Blessing Day–6 weeks old

Shylee was given a beautiful blessing by her father on November 22, 2013.  She was officially named Shylee Kay FitzSimmons. She was just a few days shy of being 6 weeks old.   We weren’t sure when we were going to bless her.  Getting as many people together as possible was proving difficult because of the pending winter weather and differing work schedules.   We had already planned on my Mom coming to Coeur d’Alene just before Thanksgiving to help me bring all the kids to visit Idaho Falls for the week.  A couple days before she came I called and we talked about how we thought the best time to bless Shylee would be when Mom came to get us.  At least she would be there, even if no one else from Idaho Falls could come.  She talked to Dad and he was able to clear his schedule of work for the day and so they were both able to make it.  I am thankful that they took the time to drive up one day and then back the very next day with a Suburban full of kids!  It brought back many memories of traveling with all my brothers and sisters!  Anyway, Shylee was given a beautiful blessing.  We invited the Bishop and his wife, and all the family in Coeur d’Alene.   And now, for a million pictures!

Shylee’s blessing dress was made from the train of my wedding dress by my cousin Debie.  She is the 4th child to be blessed in it – after her 3 older sisters!  I love how “princess” it makes them look.   Shylee was blessed to be an example to her siblings, even though she is the youngest child.  She was blessed to marry in the temple and to have a strong testimony.  Someday I feel we will all look up to this child and the choices she makes.

To end the post, one last picture of our family -  it’s the first one of all of us together!  I don’t know why it took us 6 weeks to finally get it done!!

I am so blessed.

Big Game Hunting

Leonard and Kaydra have been hunting this season trying to find an elk or deer for Kaydra to shoot.  Leonard seemed almost more excited to help Kaydra fill her tags then he was to fill his own.  They hiked a lot and had some close calls.  One day after hiking for awhile I called them to say there was an elk in our field.  Figures that they would be hiking all over looking for the very thing that simply wanders into our field.  They hurried home to try to get it, but, alas, it was not to be. 

The morning of November 18, a Monday, Leonard woke up to find a deer in our field.  It was light enough to hunt so he woke Kaydra up.  She rushed to the deck in her pajamas, Leonard handed her the gun, and she was able to shoot and kill this 3-point buck.  Her first big game.  Hunting doesn’t get much easier.  One of her teachers said it was cheating.  Still, it was meat we could put in our freezer which was looking pretty empty thus far into hunting season. 

You’ll notice she has her camo on now.  It doesn’t look good to have pictures in your pajamas of your first big game animal!  Luckily it was late start for school, since it was Monday, so she and Kanyon had time to drag the animal out of the field to a good spot where Leonard could show them how to clean it.   I think Leonard enjoyed watching them work!

Kaydra took a picture of her trophy to school for her Heath teacher who is into hunting and has a student “wall of fame” for all the hunting and fishing photos his students bring in.  What surprised me was that her Health class is first period and after she showed the picture to her Health teacher, she said she would bring it back later for him to keep; because she wanted to show the picture to the rest of her teachers and friends.  Funny to me because I never imagined that I would have a daughter that liked to hunt, let alone one that would show her peers and teachers what she had been up to!  Her Language Arts teacher put it on the overhead for the whole class to see!  I was excited for Kaydra – but not quite as excited as her Dad!

The next day, Leonard was able to get his own deer in the field.  Thus our freezer should be nice and full this winter. 

Yes, the snow melted that fast!  Right after I took these pictures a guy walked out from the woods and said, “Hey that deer is wounded – I already shot him!”  It took some time but Leonard finally convinced him that the deer was not wounded and that this was not the deer he thought he was chasing.  The other hunter had been chasing a deer that he thought he had wounded,  it was not this deer.  Hunting is strange sometimes. 

Anyway, proud of my hunters – they’re pretty awesome!

Random Shylee–4 weeks old

Shylee is 4 weeks old.  I have a story about Shylee’s name that I have been thinking about writing.  I think it will be good to have the memory written down.  I thought I would tell it as I posted pictures of this little girl over the last few weeks.   As you know Miranda was the first to share the name Shylee.  I was about 6 months pregnant and at the time, I thought, “That’s cute, and kinda different.” I was surprised to find that Leonard kinda liked the name as well.   It became a name that we tossed around every so often as we were trying to decide what to name her.   We struggled with naming this little girl.  We wanted her name to be different but not weird.  We thought of several names but every so often, we would come back to Shylee. 

At the hospital, it seemed that the nurses were annoyed that we hadn’t named the baby.  They kept asking, and I kept telling them we were working on it.  Finally, Leonard and I had narrowed it down to either Shylee or Lindi.  We decided to talk to the kids about it.   I really like both names but I was leaning toward Shylee because  “Timberlyn and Lyndi” is really hard to say and those girls are going to be together a lot while growing up!  Anyway, while we were in the hospital, we asked the kids what they thought.  Kaydra liked Shylee.  Kanyon couldn’t decide and said he liked both, Miranda obviously liked Shylee because she thought of it….Then Timberlyn just started calling her “Baby Shylee” while we were all talking about it.  So Shylee it was.

After we had been home from the hospital 3-4 days Leonard came in the house and said he had just talked to our neighbor, Mike Kelly.

Leonard said, I told Mike we had the baby and he asked what we named her.  Mike said, “I probably won’t remember but tell me anyway”

Right then, as I (Brooke) was listening to Leonard tell me this I had the thought, “OH MY GOSH!  THEIR DOG IS NAMED SHYLEE!!!

Then Leonard says, “So I told him we named her Shylee and he says, ‘Really!  Our DOG is named Shylee!”

I then told Leonard, “I knew that!!  The KIDS all knew that!!”  For the record, Leonard did not know that!  But somehow, the rest of us had forgotten! 

Three years ago the Kellys told us their dog’s name so that when we go over there, and she barks, if you say her name, she stops.  I knew that and so did the kids.  It never came up in three months of us talking about the name Shylee.  I think that her name is SUPPOSED to be SHYLEE because if we had known the neighbor’s dog was Shylee, it would have been off the list.  Instead, it was on the top of it!

Oh Well.  We wanted different…and we still think it’s perfect!

In other news, Shylee is 4 weeks old.  Jodi made her this wrap and it is perfect for her to sleep in at night.  I love the colors and it is SO soft inside.  She seems to like it too.  Leonard said, “This is awesome, can we put in an order for the next size up for when she grows out of it?!”

At 4 weeks she is a pretty good baby.  She has slept for 6 hours straight a couple of nights and for the most part is a pretty good sleeper.  She will smile if you work really hard for it and catch her with a clean diaper and full belly.  She LOVES to be held and hardly ever cries if someone is holding her. 

There are plenty of people around here to hold her so she is pretty content most of the time.  She is a LOUD crier.  She goes from quietly content to screaming in no time and can get worked up pretty good.  But she also calms down just as fast if someone picks her up. She is getting so big!  I have no idea how much she weighs, but it seems like more everyday!   Her eyes are finally almost clear and although she’s still cute, at 4 weeks she has some pretty bad baby acne. 

So today we tried an oatmeal mask.  It was more for fun then that I think it will work.  I just feel so bad for her and her poor little red face.  Timberlyn and Miranda thought it was pretty funny! 

She is perfect, though and I am feeling so blessed to have her in our home.   Love this new beautiful addition to our amazing family!

(Sorry for the picture overload!!!) 

Halloween Party

We had a ward Fall Festival and a Trunk-or-Treat at the church on the Saturday before Halloween.  We took pictures of the kids costumes on this night because Halloween is always crazy when the kids rush home from school and throw on their costumes before trick or treating.

The costume rundown:

Kaydra – Ghost Bride

Kanyon – Harry Potter

Miranda – Cinderella

Timberlyn – Snow White

Shylee – Mommy’s little pumpkin

…Wow!  That’s a lot of kids.

Since Shylee is hard to see, here is a close up of her in her little outfit at 1 week, 3 days old.

Her poor eyes are still red from being squished at birth – perfect for Halloween costumes!

She didn’t really like laying on the floor – what a mean mom! (But such a cute bottom! )

Pumpkins

Time to update the blog again.  After Shylee came home it was time for Halloween!  The kids were excited to carve pumpkins as usual.  This is also the anniversary time of my blog.  My first blog post was about carving pumpkins for Halloween in 2007.  I can’t believe I have been at this for 6 years.  It is definitely the most successful attempt at journaling I have had in all my life.  I am thankful for all these memories that are being saved for posterity.

Anyway, back to carving pumpkins!  Everyone was home since Leonard had some time off work for the baby.  It’s nice that the big kids can carve all by themselves now.  It was actually a pretty fun activity and their pumpkins turned out great. 

For those that don’t know, Timberlyn’s hair always looks like this on Monday.  I do it all cute on Sunday and then she pulls it out on Sunday night and it looks like this…. Every. Single. Monday. 

And here is how Shylee participated this year!  Sleeping newborn on the couch!

Miranda with her masterpiece…

And Timberlyn all finished and very proud of her pumpkin.

Three happy girls and one crazy brother.  Thank goodness he brings balance to our family!

First REAL bath

Shylee got her first real bath on October 29,  after her cord fell off, in my awesome kitchen sink.  It is the perfect baby bath.  I love it.  It was just me, Timber, and Miranda at home when I bathed her and Miranda was the photographer. 

She’s getting bigger and more alert everyday.   She loved the bath.  She was calm and happy until I got her out.  Her hair seems to be getting a bit darker and her eyes seem to be getting lighter.  I think they might be blue!  So fun to watch her grow.  At her two week appointment she weighed in at 9 pounds 13 ounces.  She is 21.5 inches long – same as birth.  The doctor said she looks great and seems to be thriving.  She is finally sleeping better at night.  She eats every 4 hours, usually pretty quickly and then falls back to sleep without much help.  I am feeling pretty good and have no trouble taking naps in the afternoon while Shylee and Timber sleep after we take Miranda to the afternoon kindergarten bus.  It’s starting to be my favorite time of day – nap time!