I LOVE this BABY!

{{{What do you think Allie? The dress is a hit, no? I LOVE IT!!}}}

She is one month old as of yesterday! She's just so cute and sweet and easy going. She's smiling more and more and just makes me happy! Now, if she would sleep at night, that would just be the icing on the cake! No, seriously I'm getting like maybe 4 hours of sleep most nights. James has to leave for work at 5 am so I feel bad making him get up with her. Here she is sleeping.. during the day of course!



{{Thank you Ryan and Emma-Lee for the cute jammie and blanket}}

Speaking of James, he worked another 100 hour week last week and it looks like this week isn't going to be much better! :( I really miss him and the boys, well they just about go nuts whether he's here or not! When he's not, they get all whiney and restless and when he is, they frantically try to get him to take them to the park and play catch and wrestle before he remembers how exhausted he is!!

The air has cleared considerably and we even had RAIN this last weekend! Thanks for the prayers!! Still no school today, but tomorrow it's business as usual. We feel so blessed and fortunate that we are safe an relatively unaffected by those horrible fires. There is a lot of work to be done, though.

The "Big Boo To Do" for all the wards that meet in our building was Saturday. We had two little ninjas and a tiny little bunny! James was a rocker and I was a witch. Our littlest ninja won "funniest costume" ?!?!?!? Also, I slaved over a delicious apple pie for the pie baking contest and then never heard who won! I'm not sure if they forgot to judge them, or if I just missed the announcement somehow. I did get to eat a piece, though!! ;)





Happy Halloween all!!

Pictures of FIRE behind our house

These pictures are of the fire that started yesterday afternoon about a half of a mile behind our house. They were taken by a neighbor/ friend from the ward.









We were packing the car when we got word that the fire had been contained. Whew.. Pretty crazy huh??!!??

Red Sun

Here's a couple of pictures of what it looked like here yesterday afternoon. You can't see it, but there was ash raining from the sky too.

Fires everywhere!

It is literally on fire everywhere here! I'm so nervous that any minute now they're going to call for evacuations in our neighborhood! All of San Diego county is ablaze and they've evacuated over five hundred thousand people! The air is sooty and stinky and my eyes are just burning! We need lots and lots of prayers here! I've volunteered to open up our home to evacuees, but I don't know how long we'll be able to stay. The closest fire is only 10 miles from here with evacuations 5 miles away. They are preparing people on Camp Pendleton to evacuate, but I don't know if that will include the hospital or not. The entire county has cancelled school for the rest of the week!

I took some pictures, but I'm not sure if you can really see what I was trying to show. There is a layer of soot over everything outside and it's even smokey indoors. The smell is just awful.

Here you can kind of see it, but these are my footprints in the soot on the sidewalk in our backyard and the next picture is of the sky outside at 12:30 pm..






I would've tried to get a better picture looking east of our house, but I couldn't stand being outside any longer. My lungs were starting to burn a little. I came inside and now REEK of smoke.

I'm trying not to worry, so I'll share some cute pictures from the last week.


Nothing like a good bubble bath to get the boys in a goofy mood!



James and the boys went to their happiest place on Earth on Friday! They had SO much fun and Charlie was tall enough for the Matterhorn! He's probably told me 75 times since they got home about how he was big enough and opened his eyes the whole time. "It was scary mom! There was a snow bear! He's just a toy, though.

Annabelle just looked SOSOOOOOOOOOOO cute on Sunday - I'm loving dressing her up all the time. I've become quite good at making little "bows" for her hair and cute little headbands. Poor little "baldy-locks" I call her ;)




These are my two little guys playing "Jungle Book" They're both Mogley - hence the underwear and YES Charlie peed all over himself a couple of times, but he was adamant that he not wear a diaper underneath, so I was adamant that he stay outside! I'm sure you understand! Anyway, it was really cute b/c they were singing the "Bear Necessities" song and looking for wild berries and pretending to eat grass and bugs. Charlie actually ate a mouthful of grass before he figured out that Dillon just was pretending. He gagged like crazy and James and I were cracking up! He's such a funny kid.



Well, I gotta go watch the news and freak out some more, so I'll sign off. PRAY FOR EVERYONE HERE!!

So, now "the help" is gone and reality is about to set in.... I can feel it! James has a few precious days left of this wonderful Op Med rotation and then its back to 80+ hours a week and 4 days off a month! WAAAAHHHH!

The first day that I was left in charge of all three of them by myself for a while I totally spaced picking Dillon up from school... His teacher had to call me. "Oh yeah.. I have THREE kids, huh?" Well, at least I feel a million times better than I did three weeks ago. In fact, I felt good enough last Thursday to go with James and the boys (and my sis) to California Adventure for their "Mickey's Halloween Treat" celebration. Let me tell you, this is one of those things that if you have kids this age - like between 2 and 8 - you CANNOT miss! It is super fun, inexpensive and just adorable! There were tons of trick-or-treating stations, all the rides were open, and EVERYONE was dressed up in costume. They sell a limited amount of tickets, so it wasn't too crowded and there were minimal wait times for the rides. Check it out and DO IT if there is any way at all! Here's some pics:





We don't really have any pictures of Dillon with the characters. He's still terrified of people in costume! Daddy promised him he could pick out a Disney toy at the store there if he tried not to be afraid and got his picture taken with the characters, but that didn't even work! But, here's a picture of him eating his monster sized slice of pizza!




Yes, Annabelle came along too... DON'T SCOLD ME! We kept her in the stroller bundled tightly and she did just fine. I have been scolded just about every time I've left the house with her. I KNOW SHE'S REALLY SMALL and I KNOW IT'S A LITTLE EARLY TO HAVE HER OUT! This lady at super Saturday really ripped me a new one. She's hispanic and told me that latin women wait 40 days before leaving the house b/c "pores are still open and you could get very sick. Not to mention your baby looks very unhappy in her carseat." Oh and she took one look at my McDonald's cup of Diet Coke and said, "You REALLY need to be more careful what you eat if you are breastfeeding!" Wow. It was amazing. I'd never met this lady in my life. Oh well!

Annabelle is doing really well. She's porking out quite a bit! I hate how fast they grow at this stage. It's constant change. She smiled for the first time on the 11th. Her cord fell off two days ago and today she had her first real bath! She's starting to fit into most of her little outfits and I feel kind of like I'm playing dolls or something - dressing up my baby doll ;) I've learned how to make cute baby bows and headbands. Annabelle has hair, but unfortunately its around the sides and the back. Kinda like an old man (gasp) so mama does what she can to minimize the balding old man look! lol

We've decided to bless her on November 4th. I always look forward to that. My mom and some friends here are throwing a baby shower on Saturday! I'm so excited to have a little "pink party" for my sweet little girl!

Isn't this cute of my mom with the baby? I know she's gonna love it.

One week old Annabelle

I can't believe it's been a week. It really is such a strange feeling... one week ago I thought time was standing still and now I blink and a whole day has gone by!

I promised more details so here's how last week went down. I was induced at 6:00 pm Thursday and delivered Friday at 11:00 am. It took nearly the entire time to get dilated from a 3 to a 4! As soon as I was a 4 my DR broke my water and things accelerated drastically. I got my epidural and half an hour later I was dilated to 10 centimeters! Once it was time to push, I was so eager to see my little girl, that I only had to push 3 times! Piece of cake really ;0)

So, she was 7lbs 6oz and 21 inches, pink and screaming. It was one of the three best moments in my life so far.

She spent a little time in the nursery while they watched an arythmea and ended up having an "event" of desaturation, so they made her stay there overnight. She ended up being fine and we took her home Saturday afternoon! Since then we have had it pretty good, thanks in large part to my Mom. She really stepped in and made the transition so much easier. She cooked gourmet meals, cleaned like the house was under inspection, took great care of the boys and was able to still enjoy sweet new baby Annabelle with us. THANKS MOM - a million times over.

Now we have my Dad here with us and we've (I've) felt well enough to get out a little. Yesterday we went to the pier and had lunch. It's so beautiful and we had a great time - look at Charlie's face if you need proof!

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The boys seem to be adjusting just fine. They love their sister and are very sweet with her. She is really sweet and sleeping and eating pretty well now. It takes my breath away every time I look at her and realize I have my baby girl and its just as wonderful as I could have imagined.

We are feeling so blessed. I know we are far away from most of you and not being able to share this with you in person is painful, but thanks to the blogging world, a little easier. Thanks for all your prayers, well wishes and congratulations. We love you all.

Introducing **** Annabelle Joy Mathews****

She's here! She's perfect and we're all doing really well. More details soon... here are some pics! :O)



This video we just took a few hours ago - the boys holding their little sister for the first time!