Leah Paige Badertscher

Leah Paige Badertscher was born on September 25th at 1:57pm. She was 6lbs and 5oz and 19 inches long. Welcome to our family little one....

Starting School Dance and Stitches

Addison started 1st grade 3 weeks ago. Her teacher is Mrs. Toutie this year. She is having a good time and is glad to be back to learning. She has decided not to take dance this year because she would rather learn to play the piano. We are currently on the hunt for a teacher. I am so proud of her and know that Grandma Peart would be thrilled that she is going to play her old piano that we now have at our house.

Payton is now old enough for Preschool and Dance. She is so excited that she is finally doing "big girl" stuff away from home. Her Preschool is only one street away and her teacher is Mrs. Amy. She also began dance two weeks ago at Limelight dance studio here in Payson. She is adorable in her dance clothes and loves it so far.

Two weeks ago today the girls were playing on the trampoline after Sunday dinner at my parents house. Payton was double bounced and landed on the metal bar. I was in the house at the time, but her daddy and Papa were right there. When I found out and ran outside she was covered in blood and sitting on the grass and Papa was doing his best to get rid of the blood on her face with the hose so we could see what the problem was. She ended up with a gash next to her left eyebrow so we took her to the instacare for stitches. They gave her 2 inside and 7 outside. Other than crying for a minute or two when she got hurt she didn't say a peep. No tears at the Dr.'s office getting the stitches in and no tears getting them out. What a brave girl. It is healing really nicely and doesn't look like she will have much of a scar.

Flag Cake-Fourth of July

My Uncle Sean was killed in a car accident on May 31st. A couple weeks later my Grandma Peart passed away due to heart complications. My poor mom has had quite the busy summer so far and has spent a lot of time in the last while moving things out of and cleaning Grandma's house so that it can be sold. My Grandma used to make all kinds of cakes including wedding cakes and birthday cakes. She was amazing with it, so it was no suprise when my mom found several pans in her house. She passed down at least a dozen shaped cake pans to me and I am thrilled to try them all out. The dates on the pans go way back to 1973 (10 years before I was born), but work all the same for baking. On the July 4th weekend I decided to try out one of the American flag. I found a photo online of one they had done in layers. The middle layer is vanilla ice cream and the others are vanilla cake colored with food coloring. I was really pleased with the way it turned out, but should have thrown a party to have it all eaten. You can tell that the girls also had a good weekend in their flag shirts, festive hair and doing fireworks in the rain.

Pregnancy Update

Just 2 1/2 months left until our sweet baby girl Leah Paige is due! We had a little scare last Wednesday when I woke up to contractions and cramping pains. Once we got to the hospital to have it checked out they found out that I had an UTI that was causing it and put me on antibiotics to avoid a very dangerous Kidney infection. They also did a Fetal Fibronectic test that came back positive. A negative would have been very accurate in telling that labor was not going to start in the next two weeks. A positive just puts me at a higher risk for preterm labor. We will just have to take it easy for a while, but everything looked fine at my checkup yesterday. Only 8 lbs gained. The photo is of me about two weeks ago.

Addison's Kindergarten Graduation

We are so proud of Addison! She graduated from Kindergarten today. She loves math and reading and is even almost an entire year ahead in reading. Great Job!

Vegas and Jan's Graduation

We went down to Las Vegas last Saturday and came home on Tuesday so that we could see Jan graduate from medical school. It was about 75-80 degrees with a breeze the entire time, but was nice to get out and take a couple days off of work. We stayed at Tahiti Village where the hotel is non-smoking and they have a great pool and a Denny's inside. It was very kid friendly for a Las Vegas strip hotel. We had a good time and wish her luck in Florida.

Payton-Dance Dress-Up

Payton will start dance next year, but felt very left out when Addi got to get all prettied up for her dance photos last Thursday. I grabbed Addis recital costume from 2 years ago and curled Paytons hair all up (the best I could for her short hair). The result was darling. I let them go play in the outfits for a couple hours since we no longer had a need for them.

Addison's Dance Recital

Addison not only looked like a princess all dolled up, but did a great job at her recital on Monday. We are so proud of her.

Tulip Festival-May 7th

On Saturday we took the to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point in their spring dresses. It was not what I expected, but was gorgeous. It took nearly 2 hours for us to walk along all of the pathways of tulips. The weather was also quite nice so we finished the afternoon there with ice cream cones on the grass in front of their huge waterfalls. Perfect day! FYI-This is my tummy at 19 weeks.

April again

There is so much I like and hate about April.

*Birthdays of people I love-Quinn and Brooklyn

*Spring-weather and flowers (even though it is snowing right now)

*Easter-watching the girls gather eggs and twirl in spring dresses

*Lawn care season-Les coming home after dark

*Brandon and Jen's anniversary (today)-so greatful to have her added to our family

*The anniversary of the day Quinn was killed in a car accident (tomorrow)- so thankful for temple blessings

So many good emotions mixed with a little sad. I am blaming it on the pregnancy hormones, but I have had a hard time not focusing on the bad lately. I hope writing it all down helps me realize that the wonderful memories and good times are much more important than the not so pleasant ones.

So glad my kids are in my life. It makes the hard times easier to get through. This was a conversation from this morning.

Addi-"Why is Mom crying?"

Les-"She just misses Uncle Quinn today (with his arm around me)."

Me-"I'd rather just stay in bed today. I don't want to go anywhere"

Addi-"Mom, it's not dark outside."

Me-"Addi, what does that have to do with anything?"

Addi-"It's not dark and there are no cows out in Payson so you don't have to stay in bed."

Les- (laughing) "Addi, Mom isn't scared to go outside she just wants to be sad."

Addi-"Oh, I hope I didn't make it worse" (starting to cry)

Me-"You never make it worse. You always make me laugh and make it better. I love you."

Big News and Pinkalicious Party

So I tried not to blog for a while on purpose as not to spoil the news too soon......WE ARE EXPECTING #3!!!- I know, I know we said we were done, but just couldn't resist the feeling that we needed to add just one more before we were officially done. 14 weeks today!

We had Addi's Pinkalicious party on March 19th (my birthday, but moms make sacrafices). It turned out really cute. We hired two 14 year old girls to paint fingernails of Addi's guests and then they all made pink necklaces. We had Pinkalicious cupcakes, pink lemonaide and pink ice cream while Les read the book to the girls. We also had a table of all kinds of pink candy for the girls to make a goody bag with. So much fun. Can't believe she is 6!

A New Year

I haven't posted in what seems like forever, so here is my attempt to quickly catch up. Our family had a great holiday season.

We made the usual rounds at Thanksgiving and were able to spend some time with Les' uncle Lee and his family in Park City for a couple of days afterwards. We changed real estate agents in November and the house remains on the market. After much construction, snow storms and pothole repair I am very anxious to get moved closer to work. We had a family look at the house yesterday morning. Hopefully we will find the right people to purchase it soon.

Payton turned 3 years old on December 14th. We had a Dora The Explorer birthday for her and combined it to celebrate Weston's 2nd birthday at the same time. She is such a hoot, always keeping us entertained.

Christmas was wonderful as usual. The girls were extreemly spoiled this year. It took me literally 3 hours to open the 10 Barbies and many other items that were tightly secured in their packaging.

Well, it's a new year already. Work for me has been challenging, yet a wonderful opportunity of growth in the last month. Les hopes to be employed until May. I am sad to see him have to make a job switch after 8 years of working at Natures Way, but not much we can do about their move to Green Bay. Who knows, maybe he will find something better...

Addison will be turning 6 in March. The Pinkalicious party planning has already begun. She is doing great in school. Reading above Kindergarten expectations.

More to come...