Introducing Preston...

Hello everyone, this is Josh posting in Natalie's place. She's a little incapacitated right now by the Percocet! I think that I've done a pretty good job of sending out emails and posting on Facebook, but here's one more place to show off our little guy. He was born on Tuesday March 31st, at about 8:30am. He weighed in at 7lbs 1oz, and was 19.5 inches long. He's absolutely perfect and doing great. Natalie's mending up well too, she's a real trooper. We've been blessed with wonderful family members that have helped us out a ton. Without them this would never have been possible. We are glad we decided to have him in UT, our doctor (Dr. Marriott) is fantastic and did a great job. So, on to the good stuff... below are some pictures for your enjoyment:

As you can see, the big sisters really love this little guy, and we couldn't be happier. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and prayers, and to all of our family and friends who have been of so much help during our little adventure here!

Here is a quick post. Our basement is finished!!!! The workers have been working on it since October. Everyday they would come in the backdoor at 8:00 in the morning and work until 5:00. Okay so it wasn't everyday but it sure seemed like it. But now it is done and we can enjoy our basement. I will post some pictures of it later. So what else....Josh had his birthday on Jan. 31. I promised him his next birthday will be better when I am not so sick and tired. Oh and Josh found an associate. We are excited because his dad wants to be done and there is more than enough business for two dentists. My C-section has been scheduled for March 31st. These last few weeks of pregnancy are never fun, hope I make it.

Camryn, my always amusing child, got out of bed the other night and said her legs hurt. So Josh said he would give her some medicine. He got some and gave it to her, then he left the room for a second and she went back to bed. Then he discovered the medicine on the floor. She had dumped it onto the floor. Turns out she was asleep the whole time. She has turned into quite the sleep walker.

Here are some random pictures.

This is Marina and her cousin Peyton, or as she calls him Pey Pey. They are the cutest little friends.

Here are my girlie girls with new pjs from Grandma. Thanks Grandma and thanks to Grandma Butters for helping with the sewing.

This is a sledding accident in action. Camryn is on the orange sled knocking over Alexis holding the yellow sled.

After a series of photos this was the best one. The kids are all looking, but silly Camryn is waving her hands. At least we have the kids together and happy.

We love Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wonder how a boy will fit in with all the girliness in my house?

Alexis finally lost her two front teeth. One was just barely hanging in and she wanted Josh to pull it out so he brought her to the office and pulled both out. Her adult teeth were right there ready to come in. It is much easier to take her to the office and just pull them out quickly then try to convince her to do it at home.

We had a good Christmas at our house. The girls had a lot of fun, and didn't wake up too early. We spent Christmas Eve at Josh's parents house and didn't get the girls into bed until about 9:00 (too late). I was feeling pretty sick Christmas Eve so I didn't get our Christmas breakfast ready (it was a casserole which has to sit in the fridge overnight) so we ended up having our Christmas breakfast the day after Christmas, which was fine with me. We spent Christmas Day at home, just being lazy, putting together toys, eating, etc. It was great. Then about 4:00 Alexis said she felt sick and proceeded to spend the rest of the night throwing up. Alexis, Josh, and Marina all ended up getting the stomach flu over the holidays. Anyways, we went down to Utah the Sunday after Christmas and spent a week there. New Years Eve was spent playing games with my family. I have more pictures, but Josh got me a new camera for Christmas and so they are on another card. I will put more up later (hopefully not two months later). Well, it was great to see family and relax for a week.

One of our traditions is to make sugar cookies for Christmas. As I am helping my own kids with this I can't help but remember doing this with my own mom. I loved making cookies with her and I never understood why she would sometimes get frustrated with us, but now I do. I find myself saying the same things my mom did: "don't put the cookie cutter right in the middle, save room for more then one cookie," "no you can't eat all the cookie dough" "no, I will roll out the dough" "not too may sprinkles!" But it was a lot of fun and a tradition I will continue with every year.

This is Christmas morning. The pjs they got for the Christmas Eve gift, they have Tinkerbell on them. Tinkerbell is one of Marina's favorite movies.

I went to the dr while we were down in Utah and I just have to complain a little. I was 26 weeks and so I had to do the glucose test, my appt was at 10:30. I didn't eat breakfast, and just drank the nasty stuff and tried not to throw up on the way to the dr. Well, it has to be exactly an hour after you drink it that they take your blood. So my appt with the dr was really really quick (about four min) and then I went and had my blood taken, alright I thought done with the needles. But no I went back into the dr's office to find out I had to get my shot for being O-. Then the head nurse realized that the new nurse had not ordered an antibody test at the same time as they drew blood for the glucose test, so I had to get my blood taken again and then have a shot. I HATE needles!! So not my favorite appt. A couple of people of asked if I am still having palpitations and yes I am. I had it checked out and everything is normal, I am having about 1,000 a day, which really isn't that much. The doctor said they will probably go away when I have the baby.

So I haven't been blogging much lately because I have to admit I have gotten a sour taste in my mouth for emailing, texting, and blogging. There have been a couple of instances in the past month where things have been taken the wrong way and bad things have happened. In my opinion texting is slowly ruining communication and relationships in the country. People are more willing to text things that they would never say in person. I have seen relationships destroyed over texting because of harsh things which never would have been said otherwise. People need to learn to talk to each other again. Josh had a patient in his office the other day who is a high school English teacher and she said we don't even realize how bad it is. She receives papers from students where the first paragraph is good but then the writing turns into texting lingo. Students will put l8r for later and 2 for to or too, etc. I mean I don't have perfect grammar, but that is disgusting. What are these kids going to do when they enter the workforce and they don't know how to make a complete sentence? My mom said she was behind a couple of boys in line at the store or something and instead of talking to each other they were all texting. What has happened to our society? My sister has friends where in a relationship they say I love you for the first time over texting and they will break up over texting.

On to a happier topic, as was mentioned earlier we went and had our ultrasound on Wed and what the heck!!! I am having a BOY!!!!!!!!!! I was in absolute shock when we saw the ultrasound. I still don't really know what to think, which is one reason I haven't blogged about it until now. I mean I have pink and purple bedrooms, where does a boy fit? Don't get me wrong we are excited, I just never really planned on having a boy so it was quite a surprise. I don't know if I will really believe it until I see my little boy in the hospital.

Doctor's visit

Well Wednesday was a big day for us, we went and had our ultrasound. We're so excited to know what we're having!

I LOVE HALLOWEEN!!

As the title states, I love Halloween!!! This year was a lot of fun. As you can tell from the picture, Alexis was Dorothy, Camryn was a Southern Belle (she even used an accent), and Marina was a witch. We went trick-or-treating on Main Street (small town version of mall trick-or-treating) and of course the kids loved it. Then Josh took the kids around our neighborhood. I thought I would get some rest staying home and handing out treats, but alas, I didn't get to sit down for more then two minutes for almost two hours. It was crazy!! We eventually ran out of candy and just had to turn out the porch light. Then later that night we got toilet-papered. Josh is over the teachers in young men and we believe (know) it was his boys that did it. We only have one tiny tree so it really wasn't bad.

Last week I was in a play with a bunch of other moms at the local library. I was originally asked to fill in one day, one part for one of the other moms who could not do the play for two days. So I practiced that part for three weeks and then the day before the play the lady in charge called me and told me that our friend who played one of the other pumpkins had gone into early labor and could not do her part, so could I take her place and do two days instead of one? So I agreed and ended having to memorize a whole new part in one day. It worked out fine, though, and I had a lot of fun. So much fun that I agreed to be in the Christmas play in December. I didn't think a lot of kids would come and see it, but we ended up putting the play on for over 1,000 people in two days. In the picture I am the pumpkin with the Wendy's wig.

We also had a Halloween Party at our house. It was crazy, but fun. I actually dressed up for the first time since I was a kid, I was an Egyptian mummy. Surprise Josh was a mechanic! One more thing, since I have been pregnant I have been having heart palpitations and I really don't like it. My heart will beat really hard once and then normal again, at first it was only once a week or so but lately it has been happening almost everyday. Has anyone else experienced this? Is it common? Should I be worried? Comments would be appreciated.

Quick Update

Marina on a climbing wall at an indoor kids playplace in Boise. Okay she had a little help from Josh.

You know I always say I will post more often and yet it does not happen. What can I say, life gets busy. Last week we went on a short vacation to visit Josh's brother and his family in Boise. It was a lot of fun. They have four kids so my kids had a blast running around and playing with their kids nonstop for three days. Thanks for letting your kids stay home from school!! We went to the zoo and then a kids Discovery Center, which Alexis loved. I also had a great time, I enjoyed getting to know Josh's brother and his wife better. I think our families are a lot more alike then I ever thought before. So the trip went great and then we started to look at the weather for our drive home on Sat and realized that a massive snowstorm was going to hit Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah, all the places we had to drive through. So in an effort to miss the storm we left late Friday night, instead of Saturday morning, and drove to my parents in Utah. We woke up Saturday morning to the news that South Pass (the road we take home) was closed. So we ended up in Utah until Monday. We did have a nice surprise visit with my family, but what the heck, snow the first week of October?!?!?!?! At least it is all melted now. I'm not saying I don't enjoy the occasional snowfall, I do, at Christmas! While we were in Utah I went to see the doctor and so far the baby is growing and doing good, and I am also starting to feel better.

We went to the pumpkin patch with some friends a couple of weeks ago. The girls had a lot of fun, and we found a lot of great pumpkins. The best part was wandering through the corn maze, which was next to the pumpkin patch. The girls screamed almost the whole time, even though the only ones scaring them were the people with us.Marina at the pumpkin patch. She is too cute for her own good.