Logan William Opp

He's here!!! Sorry this has taken so long, but here are the pics of Logan in the hospital. He was born at 5:53pm on January 16th. He was 9lbs 9oz and 21 inches long.
We went into the hospital at 6am that morning.

Here is Jim driving us to the hospital. I was stupidly under the impression that this would be a fast process... ha ha. My doctor thought I would go fast and convinced me to get an epidural earlier than I would have chosen. But in his defense, he didn't want me to wait until I was writhing in pain to ask for it and then have to wait another hour before it actually happened, so I was grateful for that.

Here we are in the hospital, just waiting. Honestly it got a little boring and I felt bad for Mom and Dad Hodges and Jim who were forced to just sit there and wait.

Unfortuately, the epidural seemed to slow things down, along with causing my blood pressure to keep dropping. So the nurses kept having to check my blood pressure, and up my pitocin and eventually ended up turning down my epidural to speed things along. Finally I was dilated enough and they gave me another dose of epidural, but then Logan's heart rate was dropping so the doctor started freaking out and got out the forceps to help him along.

So almost 12 hours after getting to the hopital Logan was finally born!

He was fine once he was out.

He had a healthy set of lungs which he willingly showed off and then peed all over the nurses just to show how anoyed he was. ha ha

Here he is on the scale.

Mom and baby!

Daddy and baby!

Grammie Hodges

Grandpa Hodges

It was too late for the kids to visit that night but Elaine brought them the next day. Of course they all LOVED Logan. Elaine has been so wonderful and she kept the kids while we were at the hospital, and she has been helping since we've been home too. Thanks Elaine!! We love you!

And here we are all set to go home.

Family photo shoot 2010

So once again it was time for our annual christmas family photo shoot. Zoie was in a terrible mood (it's always one of them) and was having a hard time cooperating. But fortunately we had an awesome photographer (my friend Jennifer) who made the most of it, and we ended up with several good ones despite Zoie. Here are some cute and/or funny ones that we did and didn't use.

It was super hard this year to get a good pic of the three kids together. This is the best one we got.This one is just funny. It was after the kids had been splashing in the fountain, and Zoie was pulling faces. Brothers...awwww.

Nolan looks so grown up. It makes me sad.... sniff.

How could anyone resist those eyes?

Probably because they usually look like this, ha ha.

Or this.

I HATED all of our family pics this year. Everyone else looks great but it's not so fun to see yourself looking chubby. At least in this one I am behind everyone so its not so obvious.

And here is the final meltdown. And there you have it. Some of the best and funniest for this year.

Zoie's christmas program

On the last day of school before the christmas break, Zoie's school had their christmas program. It was very cute but very short because the entire 2-3 yr old class was sick so they canceled school for them which left only Zoie's class to perform. It lasted about 10 min.

I was excited to see Zoie sing with her class because she had been singing the songs for weeks beforehand in the car and at home. But she decided to get shy once she was up in front of all the parents so she was looking around and putting her arms inside her shirt and putting her fingers in her mouth, and there was very little singing going on. But it was still cute.

Here she is walking in with her class. Here she is up front, turned sideways.

Not a great pic, but here you can see her with her fingers in her mouth. At least she is not doing what the girl next to her is, which looks like picking a wedgie, ha ha Here she is with Jim after the program was over and we were headed home.

Ozona's golf cart parade

One of the best things about living in a tiny community is that they do fun things every year, like the annual golf cart parade. It is legal for people to drive golf carts on the streets of Ozona so there are a lot of people who have them. Every year they all deck them out with christmas lights and decorations and have a parade, and bonus, they throw candy to the kids on the side of the road. We only had to walk about a block down the road to see it.

Here is one of the carts Here you can see the long line coming down the street.
This pic isn't so good but you can see all the lights

Jim and the kids after the parade had passed

We were surprised because after we thought the parade was over, a lot of the golf carts came riding down the street right in front of our house. So the kids all ran back out to see them again and get more candy.

Here you can see Nolan and Aidan scrounging around looking for candy on the ground.

YMCA christmas party

Our very sweet neighbor gave us free tickets to the YMCA breakfast with Santa this year. So we took the kids, and it turned out really cute. They had a really good breakfast with belgian waffles, muffins, and fruit, and there were crafts for the kids and a local author was giving away free signed copies of her children's book. Once again, several pictures didn't turn out well, but I got a few.

Here is Jim with the boys eating their waffles

Zoie being cheesy

Nolan and Aidan making crafts

Zoie and Jim with Santa

Aidan and Santa

Nolan and Santa

Nice sweater!

Our ward here in Clearwater has an Elder's Quorum party every year where they have a contest for the ugliest Christmas sweater. It was so funny to see what some of the people came up with. Jim and I scoured the local thrift shops for several days, but it was really hard for me to find something that fit, and Jim was super picky and was afraid to go too crazy since we hadn't ever been to this pary before.

Here is what we came up with. It's weird but our sweaters don't look as bad in this pic as they do in real life. The best part of mine is that it's sparkly and has crazy huge sleeves, I should have taken a pic of that. Ultimately the person who won was a guy wearing a very tight, short, ugly woman's sweater, so we'll have to see if Jim will get a little more crazy next year.

Surprise baby shower!!

I have some of the best friends ever!! The same weekend that Jennifer came to help me paint and that I had the primary party, several of my friends from our old ward made the 2 1/2 hour drive to come up and surprise me with a baby shower. They were all waiting at my house when I got home from the primary party and Jim kept the kids away all night so that I could party with my friends.

It was so great, and I was so surprised. I can't believe Jim and Jennifer were able to keep it a secret from me. Looking back now, I should have known because Jim was cleaning the house all day while Jen and I were painting. Hello, dead giveaway something was up.

Here is Jennifer with the adorable diaper cake she made me. I still have it on the baby's dresser, it is so cute I don't want to take it apart. Veronica and Jeannine

The Jens. Jen B, Jen D, and Jen A.

Abby and Mikelin

It was so wonderful to see all my friends and I am so thankful that they took time out to come and surprise me. We had a great time staying up late and talking, I just wish they could have stayed longer, it was so fun!

Primary Christmas party

We had our Primary Christmas party early this year which was nice since December is always so busy. It was the traditional (for us anyway) breakfast with Santa/pajama party at night. The kids had a lot of fun. Unfortunately my pictures didn't turn out well at all. We need a new camera.

Here is Nolan with Santa Aidan and Santa
Zoie and Santa

Santa reading a story

Jim and Zoie helping wrap presents for the missionaries

Nolan, making faces at the craft table