This was from our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. Even though it snowed a few weeks earlier we were able to go and pick our pumpkins and go through the corn maze.

Preston's first time eating baby food. I love the bib!
Happy Birthday Marina!!!

So it has been a really long time since I last posted. I really want to keep this up, but I wonder if I really will. Anyways, the rest of the summer was great, we went to a week long family reunion with Josh's family in July. Then we went camping for a weekend with my family. Then we went to Yellowstone for a week. It was a lot of fun and one crazy summer. At the end of August school started and the kids love school. Alexis and Camryn are both doing really well and I am glad they both enjoy reading. Marina turned three in September. I can't believe she is already three!!
In October was Halloween, of course. Alexis was a "goth" fairy, Camryn was a vampire, Marina a princess, and Preston was a little Yoda. It was a great Halloween. It was even nice weather. The first week of November we went on a little family vacation down to see dental school friends in Fort Collins and Denver. We had a blast. Also the first week of November we celebrated our tenth anniversary. Okay so we really didn't do anything to celebrate it, it was on a Wed and Josh had scouts. But we are celebrating it in June with a trip to Paris, I am so excited! Thanksgiving was great. We went to Josh's parents house, which meant no traveling.
So I guess I should mention that I turned 30 in Sept. It really isn't that big of a deal to me. I don't feel any different. I look back at my twenties and I had a lot of fun and a lot of great things happened. We traveled to California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Tennessee, Mississippi, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, Washington D.C., New York, Kentucky (obviously), Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and Colorado. Josh finished dental school. I earned my Bachelors and my Masters. I had four beautiful kids. I look back and I had a great, but definitely not always easy and at times even difficult, ten years. I am looking forward to what my thirties will bring.

We have had quite the crazy summer so far. I think it will take me a couple of posts to catch up on everything. So first of all on June 28th Alexis got baptized and Preston was blessed!! It was an exciting, crazy, and wonderful day. We decided to do both on the same day so more family could come. Alexis really wanted to be baptized on her birthday and we were lucky that it happened to fall on a Sunday. Most of my family came up to see the events, including my Grandma. I was thrilled that she decided to come up. Most of Josh's family came too. So it was fun to have everyone there. And I was also impressed that Josh's brother Matt and his wife Crystal seriously thought of driving from Boise, they ended up not being able to come, but we appreciate the thought. Anyways, the day went smoothly. We started with sacrament and Preston's blessing in the morning, then a barbecue/birthday party for Alexis in the afternoon and then the baptism that night. It is kinda weird to have a child baptized. It came a lot faster then I thought it would. Here's some pictures, enjoy!

Camryn turned 6 this year, she talked about this birthday for a solid year! And they say kids don't have an attention span!
This is Marina in her Easter dress. She's dang cute and 100% girlie.
Here are the girls in their Easter outfits. Why is it impossible to get 4 kids to look at the same place at the same time?
Here's our cute little guy. I guess I have a thing for dressing up... He's about 7 weeks old in this picture.
This picture was when he was about 2 weeks old.


Well things have been pretty crazy here lately, which is why I have not blogged for a long time. Preston is already two months old and it has been fun and challenging having a baby again. I am really trying to enjoy it as much as I can, because this is our last little baby. Four kids is good for us. Preston is a good baby and the girls love him. Marina always gets right in his face and says "HIIIIII" I tell her to back and and say hi, but two year olds sometimes don't listen very well (can you believe that?!) The girls have ended yet another school year. Alexis finished second grade and Camryn finished Kindergarten. In April the older girls did soccer, which here is just crazy. We had soccer Mon thru Thurs at 5:45 for four weeks straight. No practices, the girls alternated games every night. Then in May we had our dance recital. It was a lot of fun. Alexis and Camryn love to get all fancied up with their hair and make up done. It is neat to see how their dancing has improved over the year. Josh is doing well in his practice, he has hired a new dentist who will start next month. I am trying to make it through each day being sleep deprived AND tired. I try not to look into the future and to just think about making to the end of each day with each kid still alive, fed, happy and mostly clean. The happy doesn't always happen, Alexis has entered a new phase of life where everything is "No fair!" Camryn is just unhappy if we try to make her do something she hates, like eat. Marina manages to have to go potty every time I am nursing, but I try to just be glad that she wants to go on the potty.

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.