Holiday Happenings + Ana Arrives

 Since I'm sitting around recovering from my c-section, I have time to finish this long blog post I started before Ana was born. We had a busy fall! Somehow we decided to put an offer on a house right before the holidays/before having a baby. We were somewhat surprised it worked out in this crazy housing market and we ended up packing up in November and moving after Thanksgiving. It was a crazy and busy time, but in the end, it was nice to feel somewhat settled for the last month or so in anticipation of our baby being born. Both of our work commutes are significantly shorter which has been so nice, and the kids are adjusting well to the new school/new area. 

Back in early November I already had a trip planned to AZ to get together with my college roommates. It was nice to take a break from packing for the weekend and Ricardo was sweet to stay behind with the kids. He was even brave enough to take them furniture shopping, which is not nearly as fun as it looks here:

Cute pictures to get on my trip:

Meanwhile, I had a great, relaxing time in sunny Scottsdale with these great friends. We enjoyed lots of great food and conversation and even got to enjoy the Mesa Temple open house which was so lovely.

Russell was jealous of my travels and asked for a picture of a cactus when I got back. I haven't been to Arizona in years, but it really is so pretty in just a totally different way than here.

Other exciting fall happenings! Ricardo took part 2 of his pediatric board exam in October and after a few painful weeks of waiting, he finally found out that he passed! He's worked and studied hard for many years to become board certified, so we are so excited for him! We were living out of boxes when he got the news, so it was good we already had a party back in October after he took it (since I knew he would pass). Congratulations Dr. Fontoura!

One day he was kind to take his nephew to the surgery center with him to shadow:

Fun times for me teaching Caroline's preschool group.

Explorations after church:

Our church does a great project before Thanksgiving each year where we collect items for 100+ Thanksgiving dinners for those in need. The kids had a great time pushing their laundry baskets around the gym, collecting the needed supplies and then delivering a few baskets with me and my mom.

Family pictures: hours of work planning outfits and getting everyone ready for a 15 minute photo shoot :). Always worth it in the end though!

My sister and her family had a trip planned down to Florida for Thanksgiving, so we made sure to be mainly all packed up pre-Thanksgiving so we could spend a few days with them before moving. The kids had a blast with their cousins as always.

Miniature golfing cousins.

On Thanksgiving morning all the kids and some motivated adults did a turkey trot in downtown Orlando. It was lots of fun and a great start to the day full of food.

Waiting their turns by Lake Eola.

Thanksgiving Feast Florida style-outside by the pool.

Between my sister's family, my parents, Ricardo's parents, and his brother's family, we had lots of helpers to unload at the new house and we even got quite a bit of unpacking done on moving day thanks to all the helpers. Since we moved locally and closed on the house in October, Ricardo had also already moved over quite a few loads beforehand, which made the painful moving process a lot less painful! We're also old pros-house #10 in 12 years!

Saying goodbye to the old house, Thomas was pretty sad about the move and refused to smile, but luckily he came to terms with it pretty quick after it was all said and done.

We've been embarking on lots of home projects since moving in and by we I mean Ricardo. He's kept busy doing all kinds of building, painting, etc.

One major project was building a new kitchen table after our tried and true granite tabletop broke during the move. 

Russell has also helped tons and put his lego-building skills to good use and happily helped put together several pieces of furniture.

The other 2 helped a bit too.

We found some time to get a Christmas tree and put up Christmas decorations-minus some outside Christmas lights which we'll have to get to next year when we have a less busy December.

Other fun shopping experiences: buying a trash can for garbage day. The kids had a great time riding through Lowe's inside the new trash can and entertained many people along the way.

Christmas festivities: decorating cookies.

My little kitchen helper:

We had some great friends come to visit us in December and it was fun to have our first visitors. We spent the day at Weeki Wachee Springs and had a great time seeing the mermaids and enjoying an unseasonably warm December.

Don't be fooled-the water was freezing! No adults were willing to touch it in our group, haha. The kids always have a different threshold.

On Christmas Eve we spent some time working in the yard. Ricardo made a fun swing for the kids out of some tree trimmings.

Decorating a gingerbread house on Christmas Eve. Including this picture because Caroline looks so cute, not because it's a good one of me!

Later that night we had Ricardo's family over for Christmas Eve dinner. Ricardo's dad always dresses up as Santa which is entertaining. This year he had more of a hodgepodge Santa suit than usual. Russell made his beard for him. 

Ricardo's parents slept over and enjoyed Christmas morning with us. The kids had a blast with all of their new toys and it was a great day.

Lego builders (and you can see the great job Ricardo did on the table):

Someone got a new pink bike and pink helmet and is the cutest little biker around.

Ricardo enjoyed having the extra hands to help build the new trampoline.

My brother and sister were in town for Christmas and so my family came down to visit for a few days after Christmas. The kids had a great time with their little cousin Aiden too.

Best uncle ever.

We saw some horses at the park!

We had a fun New Years' Eve at our house. There were an unbelievable amount of fireworks visible from our front door that went on for hours. The boys also climbed on the roof with Ricardo and watched them for a while up there. They stayed up til midnight for the first time ever and were so excited. It was a bit rough the next morning which was a good learning experience about why they usually go to bed at 8. :)

We went to the beach on New Year's Day. It was a bit crowded because it's been unseasonably warm, but we did find these fun rocks to climb on and it was a fun start to the new year.

Three little readers riding in the car.

Hanging with the cows at Ricardos' parents' house. A new baby cow was born and the kids loved meeting him. Thomas is in his lion costume which he wears pretty often for fun.

Caroline and I went strawberry picking while the boys were at school. She got lots of good ones! 

The latest house project is a fence Ricardo is working on. The kids enjoyed painting the posts white one Saturday. They worked hard!

Since Caroline was a c-section due to her umbilical cord being wrapped around her neck x3 and the boys had it wrapped x1, we decided an elective c-section would be the safest thing this time around. Ultimately that was the right decision since little Ana had her cord wrapped around twice. All of these kids are just too wiggly! For someone who's gone into labor 3 times, it felt so weird to show up at the hospital for a scheduled c-section! Overall things went well. The first day was a bit rough due to my spinal anesthesia not lasting as long as they needed it to during the surgery. I received a ton of IV meds to keep me from feeling anything while they finished surgery and I definitely felt the aftereffects of those medications for the next 12 hours. I was super groggy/confused and kept throwing up. Poor Ricardo had to answer my same repetitive questions over and over again every time I woke up and tried to figure out what was going on.

Here's a nice picture after she was born and while my spinal was still working. 

Our tiniest baby at 5 lb 13 oz. Caroline was slightly bigger at 6 lb 1 oz. 

We've never had a pandemic baby so it was different to not have the kids come to the hospital to meet their new sibling. But, they were so excited when we did come home. 

They are all obsessed with her but Thomas wins #1 fan. He's always loved babies and was the same way when Caroline was born. As soon as he wakes up he will come to see her and every day after school he will immediately wash his hands and come ask to hold her. He's a bit offended at how much she has to sleep and eat and wishes he could just hold her all day. 

Ana is a little sweetheart and we are so grateful she made it here safely!