A Family of Five

On the Sunday Kollin was blessed. Our first day all out and gussied up together!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

William at 8 days old and my first day home with three kids. We had a good day, we played, walked to the church park for a picnic, nursed the baby, and played some more.

Cousin Kollin and Aunt Sydnee stopped by for a few minutes and I was amazed at how BIG Kollin suddenly was! These two are going to have lot of fun together!

Welcome William!

William Antonio Todd
Arrived March 9, 2010 1:44 p.m.
9 lb, 7 oz 21 inches long

We had a baby early at this house and are so glad he is here!! Labor truly couldn't have gone better...we were at the hospital for 3 hours and two pushes to get him here! I got the epidural and was already dilated to 9 cm but was so glad to take the edge off those contractions. We are home now, the kids are so sweet and cute to him and will post more pictures and details soon!

The Last Hoorah

My dad wanted to go on a weekend getaway before baby William's arrival and Danny had a conference in Palm Springs last weekend so we rendezvoused there and had a great time! On Friday Danny had meetings all day so I took the kids to the Children's Discovery Museum of the Desert. It was really fun!

Claire on the pulley chair

Making pizza

Claire is very excited about imaginative play and was obviously pleased with her pizza making skills

Claire showing us what she went shopping for

Carter on the police motorcycle

A real VW bug the kids painted on

Writing about her archeological findings

Carter getting into the dig

Playing magnet tic tac toe

Claire also loved the animal hospital

It was a gorgeous day in the desert

After we met Danny for lunch I took the kids to a park down the street from the hotel. They had an enormous slide the kids loved to slide down and climb up!

Our changing family has been on my mind so I attempted to get a photo of Carter & Claire since it won't be just them for long and these were the results. Oh well;)

The other highlight for the kids was the hotel spa, especially Carter. He loves to swim--it makes me excited for summer!

On Friday night, my parents and Eric, Sydnee and Kollin arrived. We had some tasty pizza and headed back to the house my parents rented for the weekend. Saturday morning we headed to the Living Desert (a desert zoo basically). There were lots of very cool animals. We really enjoyed the butterfly exhibit. It was a structure filled with gorgeous butterflies that landed on us.

Making music in the African Village

There were real warthogs right behind the kids but they were more interested playing on these statues

After lunch we headed to the Palm Springs Arial Tramway. All the adults had been up it before but never when it was SNOWING at the top! Sydnee had never been in the snow before and although it was cold it was so, so beautiful and fun!

On the tram on the way up

At the top

The whole group. Claire is asleep in the stroller and Kollin is hiding under the blanket on Sydnee;)

Good lookin' family

After Claire woke up and was acclimating to the cold.

As we were walking around we noticed a lot of people had sleds. We walked passed a family leaving and Danny said something aloud about getting a sled from someone. They turned around and offered to sell theirs to us at a discount. We bought it and then had a great time sledding. We weren't totally prepared for snow but Danny and Papa both went with the kids with leather shoes on and all!

Danny with both kids getting ready for the first run. They went down pretty fast but the kids still wanted more.

Papa and Claire

Grandma warming up Carter's cold hands.

After our fun the snow we warmed up and then went down the mountain and got some delicious BBQ and went back to the house to hang out. It was such a fun weekend and now that it is over I feel even more ready to have this baby!! Thank you mom and dad for a great weekend!!

Maternity Photo Shoot

As Danny last posted, we are still alive and growing larger by the minute it seems;) We are 10 days away from this little one's due date but I am not getting my hopes up that he will arrive then. A good friend of ours, who happens to be a fabulous photographer, Ana, approached me about doing some maternity photos with her. I told her that I would not have thought of it myself but for her I was happy to oblige. It turned out more fun than I could have imagined and I am really glad to have some photos of me in full bloom.

Ana asked me what was different this pregnancy for me. I had to think about it for a while but realized that this time I definitely feel like a woman. When I was expecting Carter I was only 23 and a recent college grad, now I am an experienced mother who is getting close to 30! So my outfit I chose to wear was something I felt feminine and womanly in. As for food preferences I told Ana that I crave bread. There is no question I get my 8 servings of grains a day, I do prefer whole grains but any grain makes me happy:) So, creative Ana came up with this "bread inspired" photo shoot. She set up an appointment for me at the MAC makeup counter in the mall (very fun to be pampered and I got some great new makeup as a third trimester gift to myself). I made an appointment with my friend and hairdresser extraordinaire, Katrina, and below is the result of a whole lot of professionals pampering me:) After hair and makeup, we stopped at Panera Bread so I could ogle delicious delicatessens and buys a half dozen bagels for our breakfast the next morning and then went to Ana's place where she used a green screen to get the last two shots posted. I should add that Ana added eyelashes which is why my eyes are actually visible when I am smiling:) It was a great afternoon and I definitely felt beautiful so thanks to all involved!