Up With Kids Show - May 2015

This last school year, Kate & Hannah participated in the Up With Kids program again.  The show this year was called "Frostbite: A Tale of Two Sisters."   They were excited to do a "Frozen" show and as usual had a great time and performed wonderfully!

 Kate (middle)

 Kate's biggest part was being "Oaken" - the lodge owner who said "big summer blow out."

She had the best accent and did such a great job!

The next pictures of Hannah are blurry, but you can get a sense of her usual excitement to be on stage.   Here she was a troll.

Then, she was a snowman

 Some of the cast during the finale

 Cute actresses - I love Hannah's ears sticking out from her hat :)

Hannah, Kate & Ms. Angela (the director)

Way to go girls!  You are awesome!

May Misc.

 May came and went!   May is always extremely busy with end-of-school-year activities, the dance show, Up With Kids show, and Mother's Day!  This year was even more busy with a teeny baby AND very rainy, wet weather (oh, and Hailey coming down with shingles!)

I had a wonderful Mother's Day!  This year I really tried to focus on how much I love and adore each of these beautiful children of mine and how blessed I am to be their mom.  It was a wonderful day!

Sam was busy growing, learning how to nurse for each feeding and just being sweet & cute!

For the first couple of weeks at home, his bath was in this big tupperware bowl!

Hannah and another Bowen BYU fan!

 That face!

At the end of May, we got an invitation from the Superintendent of the Murray School District, Steve Hirase, that Emily was nominated by her school for the Superintendent's Award.  It's given to 10 students from Hillcrest Jr. High and 10 students from Riverview Jr. High.  They had a nice lunch for them and their parents at Salt Lake Community College.  To earn this award, the student had to have attended 7th, 8th and 9th grade at the school and gotten all A's and H's.    We are sure proud of this beautiful young woman!

 Emily, Sophie Richmond, Emily Ballard, Brinley Smith & Kate Spackman

My mom made Sam this adorable nautical quilt.  I absolutely love it!

Samuel Jay comes home - April 29, 2015

On Monday, April 27th, I went for my usual visit with Sam and the nurse informed me that he would be coming home either Tuesday or Wednesday.  I couldn't believe it!  They hadn't said anything at all before this about when he'd be home.   They had just moved him to a private room and he had just pulled out his feeding tube.

But, there wasn't a reason to keep this little champ, so it was time to go home.  We were excited and nervous.  We had figured out our routine of visiting him and even though we were so happy to have him home, we knew he was in such good hands in the NICU.

When I went on Tuesday morning, he hadn't gained enough weight for them to be comfortable sending him home, so we had to wait until Wednesday.  I was disappointed, but obviously one more day wasn't that big of a deal.  

I went on Wednesday morning and went through the process of checking him out (talking with the nutritionist, scanning out all the bottles of breastmilk, reviewing doctor's orders, making sure we had a doctor's appt scheduled for the next day, etc.).  We were then given the thumbs up to change him into our clothes and go!

Yeah!

Jon was able to come over (after working all night) and my mom got there right as we were on our way out.  Sam looked teeny in the carseat!  We were headed home to figure it out on our own....

 Hailey was excited to welcome him home and bring him some of the baby toys!

 The other kids were excited to come home too to FINALLY hold him and love on him more.

 My cute dad came by - he hadn't gotten to hold him yet.  

Oh, how we love this little boy!  He was so teeny, but such a good baby.  We would wake him every 3 hours to feed him and during the night, he would go 4.  Truly, a champ!