Welcome Nixon James Henkel!

Ok so I am pretty embarrassed of myself because my newborn is now a month old and it has taken me this long to finally post about him! Not only that but I am so behind I haven't even gotten up pics of Jack's birthday, My birthday or Ella's birthday! I am horrible! My mom was making fun of me the other day when she asked, " Did you even have a baby?" I still haven't seen any pictures, I'm beginning to think you don't even have one!" My apologies little Nix, I do love you I have just been pretty busy/tired lately with all of these adjustments with our family- 3 kids is no joke! Lately I have often wondered how my mom did 5 or how any woman does more than that! I'm sure it gets easier as you learn to to adjust to the changes, I'll let you know in a few months! :)



The last few preggo pics...



Waiting for the pitocin to kick in so we could welcome our little buddy into our family!



4 hours after being induced i delivered this beautiful little boy...
Nixon James Henkel
8 lbs. 2 oz.
19 in. long
with lots of hair!



Proud papa after giving him his first bath!



So here's the story of how it all went...
Got to the hospital at 7:30 in the morning on April 13th to be induced 6 days before my due date. My mom came up the night before to watch our kids. I was finally all set up to start being induced by 9:00 after a couple failed attempts to get my IV in ( for some reason they always struggle to poke my veins without rolling them or going all the way through!) Then the doc broke my water and they started the pitocin. Contractions started coming pretty quickly and not too bad at first but I knew it would go fast after my last labor with Jack which lasted barely 3 hours and with no drugs. They came to check on me and I told them i thought I was ready for my epidural. So the nurse said ok, Ill be right back with the anesthesiologist. She had assured me I will not let you miss the window to get an epidural like what had happened with Jack because of my rapid labor. So she leaves and we wait and we wait and my contractions are starting not to have breaks between them and I was getting worried that I really was going to miss my chance to get an epidural. We paged the nurse multiple times but she was missing and only the front desk lady would answer and she would say, " The nurse will be in in a few minutes," but that was a lie we had been waiting there 30 mins with no sign of her and I was determined to get an epidural this time. Finally about 35 mins later a different nurse shows up and we let her in on our situation, and ask her what happened to the other nurse. She tells us that she was called off to help in the OR but she felt bad that we had been waiting so long but that no one had said anything to her about someone needing to come up to our room and she totally could have come earlier because she had just been pretty much doing nothing in another part of the hospital, (so annoying!) SO she hurried and got the anesthesiologist who was awesome! He got my epidural done really fast, but I think he gave me an excessive amount of the meds because I was numb for like 4-5 hours after when its only supposed to take about 2 to wear off. But man once I got the epidural things were hunky dory except for that those drugs make me feel like my whole body is constantly itching so I have a hard time just relaxing, but much better than contraction pain. So all in all the whole labor only took 4 hours and 3 pushes and he was here without any tearing either! It was so amazing to hold that little boy in my arms and realize what a miracle bringing this little life into the world is. We were just amazed at how much hair he had. The awesome part was the doctor pretty much just gave him directly to me after he was born, with my other two they didn't do that. So I got to snuggle him right away. After some time of holding him Chad got to go give him his first bath and get him so fresh and so clean clean.















This little guys has definitely got a set of lungs! We decided his cry sounded like those bottle rocket fire crackers the first few days of his life.





A few hours after delivering him my mom brought the kids up to meet their new little brother and it was adorable. Jack couldn't stop kissing him and hasn't stopped to this day! The only problem is he is a little rougher than we would like so we have to monitor the length and pressure of these smooches Jack likes to lay on him. :)



Jackson was so cute though when he first saw him he was like, "Oh Hi sweetheart."









Ella was in love with him as well and she kept asking us if we were bringing him to California with us when we move. heehee



Proud Nana of 3 grandbabies now!






Investigating the new little guy.





The first family photo of our family of 5!



The normalcy didn't last long before my kids went feral though. :) Jack really wanted to squeeze the baby and he was ticked I wasn't allowing it and who knows what Ella was doing. Poor Chad was holding strong to that pose though no matter what happened.



And we got it back to calm again for one last shot, ( I am restraining Jack's hand though, so the poor baby doesn't get mauled again for the time being)

We love having this little man in our family. He is so darn cute. He definitely loves to be held though, especially by his Mama. And so far he abhors the pacifier and disdains a bottle when I pump. He is my little buddy for sure. We are so glad he is here, both my kids constantly want to be up close to him and talk about how cute he is. It's sweet how much they adore him. And his Daddy is so ecstatic to hold him and snuggle him as well and has already gotten some really cute smiles from him. It's great time for us.

Sledding with the Foresters

***FYI*** This post is really old! I started all the way back in Jan. and never finished it nor posted it, but i took all the time to upload pic and write comments that I thought I might as well post something right? I know I have been really M.I.A. So here is a little something even if it is like 6 months old haha

At the end of January we went sledding with my cousin Alicia and her husband Drew (who has been so lovingly renamed by Ella "Screw"and Annalicia) We have loved having them up here though! Alicia has been going to BYUI and Drew will be going this next semester (if I remember right, he was finishing up some online classes with his previous college so that he can transfer with his associates and not have to deal with the problem of some of his credits being dropped because they don't transfer over to BYUI). They moved here from California and they have been super positive about this crappy cold weather we have been having. I feel bad for them though cause I am truly sick of it! We have loved being able to spend time with them and their little sweet baby girl Lila-bug!



The Happy pair ready for a day of sledding!



Aww sometimes they actually act like they love each other.





Little do they know what is in store for them this fun sledding trip... :)



The boys take off with our kids and everything seems to be going well...



I just thought Drew's face was hilarious in this pic. He was just so animated going down that hill!



Then they hit the incognito jump and man did Ella get some air.



Jack was practically being choked by Chad and the rope harness he was wielding down the hill.



Chad and Jack's experience hitting that jump.


Another shot of it.



Then to top it all off Chad slammed into the back of Drew and squished my poor little buddy Jack like PB& J sandwich. Needless to say it was a bit of an intense run down the hill for the little ones.



Alicia took little Lila bug down the hill starting from only about halfway up so it was a slower descent for the little 6 month old, but I think she enjoyed it.





jack and ella made buddies with these 2 older little girls that were sledding and had them taking them down the hill a well.



Jack-jack & Lila-bug chillin in the frozen tundra.



Chad sending down our Ella-belle on her own...




Lila was such a little trooper out there.



Our little "elwah-bewll" as jackson calls her

Random catch up pics...

Disclaimer: None of these pictures really go together so if you were wondering, I just decided to combine a few happenings in our lives into one post so I could try to catch up a bit with the photos I have continually piling up and not being blogged about!

Our friend Landon Roper, who sold/managed with Chad the summer we were in Houston about 3 1/2 years ago has come up a few times to recruit for the company he works for now and we always enjoy his visits. My kids just get a kick out of him, look at all those cheesy grins. Back in Houston, when Ella was only about 14 mo. old Landon would offer to watch her for us so that we could go out on a date. Ella just thought the world of him. It was so cute. He has been a really good friend to us and we're glad we've been able to keep in touch with him over the years.







These were taken around the same time that Landon came by back in January when we started potty training Jack. So I had to do some photoshopping on covering up the little guy's manhood cause we started out with just having him run around bare-bummed so that he would hopefully learn faster how to do the whole potty training thing. He has done pretty well with it but he still has accidents every once in awhile. Someday soon I hope it will just click completely and we won't have any accidents all together!





They were having a tea party on the stairs together it was really cute.



Back at the end of January we went down to Salt Lake City for a job interview for Chad, while we were there we stayed with Chad's sister Angie (who was so super awesome to let us stay with her) and got to take the kids to see temple square.



The kids loved running from one thing to the next so excited to see each thing.



They really enjoyed getting to see the Christus statue. It was really fun to bare testimony of Jesus Christ and the importance of the temple. Their questions were so cute and they just wanted to keep learning more. The faith of a child is so amazing and teaches me so much.








It was fun to get to see the tabernacle as well, there was someone there playing the organ really beautifully as well which was a fun bonus. It was crazy how small it seemed after going to a session at the conference center!





The awesome and huge conference center. We were pretty pooped by the end of our tour so we didn't go inside with the kids.

It has been at least 3 and 1/2 years since we had been down to Utah so it was fun to get to see some of the sights of SLC and a few friends during our short trip.