Halloween 2012

This Halloween was fun and busy! Karli was only a week old, but when you have older kids, you don't get off the hook with much! Our house was sporting a rockstar, a black cat, a fairy princess, and a basketball player. Oh, and a cute little one week old that had an adorable halloween outfit that her Aunt Brittany gave her. How she knew we were having a girl, I don't know, but it was a good guess, and very lucky that she sent a girl outfit with my mom!

I love this sweet chubby girl! I'm a fan of squishy big babies, and when they're wearing adorable outfits, I just can't resist them! 

JJ was a little traumatized by halloween this year, all those spooky things did a number on this boy. He's constantly talking about Kaileys witch. Our friends have a life-size witch in their house, and he's slightly terrified of it.  I think he really worries about the girls in the house!

He made one super duper cute basketball player too!

Our little fairy princess was very patient as I drew all over her face. I'm a fan of all the makeup at halloween, and I tend to go all out with the girls costumes. What can I say, it's like playing with dolls and who doesn't love that?:) 

Especially when you have really beautiful dolls!

Peyton did not love her hair, she thought people would make fun of her. Luckily she was very wrong, and got tons of compliments on her rockstar hair!

She really loved her costume though, and has worn it to school as a regular outfit since halloween!

Halli went back to her favorite of a cat for halloween this year. In remembrance of our lost black cat, Cheetah. They still miss her!

Such a mature kitty!

Grandma Shauna was still in town, and had to pose with the newest addition. I'm glad she was here, she's better at the artistic makeup than I am. Not only that, but when you have five kids to get dressed up and decked out, the extra hands are a huge help!!

The whole clan, super excited to go get themselves some candy!!

We also went to our ward trunk-or-treat. My mom stayed home with Karli and I braved the chaos cause I didn't want to miss this fun event with the kids. They were all running around like crazy though and could have cared less that I was there. But the Young Men and Young Women were in charge, so it was good i went to keep an eye on JJ, Kevin was too busy and would have lost him for sure!

Lexie had a blast hanging out with all the other princess there, especially her bestie, Izzy.

Being a true punk rocker!

Full of Gitter, and smiles!

He may look sad here, but he was probably just taking a break. This kid was everywhere!!

On halloween day, the kids all dressed up in their spooky outfits. I love getting them dressed up...I'll be sad when they don't want to anymore! luckily for now they still love it too!

After we got the big girls to school, we took Lexie to preschool and waited around with some friends to watch the kids in their costume parade. JJ and Chloe had a blast playing in the rocks, and running around!

I love this girl that is so full of life, and always so happy and energetic! She makes everything more fun!

I mean, look at that huge smile! How could that not just make your day?

That night Halli took off with some friends to trick or treat. Our first holiday spent apart.:( but she loved being able to run around with some older kids and collect as much candy as possible! It had to happen sometime, right? We took the other kids, even Karli and we all lasted about an hour before everyone was done and ready to go home. But before we could call it a night, we had to stop by Kaileys house and check out all their awesome Halloween decor. JJ didn't necessarily love all the spooky stuff, but he sure does love the Nordgran family, so it was a great ending to our Halloween! Luckily Kevin works with the Young Men and they were happy to take most of the candy we collected off our hands!

Karli Quinn

On October 24th, at 1:41pm, we welcomed our fifth baby, and fourth sweet girl to our family. Karli Quinn Williams.  

Of course, she wasn't named Karli at the time. She didn't have a name for her first two days actually. We really and truly thought we were having a boy. Wishful thinking on Kevins part I suppose, but all the typical signs did point to boy. Goes to show that nothing actually works, besides seeing the baby for yourself! 

We headed to the hospital at 5:30 in the morning, luckily my mom had gotten into town two days earlier, so she was on hand to watch all the other kids at home while we were gone. 

We got to the hospital, they hooked me up to the pitocin, and then we played the waiting game. My doctor came in and broke my water at about 8, and things picked up a little bit. At some point I got the epidural, and we waited some more and tried to get a little sleep. It was all pretty standard and uneventful up to this point. The contractions were there, and I could feel the pressure, but not bad. This was actually probably the best epidural I've ever had, the anesthesiologist did an amazing job!

Kevin was starting to get hungry for lunch around 12:30, and the nurse had just come in to check me and we still had a little bit of time left, so at about 12:45 Kevin left to get some lunch. He left the hospital, to go get a good lunch. Then murphys law kicked in, and 15 minutes later I was calling the nurse, and texting Kevin to get his buns back to the hospital. 

He was in the process of ordering his food, and the people behind the counter were super nice and gave him a free lunch and sent him running back to my side. He was actually back a lot quicker than I would have thought.

The doctor showed up at about 1:15, and Kevin wasn't too far behind, I was very grateful to see him walk in the door! The pushing was intense, and pretty quick, with the nurses basically climbing on top of me to help push her out. Little did I know, her shoulder had gotten stuck so they were doing what they could to get her out. I guess it was pretty bad because the neonatal pediatrician was in our room immediately after she was born to check her out and make sure everything was working okay and that there wasn't too much damage done. 

I wasn't fully aware of all that at the moment, I was just shocked to have found out that we had just had baby girl #4. We didn't find out the gender, so it was pretty cool to find out when she was born. Although, because we had been thinking boy, we kinda had to get used to the idea of a girl!

When our doctor held her, he told Kevin that she was a big girl. Kevin asked how big? over 9 lbs? and our doc said, no, over 10lbs. We were shocked to find out that she weighed 10lbs 7.6oz. Holy Huge Baby!! I knew she was big, I didn't think that big though. My doctors so funny, at my last few appointments he kept saying she was around 8lbs or so. I told him he was wrong!

I've got to mention that Kevin took all these pictures since I was laid up in bed, and he did such a good job!! Guess I need to start handing the camera over more often. Maybe I'll actually get to be in a few pictures with my kids!

Kevin got a picture of the girls handprints from when JJ was born. We didn't do it again this time though. He was walking the halls looking at all the girl names seeing what we could come up with for our baby girl. Between what he saw written, and all the suggestions we got on Facebook, we came up with Karli Quinn. Kevin calls her quinny though.

We love this sweet big girl though. She has, by far, been my best sleeper, and easiest baby. She's so mellow and relaxed and just goes with the flow. Such a blessing considering she's #5, and JJ is kinda a monster these days! He's a 2 year old boy, that's just how it goes!

She's got a full head of dark hair, more hair, and darker than any of the other kids. I don't know where it came from, but it's gorgeous and tends to go into an automatic mohawk all the time, we kinda love it!

We're so grateful that she's here, and that our family is complete. The kids all adore her to pieces and we're actually worried that JJ will smother her, so we try to keep a close eye on her when he's around.:) 

We couldn't have asked for a sweeter more beautiful baby than miss Karli, and we're having fun watching our young family grow.

Last weekend at the lake for the year

It's always sad when you have the last trip to the lake for the season, but we took some friends with us to make it more fun!:) There are tons of pictures, and most of them are pretty self explanatory, so I'll keep the writing short and sweet. 

JJ LOVES the boat. It's his favorite thing in the summers. You cant kinda tell a little by his expression too, just a little though!:)

Halli has turned into quite the wakeboarder, and loves having people there to watch her so she can show off just how good she's gotten!

Lexie loves the boat, but not so much the water, so she's content to sit on the boat and eat. or cuddle, or sleep, whatever sounds good to her at the moment!

And Peyton is just happy to be doing any of it. the beach is her favorite thing, but we probably don't make it to the beach as much as she'd like. I think she's going to be sad when the water levels rise to their normal depth, and the beach is underwater again!

Kevin's working on getting some air when he jumps, he's getting better!!

JJ also loves to drive, anything with a steering wheel really, and the jet skis are pretty fun to drive too.

Even when the kids can't take the jet skis on the water, its still pretty fun to just sit on them at the dock and pretend!

At night, it's time for movies and quiet time after a long day out in the sun! 

There were quite a few little kids there this trip, so early mornings weren't uncommon. Of course, with my kids around, early mornings are quite standard.

The best part about lake travis in mid september, is that the weather is actually somewhat bearable! you're not dying of heat like you are in the summer, so that makes playing outside so much nicer!

Dang, this is one handsome little man. I could just eat him up!!

These are all some pretty young kids on the tube, but they loved every second of it! it might have made all the moms slightly nervous to have all four little kiddos out on the water by themselves. They did just fine without us though!

Poor hall didn't have any older kids to hang out with, and none of the younger kids would go crazy on the tube, so hall had to enlist one of the dads, Deven, to join her for a wild ride!

After the kids were all done on the water, they watched as their dads tried to perfect the barrel roll, and just hang on to their tubes!

The water was great that weekend, and there were hardly any boats on the water. combine that with some awesome company, and that's the ingredients for one great weekend! thanks, laters and newmans for making it that much more fun!