Family Photo

Here's our family! Why don't we take photos like this more often?

Birth story

For anyone interested in details of our birth experience with Grant, David has written a "Going Natural" post on his blog, Strange Ideas, at www.davidhinckley.com.

Good pictures

I still want to do a post about Evelyn's birthday party a few weeks ago, but here are some other recent pictures.

Edison had a lot of fun yesterday "helping" David work on the car.

What handsome boys!

Halloween

The kids (well, Evelyn and Edison--we didn't dress Grant up this year) had fun celebrating Halloween last weekend. Evelyn has been saying for months that she wanted to be a butterfly, so I made some wings out of cardboard and spray painted them pink.

Evelyn had convinced Edison he wanted to be a cat, but we intervened and dressed him up as a "handyman" instead. It was the cutest when he carried around his toolbox, although I don't think we got any pictures with his tools. Well, I made "pumpkin" oatmeal pancakes for breakfast,


but the main festivities were going to a pumpkin patch out in Flower Mound. Evelyn and Edison had a lot of fun jumping in bounce houses, riding on a hay wagon, swinging, posing for pictures (okay, not always fun) and a huge inflatable slide. Edison was maybe too little to go on the slide, but he did a great job on it, and David and I were proud of the way that Evelyn cheered Edison on as he climbed up. Even with bigger kids running around them, Evelyn wouldn't go down until Edison made it to the top. Once we got back to Plano, we stopped at a few ward members' houses to trick-or-treat. If it hadn't been so late, we would have gone to more, but the kids were pretty tired. So for parents who aren't huge fans of Halloween, I think we had a fun day together.

hay wagon ride

a fun kid-sized swing

our reverse psychology to get Edison to smile ("No smiles now. Only frowns.") didn't quite work this time

By request

I've had requests for more pictures of Grant, so I did a quick "photo shoot" with him today. Here are some of my favorites.

Nyah

Dimples!

I caught the end of a smile

Baby pics

Grant is here! He was born on September 24, which was actually his due date. I guess he wanted his own birthday, since on my birthday (the 23rd) I only had some false labor. But he arrived safe and sound and is a great baby! My mom flew in on the 24th and just left this past Monday. It was great having her out here with us, but now it's back to reality and trying to adjust to having 3 kids (though I'm still getting help, seeing how we live with David's parents).

But here are some pictures of our cute little boy.

And I can't find the right picture, but Grant, like Edison, inherited his daddy's dimples. :)

Me

On Sunday I realized that I rarely, if ever, post anything about myself. Usually when I get around to writing something, it's about one or both of the kids. So this is all probably old news to most of you, but I also realized that somehow I have failed to mention anything on the blog about Baby Hinckley #3 that will soon be joining our family! I am about 37 weeks along, so with just a few weeks until d-day I often flip back and forth between feeling excited and ready to welcome our next son and then panicky feelings of "I'm not ready!" It's an interesting mixture.

37 weeks

This pregnancy has been similar to previous pregnancies, meaning it's been pretty smooth and uneventful. However, I feel much more prepared for this birth than either of my first two. When Evelyn was born, I was somewhat prepared, but we mostly just went along with what was "normal" and what the doctors said (i.e.-epidural, the doctor broke my water, etc.). Then with Edison, I mostly figured "I've done this before, so I don't need to read up too much or do too much preparation." So once again we just went with the norm, found a doctor, and didn't question much of what she recommended. Well, the labor didn't go nearly as well as I had hoped. I didn't feel very comfortable with my nurse, and my doctor was kind of pushy and trying to speed things up (I seem to remember she was leaving later that day for a trip) by breaking my water and pushing Pitocin. Well, what resulted was a cord prolapse and an emergency C-section. Of course, the most important thing is that Edison was healthy and I was fine, but it was not a very pleasant experience for us.

So, this time around, I have taken a much more proactive approach to everything, including switching caregivers twice, finally settling on a midwife about 15 minutes away. David and I have also been reading a few books about natural childbirth, which I am excited about. Our favorite one has been about the Bradley method, which is husband-coached childbirth. We'll see how everything happens when the baby actually comes, but I am so glad that David has been and will be so involved in everything.

In other areas, I have been sewing more lately, which I really enjoy. I need to take pictures, but my latest projects were a tool belt for Edison's birthday and a nursing shield (for myself). And I have an itch to sew things for the baby, but I can't quite decide what. I'm thinking maybe a few cute burp rags, and I found a cute and easy pattern for rings that the baby can chew on and play with, but that may be a project for a couple months from now.

In our ward I am enjoying getting to know the Young Women in my calling as the Personal Progress leader. What a wonderful program it is.

And as of recently I am also getting my feet wet in the whole public school scene, now that Evelyn started pre-K a couple of weeks ago. She loves it, and I really like the school and teachers. We did the whole carpool thing for a little while as Evelyn got used to the idea of riding the school bus, which she has now ridden twice. The first time she got on and the bus drove away felt pretty weird for me. She's sure growing up! The adjustment to having her gone during the mornings hasn't been as big as I had expected. Edison seems to be just fine that Evelyn is gone for a little while, although he's always excited when it's time to go pick her up. But we have both been enjoying the time with just the two of us.

And even though this post is supposed to be about me, I can't resist including a few pictures of the kids. I took these this afternoon.

painting with shaving cream

coloring--one of Evelyn's favorite things these days

Funny boy

Edison had his 2-year check up earlier this week, and he is doing great! He is quite a talker, often giving us play-by-play accounts of what he's doing, what he's done or what he's about to do. So I was ready to let him "wow" the doctor with his verbal skills. Well, she asked if he's putting any words together, and just that morning I had counted an 11-word sentence (yesterday he said something about going in an airplane and touching his spotting scope to the sky, which was 15 words). Then the doctor pointed to me, asking Edison to identify me.

"Who is that?"

"Mommy."

"Who is that?"

"Ellolyn." (Evelyn)

"Who is that?"

"Me."

Then he said his name, and as she turned away he said, with a smile on his face, "Daddy calls me Eddy."

He is such a funny little guy, which I feel like I've been saying to describe him ever since he first started smiling and laughing. He often keeps us laughing, and he's got the cutest little impish grin that you can't help but smile back.

Homebody

Most, if not all of my life, I have been a homebody. I'm not extremely adventurous, and oftentimes it's just much easier to stay at home with things I'm familiar with and routines. But when I do that too much with young kids, they get pretty restless and need more stimulation than just boring ol' Mom. So this past week I have made more of an effort to get out of the house and find fun things to do. Here are a few pictures of what we've been up to lately.

Playing at the park

Mall play place

Library

"Library Legos"

Teddy Bear picnic

Chocolate Pudding Day

Last Saturday the kids and I had a lot of fun celebrating "Chocolate Pudding Day." The festivities including finger painting with the pudding, eating it and later having frozen pudding pops. Tyler (our nephew) was staying over, since his new sister had arrived just a couple of days before, so he enjoyed (lots of) chocolate pudding, too. Here are some pictures I took during the celebration.

Little-known holidays

Did you know that today is International Fairy Day? Or that Saturday is Chocolate Pudding Day? I didn't either, until Evelyn and I read an idea in this month's Friend magazine. There's a page in the middle that gives 20 ideas for things to do this summer, and one idea included celebrating obscure holidays, like Chocolate Pudding Day. I thought it would be fun to google the idea, and I found a website with long lists of holidays, including Hot Dog Night and Gorgeous Grandma Day. So I wrote some of our favorites on a calendar in Evelyn's room, which we're planning to celebrate during the next few months. I think it has a lot of potential to make this summer more interesting. :)

So, for what it's worth, Happy International Fairy Day!

Funny kids

I hope you enjoy these anecdotes as much as I do, but here are some funny things the kids have said/done this week:

Evelyn was talking to Grandpa Hinckley outside, and it went something like this.

Evelyn: This is a strong wind.

Grandpa: It's a powerful wind.

Evelyn: No, it's a strong wind.

Grandpa: What's the difference?

Evelyn: The difference is, I'm right and you're wrong.

Edison is communicating more and more, and while he's certainly not saying sentences, he's putting words together pretty frequently so we can follow what he's saying. For example, Evelyn got some fruit snacks in her church class today, and she ate them after lunch (per request of Mom). I asked her if she'd like to share one with Edison, so she gave him one and then ate the rest in her room. Well, Edison knew where the fruit snacks went, so he followed Evelyn, knocked on her door, and said, "Knock. Evelyn! Open. Come in!" He was disappointed when Evelyn wasn't interested in opening the door, but we found another little treat for him.

And this is kind of a brag on Evelyn, but during church today I passed a member of the Primary presidency who stopped to tell me that during opening exercises Evelyn volunteered to recite the 3rd Article of Faith in front of the Primary and did it perfectly! First of all, the fact that Evelyn volunteered to get up in front of everyone like that surprised me a bit, since she's usually more content to watch others (although lately she says that one of her favorite things to do is "talk to people"). And I also didn't know that she knew all of the 3rd Article of Faith. They've been working on it this month in Primary, and I guess she's learned it from the few times they've practiced it. Good job Evelyn!

And to be even, here's one more story about Edison. He heard his grandpa talking upstairs, so he ran over to the stairs saying, "Papa!" Then he heard that David was up there, too, and he said, "Daddy!" Then he looked right at me while standing at the gate to the upstairs and said, "Mom! Open!!" He knows what he wants....

Ballet recital

Evelyn's ballet class (which she has loved) ended last Friday, so her class did a little "recital" for the parents. Not many girls were there, since the last day was pushed back from a snow cancellation last month and happened to land on the Friday before spring break, but Evelyn still had a great time. She was excited that Grandma and Grandpa (Hinckley) were able to come, too. Before the girls did the two little routines they had learned, the teacher, Miss Denise, had them do a few of the things they've been working on each week like ballerina hands and leaps.

Then the girls did two routines, one sitting down with a teddy bear on their laps (it didn't seem very "ballet-esque" to me, but if anyone wants to see the video of it, just let me know) and the other one dancing with a flower. The video of the second dance is kind of funny, because Evelyn was the only one really paying attention for most of it. You can see at the beginning that Evelyn is trying really hard to follow the teacher and even copies Miss Denise's gestures to get the girls to focus and be quiet. She also looks at the other girls sometimes like "why aren't you doing the dance?".

I'm glad that Evelyn was able to do this ballet class, and I'm pretty sure there will be more dance classes to come.

A ballerina and a boxer

Well, I've decided to rejoin the blogging world just so no one thinks we've dropped off the face of the earth. A quick recap of the past few months: we enjoyed Thanksgiving and Christmas here with Hinckley family members (all of David's siblings and families were here for Christmas), and about a month ago we moved out of our apartment and back in with David's parents. We're saving to buy our own house, which is exciting and scary at the same time. But that's a different story.

Last week Evelyn started a much-anticipated ballet class for 3- and 4-year-olds. As you may imagine from Evelyn, there were many "happy dances" in the weeks leading up to her first class last Friday. She looked so cute in her ballet clothes, and I'm really glad that her teacher let the parents stay in the room for this first class (we'll be in the hall for the rest of them). Evelyn did a great job following instructions from the teacher, and she had a lot of fun doing "penguin feet" (aka-1st position) and "ballet arms," among other things. I'm excited for her to do the other 5 classes in the coming weeks.

As for our little "boxer," while Edison hasn't picked up a new sport, he's had some injuries that look like he's taken up boxing. Last week he gave me quite a scare when he fell off of a chair at the kitchen table, hit his mouth (possibly on both the table and the chair as he came down--I'm not quite sure), chipped a tooth, pushed another one back and got a big fat lip. But, being our tough little guy, once the shock and initial pain wore off (and the blood was cleaned up), he didn't think another thing about it. He went down for a nap shortly after the incident, and when he woke up the first thing he said was, "Eat!" He never complained when we pulled his lip back to check on the extent of the damage, which was a blessing. Thankfully, the chip wasn't bad enough to affect a nerve, and it was a clean enough break that we don't need to get it shaved or anything. I just wish we had taken our family pictures before this happened....

Also last week, I buzzed Edison's way-too-long hair for the first time. I think he looks so cute! I'll have to post pictures another time, though, because I've been having issues with our camera and haven't taken any pictures since the haircut.

And in other news, I have a new church calling! After 2 1/2 years in a couple of Primary presidencies, I am now the Young Women ward camp director. Let's just say I was in shock at first, but I'm excited to delve into the calling and try to help make girls' camp a fun experience for those involved. It will be quite a learning experience for me, that's for sure.

the kids (Edison, Evelyn and Tyler--my nephew) having fun in the backyard