Where has the time gone?!

Over a year again? Wow I really am the worst blogger in the world! I've been working on getting our lives better organized and generally getting "more on top of things" and I think that adding time to be blogging and documenting our lives needs to be added to that. I can't believe how much has happened in our lives this last year! Lets do a bit of a re-cap shall we?! This last year we didn't move!! I know that this might not sound like much to most people but we have been in the same place for almost 3 years and guess what?!! That is the longest I have ever lived in one place... EVER... In my whole life. I think it is a bit of an accomplishment for me! We have really liked living here. We love that we have no neighbors above or below us! All three of the kids love being able to slide down the stairs and the boys even do it sitting up... It is really funny to see and I think I might need to get a video of it one of these days! One of the down sides of have lived in the same place for so long is that it is going to be that much harder to leave here. We love our ward! We have made so many friends here so getting ready to leave in the not so distant future is getting hard! As for leaving we are have decided a big thing.... We have put in all the paper work for our family to move up to Canada! We started talking about it a year ago... well to be honest we have talked about it from the time we got married but we really started to look into it for reals last spring. We were going to try to get it all sent out last summer but we decided to take our set aside cash and took a trip out to Utah last June and decided we would get going on the immigration stuff in the fall. Well we got the ball rolling last September and finally got all of our paperwork sent out on February 23rd. We are now waiting to hear back about approval and are hopeful that we will be all approved sometime this summer. It is a really big thing to decided but we know that it is the right and best choice for our family. We are getting excited for this next step in our lives but are also just ready to have it done! But for now we are trying to keep busy and not stress about the when and just be happy in the now. At least having three active toddlers/pre-schoolers helps... a lot!

Sam will be turning 5.. Yes 5!!!CRAZY!! in May. He is excited to be able to go to school when he is 5 and is always packing backpacks so he will be all ready for when he gets to go to school...lol He is a very smart boy and loves to learn! We decide to not send him to pre-school but just to learn at home. He is able to count to 100 and has learned what umbers come before and after each other. He is able to tell all of his letters and their sounds and we are working on the sounding out words right now. He is getting better at writing his letters but still has a ways to go but we still have lots of time before he goes to school to get that all down. He takes after his dad in his love for electronics! in fact all three of our children are getting to be quite the experts at working all the game consoles and both boys love playing games on the computer. Sam really is a funny kid and is so sweet! He will sing to Evie when she is sad and loves to be the big brother and teach and help his younger brother and sister. Calvin turned 3 last month... I can't believe that he is 3 either! He is such a sweetheart! He is our compassionate little man! He seems to be able to just know if someone needs a hug and is quick to run up and give you one. He is quite the little chatter box and definitely reminds me of my sister Katie that way! He loves to follow Sam around but because of that tends to be a bit accident prone! Starting at Christmas in 2010 we had 3 trip to the ER for and nasty toe cut, staples (5 in the back of his head) and glue (for a split-open eyebrow) and he had to have a minor surgery on his man parts last November but we are happy to say that he is doing great and we have now gone almost 5 months without anything major...knock on wood! He is still in Nursery at church but seems to still love it. Now that Evie is 18 months old he is excited to take her with him to nursery and her first week in he grabbed her hand and told her to come one and that Brad should leave. Brad said it was pretty funny! Miss Evalynn is getting to be a crazy little lady! She is now 18 months old and is quite the little spitfire! She just hit the 20lbs mark and is still in 12month clothes so it is still pretty funny to see such a little baby doing all of these big girl things. She for sure knows what she wants and will let you know! She seems to be learning new words every day and loves to garble to herself and LOVES to sing! I'm pretty sure everyone in our ward can hear her singing during sacrament meeting. It's really cute! Like I said she is now in nursery and seems to be doing well there. I'm not the one that drops her off but Brad said she pretty much just goes in and her teachers say she is great! Her hair is getting longer now and I have loved being able to put it up in piggy tails and I have even been french braiding it. She has started to have a bit of an evil laugh... it is really funny! She will do it when she thinks she it getting away with something she shouldn't be doing.

I have been busy taking care of us all and I'm also the 2nd counselor in our ward Primary. I work with a great bunch of ladies and we have fun in our crazy callings! I have really been loving it! Brad also just got a new calling at church and is now the 2nd counselor in the Elders Quorum. I'm still not sure how much that will change how our week of meetings will look but it will be an adventure to say the least!

We are all excited to be seeing the sunshine around here and I can't wait for all the warm summer weather for us to do fun things! As this will most likely our last one living here we are planing to get as much weight seeing in this spring and summer! Brad and I even have a trip alone planed for next month! It will be our first time leaving all three kids overnight seeing as the only other times we have left any of them is to go to the hospital to have a new baby this will be a very long overdue vacation! We are going to drive down to San Francisco for 3 nights and then take the coastal highway home. We will be gone for 6 nights and I can't wait!

I guess that's about it for now.... I will try to get some pics from the last year on here and hopefully I will be better at keeping up on here!

Evie loves hiding all over.. even on the shelf

All three on Christmas morning

Checking out "Mini-Moose" Calvin's birthday present from grandma and grandpa Martin

Brothers chilling out with the iPod after Calvins 3rd birthday party

All of us at Lindsey's wedding last August

Playing at the Park

It has been pretty rainy the last few days...um weeks...months?? around these parts so when it was nice and sunny on Saturday I decided it would be a nice day to head out to the park just around the corner. Sometimes the idea of heading out with just me and the three kiddos is enough to make me ready for a nap but I'm really trying to get out and do more stuff and especially free things! It only took us 15 minutes to be all dressed and ready to go (miracle!!)We took the long way to get there so I got a bit of a workout pushing the stroller with the boys in to and Evie in the moby wrap but once we got to the park everyone had lots of fun! I even got some cute pictures with my phone! Now if only we could get a sunny day and Brad's day off to match up...

Calvin is 2!!!

so cute snuggling with daddy after a bath

Calvin is two!!! It seems crazy that my sweet little boy is two....that is until I remember that he is a big brother so he better be two...haha

On his birthday our poor boy wasn't feeling so good. We ended up getting up and heading off to the doctor office to find out that he had bronchitics and an ear infection(his first ever) but he was still just as happy as could be.

here are all of our Veggie tales cake pops ready to be eaten all up

A few months ago Calvin came up to me and asked for a veggie tales cake and I told him for his birthday and from then on he reminded me every day about his veggie tales cake. I decided to make two of his favorites from the show, Larry and Bob, and Calvin was so excited! We had a party at home for him and we were happy every one that made it was able to come (even risking getting sick and all!)

Calvin is such a sweet little boy! He loves to follow Sam around and they play really well together. He is a very smart little boy! He is learning his ABC's and counting and I can hear the two boys singing together after bed time. He talks very well (in fact he already is beyond the 3 year old expectations in the "books") and my favorite things are when he comes down saying he loves us or wants some loves! He is very sweet with his baby sister and loves to make her giggle! I love you my sweet little snuggle bug! Happy birthday!!!

Evalynn's Four Months Old

Yes I know that I haven't posted about Christmas yet but I will... Evie turned 4 months old on the 5th of January so I thought that I would put up her monthly photos to show how she is growing. She is such a happy little girl! Evie has started to really use her voice and her favorite time of day to chat is right after the boys are put to bed. It's almost like she wants to fill in Brad and I about how crazy they were all day! She loves to watch and laugh at Sam and Calvin and they are pretty quick to entertain her! We have added more formula to her diet and it seems to be working as she is starting to get a bit of chubbs on her, but she is still pretty little. She has started to wear some of her 3 month clothes but as you can see from her 4 month photo they tend to be a bit baggy still. Evie started rolling over from her tummy onto her back and she has also started to try to hold and grab her toys and loves to pull her blankie up over her face just like Sam did at her age. She will pull her blanket up over her face when she is sleeping and if we try to take it off she gets pretty mad at us. At least it is a crochet one so there is lots of air space but it is still a little scary to me. She sleeps for a good 6-7 hours a night and then wakes up to eat and sleeps for a few more hours so I'm starting to get some good rest also! I can't believe that she is already 4 months but at the same time it feels like she has always been here. We all love our little lady!!!

Evalynn's Blessing

Yesterday at church Brad gave Evie her name and blessing at church. It was a very sweet blessing! Evie garbled a bit during it but she tends to talk to daddy when he is talking to her anyway so it was cute. The boys did really good and Sam kept telling me how cute Evie looked in her dress.

I decided to make Evie's dress because the boys both wore the same outfit Brad wore when he was blessed but it just wouldn't work for a girl. I found a cute crochet pattern and decided it was time to try my first outfit and I would have to say it turned out pretty great! I was a little worried about it because this is the first time I had made any clothing other then hats but it was really not that hard as long as you can read a pattern. Mostly it just took a long time because it was done with such a small hook but it was well worth the effort! Evie looked so cute in it and I'm so glad to have something that we can keep for other baby's in our family to use and hopefully for our granddaughters some day. We were so glad to have everyone that was able to make it come to be there for Evie on her first steps on our Heavenly Fathers path for her!

Two week check-up... well almost four week check-up

We took Evie for her '2 week check-up' yesterday. Yes I know that she is almost 4 weeks... I really suck at getting us in for well baby/well child/OBGY appointments all the time but oh well.... When I took her in at 2 days old she had lost some weight and was down to 5 lbs 14 oz but that was all fine because most nursed babies lose some weight but gain it back. I forgot to call and make her next appointment but we did have the home health nurse come by this past week and when she came we were sad to see that Evie was still at 6lbs and 2.5 oz. This had the HHN a bit freaked but told me to not let the baby go more than 2 hrs between feeding and came back the next day. Well the next day when we put the baby on the scale she was 6lbs 2 oz so we called the dr and set up an appointment to just check her and started her on formula. When we took her to the Dr she was up to 6lbs 4oz so they thought that that was looking better and now we are getting her weighted next week 3 times to make sure we are getting a bit of chubs on her. I wasn't so shocked by this because we had a bit of the same issues with Calvin when I tried to nurse him as a newborn. I really did try to exclusively nurse Evie but I guess I am really one of the few woman that just can't produce enough milk. I really always looked at it as not so much that "breast is best" but more as a "healthy and growing baby is best" and if that means formula and nursing then great! Other then the low weight Evalynn is doing great! She is a pretty calm little girl. She really only tends to cry when she is starving (so most of the time that has been not much crying because she was always eating!) She is really calm and alert. She loves to look around and move her arms and legs. The boys really love her and are always wanting to give her loves and kisses. Yesterday I was cleaning up a spill on the couch and she was laying on the couch and Calvin was standing next to her leaning in and out would kiss her little hand each time he leaned in. It was so cute! Sam loves to come into my bed in the morning and gives her kisses and always is saying "oh she is so cute!" They are both really sweet with her but a lot of the time they need to be reminded to be gentle. Brad when back to work on the 20th and it was hard at first but we have really been working out the bumps of me being really out numbered. In fact I'm even going out with just me and the kids a lot now. It takes a bit more planing but we seem to have getting in and out of the car down to an art now. I even took the three of them to Ikea yesterday (Now that Sam is 3 and potty trained he gets to go in the play place) It was really kinda fun... But the cries of my sweet little girl are calling for me to feed her so that is all for now! We have been a little camera crazy so enjoy!!

Little Miss Evalynn

Here she is! Evalynn Marie Martin was born at 2:59am the 5th of September! She weighed in at 6lbs and 8oz and is 18.5 inches long.
Here is how it all went down... My due date was the 10th but with needing to be induced with both boys the dr pretty much thought that this time would be the same so when I went in for my last appointment we pretty much talked about when we could induce (Sept 17 would have been that day because the hospital requires you to be 41 weeks) I left the appointment more than a little sad but at least I had a set date. Saturday seemed to be going just like any other day had. In fact I had some people call to check in for an update for baby progress but at that point I had nothing to report. Around 7pm I started to have a few contractions and by 7:30 I started keeping track of them (in the past once I start keeping track they tended to just fade away) By 9:30 they seemed to be getting closer. Around 10:30 they were averaging about every 5 minutes apart. Brad and I decided that if they got to about 4 apart by midnight we would head in to the hospital. Well by midnight they were at the 4 min mark and I was thinking that I would like an epidural! We got the boys up and in the car and headed over to Brad's parents place to drop off the boys. We then rushed off to the hospital because at that point we were down to 2-3 mins apart. We got to the hospital at 12:50am and they got me all set up in triage to see if this was the real deal. Well they checked me and sure enough I was 7cm dilated.... Yep I said 7! I had never gotten past a 4 without an epidural with both boys so I was pretty shocked! They got us into our room and had everything all set so I got my epidural about 20 mins after we got into our own room. We were all set up by 2:15 and we all thought that we would have about 2 hrs before she was here.... Boy were we wrong. Our nurse went out to get all of the paperwork done up but when she was gone I started to feel a lot of pressure so I told Brad to call her up to let her know... Lucky for us while Brad was looking for the phone she came in and I was like 'I think I need to push' and sure enough I did need to push! They called in the dr while I was trying very hard to not push...Who would have thought that it was harder to not push than it is to just push?! They got all set up in record time and let me push... and then right away I was told to stop pushing because the baby's head was out... Yep it was just that fast! One push and she was out! We didn't even make it to 3am! She is a very sweet little girl and we all love her to bits already! The boys seemed pretty happy when they got to meet her and now that we are all home they have loved giving her kisses. Sam loves to watch her in her bed and tells her in a very sweet voice "It's okay Evie" Calvin seems really happy to point at her and say "Baby!" over and over and they both love to give her kisses and loves! So far she is a pretty good sleeper and has slept for a few good stretches. She is eating well even with me trying to just nurse her. We got out of the hospital around 1 today and are glad to be home. The boys are now in bed and Evie is taking a little snooze. I would have to say I feel really great for just having a baby less than 48hrs ago and we all seem to be doing pretty good at adjusting to a family of five... Lets keep our fingers crossed that it stays that way!