The Sagers

One of the highlights from this past summer was getting to hike the Grand Canyon with some of our Vegas friends. I had been to the Grand Canyon when I was young for a family reunion, but never hiked down into it. It was such a fun experience to be able to go on a big camping/hiking trip without our kids, push ourselves physically and mentally, and spend some quality time with each other and with great friends. One thing I didn't know about the grand canyon is that from the top ridge where you start to the bottom of the canyon where you end, there is a 50 degree temperature difference. We woke up really early in the morning to start our hike and had sweatshirts on because it was chilly. By the time we had hiked down the 7 miles it was the middle of the day and 100+ degrees. Fortunately the Colorado River is at the bottom and we were able to sit and soak our legs in it for a good long while. It was much needed. We carried all our gear on our backs and because Kev and I don't own very fancy, compact camping gear, Kevins pack was at least double the size and weight of all our friends packs. Poor guy. He's strong though and handled it like a champ. That evening we ate dinner at a little lodge down in the canyon. After a long day of hiking that beef stew couldn't have tasted any more delicious. We pitched our tents and got ready for bed. We had a long hike out of the canyon the next morning so we needed good sleep. Unfortunately nobody slept well that night because the whole night it never cooled off and stayed 100+ degrees. We all lied in our tents in our own sweat. We got up at 5:00 to start the hike out and try to beat the heat. Kev and I enjoyed the hours and hours of getting to chat, just the two of us, as we made our way to the top. 9 miles out. Those last few miles Kevin's ginormous pack started to feel really heavy, he kept plunking along though. We made it out in about 5 hours. It was so much fun! Definitely something I'd love to do again.

I've been MIA for a while.  It turns out having 5 kids keeps you pretty busy. Since I posted last a lot of things have happened.  The biggest being adding our little Skylar to the family a week before Christmas.  She is beautiful, squishy, and absolutely perfect.  We love her so much and are so grateful she is ours.
We also matched to a fellowship for after Kevin is done with residency in 1 year.  We will be moving to North Carolina to do a joints fellowship at Wake Forest University.  Wake Forest was Kev's #1 pick, so we are beyond thrilled.  The thought of moving to the other side of the country with all our kids and leaving our wonderful friends we've made here in Vegas breaks my heart every time I think about it, but we know it's where we are supposed to be and we are going to make the most of the 1 year we live out there.
Ours kids are getting big and participated in lots of fun activities this past year.  Carter did flag football for the first time and now it's one of his favorite sports. He is currently on swim team and doing a great job.  He finished 1st grade and is a really good reader, reading at a 5th grade level.  He is definitely our wild child and looooves to push Haydens buttons.
Hayden finished preschool and is sooo ready to start Kindergarten.  We just got her teacher assignment in the mail and she got Mrs. Buell, the same kinder teacher that Carter had.  Hayden was very excited.  She is doing gymnastics right now and loves it.  She will be playing soccer in the fall with a bunch of our ward friends.  She is still as girly and lovey and kind as ever.  She loves complimenting others and makes me smile every day.
This past spring McKay played soccer with Hayden.  He was really excited when I signed him up and told him they'd be on the same team, but when it came to the first day of practice, he didn't want to participate at all.  The whole season he never touched the ball in any game and minimally participated in a few practices.  Apparently we should have waited 1 more year before signing him up for team sports. This past year McKay loved participating in playgroup with 5 of his best buddies.  In the fall he will be doing the community center gymnastics class that he has done in the past.  He is getting so big and loves keeping up with his older siblings.
Paige is our little peach.  She is very go with the flow as she is constantly being dragged to older kids activities.  She loves saying prayers and screams/whines if we don't choose her to say it.  She is starting to get pretty sassy and can give a mean "stink" face if you make her mad.  She got bumped out of the crib when Skylar was born and now shares a bed with Hayden.  It's not going very well as she gets out of bed 10+ times every night and keeps Hayden from being able to sleep.  Hopefully things improve soon.
Skylar is our little squishy squish.  We can't get enough of her.  She is 6 months now and pretty good at sitting up and starting to scootch towards close objects.  She has 2 bottom teeth and can bite really hard.  She is a great night time sleeper.  She is pretty resilient as she gets poked at and carried around by her older siblings.  We all just love her so much.

Here are a few pictures of some of the events I didn't blog about the past 9 months......



Soccer in the spring.


 Hayden graduated from preschool with Ms. Kim.

 Hayden had all her little buddies over for her 5th birthday party.  We had pizza, ice cream and watched a movie.

We've been getting in lots of Skylar snuggles.

Every Valentines our neighborhood puts on a Mommy/Mister and Daddy/Daughter dance.  It's one of the highlights of the year.


This girls smile makes me happy.

For Spring break we headed up to Utah to enjoy the beautiful weather and spend time with the cool aunts/uncles.

I have the best gal pals.  For my 30th bday we went and played a little pickle ball.

One of our favorite summer vacations is Lake Powell with my family.

Soaking in the sun with my girls

Now onto the second half of summer, and hoping I do a little better job at keeping up with all the memories made.

Our little Skylar was born on December 17th, 2018.  Arriving just a week before Christmas, she made for a calm, quiet, peaceful Christmas at home.
I was scheduled to be induced on my due date, the 17th, at 2:00am.  Definitely not the most ideal time, but i'll take what I can get.  I called the hospital just before 2:00am to make sure they still had room for me to come.  You never know if a bunch of women all of a sudden went into labor and the delivery floor was full.  They told me it was kind of busy and asked me to call back in the morning.  I hung up the phone feeling slightly annoyed and disappointed.  I decided to lay down and try and get some sleep.  As I was lying in bed I started to feel uncomfortable, tight, and achey.  I knew it was the beginning of contractions.  After about 15 minutes of feeling this I realized they were coming faster and faster and I told Kevin we should probably get to the hospital even though we were just told it was busy.  We grabbed the few things we needed and hopped in the car.  Our kids were already over and Kevin's parents because we had a scheduled induction.  It looked like I wouldn't need that induction after all.
We pulled into the hospital and within the walk from the parking lot to the delivery floor on the 2nd level I had 3 contractions.  Things were moving quickly.  They got me right in and prepped me.  I was dilated to a 4.  After a couple of hours I will dilated to a 6 and really wanting the epidural.  They got the anesthesiologist in there and got the epidural in as quickly as possible.  Soon I was ready to push, however, my doctor was in the room next door delivering a 1st time mother, and it was moving slow.  I told the nurses this was my fifth baby and I was pretty sure it was going to go quickly.  Sure enough I felt the baby coming.  The nurses quickly went and got Dr. Harter.  He rushed in and 2 pushes later Skylar was born at 6:43am.
She is absolutely perfect.  She weighed 8.0lbs and was 18 inches long. She had a full head of dark hair.  She was the best Christmas present we could have gotten.
Since being home and now with her being 7 months old she has changed a lot.  Just like her older sisters, her dark hair has fallen out and is coming in light.  She is a little chunk now.  She sits by herself and can army crawl around the house.  She is a great night-time sleeper but doesn't take great naps during the day.  Probably because with 4 older siblings we are always going somewhere. She still loves nursing and eating baby food.  She is a big time mama's girl.  She has already been camping several times, and gone to Lake Powell.
We love our squishy little Skylar and are so grateful she was sent to our family.

First night with this little peach.


The kids were so excited to meet their new little sissy.

Paige wasn't quite ready to give up the role of baby in the family.


My sis-in-law took some sweet pictures of our little Sky.





Hayden is the 2nd mommy in the home.



Skylar's blessing day.