Monkey see, monkey do at the Zoo!

The group of kids and grandma

Paige is ready

Ah, you have to love the Hogle Zoo. Entrance to the park: $18 for Scott and I, Number of kids in our group to keep track of: 7 (plus baby Ashley), number of adults to keep track of kids: 7, time spent in the park: 3 hours, amount of animals to see: tons, time spent with these enthusiastic and fun kids: priceless. It was fun going to the zoo with my sisters and the kids were in heaven. It was finally sunny, even a little on the warm side (enough for my sweat to smell like BO, ack). My favorite were the giraffes which were being fed while we were there. They are graceful and beautiful animals, unlike myself ha ha! After the Zoo we headed to the training table for lunch and a great visit then off to the discovery center at the Gateway (thanks Jen for the 2 for 1 coupons). Unfortunately, they were only going to be open for another 40 min. so we decided to head up the street to the Planetarian. The kids were in heaven. They loved it. There was one hectic moment when I needed to get on their humongous elevator with my stroller. My niece ran ahead to get it open but I wasn't fast enough. As the doors were closing, I hit the up button but my niece had already hit the floor number. The elevator doors were really confused and staying in a suspended state. After rescuing my niece off the elevator, the doors would no longer close therefor breaking the elevator. Yeah! Then when we went to tell someone about the situation, my daughter comes down the stairs with none other than the manager and the security guard. Apparently she was "lost". Now a little bit embarrassed at being a poor parent in a public setting, I wasn't about to tell them about the elevator too. At that moment Ashley started crying. Needless to say, I was a little frazzled and took it out on Scott for a brief second. After my sister rescued Ashley and I calmed down, it was off to playing again. The only thing I wish I had was a nap in a bottle for Paige, who was so tired and took out her frustrations on Ashley by hitting her. Not a good moment. Otherwise, what a great day spent with my fun sisters, their funny husbands, and amazing mom.
Ashley did great

She loves her fist

You've got to love the giraffes

Looking for the tiger

Paige was awesome at chopsticks

Can't forget the Carousel

Paige staring down the orangutan

A little out of date

So I forgot to post a couple of events that we've participated in this year. I want to make sure we get it all down because this has become a sort of journal for me. The first activity was the family outing to Brian Regan on February 26th. Scott and I are huge fans of Brian Regan. He makes us laugh sooo much. He is clean and his humor just fits our. We introduced him to our family by making them watch You tube clips of him and they got the Brian Regan bug. In the months of Jan. and Feb. are all my sisters birthdays (mine included) along with Scott's and my brother-in-laws. My mom decided to get tickets to the Brian Regan show that was coming to Logan for all of our birthday gifts. It was a great gift with dinner at the Coppermill beforehand. Due to my pregnancy and weak bladder, I would literally pee my pants when I laughed. Well worth it though. Here are some pictures of my family at dinner and at the show. Thanks mom for an evening of laughter. The best medicine of all.



In April, my family participated in events associated with the SLC marathon. Angela came up with this idea as my dad was fighting cancer. We decided to raise $5000 for cancer research in my dad's name and run in various races. Friends, family, coworkers, buisnesses, and more donated to help raise over $6000 in a three month period. A huge thanks to all who contributed to this event. We made sort of a family vacation of it with my mom and a couple of my sisters staying overnight in SLC. Angela and her friend Max ran the marathon. Her friends Jenn and Jenny ran the 1/2 marathon. Megan, Trent (her husband), Eric (Angela's husband), Kimberly, Scott, my niece Breanna, friends of Angela's, and megan's sister-in-law ran the 5K with my 10yr. old niece beating everyone. The rest of the grandkids along with parents, me, and my mom walked the 1 mile. My mom wasn't able to stand let alone walk 5 years ago due to her MS. This was a pretty big deal for her and although she was behind all the little kids and the oldest participant in the race, she was awesome. She trained for this walk by walking up a huge hill to our churchhouse and walking around the churchhouse. We were so proud of her and couldn't contain the tears from our eyes as she crossed the finish line. I know my dad would have been immensely impressed with her hard work and dedication. After that was a trip to Chuck-E-Cheese for a kids celebration and to celebrate my niece's birthday. What fun times.

Part of the gang

Our awesome shirts

Mom getting ready

My mom about to cross the finish line

Paige at Chuck-E-Cheese on her favorite ride, the merry go round

Welcome Ashley Halia Roberts!

Scott and I preparing for another addition to our family

Me in labor with only a sucker to tide me through

We are so excited to introduce the newest member of our family. Ashley Halia Roberts came into the world on Mother's Day (May 10th) at 9:16pm weighing 6lbs 6oz with a length of 20inches. (Halia in Hawaiian means in loving memory after my dad.) After taking some good advice from Megan on how to progress natural induction, I woke up Sunday morning with some minor contractions. It was about 7am and I told Scott to plan on having a baby that day. The contractions weren't close together or very intense so I knew we had a long day ahead of us. We showered and bathed Paige and then we waited. We finalized our arrangements on where Paige was going and made sure she and I were all packed up. By about 1pm, there was more intensity in my contractions but they were still twenty minutes apart. So we decided to put Paige down for a nap. The house at this point was completely clean due to trying to pass the time and still it was a waiting game so we once again took Megan's advice and that jumped the contractions up to every 8 minutes with great intensity. The funny thing is that my sisters have the 1-4pm church and Megan was my mom's ride down so we were communicating and updating via text messages in church. Due to the great planning, we also had to cancel our big mother's day dinner. By about 4:30, we woke up Paige and decided to take her up to Scott's parents and then we would head over to the hospital to be evaluated. My contractions were still very irregular but such high intensity that I couldn't talk through them. When we arrived at the hospital, it was during shift change so they put me in a room and hooked up all the monitors. Then we waited through a few more contractions and the monitor wasn't picking them up. I was so worried they'd send me home and make me endure the contractions at home. Apparently the nurse could hear me breathing through them and the monitor just wasn't registering them. She checked me and I was dilated to a 4+. She left a message with my doctor and after a half hour, another doctor gave the okay to admit me. Yeah! I made it past the big hurdle. The nurse then said I could have the epidural after they ran a whole liter of fluid into me. Fortunately that went quickly and when the anesthesiologist walked into the room at 7:30, I told him I loved him and was more than happy to see him. At this point my mom and sister had arrived to help keep company. I'm not a big fan of getting the epidural. They hurt but Scott was right by my side holding my hand and helping me through the pain. He was so good to keep giving me kisses and encourage me. I was in heaven once the epidural kicked in. I could feel the pressure of everything but couldn't feel any pain. It was wonderful. My doctor got there at around 9pm (she had been in church in slc and had missed the closing hymn). She said that we were ready to have the baby and that I was at a 9 and fully effaced. At this point she broke my water and they set everything up to go to work. I was really itchy from the epidural and shaking something fierce so I was ready to get over that part of it. My mom was by my head and Scott was helping me push by holding my legs. After about 5 pushes, she came. I am lucky to have such little babies that pop right out. I could feel her coming through but no pain. Pure heaven. We were so excited to see her red hair. She was so close in resemblence to Paige, it was fun to see the comparisons. After they cleaned her up, we were able to hold her. What a special moment. Then Paige came up to the hospital. We were a little nervous about how she would react but she was so excited and fascinated by this new baby. She kept saying she was cute and touching her so very delicately. Scott took Ashley down to the nursery to her bath, my mom and sister went home, and Candace (our great friends who took Paige for a couple days) took Paige home. I was alone in the room and felt such a tremendous sense of joy and contentment. This little baby had been with our Savior moments before. She had had the opportunity to meet her big brother Keiki, and her grandpa Armstrong. Now she was my gift on that beautiful mother's day. After they wheeled me to my new room, I was so tuckered out that I couldn't keep my eyes open. I had enough time to wolf down a turkey sandwich and say goodnight to Ashley before they wheeled her down the hall to the nursery for the night (of course with feeding time interruptions) before I conked out. The delivery was quick, painless, and beautiful. My thanks to the wonderful nurses and of course Dr. Rosemary Lesser for making the experience of childbirth wonderful.
Dad cutting the cord

Mom holding Ashley

Dad holding Ashley

Our new family


Beautiful redhead

Grandma Armstrong

Grandma and Grandpa Roberts

Scott feeding me during nursing

Going home from the hospital in the gigantic carseat

Paige loves her little sister

Easter

Easter is such a beautiful holiday. It's a celebration of the resurrection of our Savior and his gift of the atonement given to us. We didn't get into the holiday as some people do. We didn't have an easter basket for Paige because in all reality, she doesn't eat the candy and we definitely don't need it. We did participate in two easter egg hunts with each of our families respectively and of course we eat lots of yummy food. I thought of my dad this year and realized that the resurrection had an even deeper meaning for me. Paige wore a really cute easter dress and she would just twirl in front of the mirror looking at it. She was a "princess". Enjoy the pictures.

Pregnancy

I tend to do a terrible job about documenting how my pregnancies go. I've been trying to remember how things went when I was pregnant with Paige or how long a symptom would last and I have no recollection. I thought I'd do a better job of documenting and hopefully have a better memory for my next pregnancy. I think pregnancy is a very sensitive topic. I have many friends who are unable to get pregnant or have a hard time conceiving/keeping the baby. I try not to complain around them because they would give anything to experience what I feel no matter how ill they may get. I thought I would share my thoughts by having a positive and a negative list.
Positive: Having a living being growing inside of me, feeling all the movements, having a little more attention directed at me (I'll admit it), I have an excuse to be fat and eat anything I want within reason, the preparations that come with a new baby, the ultrasounds and seeing that little heart beat, gaining a small amount of weight (22lbs with Paige and 18lbs with this one so far), getting to be a little bit more lazy and have extra help from the hubby, the delivery of the baby with an epidural, the baby itself. I truly enjoy being pregnant and tend not to get as sick as most people!!
Negative: Three months of kind of feeling blah and not wanting to cook or knowing what to eat, the tiredness, popping in movies for Paige to watch so I can get some sleep, maternity clothes never fit just right, swollen feet and hands, rolling over in bed and picking things up off the floor, the asthmatic cough I get from the first trimester to the third that makes me wet my pants on a regular basis, the hot flashes that make my face turn bright red, the sore and achy body (because I don't exercise well), trying to manuever my belly around the patients at work, the waiting period to make sure the baby is healthy and has no complications, the time period!
A few extra things. I crave cookies and tend to have a cookie a day. I'm also very thirsty and drink quite a bit. (Sometimes induldging in Dr. Pepper which makes the baby move around a lot). I'm lucky to have a great husband who is so helpful especially when it comes to taking care of Paige. He is the greatest father. I love the miracle of pregnancy and am blessed to have a relatively easy pregnancy. Thanks for everyone's well wishes and we'll be seeing this little girl in under 4 weeks. YEAH!!

Baby animal days

As we did last year, a couple of my sisters, their kids, and my mom ventured to the baby animal days held by the american heritage center. It was a somewhat rainy and muddy day but I was prepared with warm weather clothing for Paige. We had lots of fun as always and we enjoyed spending the day with "cousins" as Paige puts it. Here are some pics of the outing.
Paige peeking into the pens

Paige and her favorite cousin holding chicks

Paige looking at baby ducks

Paige is terified of the bunnies

Paige and I riding ponies

The end of a very long day

Our 80's themed birthday party!!

Megan and I turned thirty years old on Feb. 18th. Can you believe it? Megan had a great idea of having an 80's themed party and she did a great job planning it. We played 80's trivial pursuit (we had my mom on our team so we won because she is a trivial pursuit champ), sang kareoke (I had the cold voice but had a great time singing even if people were cringing), and we ate some great food. What a fun night with some great outfits. Thanks to mom for the yummy cookie "cake". It was a great celebration of our birthday.

Make a Smilebox photobook