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My little sun baby

Maddie and Jeni have been the best helpers with their new little sister. They wanted to help me give Charity a bath the other day. They each took turns wiping her with a nice warm wash cloth since we can't put her in the tub until the last of her umbilical cord falls off. One would wash her while the other manned the camera. Gracie wanted to get in on the action too. She helped me wash Charity's hair.

When we finished her bath it was still bright and sunny outside (unusual with our crazy weather we are having right now!) so I laid a towel in front of the window, covered Charity's eyes with a hat and laid her in the sunlight to help clear up the newborn jaundice she has.

She didn't like her bath at all but she loved laying in the sunlight. Once the sun warmed her up she was totally relaxed and let me rub her down with lotion without a fuss. A couple of short sessions in the sunlight made an amazing difference in her color! She is a pretty little pink baby now!

Making blocks

You know the old adage about giving a child a present and they would rather play with the box? We had such a moment at our house last week. We got a package and Nathan was dying to open it. He ran and got a little knife and with careful supervision he soon had the package unloaded. I asked him to put the knife away and then went to give Charity a bath. A few minutes later I came back in the room and he and Grace were busy cutting "blocks" out of the packing foam! I had one of those "what-do-I-do-as-a-responsible-parent" moments. Do I freak out and snatch the knife away with a stern lecture about the dangers of sharp, pointy objects? Or do I let him continue on with his careful cutting and let him practice a new skill that was obviously bringing him great joy? In the end I settled somewhere in the middle. With some instructions and many "Be careful!"s from me I let him keep cutting. Maybe that earns me the bad Mom of the Year award but I figure it's a skill he needs to learn at some point and the foam was a good medium for it.

He and Grace had so much fun with their blocks. He would cut them and she would stack them up or pile them back in the box. She would find one that was too big and toss it back to Nathan so he could cut it smaller. They played and played with those silly blocks. They were all pretty small by the time Nathan was finished with them.

Eventually the blocks got small enough that I made Nathan give me the knife and call the project finished. But we made it through without a single cut or scratch, some new skills learned and an afternoon of cheap entertainment for Nathan and Grace.

Announcing the arrival of...

our little girl! Charity Rose was born the day before my scheduled c-section. She didn't want to wait any longer I guess. Tuesday morning I woke up with contractions at 1:00 am or so. I couldn't go back to sleep because they just kept getting stronger, but not regular enough to go to the hospital. They varied from 5-25 minutes apart. When daylight finally arrived I got up sent the kids to school, Bob to work and took a warm bath to hopefully settle things down. It helped and the contractions stopped during the morning. By that afternoon they were starting up again but very random. We ordered pizza for dinner because I wasn't up to anything else and then we headed out to Nathan's Joy School graduation that evening. It was really cute and he had a great time.

When we got home I climbed into another hot bath to see if that would help anything and then went to bed. As soon as I laid down though the contractions really started to build intensity and were more frequent but still not as close together as the doctor had suggested before I headed off to the hospital. But the longer I laid there, the more they hurt and then the baby started it's evening gymnastics which pushed me over the edge. I couldn't take another night of this! I went downstairs and cried on Bob for a while and then called the hospital about 11:30. They said for me to come in and get things checked out. We called Bob's sister to come and stay with the kids and got to the hospital about 12:15 am Wednesday morning. Can I just say that security in the hospital has stepped up a lot since I was there last?! Bob started filling out forms while I waited for someone from Labor and Delivery to come and get me and escort me upstairs.

After they monitored me for a while and my doctor, who just happened to be at the hospital for another delivery finished up, they prepped me for a c-section and rolled me into the OR. Charity Rose arrived at 4:04 am on Wednesday May 25th. She weighed 6 pounds 15 ounces and was 19.5 inches long and beautiful in every way! She had a very healthy set of lungs which she started using as soon as they pulled her out and didn't stop crying until they got her into the nursery and bundled up.

I love pictures of Bob's big hand on the little tiny babies. I always forget how truly tiny newborns are.

Maddie and Jeni couldn't wait to come and see their newest little sister as soon as they got home from school.

Grace didn't even notice the baby at first until someone passed her back to me. She has been fascinated with "Daridy" ever since then. She is the best little helper and wants to be around the baby all the time. Her favorite thing is to help me with Charity's binky by going and getting it for me. Then she drops it a few times, sucks on it a few times herself, plays with it and then finally goes and washes it in the bathtub for me. Sometimes it takes a while to get a binky clean enough to actually give to Charity!!

It's finally time to go home!

Nathan on the other hand really didn't want much to do with the baby at first. It took him a few days to warm up to her enough to want to hold her. But now that he has you can see that he loves her a lot!

Welcome to our family Charity Rose!!

Nathan's last Joy School Graduation

Nathan graduated from Joy School last Tuesday night. This is his third and final graduation as he will go to full time Kindergarten next year. He has enjoyed his Joy School experience very much and so have I. It's a great program that I have really come to love! I love that it is so focused on values and experiences rather than academics. I feel like those will come soon enough! Anyway, here are a couple of pictures from his graduation.
He had four other kids in his class: Luke, Nina, Lydia and Camille. It was fun to get to know some new friends this year.
Nathan will go to Kindergarten this year and Grace is a little young for Joy School so I will take a year off and then we'll do it all again!

Girls night/day out and a surprise!

Bob and Nathan went on a father/son stake camp out a couple of weekends ago so me and the girls decided we wanted to have some girl fun together too. We had a nice dinner at home followed by a special dessert of apple slices, peanut butter, sugar and carmel that Jeni created for us. Then we watched a chick flick that Maddie picked! I was pretty tired after that so we all piled into my room for a sleepover. I woke up during the night with some contractions and debated if I needed to call Bob and have him come home early. But they eventually quit so I went back to sleep and Bob and Nathan finished their camp out!

The next morning I woke up tired and sore but the contractions were gone. After I had a warm bath we dropped Gracie off with my parents and headed out to get a pedicure! The girls were so excited! We ended up in a cute little spa that had a couple of pedicure chairs for kids. Jeni had a big teddy bear and Maddie had the princess chair. The girls got flowers and diamonds on their toes but the girl who was doing my pedicure had something else in mind for my toes. She painted on the cutest little baby feet and polka dots. They are darling! What is it about a pedicure that makes you feel so good? And pretty? Especially when I can't even reach my own toes anymore!

Later that afternoon I was suppose to go to a baby shower for one of the sisters in my ward. My friend Maegan came and picked me up and away we went. As soon as we got there she turned to me and told me that this shower was not only for Catherine but it was a surprise shower for me too!! It was a total surprise! I mean first of all, who expects a shower for baby number five and then, even though they passed out the "surprise" invitations in Relief Society right in front of me (they gave me a special one they printed just for me) no one said anything to me! Not even Bob, who isn't always the best secret keeper when it comes to fun stuff like this and Maddie and Jeni. It was such a wonderful surprise! It was fun to sit and visit, eat and open presents! My baby will have some new things to wear now and not just stained, used three or four times already stuff! It was a great afternoon and it meant so much to me that they would care enough to do this for me and my baby.

Thank you so much to everyone involved! It was wonderful!

Half way there!

Today marks 20 weeks or the half-way point of my pregnancy. Now that the morning sickness has mostly passed I can't believe how quickly this is going! Anyway, Bob and I went in for the ultrasound on January 7th and got to see our little one kicking and squirming and generally looking like a healthy little baby should.
This is a profile picture of the baby. I can't tell if his/her mouth is open in a yawn or if it's the chin tucked down by the chest. What do you think?

This is a picture of the baby's arms crossed in front of it's face.

Here is a picture of the baby's face although it looks like a skull to me, spooky and sweet all at the same time!

We are going to wait until the delivery to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl. We did that with Grace and it was so much fun! When I got home Nathan told me that the pictures all look boyish to him but on the other hand there is some study that has been done that predicts the gender of the baby 97% of the time by what side the placenta is on. Supposedly the placenta on the right is a boy 97% of the time and on the left is a girl. Guess what side my placenta is on? Very definitely on the left! So we will have to wait and see if the study is right and the Moultrie tendencies to have lots of girls will continue on or if Nathan's prediction of a boy (no more "dumb old girls" for him) will win out! Can't wait for the end of May!!!

December fun!

One of our Christmas traditions the kids really look forward to is to make a gingerbread house. Years ago, before the advent of my children, I would put in hours making my own house and decorating it inside and out with lights and everything. But since children have come along I've found the Costco pre-made kit to be much more enjoyable and far less stressful for everyone involved! The kids had so much fun decorating everything.

Nathan and Grace worked together on the roof. At first Grace would get mad every time Nathan or I tried to stick any candy on. She would immediately pull it off and put it back in the bowl. I finally had a stroke of inspiration and asked her if she wanted to eat a piece. She did and then happily helped us put the rest of the candy on the house!

Maddie worked very hard to squeeze the thick, hard frosting onto the house. She made everyone promise that no one would "snitch" any candy!

The final results! What a cute house kids! This was the best the house looked because in less than 48 hours Grace had picked off ALL of the candy! The first 24 hours the frosting was still pretty soft but the second day she would come to me and tell me "finger hurt" and I knew what she had been up to! The hard, dry frosting didn't seem to slow her down too much though! Maddie felt pretty bad about the stripped down house so I told the kids that we might try and decorate again a few days before Christmas. We'll see how long round two lasts!

Some new additions

It has been way too long since I blogged last but I do have an excuse which I will get to in a minute. John and Bethany's wedding was wonderful and sad in that we had to say goodbye to them since they decided to move across the country to Massachusetts. After the wedding Keri and Jeff packed up their family and took them back to Washington and life got back to normal, well for a minute anyway.

Right after Keri and Jeff got home came the happy announcement that they are expecting a baby on April Fool's Day next year - an excellent due date for an unexpected addition! Now, anyone who knows how my sister and I operate will know what happens next. One month later I was not surprised to find out that I am also pregnant!!! My due date is June 3rd. All of our children are between 12 days and 9 months apart, so these little cousins will be no exception at approximately 8 weeks apart!

The happy news got even better when a month later Steve and Sarah announced that they are joining the parenting parade too. Sarah is due on July 2nd! These cousins are going to have a ball when they all get together! My parents are thrilled with the idea of 3 new grand babies next year! We'll all keep them busy.

So anyway, I haven't been blogging because I haven't been feeling well but I think the morning sickness is finally starting to fade and I'm starting to feel a little more human again! Yay!!

John and Bethany's Wedding

My brother John got married to Bethany on August 21st. It was a beautiful day! Gracie and "Warla" (that's how Grace says Laura) were so cute running around in their pretty dresses. The wedding was outdoors and they had water misters going which the two little girls didn't like. They would sit down and pull their skirt overlays up over their heads to keep the mist off. Nathan was a very handsome ring bearer who did his job just right!

Jeni made a very lovely flower girl.

Maddie and Amy were both junior bridesmaids. Here they were being goofy with Scott.

Here's the handsome groom with the judge.

Here comes the bride!

The judge started the ceremony by reading "Oh, The Places You'll Go" by Dr. Seuss. It was a great way to begin!

You may kiss your bride!

John and Bethany skipped back down the aisle!

Then it was on to pictures. This is my whole family except for my nephew Andrew who had disappeared. It turns out he was in the restroom so imagine him in the picture and it will be complete.

It was impossible to keep the little ones out of the reflecting pond!

Andrew, Nathan and Grace had fun playing together on the lawn while we were waiting for more pictures at the reception.

I love this family picture, even if Nathan is looking pretty sober!

Cutting the cake.

Maddie caught the bouquet. Again! What does this mean?!?

Nathan was fascinated by the cans on the back of Johns truck. Most of them were still full so it was fun to watch them drive away with the can's popping and spurting everywhere!

Congratulations John and Bethany! Have a wonderful life together!

The Amazing Race - Moultrie Family Edition!

This year we ended our annual Moultrie Family Fun week with The Amazing Race. Dave and Becky divided us up into three teams (we were the red team) gave us a backpack full of clues and snacks and away we all went. Our first roadblock was to go to the grocery store to buy a package of bubblegum and see who could blow the biggest bubble. Not bad Bob! Then it was over to the high school where we had to "buddy walk" together on some boards. As you can see we didn't get off to a very good start! But once we got the hang of it we moved pretty quickly.

After that we headed to the mall to buy a cookie from Mrs. Fields. We got to the mall at 9:30 and found out they didn't open until 10:00! It was nice for us because we caught up to everyone else. Meanwhile, we had kids to entertain so we rode up and down the escalators and elevators...
...and found these fun carts for the kids to play in. I was amazed that Maddie could fold herself up enough to fit in one. She doesn't look very comfortable!
After purchasing our cookies (that we couldn't eat right away because they were required at a later checkpoint - what's up with that!?) we were off to the clock tower at Weber State.

Once there we found out we would have to wait around for 20 minutes until we could take a picture of the clock at 10:55. So Bob and I showed the kids around our old stomping grounds. The campus has changed a lot since I attended there!

Notice how delicately Grace holds on to Bob's ears when he gives her a shoulder ride! It always makes me laugh. As we were traveling the kids kept showing us how big they could blow their bubblegum bubbles. This is how Gracie blows her bubbles!

After the clock tower we had to brush up on our Pig Latin to determine the next roadblock was at the Willard Bay State Park sign.

After that we had to collect a bag of dirt from the Brigham City Temple lot.

Then we worked our way up to the Old Grist Mill in Logan where lucky Bob got to order and eat the sandwich we were required to order. Mustard, horseradish, onion, green peppers and pickles anyone?

Then after lunch we were off to Gosners to get some cheese curd. It was a good thing we had just had lunch because we were suppose to save the cheese curd for later as well!

After the cheese curd (and some asking around) we ended up at the Limberpine Trail where we got to go for a hike and take a picture in front of some trees that are almost 600 years old! The trail was beautiful, the temperature perfect and the kids whiny so after refreshing ourselves with some Fruit-by-the-foot we pressed on and completed the hike. The nice thing about being in last place was we felt free to take our time and enjoy the hike! It really was beautiful, especially the view of Bear Lake.

After we finished our hike and showed off our untouched Mrs. Fields cookies we were given our last clue which lead us to the Sherwood Hills Resort where we spent the night with everyone else. We had a fun evening playing in the pool with all the cousins and eating yummy stuff in Grandpa and Nana's room.

Grace found the perfect sized little perch in the hot tub so she could kick back and relax after all her hard work!

Thanks Dave and Becky! It was a lot of hard work for you but so much fun for the rest of us!