The day Jaden was born

At this point in all of my other pregnancies, I would be 39 weeks pregnant, and DESPERATE to have my baby. That was the plan this time around as well, but unbeknownst to us, Jaden had something else in mind!

On monday, July 12th, 10 days before my due date, my water broke. There wasn't a big gush, just a little leaking, fun, I know. At 8am, I woke Kevin up and told him that I thought my water had broke, he wasn't sure I knew what I was talking about since this had never happened before. But I was pretty sure, so he got up and we decided that we had ALOT to do to get ready to have this baby.

I wasn't packed, I had a project for the girls to do before the baby came that they wanted to do, I had to put the sibling gifts together for the girls, (luckily I had already bought it all), the house was a wreck, I needed to shower and clean up, and most importantly, we needed someone to watch the girls. Luckily for us, my sister had just gotten back in town and headed over as quick as she could. Kevin and I got busy cleaning and packing and trying to figure out if we had everything we needed. Then I got the girls started on their project.

I had seen my friend Sunnie's blog where she had her girls make their own big sister shirts, and thought that was a great idea. I had bought fabric paint and wanted to help make them really cute, but we were a little short on time. So I pulled out the fabric markers and they got to draw on the shirts. Halli and Peyton LOVED this, and Halli wore her shirt all day, until they realized that baby wasn't coming in time for them to meet him that day, then I hear she decided to change to keep it clean.:)

Halli went all out drawing a rainbow, and adding "love you" to the back of her shirt.

Peyton had fun just coloring in the words, "big sis" that I had written on there for her.

and Lexie did a great job of coloring on her shirt. She was done pretty quick.

Kevin and I then headed to the hospital, and found out that my water had, indeed, broken. So they set us up in a delivery room, and started pitocin around 1:30 that afternoon. After that, there was lots of waiting, and tv watching. I eventually got an epidural, and things still moved kinda slow. Around 9pm, finally, I was ready to push.

Little Jaden was sunny-side up, which made the delivery a little difficult. But, I have a great doctor, and with him turning Jaden around, (talk about a little pain there), me pushing, and ALOT of pressure, Jaden was born at 9:36pm with the umbilical cord around his neck. Kevin said the Dr. yanked it right off and everything was fine, but he was a little purple looking when I finally got to hold him.

It wasn't quite my worst delivery, Halli still owns that one, but it was a close second. I was very glad it was over, and after how huge I felt while pregnant I wasn't suprised to hear that he was an even 9lbs. What can I say? We make big babies!:)

Yes, I look happy here, cause it's all over!


Jaden getting all cleaned up. If you notice his left foot, you can see the little deformity he has. The pediatricians think it's something called 'calcaneovalgus'. It may self correct, which we hope it does, but we have to see a pediatric orthopaedic in august to get a real diagnosis, and see if there's anything we need to do to help correct it. At the hospital they said it's not a very common deformity, so they didn't really know a ton about it, and there's a possibility it could be something else that would require a surgical fix. We're really hoping that isn't the case. It's already starting to look better though, as he's able to stretch it out a little.

The next morning Kevin, my sister, and my mother-in-law all showed up to meet the newest member of the family. With every new baby, we've done little 'sibling gifts', for the kids. This gives them something to do at the hospital while they're there besides wreck the place.

The girls opening their gifts and wearing their beautiful big sister shirts.

Halli is one proud big sister, and she LOVES that she now has a brother! Peyton wasn't quite ready to hold him, but she was fascinated by him, and the first thing she asked me was how he got out!

The proud papa, and his first son. (This does not mean there will be another son):)

Our sweet baby boy, just one day old.

Me and my baby:) Can I just say how much I LOVE hospital pictures!:)
(said with VERY heavy sarcasm)

Our new family. I can't believe we have four kiddos. :)

Announcing Jaden

Jaden James Williams

(aka JJ)

Born July 12, 2010

9:36pm 9lbs 0oz 19.25in

although Kevin says the length is debatable since they didn't straighten his legs out first.

He's a great sleeper, got a big appetite, and we're loving having him here!

4th of July at the Lake

Last weekend, Kevin and I loaded up the van, and took off for Lake Travis to celebrate the 4th of July with his family. That boy would spend every weekend up there if he could, but with his calling and obligations here, he just has to make the most of it when he does get the chance to go!:)

There is so much to do up there, and it really is such a fun time. I think it would be more relaxing for me if I weren't pregnant, so I'm really looking forward to going up next summer and being able to actually use the jetski's and go wakeboarding! But for now, I'm the official picture taker/memory recorder, and babysitter.

As always, there are WAY too many pictures, but with so many cute people to take pictures of, and so many fun things going on I narrowed it down as much as I could. There's a waterslide there, jetski's, boating, we went to a parade, watched fireworks, and Kevin and I took the girls into Austin since we hadn't been there before, and we checked out UT.

Here's my cute family, all dressed up for the holiday. I can't tell you how much I love this little group of people. They're a handfull, but I wouldn't have it any other way!

Another picture of my cute girls, all matching. Someday I'm not going to be able to match them all, so I'm taking advantage while I can!:) For now, they love it and think it's cool! They obviously have too many twin cousins, cause their one cousin, Katelyn, who isn't a twin, was saying that Halli and Peyton were twins cause they were wearing matching clothes! It was pretty cute watching Halli explain why they weren't.

We spent alot of our weekend outside on the waterslide. The water was freezing, but little kids just don't care about that stuff, so they shivered and played.

Lexie learned how to climb the ladder the first day, but after falling down a couple times, decided she didn't want to climb anymore and spent most of her time playing in the pool area.

Cousin Rachel playing in the tunnel

Every time Lexie went down the slide, she'd jump up and shout, "I did it!" it was so cute to see her celebrate every time.

Saturday, the 3rd, we headed out to a local parade in the area. There weren't any floats really, just lots of cool cars, and the best part, lots and lots of candy being thrown. We were at the very end of the parade route, so most people were trying to get rid of their extra candy, this made all the girls VERY excited!

See Kylie's bulging pockets? She knew it was good stuff, and wasn't letting it go!

Katelyn gathered a bouquet of dum dums.

Three of the cousins watching the parade.

I love this picture. Lexie found her candy and was so happy and proud of herself!

After the parade, it was time to spend some quality time on the water. Halli could stay out there all day, and is going to have a hard time when more of these little girls want to go boating as much as she does!

I just love this picture of Savannah, looking beautiful and windswept on the boat.

Grandpa becomes a kid when he's out on the lake. He loves it out there and has a blast creating waves for the boat with the jetski.

Kevin took Lexie out on the tube and she loved it! I get nervous they'll tip over, but they haven't yet, and she enjoys the ride!

Peyton isn't as big a fan of tubing as the other girls are, but she tries!:) This was being pulled behind the jetski, and she doesn't look happy, but she did have fun!

Dad taking her for a ride on the jetski. I think she likes this a little better than tubing.

What's better than being pulled around on the tube by dad? They thought this was tons of fun.

Our beautiful Peyton waiting on the boat dock for dad to come get her.

Yes, it was literally Kevin pulling the tube around, not a boat of jetski.

I love seeing them all play together and enjoy each other!

When we weren't out playing in the water, we were inside cooling off watching movies, doing crafts with grandma and playing with cousins. Here are some of the cousins all lined up on the floor watching a movie. Savannah was laying on the couch with grandma, and Halli was probably out on the water with Kevin.

This picture was taken at the University of Texas campus, overlooking the capitol building in downtown austin!

We also took some time to make some patriotic cupcakes. The girls had fun with this, it was so funny how many of them only ate the frosting! Gotta love some sugar!

These girls know how to enjoy a cupcake, and show it! They all (besides Halli) had frosting all over their faces!

Later that evening we headed out to do some sparklers, and watch some fireworks. The girls loved it! Here's Halli just looking cute waiting for the festivities to start.

All three of our girls, this was the best they would do for me. By now, I think they were just done taking pictures!

Some of our fun fireworks. This is Jeff, Lexie, Katelyn, Halli and Peyton with a perfect view of the lake and some awesome fireworks!

We had a BLAST last weekend, and with baby coming soon (really soon I hope), we probably won't make it back up there for quite awhile, but it is so much fun, and we feel so blessed to be able to use this great home that Kevin's parent's have. I have a feeling we'll be spending lots of summers up there in the future!

A late swim team wrap-up

With baby arriving soon (I hope it's soon anyway) I figured it was time to update my blog since I won't have time pretty soon.

I never did a final post of Halli's swim team this year, and it was an awesome year! She is an amazing swimmer, in my humble opinion, and I had SO much fun watching her succeed this year. At nearly every meet, when Halli would swim her 25 freestyle, there would always be at least on person commenting on the fact that she only took one breath, halfway across the pool.

At one of the last meets of the year someone asked her if she had ever tried to swim the whole length without taking a breath. Well, she did, and she beat her best time by 5 seconds! She also qualified for the Ponderosa Invitational, more on that in a second.
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First, we had the awards night for the swim team. It was a fun get together, full of awards and playing with our friends on the team. Halli ended up getting the MVP for the 6 and under girls, that was pretty exciting, and she loved that she got a big trophy. This is her getting the trophy.



Halli's best buddy, Blake, who was one of the 5 that qualified for Ponderosa, got an award for most improved for their age group. He really did improve too, he took 6 seconds off his time to qualify for ponderosa at the last meet of the year, it was pretty cool! Luckily his mom, Allie is much better at having the kids pose for her than I am, so I stole this next picture off her blog. (in my defense, I had three girls and no husband there for the night, so I didn't get too many pictures at all). Here are the two best friends with their matching trophies.



Two day's later, it was off to the big meet! Here's where my mommy bragging gets to come out. I didn't know anything about the Ponderosa Invite, but apparently, it's kinda hard to qualify for it. There are 90+ teams in the Northwest Aquatic League, making it the second largest league in the country. On our team, only 5 kids ended up qualifying for the meet, so it was kind of a big deal that she made it! here we are outside the doors, I was all excited for an indoor meet to be able to escape the heat....yeah, with that many people, and closed in, it was NOT fun! Thankfully we were only there for one event!

Here's halli standing on the blocks ready to dive. I didn't get any pictures of her swimming cause I was too busy screaming!:) Unfortunately she was the last one in the pool, and she dove deeper than she had ever dove before, so her time wasn't very close to where it had been before. Luckily she's 6, and had fun anyway! Actually when I first saw her after she finished, she asked me if she won, she had no idea:). I hated to tell her no, but she didn't seem to phased by it.

Here are the two swimmers after their events, standing outside the gym. They were part of the best of the best, and we were so glad that we got to have our best friends at the swim meet that day!

I am at a point in this pregnancy that I was VERY thankful swim team was over, but you can bet we'll be looking forward to next year, and Peyton will be joining the team then too!