Penny Pics

We are so happy to have Penny with us! She is a great sleeper, and is so alert when she is awake. I am always surprised at how strong and coordinated she is--she almost rolled over today. She is so sweet, and has charmed everyone...except for Edison. He is not happy about giving up his role as baby of the family (but we are starting to see some progress... he sort of kissed Penny "goodnight" last night. We only had to force him a LITTLE bit). But she's so cute, I'm sure that he won't be able to resist loving her for to much longer!

I've been getting lots of requests for more pictures of Penny. Unfortunately she is a little camera shy, and whenever I take out the camera she starts to scream. But we do have a few pictures of her when she isn't screaming...

Less than a week old...just hangin' out in her bouncer.

Playing with Ginger. She's about a week and a half old in this picture.

Already so curious!

Her favorite toy is this frog that she's looking at.

2 weeks old. Asleep on our couch.

Her Daddy loves her!

She was about 3 weeks old, and I could see that baby acne was coming. So, here I was attempting to have a little photo shoot while she was still a "newborn" with "newborn skin"...There's a reason why I'm not a photographer.

This is what she looked like most of the time...

11-11-11

 

Everyone kept on telling me what a great birthday 11-11-11 would be. My due date was November 16th, but Ginger and Edison were born 5 and 7 days early (respectively), so there was a reasonable chance that Baby #3 might come on the 11th. I honestly didn't have a preference--I just knew that the 11th would be a popular day, and I did NOT want to share a room during recovery. 11-10-11 or 11-12-11 both seem like "cool" enough birth dates to me.

So, on November 11th 2011, I found myself at the hospital sitting in triage, waiting for a delivery room (of course they were all full, because everyone wanted to have their baby on 11-11-11). I couldn't help being more nervous about having to share a room than about the actual delivery. (Does anyone else remember "the Office" episode when Pam had to share a room at the hospital? I'm sure I'm not the only one grossed out by the idea of nursing someone else's baby...or them nursing my baby for that matter)

We eventually did get a delivery room (and the hospital gave us flowers and a teddy bear for making us wait). I didn't wait to ask for the epidural--it always takes the anesthesiologist forever to come, and I knew that I'd want it by the time he got there.  And I did, no surprise. When he was done he told me that it would take 10-15 minutes for the epidural to kick in. Okay, I can do 10-15 minutes.
Shortly after that my doctor declared me "ready to push". Light at the end of the tunnel...meanwhile I'm still waiting for the relief of the epidural. The doctor left and told the nurse to page him when the baby's head was crowning. On the second push the nurse yelled "STOP! STOP! That's the head! We need to get the doctor!" STOP? Are you crazy? The baby's head is partially out, and you want me to just hold it there?! Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for the effects of the epidural.
The doctor came back after what seemed like an eternity. Then, after 3 more pushes, out she came! "It's a GIRL!" they told me, "a beautiful, BIG girl!" A flood of relief washed over me (not relief from the epidural, mind you): pregnancy was finally over, labor was finally over, my wait to find out if our baby was a girl or a boy was finally over.

She was beautiful, and she was big--9lbs 2oz, and 21 inches long. My Mom, Brandon and I got to hang out for a while and just enjoy her. We took turns holding her and dissecting her features to figure out who she looked like. We watched her cute eyes slowly blink and go cross-eyed and squint at the bright lights. What could she possibly be thinking? My Mom left to go get Ginger and Edison, and I was wheeled up to my recovery room with Brandon following. We couldn't stop talking about how excited Ginger was going to be about having a sister, and how we had totally "called" that the baby was going to be a girl. It took us a moment to register that the door that we had stopped at was a shared room. It was not a mistake. They had given me a shared room.

Ginger was immediately fascinated by her baby sister.

Edison was much more interested in the mechanical workings of my hospital bed.

Ginger had been asking for weeks if she could hold the baby when it was born. So of course that was her first request upon entering the hospital room.

She tried to tickle the baby's fingers. No reaction.

Edison didn't acknowledge the new baby, there were more important things to do.

Just before leaving the hospital, we named Carlton Baby #3 "Penelope Jayne Carlton". We call her "Penny".

...and, for the record, I got the HUGE shared room all to myself (and Penny of course). Thank goodness!

Kids Say (and Do) the Darndest Things

A picture is worth a thousand words, right? These are some of our favorites from this Fall.

Um, Ginger...you've got something on your nose...

Why do we spend money on toys? Food storage works just as well!

Daddy's  King of the tire mountain!

Let's just take a look at the situation from a different point of view...

The kids love their bath time. (Are those star stickers on Edison's cheeks?)

Sometimes it gets a little rowdy at bath time.

Ginger was a cat for Halloween. She did not want to take her costume off after her preschool Halloween party. This is why she has whisker smudges on her cheeks.

Our darling little rapper.

Climbing races. They can both hold there own in a climbing race, but Edison usually gets stuck at the top.

Just chillin' before bedtime. Ginger holding Mia hostage, and Edison trying to show of his chest hair (and playing with Mom's Ipad).

Playing in the leaf pile: Ginger called it her "nest".

When Brandon is at work, Edison takes his role as "Man of the House" pretty seriously.

I asked Ginger to go get herself some clean underwear for the day...the next thing I know, she's running around with it on her head!

Has anyone seen the show "Hoarders"? Ginger is one of those "collectors of unique items".

ARNY Family Last-minute Reunion

It just so happened that my brother, Dallen, returned from deployment a couple of weeks before my other brother, Brandon, was going to be sent off to Basic Training for the Army. So, my Mom got us all together (with the exception of Evan and Diana--we missed you!) for an impromptu reunion. We had so much fun! We are so blessed to have great families!
Of course we took some family pictures... Unfortunately I have misplaced the CD that has all of the ACTUAL family pictures on it. But these are some that we took with our camera during the photo-shoot. 

I couldn't resist!

Edison was a little sad during the photo shoot...nap time.

Ok, he was a LOT sad.

The men of the family (minus Evan): from left, Brandon Carlton, Dallen, Brandon Arny, Dad, and Jared. I don't remember what happened, but it must've been funny.

I'll continue to look for that CD...there may be more to come.

Ginger's First Day of (Pre-)School

August 2011
For a month we had been preparing Ginger for going to pre-school. She was so excited to make new friends and have fun teachers...but mostly she was excited about her backpack. Here's our little girl on her first day of school! (sniff) They grow up so fast!

Utah Trip: Part 2

I'm finally getting around to posting more pics of our trip to Utah.

My Mom introduced me to the Children's Museum that they have in Greensboro, NC--we went with all of the cousins on the Arny side of the family earlier this year. It was such a fun place that I looked for one to go to in Utah. Sure enough, they have one in Salt Lake. The kids had a blast--they both especially liked the miniature house with a little kitchen, living room, etc. Edison loved opening and closing all of the drawers and cabinets (just like at home!), and Ginger "made" us some spaghetti. They also had a little farms area, a mini construction site and a little grocery store--equipped with its own miniature shopping carts! You can imagine where they each chose to hang out--Edison went to play at the construction site while Ginger shopped for groceries.

Hmmm....what should I cook for you today...

I can just hear Ginger telling Edison that he doesn't "WANT to be in the kitchen". She likes to tell people what they want to do and don't want to do.

This was in the toddler area (fenced in, with chairs for the adults to sit--my kind of place).

At the construction site: He' is trying to put on his hard hat, but he was moving so fast that this was the only clear picture I could get of him. I know, it would make more sense if you could actually see the hat.

He tried so hard to pull the flowers out of the flower boxes. To his dismay, his height was working against him (he couldn't get the right angle to pull them up and out)

Utah Trip - Part 1

The kids and I spent a month out in Utah visiting Grammy (Brandon's Mom). We had so much fun going on little outings and playing with cousins (Kael and Ashleigh)!

We went swimming a lot! Ginger and Edison had swim lessons 4 days a week, and we were also able to go to a community pool and a neighbor's pool. Before we went to Utah, Edison HATED being in the water! Even in the bath tub, he would stand up the whole time so that he didn't have to be IN the water. Well, thanks to his swim teacher, Miss Mindy, he now loves playing in the water!

Edison's first lesson with Miss Mindy. He screamed a lot during that lesson.

...and even after the lesson he screamed. It took him a while to calm down.

And look at how happy he is now! He loves playing in the water!

The kids loved playing with Kael at the pool. And I loved it because he would make sure that they stayed at the shallow end.

I wish I had gotten more pictures with her in these sunglasses, because she looked so awesome with them on!...And this was my day of triumph: she WANTED to wear her floaties!

Ginger has always loved being in the water, so she was always so excited to be at the pool. But she has also always been a little too adventurous for my nerves, and would refuse any kind of floatation device. I finally convinced her that arm-floaties are cool, so now she doesn't have a total melt-down every time I try to put them on her (and I can actually enjoy being at the pool instead of trying to hawk-eye two toddlers who are always moving in opposite directions). All I had to do was get some arm-floaties for Edison so that Ginger would be jealous and want some too! Thank goodness for sibling rivalry, right?

We also went to go feed the ducks at a local pond--it was one of the favorite activities of last year, so we were so excited to go back. We soon realized that Edison had no interest in the ducks, only in running away from adults. I got so tired chasing him down the whole time that we didn't really make it back to the pond.

Running, running, running. Into the woods, into the stream, and almost into the pond. If I really wanted a great workout, I could just take him back there!...not worth it, it was so exhausting!

Another favorite from last year was Suzie's Farm! Grammy has a good friend who has a little farm where we could go pet the animals: she has goats, horses, a donkey, etc....Edison's favorite was Suzie's cat. Edison would watch the older kids feed hay to the goats, so he followed the cat around trying to feed it hay! (honestly, I'm surprised that he didn't try to eat the hay himself, but I am glad that he didn't). Ginger had so much fun with the animals--she really loved the goats! And she rode on one of the horses for a long time all by herself.

This is one of our favorite pictures: Ginger lifting up the goat's tail to see what's underneath! She was really close to poking her finger into the goat's rear-end, but luckily Brandon caught her in time! There's no limit to a child's curiosity!

So adorable!

Where we really spent a lot of time was in the car!

Who can resist loving this kid!

Kael was reading a book to Ginger. I'm not sure I quite understand these faces, but I think it's funny!

I like the action shot of Edison's ice cream mid-drip.

Such cute girls.