If You're A Slacker And You Know It Clap Your Hands!

**Clap Clap**

Oh hi everybody! How are you doing?

Heh Heh, I forgot how time consuming a newborn is. I feel like my days and nights blend together so fast that I blink and 3 weeks have whizzed by! It's great though, I wouldn't change anything about it....except maybe if I had a choice I'd change the fact that Lillie has a cold. No Bueno.

If I could do this all day, I would:


So snuggly!

But I have to do other stuff so let's just dive right into my life shall we?

Carson participated in his first Klondike, winter scouting campout. Who the heck would WANT to go camping in February??? Scouts. That's who. Crazy scouts. Right before they went to bed (notice I didn't say "sleep"? Yeah, that's cuz they didn't sleep!) Sam texted me and told me it was 7 degrees. The next morning he texted me and said it was 6 degrees. Shiver me timbers!
I think after Carson's toes thawed out he was glad he went. It's good to toughen him up.


See this guy? He's the scout master. He's about to take Carson DOWN and teach him what it means to get white-washed. That's what happens when you throw snow balls at the scout master!


You'd think he would learn his lesson, but he didn't. He kept throwing snow. I believe he got white washed twice.


Ummmmm, the blind leading the blind? Yeah, prolly.


A sign on the bathroom door that reads "Keep this place clean. Shoot straight!" Do you think it helped? NOT LIKELY!!! I think when I count my blessings I will now include "I'm blessed because I am not in charge of cleaning a scout camp bathroom."


Now onto the Science Fair.

I have a confession. Well, most of you probably already know this about me...One of my fears about having children was dealing with big projects at school like the Science Fair! I'm GREAT with the day to day routine of life....get up, get ready, do your reading, go to school, do your daily homework, brush your teeth, quit hitting your brother....etc. However, when something pops up out of the ordinary, I cringe. The Science Fair falls into the cringe-category. Luckily, I married Sam. Sam is super amazing at the project stuff that does not fall into the daily routine category. He made Carson come up with an idea of what he wanted to do. Carson chose Magnetic Shielding. Sam patiently worked with Carson while he came up with ideas on how to do this project. It was pretty cool!




I was so happy on the day it was due because I could check it off the "list" and we could move on with our life. Carson came home from school that day and said "I have something really bad to tell you....but I have to go to the bathroom right now!" and he tried running down the hall to the restroom. I grabbed the back of his collar and dragged him back to where I was standing and said "I don't think so! What happened???" I thought he got in trouble at school or something! He said "I made DISTRICT!" and ran to the bathroom.

Oh boy, Carson now has to take his science fair project to the District Level. I was laughing that he said it was bad news because secretly I kind of felt the same way. Don't judge me! I was proud of him, but now we have all this extra work that doesn't fall into the daily routine category! :) So the next week we went to a different school in the District and he set up his project.

I am not going to lie. After seeing what other kids did for their projects I felt kind of bad for Carson. His poster was pretty simple. I'd say 90% of the displays at District were 200% more impressive than his. :) Sam and I gave each other the well-at-least-he-gets-experience look and we went home. The next night Carson had a 10 minute interview with a judge. Parents were not allowed to be in the same room during the interview. Carson came home and said he felt good about how it went. He said there was only one question he couldn't answer but when he turned it around and asked the judge what she thought the answer was, she didn't know. ha ha!

At least it's over and we can go back to the daily routine.

But wait.

The next night I received an email from the District telling us Carson was a 1st place winner at the District Science Fair and now he is moving onto the Central Utah Science & Engineering Fair at the end of the month at BYU. Seriously? I couldn't believe it! He gets to go to an Awards Ceremony tonight where they get their blue ribbons. The way I figure, one of two things must have happened: Either Carson is brilliant during an interview, OR, a lot of the students who made District didn't interview very well because their parents did most of their projects. Perhaps it was a combination of both. Whatever the reason, we are so excited for Carson to have this experience! :)

This past weekend Lillie got a cold. Oh man, I feel so bad for her. I've never had an 8 week old be so sick. We blessed her yesterday at church and I was just praying that she wouldn't cough or cry during her blessing...or even worse, puke all over herself! Luckily, she was a champ and slept most of the day! PHEW!

Sam's mom made some eclairs for the occasion and we helped frost them. Cameron helped by licking the frosting off the beaters. Just a little excited I think!


Lillie's blessing dress has some history. Way before Lillie was born I asked my friend Kendra if she would make a blessing dress for Lillie out of my wedding dress. She happily and graciously agreed to do so. She has had my dress since Thanksgiving and just thinking about how to do it. The last weekend in February she came over and measured Lillie. By the next day she had made the dress...an exact replica of my wedding dress just in miniature form for Lillie! Oh my word, I love it soooooo much! In fact, she even kept the actual skirt length the same. It is absolutely gorgeous! She even made a headband and bracelet out of beads and flowers from my wedding dress. I will definitely get some better pictures later when she's happier and not sick, but here's the gist of it:

Getting a bath before dressing her. Oh I love that face!


If I took her binky out she cried. Grrrr.



Still scratching my head over the red hair!




My cousin, Maile, had her 4th baby 3 weeks before Lillie was born. Maile lives in Oregon and she had the brilliant idea to travel here for her son's baby blessing! Yay!! So, we blessed them both on Sunday and had an awesome lunch afterwards. I just love my family! This picture is a bit blurry...Maile, did you end up with a better picture? If so, email it to me! :)


Finally....
Here is Lillie's birth announcement. A big thanks to the photographer, Michele Reyes, and to my friend, Laura Hildebrand for putting them together for me!

As Long As Parker Is Around...

As long as Parker is around, we will ALWAYS have something to laugh at! He will also keep me humble, which is important, don't you think?

We had Stake Conference today. It was a wonderful meeting and as usual, we hung around afterwards visiting with everybody and taking entirely too long to go home. Seriously, we love to chat, it's just the "norm" for us. As we were leaving, Carson and Parker were being rowdy so Sam shoved them outside (lovingly, of course) while we got Lillie buckled into her car seat. As we started heading outside, Carson informed us that Parker was peeing in the bushes. I totally did not believe him because Carson's greatest joy is trying to trick us into believing his jokes. So I said "yah right!" and walked outside. To my horror, there was Parker, peeing in the bushes RIGHT NEXT TO THE MAIN ENTRANCE of the church!

We quickly asked him what he was doing and he responded with "I had to go to the bathroom" in the most normal, bored voice ever. Luckily, most everybody had left the church since we took so long going home. I think a teenage boy walked out after us so he is probably the only one who saw....hopefully! Sam told Parker it was inappropriate and as were were walking to the car, and Parker was zipping up his pants, I saw Sam totally laughing quietly. Phew, I'm not the only one who found humor in this! We should count our lucky stars: At least he's not 2 and pulls his pants all the way down to his ankles when he urinates! ha ha!

Here is Parker trying to take a nap on his body pillow this afternoon. He is seriously the funniest (is that a word??).


To make matters worse:
We were eating lunch after church and for a treat, I gave the boys a cookie from our freezer. Parker took a bite and doubled over while holding his mouth. He's had a loose tooth for about a month. We said "Oh man, did your tooth come out?" He said "no, it just made it more loose! I can feel a bigger gap now". I asked him to open his mouth so I could see. I was laughing so hard because his mouth was all bloody and his tooth was GONE! I said "Parker, your tooth is gone! Did you swallow it?" Yep, he did. Poor Parker.

Parker was pretty upset but we just told him to write the tooth fairy a letter. He did. It says "Dear Tooth Fairy, I swallowed my tooth. Please give me money anyway". Yeah, I think we should have some fun with this one...

Yep, More Pictures Of Lillie

I've been cooped up in my house for almost a month. Shockingly, the only pictures I have to show for it are mostly of Lillie.

Sunday best!


These two are best buddies. I love it!


I took these pictures this morning. Just to keep it real, Lillie had just had quite the B.M. and she was wide awake and alert (maybe a little freaked out) after that experience!


"Gosh mom, do you have to tell EVERYBODY about my bowels? Uh-Oh, here comes another one...."


"I have a hard life: eating, sleeping, pooooooooping"


"I think I'll write a rap song about it. My hand is perfectly placed for my pretend microphone...which is convenient since I have NO CONTROL over my spazzy hands!"


"That's enough for today. I'm pooped (punny!), please leave me be so I can get my beauty rest."

2 1/2 Weeks Old

Lillie is only 2 1/2 weeks old, but it feels like she has been part of our family for years! Now, you could take that one of two ways.... Either it feels that way because she is such a welcome addition and we don't know how we got along without her, OR, I'm exhausted from 24-7 care and the days are such a blur it feels like I've been doing this job for years!

Okay, maybe it's a little bit of both....

Regardless, we are smitten, 100% smitten.

I usually am holding her and think "oh I need a picture of that face!" and the only camera within reach is my crappy cell phone camera. No, I don't have a fancy iphone yet. :) Here are a few shots I've taken lately wit my phone:

My friend gave me a swaddler for my baby shower. I seriously don't know how I got my newborns to sleep in the past without one of these bad boys! They hold her arms down and wrap her up nice and tight. Love it!


So girly!


Soaking up some sun. Don't you love how all newborns have frog legs? Cracks me up!


I texted this picture to Sam and his reply was "Creepy hands!" Okay, yes, her hands look a little Tyrannasauraus Rex, but look at those cheeks! How about those awesome eyes?? She can't help the fact that her fingers are abnormally long...one day those hands will be called elegant. :)


This picture is from today. She stretched and then just kept her hands above her head. Since the Superbowl is in a few weeks, I will title this picture "TOUCHDOWN!"


Onto other things...
Cameron brought this paper home from preschool today. What I SHOULD have said was "Hey Cameron, tell me about this picture?" but instead I said "Hey Cameron, this is an awesome cloud!". His reply: "It's not a cloud, it's a bunny!" ...sigh...


Cameron has been drawing this kid a lot on the magnadoodle. He draws it the exact same way every time, but each time he draws it he tells me it's somebody different....dad, Carson, Parker, Cameron... Parker and Cameron have never been big on drawing or coloring so for Cameron to draw this "kid", it makes me smile!


Speaking of that crazy kid Cameron, check out his actual face, not the magnadoodle kind. Seriously, he's a nut job!


With the help of Aunt Fern....major improvement! ha ha ha!!! Cameron just looked at this picture and said "OH, that is SO Aunt Fern!!"


I took Lillie to church this past Sunday. I know I should stay home longer but I had cabin fever in a bad way! It felt good to get out of this house!


My mom showed me some pictures yesterday of when I was a wee one. Guess what? My hair was this same reddish brown color! Verrrry eeeenterestiiing!


She looks like she has something to say. I hope it's a witty reply to something her brothers said...she's going to need a quick wit to be the only girl. Either that or some long fingernails for a good defense...right Curtis? I think he has scars from my attacks when we were young 'uns.

Lillie Belle Sweet 1.7.2012

Yay!!! She is HERE!!!

She is actually 8 days old now. Boy, times have changed...when I had Cameron, I updated my blog from my hospital bed. I guess I have my priorities more in check now. :) However, I wanted to document the experience before my sleep deprived brain forgets everything!

Sam and I did something different this time around. We decided to keep the delivery on the quiet side without any family in the room. I've loved having my parents and Fern in the delivery room in the past, but for our last baby we decided to keep it "chill". It proved to be a very special experience.

Here I am all hooked up to the pitocin. Don't let the smile fool you. Those contractions came FAST and they came HARD!


In the past, I would start to feel gentle contractions and then I'd get my epidural. This time it was like "Oh, I think that was a contraction" and then suddenly I'm gripping the side rails of the bed as crazy contractions were right on top of each other. It was super intense...to put it mildly. This all happened within an hour. I got the magical epidural doctor in the room asap and then I was happy and relaxed again. :)

I settled down into my bed, hoping for a nap because suddenly I was sooooo tired and extremely relaxed and comfortable. My doctor came into the room and said "you are complete, time to have a baby!". I swear, it all happened so fast! Sam responded, "WHAT? Now????" My doctor, who is totally awesome, said "well, we could go to lunch if you'd like, but I figured you'd want to meet your daughter.".

Okay, time to get down to business! The best part of the labor: I only had to push a couple times. During my last push my doctor said "Okay, good!". I thought she meant I was doing a good job, so I continued my push. Then she looked at me and said "no really, stop pushing" and then she held up my baby!! ha ha, I didn't even realize she had been delivered! Best delivery of all 4 kids by a country mile!!!

She cried like a champ, they put her on my chest for some skin-to-skin time, and she totally relaxed and stopped crying. It was then I became a little shocked: this girl has reddish-auburn hair! What the What??? My boys all had jet black hair. Totally bizarre!


Then they weighed and measured her: 6 lbs 13 oz, 20 inches long. She is my only 6 pounder. No wonder she was so easy to deliver! Cameron was 8 lbs 4 oz. What a difference!

All newborns are freaky in a Harry Potter Mandrake way. Oooh, that bulgy eye is awesome!


Opening your mouth is not going to distract me from that awesome bulgy eye. Nice try Lillie!


Okay, you won me over with the pouty lips and spit bubble. Yep, it's official. I love your guts!


Uh-oh...somebody is hungry!


My doctor: Dr Hannele Laine. She is seriously the bees knees and the cat's meow. Totally casual, hangs out in the delivery room taking pictures, and is lots of fun to chat with. Love her!


Grandma and Grandpa Clark. Lillie is named after my dad's mother, Lillie Rottweiler Clark. My mom's maiden name is "Bell", hence Lillie's middle name of "Belle".


First bath. Sam's a pro at this by now! The nurse even gave him an out and said "do you want to bathe her or would you like me to?" and Sam jumped right in and got his hands wet! Before he bathed her I said "Make sure you put a bow in her hair, I'll be so bummed if my only girl does not have a bow in her hair at the hospital!". Sam picked out a good one. Pink polka dots. Precious. :)


Aunt Fern came to meet the Sweet caboose! Great picture of both ladies!


Carson was at a scout merit badge shin dig all day so my parents brought Parker and Cameron to the hospital with them. They loved her instantly, which was great because when Cameron was born, Parker was a stinker! Ha ha, Sam is grubbin' on his Crown Burger that Fern brought him. Watching your wife have a baby is hard work, eh Sam! Really works up the ol' appetite. ha ha!


It LOOKS like Parker is freaked out by Lillie. Actually, he's looking at the IV needle in my hand and freaking out. hee hee.


The boys holding Lillie for the first time. They are seriously so good with her.



Carson came later in the day. He liked her, but it wasn't until we got home that he became enthralled with her. I guess he needed to let his 11-year old emotions figure things out first. I'm sure part of it has to do with the fact that he knows where babies come from now! Yeah, see the pinkish blush on his face! It's tough to grow up.


I'm always fascinated at how quickly babies change in the first few hours of life. I think I had already kissed those cheeks 500 times.


By the next morning I was bored and ready to leave the hospital! Sam took advantage of the bed. Right after this picture, my nurse came in the room. We joked about her getting Sam some buffalo wings. She wittingly said "I've never had a boy patient older than 4 days old, this will be interesting." ha ha!


Going home! My friend Leslie gave Lillie this outfit and she even made head bands to match. So girly! Once she had the hospital onesie off that covered her fingers, she quickly started sucking her thumb.


We left the hospital and went straight to my parents house to pick up three eager big brothers.


From that point on, things have gotten a bit blurry in the memory department. I remember Grandma Sweet visiting, this is her 32nd and final grandchild: 20 boys and 12 girls! Aunt Rose, Zach and Caitlyn came to visit too!


Baby got back, er, I mean, Baby's first bath! She was SCREAMING, I was laughing. Right then Fern, Russ, and Aaron came to visit. I said "if this was my first baby I would be crying too, but I just think this is funny"!


Oh my word, this is my first time seeing this picture. CLASSIC! Look at the chaos that surrounds the first bath. I love it! Cameron was stressing from all the sounds coming from his baby sister.


And now for something completely different: If you know me, you know I'm not the creative type. Shocker. One night a few months ago, my pregnant body wouldn't let me sleep and as I was tossing and turnng, I had a sudden thought: What if I could find my Grandmother's signature of 'Lillie', my mom's signature of 'Belle', and my signature of 'Sweet' and had them printed in vinyl and framed? Then I laughed because I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to make that happen and I drifted to sleep.

Well, I was telling Fern's son Aaron about it and he told me it would be really easy so if I got him the three signatures he would make it happen. YES HE DID! I gave him the signatures, he scanned them into the computer. He enlarged the scan and cleaned up all the edges. Then he emailed the file to his sister Melissa, who had it printed in vinyl. I gave Aaron the frame, and he, Fern, and Russ assembled it and brought it over the same day we got Lillie home from the hospital! PHEW!

I AM IN LOVE with the end result! Here it is, with Lillie and Aaron. :)


And now just some random pictures from this past week. A lot of them were taken by my boys since my hands were full. :)




On a random note...
Sam's brother James loves to chat with Parker and try to convince Parker to play tricks on Carson. Fortunately for us, Parker takes everything Uncle James says to heart and tries out the suggested tricks. Quite often Carson will lay down at night, only to discover random objects stuffed into his pillow case or bed. The other day I heard Parker say "Hey Carson, I have this really cool game where you roll a quarter off your nose and try to drop it into a cup. Would you like to play this game?". Carson shrugged "sure" but first he was shooting apples with dad's pellet gun in the backyard (one of Sam's toys he got for Christmas). As soon as Carson went outside, Parker quickly came to me and said "Okay, here's what I need: a quarter and a pencil. Hurry!!!". He then used the pencil and rubbed it on the quarter's edges. As soon as Carson came back in the house he got him playing this game.

Now, I knew of this game because I have all brothers and I'm pretty sure this is a classic cub scout trick. However, Carson was clueless and from the first black line down his face I lost it! I could NOT stop laughing, while Parker kept a straight face and kept encouraging Carson to try, try, again! By the time Carson figured it out, he was a hot mess! Gotta love Parker!!!


Okay, Lillie is asleep so I gotta go to bed. I'll be dreaming of this sweet little face!