One Week Old

Jared Jay was born June 17 at 1:20 p.m. He was 7 lbs 10 oz and 19 1/2 inches long. He seems so tiny compared to my other boys. Things went really well for labor and delivery. I went in the night of the 16th and they started me on a low dose of pitocin so I could still sleep through the night. By mid-morning the Dr. came in and broke my water and it was just a few hours later that Jared made his appearance. He barely cried at all and that made me really nervous. He just kind of whimpered off and on. He has since impressed us with his big voice whenever he feels like it.

My hospital stay was less than wonderful. The nurses didn't really have time for me and I didn't get my pain medication on time once. In fact, I had to call every time I needed medicine and then it would take them anywhere from an hour to 2 hours to get it to me. They also didn't help at all with Jared. I loved the Tooele hospital because they'd just come and get Donald whenever he was done eating and I needed sleep. My second night in the hospital here I didn't get any sleep at all until about 4:30 a.m. and a nurse came in to wake Jared up and take his vitals at 5. When she asked me what was wrong I said, "I'm exhausted" and she said, "Oh, you're just tired?" and went on to wake my baby up and tell me I had to feed him immediately.

I was glad to leave on Saturday afternoon. I was worn out and ready for Dan and my Mom's help since there was none at the hospital. Right as we left the hospital and headed for Stafford a black van turning onto the main road ran into our car! It was terrifying. I couldn't believe I had this new little life right next to me and he was already in danger. I am so thankful I was sitting beside him, and I am so thankful Dan is a smart careful driver. He really is the reason we stayed safe. He was paying attention and reacted quickly and calmly so we didn't veer into oncoming traffic or hit anything on the median. As soon as we pulled over to the shoulder Sheriff's lights came on behind us! I was so thankful an officer was right there behind us. He took care of everything really quickly and the car only had minor damage so we were able to drive home. It made me even more thankful to get home safely!
The kids think Jared is wonderful and they've all been cheerful and helpful. Every time Donald sees Jared he says, "I need to hold THAT baby." It's so sweet. His greatest temptation is he wants to touch the baby's eyes. I don't know what it is about eyes but he just can't keep his fingers away from them. We have to watch him close. The other funny thing about my Donald baby is he doesn't want much to do with me these days. Now that he has Daddy and his Grandma Weir what does he want with his mommy? He likes to tease me because I'm always begging him for kisses and hugs now and he always says NO! He's a big brother now, so I guess I shouldn't treat him like he's still my little Donald.

Jared has been enjoying quality time with his Grandma as well. My first night home she kept him for me for the first few hours of the night so I could get some rest after my horrible hospital stay. Here he is getting his first at home sponge bath from his grandma. He doesn't have much hair to speak of but it was still fun to wash.
Here he is all clean and cozy with his grandma.
Here he is today, one week old. For his birthday he gave me 4 hours of rest last night right in a row! It was so wonderful. It's the most rest I've had together for over a week.
He's so handsome and sweet and cuddly. I could fill up pages with how much I love him!

Charlie's Birthday

Last Sunday we celebrated Charlie's birthday. We thought we should do it early because we didn't know what the baby's schedule would be. We talked it over with Charlie, and he assured us that he wouldn't be upset at having to do his birthday early.

You can see from this (and all other) picture that he is happy to be six. Rebecca actually made the cake pretty much all by herself.

Here's the before picture:

And after (the toys in the back-right corner weren't presents):

One of the only things he'd asked for a lot was a scooter. Charlie rarely asks for toys on his birthdays, instead he always wants things like flashlights or umbrellas. This is the first birthday in 3 years that he hasn't gotten a flashlight. He likes riding the scooter around the neighborhood, but the combination of the heat, humidity, and helmet make him very sweaty.

Our Newest Member

It's Great to be 8

Adrian was thrilled to get scriptures and clothes. For fun he got an XBOX game based on the Nickelodeon series Avatar, not the blue people.

He didn't wear this combination to church, this was just to see if his new clothes fit. He's so handsome.
Adrian's favorite birthday food is brownies!
We're all looking forward to his Baptism on Saturday.

We Finished!

We finished reading The Book of Mormon this month so we went to the temple to celebrate. It was a beautiful peaceful day.

True love that lasts forever is the best thing in the world.
Here are the kids by one of the east doors. They are so adorable.
Although I didn't exactly commission this photograph I figure it is a good belly shot and hopefully there won't be many more.
We decided to let Donald have some driving experience on the outer loop of the Beltway; just so long as I'm not driving! The traffic was horrible on the way to the temple and on the way back. How do people live here!? Thankfully Dan had thought ahead and got a movie from redbox for the kids.

Monumental Saturday

Today we toured monuments and memorials in DC.

After riding the Metro in (which is always one of the highlights), we started at the Washington Monument. That end of the mall was very windy, so we didn't do too much there other than look at it as we walked by.

The next stop was the World War II memorial. It was built since the last time either Sarah or I (this is one of my few blog entries) had been there, so it was fun to see something new. There were posts all around a pool, and each of the posts had the name of a state or other possession of the United States. Adrian was amazed at how many states there were, and that the soldiers had protected them all during the war.

Sarah wasn't feeling too well by then, so she rested on a bench while the kids went around and had their pictures taken by their birth states. We had a lot of states to visit.

We had to remember to get Virginia for little baby Jared (at least that's what we're calling him now).

After the WWII monument, we walked to the Vietnam memorial. We didn't take any pictures, but the kids were impressed with it. We looked at the reference books and found out that there are Blodgett and Weir names on the wall, but we didn't look for them. We did see one pane that had the names Charles Frank and Daniel David (four different first names).

From there we went to the Lincoln Memorial. Sarah just finished a book about Gettysburg, and Rebecca is learning about the Civil War in school, so it was an interesting site to see. The three oldest kids each took time to read the Gettysburg address that was engraved on the wall, even without us saying anything. They liked sitting on the edge of the building and looking out over the reflecting pool. Unfortunately, it was so windy that the pool was really choppy.

As we left the memorial, Rebecca found a penny. The girls thought it was pretty lucky to find one there since it had Lincoln on one side and the memorial building on the other.

From there we retraced our steps back to the Metro and came home. It was a hard day for the littlest kids and Sarah, but everyone thought it was worth it to see those famous sites and remember parts of our history.

Memory Lane

We transferred all our old files onto our new computer so I had to take a little trip down memory lane. This is our 2 year old Charlie. He's still this cute.