Hero Highlight

 My hero is Nick Sorensen. He completely changed his life for his family. 

#lighttheworld

#herohighlight

Turkey Dinner 🥘

 I am grateful for my kids, mistakes, impatience and patience, grad school, dad and his growing relationship with his kids, family’s health, zoeys getting baptism soon, big kid examples.

#givethanks

Dad’s Turkey Day

 Our Health, the land we live in, our church teaching us correct principles to give us the opportunity to live together forever and ever, Grammie and Grumpy, Mom done with first semester, remote job, momma.

Which glasses should I get??

wanna see something gross?

1.5 weeks after surgery.

This is from when I fell down the stairs, pregnant with Thomas, while carrying Zoey. Months later after it had healed, THIS is the result. Before surgery.

Besties...emily farrenkopf and emily andersen

blue bell ice cream factory tour

Galveston, TX

Katy FFA Parade 2.21.2015

Our Littlest Aggie!!!

Thomas, I love the tongue!

moon

We've been discussing the moon's cycle:

Claire: Mom! The moon is FULL!

Mom: You think so? I think it still looks like it's waxing.

Claire: Hmmm...You're right, Mom. I think it needs a little more wax.

doorknobs...

I was running behind schedule. I cleaned all my children and I needed a 10 minute shower to myself. I closed the bathroom door, took a shower and got dressed. Came out and started talking to Matthew. Checked on the baby. Put some things together to run to the store. Realized I had no idea where Zoey was.

Zoey?

Walked around, looked downstairs...

Zoey?

Climbing the stairs...

ZOEY?

Running quickly through the bedrooms...

ZOEY!

Ran back downstairs, checked the locks on the doors. All locked. She has to be in here...

ZOEY!!

Checked under beds, in the garage...

















Found her in the upstairs closet. Asleep. Wet cheeks from tears. She loves to close doors, but can't open them yet.

Scared me to death.

too fast...

Guess who rolled over?  This was taken diectly after.  I just missed it.  Hoping its not a fluke. ;)

Go Thomas!

softies and hawks...

All of my kids (thus far...we'll see about Thomas) have been super tactile. Claire has a blanket she won't sleep without. Matthew loves HAIR. And Zoey loves fuzzies. She will search out lint. From the dryer, from clothes, from animals. Whatever. If she sees something fluffy, she will pick it up and either put it in her mouth or right under her nose. She even will put it under my nose and try to get me to eat it.

Enter: The pink softy. This little blanket (Grammie made a big one and a small one...and incidentally, the large one was made out of Nick's baby blanket that he adored. It's used as it's stuffing. Wish I had a picture of it to explain it. Krista is a genius. She made it peek a boo style. Until Zoey pulled out the fuzzies........that girl...lol) is minky on one side and HAIRY minky on the other. If Zoey wakes before I get her out of bed, you better believe that she's pulling little bits of this hairy stuff off. Often with such content that I don't hear her when she wakes and when I go in to check on her, she's covered in fluff. Yesterday she started carrying this thing around.

TODAY, I'm holding Thomas. Whenever this girl hears him, I say his name or we go by something of his, she makes this kissing noise which tells anyone who will listen , that she'd like to give Thomas a kiss. It's too cute. So, I'm holding Thomas and Zoey comes up with kissing noises. I lift her up to sit with us and she notices his hair. She leans over to him and uses his hawk as a fuzzy, rubbing it repeatedly under her nose (a 'hawk' is his little hair that we fashion mohawk style. Here, I'll remind you of what it looks like).

How cute is this chubby girl, I ask you?

hi!

Thomas just wanted to say hi!

finger sucker, already.

monster#4

Horrible pic, but for tradition.

temper tantrums...

I admit it, I totally judged parents who had kids that threw tantrums. I didn't do it conciously, but I notice now that I have one that throws them that I was judging others! How awful! It's hard enough to be a parent.

ANYWAY! Zoey is a tantrum thrower. Since about 13 months. If she doesn't get her way, if Claire gets too close, if Matthew is too rough, if Mom says no...Tantrum. Whining, sometimes screaming. Wow. It's too bad, because you can also get THIS:

Look at that impish grin. How can you not love it?

Zoey loves to drive with the windows down and the music up. This is what she does to 'play' with the wind. Cute, right?

This kid sorts everything. This is her putting rocks into piles of little and big.

Grammie and Grumpy watched her while Thomas was born. She was a riot. She loves to sort. She loves laundry. She got in a laundry basket full of laundry and played by taking everything out. Then got out of the basket and put it all back in and then wanted in herself. She is a hoot.

Thomas Ryan Sorensen

Hello Thomas! We are so glad you finally made it. It was a long road, but you're here and we're so grateful you decided to come!! You had some funny things that made you a hazard at every turn, but we are one day 10 and you have quite the personality already.

Your pregnancy:
Low laying placenta
breach
and finally...predicted to be over 10 lbs!!!

Your delivery:
Dr. Slack
You were born in Loveland, Colorado on July 14, 2014 at 5:42pm.
You were induced at 39 weeks because of your predicted size. Your mom was terrified!!! 14 hour labor where I wasn't allowed to move much because of the pitocin so we could keep an eyeball on your heart.
You came out at a healthy 20 inches, 14.5 head and 8 lbs and 2 oz. My biggest baby but in no way close to the 10 lbs that was predicted.

Your siblings will love you. They have YET to meet you. Claire and Matthew are in Utah with Gramma and Grampa Mathews. They are so exicted to come home and meet you this weekend! Zoey LOVES you. She tries to comfort all your crying and brings Mom diapers and binkies to help out.

You scream all the day and night long. We finally took you into the doc and we were told that you are just a screamer. The doc said that they have seen a strong correlation of screaming babies with no problems and Type A personalities. Claire was the same way and is definitely a Type A.

We love you. Stop screaming!!!

We think that Claire will braid his hair and Matthew will hold it and suck his thumb!

His name comes from my Great Grandfather: William Thomas Mathews. Ryan was just a name we liked.

As requested...Oct 2013