Christmas 2009

What a fun Christmas we had this year!! We have always spent the holiday with other family either here at home, or away at my Mom and Dad's house, but this year we were at home with just ourselves. It was a different experience for me as we have always shared this holiday with others, but it was a blast enjoying our kids and having fun together! We had Matt's brothers and mother over for dinner in the afternoon and spent the evening playing the new Wii, watching movies, playing board games and just having fun. Here are a few pictures of our Christmas!


Building our gingerbread house on Christmas Eve


The final product! (Half of it is eaten already!)

Santa just arrived!

The stockings are stuffed!

Worn out already!

Brendan's Christmas loot!

Grace loved her Hannah Montana doll and poster!

Anna's favorite was her Care Bear.

Becky loved her new sparkly shoes!

Sarah just wanted to go and play! Going.....

Going.......

Gone!!

Gideon was awake for most of the gift opening but fell asleep as we were finishing. He seemed to enjoy all the noise and smiled at everybody all morning!

It was a great first Christmas for Gideon!

I was there - just spent a bit of time in the kitchen. It was a fun day though!

I am looking forward to going down to visit my family this week. Matt has to work and will be home alone, but I think his new Wii will keep him company for the most part. I am so excited to meet my new little niece - what an amazing Christmas miracle! It should be a fun trip with all the kids - they are excited to play with their cousins. Family is awesome!!!

Pictures

Gideon will be three months old this week! I can hardly believe how fast the time has flown by. Here are a few pictures of our little guy......

Snuggles with Anna


Happy boy!



Sarah's reading a story to Gideon


Sarah and Gideon having a nap together.

Catching some zzzzz's.....

We sure love this little guy. He is such a good little baby. Gideon enjoys sitting and watching all the action of our busy house. He loves his soother and falls asleep all on his own. He is sleeping longer at night and staying awake more during the day. Gideon is starting to find his voice and loves to coo and gurgle and tell us lots of fun "stories". He is usually happy unless he is hungry or needs a change. We love his smiles and happy disposition.

Rebecca

Today is Rebecca's 4th birthday. I have some very clear memories of 4 years ago right at this very moment! Mary Lou came up and stayed with our other kids and then stayed for a week to help out. Rebecca was a sweet little baby and a joy to add to our family.

She has grown up into a smart little girl and we still really enjoy having her around!! Becky had a little party with her best friend Ashlyn yesterday and then took some cupcakes to share with all her friends at school today.

She loved the new blanket I made for her. Her previous blanket had been loved to shreds and so I made her one just like the previous one, just bigger.

Just to add to the fun, Becky had a bit of an accident this afternoon and ended up with three stitches in her chin. She was not happy to go to the doctor and even less happy about having him put the stitches in, but she actually did really well and even calmed down a little bit when I quit squeezing her hands so tight. I forgot that she was supposed to be squeezing my hands - I guess I was a little nervous too. Rebecca is the first of our kids that have needed stitches and I have never been that close watching stitches being put in before. We stopped by the grocery store afterward and she picked out a treat - Oreo's - and was happy as a clam after that. Another day to remember that is for sure!!

Let the fun begin!

I love reading blogs and I check the ones I read quite regularly. I love hearing about all the fun things that my family and friends are doing and get a little disappointed when there has been nothing new updated. Then I realized that I don't update mine very often either. It seems like we are always doing the same things and there isn't much to say. Well, just when I think things are settling down......
I got a call from one of our Bishop's counsellor's yesterday and he came over to extend a new calling for me. I am a little bit overwhelmed as they have asked me to be the Gospel Doctrine Teacher!! That has always been a calling that I have been a bit intimidated by. My friend teaches the class now and says it is her favorite calling, but I think it will take a little getting used to before I refer to it as such. I guess I have some growing and learning to do - I just hope the class will have some patience with me as I do that. Especially since next year we are starting on the Old Testament! I have always wanted to learn more about it as I don't think I was paying too much attention in seminary. So here we go - let the good times roll!!

Lately.....

Halloween has come and gone and I am very behind, but better late than never!

The girls had fun getting the seeds out of the pumpkin!

This one is a little fuzzy, but it is the only one we got of Becky. I wish I would have gotten one of her going to school the day before. She decided to be a "Fairy Cow". She wore a cow costume with fairy wings on the back - it was hilarious. I am sure her teachers at school had a good chuckle over that one!

We had a lot of laughs with this costume too! Especially when Matt decided to try it on!!

Grace was sick on Halloween and slept right through trick or treating. Becky took an extra bucket and got her some treats though!

Brendan wasn't so sure about this costume at first, but he got a lot of good reactions!

I didn't actually get any pictures of Sarah. She was a little leopard. Matt was home with the older kids and I was on a little road trip with Cub and Rachel and their kids. We went down south for Mason's baby blessing and went trick or treating at a few houses down there. It was fun to watch Sarah and Zach figure out what trick or treating was. Sarah thought when the door opened she was just supposed to walk right in - so she did! So fun!!

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We are having so much fun with our little Gideon. He is such a happy baby. He smiles all day and is starting to sleep better at night too. I was a little worried that Sarah would have some sibling rivalry issues, but she really loves him!

Reading stories together already!

Lots of loves!!

I love this little outfit we got for him! It makes him look like such a little man.

I must admit that life has its ups and downs, but right now life is definitely GOOD!!

We Share Everything!

We have a book that my kids love to read by Robert Munsch called "We Share Everything"
It is a fun story about a couple of kindergarten kids that are having a hard time sharing. The kindergarten teacher comes over between every little argument and tells them that they should share everything. They end up being good friends and sharing even their clothes! I am sure there are many kindergarten classes that focus on sharing because it can be a hard thing to do sometimes.



Well, my daughter Anna is in kindergarten and her classmates have done a little too good of a job sharing right now. I knew that when Anna came home from school on Friday and said, "My friend threw-up on the carpet today!", that it was only a matter of time. Anna woke up not feeling well at all this morning, so it looks like I have another week of quarantine. Hip hip hurray!

First Smiles!!

I am always so excited when my babies start to smile and interact with me! Here are a few that I got of Gideon today - he is a happy baby!!

Double Birthdays

This week I had a neice and a nephew born on the same day and it got me thinking about all the double birthdays we have in our family.

March 4 - my sister Mindy and my son Brendan

April 28 - ME, my sister Melissa, Matt's Grandpa (and Mike and Melissa's anniversary)

October 5 - my neice Lauren and my nephew Mason

October 12 - Matt, my neice Alysha, my brother-in-law Dan

October 20 - My Dad, Matt's Dad, Dan's Mom

Not to mention my Grandpa and his sister who were born on the same day too!! I guess it is nice not having to remember so many birthdays, and kind of fun too!!

Thank you AMA!!

I had a bit of a heart pounding afternoon this week! Thursday morning was shaping up to be a busy morning with a few extra errands added on to my day. It was playgroup day, but then Rebecca forgot her glasses when she went to school, I decided that I should return dishes from meals brought to us, and since my older girls were getting a little bored during nap time - I thought I should probably take them to the library for some new reading/watching material. So, I took Rebecca's glasses to her school and let her show off her new baby brother for a few minutes. Then we went to playgroup, picked up Anna from school, took the dishes back to their owners, picked up Rebecca from school and headed to the mall. Since nobody had had lunch, we were there to eat out as well as it was about 12:30 by this time. We got to the mall and the parking lot closest to the library was mostly full. I am getting better at parking Big Red, but I still need a bit of space to feel comfortable. So I looked around and found a spot over by Safeway that even had some shade! It wasn't as hot as the day before, but still a nice day at about 23 degrees. I was getting all the girls out of the van and getting them settled in or close to the stroller. I pushed the button to lock the door to the van and set the keys in my purse and realized that Sarah needed my attention so I set my purse down (in the van) and turned to help her. Anna then decided to be a big helper and shut the door to the van! Now remember that my purse and keys are still in there, but so is my baby!!! Aaaauuuggghhh!!! Now what do I do??? I quickly ran into Safeway and went to the customer service desk and asked for some help. They looked up the number for AMA and told them the situation and I went back out to the van to wait for them. They showed up 5 minutes later and had my van open 5 minutes after that! I was so glad that it wasn't too hot and that I had parked in the shade. Gideon was just sleeping away - this didn't faze him in the least thank goodness. I looked around to find the AMA guy and he was in his truck driving away. He didn't even ask my name or if I had a membership or anything!! I feel very blessed that I was able to get the help I needed so quickly. You can bet that my doors will not be locked until everybody and everything is OUT of the van from now on!!

Gideon

We are excited to announce the arrival of Gideon Matthew Roger Hatch to our family!

Gideon arrived on Sunday, September 13, 2009 at 11:51pm. He is 21 1/2 inches long and weighed 10lbs 8 oz (I know, I know - - I was there!!).

I started having some contractions on Sunday morning though nothing too regular. I went to church at 1pm and ended up going home after sacrament meeting as I wasn't feeling great. After laying down for a couple of hours I felt fine and had no contractions at all for those two hours. We had supper after everybody else came home and cleaned up the house. Later on Matt and I went for a walk to see if things would get moving. We walked for about half an hour and I started having some pretty strong contractions, but again, not very regularly. We went home and put the kids to bed and played a game of Catan. By about 9:30 they were coming about every 5 minutes and so we made a few arrangements for the kids, made lunches for the next day, and finished packing my bag. I sat down for a few minutes around 10:30 just to make sure they were going to continue and by 10:45 I was having contractions every 2 minutes and figured it was time to head to the hospital. We arrived upstairs at about 11pm and I was sent right into a delivery room. I was at 5cm at abou 11:15 and then the doctor came in and broke my water and I was immediately at 6cm and 20min later I was ready to push. And so at 11:51 our BIG baby boy arrived. We are all super excited to have him here and he has been an awesome baby so far. I am having a few problems with some nasty inflammed varicose veins, but other than that I am feeling fine. The kids all love Gideon and want to hold him all the time. Sarah is getting better at being gentle - she thinks Gideon is her personal baby and says "Hi" and waves to him whenever she sees him. What a great way to complete our family!!

Back to school!

What a crazy last couple of weeks! School started on Wednesday last week - I know - weird day to start school, but oh well. We were babysitting extra kids until Monday and Tuesday anyway, so it was nice to have just my kids in the house again. Brendan started Grade 7 (I am NOT that old!!) and he is doing well riding his bike to a new (much bigger) school with all new teachers and schedules. The school is 2 1/2 km away, so it is a nice bike ride for him right now before the snow flies anyway. Grace started Grade 2 this year and she really likes her new teacher. Anna is finally in kindergarten. She was so excited for her first day of school and kept saying over and over "I can't believe it's my first day, I can't believe it's my first day!" all the way to school. She was in that door and had her indoor shoes on, backpack hung up and over playing with the other kids so fast, I hardly had a chance to say goodbye! I am glad she is going to have a great year and that she will enjoy it so much! Rebecca started preschool at ABC Headstart - the same one Anna was at last year. We spent a lot of time there last year and so she was quite familiar with all the teachers and the classroom. She was a little nervous knowing that it was for her this time, but she did really well until they had her take her new shoes off and leave them there. She was in tears for quite a while because she wanted to keep her new shoes with her! The next day she was just fine though. It is a little strange sending my not quite 4 year old on a bus all by herself, but she doesn't seem to have a problem with it. Last week was a little strange because of staggered entry days for Rebecca and Anna - Anna only went to school on Thursday, and Rebecca went on Wednesday and Friday. That worked for me and being able to be with both of them on their first days of school though. Tomorrow is the start of regular schedules for everybody and I will be here at home with just Sarah to keep me company. That is until this next little one arrives. He is due this coming Saturday - - 5 more days!! It seems strange that D-Day is finally here and here already. I have been trying to keep on top of things, but things keep getting the better of me. I know that I will always have something to fill my days anyway. Here's to an awesome school year!

Grace's Birthday

Grace turned 7 years old on Monday, August 24. The Saturday before her birthday she had a party for a bunch of her friends. With guests and siblings there were 11 little girls running around our house for 3 hours that day!! Understandably, Brendan made himself quite scarce for the afternoon, but Matt had no choice but the help out. The girls had fun playing outside in the sprinkler, suntanning, playing with balloons, making necklaces and bracelets, face painting, putting on nail polish, eating cake and watching Grace open her presents. It was a wild and crazy afternoon, but I think Grace really had a lot of fun and she got some cool gifts too.

Corn on the cob

I finally found corn on the cob that I could actually enjoy because I wasn't choking on the price!! Safeway has corn on sale right now at 6 for $2, so I bought a dozen and that is part of what we had for supper tonight. I have never seen a dozen cobs of corn disappear so fast! My kids thought they were in heaven. Sarah had never had corn on the cob before, but she caught on quick! I only have pictures of Sarah - the rest of them ate too fast!!

"BIG RED"

We have been looking for a new vehicle the past little while, knowing that when this new baby is born, we were going to be out of seat belts for everybody in our family. Last week we finally found what we had been looking for. "Big Red" is the newest member of our family.... for a few weeks anyway until "Freddie" decides to make his appearance. It is definitely a bigger van than what I am used to driving, but the kids love it and there is lots of room to spread out and have a bit of space. I am sure we will have many memories with this new vehicle - let the adventures

continue!!

Room for 12!

Radio, Tape player, CD player, A/C, Tilt, Cruise, etc, etc, etc!!