A-R-C-H-E-R Merit Badge Wall Art

With four boys in the family, it only seemed fitting to create some boy-scout-inspired wall art for Archer's name.  Jenn modified some merit badge designs and we love how it turned out:

Archer Griffin Iverson

When Jenn woke me up at 5 a.m. telling me that she was having contractions and that we should get ready to go to the hospital, I did not believe her.  "Are you sure?  We're still more than two weeks before the due date!  And we've still got so much to do before this baby comes!"  Surprisingly, none of these arguments worked to convince her that she should not have this baby yet.

So, we packed up our things, took Henry and Ellis to a friend's house close to their school, dropped Sam off with the Seversons, and headed to the hospital.

From there, things moved pretty darn quickly:  We checked into the hospital around 8:00, they got us a room with a birthing ball (Jenn's favorite!) and we starting working on our mindful birthing techniques.  And when I say "we," I mean Jenn.  Just like when Sam was born, Jenn did this all natural, and she was totally amazing.  This time we didn't have a midwife with us full time, as they left us alone for about an hour.  By the end of the hour, it was pretty clear to me that things were progressing pretty quickly, so I ran out to grab someone.  They had a hard time tracking down the midwife who was supposed to do this delivery, so another one that was on duty came in, and within 10 minutes Archer was born!

This is now the second time that we've had a spectacular experience with natural birth, and I can't say how much I admire Jenn's bravery and ability to manage the pain and appreciate the process.  It was a beautiful birth.

Here are the key stats:

Due Date: 17 September 2015
Born: 2 September 2015 (15 days early) at 10:08am
Weight: 7 lbs. 8 oz.
Total time in labor: 6 hours
Total time at hospital before being born: 2 hours
Amount of pain medication Jenn took: None!
Health of baby: Perfect
Health of mother: Perfect
Hair: Dark, fine hair, just like Henry and Ellis had.  It will soon fall out to make way for the blonde!
First-name Namesake: By the time you have four boys, namesakes are hard to come by.  But we hope he will be straight and true like an arrow.

Middle-name Namesake: Griffin is Jenn's maiden name, and we wanted to name Archer after Jenn's dear Grandma Griffin who passed away earlier in the summer.  We hope Archer picks up some of her sweet nature.
What we will call him: Archer, Arch, Archie, Archibald, Baldy, Archer-roo, and pretty much any other permutation you can come up with.  But mostly just Archer.

And now, some hospital pictures:

Man, that's quite a family!

Henry, the old pro, showing his brothers how to hold the baby.

Sam, taking his turn for the first time!

Ellis and Archer

  

Time to leave the hospital and play with the Seversons!

Payne Street Block Party

One of our favorite things about Evanston is that every block has its own block party.  All through the summer you see streets blocked off, bounce houses inflated, and fire hydrants shooting water for the kids to play in.  Here are some fun pictures from our party this year:

Latergrams: Getting ready for a new baby (August 2015)

My new favorite: free 2-hour delivery. Someone needed this cereal, and it couldn't wait! I am really getting used to the convenience of living near a big city...  #primenow #iheartamazon

Way over-pampered by the sweetest friends. My feet feel SOOOO happy!  #pedicurenight #babyparty #5weeksaway

First and fourth graders who will never admit to being excited about this.  But I think they kind of are.  :)  #firstdayofschool

I bought these four paperback copies of the Book of Mormon so we could use them at the breakfast table and not feel bad about spilling milk and maple syrup on them.  Two years and three months later, we finally finished reading!  There were lots of distracted moments, parental reminders, silliness, and pirate voices.  I sure hope they got something out of it and feel at least some of the love that I feel for this book!  #bookofmormon #ibelieve #morningdevotional

Book of Mormon party tonight to celebrate our first complete reading as a family!  We watched the Testaments movie and ate cake.  #bookofmormon #fondantexperiment

Gathering focus materials for the big day.  We practiced with ice in the hand last night, and I think we've got this!  #3weeksaway #orless #mindfulbirthing #naturalbirth

I get all my information from the boys by eavesdropping.  This was what Ellis said to Henry today.  #overheard #lineadayjournal

King of the House 2015

King of the House Day is becoming kind of a big deal in the Iverson household.  The boys start talking about it in early summer, scheming and planning what they'll do on their special day.  This year, Ellis and Sam hit on the idea of having a joint King of the House Day.  We were a little skeptical, because (a) that would mean they get one less super fun day and (b) two kings that have to share their special day doesn't sound like a recipe for pleasantness.  But they insisted and, well, they are the kings, so we gave it a try.

The jointly decided breakfast: Cookie Crisp!

The chosen activity: Dot painting!

Special lunch: McDonald's, of course.

The outing: Water Park!

While we were at the water park, the elastic in Henry's swim shirt started to completely disintegrate for some unknown reason.  As a result, it just kept expanding and expanding until it looked like some kind of weird flying squirrel wingsuit or something.  Jenn decided it would work great for her last trimester of pregnancy, and commandeered it from him.

Sam and Ellis both wanted the same dinner: Waffles (and a tiny amount of peaches). 

And the special treat?  Designer sugar cookies from a local bakery!

Miraculously, there were very few arguments, and King Ellis and King Sam had a reign of peace and happiness and lots and lots of sugar.  

 Meanwhile, Henry had his own plans for his King of the House Day:

Frosted Flakes for breakfast

Special treat: Firecakes donuts

And a trip to the aquarium with our favorite pals the Seversons to see the new amphibians exhibit!

All in all, I'd be pretty happy to let these little kings run our house.  At least for a day!

Wisconsin Camping 2015

After returning from our epic road trip to Mount Rushmore, there was still one last must-do before school got in the way of all our fun: the annual family camping trip with the Seversons!  This family tradition is driven by Ben, who is determined that we will be a camping family.  So, of course, he happily does all of the work of getting ready for the camping trip, right?

Here is our intrepid explorer now, busily sleeping while his wife, 8 months pregnant, gathers tents, sleeping bags, camp stoves, etc.  This is what happens when you get hit with the worst head cold/sinus infection in the history of mankind the day before the trip. Ugh.

But we put on our brave faces and did it anyway.  We were rewarded with a nice drive through Wisconsin forests to our campsite.

This year, our campsite also included a cabin, complete with A/C.  Because, when you're 8 months pregnant, that's what camping is.  It was perfect, really.

One of the fun things about camping in the Midwest is that the critters are different from what you encounter in Utah mountains.  The boys went for a nice morning walk and came back with four frogs.

Here's Ellis with his favorite one, "Biggie."

This was probably the largest one we caught.

Meanwhile, Ben did a lot of sneezing/suffering/sleeping next to the A/C.  A major downside of Midwest camping is that there are no mountains, so you don't get up out of the heat at all.  You just bake in it in your tent.

Even though a more natural pairing would be Henry with Eli and Ellis with Charlie, it was actually Henry and Charlie who were inseparable the whole trip.  Charlie likes being friends with the oldest, and Henry loves imagining up worlds for Charlie to play "the game" in.

We camped near Devil's Lake State Park, WI.  Here we are ready to hike around the lake a bit.

Wasn't long before the heat cut the hike short, and we switched to swimming.

Can you beat pond swimming on a hot summer day?  I think not.

Lot's of muscles in this picture.  And one belly on Ellis.  :)

 Now, maybe you noticed that Sam is not in these swimming pictures.  That's because just before we got in the water he took a pretty good tumble and smacked his head on a rock.  In seconds it had swelled to the largest goose egg I've seen on someone's head maybe ever.  So Ben got the enviable task of scooping him up and carrying screaming him all the way back to the car to relax (but not sleep, since we were worried about a concussion).  You can see some remnants of the blow in this picture taken the next day:

Luckily after a couple of hours he perked up and seemed fine.  That kid is durable.

In this end, this is why it was worth camping, despite the bugs and Ben's sickness and Sam's head injury and the heat:

Sometimes you just have to be able to see the whole sky.

And let the boys play with the fire. :)

 And, you know, just be boys.