October Happenings

Here is a cute picture of Samantha before we went to church on Sunday. I love getting girls ready for Church. Below are our pictures from Halloween. We went to the annual Barlow family chili cook-off night. After we eat all of the chili we go tick-or- treating around my brother's neighborhood. Elsa would have gone all night. I stayed back at the house with Sam but got a call from Wade halfway through to pick up Caitlyn because she was tired.

This is a picture at our Trunk or Treat. Wade gave out full size candy bars.

We also took a trip to Utah in October for my brother-in-laws homecoming talk and my aunt was also having a weekend for all her nieces. Wade kept the 2 girls for the 2 days while I took Samantha with my and went down to my aunt's house. Wade had the camera so I don't have any pictures from the niece's weekend but it was a blast.

Here is a picture of Papa Scott with Sam. He always takes my babies and rocks them to sleep even if they are fussy he will still take them. It is the best.

I am not an animal lover and so I do not really enjoy the zoo. This trip it worked out great because Wade could take the kids without me. They had a blast. The girls loved it. I had a blast eating at Kneaders while they were at the zoo. It was a win win for all parties.

Samantha's Blessing

I know it has been over a month ago but here are some pictures from Samantha's blessing day. It was a very good day. Wade gave her a beautiful blessing. Samantha was blessed in the same dress that I was blessed in that was made by my grandma Martenson. Caitlyn and Elsa were also blessed in it.

Here are the pictures.

Random Pictures

I have been trying to remember to get the camera out and take picture of Samantha. Caitlyn loves to take pictures so she helps remind me.

Caitlyn has been wanting to take a picture of Daddy and Samantha. So here is her picture.

Samantha went to church for the first time on Sunday so I had to snap a picture. The best part about having girls is getting them all dressed up for Church. I love it. Here she is before church.
This is Caitlyn on her first day of Preschool. She was so excited and is loving school.

Here are the girls. They are so cute. After juggling 2 kids adding the 3 one hasn't been as difficult as I thought it would be. I do have good and bad days though but that is just the joy of children. Samantha is a pretty good baby. She is sleeping good at night. She thinks if she is awake that she needs to be held though so we are working on that.

First Bath and Update on Samantha

Here is Samantha at 5 days old. She is so cute. She is finally sleeping good at night. The last 2 nights she has gone to bed around 10 or 11 and sleeps until 3 and then goes back to sleep until 8. That has been so nice because all of the nights before that she was not going to bed until 2 or 3 in the morning. That was rough. I hope she will continue her schedule and is not just teasing me. She went to the Dr at 4 days old and everything looked good. She dropped to 8lbs 13 oz in the hospital but was back up to 9 lbs 3 oz at the Dr so I was happy about that. So far she has been a pretty good baby. We are happy to have her in our home. The girls are loving her. They pick out her clothes everyday. Caitlyn is big help getting mom things. We gave her her first (well technically second because they gave her a bath in the hospital) the other night. Of course she screamed but it was quick. Here are the pictures from that.

This was a picture from coming home from the hospital.

Samantha Dawn has arrived

Samantha Dawn arrived on August 21 at 5:24 p.m. She weighed 9 lbs 8 ozs and was 20 inches long. It was a pretty rough delivery for me, it took 2 epidurals and I still felt a lot of pain. The Dr arrived for about the last 2 pushes. I am just glad to to not be pregnant anymore. I am glad she is here and that we are all healthy and doing well. She is so sweet and it is fun to have a newborn in the house. The nights are rough but I know we will adjust shortly. Here are some pictures from the big day.

July Happenings

Now that July is over I thought I should blog about some of things we did. It has also been on my list of things I need to get done before the baby comes. I only have pictures from the beginning of the month. We haven't really done much. It is too hot to be outside doing anything fun. I am usually hot just sitting indoors. I am just waiting for the baby to come. At this rate I am sure I will be going until my due date hopefully not beyond this time. I am getting excited for the baby to come. Slowly I am getting things set-up and ready.

My SIL Angie gave the girls these outfits for their birthdays. I love when they are matching so I had to get a picture. Elsa turned 2 on the 5th of July. She actually had 3 different birthday celebrations. These pictures are from her actual birthday opening gifts from Mom and Dad.

For the 4th of July we went over to my Brother Tyler's house for the 2nd Annual Barlow Family Olympics. It was a lot of fun. We spent most of the time in the pool which is the only way to survive the heat. We had good food too. We also celebrated Elsa's b-day with some cake and ice cream since all the family was together.

Elsa was being quite the stinker on this say when I was trying to get any pictures of her. Here she is enjoying the otter pops that we ate while watching fireworks. We had a lot of fireworks to set-off.

Caitlyn enjoying the sparklers and watching fireworks.

Here are the girls in the pool. They had so much fun with all the cousins.

Our attempt at a family photo. Elsa was having none of it.

Here is the cake that Wade made for Elsa. It was really good. He did a great job. The adults enjoyed this while the kids had cupcakes.

I was trying to get a picture of the girls together because they looked so cute in their matching shirts from Nana. I told you Elsa was being a stinker for the camera. Usually she is right there smiling, I don't know what her deal was. Caitlyn's is cute though.

Here are the pictures from Elsa's first birthday celebration when Nana was in town. My MIL Debby makes quilts for the kids when they turn 2. It was kind of big to ship so she used it as an excuse to come see her grandkids. The night before she left we got an ice cream cake from Coldstone and opened presents. Elsa was spoiled this year for her birthday.

June Happenings

Yes, I know July is almost over but I am finally finding a minute when my kids aren't around I have the energy to blog. I decided I needed to catch up before the baby comes or it won't happen. So here are pictures and what we did in June.

Caitlyn had swimming lessons at Sunset Park this year. She actually did pretty well this year except she would not put her face in the water. Wade took her her first 2 days because I was in Utah at a funeral. It was quite hot sitting at swimming lessons and kind of pain being up and out of the house every day but we survived. Wade took these pictures or we probably wouldn't have any because I always forget the camera.

Below is a picture Caitlyn took of Wade and I. She loves taking pictures.

One weekend we watched Brock for Tyler and Sarah while they had a night away. They really are cute together. I did realize over this weekend that Caitlyn is quite bossy. We are trying to teach her to be nice. I was practicing the piano and so Caitlyn and Brock starting dancing. Too cute!

In June we took a vacation to Utah. It is our only family vacation this summer. It was a lot of fun. I forgot our camera but we were still able to get pictures with my MIL's camera.

One of the days we drove up to Blackfoot, ID to see the grave of Elsie who my Elsa is named after. Yes, I know the spelling is different but they are pronounced the same. We changed the spelling so Elsa wouldn't have her name pronounced wrong her whole life. Elsie and Birger that are buried here are Wade's Grandpa's brother and sister that died when they were young. That is who Elsa is named after. It was fun to visit the grave. As you can see it was pouring rain so we had to be quick.

One of the main reasons for going up when we did is so we would take our kids through a temple so we went to the Oquirrh Mountain Open house.

Here is Riley Caitlyn and Nathan, Elsa wouldn't get in the picture, in the tent after the open house where we had cookies and water.

Here is Elsa playing with Bitsy my in-laws dog. She loves loves loves dogs. I really don't ever want a dog so she has to enjoy other peoples. She just follows the dog around and has to know where she is at all times. It cracks me up to watch her play with Bitsy.

In June was Caitlyn's big Spring Dance Recital complete with costumes. This year though was Lori's 30th year of teaching so she had all of her alumni come back and dance. It was so fun to be dancing again. So being 7 months pregnant I was out there dancing.

Below is my age group dancing to Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice. This dance was complete with some great early 90's dance moves like the running man, cabbage patch , and kid n play.

Here is Caitlyn dancing. She is so cute to watch. She loves dance so much.

Here is me in the tap number. Here is Caitlyn before the show.