Firetruck babies

It is tradition to take pics of all my babies in this firetruck outfit. 

This is Finnik:

Tripp

Deklan

Baine

Raidon

And all of my crazies together. 

Overcooked

 I was starting to get pretty miserable in my never-ending pregnancy. This family pic was taken on September 1st at Nick's wedding at the Portland temple. I was enormous and ready to be done.

My "magical" due date, September 19th, came and went uneventfully and left me still prego and even more miserable. I couldn't sleep, my back was hurting, and then I started getting weird twinges in my knees when I bent them. Ugh!

At 3:30 am on September 25th (Sunday), I woke up and moved slightly and felt a leak. So I woke Randy up and told him to get me a towel. I knew if I moved it would leak everywhere. So I gracefully walked to the bathroom with a towel between my legs and sat on the toilet where more amniotic fluid came out. I decided to wait to go to the hospital until I had regular contractions.... but they never came. So sweet aunt Carol Marie took my kiddos to church and enlisted the help of Grandma Afton, Jordan, and Maraina during sacrament meeting (Yes, that is one adult per crazy boy). And Randy and I headed to the hospital at 1 pm. Good thing my contractions weren't close together cuz the normally 5 minute drive to the hospital took about 25 minutes since a semi had flipped and closed a lane on the freeway.

Carol had to play the organ during sacrament meeting and Raidon went up with her. During one of the talks, he sat on the foot pedal and a loud deep note went off for awhile before she got him off it. Oh boy! 

This was the only time I had ever written a "birth plan" and nothing on it went the way I had planned. So much for that! When I got there I told them I wanted to walk to get the contractions going. I walked and watched the Seahawks game for a couple hours with no luck. At 4:50 pm I consented to receiving pitocin -which I hate! I only had pitocin for 20 minutes where I went from a 3 to a 10 with super strong, close together contractions. I was so exhausted from being awake for so long that I got the epidural. Then 20 minutes after the epidural he was born at 5:29 pm! I had no energy and could barely push him out, so I also had an episiotomy -which was one more thing that I didn't want. I told Randy afterwards that I don't think I was even pushing part of the time, just holding my breath -that's how deliriously tired I was.

 The hospital has a new policy that the newborn will be placed on the mother's chest, skin-to-skin, for the first hour after birth. My little porker nursed almost that whole hour. It was getting tough for me to hold him that long cuz I was so weak and exhausted. It also drove Randy crazy. He said I was hogging him :) When they finally weighed him, he was 9 lbs 2 oz and 21.5 inches long. My little beastie!

 We were so grateful to have an amazing nurse this time. Last time, when Baine was born, we had a nurse from H who was just rude. But our nurse during this stay was super helpful and a great support. Thank Heavens!

Here is Finnik Daniel Fuller ready to go home!

 I love all of his hair. None of my other babies have had this much hair

I completely forgot how exhausting a newborn can be. I am so worn out, but so happy he is finally here. Randy's mom, Carol, watched our kids while we were in the hospital and it was so nice walking in to a clean home with all the laundry done and dinner in the fridge. She also left us a bottle of sparkling cider and a decadent dessert. We were definitely spoiled! 

We were also super grateful for all of our sweet ward members who prepared meals for us. I always feel so pampered after having a baby. It is a nice break from cooking :)                                                           
                                                         We love this little chubbo!

Deklan's birthday

After Tripp's baptism, we invited everyone to our house for lunch and to celebrate Deklan's 6th birthday. We had a ton of sandwiches that we ended up distributing to everyone after the party.

We had an Olympics birthday party which I thought was super fun

#1 request I get from the kids of what they want for their parties is a pinata. So here it is:

 Our first event was decorating a discus (paper plate) and then tossing them. I didn't get a pic of that one. Second event was a soccer goal shootout 

 Third event was shotput throw with bocce balls

 Fourth event was long jump

 The fifth event was a running course where everyone was timed. I didn't get any pics of that, but it was super entertaining to see the adults run the course. Won't ever forget Jordan's somersault to the finish. Classic!

 Last was the pinata. We had so many strong kids that Tripp didn't even get to hit it.

 I loved Baine's one-armed swing. Tripp painted a skull on the back of the pinata.

 Titon was the pinata crusher of the day and we were grateful for Brian manning the pinata string since it broke and he was probably the only one who could reach it.

 As soon as I brought the cake out, Baine stuck his fingers right in it. Such a stinker!

 Deko was spoiled with lots of presents and lots of friends and family at his party.

 We ended the day by watching some Olympic events and a soccer game of Brian Fuller boys vs. Randy Fuller boys.

It was super fun and felt like a success to me!

Tripp's baptism

Tripp was baptized in August. I can't believe my baby is old enough to get baptized. This was the pic I used on his invitations

 Tripp looking handsome on his baptism day

 We had a busy day. Tripp had a flag football game before his baptism and so did Deko. Deko and I walked in right before it started so I was grateful someone snapped this pic of them before the baptism. Randy and Tripp said the water was super hot and Tripp told me that when he came out of the water that he felt a lot happier and different.

It was a good day and we were so thankful that Tripp had such amazing support at his baptism with lots of friends and family. I may or may not have gotten a little emotional ;)

Tripp's birthday

Tripp wanted to go bowling for his 8th birthday this year, which was the end of June.

 I won a gift certificate for Groupon and ended up paying 35 cents for his birthday party which included bowling for 6 and a pizza. I love a good deal. Tripp invited his friend Gabe to party with us.

 I even beat Randy in both games we played so it was a super excellent day ;)

 Tripp requested a fruit pizza for his birthday cake 

My mom gave him a gift card to Amazon and this is what he picked out with it.

On his actual birthday he had to have surgery. Poor baby! He had to have an extra tooth removed to make room for his permanent tooth to come in. I thought he looked a little robotic with all those wires sticking to him. He was knocked out and woke up with a killer headache and grumpy attitude. 

 But the next day he went to scout camp. Raidon and I picked him up on the last day of camp. They had super hot weather the whole week.

Baggins Birthday

My rotten baby turned 2 earlier this month. We celebrated by going to Burger King for dinner and then cupcakes and presents at our house.

 This little stinker blew out the candles before we sang "Happy Birthday" so we had to relight them for him. 

 I got Baine a stick horse since he kept riding around on our stick that we keep in our sliding door.

 But he doesn't get it. He holds the horse out in front of him with straight arms and runs around. Pretty entertaining!

 I also got him a baby (which Randy wasn't too happy about). A few weeks before his birthday, we went to a thrift store and he found a naked baby and freaked out when I told him to put it down when it was time to leave. Now this baby goes everywhere with us. And I have caught all of my other boys playing with baby too. I guess I should have bought babies a long time ago :)

 My cute little poser!