Jon and Amy

 This post is mainly just to show a few more pictures to family. Nathan and Matt obviously adore him! They just can't get enough of him. Love this little guy!!

William was born March 8th, 2013 at 1:03 pm.

This was earlier than planned, but I was totally fine with that. I was due March 27th, and was scheduled to be induced March 20th. For some reason, I had a feeling he might be on his way. I knew my Dr. was on call Thursday and Friday, so I told Jon I thought Friday would be a good day. He kept telling me that I should wait until the 20th, because that's what we had planned for, but William and I had a different idea. :)

I didn't do anything to induce my labor, but the contractions started coming pretty strong about 4am on Friday. I was in a lot of pain and Jon woke up. I told him not to get up yet. I didn't want to be sent home from the hospital so I wanted to make sure they were there to stay. I also had a few things I hadn't finished that needed to be done for Friday, so I got up about 5 to finish them. I needed to finish putting together an Avon gift basket and books for the girl scouts to take. After I finished that, I decided the contractions weren't going to stop. I told Jon we better get ready to go. It was about 6:00. We got the boys up and ready. I wanted to take them with us just in case they ended up sending me home. No need to trouble the neighbors or family so early, if it wasn't even real. We brought a bag of stuff for the boys to do, and I had already packed my bag and a bag for the baby.


On the way to the hospital, the contractions were coming about every 2-3 minutes. When we got to the hospital, they said I was dilated to a 4 1/2, and my contractions were coming about every minute. After 30 minutes, they agreed to admit me. Thank goodness, because I was in quite a lot of pain by then.  They got me an epidural within 30 minutes or so. I was so glad for the relief. The epidural did slow down my labor a little bit, but I was glad not to be in so much pain. We called a few family members and told them I was there to stay. I was tired after not having slept most of the night, so I was pretty lethargic most of the morning. William joined us at 1:03pm after a few contractions of pushing. Not too bad...



Jon was a little worried with the baby being born at only 37 weeks, but he came out a sweet, healthy little boy. He weighed 7lb 11 oz. He was plenty big for 37 weeks. They said if I had gone full term he probably would have been 9 pounds. No thanks.. That would have been a much more difficult labor & recovery. He was born with lots of blonde hair. I guess we're trying for every color. Nathan's was light brown and Matt's was bright orange. I think they had a little more hair than he does, but I guess its pretty rare for a blonde to have much hair,

We love this little guy so much! Both boys are so excited to have him here. They want to hold him constantly. This little guy must have gotten used to all their noise before he came, because he sleeps through all of their craziness.

I don't want to speak too soon, but he is a much better sleeper than the other two. And a much easier baby overall. He really doesn't cry much. He fusses when he is hungry or stinky, but other than that, he doesn't make much noise at all. (Also very different from the other two.) :)

He is very, very loved. With each baby, I think I cherish every moment even more. You realize how fast they grow, and I know before long, he won't be my little baby any more. I am loving these newborn moments. He is still so tiny.

I am again amazed with the miracle of life. What a blessing to have created and grown this little guy. I'm amazed that he was actually inside me. I can't help but look at him, and think "No wonder I was so uncomfortable." Life is a miracle. I don't enjoy pregnancies, but I'm not taking it for granted either. I know what a blessing it is to be able to have children and to experience this joy and blessing of life. I am so grateful for my children, and right now for this special new life that is now part of our family.

I am always hesitant to name my children before I see them. We had talked about William a lot before hand, but after we saw him, we both still agreed on the name. We also named him after my Grandpa whose middle name was Willard. We weren't going to go with the name Willard, so William is as close as we could get. We haven't named the other two after people, but this time I really felt that I wanted my Grandpa to be a part of this little guy. We also gave him Jon's middle name, David, so is named after Daddy too.


I went to my Grandma's funeral in Idaho less than a week before I had this little man, and I know that her and my Grandpa both were watching over this new life as we celebrated his birth. And I think they were celebrating with us. I'm grateful for family, for the knowledge of our eternal natures, and the knowledge of the presence of those who have already passed on.

Proud Daddy

Jon has been especially helpful and supportive. He is extremely overwhelmed with life and how much he has going on, but he is always making sure that I have what I need, and that I'm getting enough sleep. He took the week off of work to help me. We found a water pipe leaking in the basement, so he spent all day yesterday fixing it. Poor guy. And then we found out last night that both boys have strep throat. Sometimes it feels like everything happens all at once. He is also trying to finish up his Master's degree and his final research project. I brought this life here a little sooner than he was anticipating, and even though I think it has complicated his schedule and increased his stress, he hasn't complained at all, and is still willing to get up with me every night. I am very thankful to have him!!

I love general conference. My kids probably don't love it as much, but they are definitely enjoying it much more this time than they have in the past. We are in between sessions at the moment, and Nathan said he wants to watch it again (because I'm not letting them do the activities unless we're watching conference). Most of the ideas came from Pinterest, so I'll try and post where I got the ideas by the pictures.

This is our basket of conference goodies. There were also some treats and coloring projects hidden in there.

I just wanted to quickly post how grateful I am for my life, my children, and my sweet husband. I am so grateful I am surrounded by people who I love. I have had a lot of challenging days lately. Sometimes the boys are crazy, and I feel like they just fight all day... But then of course the next minute they are playing just fine. Matt is always super excited for Nathan to come home from school. Sometimes he'll ask me if we can go get him yet. They love each other SO much, even if they fight a lot.

Jon took the boys to Home Depot on Saturday to do a quick little project. Home Depot had cars for them to build and race. I guess Nathan's car took 2nd in the group and Matt's took 3rd. I'm sure it was all just luck b/c the cars are all the same. :) Jon does a fun little (secret) handshake with them. Its all about tools and building things. Then he puts the pin on their cute little H.Depot apron. They had such a great time!

So I never posted about our awesome vacation to Disneyland. We went in early December, and had an amazing time. I was definitely the one who was most excited since we didn't tell the boys until we were ready to walk to the park. (We did this for 2 reasons... #1: as soon as you tell them, you won't hear about anything else and they don't understand why it can't be 'now'. #2: we thought this would be a fun surprise for them. It was probably more fun for us since they had never been there and didn't know what to be excited about b/c they didn't know what to
expect).