M's bday, Halloween, & Thanksgiving

October 13th was Maddie's third birthday. What a big girl she has become!! We had a little party for her and I made her a caterpillar cake at her request. Thanks heavens my sister Lisa was here visiting when I made it, and she helped cover the five half balls with stars. Otherwise it would have taken me forever by myself! It turned out cute and Maddie loved it!

My little ballerina girl :)
(she still walks on her tiptoes all the time; has since she started walking)

Halloween was a lot of fun with the kids this year. We went to a pumpkin farm and they enjoyed carving pumpkins with us (well, they helped with the gutting out part).

At the pumpkin farm (Jared is 1 mo here)

Parker was actually pretty squimish about the pumpkin inners, but Maddie wasn't. She loved it. :)

Then we also went to "Boo at the Zoo" at our local zoo. It was pretty cool. They had tons of lights all over and a ton of carved pumpkins too, and games and hay mazes and things like that for the kids. I think that might be a new tradition.

Maddie and Parker with our friend Giddeon

Our little cub (6wks old)

We actually didn't have our first snow until almost halfway through November. That is practically un-heard of here in Idaho. The kids had quite a grand time building a small snowman.


For Thanksgiving we drove to Portland OR to visit Ben's family. Ben is #4 of 10 kids, and everyone was there for the holiday. And they all got to meet Jared for the first time. :) He was actually at the perfect age to travel with too. He slept most of the time, but was happy and content the time he was awake. He had just gotten to that really smiley age, so that made it more fun for everyone to meet him. Here's Ben, Maddie, Jared, and I with Ben's Mom.

Cousin Hailey and Maddie helping me make rolls for Thanksgiving

Hailey and Maddie playing with Jared

Aunt Michelle and cousin Tyler with Jared

We stayed at Ben's sister's house, and she has three boys. So they have a LOT of nerf stuff and Parker had a blast with it. We actually got him some nerf stuff for Christmas because he had so much fun with them.

Cousin Porter and Parker with Jared

Jared has grown SOOO fast! I can't believe he's already three months old. He is still such a content baby and hardly cries. He's just happy pretty much all of the time (I'm so lucky!). He sleeps pretty much through the night (wakes up around 5am to eat, but that's it), and is easy to get to sleep. He has been showing his personality so much more, and getting so active. The kids love that he is interacting with them now. They love to talk to him and get him to smile and laugh. Maddie is actually the first one who got Jared to laugh out loud instead of just chuckle. Who knows what she was doing (she didn't really know herself), but it was so cute!

My little smiley boy (12wks). LOVE HIM!!

We made Santa graham crackers at my Aunt's house with some of the cousins. They were sooo easy and the kids had fun.


We hope you all had a great Christmas, and I'll be putting a Christmas post up soon. Love to all!

He's here!

Jared Ray Lewis has arrived! Jared was born Sept 17th at 7:42am, weighing 7lbs 11oz.


Jared Ray Lewis was born Friday, Sept 17th at 7:42am. The cesarean went well, Jared was born healthy, and he is all we could have wished for! I went into the hospital at 5:30am, and the surgery started at 7:30am. Everything went pretty well. The hardest part was getting my i.v. in. :( Two nurses blew 4 veins trying (yeah, my arms are a rainbow of colors), then they had to call in the anesthesiologist and he got it in on his second try. I had a little problem when the anesthesiologist first did the epidural, but other than that the rest went great. I was actually surprised at how fast they were in getting in and getting Jared out. It took my doc in Oregon a half hour to get Maddie out, but only 12 minutes for Jared. Wow.

Our little guy is the most content baby I've seen (knock on wood). He hardly ever cries, and just eats and sleeps and looks around while he's awake. Parker and Maddie both love him, and Maddie especially loves him up and wants to hold him all the time (hence why we have a ton of pics of Maddie holding Jared and only a few of Parker).

Here I am before the surgery

Ben and I waiting

Surgery.... fun....

Finally get to hold my little guy for the first time in the post-op room

The three of us in the post-op room (yes, I was stoned at that time-lol)

Ben and Baby J

The first time the kids came to see me and Jared at the hospital

Madisyn is constantly kissing Jared, asking to hold him, and saying she wants to "pet" him (rub his head)

Baby J, 8 1/2 hours old

My wonderful mother who is out here helping for a few weeks. Thank heavens for mothers!!!

Jared, 3 days old

3 days old

Getting ready to come home from the hospital

All tucked in and ready

The kids, of course, had to help carry the baby out.

All three squished in our car. We can't wait til Ben graduates in December and we can hopefully get a van!! (never thought I'd be saying that-lol)

Jared 4 days old

Maddie helping feed Jared his first bottle. Thank heavens for pumps!

We are so blessed to have this little guy in our family. We love him so much!!

Starting up again =)

Well, I have 9 months to catch up on. Wow, and yikes! So this will be a long one, even with me just doing a few highlights. But I thought I'd better do this for sure before the next babe comes (in less than two weeks!) while I actually have a chance. :)

Parker turned four, all the way back in January. But thought I'd mention it. :) I made him a Wall-E cake and we had a party for him.

Ben was gone doing an internship in Utah (south of SLC) for 8 weeks from mid Jan til mid March. He took our one car which made it tricky for me, but luckily we had tons of helpful neighbors and family who totally helped out when needed.

Ben had a couple of weeks after his internship before the beginning of the next semester, so we took advantage. We decided to drive down to Tucson, Arizona to visit my twin sister and her family. It was a WAYYYY long drive (20 hours, cut up in two days), but so worth it to spend two weeks with my sis and her family! Parker & Maddie had such a good time with her three kids. Here's some pics from that.

Lincoln, Sydney, Maddie, Jess, & Clark

Trip to the Tucson zoo: Ben, Parker, Lincoln, Maddie, Jess, & Sydney

My twin and I :)

Ben and I up on Mt. Lemmon

My handsome man ;-)

Dress up time! Lincoln, Parker, Sydney, & Maddie

This was actually a trip to Chuck E. Cheese's. Jess, Sydney, Parker, Lincoln, Clark, Maddie, and me

We were at her house during Easter, so the kids got to decorate Easter eggs together.

Then they got to go Easter Egg hunting. Here's them with their loot. :)


Maddie in her Easter dress

Jessica's hubby, Renn, is in the Air Force and they live on base. So we got to go see some of the airplanes there. Here's Maddie, Parker, & Sydney by one of them

We took the kids "hiking" up on Mt. Lemmon, and they had a blast! We explored this old work camp from back in WWII time. It was pretty neat. Here's Maddie, Ben, Renn, Lincoln, Sydney, Clark, Jessica, & Parker

On the hike: Jess, Clark, Parker, Maddie, Ben, & Syd

Syd, Lincoln, Parker, Maddie, & Ben on the hike

Syd, Ben, & Maddie

Our fam on the hike when we stopped for a picnic lunch

All the kids: Maddie (2), Clark (1 1/2), Sydney (6), Lincoln (2 1/2), & Parker (4)

My little man :)

Jessica's fam: Jess, Clark, Sydney, Lincoln, & Renn

Then in May by best friend Meghan and her son Riley came out from Pittsburgh to visit us here in Idaho. We had such a good time taking them around to Mesa Falls and Yellowstone, and some of the other local sites.

Meghan & Riley at Mesa Falls

Me and the kids at Mesa Falls

Warm River

Like I said, we took Meghan & Riley to Yellowstone National Park (we went two dif days actually). We went at the perfect time of year (spring) because all the babies were out and all the animals were coming back out to forage and eat. We saw SOOO many bison, elk, deer, and even three black bears. It was actually Ben's first time to Yellowstone too, and it was awesome!

by some bison

One of the many waterfalls in Yellowstone

Feeding the chipmunks. They would come right up and eat from our hands, and the kids absolutely loved it.

Look at geysers

Meghan with the kids

Us mommies with the babes

One of the three black bears that we saw. This one came right up to the road and walked right through the center of where everyone was standing (we all made way of course!). It was like we weren't even there to him. It was awesome!

The summer has come (and almost gone by!) and we had so much fun and did so many things. I'm going to do another post on summer later, but I'll put up some picture from one of our Rigby Lake outtings. The kids love going to "the beach" to play and make sand castles. It's especially fun when Ben's there because he helps them make really cool castles and dams. :)







Well that's all for now, but I'll put up another post in a few days (hopefully!). Does anyone check this anymore anyway?