Lauren's 1st Birthday Party!

Lauren is such a cutie. She can be such a serious, studious baby sometimes but when she smiles it's just adorable. We had a barbecue for her birthday and invited some friends and family. The weather was perfect, the kids got to play outside in a little pool with a slide and Lauren was entertained by some family members.

Sharing the cake with everyone. She did not eat one bite of cake but she sure tore through it and left a hefty mess on the ground.

What girl doesn't like chocolate cake? This one apparently.

Pretty, pretty princess sitting on her throne, or more accurately, Grandma's lap in front of all her presents.

Her brothers helped her blow her candle out. She kept grabbing for it. I was afraid she was going to burn her fingers.

Saying thank you for all my presents. Now she actually has some pink, girl toys to play with.

Happy, Happy Birthday Lauren dear, Happy days will come to you all year. If I had a wish that it would be a happy, happy birthday to you from me! Love you baby!

Easter Fun!

It's fun celebrating Easter and other holidays because the older boys remember what the holiday is and what we are going to do to celebrate. So they've been totally excited all week anticipating the coming of the Easter Bunny, dyeing the eggs and having many, many egg hunts.

Paul finding all the chocolate in his basket. Love the early morning hair.

David doing a David smile. He's getting so old now he still really enjoys everything but his reactions are starting to get more subdued. I can't believe he will be getting baptized in 4 months.

David finding eggs. Last year we hid eggs that had grass, rock and pebble exteriors. We didn't repeat that again as we continued finding eggs for many months afterwards.

Paul has quite the eagle eye and has always been able to spot hidden eggs better than both his other brothers. He reminds me of my brother David Sam who could always spot things before other people with regular vision could.

Little Superman finding eggs. Josh was worried that he needed extra time before the other boys but he did just fine and needed no help finding eggs. He loves these Superman pajamas with the cape. All in all we had a wonderful Easter this year other than Lauren being sick and throwing up all day. I guess that's par for the course when you have 4 children. Thank goodness they are the sweetest, cutest, most lovable 4 kids a mom could have. I'm a lucky mom. Vomit and all. :)

San Clemente Fun Run

So last Saturday I ran my first 5K in San Clemente. I've only been running a couple months and I've lost over 20 pounds but I'm certainly not a "typical" runner. This was a really fun trail run up in the foothills of San Clemente. We were fortunate enough to have my mom watch the kids Friday night and we went down and spent the night at the beach. That was just as exciting as the run.

Saturday morning bright and early before the race wearing my lovely number.

This is what we did while waiting for the actual race to start. We could have showed up like an hour later and still totally been fine. Now we will know for next time.

Here I am finishing the race. About half way through my run I realized I had something none of the other runners had...a chest and a backside! :) The run was a little hilly but I didn't think I was that tired or sore afterward...until later that night. Fun fun. I came home and signed up to do it all again in 2 months. :)

My little angel is 1!

I can't believe it's been one year since my beautiful little angel was born. Since it's been a year and I can now laugh about how she was born I want to tell the story of her exciting birth.

Lauren being the fourth child came quickly, even more quickly than we expected. I worked full time up until I was about 36 weeks pregnant and then it was spring break so I got a week off. I had been having lots of contractions and had even gone to the hospital twice before when the lovely contractions stopped and I was sent home both times. So when I started having contractions at 2am I figured I had plenty of time and decided to get as much sleep as I could. By 4am I realized the contractions were getting steadily worse and woke Josh up. We called my mother in law to come watch the boys but knew it would take her an hour to get to the house, so we called my mom as well and had her come right over. During this maybe 20 minute period the contractions were increasing exponentially and I told Josh I thought we should call an ambulance. Seth(our 3rd son) was born a mere 5 minutes after I was wheeled into the labor room. We had a Mr. Toad's Wild Ride to the hospital with him with Josh driving about 90 miles an hour and blowing red lights and stop signs. I didn't really want to repeat that drive so I told him we needed to call an ambulance to be safe.

After a few more intense contractions Josh called for the ambulance. Ambulance 302 arrived along with a fire truck around 4:30 am. They tried to ask me some questions and as I was in transition I was a little short with the EMT's. So they decided to transport me to the hospital. My water hadn't broken so they thought they had plenty of time. Neither one had ever delivered a baby before. Jeffrey Allen was the EMT in charge and I'm sure hoping this would simply be a transport. They tried to insert an oxygen tube in my nose during a contraction and I almost punched the EMT. Thank goodness it wasn't my first baby and I knew what was going on. They were trying to time the contractions and I told them the baby was coming. So J. Allen checked and saw a crowning head. He asked his partner for some safety glasses. I guess he thought the baby would coming squirting out. Then he said, "Uhhh push" and with my next contraction Lauren was born. After having 3 boys the first thing I did was ask, "Is it still a girl?" and the EMT answered, "I don't know yet." I was a little concerned with that answer but he was totally focused on cutting and tying the umbilical cord.

They had not let Josh ride in the back of the ambulance so he was following behind the ambulance. So when we pulled into Desert Valley and they opened the Ambulance door the EMT was holding Lauren and they wheeled me into the hospital and carried her. I passed my placenta as they were wheeling me down the hallway which was a lovely experience.

They took Lauren into the nursery. Due to her traumatic entrance into the world she was taken directly to the nursery and put under the heat lamps and given oxygen. I had to go into the delivery room and wait for the Doctor to come check me out. He even sent me a bill later for the "delivery". It took about 3 hours after her birth but I was finally able to hold her. She was by far the smallest of my babies weighing in at 6 lbs 5oz. She was the sweetest little angel.

Anyone who has been around Lauren knows how serious a baby she is. She is a mama's girl and a sweetheart and finally has started smiling. She is our beautiful little angel and made quite the entrance into this world. I couldn't imagine not having a daughter and I can only hope that she and I have the same wonderful relationship that my mom and I have. Happy 1st Birthday Lauren!

St. George-Quynn's baby blessing

We went to St. George for Quynn's (Dan & Dawn's newest baby girl) baby blessing in March. This is the only pic I got of Dawn and Quynn together. We had a blast seeing all the Rees family and letting all the cousins play together.

On Friday night we went to Pirate Island with Dan and Dawn which is a pizza place with a pirate theme. This pizza actually took up and entire table by itself. It was crazy! We played games and had lots of fun. On the way out we thought it would be fun to get a picture of the cousins up on this pillar. Notice all the cool stuffed frogs Uncle Dan got from the toy machine. You're awesome Dan! See if you can spot him in this picture. LOL!
After the blessing we went back to Dan's clubhouse and had lunch and a lot of wrestling. I'd say Danny (Teresa's hubby) got the short end of the stick. That's his face sticking out of the bottom of the pile. I think he was done wrestling after that.

This is the group picture of everyone after the blessing at the church house. We actually had all 5 Rees siblings in one place. Doesn't happen too often anymore. Mike was there but had to go open the library. We had a great time just visiting with all our family. The cousins got to go to Jumping Jacks where Teresa and I were accosted by some fathers who were horse playing in the bounce houses. :) The boys got to play some video games and the sister-in-laws got some ice cream and a ride in Teresa's car that won't be forgotten anytime soon. We are so grateful to be close to our family!

Part Deux San Diego

I just spent an hour and a half catching up on everybody else's blog instead of updating my own. It's fun though and made me kind of emotional tonight. Not too sure why but got me thinking about how grateful I am for my beautiful family. So here's some more cute pictures from San Diego. Josh had a CADA Conference for school since he's the Sophomore Class Advisor. He was gone from Wednesday on but Friday night we drove down and crashed his hotel. :) It was nice weather and an even nicer break from life as usual. Friday night we walked over a bridge from his hotel to the Mall on Friars. We got dinner and then walked around a bit and even did a little shopping. It made me a little philosophical. It's a kind of high end area and most of the people walking around were wearing high end apparel and designer accessories. We were stared at by many due to the fact that we had not one or two (which seemed to be a large family down there) children but four. It just made me realize that the "jewels" of my life are my family. They drive me crazy, sometimes to the point of insanity, they make me mad, sometimes to the point of yelling and screaming, and they make me insanely happy to the point I feel like my heart could burst into a million little pieces. I am so glad I chose to be a wife and mother!

This adorable smile just makes me happy!

Like I said earlier David is all into the bunny ears...even giving them to himself.

I just love this one of Paul and Josh together.

Enjoying a nice weather day in San Diego. We even had the pool all to ourselves. The boys were avid little swimmers. They cracked me up with their goggles but they just HAD to have them.

Lauren was just too cute in her little swim suit. What a great weekend away! When can we go again?!

San Diego Trip

This one could be a post card. Lauren is just kicking back on her lounge chair at the pool enjoying some breakfast (applesauce).

She was so cute. It was like she was gonna drive her stroller. And as my BIL Danny would say, "Where's Lauren? All I see is a bow."

My favorite people at the zoo. David just started giving people bunny ears and he thinks it's soooo funny.