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!

Peyton turns 6!!

A few months ago, this sweet little lady turned 6! I can't believe how fast she's growing up, she is one amazing little girl if I do say so myself.

Her birthday happened to be the day after labor day, so she was back at school and it was a pretty low key day. She did get to open her big gift one day early though, it was a mermaid tail, and she loved it. I just couldn't give it to her the day after spending all day in the pool when she would have loved to have it! So she went to school, then we went out that night for some yummy dinner at bj's. They have the best desserts, and the foods pretty good too!

Once we got home it was time for presents and cake. I kept all the birthdays simple this year, and poor peyton is last of the four kids, so sometimes by her birthday, I'm all partied out!

I love how excited she gets!

She didn't tell me what kind of cake she wanted, so we went super girly with pinks and purples, and even purple flame candles, doesn't get better than that!

Peyton is smart, and full of love. Sometimes she's a bit forgetful, but we wouldn't change her for the world. She's such an easy going and generally peaceful kid, sometimes she gets a little lost in the mix with all these siblings. She's typically all smiles, and is so much tougher than most people would give her credit for. I'm constantly underestimating what this girl can do, and she's constantly amazing me in so many ways! She's loving kindergarten and loves learning. We are beyond blessed to have such an amazing little lady in our family! love you miss peyton!!

A bunch of rag-a-muffins

This is my life.

Filled with four of the cutest little blondes I've ever seen, and some days, we're just a mess. But that's not always a bad thing!

I know this photo is super blurry, but it was the only one I took last night. 

Kevin had left for mutual, I had to pick up Halli from swim practice and then we had to make a last minute, unexpected stop at the store. Hence the reason why JJ doesn't have shoes on. I thought we were staying in the car. 

So many things about this photo depict just how life is most days for us. Peytons completely mismatched outfit. She's holding a witch costume that she was wearing, but I think she got embarrassed and took it off in the store!:) 

Lexie in her princess dress, and both of them had on their princess dress up shoes. Those two were getting ready to go to a ball when we had to rush out of the house to go get Halli.  

Halli was only wearing her swimsuit, so I guess it's good thing that my car is a disaster cause we had a tshirt in there so she didn't have to go into the store with just her swimsuit on. But she looks like she's not wearing any pants, which I guess she's not!  She's also busted all of her flip-flops so she only has her tennis shoes. I'm forgetful and can't remember to get any new ones when I'm at the store, poor girl!

They were browsing all the fun stuff in the halloween section, and JJ was scared and burying his face in my massive belly, so when I backed up to take the picture he lost it. Poor kid, he'll be so happy once Halloween is over! 

The only thing that would have completed this picture is to include me and my humongous belly in it. 

I'm sure we looked like quite the site to anyone that saw us. A loud obnoxious group of five that looked totally disheveled, and I'm sure I'm walking birth control for anyone that sees me at this point! but I couldn't help but be overcome with happiness that these little people are in my life. I love them all so much and in totally different ways. Sometimes it just takes stepping back and seeing just how blessed we are, and soaking in that moment. As exhausted as I am, and as frustrated as I get at times with these cuties, I wouldn't change any of it for the world! I just can't wait to add one more crazy kiddo to the mix soon!!