Hospital pictures of our BABY ELI

The first moment I layed eyes on my precious Eli, I knew that I was in love all over again. It is always a miracle to see a child take their first breath to enter into mortal existence and I cannot think of anything else that so magnificently manifests Heavenly Father's divine power.

I have to say out of all my labor/delivery/recoveries I have experienced this was my easiest thus far. It was so nice to have it all planned out. My doctor scheduled me to be induced on Sunday, December 21st at 9pm. I arrived and they got me all settled in and got me started on a low dose Pitocin drip for the night. My nurse (she was amazing!!) said that I was already having some contractions when I first arrived which was great because it didn't take much to get me feeling my contractions.

With Robby, I had a miserable experience with the anesthesiologist and my epidural. It took an incredible amount of time for him to place it and I was in so much pain and couldn't keep anything in my stomach during the whole procedure. I was fairly weary walking into this pregnancy, hoping I would not repeat that experience. With Eli, I was lucky enough that one of my coworkers husband is a nurse anesthetist and happened to be working the same evening that I was induced. He was fabulous and ended up placing my epidural sometime around 1 am. He only took 2 minutes to get it done and I wasn't really in too much pain at that point.

My doctor arrived around 6am and broke my water. After that everything went very quick. I dilated from a 4 to a 10 in about an hour and a half and still felt great due to my epidural. The only sad point to my day was the fact that my mom was unable to come and be with me at the hospital. She was getting over an upper respiratory infection and couldn't come. Luckily my sister and mother-in-law were there, along with Jesse.

A little after 8am, my doctor came and checked on me and said I was ready to go. Two pushes later and my little bundle was out and mine to keep! It was a dream labor and delivery, which I hope to repeat with the rest of my babies.

Proud daddy with his new basketball player as he always reminds me

Loriann and my mother-in-law in the delivery room right after Eli was born

Maddie loved to meet her newest little brother and kept telling me "look at his eyes, look at his little eyes. Look at his nose, etc..."

My good friends from work, Heidi and Tammie. They were working at Banner Baywood the morning I had Eli and so they came over after work to say hi and meet him.

Maddie and Robby started to get restless at the hospital and so Jesse gave them wheelchair rides down the hall. They loved it!

Uncle Adam, Eli and Aunt Abby

Nona and Papa holding Eli

Mommy and Eli hanging out in the hospital room together. I am in love with chocolate brown and blue on my little guy.

The exciting moment when you can actually take your little bundle home; it feels like they are finally officially yours to keep!

He's Here!!

Elijah Knight Toronto

-born Monday December 22, 2008

-6lb 13oz

-21in long

-at 8:18am

*he is our Christmas angel*

known as "baby Eli" by our Maddie

"My Turn"

As my two kiddos are growing older and bigger, we are all learning a lot about sharing and taking turns. It is a hard lesson to begin learning when you are only 22 months old, but I suppose any second child is the same way.

It has become apparent from Robby's current vocabulary that he is both learning and also firmly rejecting some principles associated with sharing. Some of his favorite words to use now include "my turn", "mine", "no no no" (when asked to share a toy or wait for his turn), and "I sorry". He even has learned where the time out couch is and when told he needs to sit in time out, he will walk right over and plop himself down in that location.

Thus brings me to the reason for this post. For the past year or so, Maddie has sort of been my side kick during baking or cooking time in the kitchen. Normally Robby is either sleeping, playing independantly, or eating a snack at the table during those times. Recently however, he wants to have a turn at helping mommy in the kitchen as well. So this post is for Robby and all the help he was in the kitchen for me a few weeks back when we were making some goody plates for some friends and neighbors. Thanks for all the help buddy!!

{side note--- he is not directly eating out of the bowl that produced the goody plates. It is an extra spatula I gave him after the bowl was nearly empty}

Christmas Tree

The beginning of this month we went to a Christmas tree lot and picked out a humongous, ginormous, overwhelming tree. Jesse had to have the BIGGEST tree in the entire lot of course :)

It has been fun to hang all our ornaments on it and enjoy such a beautiful tree in our front room. I keep telling myself someday I will be able to hang my ornaments on the tree without one of the kids constantly tearing them off. Right now Robby's favorite things involving the tree include throwing any ball at the tree, pulling down the lights off the bottom section and then watching the tree sway back and forth as he plays tug of war, and taking any ornaments within his reach and pulling them off and throwing them all over the front room. Of course all of these things are done with a BIG smile on his face. Maddie is continually trying to redecorate the tree by moving ornaments to different spots on the tree. :)
The kids favorite things involving the Christmas tree lot included chasing each other all around the trees and the free hot chocolate and cookies being served.

Christmas Lights at the Temple

It is a tradition in our family to go visit the beautiful Mesa Temple Christmas lights on Christmas Eve. This year we changed it up a little bit. We ended up going and walking around the Temple the Sunday after Thanksgiving instead. It was wonderful because it gave us a chance to see the lights this year AND we were able to go before Uncle Adam left to go back to Boston!!Robby with his Uncle Adam Maddie and "Papa"

Thanksgiving Dinner

This year, we had a fairly relaxing Thanksgiving day. We took some dinner to an elderly lady, ate our big "dinner" at my parents house, visited the Toronto family and ended the evening with pie night at my Aunt and Uncles. Maddie has the cheesiest smile these days complete with squinted eyes!
Robby chowing down on his traditional Thanksgiving dinner

Aunt Lori and Uncle Tyler at the table

Do we live in a zoo, or are we going to the zoo?

I suppose the answer is both on a day like this. :)

In mid-November (I am attempting to get my life updated on my blog from the past few months before baby #3 makes his way into our home), my mom was so sweet and came to the Phoenix Zoo with the kids and I. We arrived in the morning just after it opened and walked all around the zoo in search of our favorite animals. It truly was a perfect morning: perfect weather, perfect company, perfect sack lunch food, etc...

--- although the Phoenix zoo is known for it's environmentally friendly habitats for the animals, it also makes it hard for two tiny little kids to be interested in animals that are nowhere to be found---

Some of our favorite animals were: rhinos, elephants, giraffes, large fish in the pond, birds snacking on food on the walkways, etc.

As I have said before in the past, getting both kids to sit with me AND take a picture is an impossibility. This is the closest thing I get :)Miss M sitting in her stroller at the beginning of the day.

Grandma Sheffield, Maddie and Robby looking in on the elephants.

Maddie loved being able to put her face right next to the chimpanzees and informed me that they had "owies" on their bums.

Robby's favorite animal of the day. When Grandma lifted him up to have a clear look at the Rhinos he loudly said "Whoaa" and then kept making roaring noises as he looked at it

Thanks mOm for all the help you are constantly giving me with my kids. They recognize your doting and love you so much. They are always talking about their Grandma and asking when they are going to see her!

Every once in a great while I can coax one of these beautiful smiles out of her AND capture it on film.

Right before we left, we found the big fish pond near the front entrance. Maddie was ready to hop right in and swim with them.

I always get this grumpy face when he doesn't want to look at me for a picture.

-the only downer to the whole day was when a lady came up and asked sympathetically when I was due. After I announced to her I had 7 weeks to go and felt pretty good she replied "your kidding, you poor thing. You just look so big" I wish people felt less comfortable offering remarks like that.

Sun Devil Fans

Anyone who knows Jesse and I, would know that we are BIG ASU fans. We both graduated from Arizona State and have been season ticket holders for about nine years now. We have stuck with them through all kinds of ups and downs.

This year has been a particularly down year for the football program, especially with such a promising outlook before the season began. The lowest point was just recently when we lost the rivalry game to U of A (we WILL get you next year!!), thus no bowl game :(

Nevertheless, we still attended many of the games decked out in our ASU gear and rooted for the home team. We even brought BOTH kids along to several games this year. I have to admit, I was pretty worried before the first game with our tribe along, but they made me proud. For the most part they stayed in their seats and watched the airplanes go by, pointed out Sparky and the "football game players" as Maddie says, ate snacks, and in general had a blast! After the first game we realized it was actually pretty fun and so we took them along another time as well.

Well...good try Sun Devils and better luck next year!

{pictures from a game in September that we attended with tribe Toronto...}

Birthday Dinner

November: My big sister turned 28 last month and we had a fun Sunday birthday dinner for her on November 9th (actual b-day is the 8th).Lori, Mom, and Pregoville USA
Lori holding Kaylin with Maddie getting ready to "help" blow out the candles. She absolutely loves singing Happy Birthday to anyone. She did not disappoint this time around. She was the first person to break into song and had a big grin on her face the entire time :)

Robby COULD NOT wait for his cupcake and looked quite pleased with himself once he got one!

Another fabulous preggie picture of myself......