Mayli Elizabeth turned 5!

Mayli Elizabeth entered our family on December 5, 2005. She was 6 lbs 8 oz and 19 inches long. She was a beautiful baby and my labor with her was so easy. I went in for a check up and they did an ultrasound and found I had lost quite a bit of fluid. I had to head straight to the hospital from the doctors office. Katelyn was with me and the nurse in labor and delivery kept asking if someone was going to come pick up my little 17 month old. I assured her my husbands mother was on her way and would be here soon. 4 1/2 hours after starting pitocin Mayli made her debut. The doctor came and checked me at 3:45pm and said that I'd probably deliver about 10pm that night. But 20 minutes later I called the nurse in because I was sure I was ready...she said there was no way I'd make that much progress in that short amount of time. I instisted she check so she did and I was ready to deliver. At 4:21pm Mayli was born. Here are some pictures of the last 5 years:

A few minutes after she was born

Look at all that blonde hair!

This is the most decent picture I could find of me holding her when she was a baby.

Daddy with his 2nd baby girl

Mayli in her blessing dress

Mayli 2006 (age 1)

Mayli 2007 (age 2)

Mayli 2008 (age 3)

Mayli 2009 (age 4)

Mayli 2010 (age 5)

Our Mayli is an amazing little girl. She has so much to offer this world and we are so grateful that Heavenly Father sent her to our family. She is so silly and makes us laugh all the time. She is so smart and loves to learn. She is always asking me questions wondering how everything works. She loves to do homework with me and Katelyn and understands it a lot of the time. She loves to sing, dance, read, play with toys, color, and play outside. Mayli is so sweet. She always is trying to help someone in need and if she sees that anyone is sad she will do all she can to make that person feel better. She is so willing to share with her sisters. Mayli is a great helper and many times I find her cleaning something or downstairs trying to help me with the laundry. She has lots of energy and tends to get everyone a little crazy sometimes but she is a peacemaker in our family too. She loves the gospel, loves to bear her testimony in family home evening, and loves to pray and always says such great prayers. She will do so much in her life and we love her so much! Happy Birthday Mayli! Love you!

Mayli's Princess Birthday Party

Mayli had her 1st friend birthday party this year. We decided for our kids they only will get a friend birthday party for ages 5, 8, 12, and 16. So Mayli was so excited this year to have a party with her friends. She chose to have a princess party and we got a discount coupon from littledressupshop.com to have a princess come and do the party. It was a great time.

Here are some decorations for the party.

Our 5 year-old Mayli with her princess castle cake.

The pink castle cake. It was really easy to make and turned out super cute!

More decorations...Mayli was so excited when she woke up and saw all the decorations in the morning.

The lady that came decorated the family room and turned it into a princess dress up palace. Here was the 'salon'.

Here were all the extras they got to dress up with.

She brought shoes for all the girls. They were all so excited to pick out their favorite.

Each girl got to pick a dress they wanted to play in when they RSVP'd for the party. Madi chose Cinderella. She was so cute.

Katelyn picked Sleeping Beauty.

Mayli chose Rapunzel. Each girl brought their favorite doll or stuffed animal and they had a doll dress to match that they got to keep. And Mayli got to keep her dressup.

Here are the girls putting on their makeup. It was so cute. They all had so much fun!

Mayli opening her presents.

Mayli with the Princess

Kate with the Princess

Madi with the Princess

All of Mayli's friends. All the girls looked so cute! We had a great time!

Here is a video of the Mayi being announced coming to the 'Princess Ball'. All the girls were announced and Mayli was the last one. It was such a fun birthday party and Mayli had so much fun.

Mayli turned 5!

Yesterday was Mayli's 5th birthday! I can't believe she is already 5! We did most of Mayli's celebrating on the 4th because she had her 1st friend birthday party and since her real birthday was on a Sunday we did the party on Saturday. We also got to go to our little nephew Ian's baby blessing on the 5th so we did a family party with Mike's family Saturday night. She got lots of fun presents. I will post about the party and do an actual birthday post later.

We traveled up to Vernal for the blessing so we were out of town on her actual birthday. She was pretty excited when she woke up in the morning. Everyone was saying happy birthday and she was feeling pretty special. But then her day just turned into a 'bad day' as she put it. Everyone was playing and Mayli was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got kicked right in the nose. Then just a little while later she was up at the counter and fell backwards off the stool and hit her head and hurt her elbow. She was so sad and kept saying "it is supposed to be my special birthday day and it's just a bad day!" We went and did her hair and got to use one of her new awesome headbands and a flower that she got for her b-day. So she was a little more happy.

Then it was time for church and went and saw baby Ian's blessing. After we got back it was time to pack up to head home so Mike and I started packing up the van. Mayli was outside with us helping getting everything in the van and playing.

Well Mike has been bugging me about getting a hand gun for safety reasons. From the beginging I've been totally against it. There is just too much of a risk of your children getting to it and getting hurt. He said that there was a special safe we could put it in so they couldn't get to it and I still said sorry no. Well he thought maybe if I saw it I would think it was super cool and I would say ok. He had just gotten it from his brother and he had it in his hand and Mayli came running up behind him and she ran right into the butt of the gun. It hit right above her right eye above her eyelid. I heard her scream and start crying. I ran over and asked what happened and Mike said she ran into the gun. I thought it was rather ironic that within just seconds of getting the stupid gun Mayli already got hurt by it. I didn't know he had the gun anyway because he hadn't showed it to me yet. I looked at Mayli's eye and she was bleeding just a little bit. I took her into the house and got a paper towel wet to wipe it up to get a better look at it. I saw the cut and it was deep and wide. Aaron, my brother-in-law, is a PA and he came over to check it out. He took one look at it and said that it needed to be glued. Because of the place where it was stiches wouldn't have worked. He ran over to the clinic where he works and grabbed some special glue they use when they can't do stiches. It took him about 20 minutes to drive there and back so while he was gone we put some ice on it. Daddy felt really, really, really bad. So he got to hold her while everyone was trying to make her feel better. Uncle Marky let her play Angry Birds on his phone, Caleb her cousin got her some strawberry ice cream, and Aunt Sara got her some medicine to make the pain go away. Uncle Aaron got back and he took care of everything. It was so nice not to have to take her in to the ER. So Mayli's bad day got worse. But then she got lots of birthday calls from everyone and was feeling pretty special. Plus we went home and she got to open all of her new toys and play with them. So it ended up being an ok day after all.

Mayli with her hurt eye.

Pregnancy/Baby Update

Well things are moving along with the pregnancy. I'm almost 32 weeks. Which means that this baby is coming soon! Can't believe it! It's took a long time but it really went by fast. The baby is moving lots which is good but so not fun at bedtime...which is of course when she is the most active.

We just had an ultrasound and everything is looking good with the baby. I have a history of fluid loss with my last 2 pregnancies so my new OB is checking to make sure we catch it early if it happens this pregnancy. With this ultrasound everything looked good. My fluid levels were at 13 and he said they would induce labor if I got to a 7. I have another ultrasound at the end of the month and then from there he will check weekly.

30 Weeks Pregnant
Picture of the baby's face

It is a girl!

Here is her face again. This is one where she was opening her mouth.

Thanksgiving and Gingerbread houses!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving! We started the day out signing the papers to refinance our house. We were able to get a new, much lower rate! We were so excited and so happy we were able to get it taken care of! We then headed off to Mike's Aunt and Uncles house. We walked in and they had decorated it so cute...all the tables had cute centerpieces and everyone had their place with their name. It was so cute! We had a lovely time. The food was fantastic!

We then headed off to Mike's parents house. We spent time together as a family and enjoyed being together. We spent the night and the next day we made gingerbread houses! It is one of my most favorite days of the year! I of course forgot my camera so I didn't get pictures of any thing. Here is our gingerbread city and each house:

Our gingerbread city
Madilyn's house. She put on every piece of candy. She did such a great job!

Mayli's house. She did it all by herself (I did help her with the door). It is fun to see the kids really getting into it and being so creative!

Katelyn's house. She did it all by herself too. They had so much fun picking out candy.

Dede's house

Mike's house.

It was a lovely holiday! We had a great time and enjoyed remembering and thinking of things we are thankful for!

Welcome Home Elder Samuel Clayton

Well we made a surprise trip up to Montana to welcome my little brother Samuel home from his mission. He served in the Halifax, Nova Scotia mission. The only people that knew we were coming up were my mom, Caleb, and Sarah. Everyone else was surprised we were there. It was fun to be able to go and we were so excited to see everyone. :)

Here is Madi with her sign


The nieces that were there to welcome him off the airplane.

The skater boys ready to pounce on him when he came down the stairs

This was Madi's favorite way to hold her sign

Sam running down the stairs to us

The nieces giving him a big hug

Mom giving Sam a hug for the 1st time in over 2 years

Dad giving Sam a hug

Brothers re-united after almost 4 years. Their missions overlapped and Sam left just a few months before my brother Caleb came home.

Madi kept hiding under the chairs

All the boys...just the same as in high school

Sam with our family. He was so happy we came up and was surprised we were there. He was a great missionary and we are so happy he served faithfully for 2 years! We love ya bud!