Eden Grace

Our sweetheart Eden Grace was born 7/19/13 at 7:53 pm, weighing in at 9 lbs 2 oz, and 21 " long.

We all love her so much! She is so special, and cute. She is already being good to her parents, and waking up only once or twice a night. Harper is a bit jealous, and has trouble stopping herself from sitting on her and other devious methods of attack.  Jackson thinks she's cute, and Jasper loves her. Both big brothers have been super helpful. 

Harper and Jackson are now sharing a bunk bed downstairs, and it has worked out pretty well! They chat in there for a while after we put them to bed.

Jasper has his friends over here quite a bit during the summer days, playing x-box and other teenage shenanigans.  He just got back from a trip to Ohio, visiting his cousins the Correas there with Lori.  He had a great time!



The labor went pretty smooth. I went into labor on my own, a day short of a week overdue.  I was set to be inducted the next day.  I went into the hospital around 10 am, and was dilated to a 5, and then stayed there for hours.  A nurse finally realized the baby was posterior, and moved my legs in weird position to help her turn over.  It worked and after that she came pretty fast! I'm happy my body can accommodate such big babies. :)

We love her.  I love giving birth, is that weird? I just think it is so incredible. 

Welcome to our family Eden Grace! (Jasper wants to make sure he gets credit for choosing the name, so here you go Jas, credit is yours!)

What's New

I'm not making any promises of a return to the blog, I know so many of you have been anxiously waiting for a post.  But here is a post today.

I'm 32 weeks and 4 days pregnant with baby #4, who will be a GIRL. We are very excited, and have no clue what we'll name her.  Jackson says he wants the baby to hurry and fall out so that he can go have an adventure at Grandma and Grandpa McKinnon's house.  Harper just loves to slap my tummy and say "Hi, baby!" And Jasper has given us a few name ideas.  He is concerned that this new baby won't know him very well by the time he turns 18 and goes on a mission. He'll be 14 almost 15 years older than her.  I told him he just needs to make the 4 years he does have with her really special and then make an effort after he comes home. 

Poor Harper got the shaft on this blog compared to Jackson, but I've turned to instagram for all my scrapbook/life documenting/memory needs. You can find me there as michellelbenn. 

So, what is new?

Jackson is on his first sports team playing Soccer. His team is called the Dragons, and he is definitely not a natural.  He spends most of his time fake falling and shooting imaginary spider-man spiderwebs out of his fingers, while the soccer ball flies right past him.

Harper says a lot of words and loves to push kids smaller than her.  Then she says "poops" for "woops" as if it was an accident and makes cute smile.  She loves to watch Bubble Guppies, and demands it every morning. "mama, BUPPIES!" she says.

Jasper is going early to the high school every morning to lift weights and get in shape for football this fall.  9th grade is in high school for the first year this year, and he's excited.  So David is the lucky guy who gets to drive him to the high school at 5:15 every morning. FUN!  He's also still playing basketball.  A lady on the opposing team asked me which kid was mine the other day.  I said "#21". She said, "you mean that man boy who shaves?"   "yes, that's him." :) 

What else... David has been traveling for work a lot.  Right now he's on day #1 of an 11 day trip to Vegas then LA.  I hate to admit that I'm one of those wives who absolutely hates it when he's gone.  I do love freely watching shows on TV that he would mock me for, but that's about it. 

This pregnancy is kicking my butt, mostly hormonally.  I think I'll survive though, so yeah!

That's all for now, maybe more later. :)

Oh what do we do in the summer time?

Apparently not blog.  Life has been busy, but fun. Summer is flying by way too fast.
Here are some things we have been up to:

• Catching big fish with Staci and Tom

• Putting up tents with Auntie Ree

• Being silly

• Mama has been silly also. I accidentally jumped on a blender blade (dropped it on one foot while washing it, then jumped up in horror and landed on the blade with the other foot). I got lots of stitches! But it is now finally healed. I had to forfeit the Utah Valley half marathon, but there is always another race.  

• Harper is such a fun, sweet and cute girl. She is just a little angel. She sleeps well all night, naps when I put her down. I am now at the point where I can stick her in her crib awake and she falls asleep. Hallelujah. 11 months old!! Can you believe it? She is also a superb eater. Thank goodness she has 8 teeth with molars on the way!

• Jasper is just too cool. He is going into 8th grade in about a month, I can hardly believe it.  He has lots of friends, and they are over at our house all the time, eating us out of house and home. But we love it. He can never have enough time to spend with his friends. Unfortunately for him, I have to give him chores and summer homework anyway, and it completely puts a damper in his style, but what else are moms for, right?

• One of his basketball teams (yes there have been a few) won a tournament. Yeah champs!

• He is a very good big brother to both Harper and Jackson.  With Harper we call him "Biggest Brother" and you should see the way she completely lights up whenever he enters a room. She gets a huge grin and just squeals!

• He can even make being on a horse with a baby look cool. :)

• Staci is engaged! To Mr. Tom Kotter. They will have their wedding on September 6th of this year. We are very happy for her. Tom seems wonderful and he certainly makes her happy. So yeah Staci!

• Dave has been busy with work, and trying to do fun stuff with the kids. 

• Like sleeping. :)

• Oh, and lucky us, one day a couple of weeks ago, David went out to go to work in the morning and found the car like this. Someone had thrown a brick into the back window of our car. If you look closely you can see the brick used, between the front seats.  Not nice.

• That's all for now. Harper says "Hi" she's real good at that. 

What we're up to...

Basketball, backyard camping, and being cute.

How to...

How to put a binkie in your mouth.  

A tutorial by Harper Lynn

1. Be sad, because your binkie isn't in your mouth

2. Locate the binkie

3. Raise binkie, and aim at face.

4. Keep at it until you find your mouth!

5. Spit it out so you can smile. Yeah!

My Cutie Pie

Just a few pictures I couldn't resist posting. She's only 7 months old once, right?

Snowboarder Extraordinaire

A few weekends ago, we were lucky enough to go skiing/snowboarding with some McKinnons and with Jasper's friend Nik.

This was Jasper's first time ever snowboarding, and he was pretty stellar from what I hear. I stayed back with the littles, and was happy not to be plummeting to my death down a snow covered mountain.

Anne-Marie, Jasper and Nik

Ree, spread eagling down the hill

Staci Lynn

Staci and her new beau who arranged the whole weekend.

A good time was had by all! We are so lucky to live by such beautiful mountains.