Meet Parker Ann!

Parker Ann made her debut yesterday, February 26th at 5:31pm. She weighed in at 7lb 7oz, which ironically is the exact same weight as Ella and Grant and 2oz less than Paislee. She is 20" long, as you can see her hair is NOT red but a light brown/dark blond.

We came to the hospital at 7am planning on having my water broken and seeing how things progressed from there. At 9am the Dr came in and did just that, after 3 hours I had had only one contraction and so we decided to start some "pit" almost immediately the contractions began and within two hours I was asking for the epidural.

First family photo.

I was at an 8 almost immediately following the epidural (thank goodness I asked for it with time to spare) and then the day sort of took a "slow motion" route. Every 20-30 minutes I would have my position changed and we kept that up for 3 hours. At 4pm I was ready to push put the Dr. was with another patient. At 5:10 he arrived to the room and we discovered that her face was up (which is why things were moving so slowly) and we started pushing. With each contraction he rotated her ever so carefully and slowly she inched her way out over the next 20 minutes. It was a wonderful labor and delivery, even though it seemed like such a slow process in comparison to our other children's births, it was perfect!

Her first bath which occured at 1am!

Warming under the lights.

It was funny, when she was first born she looked a lot like Ella. By the time we were upstairs she resembled Grant and this morning she is completely her own little person.

She's eating well and is a content baby, we are so excited to have her in our family!

McCall Winter Carnival 2010 (of course with our children everything seems carnival-like)

Jake's brother Mike and their parents planned a weekend getaway for the 8 of us in McCall this past weekend. The intent was to enjoy the snow sculptures, sadly the warm weather and wet snow diminished the effectiveness of most of the scultptures. This is the kids in front of The Ram at the golf course. We spent Friday night walking through town checking out the scultpures. We enjoyed a family dinner at The Pancake House and then Jake, Grammy, Mike and the kids went swimming. Saturday was breakfast at the hotel, more swimming, a craft faire, sledding, lunch in Donnelly and a sleigh ride with spectacular views.

On the golf course there was a perfect hill for sledding and we spent an hour and a half watching the kids come down the hill. Ella was in heaven. Grant's first trip was perfect, he tucked himself in the sled, flat on his back and bulleted down the hill like a skeleton racer. His second run had him spinning 360s and he was finished for the day. Paislee did great until the sled approached a jump, she bailed and rolled scaring her and injuring her pride a bit.

Ella waiting for her turn next to the tree that the sled seemed to be magnetized to.

Here's Paislee coming down the hill, she wasn't as brave as Miss Ella but even after she crash and burned she tried again and enjoyed it.

Ella was the most successful sledder, she managed the straightest lines and the fewest crashes. There was one instance where her feet bounced off the tree causing a minute of anxiety but she wasn't phased in the slightest. I think she could've ridden down that hill all day long.

Grant adding a moustache to an already existing snowman.

Attempt at a family photo, Grant is tucked in there next to Jake and behind Grammy Shar.

This is absolutely the coolest part of the entire weekend. Mike scheduled a sleigh ride on a ranch where they feed a herd of elk during the winter. This is a picture of a seperate sleigh, hopefully you can see the 6-point bull elk that is feeding on the hay.

The elk are used to the sleighs and come right up to it and feed on the hay that is sitting on the sleigh. Even Grant's two year old, napless antics did not frighten them too badly. The elk were not shy, although our sleigh driver told us that if we were to step off the sleigh they would immediately leave the area, at that time they would identify us as hunters.

Paislee nose to nose with a 2 x 3 bull. She loves animals and sat there quietly watching and listening for the full 40 minutes. We were asked to keep our hands away from the animals and she had the discipline to listen, even though she admitted later that she really wanted to pet them. There were probably 50 head of elk in the herd, seriously a once in a life time experience.