Happy Halloween

Meat-less

There are lots of thing I love in life:

Holding my babies in my arms

Finding patterns, picking out fabric, and sewing something fun

Reading cookbooks

Cooking and baking delicious and healthy things for my family to eat

Filling my shopping cart full of fruits and vegetables

Food has been on my mind lately....

When you are nursing a baby, you get hungry....a lot!

Now that I am getting back to normal life after having our sweet new baby, I finally cooked dinner for the first time in WEEKS (thank you to the wonderful women in Relief Society).

I have really enjoyed the help....... but I have also missed cooking.

Last May I read this article in the Ensign. For the past few years Nick has been telling me to serve less meat but I was worried that it would be too hard to find recipes that were any good. I love meat. But after reading, mainly the parts on nutrition and health, I was inspired to give it a try. My goal was to only make meals with meat once a week.



I was pleasantly surprised at how easy this transition was. I borrowed a wonderful vegetarian cook book from my mother in law and started gathering ideas from the Internet. I also just left the meat out of some of our favorite recipes. I was very impressed with how great many of you are at keeping up your recipe blogs and now I have been inspired by you to start my own.

I first want to say that I am NOT a vegetarian. I WILL be making a turkey on thanksgiving. I will also most likely serve meat for any family gathering which may happen at our house. I have found that people are very defensive about their meat. I want to let you know that I am not trying to take it away from you. I just want to start posting recipes so that others who would like to try might be a little less intimidated than I was. Also, I think it will be fun. I called my sister Alex who has played around with being a vegetarian and a vegan and she was excited about it too!

Three very wonderful things happened when I went mostly meatless and I was not anticipating them. The first one was that I started saving money on groceries, which is always wonderful. Second, I started serving my family tons more vegetables. I think we actually eat more than recommended by the food pyramid now!! And the most exciting one of all..... Nick and I started to loose weight! I know I was pregnant at the time so I wasn't actually loosing, but I wasn't gaining either so that's kind of like loosing!

So, very soon we will start posting our delicious, healthy, and meatless (along with the occasional "too delicious to leave out but also requires meat") recipe.

Halloween party

It seems like just the other day that I was blogging about last years ward party. This year really went by quickly.

We invited my dad this time and came with us on the ever popular hay ride!! Definitely the highlight of the evening. When ever we talk about this annual party with the kids thy always bring up the hay ride.

Elsie was very excited, with the others, but got pretty scared when we started going. We do take that first hill pretty fast!

Some fellow princesses, and little siblings

This hat was Lila's costume. Elsie was a flower but wouldn't keep her hat on. She was much more interested in wearing the witch hat. Unfortunately she lost it before I got any pictures of Lila in it. It was actually a dog hat that I found in the dollar section at Target.

After the party we left the kids with my dad (minus Lila) and went to the movies to see Eagle Eye . We were celebrating our anniversary. We had planned on going on another cruise this year but we had a baby instead. Having a baby is a much better way of celebrating your love. We can be romantic next year.

First Bath

I think that this is the first time that I took pictures of any of my kids actual first bath. I am also pretty sure that this is the first baby of mine to not cry through her first bath, which may be why I never bothered with the camera before.

Lila (pronounced lie-la and not lee-la) is such an easy baby. Last night she only woke up once to eat and then fell right back to sleep.

I absolutely love having four children. I don't remember what I was scared of last spring. I love having four even more than I loved having three. I could take four more. It is amazing how your love can instantly multiply. Only nine days old and the thought of our family without her seems incomplete.

Even when she goes slightly cross-eyed!

October 17 2008

Our pretty little Lila was born last Friday at 12:17pm. Two weeks before her due date. (thank goodness) She weighed 6lb 14oz and was 20.5 in long. Absolutely perfect.

After visiting the hospital earlier that week I tried not to be too upset about it, but I definitely wasn't just going to sit around and wait. The day I was released from the hospital (the first time) I walked the mall with my mom and sister. Then the next day my mom came over and we walked the trail to railroad park (which I think is about 1 mile each way) My contractions never really stopped all week but I just tried to ignore them as long as I could. That night my dad invited us out to Chinese food and by then the contractions were starting to be more painful, but only every 15-20 minutes. Then around midnight they hurt bad enough to wake me up. I would fall back asleep between them until around 4am when they were every10 minutes. I waited as long as I could, then called my mom and sisters over and we checked in around 6 am. This time they kept me (for real) and she was born 6 hours later.

Here I am minutes before she was born. (Just kidding, this is actually the first visit, the one where those fake contractions were toying with my emotions)

This is how the kids and Ali kept themselves entertained waiting for their new sister. They didn't wait too long, by the time they got there she was practically here.

When the kids came into the room to see Lila their reactions were pretty funny. Aaron loved her but was scared to hold her until we were at home so he could sit on the couch and make sure to not drop her. Charlotte couldn't get enough of her and wanted to pick her up and take her home right away. Elsie was scared of her. I think she thought she was a wild animal or something. She wouldn't even come near me if Lila was on the bed. Aaron and Elsie warmed up and they both finally did hold her.

Poor Nick, we all had a long week.

Now here is a small selection of the hundreds of pictures we took.

Lila

Well, I am too tired to tell the whole story right now, but here she is only a few hours old! Even though I feel better than I have in months, I am very tired now so I'll post more pictures later.

ITS ALIVE........AND OUT OF THE WOMB!!!

Today the fabulous Michele popped out #4! Baby Lila was born at (contrary to other posts) 12:17 and is absolutely a princess. She definitely has a Freeman nose however and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. Michele is doing great and says she feels a hundred times better. I think she is still surprised that she is not still prego! At one point she sat up and said "...oh yea, I'm not pregnant anymore." Then leaned forward further, just because she could. All in all she performed wonderfully and I am very proud of her.
So family, look forward to lots of pictures and more of her fantastic blogging.
-Nick-

You would think...

You would think that after having three babies I might know something about going into labor. But apparently I am just as clueless as the first timers. As Nick said, I went to the hospital last night. I was dilated to 2 cm and 50% effaced. I was also having contractions every 5 minutes. After walking the halls for an hour I was at 3 cm and 70% effaced. They admitted me and said the baby was coming that night! I was having contractions all night between 2-5 minutes. At 6am I had dilated to 5 cm and was 75% effaced. It was going, slow but steady. I was finally able to fall asleep for about an hour and when I woke up I realized that my contractions had slowed down. They called the doctor on call and checked me again and I was back down to only 3 cm but had gone to 80%. The doctor decided to send me home. I can't remember the last time I was so disappointed. How do you go from 5cm to 3cm? I am still having contractions but I'm not timing them. I'll wait until they hurt so bad that I cry. I definitely don't want any more false alarms.

The Anxious Mother

This is my (Nick aka King of the Castle) first attempt at an entry.
Yesterday when I finally got home from work my queen Michele ( the real decision maker of the family) kept rambling about how she was probably going to have me take her to the hospital. Being a tired man I used the smile and nod technique to satisfy her, at which point she would go and talk to Ally. I was further summoned at 815 with bags in hand that it was time to go to the hospital.
To make a long story short and not so boring,....... Michele is now at the hospital with her mom and should be delivering the baby later today. Pictures and a better story to follow later. NICK

This is what happens...

When we forget to put away a candied apple

Mercy

I just love dancing kids

3 Weeks

This morning was my 37 week check up (3 more to go!) This is big news because I am now considered to be full term. Unfortunately I have nothing to report. I had Elsie with me so I didn't ask to be checked. Just the usual measure my belly and listen to the heart beat. I have another appointment in 5 days and I'll ask her to check me then. That is if I'm still pregnant. I'm really hoping not to be. I've decided that next Tuesday would be an ideal day to have the baby. My midwife will be taking some time off and will be gone next Wednesday through Sunday and I really don't want to wait until she gets back. That would give me one more weekend with my family of 5 and it wouldn't interfere with any weekend activities like soccer games and birthday parties. This way my midwife can deliver the baby and Jodi would be able to come very shortly after.

So everyone wish me luck

On to other Big News! Aaron discovered that he has two loose teeth this morning!! They are his bottom two teeth. I thought you lost your top teeth first so for a second I got scared that maybe he accidentally knocked them loose somehow. But, he is almost 6 and he did get his bottom teeth first so I guess this is it! It made me sad for a moment to have him be old enough to loose his baby teeth. But he was so excited about it that I quickly got excited too. Here come the days of ugly school pictures due to oddly proportioned toothy grins!

Tooth Fairy, get ready!

p.s. Erika just started a blog for all you Robbins who might be interested! There is a link on my side bar under family.

The Big Bresno Fair!!

October has finally come. On Monday we took the family to the Fair. It was dirty, crowded and fabulous as usual. We decided to save some money this year by going with full stomachs and it did help. I also made my version of cinnamon rolls the night before (which are better) and we weren't even tempted to spend $10 on one there. We did indulge in ice cream cookie sandwiches, a big cup of fruit in the Ag building, funnel cakes, and soft tacos. Yummmmmmmy!!

We also saw a Mermaid show, the pig races (of course), and walked through most of the buildings spending extra time in all of the kid areas (including a really cool pirate ship/playground area) as well as a building all about the history of the San Joaquin Valley.

Here are more than enough pictures to represent our 8 hour day at the fair in 2008