Ella's 2 months old....

I cannot believe that my sweet Ella is 2 months old now! Why must time go by so fast? I already miss a new, new baby.... I decided that every month I am going to document what she has been up to...

We took her yesterday to get her shots and have her 2 month well child check. I just love our pediatrician!! Dr. Barhorst has been Hannah, Mady's, and now Ella's doctor. She knows our family and definitely knows how drama filled my girls are, she is so great with them. Ella did so well at her appointment. I'm not one to brag BUT she did say she was PERFECT!!! She now weighs 10 lbs. 12 1/2 oz and is 23 inches long.... She cried when she got her shots, I made Tracy hold her and then I swooped in for the rescue! Poor thing...

I went to get her out of bed this morning and I found her in only her diaper... She had wiggled and squirmed her way out of her gown and blanket... There she was laying in her crib naked with just a diaper at one end and at the other end of the crib was her blanket and gown...She is such a little Houdini!!

She loves to be sung to. Right now her favorite song is You Are My Sunshine...

She has started to suck her thumb this week! I think this is so cute but Tracy insists that we should really stop it before it gets worse!! I think I'll let her suck it for just a bit longer....

She smiles like crazy and giggles and coos at us now... It is the stinkin' cutest thing ever!! I just love her!! In fact yesterday she was laying down by me and I could hear her cooing and giggling... but she wasn't looking at me! She was looking over to the other side and definitely having a conversation with someone!! And they were making her giggle and smile!! I think that the veil is so thin for these sweet, sweet heaven sent babies! I looked at Tracy and said maybe she is talking to your grandpa and then he said maybe she is talking to your sister! Then he said maybe she is talking to her sister and I said or her brother!!! We were talking about the baby that we lost 2 1/2 years ago. Oh.. how I can't wait to meet him or her one day!

For right now I am just going to enjoy every little thing that my girls will bring into our lives! Being a mother is such a hard job! Your never prepared or ready for this journey and I just hope that I will always try my best and together we will have a pretty amazing family!! My girls mean the world to me and I love them soooo much!!! Heavenly Father has been good to us! We have been blessed beyond what we deserve!

National Walk To School Day...

This is going to be a short post but its worth remembering... So this week was National Walk to School Day. You could walk, ride a bike or scooter, or roller skate to school and you would get a treat and a drink when you arrived at the school. If you know Madelyn she doesn't pass on a treat!! Gotta love this girl! So that morning we were all ready for school and decided we were gonna ride bikes to school that morning... Yes, I have a cute cruiser bike with a basket that I ride around the neighborhood! ( I haven't rode it in a while due to my pregnancy and well there was that one incident where I fell off my bike in the school parking lot in front of everyone!!) Well, Mady still has her training wheels and we weren't riding fast enough for Hannah so she rode with some friends and left us! The thing about Mady is she will just stop suddenly and say I have an itch or I got a little scared because I was going too fast well there was a few time I almost ran right into the back of her but I managed to avoid a crash! We were able to get to school safely and Mady was given her fruit roll up and kool-aid drink...

That afternoon I had to ride my bike up to the school and get them and ride home.... Well when school gets out the side walks are pretty crowded and this is what totally made my day! Every time someone was behind us Mady would say "your gonna want to pass us!" Whenever she would say this I would chuckle to myself thinking this girl is so funny! As people would pass us they would look at her bike and notice the training wheels but wouldn't say anything but then this one boy looked at her and said " you still have those things on your bike?" Without any hesitation Mady said "Yep!" and kept on riding... I had to laugh out loud this time.... She doesn't care what ANYONE thinks of her! I love this quality that Madelyn has so much! I wish that I had this! I hope that she will always keep this!

While we were pedaling home I kept thinking to myself how lucky I am to get to stay home with my girls. I wouldn't want to miss out on these moments! I am so fortunate that I have a husband that has the means to allow me to be able to stay home with my girls! I am a very lucky woman!!!

Love At Home?!?

So today was our primary program. I got the girls cute new dresses and new shoes. I even put Hannah's hair in curlers and triple berry (barrel) curled Mady's hair. They looked like a million bucks! We were almost ready to leave when I said lets get a picture of you two cuties!! That's when all HELL broke loose... My girls started to fight because I asked them to put their arms around each other... You would think that's the end of the world! I know that sisters fight but I wish that they could get along for more than a minute... So here we are all ready for church yelling at our girls to be more loving! They start to cry (I think it was fake crying but...) and we finally got a picture of them with smiles on their faces...

When my girls do start to fight I usually start singing Love at Home! Its usually off key a bit but they start to laugh at me and it fixes the fighting...

My hope for my beautiful girls is that ONE day they will eventually all be best friends! And that they will realize how lucky they are to have one another and that no matter what we are all stuck with each other for eternity so they might at well make the best of it!! I love you girls and can't wait for the day when you are all BFF's!!

Angel Kisses....

A new baby is probably the sweetest thing a women will ever experience. It's funny how many people LOVE babies... People stop you just to glance at this sweet thing... When Ella was born one of my nurses asked if I wanted to do skin to skin... I wasn't quite sure what this was. They started to explain this to me by saying that after she is born they will lay her on my upper chest, hence the skin to skin. They do this immediately after she is born. I have to say, I am not really a "natural" kind of girl... But I thought that I would try this. I thought this was the most amazing thing ever!!! She calmed down as soon as they placed her on me and looked at me with her big eyes. I was loving every minute of it!


With her laying on me I first checked to make sure she was indeed a girl, then started counting her fingers and toes. Everything was good!! It was Tracy that said "Look Spring, her angel kisses are on her right eye!" I had forgotten about the angel kisses!


Let me explain what angel kisses mean to us. Twelve years ago my older sister passed away. Every baby in our family born after this has some red splotchy spots on either her eye, forehead, or the back of the neck. I had heard, and think its one of the sweetest things I have ever heard, that this is where a loved one in heaven kissed them before they came to us. I LOVE THIS!!


Hannah and Mady's angel kisses are both on the back of their necks. A few of my nieces have them on their forehead. I always said Brea knew to put my girls kisses on their necks because I wouldn't want them on their face! Look what she did, she kissed my sweet Ella on her eye!! I know that she did this to see what kind of a reaction she would get out of me. I may be a little vain but I love it! I wouldn't want her angel kisses any where else. I posted a few pics so that you can see Ella's angels kisses. They fade a little over time but will come back bright red when they are mad. I guess their husbands will always know when they are mad!

I am so thankful for the plan of salvation. I am so glad that I have the knowledge to know that there is life after this and that we all can be together forever!! I miss my sweet sister every day. I think about all of the fun things that she has missed over the last twelve years. I am thankful to have her as my older sister. I love you Brea and can't wait to see you again!

Another school year begins and so do mom's tears...

Hannah started the 5th grade this year and Madelyn started the 1st grade. I would like to know where the time has gone?!? Every school year I cry when I take the girls to school. A few days before school starts I’ll see the city painting the crosswalks on the street and I’ll start to cry. My girls get so embarrassed they almost wouldn't let me walk them into school. I tried telling them that I was a cool mom... That didn't work out to my advantage. They said that if I was a cool mom I wouldn't need to actually say out loud that I was a cool mom. But I know deep down that they KNOW that I am a cool mom.. I finally convinced them to let me walk them to class by promising that I wouldn't cry until I got back in the car. But as soon as I walked into the school that rush of sadness came over me. I said that we needed to take Hannah first to class because if I did start crying the 1st graders wouldn't make fun of me but the 5th graders probably would.

I always cry the first day and then usually the second day as well. I cry not so much that I am sad that they are at school but because they are growing up faster then I would like. I look at my sweet girls and wonder if I have spent enough time with them. If I have taught them the things that they need to take care of themselves at school. I worry about Mady dropping her lunch tray and kids laughing at her, I worry about Hannah being so hard on herself and not knowing that she just needs to do her best. I know its silly and Tracy just laughs at me every year when I call him bawling my eyes out. I just love being a mom so much that I don't want to fail at it. I want to teach my girls to be independent, loving, and kind girls.

Well I made it through the first day of school, in fact I made it through the first couple of weeks I think mostly due to the fact of my new, sweet baby Ella!! She helped to ease the pain of a lonely, empty house. I love all 3 of my girls so much. I am so glad that Heavenly Father sent me these little beauties!! I am so glad that I talked Tracy into another baby (I am already trying to talk him into yet another baby)!! They have all brought such happiness into our lives...

Hannah and Mady, I hope that you have such a great year at school... and just Remember one thing... I AM A COOL MOM!!!

Our newest princess...

Ella was born on July 24, 2010. She came a few days earlier than planned. Me and Tracy like to have things planned but I am thinking that Ella may have us changing that!! On Friday, July 23 we had planned a Hannah & Mady's day of fun. It was going to be our last hooray before their lives were going to consist of sleep deprived parents! I got up that morning not feeling all that well but lets be honest I was 9 months pregnant. Anyways, I took Hannah and Mady to the movie Ramona & Beezus (which is such a great mother/daughter movie). It was so good, I will definitely buy it when it comes out!! Then after the movie we came home and picked up dad, Grandma Carol, Tyson, and his sweet girlfriend Jessica. With a car full we drove down to Gateway. We took the girls to Build a Bear.... They were begging to build the new ice cream bears that they had there and we thought that with all the new changes coming that we would give in!! Some how I did pretty good walking around the mall in the hot July heat and with a HUGE belly!! I was really feeling fine. I mean I had cankles but that wouldn't stop me from doing a little shopping...

Well it was time to go and the PLAN was to meet my dad at Crown Burger in Layton. I love Crown Burger!! I usually don't leave Salt Lake without stopping at the one on Beck St and eat it on the way home!! As soon as I got in the car I had an instant back pain. Not a little ache, a pain that I have never (and hope to never) had before. I couldn't sit or lay in a position that it wouldn't hurt. My mom said that we should probably go to the hospital. I could hear the disappointment in the car that they would all now be eating hospital food instead of the delicious Crown Burger we all were anticipating. As soon as we got to the hospital my mom seriously was carrying me in. I couldn’t walk I was in so much pain. Jessica ran in to get me a wheelchair and so started our journey up to labor and delivery. I wasn't dilated much more than I was on my previous dr visit and the nurses really didn't think that I was going to stay. They said I wasn't in labor but that I may have a kidney stone that was causing my horrible pain. I don’t think that I have mentioned but see my doctor was out of town and it was a holiday weekend!! My doctor would be back on Sunday and the PLAN was going to start me on Monday morning. The nurses thought that I could wait until then. Good thing that the doctor on call was willing to keep me at the hospital and start me that night!!

I am sure that my girls were worried, if not scarred for life at the sight of their mother hunched over, being carried into the hospital. Thanks to my sweet, sweet nephew (whom I love soooo much) and his super sweet girlfriend, Jessica they took Hannah & Mady to the cafe and got them some dinner and double scoop ice creams. I'm sure that helped them a lot!!!

Well to make a looong story short, I was in labor all through the night with a not so numbing epidural... It was finally time for our new arrival. They called the doctor and he was on his way (or was he?)... We waited a while and I seriously was worried this baby was just gonna come out without the doctor!! Finally, he walked through the door and said "you know those times when you think you’re just gonna lay down for one more minute..." HE FELL BACK ASLEEP!!! Good thing I was so exhausted and really pretty out of it!! Without any complications our sweet and beautiful baby Ella Jeanne Dawson was born at 6:23 am on Saturday, July 24, 2010.

We welcome you little Ella to this crazy but very loving family... We waited so long for you... We love you so much already!!!