Thursday, September 15, 2011

Around here

Around here, Troy seems to be the center of all of Aurda's art projects. She measures him, tapes things to him and puts things on his clothes....

Around here, Katie got the stomach flu. We still took her with us to Austin for the BYU/Longhorns games. By the time we left, all 4 kids had it.


Around here, Troy is the model for his mom's art projects too.



Around here, I'm trying to figure out how to use my camera. These are the kind of pics I'd like to learn how to take. I don't know what they are called (nor do I know how I took this picture or how to reproduce something like it with children rather than cupcakes) but I want to take pictures that are fuzzy in the background.

Around here, Audra spends a lot of her time dancing.

Too bad my big kids aren't around here more, or I'd have more pictures of them too!

Monday, August 22, 2011

Back to School

My little babies are off at their first day of school. Audra did great....marched in like she owned Pre-K. Her reaction to getting woken up so early (the child has been sleeping in until nearly 11 all summer)? "Mom! It's the middle of the night!" When I told her that it was just early morning, she responded, "Oh my, oh my!"





Sunday, August 21, 2011

First Day of School - Through the Years


Tomorrow morning will be another first day of school! I just can't believe that my girls are getting so big. Haylie is starting the 4th grade! I remember the 4th grade like it was yesterday. Whitney was my BFF and I went to Trabuco Elementary - the canyon school. Mrs. Romano was my teacher (and yes, she is now my facebook friend). How could my oldest child be an age that I remember so well!?!?

Anyway, starting school has me thinking back to all our other first days. Here's a walk down memory lane...

2007 - Haylie starting kindergarten and Katie starting preschool
Cobblestone Elementary - Plumas Lake, CA



Audra will be wearing Katie's shoes tomorrow!


2008 - Katie staring kinder and Haylie in 1st
Cobblestone - Plumas Lake, CA
(they switched schools half way through the year when we moved)


2009 - Haylie 2nd, Katie 1st
Dos Caminos - Camarillo, CA
(once again, they only went for a few months before we moved to Corona...and then after a few months in Corona we moved to Texas...their 4th school!)


2010 - H in 3rd, K in 2nd
All Girls Cardon Academy - Los Fresnos, TX

Here's to a great school year....starting bright and early tomorrow morning!

Friday, July 8, 2011

Livin' the Dream

On our way out the door to Utah...but I wanted to get these posted or I'm sure to fall behind.


We're all in love



Happy 4th of July!


Getting ready for our bonfire and fireworks


We had some super excited girls, so our fireworks show started early


It was a fantastic 4th of July with our little family. Here's to cooler weather (hopefully) and less humidity!

Sunday, July 3, 2011

I Wish I Could Freeze Time

We feel so blessed that our little baby boy arrived! He is an absolute dolly! We named him Troy Grant Cardon - after Trevor's best friend and former councilor when he was Bishop, Troy Bair (on a side note, the girls have been calling the baby Troy Bear...they came up with it on their own!). He made his way into the world on June 23, 2011 at 5:15 weighing 7 lbs and measuring 19 inches long.

Everything is so perfect. Our baby is so sweet. The girls all love him so much. There is nothing better than bringing a new baby into the world and into your home. I wish I could freeze time. Our kids are all such good ages -- I want to remember these days forever!

The pictures of my pregnancy were usually taken by a small child with my cell phone, so you'll have to excuse the quality, but I wanted to document my journey.

My first clue that this baby may be a boy was how differently I carried him. I usually show quite a bit by the time I'm 15 weeks, but I wasn't showing much at this point still.

22 weeks


27 weeks


30 weeks



D-Day! 39 weeks

I've delivered all my girls early - and each one came one week earlier than the last. Naturally, I thought that I'd be having this baby early too! But he was a stubborn little man! At my 38 week appointment, I hadn't made much progress and I was pretty miserable, so the doctor said he would induce me on Monday, June 20. I got up and went to the hospital, but I just didn't feel good about getting induced....so I went home (but only after the doctor stripped my membranes). Within a couple hours of returning home, I started having regular contractions. After 6 hours of contractions every 2-3 minutes, we went to the hospital. I had only made it from 1 cm to 2+ cm in all that time! So, the doctor sent me home. I ended up having contractions for 18 hours...and then they stopped!

Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty miserable. I was having horrible back labor and my children were bored to death ("Why can't you just take us swimming?" "Let's go to the park, Mom!"). I pretty much sat around and wished I was dead! Anyway, the doctor had told me that I should come back on Thursday morning to the hospital to be checked and started on pitocin. Wednesday night I drove the girls out to our friend's house, the Jones', so that Trevor and I could get to the hospital at 5:30 on Thursday morning.

At 6:30 am the doctor started the drip. By 2:30 pm I hadn't made any progress, although I'd been having regular, strong contractions for 8 hours! With all my back labor and lack of progress, the nurses were telling me that the baby my be posterior, or that the doctor may send me home again. Well, when the doctor checked me at 2:30, he broke my water and things finally started to happen! I got my epidural a little bit after that and a few hours later our little Troy was born.


Lucky for us, my mom arrived within 2 hours of Troy's birth. She stayed for 10 days! It was so nice to have her here...she entertained the girls, took care of the baby, cooked, cleaned and let me rest a ton!


I love this picture of Troy and Audra! She is so in love with him.
As she told me, "I just want to learn how to be a mother!"





Grandma swam with the girls almost everyday.


Now my mom is gone and we're on our own here in Texas :( Luckily, I feel really good and the baby is really good, so we are going to pack up our grip and head west for the rest of the summer. On Friday night we'll be starting our 26 hour pilgrimage to Utah for a week. Next we'll drive to Plumas Lake, then on to Orange County, and finally up to Camarillo. We're super excited to see all our our friends and family - and to get out of this hot place for a couple of months!