Isaac Matthew

Now the world can see why I haven’t blogged for 2 months!!  I really hate to be behind on the blog, so I will figure out this new blogger format and catch up, but for now here are some pictures of our new little man!

Our beautiful Isaac Matthew Gardner was born on Friday, August 31, 2012 at 3:42 pm.  He was 8 lbs. 3 oz. and 19 ½ inches long.  The first thing everyone says when they see him is “Look at all that hair!”  He has a lot of dark hair, just like all his siblings had.  He has such beautiful eyes that I think are gonna stay brown, but sometimes they have a little bit of green or even blue in them.

  

(Flowers from Matt's work!  LOVE them!)

 

I love being in the hospital.  I love being there with just Matt and then meeting our new little one and then having the kids come up with Grandma!  The kids had such a fun time meeting their baby brother!

 

....and playing in the room!

 We had a lot of visitors...

Grandmas

and Grandpas

Aunt and Cousins 

(however, this is the only picture any of us have of DJ and her 5 kids...so sorry DJ!  

Guess that means you need to come see us again so we can get more pictures!)

 

an Uncle

and our babysitter!  ;)  and sweet sweet friend!

As much as I do love the hospital, I was definitely ready to get home.  With our Dr. in a bishopric it was a little bit hard to have him come and check us out on a Sunday, but he eventually came in all dressed up in his suit and tie, and released us!  I can't believe I don't have a picture with our wonderful Dr. Parker!  He is pretty amazing!  

Here we are waiting to take our little guy home!

Once we were home we were so happy to have even more visitors:  Aunts Uncles, cousins and friends! 

We were so appreciative of the gifts and the meals that were brought in!  We are so blessed!

Isaac is such a sweet baby and the kids all love him so much!  I feel like I have had more postpartum emotions with this baby than with any other.  For the first week or so I would tear up any time I was around Thomas.   For 3 years Thomas was the king of our house!  It broke my heart to take that away from him….even if it was to give him a baby brother.  But Thomas calls him his baby.  Even today he came in to my room and said, “Are you feeding my baby?!”  I’m glad that the kids still come into the room and always want to hold Isaac and play with him.  I’m also very thankful for the relationships they still have with each other…especially with Thomas.  

So now we are back to life!  Thomas was born right in the middle of the summer and when Kierra was born Kaylee was in kindergarten, so this is the first time having a newborn with kids that have homework and projects and hard days and things that make me need to get up and moving every day!  The picture below was from one of my first days home.  The kids had just left for school and I just wanted to stare at this little face all day and not do anything else.  I'm pretty sure that is all I did until the kids got home. 

I just want the rest of the world to stop.  The girls love to come home and love on him though.  They are always SOOOO very helpful!  I need to get more pictures of the older girls, because those first few days, this was all I got:

Most of the time it's just these younger 3 and me.  During the day I pulled the camera out more!  I sure love my 3 littles!

I LOVE my family!  I love my wonderful husband who is way more capable than I am at keeping this house up and running!  He is amazing!  My children are so beautiful!  They take on a lot of extra responsibility which sometimes I feel bad about, but it is incredible to see them step up to the challenge.  These last couple of months of sleep deprivation and craziness have been hard, but wow!...the last couple of days have been full of many tender mercies that remind me why  I want these little ones!  I LOVE our talks!  It amazes me that I can still find such precious one on one time with each of my kids!  That is a tender mercy to me!  Each day is starting to get better and better....even when sometimes a rough night gets thrown in there, life is getting more manageable, and relaxing and FUN!  I'm excited to love these kids and grow up with them!  I love my family!

Our first family picture!  So perfect!