Happy birthday James!

James' birthday was this past week and it was fantastic! We celebrated (with food) all day long. I can't get enough of this boy. Brad is always claiming I have a soft spot for our little ginger and I think it just may be true.

Here are a few things I love about James. He loves to play any sort of game. I can get him to do just about anything if I try to turn it into a game. This can be slightly problematic when he runs away from me at a store or a parking lot because if I run after him, he laughs and keeps running. Me chasing him is his dream come true. He also loves to play card games and board games with our family. It's pretty cute to see him taking after his daddy that way. He still loves balls and anything to do with swords, guns, arrows, etc. The kids have been watching a lot of Robin Hood lately and he totally gravitates to that character. When he's focused, his aim can be pretty good. He's fairly coordinated, so I hope he'll get lots of chances to put that love of balls to good use. He is a smart little thing. Unbeknownst to me, he learned all his lower case letters (Super Why??). I got out a game to try to teach him and he knew almost all of them already. It was a great surprise. He has a great vocabulary so long as you know how to understand him. :) My favorite thing about James is how intensely he loves. It just comes bursting out of him! Frequently, he'll look at me beaming and say, "I LOVE you, Mom!" He can't talk about doing anything or sing any song without including every member of our family by name in the plans. His world revolves around Annie. He fights with her of course, but EVERYTHING is better if she is doing it as well. Yesterday when Annie was at preschool James did something well and I praised him for it and he was so pleased and then burst out, "And Annie!" It didn't even make total sense, but he knew that if there was something great, he wanted Annie to be a part of it. I love this little jumping bean (he never sits still)!!!!

In other news, Brad recently was inducted into AOA, the medical honor society. It's only given to the top 16 students in the class, so I was a pretty proud little wifey. Brad has worked really hard and done really well, and I'm very grateful for that! His mom was able to come out for the ceremony, which was great. We all loved having her here - she's an amazing woman! We also submitted our rank list at the end of February. It was tricky to take into account all of our preferences and desires, but I think in the end we came up with a pretty good list and I feel like we'll like the place we match. We find out on March 21 where that will be!!!

Kate continues to be the perfect baby. She is very nearly always happy. We couldn't be more thrilled with her. And Annie is in a great place right now too, but I'm hoping I'll blog again near her birthday to talk more about how wonderful she is.

Kate's Blessing

We blessed Kate this morning before church. It was a great event - I felt the Spirit was really present, and I felt so blessed to be Kate's mom. I feel she has a really beautiful spirit. Brad did a wonderful job with the blessing. Several times he mentioned that she would serve others and bring joy. She already brings our family so much joy. We love her! Grandma Fern (for whom she is named) was able to be there, as were Grandma and Grandpa Winder. That was really fantastic! My parents were able to listen in through Skype. I desperately wished they could have been there, but Skyping in was a good alternative. 

Here are some photos from the morning. 

All of the Tanner grandchildren

Grandma Fern with Katie Fern

Kate with Grandma and Grandpa Hunter

Kate with Grandma and Grandpa Winder

All of the Hunter grandchildren

Hunters

Christmas Card 2013

I'm feeling a little sad I didn't send out a letter with our Christmas card this year, so I thought I would just put the letter part of our card on our blog. If I had sent out a letter, this is what it would have said.

Annie is in a universal pre-kindergarten for five days a week (!!!) and loving it. I've really noticed how mature she's getting this year - she is such a good helper with Kate. James is a completely mischievious and darling two-year old. The other mornig we got out of bed to find him naked and COVERED in my make-up (we're talking eyeliner in his bum - needless to say that make-up got tossed). Kate joined our family in September, and I cannot overemphasize what a dream baby she is. She's mostly content as long as she can see someone and lights up if anyone gives her the least bit of attention. She regularly sleeps from 10 to 5. Brad is interviewing all over the country for residency right now.He's doing internal medicine and then will likely do a fellowship in oncology. So far, his two favorites are Mayo Clinic and UCSF. We'll find out where he matches on March 21! Finally, I'm keeping busy with the 3 kids. We recently joined the Y and I'm totally hooked on the fun classes and exercising with friends. As per normal, I'm loving my book club. We are currently reading Anna Karenina - I love that I'm in a book club that chooses to tackle this kind of book.

We chose a scripture to focus on this year as a family, Psalms 118:24. "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." Accordingly, each night at dinner we shared a "rejoicing" from our day. Here are some of our rejoicings from the year:

Kate: When someone talks to me
James: See the birds and Daddy home (literally what he said every single night - and for the record he actually talks much better than this sounds)
Annie: Visiting Utah
MaryAnne: Having Kate join our family and my new iPhone
Brad: A new baby and almost being done with school

Love to you all! We hope that things are going well for you and your families!

Recitations

For family scripture study, we try to memorize scriptures as a family (it works much better with the short attention span of our kids).  Right now we're working on the First Vision.  We decided to video the kids in an attempt to incentivize them to recite out loud (they love to tell us they are reciting in their heads).  It is not perfect yet, but they are getting there!

Annie JS first vision from Brad Hunter on Vimeo.



James and JS first vision from Brad Hunter on Vimeo.

Kate Update

I have not given Kate enough attention on this blog (or probably in real life). She is the BEST baby! She is six weeks old, and she's already slept through the night a few times. She is so patient - both with us and with all the love and attention she gets from her older siblings. She's the perfect 3rd child. Brad and I are completely enamored. She started smiling a week or so ago, and is such a happy baby. The other night I had just finished feeding her and was still looking at the computer screen, but when I looked down she was just smiling sweetly up at me. I don't think kids come better than this little girl. 

Kate's Newborn Photoshoot

Credit for these goes to our good friend Lisa! She's amazing!

Introducing Katherine Fern Hunter

Katherine Fern Hunter entered this world at 7:19 pm on Saturday, September 21, 2013. She weighed in at exactly 8 lbs. She was 21 inches long and got 8 and 9 for her apgar scores. Her first name is Katherine because we love it, and her middle name is for Brad's grandma. We'll call her Kate.

I can't believe I'm posting this! I never take these shots, let alone post them.

These are both about 1 minute after she was born. She hadn't quite gotten her color yet.

These are the kids' and Grandma Hunter's first visit to the hospital. 

It's been a lifesaver to have Brad's mom here!

These are from the kids' second visit and right after church.

Daddy and his newest girl.

This is Kate today - her first day at home. I think she looks a lot like this picture of James here.

Here's all the details for my own record:

Dr. Scibetta told me that I could be induced when he was on call during my 39th week, which turned out to only be two days early. He promised me that if they told me there was no room when I called in the morning to call him and he'd help me fake labor. :) I called promptly at 6:30 am and they said there may or may not be room for me at 11, so I decided I would not bother Dr. Scibetta until I saw what they said at 11. However, trying to take matters into my own hands, I decided to exercise vigorously to get my own water to break. No such luck.

I came back and got ready for the day, and at 9:30 Dr. Scibetta called me and told me to come on in. I love that he remembered and got me in. He broke my water around 10. I had high hopes that this would send me right into labor like it did with James, but it didn't. After a little bit they let me walk around and that got some mild-ish contractions started, but nothing that strong. Finally around 1:30 they decided to get my epidural in so they could start pitocin. The resident had a little bit of trouble getting my epidural in. She tried 4 times and when she thought she'd got it they ran a test with some epinephrine (adreline) to see if they were in a vein and suddenly my heart started racing. So after that the attending had to do the epidural. It took him a little while as well, but he finally got it in. I felt bad for the resident - she clearly felt pretty dumb, and my nurse made a comment about what a bruise I would have, and then my doctor came in and said, "I hear anethesia was using accupuncture as a form of pain relief on you." It wasn't pleasant at all to go through, but I still felt bad for her.

Things went very smoothly until around 5:30 - right after I sent Brad to get himself some dinner. I started to feel the contractions and the need to push (and to pee). After about 45 minutes of really painful contractions, they got anethesia back to give me more epidural and then had a resident check me. I'd really felt like I might need to push soon, so I had Brad rushing back from dinner, but when the resident checked me, she said I was only at a 6 1/2. However, 45 minutes later Dr. Scibetta came to see if he could get dinner or if we were going to have a baby. When he checked me, he said, "We're going to have a baby right now." Sure enough, 5 minutes later Kate was here. I pushed about 3 times and she was out. He said he could see the head after my first push, the head was out with the next one, and the body was out after that. It was so fast! I couldn't get over how fast it was!

She has light brown hair and fairly bluish eyes (right now). She is a great eater! In the first 4 hours of her life she ate for about 2 of them. She's got super chubby cheeks that I can't help but kiss. And she is getting a LOT of love from her siblings. They came to visit us 3 times at the hospital, and since we've been home they have done almost nothing but hold baby Kate or try to give her toys, blankies, and pacifiers. We really adore this little girl. I just feel like she is supposed to be part of our family.