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!

 

Camping 2012

So we did it! We love camping and we really don't mind being in a tent! In fact it's very fun for us and the kids wouldn't have it any other way. However, as much as we really do love our big spring bar tent, this spring we had an itch to get us something different. We searched KSL classifieds for quite a while wondering if we really wanted a tent trailer. Or should we wait until we might have a suburban and get something bigger? (the vehicle decision making situation is a post for another time) :) Well, a friend of ours knew we were looking and one day Matt came home from work with this!!



The kids were sooooo super excited! Thomas couldn't wait to go "Comping"! We set it up quite a bit in our side yard before even being able to take it our for real!

Daddy and the kids slept in it a bunch and we spent many a Sunday afternoon just having lunch in it! :) (Thomas really is smiling below....this was in his "how do I smile for the camera?" phase!)





FINALLY!! We had a weekend to ourselves!! It was actually Father's Day weekend, which made it even more fun! We packed up our tin foil dinners on a Thursday night and headed up to Timpanogos Campground near Sundance.



We found a great spot...set up ladderball....played some cards....



made s'mores....



And smiled for the camera! It was perfect!!



The reason we stayed so close to home was so that Matt could still go in to town on Friday and work.
While he was gone the kids colored rocks....





Mom made lunch...



And we had a farewell ceremony for one of our longest lasting camp chairs! :)



The kids and I attempted to hike to Stewart Falls by ourselves. I think we made it a little less than half way before deciding to turn back and maybe go with Daddy that night. Here was our rest and turn around point. It was still a fun hike!



That night Matt came back from work and we tried the hike again! I'm so thankful we waited for him! It's not too bad of a hike, but much easier with a second adult. We ran into some friends from our neighborhood too, so that was extra fun!





It was a little late in the evening and we knew it would be dark by the time we got back so we didn't hang out for too long. I LOVE the picture below of my cute family! I'm glad that we have these fun times as just us! We have fun talks and sing songs! Even little Thomas and Kierra are tons of fun on these hikes!



The next day the kids painted a little bit more....



and got a little more dirty!



On our way home we decided to stop at Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon. This was fun and relaxing and felt soooo good on hot, tired feet! :)








I was a little slower than the rest coming back from the falls and this is how I found my family! :)



I'm thankful for these times with just us! There were a couple of weekends this summer where we just felt that need to get away from the hustle and bustle of the world and just be with each other! When we are just us it is amazing how great the kids play, get along, help each other, help me! They are pretty good at home....I don't want it to sound like they aren't, but I LOVE watching them just be with each other! It's perfect! It's heaven on earth!! :)