Catching Some Rays

Looking a little yellow on day four, so we took advantage of the great weather for a little sunny window therapy. Check out the monkey-toes and huge Ben-hands!

Our Sweet Little Boy

He's Finally Here!

Nathan Hale Mavy was born on Tues morning, 1/13/09 at 4:15. He weighed 9 lbs, 4 oz at birth, and he's 21 inches. He was born at home, and fast! I woke up at about 3:30, and woke Ben up at 4:00. Poor guy, I was giving him a laundry list of things to do, people to call, help me get out of the bathroom, wash your hands, check on the kids, but I wouldn't let him leave my side. He did great. I still don't know how he was able to do so much in 15 minutes. Monica, who lives next door, got here just in time to catch him. Ben's Dad was here getting the kids when Nathan was born, and Ben's sister, Carrina just barely missed the birth but was there to help right after. All in all, an amazing experience, and we feel truly blessed to have the privilege of growing our family. Love and thanks to all of you who have been so supportive!
Ben and Megan
By the way, here's a link to the original Nathan Hale's biography - http://www.connecticutsar.org/patriots/hale_nathan.htm

More November, a Little December

I'm still way behind, but here's a little catch-up.
I found a few more vacation pictures. This is Steve's front yard again. Amazing, isn't it?

Steve took all of us out to a great cowboy show with some beautiful cowboy music, jokes and skits. The girls were a little antsy, but overall did well and enjoyed the music and dancing.

Here are a couple cute pictures of the girls singing with Daddy. Libi is definitely the most musical of our girls. She can't help but dance whenever she hears music, and she can actually keep a beat! Her favorite song is Jingle Bells; she inserts "hey!" at every pause, occassionally substituting a "ha, ha, ha" for variety. Even though Eve and Sadie are pretty much tone deaf, we love to sing together and spend time at least once a day making music together. Of course, when Daddy gets his guitar out, or sits down at the piano, the music making is 10 times more fun.
We got pigs! It's a joint venture with the Browns. They've been at Monica and Ryan's place for a while, but Ben and Ryan put together a nicer pen on our flat, and all the kids helped out. They love the piggies, and can't wait to eat them. They keep asking me, "when are we going to turn them into sausage and bacon?"
One of my favorite moments in 2008 was taking the girls to see Santa at the Church party. Eve and Sadie, of their own volition, made Santa some special presents out of scraps of Christmas ribbon, wrapping paper and fake pine. I think Santa was pleased the girls remembered him. While Eve was sitting on Santa's lap, Sadie asked him where his car was parked. Santa pointed to the roof, and Sadie's jaw dropped. "How did it get up there?" she wanted to know. Santa told her he flew it up there. "You can fly? How do you do it?" He reminded her about his eight flying reindeer and his sleigh and esp. Rudolph. Sadie was enthralled to hear it all first-hand. Liberty was not very enthusiastic about the whole thing. Maybe next year.
We had snow - lots of it! It's been a while now, and I can't remember how many days we had of it, but there were several snow storms. The kids loved it, esp. when they got to play with RJ and Makayla in it. I was less enthusiastic - so much laundry when I was trying to get ready for Christmas and what I thought was going to be an early baby. It was beautiful, though.

And here is Eve's new haircut. I kind of wanted to cut her hair, but I couldn't bring myself to chop of her ringlets, especially when they took so long to grow. She solved the dilemma by doing it herself one Sunday while everyone was napping. Apparently her ponytail holder wouldn't come out on it's own, so she helped it out with a pair of scissors. I woke up to find a fistful of hair in the bathroom trash. I have to admit, it brought tears to my eyes. Eve was heartbroken too when she realized what she had done. She cried for over an hour, and refused to look in the mirror after I trimmed up the sides. It was a good learning experience for her though. We all make errors in judgement. I just hope the biggest ones she makes are while she's young and Ben and I can help her learn from them.
This one sure turned out cute!

And here is one more that I couldn't resist. You probably have to click on the picture to see it well, since it's pretty dark. I didn't want to use the flash, because I knew it would wake them up. Moments like these make being a parent worth all the hard work.

Once again, it's been a while. I have a good excuse though - I hate sitting in our computer chair when I'm this pregnant. Yes, I'm still pregnant, dang it. I thought I might actually get to use the newborn size diapers this time, but this kid is hanging in there, and Liberty was 10 lbs and born the day after she was due. So much for that nice little credit on our tax return this year...
At any rate, a lot has happened at the Mavy house in the last month-and-a-half.
Makayla Brown turned 3 and had her birthday party the day before Eve had her 5-year-old birthday party. Eve was beside herself with excitement for the 2 big days. Eve insisted on dressing up in her "fairy party dress" as she calls it, and enjoyed every minute of Makayla's Fancy Nancy party, as did Sadie and Liberty, and of course, the birthday girl.

The next night, the Browns, the Johnsons, Grandma and Grandpa and Ed and Sheila Mavys' 3 youngest girls came over for Eve's fairy princess tea party. R.J. was a bit outnumbered, being the only boy amongst 9 little girls, but he did just fine, and contrary to Eve's predictions, neither killed the fairies nor stole their tea party stuff.

Mommy and Daddy got Eve a Tonka dump truck and filled both the kids' sandboxes with sand. They love to play in the sandboxes, and seem to really enjoy Grandpa's Tonka trucks and tractors, so I thought it would be a hit. What was I thinking? She still hasn't put it in the sandbox because she doesn't want it to get dirty. I give up.
I already got Sadie a Tonka truck for her birthday, which is next week. I'm hoping it goes over better...
On Tues, the 25th of November, Eve's actual birthday, we left for a Thanksgiving trip to Wyoming. Ben's grandma and 2 of his uncles live in the Star Valley in Wyoming. It is incredibly gorgeous there, as you can see. Every time we've visited, Ben has been tempted to look at real estate, more because of the excellent hunting than the view, but I remind him of his uncles' description of the place - "poverty with a view." I'm sure the descent into poverty would be accelerated by the amount of time Ben would spend hunting :)

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with Grandma, Cousin Emmet, who announced that his wife Ramina is expecting a baby this summer, and Uncles Jack and Steve. Grandma had her amazing Christmas village up - it takes two walls of the kitchen and the entire walled-in porch. There's just not enough room to put all the pictures up, but here's a taste -
We stayed at Uncle Steve's cabin for the days we were there. I think everyone's favorite part was the huge claw foot tub. Here are Ben and the girls playing in his front yard.
Doesn't Sadie have an award-winning pouty face?

It snowed while we were out there, and the girls had a great time playing in the snow and getting rides with Uncle Steve on the quad.

Ben and Sadie taught Liberty how to eat snow and showed the girls how to "make it snow." Kids are disgusting, but maybe that has something to do with their influences.


The trip home was surprisingly easy, like the trip out. I can't really take credit for what well-behaved kids we have. I was crankier than they were driving for 12 hours. I guess Ben can take credit for it. It was so much fun for the girls and I to have Ben all to ourselves for almost a week. He is definitely the hero in our house, and has a bevy of worshipful girls surrounding him. What will it be like to have another male in the house?