Announcing... The Baby that doesn't have a name yet

She weighs 5 lbs, 13 oz and is 18 inches long. All of our other kids have been 7 or 8 lbs at birth, and when I'd see them I was always surprised - couldn't believe how I forgot how small newborns are. So with this peanut even more, she really looks small. Her head is about the size of my fist! Within an hour of coming home from the hospital, we had all the neighborhood kids over to take a peek -
Six of the neighborhood kids and a few of my own surrounding my bed to see our tiny princess.

She's awake! A picture at the hospital.

The New Big Sister with the New Little Sister

First Impression: Get that away from me!

The next day, Abi is smitten with the baby just like the rest of us.

Tomorrow, tomorrow

Everyone around here is excited for tomorrow. I'm scheduled to be induced, so hopefully everything will go smoothly and we'll have a new angel in our family. The kids have been doing a little dance the past week each time we cross a day off of the calendar, today the lyrics were "One more day until the baby's born! One more day until the baby's born!" We'll see if this little girl is of the Joe/Hyrum mold, or of the Mel/Ethan/Wes/Abi mold. Here's a newborn picture of Abi when she was one week old. So little and sweet!! We are excited for tomorrow!

Abi's ABCs

E is for EAT - I like to eat Easter egg treats!

Each of my kids have their very own ABC book. I first got the idea when Joe and Mel were little- they had a little "Baby's ABCs" book that had pictures of babies with things for each letter. For A it was Apple, B for Ball, and I thought "I have a picture of Joe eating an apple... I have a picture of Joe with a Ball..." and I looked through my photos and found pictures for each letter. And so it began. I've made a book for each kid, with the goal being to have their book done before the next baby is born. Abi's book is all ready to be hard laminated and spiral bound at Kinkos with a few days to spare. Abi loves reading the other kid's books - I know she'll love having her own book and being the star!

Divine '09 Tip - Abs

Here's a great tummy workout VIDEO that I'm excited to do as I strive to get my body back - 5 days to go and our new angel baby will be here! The kids are almost as excited as I am! It's better than Christmas

Hibbert Family trip to Yellowstone

My Dad took this cute picture of my kiddies by the Idaho Falls. Abi loves her baby. I have three kids with new glasses that have transition lenses - they think they are pretty cool, but I need to have normal pairs on hand for outside photo shots.

My parent's met in Yellowstone, so it's always been considered a place of our Hibbert family's history and beginnings. We went up there often for family trips when I was a kid. This is the first time my kids have been up there. Last time Corey and I went was 10 years ago. It was fun for all the cousins to be there together. We stayed at a cabin in Island Park called "The Gathering Place" that was so fun - all the big kids slept in bunk beds in a room together, and then all the adults with their respective toddlers got their own room.

Abi loves her Bee-bee!

Abi and cousin Alixis with their babies

Abi says a new word! On Monday she said "Baby" and has been saying it over and over again since. I bought her a new baby doll 3 weeks ago, and she is a very good mother to her baby (even if she carries her in a headlock all day). When Abi says it, it comes out more like "Bee-bee" and makes me and all her siblings laugh everytime. Saying "da" is still her favorite though.

Lost Stones

I really enjoy the pictures on the Lost Stones BLOG. I want to take up photography. I think I'm going to buy a new camera.

Divine '09 Video from FYM

Here's a great VIDEO from Holly Rigsby - quick workout that is intense. I didn't do this whole workout right now, being large with child, but I'm excited to put it to work in a few months.

Also, I agree with this BLOG POST that more cardio doesn't bring more results. I thought doing a half marathon last year would just melt away my baby weight. Although I did tone up a little, my weight remained the same, and even being a little leaner I still had 10 pounds to loose. After the half marathon I started going to cycling classes 3 times a week, those classes were an hour and 15 minutes long at 5:15 in the morning. That too didn't make me loose the weight. I believe in the FYM system, of doing short and intense sessions of cardio and in doing full body weight resistance. I know it's possible to get our bodies back to normal after pregnancy.

So the competition with myself is still on - after the baby's born, I'm gonna kick it in high gear and loose the baby belly and am going to be a size 6 and 130 lbs by December. Right now I'm at 174, and hope I can keep it there for the next month!

Trip to Yellowstone

The kids waiting to see Old Faithful

Last weekend we took a family trip to Yellowstone with my side of the family. I think it's the first time we've done a family trip like that with the Hibbert in-laws and cousins.

Here it goes!

Wesley got a little nervous as the water shot further into the air - he got up to run, but since the rest of us were holding our ground, his faith was slightly restored and he took a knee.

It was a lot of fun, I love my family. We stayed at the Gathering Place in Island Park, Idaho. It was a fun cabin big enough to hold my parents, 5 Hibbert siblings with 4 spouses, and 14 grandkids. We made lunches for the trips into the Park, and had breakfast and dinner at the cabin - many thanks to Aunt Amy who did most of the work there. I didn't get too many pictures, but Uncle Jared took care of that, we even had a DVD to watch of our trip the last night. I think my kids loved playing with cousins especially, and having snowball fights with Uncle Grant. It was fun to watch the night sky with Dad. I don't feel like I contributed too much to the party - the drive up kinda wiped me out I think and I was running low on energy the whole time. But I could sit around on the couch, so one of my highlights was watching Brian Regan with my siblings, he cracks me up. I don't have a stupid husband, quite to the contrary, but I love Brian's CLIP on "Stupid Husbands" especially the smirk he makes right here at the beginning, immitating a wife saying "My husband is so stupid..." Way funny. I also love THIS CLIP and have committed it to memory, cause I know I easily let minor things irritate me, so now I'm gonna say "Nah! We haven't even had a man on the moon yet! Why would I let something like this bother me?" So that was fun to watch those videos with my siblings and their spouses. I'll post a few more phots later.

Helping with Yard Work

After Hyrum left for school this afternoon, I stayed outside with Abigail and Wesley to do a little bit of spontaneous yard work - I recently purchased some hedging shears and a hand pruner. I was trimming down some bushes while Wes rode his bike and Abi pushed her baby stroller. After seeing the exciting things I was up to, Wesley wanted to help. I gave him the shears and helped him trim, but they were too big for him. So then I went and got the pruners for him to play with. I don't worry about him cutting himself, so I didn't have any concerns. I went to change where the sprinkler head was watering, and when I came back, I saw that Wesley had moved from hedging the bushes (which are so big and out of control that he really couldn't have gone wrong cutting those so again, I wasn't worried...) but as I turned to rejoin him with our clipping, I saw he had pruned the heads off of my pot of geraniums that I planted a week ago. My first attempt while at this house at beautifying our yard, and that is the help I get! "No-no-no-no-no!!!" I said. Wesley tried to defend his actions by saying "But I don't like flowers!!" I think it was just an excuse. But it was an honest mistake, he was just clipping away, not knowing the difference between bush and flower. So I'm learning about yard work with kids - I thought it would have been obvious, but now I shall proactively teach them to value flowers.

Small Miracle - A Decent Bedtime!

A picture from August 2008 - when all the kids were in a room together cause we had our friends from Argentina staying with us in the basement.

Ok, I am totally grinning ear to ear - I have just reached a major personal and family victory - It is 9:30 pm and ALL my kids are in bed!!!! It might help that Corey wasn't here to tell them stories... You know me, I'm the no-fun Mom who longs for a schedule. At the same time I know that a lot of the precious moments I enjoy with my family come from the chaos of our life. Still, it would be nice if a schedule was in place and the norm. So here we go: I'm setting a 9:00 teeth-brushed/family prayer/scriputre time followed by a "heads on pillows" time at 9:30.

Tonight to get the kids attention for my new game plan, I came into the front room holding and crinkling in my hands the wrappers of 6 fruit snacks with different themes - Sponge Bob for Joe and Ethan, Strawberry Shortcake for Mel, Nemo for Hyrum, Cars for Wes, and Disney Princess for Abi. The crinkling of the wrapper got their attention very quickly, which I already knew would happen from previous experience. As they held out their hands for a treat, I put the snacks in their drawers, and told them the fruit snacks would be there in the morning for the kids that were in bed at 9:30. They paid attention for scriptures, were reverent for prayer, and brushed their teeth quickly, and I sent them downstairs at 9:15. I brushed my teeth and took care of my night time routine, and Wes came upstairs for help getting some sand out of his eyes - those nuggets of dirt had kept hidden from the previous washing of the eyes - that's the risk a child takes for playing in the sandbox with 1 year old cousins at Grandma and Grandpa Wride's house who like to throw dirt. I helped him get that out of his red eyes, took him downstairs to tuck him in, and to my delight and surprise, all kids were asleep (or pretending to be - that works for me!) with their Christmas night lights plugged in and scripture scouts on the CD players. Wow! Fruit snacks do the trick! Atleast they did for tonight - we'll see if I can pull this off more than once, I'll let you know how tomorrow night goes!