SIX...

My little Reese is turning 6!

She has grown up so much this past year and is such a big help to her mom and dad!

She loves:

anything Hello Kitty

music

coloring and drawing

school

making her own jewelry

make up and new hair styles

her Grandma Lindsay

being a big sister to her two younger brothers

We are so lucky to have Reese, she is such a sweet girl!

We love you Reese!

Happy Birthday!

Quinn, 2 months

Quinn is 2 months old today. He is such a sweet baby and we are all completely in love with him. He has only been home 3 weeks but the NICU is now a distant memory. He now weighs well over 6 lbs. Getting to be such a big boy. We love you Quinn!

Love those chubby cheeks!!!

Thankful

This Thanksgiving I am thankful for my cute little family, and especially that we have Quinton home with us.

I have so much more to be thankful for and I could make a list a mile long, but I'm just grateful to have my family all home with me on Thanksgiving.

I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I am so thankful for these three little ones, they make me smile everyday!

Quinn's 5 week update

Quinn is now 5 weeks old and he are still in the NICU. We are really hopeful that we will be able to bring him home before Thanksgiving. He is progressing really well and getting to be such a big boy (well bigger than where he started out as). He now weighs 5 lbs 8 oz.

These pictures of right after his bath last night.

4 weeks old today!

Quinton is 4 weeks old today! I think this is more of a milestone for me, that I have actually made it through 4 weeks of him being in the hospital. He is getting so cute the bigger he gets. Quinn now weighs 4 lbs 10 ounces. Love this little dude!!!!

One of Quinton's cute nurses made him this sign today. So grateful he had amazing people taking care of him in the hospital.

Halloween project and Quinn update

The kids made these cute halloween crafts that have a bag of treats in the center. Thanks Grandma for getting the kids the stuff to make it, they had so much fun!

Quinton update: 2 weeks old (yesterday), he now weighs 3 lbs 7 oz. He is continuing to progress with learning how to eat. The kids ask about him everyday and want to know when he will get to come home, probably another 3-4 weeks, let's hope it goes by quickly.

Pumpkins...

We wanted to take the kids for a little fun today. They have been asking to go pick out some pumpkins so we thought that would be a perfect Saturday activity after seeing Quinn in the hospital. The kids had a great time and made sure to pick a little pumpkin for their baby brother.

Update on Quinton:

One week old today. He is now back up to his birth weight. He is way more alert and healthy than his doctors have ever expected him to be. This next week we get to start feedings with him and hopefully he will do well.

Quinton Scott Lloyd

Our newest little one arrived on Saturday morning at 12:28am. His arrival was extremely crazy and way last minute but we are so blessed to have his little spirit with us. I had an very scary case of preeclamsia and had to deliver the baby 8 weeks early. Vince and I were both nervous for the baby's safety and health but we knew it had to be done or I was going to have some major problems. We named him Quinton Scott Lloyd but intend on calling him Quinn most of the time. We are very excited to give him Scott for his middle name after his grandpa. He was 2 lbs 15 oz. and 17" long. Although he is super tiny and will be in the NICU for at least a month he is doing so well and we could not be happier with how well he is doing. He already has a spunky personality. He is very healthy and doesn't need to be on any oxygen now. He just needs to get some meat on his bones and start eating and in no time we will be able to bring him home. Reese and Wyatt haven't been able to see him yet but they are both really excited about having a new baby brother. We definitely feel like our family is complete now with Quinton here.

Labor Day Weekend

We had a fun and yet productive Labor day weekend as a family. We decided to take the kids to see the Kennicott Copper Mine since Wyatt loves trucks and rocks. The kids had fun seeing everything up there and it turned out to be a nice outting. We also were able to get some things done around the house like: clean out the garage, organize the basement, and paint the front door.

The kids sure look tiny next to this big tire!

The kids enjoyed watching the trucks haul the dirt and rocks.

The pain front door and trim that was desperate for some paint.

Finished door and trim freshly painted.

I have picked out the new porch light I want but Lowe's was out of it.

1st day of Kindergarten

Today was Reese's first day of Kindergarten. She has had some mixed feelings about going, but she wasn't the only one. I have been feeling anxious, excited, and nervous about her going as well. It was kind of a rough morning and she didn't like the outfit she picked for the first day so she changed her mind a few times. Then she decided she didn't like her shoes but I told her to get them on and she would be fine. We walked the 4 blocks to school while she cried the whole time. (And I thought I would be the one crying.) I didn't get many good pictures since she wasn't overly happy about going. But when Wyatt and I picked her up she had a big smile on her face, she said liked her shoes and would wear them again tomorrow, and she was glad she went to kindergarten. Success!

Could she be any cuter!

Making a house a Home...

My first project for our new house was hard for me to decide on. Wyatt has been having a hard time with the move and I have been feeling bad that he has been sleeping in the guest room and guest bed. Plus I am feeling like I need to have the baby's room ready soon. So Wyatt's and the baby's room seemed like the best place to start. I still have to finish the baby's side of the room but at least Wyatt has his room and is already starting to enjoy our new house.

Wyatt got tired of waiting for me to finish taping, he fell asleep.



Finished room (except baby's side) really loving it!

Our New Home

This past Friday we purchased our very first home! We are so excited to have our own place and we can make it our own. It was a really long process and our list of things we would like to do to improve the home keeps getting longer but I'm sure that will never end. The kids are enjoying having more space, a back yard, and love playing in the garage. We are still busy unpacking and getting settled but hopefully soon we can move on to the fun stuff like painting walls.

Baby Blue

We are excited to let you all know that we are expecting baby #3 and it is to be a little boy. It is weird how you think you know what it is going to be and then you find out and it didn't matter what you thought before. Vince and I both were kind of hoping for another little girl but we are really excited about a boy and are really hoping for a healthy baby. We are struggling with a name since we can't seem to agree on any yet but I'm sure it will come to us. We are taking any suggestions though, so feel free. Reese wasn't sure about it at first but now both Reese and Wyatt are really excited for a little baby brother.

Reese as a Princess

I have been a bit absent from the blogging world but I am going to make a better effort, I promise.

Over the weekend I was able to take Reese to the Princess Festival with her two cousins. The girls had so much fun, luckly the tickets were free so it made it even more worth it!

Here are the girls in Cinderella's carriage.

Every little girl loves TinkerBell of course!

Reese with her absolutely favorite princess Rapunzel.

Love these kids...

I thought it was about time I did a post, it has been awhile. Lately I have been trying to focus on spending quality time with my kids and having memorable moments. A week ago we go them this little cheap tent at Ikea and they have been having lots of fun with it. This past weekend we let them have a "camp out" in the tent and they thought it was so cool. As I snapped this picture I thought about how lucky I am to have these two beautiful kids in my home.

Although some days being a mom is overwhelming and even hard it is so incredibly worth every minute, every tear, every pray, and every smile.

I am one lucky mommy!

A little crafty bug

A good friends of mine put me in the crafty mood last week. She is always up to something, check her out here. I had a lot of fun trying out these projects and I will definitely be making more. I will definitely be making myself a shirt similar to this in the future.

P.S. I also made the fleece pants the kids are wearing, way easy!

Library

Since Reese just turned 5 I figured it was time for her to have her own library card. So yesterday we went to the Eagle Mountain Library and got her card and she got to check out some books and DVDs. She had so much fun and definitely think she will be asking to trade those in for more stuff very soon!

Happy birthday Mr. Wyatt

Wyatt's 3rd birthday was yesterday and he could not be cuter! We could not be more blessed to have such a wonderful little spirit in our home. He is so sweet, loving, and funny. I'm still trying to figure out how three years went by so quickly. We were going to take him sledding for his birthday but I think we will wait till we get more snow this week.

Vince has now made it a tradition to get the kids some balloons and their favorite treat on their birthday.

Blowing out the candles on our homemade Toy Story cake.

Wyatt could not be more excited about his present! He has been waiting a long time to get a "big boy bike".

We love you Mr. Wyatt!!

Learning and Growing

For the past year and a half Wyatt has been in the Kids on the Move program for speech delay. Well, at least it started out for that and we soon found out that he had a sensory and social delay as well.

Kids on the Move has been amazing for Wyatt.

He started out only saying "mama" and now he can say whatever he wants (and he really only started talking this past summer). We found out that he is a hypo-sensory kid, where he just can't get enough. So he likes to chew, bang, jump, run, and touch. Our whole family has learned so much from this experience with him. We have been able to help him along the way and see him learn new and exciting things everyday.

What I didn't expect from this experience is how much we would love the people working with our family and how it would help me become a better mother and parent. He is now completed his Kids on the Move experience and we couldn't be happier with where he is at today. We will sure miss our dear friends, April and Gary!

The Party

This was the first year I allowed Reese to have an official party! She was so excited and let me tell you this 5 year old had to everything "just so". It had to pink, Hello Kitty, we had to play "pin the bow on Hello Kitty", and of course musical chairs. She even made me have pink soda and pink cupcakes. She was so adorable with her friends and had a fabulous time.

Here are some photos of the highlights.