Kylie's First Day of FIRST Grade!

My little sweet pea!

And the day has come, as my mom came over and says... "I remember when I could fit her tiny little head in my palm..."

Ugh, as if I wasn't having a hard enough time already!  I've been up since 4:15 this morning.  My mind's been racing.  What if she needs me?  What if something happens?  What if she misses me?  Okay, more likely-- what if I miss her???

As I was making her lunch this morning, I began to cry.  I'm not sure what upset me more... that she'll be in school ALL day and needs a lunch OR that she can actually read the note I packed in her lunch.  Where has the time gone???

And this is her happy as anything to walk on in.  Matthew's got the camera, I was trying to hold her hand... she was ready to play on the playground... which brings me to a hilarious story:

Kylie was playing, having a great time.  Matthew noticed some boys telling her something and not letting her go down the slide.  Matthew walked over there, asked Kylie what they said.  They told her that was the 3rd grade slide and she couldn't go down.  Well, no... Matthew was not having that.  He told them and Kylie that she could go down which ever slide she wanted!  He then made Kylie go down the slide... lo and behold, I call my friend later that morning... that really is the big kids slide... for 3rd graders and up.  Matthew's like, "whatever, small little midgets... how'd they know she's not in the 3rd grade..."  Yeah, this is from the same man who when I said a boy gave her an indian burn, Matthew said give him one back and don't stop until he cries... YIKES, right??!?  The teenage years should be fun.

And off she goes... Matthew and I got back into the car, and this instance shows how different we are.  I said to him that I hoped she was okay.  And he looked at me and said, "why wouldn't she be okay?"  He's probably more spot on than I am.  Ugh, so hard to let them go!!!

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I did pull my PTA rank and headed in during her lunch shift.  She was great, having a blast, sitting by friends, loving life.  I asked if there was anything she needed me for, if she was okay or if she wanted me to stay... she gave me a kiss, said she was great and hurried to eat her lunch so she could go to recess. 

Sunday Morning Pictures

AND... our first official family of 6 picture!!!

I look at this picture and it's like, WOW, since when do we have so many kids?!?! :)  It's just funny, I know we have 4 kids... but then I see this picture this morning, and I'm just like, geez there's alot of us!!!  Love it :)

Now one of all the girls:

Now one of all the girls, including me:

And we can't forget Daddy, the one who survives our household of 5 females!!!:

If you can tell, Kadyn has a lollipop in her mouth.  Sometimes it just makes life a little happier... I understand, sometimes I need peanut butter m&m's for breakfast, so whatever works!

Sunday Morning Pictures

All 4 Girls!

It's the best we could do... And yes, before I get the comments, I know they don't match completely.  The color/prints don't match, but their identical styles of the same dress--- sometimes that's the best I can do when I'm shopping.  Kylie grew like 3 inches since May.  Consequently, some of her dresses in our collection of 3's are a wee bit short!!!

Kadyn was in a bit of a mood.  She's having a tough time going to Nursery (this was taken after church).  I've been in Nursery since she was 15 months, next month she'll be 2... she only knows Nursery with ME in it.  So she's having a rough time, although a wonderful friend of mine is bound and determined to get her there and happy before I get to church with Kloey.  (love her!)

Love her hair, she's so precious!

And her first black eye. 

She fell on/in Kacey's bed yesterday while we were doing some bedroom rearranging.  I wasn't there, so I'm not entirely sure how it all happened.  Poor thing.  It's not swollen shut, I was telling her to close her eyes so I could get it's full effect. 

Kloey Elisa Boyd

August 2, 2010

12:48 pm

6 pounds, 3 ounces (same as Kylie and Kadyn!)

18 inches

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Sorry, it has taken a while to post these.  It has been a hectic week to say the least.  I did not anticipate a c-section to be as painful and as difficult as it was, I was optimistic and positive about it all... however, I learned fairly quickly that it was not going to be cake... it still isn't.  Anyway, here are some pictures.

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Matthew right before they rolled me in.

It was all pretty fast, I just remember feeling like it was hard to breathe.  And I was tilted, oddly to the left.  I felt like a pinball machine.  Matthew asked later if I smelled the burnt skin smell.  I did not, thankfully so.

Matthew cutting Kloey's cord.

Kloey's first bath.  Matthew went to the Nursery with her, but from what he tells me... she had some major lungs!!!

The funniest part was when my parents came with the girls later Monday afternoon.  Matthew, as a good son in law, wrapped Kloey up and walked over to my mom to hand off the baby.  My dad intercepted the hand off like you would not believe, hilarious! My mom was annoyed, but my dad was just thrilled to be holding Baby Kloey.

Quick Family Shot

Kylie

Kacey

Kadyn

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AND Matthew's birthday!!!

We came home on Wednesday, Matthew's 33rd birthday.  I felt badly for him, we had a card and Nike gift card to give him... but we really spent the day in the hospital.  Where he spent a majority of his day helping me go to the bathroom and even just walk.  We did manage to get him a little cake and sing! :)  We'll have to make it up to him next year.

Happy Group!

More pictures to come, it's been a long week.  Kloey's sleeping good, she's a really peaceful baby.  I'm not myself really, the pain meds are screwing me up.  Kadyn's adjusting to not being the baby, but it's hard because I can't hold her or lift her.  So she spends a majority of the day with a lollipop.  The older girls are in love with their littlest sister, and they'll sit and stare at her for hours.  Matthew's been home helping to balance life, running into work periodically to keep up on things.  My parents are in and out of our house constantly (I think they are babysitting me, which I need) making sure everyone's okay and giving everyone the love and attention they need at any given moment.  We're really blessed to have an awesome church ward here, yummy dinners are coming in every night for the next 2 weeks -- and have since we've been home.  Lots of phone calls checking in, we're here... just getting used to the new dynamics of life!

Kindergarten Graduation

Kylie had her Kindergarten Graduation today, and I was not missing it for the world.  There's nothing worse than an Italian mother- well maybe an Italian grandmother- but there was nobody or nothing stopping me from attending!  And it was AMAZING!

Kylie had her own very long speaking part.

(Thank you Yaya for working with her on it while we were in the hospital)

She did wonderful, spoke loudly... there were some big words and the speech was super long... she was incredible.  I was crying my eyes out!

I'm so grateful for such an awesome teacher, Ms. Messerli.  She has so many students- all at different achieving levels, yet she knows each one and I felt that she continually gave Kylie the attention and challenges that Kylie needed to thrive.

She'll be Kacey's teacher in 2011.  Kadyn's 2 years after that, and Kloey... you get the point.

I worked closely with Ms. Messerli throughout the year, in the classroom and through my PTA stuff.  We've become good friends, and she had my back.... I had the best seat in the house!  Love this woman, she called while I was in the hospital and made arrangements with my mom so that I'd be comfortable while sitting at the graduation- that she knew I'd be attending... and she called Matthew last night to verify it all- making sure we knew all the ins and outs.  I got there early for my front and center seat, as you see, with my name "MOMMY BOYD" waiting for me.

Everyone with their diplomas!

Kloey Update

We are doing well, my fluid increased (?) oddly enough.  I'm not quite sure how that's happened- life hasn't given us a break and we just seem to be constantly on the go... rest and relaxation aren't in our vocabulary... but fortunately enough, Kloey's amniotic fluid DOUBLED and moved up to be in the low end of the normal range. 

I had my last dr appt today.  Kloey is still breech, with a slim to no chance of nose diving into the correct position!  I have a c-section scheduled 1 week from today- on Monday, August 2nd at 12:30 pm... we can't wait to see our little baby girl!  More info next week!!!

The Wedding

On Saturday, Matthew's youngest brother Aaron got married.  We were so excited, because they were married here in the Las Vegas Temple.  Nearly all of Matthew's family is on the east coast... but we really lucked out because given that I'm 9 months pregnant, it was only a hop-skip-jump away for us and we were able to attend!

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Matthew doing a few pictures of us on the pretty Temple grounds.  Unfortunately, he's taking all the pictures you see here... so I have none of him.  Let me inform you, he looked very handsome!

Matthew's parents and the girls.  The girls were so happy to see Grandma and Grandpa for a few days!!!

Aaron and his new bride, Valerie!

(check out the shoes, she's got them on too!)

They LOVE Uncle Aaron and Aunt Valerie!  We're excited to have them close by.... (babysitters.... oh wait, who said that?!?!?)

Unfortunately, we don't have too many more pictures.  We don't even have any of Uncle Brad and Uncle Bryan, which just breaks my heart!  It was so nice to see them for a bit, for them to come out here... it's always amazing to me that no matter how young my girls are, they remember their uncles!  It's been a year since Kadyn has seen Uncle Brad and Uncle Bryan (and she's not too fond of new people or people she doesn't see on a regular basis) but she goes right into their arms as if she seems them everyday!  We were so happy to see them and look forward to seeing their wives and all our new little cousins hopefully soon!

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These are just too funny, they happened about 3 weeks ago... prior to all the drama and sickness.  I just found them on my camera.

She's asleep.

HA!  Love that little bug!!!

Catch-Up

And Kadyn is better.  Stomach bug is completely gone, Kylie I think caught it next... but it was just a loss of appetite and a stomach ache for a few days.  Kadyn has resumed normal life, eating like a COW all the time.  I think she's scarred for life that we won't feed her.  At every meal, her meal plate is the biggest.  And ironically, Kacey's in the next largest and Kylie's is the smallest.  Go figure.  If I don't do it that way, we play musical plates and Kadyn ends up with everything anyways!

On that note, another little scare... but everything is fine before I start.  I found a lump in Kadyn's arm.  She woke up from her nap, and I was rocking her and rubbing her arm and I felt this thing!  It freaked me out to say the least.  Large, hard lump in her arm.  No bruise for me to make any sense out of it... other than cancer (remember, I'm pregnant here and hormones are right on the surface.)  I called and got an appointment with my DR within 20 minutes, drove like a mad woman.  He said it was attached to the bone, drove like a mad woman again to get immediate x-rays right before they closed for the night.   Luckily Matthew met me there straight from work, because again I'm a pregnant woman I couldn't go in with her to get them!!!  Spent the night worrying and imaging the worst, chemo treatments, losing her precious hair (which I realized quickly meant nothing to me)  We must have touched that lump 50 times in 8 hours... examining it with our non-medical brains (fyi- don't google something like this, it only makes you freak out more).  My wonderful DR who I really just love, called me by 9 am the next morning with the radiology report.... fatty deposit.  My child, who's in the 5th percentile for her weight, must collect all her fat into a marble on her left humerus bone... because there's certainly no fat anywhere else.  Not cancerous, no bone tumor... just a fatty deposit.

I really can't handle anymore drama!  (which I hope I didn't just invite more to come)

Summary of our life...

So we went to Disneyland, we have a bunch of pictures... I'll have to post them later.  We had a great time, I ended up cutting the trip short.  Being 8 months pregnant, after 4 full days... I was exhausted.  We ended up leaving 2 days early, the girls (and Matthew) had done everything already 100 times... so no tears were shed.

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Kadyn

First off, THANK YOU to everyone who has called, emailed, texted, contacted my parents... we have been offered so much help this past little bit.  I appreciate every single person calling with concern over our little munchkin.  It's times like these where you realize how many friends you have and what a great support system we have... we're really blessed.  On that note, couldn't survive life without my parents--- who live every minute right now at our beck and call. 

Maybe I should actually detail the past few days.  Kadyn's sick, pretty bad.  She's got the stomach bug, rotavirus- 98% of all children by the age of 5 have gotten it.  However, she's so little and tiny she just can't fight it off.  I took her into the DR Sunday morning (yes my dr has weekend hours, awesome right?!?!) after 3 days of trying to kick this bug... and she's only 1 pound more than she was at her 12 month visit (she's 21 months now), she's lost some weight.  He admitted her directly to Summerlin Pediatrics where we spent 2 full days on fluids with great nurses. 

Matthew spent the night, which made me feel like the worst mother ever.  Who leaves their baby in a hospital over night?!?!  I won't even leave my kids to do a Vegas-vacation overnight... However in my defense, the fold up cot for my very pregnant body did not look fun.  AND, I was not allowed to change any dirty diapers for risk of infection to Kloey.  Lucky Matthew :)  So he was more useful.  The nurse actually told me to go home, which was all the ammo Matthew needed because it was our constant fight all day Sunday as to who was going to stay--- he won and he stayed. 

We left Monday night, however Tuesday she downward spiraled- couldn't keep anything down.  We went back in to get an injection of anti-vomitting meds, it worked.  Now it's just a waiting game with that and the toast/bananas diet.  I just want this to be over, her poor little body has been a pin cusion to blood tests and shots and cultures.  I just want her to be better now.

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Me and Kloey

Just to add some excitement into the mix of our boring little lives, my amniotic fluid is low.  It was with Kylie also, so my dr was preparing for it.  It's supposed to be 14, I'm at 8.  And apparently, I'm at the peak right now... it only lessens from here.  To make it even more fun, Kloey's breech... butt down/head up.  Dr is not confident she's going to flip given that my fluid is so low... so we maybe planning on a scheduled c-section... oh and I have contractions every single night.  I have 6 more weeks to go.  Contractions that range from 10 minutes apart or even from 3-5 minutes apart.  They go away after an hour-ish.  So we'll see.  My dr keeps saying : 4 or more contractions in an hour and go into the hospital.  Yeah... I'd be in there every night.  No thanks.

So that's the sum up of our lives.  I figured it's easier to put it on the blog than repeat the same thing over again :)  But I still can't say enough how much we appreciate all the love and concern from our friends here.  Daily we get calls of people wanting to help with the girls or bring dinner... I haven't taken anyone up on it yet, but it's still nice to know of all the support we have.  Kylie and Kacey have been in pure heaven playing with Yaya and Papa all day, while Matthew and I tend to Kadyn.... which is great, last thing I'd want to do is feel badly that they feel neglected, but on the contrary... they are loving it! 

I'll update more on Kadyn when we know.

Our New Addition...

Meet Pearl!

Yeah, so it's a car... Kloey's coming in a few more weeks :)

2010 Chevy Traverse, 8 passenger... fully loaded, getting the dvd sytem installed this week!!!

The girls love it... this is them (after baths, hence the hair) taking their first drive over to Yaya and Papa's house to show off our new addition.  Camera phone, so it's kinda blurry.

*****

We spent 7 hours at the dealership.  Wheeled and dealed, got them down to the price I wanted... then "OH YEAH, we can't go home w/o a dvd system in it... the girls will freak out!!!"  Hehe, the poor sales guy... back and forth, back and forth... finally we came to something we agreed on :)  Actually the price was at where Matthew and I agreed was the good monthly price prior to us even going in the dealership... THEN WE BUST OUT MY AUNT'S GM FAMILY DISCOUNT!  Niiiiiiiiiice, we made the sales guy drop the F*bomb twice.  0% interest, $0 down.  That's the way we do it!

Love it!

Have I ever said how much I love having 3 (well 4) girls!!!

Because I just love it!

HAHA, love it!!!

Smack upside the head!

Notice Kylie's still keeping her smile for the picture.  Cute girl!

I didn't even tell her to hug her sister... and Kylie didn't do anything to justify that "love tap" from her sister.  Kylie just truly has an unconditional love for Kadyn... (Kacey not so much, just a sisterly love there)