Christmas Sunday

Here is the first of many Christmas posts to come. This first post is of my handsome boys and beautiful girl on the Sunday before Christmas. I was going to be strong and not buy Lucy a dress for Christmas but the night before I got weak and went out to Carter's and got one. It was 70% off so I don't feel to guilty about it :)

Here is Ben giving his GQ pose

Daddy sympathizing with his daughter- "Life is SO hard!"

And then when daddy poses normal, Lucy puts on her cRaZy eyes

Daddy doing his favorite trick with Lucy (but not my favorite trick!)

Homework

So now for the big news in the Hatch Home- I will now be tutoring out of my home.  Awhile back I had a doom & gloom discussion with my boss where she explained that she wasn't making enough money and made me feel like I was going to be fired or paid less (which though she hadn't blatantly said that, I did later find out those were the options she was considering). During that discussion I offered her my home for us to tutor out of in order to help her save money (and keep my job & my salary). And without a later discussion she decided to take me up on my offer. Rebekka & I will now be tutoring our clients out of my home instead of our office on Recker & Baseline. And Tina will be tutoring her clients out of her own home.

It makes me sad because I liked keeping work & home life separate. I also liked having a Smartboard to use, and so did my students. And it also made me major stressed... 

At first I decided that I was going to turn our front living room into our tutoring space which wouldn't have been too hard but then I realized that just wasn't going to work. Keeping the kids off the stuff would be too hard. So this week I had the fun job of turning the playroom into my tutoring office. It was a lot of work but  after staying up until midnight one night and then having my parents help out a bit the next morning, I was able to get it done! I still need to buy some things and bring over some things from the other office but the BIG work is done. So here are the results:

The boy's little table got moved to where Tyler & my desks are & where all the arts & crafts supplies are located- so now it's in a location that makes sense.

Here is the tutoring office (in what used to be the playroom):

And here is the boys new playroom. It used to be our spare/guest bedroom so what's not featured in this picture, is a bed & 2 dressers shoved up against the opposite wall...:

Anyways, I think in the long run this will be better because it will allow me some distance from my boss who I love as a person but not so much a business person. And I am loving, so far, having the playroom upstairs. It's roomier, brighter and I like having that there are no toys downstairs. Plus the boys have been having too much fun with it. It's like all their toys are brand new just because they are in a new location :)

Appointment

All it really took was one crazy morning last week and since then I have been feeling less inclined to go out and instead feeling more inclined to just stay home. Which means less fun Christmas activities for the kids...Poor kids....

So what happened? Well it all started with me almost forgetting about Lucy's Dr's appointment. Yes, I remembered it the night before but by that time I already had plans to do productive things and now I had to be unproductive and go to a Dr's office- not my favorite place to tote my children.

Then on the morning of the appointment I got a knock on the door saying they were going to turn off our power in a half an hour so they could switch out our rusty electric box. At first I thought no big deal, we have to leave in like 40 minutes anyways. But then I remembered I needed to try to cook dinner before we left (since I was tutoring in the afternoon) so I quickly made one of my easiest/fastest dishes- pizza rolls- and finished them just in the nick of time! The power turned off a few minutes after my food finished and a little bit later I gathered up the kids to head out...only I sort of forgot that a garage door runs on power. 

As I was beginning to panic about how I was going to muscle open the garage door, the power miraculously turned back on (maybe they heard me panicking!?) so I rushed out of the garage and off to Lucy's appointment. 

Well, in my hurry I left the diaper bag at home (in the garage to be more specific). Only a mother taking 3 kids to a Dr's appointment can truly understand the devastation of not having her diaper bag. First off it created problems with check in since I didn't have my insurance card and second off I had nothing. No diapers, no pacifier, no nursing cover, no toys or snacks for the boys- NOTHING! And of course Lucy woke up fussy the second we got there & of course we had to wait longer than we ever have before & of course she pooped & of course the boys were not entertained by the movie in the waiting room & of course Lucy was traumatized by her 1 shot & of course...It was a Very. Long. Appointment. 

Once survived, I took the children to my mother's house & collapsed. And since then, I have been avoiding major outings. Home is just so much nicer...

On a positive note Lucy is growing amazingly. At her 1 month appt. (technically she was 5 weeks) she weighed 10lbs 3oz (75%) and her height is 23inches (90%). 

Lucy Lou at 5 Weeks

I've decided maybe it's pointless to try and keep weekly updates on Lucy's feeding schedule since every time I think we actually have a schedule or things are going especially great I find out I am terrible wrong. 

For example, there were two nights when she had a 7 hour stretch between feeding and I got all excited about it (she ate around 8:30 & then woke up at 3:30) and then...she went back to waking up twice during the night )12:30, 3:30) . She is only 5 weeks but I sure would've loved her to only wake up once during the night, it was beautiful. 

Anyways she will get me thinking that we have a good consistent schedule or that she is doing perfectly with the eat-wake-sleep thing or that she is an excellent napper and then she'll throw in a bad day or 2  where she doesn't cooperate with anything or one that changes the whole schedule permanently. So, note to self, no permanent schedule or greatness at 5 weeks. Maybe at 8 weeks?

And here are some adorable pictures of Lucy all dressed up for her first 3 hour church day. She did so good at church and so did the boys. It was a good Sunday :)

Amazing Jake's

My parent's insurance company once again threw a Christmas party at Amazing Jake's and we were lucky  enough to be invited to it. And now that Mike & Mecca have baby Oliver, they were lucky enough to be invited as well ;). Sadly though, my mom was at the Temple and couldn't come and Tyler was working and didn't make it either. We missed having them there but somehow we were still able to have a good time.

It was nice to have my dad and Mike there to ride the rides with my boys while Rebecca and I hung out with the babies. Here they are on the high speed train ride:

Here they are pretending to play a game since this time the party didn't provide money for the games, just the rides (but hey it was free so no complaints from me):

Then they had to wait FOREVER to ride the bumper cars but it was SO worth it. Steven had fun trash talking the other drivers (he wanted to be first) and Ben looked so chill with his arm resting on the door. It was cute to watch them go around and around:

Lastly but definitely the best part, Santa came! Even Lucy got to meet him (but Santa wasn't so good at supporting her head). The boys had fun telling him what they want (both told him they want Batman toys much more doable than the DS Steven wrote to Santa about...):

Amazing Jake's is definitely amazing and fun was had by all! Pizza, candy, cookies, ice cream, train ride, roller coaster ride, bumper cars, and SANTA! Best day ever ;)

Lucy's Blessing Day

On Sunday, December 2, 2012, Lucy was blessed in the Lakeside Ward by her daddy. Her Great-Grandpa Potter, Grandpa Brady, Grandpa Hatch, Uncle Mike, Uncle Travis, Uncle Logan & Uncle Scott stood in her blessing circle. Her daddy had a hard time in the beginning and instead of saying her name only "Lucy Louise Hatch," he added one of his Grandma Peggy Louise's middle names and said "Lucy Louise Smith Hatch." He said he's not sure where it came from, he guesses he was just thinking of his grandma. Don't worry Lucy! We are not giving you 2 middle names- you are still just Lucy Louise Hatch :) After his little mistake, he did a good job with the blessing, asking for lots of good things.

After Lucy's blessing we had a get together at our house that included lots of yummy food. Most everyone was able to stick around for it.

Lucy wore the same dress that I wore on my blessing day- it was made by my mom:

We had to put the bonnet on and when I compared it to my blessing day picture- oh my goodness does she look like me! Poor thing!

The best picture we could get of all of us, Steven is not into posing anymore:

Snow Day

So I've been blogging quite a bit this past week & with a new baby girl & the holidays around the corner, I have a feeling you should expect even more posts from me.

Tyler left us this weekend for a scout camp out and I survived miraculously  Also, somehow I got brave and took my kids to a bank sponsored "Community Snow Day" Saturday morning. Rebecca & Oliver joined us and I am thankful she did, it was nice to have someone to talk to and it really helped to have her when the boys wanted to go in separate directions. Anywho, everything was free and everything was fun. The boys especially loved the huge patch of snow (so much that they had no desire to wait in line to see Santa- took away too much snow time).

Steven also decided he wanted to taste the snow and then started pigging out on it- it was quite gross!

Are you surprised to see Lucy sleeping? Of course she slept through all the fun!

Steven LOVED the bouncy obstacle course! This was the one thing he was more than willing to wait in line for (bouncing as he waited). He went on it a handful of times...

They also sat on a fire truck and got balloons and lots of cinnamon rolls and all and all had a great time for the cost of $0 and there were no melt downs. Perfect morning! If they have this again next year, we will definitely be there!