Benjamin's First Days Home

This little boy is loved on more than any other baby that ever existed I am sure of it!

Here he is hanging out in the car... some peace and quiet for him!

This is the absolute best!

Bath time... at this point he really doesn't care one way or another for his baths

I'm watching you ...

Jardon Boys!

It's hard not to snuggle up and fall asleep with this little guy

Joshie just can't get enough of him!

L. O. V.  E. 

Another one suckered into his sleepy snuggly temptation

Hmmm? These are the two fingers Joseph sucks too!

Cozied up in the moby wrap

So peaceful

Biggest sister

In the boys room

In preparation for another boy in the boy's room, Josh conveniently broke his bed and Joseph conveniently began to crawl out of his crib and refused to go back in, so... here are Josh and Jo's new bed spots and the crib is in the corner!

Benjamin Augustus Jardon

Benjamin Augustus Jardon

11/11/2016

6 lbs 12 oz 19 inches

The smallest baby so far : ) Yipee!

Getting ready!

Um yeah... I'm so ready for this little sucker to be born. We decided on an induction day 10 days before his due date because of the need to continue increasing my diabetes medication and just because I was ready for him to come. It seems my body doesn't know how to go into labor naturally so my history says I'd go late and have to be induced anyways so we talked to the dr and she said since everything looked good with baby it would be safe to induce early... yippee! We just had to wait for my mom to come then we headed to the hospital the next day!

Let's just get one last memory of this belly!

And let's do a little comparison of that almost 10 pounder Jo... I can definitely see a difference in the belly size!

I was certain this baby would come out quick and simply... never the case. My deliveries are not terrible but they are definitely not quick and easy. We went in around 7 in the morning and they started Pitocin pretty quick. After about 2 hrs and them increasing the rate every 15 mins. I was still not contracting on my own. The dr came and broke my water and increased the Pitocin a little more around 10 and I started having a few contractions. A couple of hours more of this and they finally started picking up. I got my epidural which was interesting... they put it in the wrong place the first time and tested it by putting the medicine in, she told me if it was in the wrong place I'd feel my heart start racing but that it would only last a few seconds... well, it was in the wrong place and I could for the first time relate to my cardiac patients when they go into a funky heart rhythm! They took it out and replaced it then we were ready to continue on from there. Baby's face was turned to the side (they never like to come out crown up like they're supposed to) so it was causing quite a bit of back labor (very reminiscent of my labor with Amelia who was entirely face up). They had me lay side to side to see if his head would straighten itself out but he never really did. My contractions really started intensifying around 2:00 and the pain was terrible. I began wondering if the epidural was even working. They were afraid to give me the full pain medicine dose because my BP was low but my BP normally runs low and I wasn't too worried but they were. They gave me some IV fluids then agreed to increase the pain medicine amount. Shortly after I started feeling really dizzy and light headed so I had them check my blood sugar (keeping in mind I only had eggs for breakfast before I had come in and it was the middle of the afternoon and I hadn't eaten anything)... my blood sugar was 53!!! (It should be 80-120 at that point) so I guzzled down some juice and finally got a little surge of energy. Well a little after 3 I knew it was time and we started pushing. I could feel the pain of the pushes and contractions more than my other 3 normal deliveries. It was terrible but I tell you what, if anyone needed any motivation to keep pushing it definitely gave me motivation, I remember thinking to myself this would be my last push because I could not handle the painful contractions in my back any more and that last push I pushed him out!!! It's a boy!!! Healthy baby boy!!!

I love love love this moment!

Hi mom : )

I'm so glad you're here!

I feel like the most blessed person in the whole world to have experienced this 5 times!!!

Don't cry... do you know how loved you are?!?!

Hmmm... I don't know about all these lights and this air... I was pretty happy in my previous home!

Well, ready or not here they come!!!.... the siblings!

Amelia and Benjamin

Joshua absolutely adores his little brother, I expected that from Amelia but not as much from Josh

He would've sat like this for hours if we let them!

Besties!

And oh boy Joseph... it was love at first sight for him too!

Just look at that proud smile!

And Lydia too! She's so happy to be another big sister!

Oh and Meema's turn : )

Very randomly my friends from the valley were up visiting and they were able to stop by to meet Benjamin and say hello... what a blessing!!

Look at that handsome man!

Outfit for home! Meema had to go buy a new one because I bought 0-3 mo clothes for him since none of our other babies were able to fit into NB clothes so we were unprepared... the 0-3 were way too big so Meema spoiled Benjamin and got him this adorable NB outfit!

So long hospital!

Arizona House!

We took the first week of April and made a trip out to AZ to fix up our house in preparation to sell. We bought that house, our first house, the summer of 2009 while I was pregnant with Amelia. We moved out of it the spring of 2012 when Joshie was 6 months old and we made our way back to Colorado. We've had friends renting the house for the past 4 years and they took great care of the home and it was such a blessing to us to have had such great renters while we lived in a different state! It was such a surreal visit to go back to our first and only home we've ever owned and have such funny flashblacks. A couple of times while walking through the house I blinked my eyes and expected to see all of our stuff and our life continuing there... it was strange for sure!

I don't remember if this was the way there or back but here we all are! Quickly outgrowing the Suburban! Fortunately we've done so many road trips the kiddos are really good at travelling in the car and Jo has outgrown his car seat screaming days so it was an uneventful trip!

There's our house behind us! 

FLASHBACK: There's the only glimpse of a child in our future right there in our belly... and now 4 + 1 in my belly in the picture above... God is good! Here we are entering our home with our own keys for the first time!

Amelia when she was Lydia's age snuck out our front door and walked down this pathway all by herself with her dolly and stroller and said she was "just going for a walk"! 

Buying supplies to paint and clean! 

FLASHBACK: Here Adam is 7 years ago at the same Home Depot loading up our cart for first time home buyers junk : ) : ) One single cart to 2 double seater kids carts in 7 years!

We found a helper at Home Depot... she was pretty cheap labor and only had about a 10 min. attention span but she did pretty good!

We decided to repaint the whole house... okay, Adam repainted the whole house... I tried to help as much as I could but it seemed a little counter-intuitive with 4 kiddos making more damage than good to everything I cleaned... we camped out and stayed the night at the house one night so I could help Adam in the evening. Here's Jo getting ready for bed in what was Amelia's room

And a campout in Meema's old room (the guest room)

Taking a break and eating lunch in the side yard! Fortunately it really wasn't super hot when we were there : )

FLASHBACK: Here's what the yard looked like when we moved in before our big and first landscaping project together : ) ... 

Planting grass and trees

 Bouganvilleas and Oleanders : )

 A brick patio!

 Our little helper : )

We stayed at my dad's house in Scottsdale... always a nice treat! 

Here are the kiddos on their one of many bike rides around the town!

Another bike ride to AJ's ending in free cookies and some bulk candies : )

Ahhhh! Jumping cactuses (or cacti I guess to be correct) watch out!

A little early morning girls hike with daddy and Tanko

The beloved playground and splash pad at Beepa's house

Undies? Yes I forgot to grab the swimsuits and while it's a short hop skip and jump through the gate to Beepa's house you tend to get a little lazier when it requires loading up 4 kiddos in the stroller and bikes to walk back when they could just get wet in their undies and call it good : )

We didn't even think about it on the trip out but fortunately we stayed for long enough to make up for our blankness of mind and Aunti Abbi was able to make a last minute trip from Cali to visit us for a couple days! It's always good to see her and the kiddos love seeing their Aunti!!!!

Get me in there!

That's better!

Practicing his moves for relaxing at the pool!

And playing at the park... 

We discovered this playground last summer, it's about a 10 min. walk away and the kiddos thought it was so great to each have a slide that fit their size!

I gave everyone a popsicle after the park one hot day and then I put Jo to bed and came back and saw this... they were deep in conversation together... this is what I love about having a big family and seeing the friendships and fellowship they develop with each other!

Hey you caught us!

Playing at Beepa's

We didn't do a whole lot of this but here we are one spare night relaxing at Beepa's watching a movie.

We are loving our annual Spring trip to AZ... even though we don't have a home out there anymore we may still try to take a trip every year ?? We'll see how the wind blows for us!