Happy 57th, Dad!!

From all of us in California, Happy Birthday!! We love you Dad!!

Love, Mike, Michelle, Taylor, Victoria, Luke and Troy

The Men in My Life

I just thought that I would update you on pictures of Baby Troy. He is so cute and his eyes are still as blue as ever. He is such a good baby. He sleeps through the night and hardly fusses. He is a really easy baby. Well, here are pics of Troy, Luke and Mike. Enjoy!


Troy looks just like Mike.


Here is my first picture capturing Troy's smile.

Our Baby is 7!!!

Taylor turned 7 on Monday and she had a fabulous day. Actually, two fabulous days. On Sunday, we celebrated her birthday at Mike's parents' home and she had a Hannah Montana party. All of her gifts were all Hannah Montana stuff. Grandma and Grandpa bought Taylor a really cool outfit that she absolutely loves. She has worn it 3 times already.
Anyways, I made her a cake with a picture of Hannah Montana on top and it was personalized and everything. It was really cool.

On Monday, we just had a play day.

There was no school and so she had her friend Aubree come over. We had a makeover party and ate In-N-Out (per Taylor's request).

Then, I had the kids make their own cakes. They had fun with that. Victoria lucked out too because she got a Hannah Montana shirt like her sister.

It's my number 4 Party!

It's been a count down for Kaori for the past month about her birthday party. We finally had it on Wednesday! Everyday it's been...."Mom is today my number 4 party?" Tuesday night I decorated the living room with the balloons and streamers and Wednesday morning she comes downstairs, sees the balloons and takes the biggest breath of air and was like, "ohhhhh" (complete awe stricken). Then sees me and in a complete composed and somewhat "i don't care" voice asks, "mom, what is this?" I told her it was her party! and she says, "uhmm...okay", and walks away. So as soon as the kids got to the house we sang Happy Birthday to her and had some snacks before our special visitor came. Kaori's obsession has been Little Mermaid....so she was totally excited about her cake.



Every time we have visitors over Rori is either a leech or she will function up high and away from everyone else with her plate of food/snacks....so she will sit up on the counter for a good hour until she is ready to socialize with the others. Good ole' Rorby.



Then Santa came.....Kaori was not excited. She was probably the only one that had huge issues.



I had to drag her down the stairs to come and see Santa. And then she said she was ready to go see him but then was trying to get away....chicken.

Rori on the other hand had no problems....surprise! I told her if she wanted a bag of candy she had to go get it from Santa....so she walked up to him, put her arms up in the "carry me" position. She talked to him and everything! Can you tell I was completely excited about this little shock?




Anyway...it was a fun day. And Kaori scored with some great gifts from all her friends. Next week we take off for D.C. to spend Christmas with Lysle's family and we are all very excited to go, touch the snow and run inside.

Baby Troy

Ok, it has taken me 2 weeks to get this up, but here goes. On November 16th, I went in at 7:45 am to get induced and they didn't have a bed for me because EVERYONE was giving birth unexpectedly. Anyways, finally at 10:00am, they had a room and bed ready for me. They strapped me in and got everything going. I toughed it out until about 7:00pm when I was at a 6 to get my epidural.

Here I am with the doctor ready to put that huge needle through my back. I have never actually seen the needle, nor have I wanted to. I think that I would just die or pass out if I saw what they were actually doing to get me "comfortable".

I took a nap and at 9:00pm, I asked the nurse if she could help Mike roll me to the side, but she and the doctor were working with something and needed me to stay on my back for a little while. Finally at 9:45, I got to roll to my side, the nurse left and I felt good, but all of a sudden I felt the head (within 5 minutes of rolling over). Called the nurse in and she and the doctor came in, set up, and I pushed 5 times and he was out. Dr. Avants said that it was the easiest delivery she has done all year. It was really fast. I couldn't believe how easy things went.


Here is baby Troy ready to take his first breath in the world.


Here is Mike as happy as can be to see his new baby boy.


The kids came first thing in the morning to see their new brother and they were really excited. Luke kept telling everyone that Troy is his new baby brother.



After 24 hours, Troy took a Bili Ruben test and his jaundice levels were really high. He had to be placed on a special bed. It was so high that the hospital told me that I needed to leave the baby there and I had to leave after my 48 hours were done. I was not about to leave him there, so I told them that and the nurses hid me in my room until housekeeping came on Monday morning at 5:00am, then I got kicked out. I just sat in the nursery until they let me take Troy home.

Monday afternoon, Mike came and picked us up and we finally got to take him home. I was very excited. I hadn't held him very much and I didn't even let my friends or Mike's family come over to see the baby. I just needed bonding time with him.


I took this picture when he was a week old. He is such a cutie pie. Four kids is a lot of work, but it should get easier once things stabilize. Right?



Here is Troy at a week and a half. He is really sweet in every way.

Our Day in San Francisco

The last day we were in CA, we visited San Francisco. Erin, Brett's eldest sister, was kind enough to cart us around and show us all the sites.

The Golden Gate Bridge

The Palace of Fine Arts
The Painted Ladies

Evan loved the Cable Car Museum, though he thought he was looking at a bunch of choo choo trains.
The (wilted) Botanical Gardens
The de Young Museum that Brett engineered/managed
We had a great full day in San Francisco. It is such a beautiful city. I didn't get any pictures from Erin's apartment. She has a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Palace of Fine Arts from her window. She took us up on the roof too. It kinda made me want to live in a big city, but then as we walked up and down the hills, I thought my uterus was going to fall out. I didn't realize how insane some of the hills are in that city. All in all it was a wonderful day!

Thanksgiving at the Steed's

We had a lot of fun at Grandma and Grandpa Steed's house this Thanksgiving. Evan really enjoyed playing with all of his cousins.

They played in the leaves

Evan got to go down the slide into a huge pile of leaves
Evan and the Bradfords took a ride around old town Placerville in a horse-drawn carriage.
And no trip to Gma and Gpa Steed's would be complete without eating ice cream!