button Button but with a little Olaf figure so we said Olaf Olaf who has Olaf?

Lydia was so excited to have so many of her friends there to celebrate with her!

We love our sweet 5 year old! Happy early birthday Miss Lydia Bug!

After the party we had to quickly clean up and get all the kids packed and taken to Grandmas, because bright and early the next morning we were going to the hospital to meet our newest family member......

Clayton Happenings the Last Few Weeks

Chad's work gave him tickets to the U of A football game a few weeks ago. Easton was so excited to go do cat cheers again! Although he has confessed that cat cheers are fun but he likes Boise State haha. Chad and Easton had fun at the game and Easton insisted that Boise was playing the whole time. 

Easton has told me several times on random days since that he is going to football with Dad tonight and Mom stays home. I think Chad found his game buddy.

Sophie did a fun run fundraiser at school again this year. She is too funny because she hates PE because they make her run and running makes her tired. But she matched her 42 lap record from last year! She just kept running!

She still loves school and is getting really good at reading. It is crazy to listen to her talk like a grown up about her day. 

The kids were so excited to set up Christmas. 

They cheered Dad on as he put up the star.

On Friday Chad surprised me by celebrating my birthday early since we will have a 4 day old baby on my real birthday. He and the kids made me a delicious cake and brought me a gift and cards while I was at my parents house!

Sarah was awesome and took the kids overnight for us and Chad and I went to see the last Hunger Games movie and had dinner. It was fun to hang out before life gets a bit more hectic. 

The kids had a blast with Aunt Sarah as always. Apparently she watches our kids every year at this time haha. She sent this picture of Jackson and Easton. 

The top is last year and then this year. They are getting so big!

The next day we all went to the Pima Air and Space Museum. 

We had a lot of fun looking at all the planes. 

Lydia is getting so grown up. She is such a good helper and is always looking for ways to make things easier on me. She is always the first to run and pick something up off the floor that I dropped because she knows its hard for me to bend over right now. She is getting really good at writing her letters and absolutely loves preschool. She is already talking how fun its going to be in kindergarten next year....what!!

Easton is quite the little goofball. He makes us laugh all the time with his goofiness. Our favorite at the moment is how he says "movie." It sounds exactly like "boobie." We try really hard not to laugh when he announces that he is "watching boobies!" most of the time we are unsuccessful. We just hope his nursery leaders know that we do not in fact let him watch that kind of thing but harmless movies. haha

He is talking about the baby coming more now and is excited he gets to sit by the baby in the car. 3 more days and we will be a family of 6!