Santa Baby

There's nothing like a chubby baby--especially at Christmastime! To my large readership, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2011.

I think they saw the light!
The others are not quite as jolly or as chubby, but they are dear in their own right:

Our Angel Lili
Ruben and Marcos

PICTURE DAY

We took the day off of school to take pictures. It takes a lot of effort to get all the children looking presentable at the same time. We had a lot of challenges: Edgar got cranky fast. Lili insisted on trying to have her bangs look like fashionista cousin Desi. It was hard to keep them smoothed over. Marcos wanted to get dirty and Ammon spit up all over. Ruben struggled with smiling naturally. I made the mistake of having Ruben say "Lightning McQueen!" for one of the shots. He got rather excited.
Here are some of our best individual pictures:





















Hasn't Ammon become a substantial little fellow? He is in the 90th percentile for his weight. That is a first for our family, and we're rather proud of the little chub.

We weren't able to get Ammon to smile for a picture. He is starting to smile, but it didn't happen today during picture time. I wanted a picture of all of the kids to send in our Christmas card, but I'm not completely satisfied with any of them. I don't think we'll get everything together to try again, so we are going to choose one of these pictures. I would like you, my large readership, to tell me which you like best:

Number 1
Number 2

Number 3 Number 4 (AKA: Do you hear what I hear?)


Number 5
These are just to show you what we were struggling against:
I thought Picture Day would be easier than school. It wasn't. It makes me appreciate home school--usually it doesn't matter at all what my kids wear or what their hair looks like.

This just in. I got Ammon to smile:

Now There Are SIX!

We were going to do our last day of summer school on Monday. We would have completed 9 weeks. I have been so focused on school this summer and I've hardly done anything else.

I was scheduled for my c-section on August 12, so I was going to have about 2 weeks to get ready for the baby--clean the house, pack my hospital bag, go through clothes . . .

Saturday night my water broke. I called University Hospital in Salt Lake City because that was where I was supposed to deliver. The on-call Dr. strongly urged me to go to Elko to deliver. He said everything would be fine since I was exactly 36 weeks pregnant. He also said my beloved Dr. Draper was out of town for the weekend and wouldn't be able to deliver my baby even if I did risk going to Salt Lake.

So, we went to Elko and on August 1 at 11:56, our little miracle was born. We named him Ammon Alejandro. He weighed 6 lbs. 3 1/2 ounces and was 19 inches long.

The next day when our other kids got to come and visit, the first thing Ruben said was, "Now there are SIX Cobians!" He went around the room and counted us--just to verify. There really are six of us now and we are so grateful.

(It is rather humbling for me to include this picture of myself.)

Ammon is an absolute blessing. So far he only eats and sleeps (for at least 4 hours at a time!). While I was pregnant with him, I said he was my favorite because it was such an easy, nice pregnancy (despite recently being very hot this summer). So far, he's also been our easiest baby once he's come home. He definitely looks like one of us (rather he looks like Edgar--just like all of the little darlings).

We are all enjoying him so much:

So far, Marcos has been very tender and loving with Little Ammon.
Ruben is as exuberant about having a new baby in the house as he is about everything else--VERY.
Lili is a great big sister.
It's amazing how tiny these little ones start out.
So that's our big news. We are now six.

Easter

Don't die of shock: two posts in one day. I just wanted to include a few pictures of our Easter egg-decorating party. We had a lovely time. I think Marcos had at least as much fun as anyone. I gave him one egg and one cup of dye and he went with it. He ended up with blue dye all over his hands and hair and the floor (of course). The egg didn't fair so well--the yolk even was exposed and dyed blue:

Some more good-looking Easter bunnies:

Isaiah, Ruben, & Morgan

Liliana, Hyrum, Carolina

Liberty, Deseret, and Clarissa (Marianne's backside in the background)

LiliBirthday girls Grandma Corba and Clarissa (sporting her new make-up!)