The homestretch...

Hooray!!! We finally made it to October and my due date is just a couple weeks away! :) This pregnancy has gone by fast, but it hasn't made it any more tolerable. You'd think that pregnancy should start to get easier with each one, but it's quite the opposite. Each pregnancy seems to be ten times worse than the last one... so not fair. I'm just dying to be able to breathe and walk again! Oh, and eat food! ...and sleep! Enough complaining. Let's just say it's been a rough one and we're so glad these are the final weeks!

So my doctor who will never induce me thinks that because of my "precipitous" labor with Cali(less than 3 hours), it'd be a good idea to induce this one a little early to be safe. Oh how I'd love that! I could be induced next week! Needless to say, me and the babe are set on waiting until November when my momma can be here. My friends are SO sweet, but I just hate the idea of making them take care of 4 extra kids!

It's been brought to my attention that I haven't put any pictures of me and the belly on our blog... what kind of scrapbook is that?! Well, maybe it's because it doesn't seem that exciting to see me sporting my yoga pants and t-shirts with greasy hair and no makeup. But every once in a while there's a girls' night out or church thing... plus I guess I always try to look decent for church.

So, here's the picture we took today. :)

September Update

Here I am getting blog-behind again. School starting should have given us more free time, right? But so far things have just been as busy as ever. First, getting used to all the schedules and arranging carpools so that I wasn't making 6 trips to school each day. I'm very glad that has settled down! Then all four kids went through a round of a weird flu bug one at a time.

Max's school anxiety started to set in a little bit, but he's done really great with it and seems to be enjoying school. Doman missed a week of school because of a poor injury he had to heal from. It's also been a nightmare working with the school to accommodate his disability. And ever since Lincoln got sick and missed school he has hated going back. So we're debating just pulling him out altogether. Anyway, our days are crazy and packed, which I love, but definitely not the down time I was planning on with school starting.

Otherwise... the month of September was quite uneventful. All the boys did go to the ward camp out together again this year and had so much fun. I'm sure they were glad that Cali and I didn't spoil their trip... we would have been very high maintenance.

Here's a couple pics of that:

BYU 14, Oklahoma 13!!!

If you haven't heard about the huge upset BYU pulled over No. 3 ranked Oklahoma, you must have your head stuck in the sand somewhere. All the kids watched the first quarter with us, then Karen and I watched the rest of the game after they went to bed. We were on the edge of our seats for a couple of hours as we watched history unfold. It was incredible!

Bronco expressed it best: "All I can say is, I'm very proud of our football team, I'm proud of the way they prepared, and I'm proud that they seized the chance to play on this stage, against a fantastic football team."

Here's a highlight video of the game, in case you missed it.



Now, if you're like us, and can't see enough highlight videos, here are some more.

An amazing highlight in HD
Another long highlight

Go Cougs! Keep making us proud!

First Day of School

Max heading off to 1st grade! He likes his teacher, Michelle and there are some kids in his class from last year, so he's gotten off to a great start and seems to be really liking it. That makes us all very happy!

Doman has been so excited to go to Kindergarten. He is in Kim's class and so far he's loved it.

Lincoln's been dying to go to Preschool, but I've been pretty nervous about how he'd actually do without a nap and leaving his Mama. Well, he loves it! This is our fourth year in a row at Franklin Preschool and we couldn't be happier!

Cali definitely feels a little left out when all the boys go to school, but she pretty much just takes her nap and doesn't even notice they're gone. She'll have afternoon company soon enough!

Happy 2nd Birthday Cali!

We call her ZeeZee, Guppy, Chicos, and Doman pretty much only calls her... baby. I can't believe our sweet "baby" girl is TWO! We have adored and loved her to pieces... all of us! She has been the sweetest little addition to our crazy house of boys. It should also be commemorated that Cali being born is what really got us started on a blog two years ago, so just one more thing to thank Cali for!

These are the things she LOVES: her brothers, shoes, playing with dolls and Little People, Wow, Wow Wubbzy, and sitting on the potty. :) She isn't a huge talker, but definitely has a way of expressing herself. We especially love that she is so lovey and snugly.

Here are some pictures of her girly little birthday.

Opening her presents

After presents we went up to Tilden to take a ride on the Merry-Go-Round and have cotton candy.



Cake and Ice-cream. I just get lazier and lazier with being pregnant and kids having birthdays all the time. My new solution of just popping toys on a cake sure works well! And Cali loves Little People so she was happy. :)


Opening her package from Grandpa and Grandma Barlow:


Her pillowcase:


And her package from the Briggs:

UTAH!

We had a wild and very fun trip to Utah for July and part of August. I missed Dan a lot and learned a thing or two. For example, I do not want a huge house, I can't handle sick and cranky kids without Dan, but turns out I really can get them all to bed at night, and the Utah heat doesn't really bother me since I basically stay inside. My mom pretty much put her life on hold for a whole month to play and help me with the kids. I'm sure we wore her and my dad right out! Not to mention taking over their nice house... Max is still very sorry about the curio cabinet. :( But the boys and Cali had so much fun with their cousins and grandparents and I'm glad we could spend the time there before school starts up again.

Meanwhile... you don't even want to hear what Dan was doing while we were gone... working around the clock! He stayed in his lab 24/7 taking naps when he got tired and only going home on Sundays. He was able to squeeze in a trip to the temple, a good experience serving at the Berkeley Men's Shelter, and replacing our car's starter with a friend to save us some cash. We're so proud of him! He got months of work done and it was critical if he wants to be done this December... we'll still have to see how that goes!

Here are probably way too many pictures from our trip. I just can't get up the energy to figure out something new like collages or slideshows... oh well.

The Gateway Museum in SL with the Thurgoods and Tasha.

My mom and dad took the kids to the Ogden Nature Center. Birdhouses, a good walk out to a cool treehouse and then McDonalds Playplace afterwards... the kids had a blast.

My dad and mom took just Max and Kaden to a SL Buzz baseball game. They're making some pretty weird faces, but they loved it!

Another fun (hot) day my mom took the kids to a fun thing going on at a nearby park with the Cheshire cousins.

The kids couldn't get enough of the Clearfield Aquatic Center. Here is Max coming down the huge slide with Grandpa.

And Cali loved the little slide. I'd send her down from the top and Heidi would catch her... over and over again!

My mom took the kids on a great big outing in Salt Lake with Tasha one day. They first played at Tasha's, then ate at of course a McDonalds Playplace, and to top it off went to a big fun center. Here is a picture of Max and Tasha at the fun center.

We went to a new family fun center in Syracuse with the Briggs that the kids loved. Doman and Max liked the minature golf...

And Cali first went bowling, but really loved the little carousel.

The Ogden Raptors baseball game with Grandma and Grandpa and the Cheshires.

The boys enjoying the farm. The best thing about visiting in the summer is the boys get tractor rides, which they love. What we don't realize is how busy the farm keeps the whole family, so the kids only got to play with them for a couple days. Good thing we usually make winter visits. Here are all the boys getting their ride on the tractors.

Max with his cousin Kassidy in swim lessons for the first time. To say he loved it would be an understatement. I just wish he didn't think he could swim from taking only 8 lessons.

And just some random pictures with their cousins... their favorite part of Utah.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

It sure seems like a whole lot longer than 8 years ago that we were married. Maybe because we started dating 12 years ago, but even more likely is the fact that we have just been through a whole lot together already! I was only 15 when a high school compatibility test said I was 98% compatible with a Daniel Briggs, who I had never heard of. After we had dated for a while, I knew I could easily marry him, but honestly, I didn't really know why. After 8 happy years I can say that I definitely know why now! He is such a good hubby to me and he is an awesome little Dad. I'm a lucky girl! Happy Anniversary to us!

5 Years Today...

Five whole years ago we moved here and Dan started his Ph.D at UC Berkeley. It's gone by fast, and yet been the longest five years of my life. Crazy. Hopefully we'll be done soon!

This is the only picture I found. Dan and I drove the moving truck with just Doman who was only 2 1/2 months old. My nice mom came a few days later on a plane with Max who I can't believe was practically a baby himself... 17 months old. We've really started our family here, that is for sure!

A few days later when Max joined us. They were so little!

Two pieces of news...

First of all, we have finally gotten an ultrasound with a 100% BOY confirmation. Now we have a few months to officially prepare mentally for four boys! Thank goodness it takes a couple years before they're totally wild, right?

Secondly, Doman's doctor called last week with our genetic test results. No surprise that they were quite interesting results again. The doctor used the word "muddy." This is probably boring genetic info for some, but I think it's kind of interesting, so I'll try and explain it.

First, when Doman's tests came back they found that he actually had two mutations on the gene they were looking at. One mutation they could tell was for sure disease-causing, and the second mutation they could not tell. That is why the doctor wanted both me and Dan tested. So on my gene, there were no mutations... thank you very much, Dan, who thought I was for sure the one who'd pass on a muscle problem. :) On Dan's gene there was a mutation; it was the same mutation Doman has that they could not tell if it was disease causing or not. But that means the disease-causing mutation that Doman has is for sure a splice-site mutation (spontaneous mutation.) This is exactly what we were hoping for even though the doctor said it was a highly unlikely result to hope for. But because Dan passed the one random mutation on, even though it doesn't seem disease-causing, it still makes for an interesting case. Our doctor and the geneticist are going to try to figure things out some more. They're also going to see if they can figure out if it's recessive or dominant because that is what determines his specific diagnosis.

The bottom line: For whatever reason, Doman's gene mutated on it's own before birth. If he has kids, they will have a 50% chance of having Congenital Muscular Dystrophy. The good news is that there is no chance of our new little babe having CMD, or any other children we have in the future. Even though we're feeling pretty happy (overwhelmed might be a better word) with having the five kids, this is still a huge relief.

That's all for now! We'll have a big Utah post up soon!