Welcome to the family, Lex!

Totally thrilled to have gotten up at 3:30 AM for the 4:30 arrival at the hospital (especially after having gone to bed at midnight and having Tate climb into bed with us at 3:00). Who needs rest before a day of pushing another human being out of their body?

Lexie makes her grand appearance 12 hours after the pitocin was begun and 14 hours after arriving at the hospital.

Abbie finally gets to meet her baby sister, she has waited for so long. See Abbie I told you she wouldn't have purple hair!

A few very excited kids meeting their sister.

Why oh why must he make these faces? ALWAYS so weird.

A kiss for his baby sister.

Everyone was very quick to jump into the delivery bed with mom---some even gave a tug or two to my I.V.! It was really special and super comfy immediately after delivery to have the younger ones hopping on me.

What Dad? Why do we need to stop?

Hmm, I hadn't eaten in more than 24 hours but I'm sure Lexie was as hungry and tired as I was after that crazy delivery. I didn't have the energy to nurse. I couldn't stop shaking or get my teeth to stop chattering. My epidural had completely worn off and the anesthesiologist stood in the room watching me writhe in pain while he took a personal call on his cell. It was delightful.

Aren't they cute? I had set out every outfit for the kids so that they would be presentable and so my Dad wouldn't have to find clothes for them...I did not anticipate that Abbie would come in a dress and her Lelly Kelly high tops...or that my girls would have homeless child hair.**a special thanks to my friend Jackie whom I know had fixed the girls hair hours earlier, none of us thought the delivery would take so long

Thanks for the apple mom, I knew you probably wanted me to have it since you had Daddy put it right by your bedside. You couldn't possibly have intended it for yourself.

Tate and Ruby take a turn being the big kids and helping baby Lexie have a bottle.

What a big guy.

So excited to be a big brother and to have one more behind him in the pecking order.

Little Lexie feet.

Looks like we need to get her circulation under control because those are some mighty blue hands!

Mommy the next morning hoping we will be allowed to leave at the 24 hour mark.

No such luck...they held us hostage for an extra 12 hours but that just meant more mommy-baby bonding time for me and baby Lex.

So tiny and all ready to be a girl...gotta begin early with the hair bows.

Daddy and two of his girls.

A little family bonding and time in mom and dad's bed.

This one is for you Aunt Jessie, they're getting me started early. Brody and I can bond over Oreo's!

Mom, I'm sure that you don't want to take a picture of Lexie so that's why I stuck my head right in front of her.

So peaceful.

We love our beautiful girl!

Lexie Lee Allen

While Brooke is in the hospital recovering from her long day of labor yesterday, she asked her fabulous sister Jessie to post an announcement of their adorable new addition.

She also wanted me to pass along that the 4 other posts she has been drafting recently will hopefully be published sometime soon. But for now, they are busy spending time with the gorgeous Miss Lexie...

365 days away from a new decade

Happy Birthday Brooke, the big 2-9!!

My birthday breakfast of an orange glucose drink that I drank on the way to the hospital to have my blood drawn for my gestational diabetes test. Nothing says Happy Birthday like fasting for 18 hours and then having your blood drawn.

All I wanted to do for my birthday is go to the gym and have an ice cream cake. We hadn't been to the gym in a month because of our huge road trip and the kids had asked to go EVERY day, especially Tate because it is definitely his favorite place. Unfortunately our time was cut short by me beginning to have a lot of contractions on the elliptical. Justin made me get off and said we were not ready to have the baby that day. It was probably all for the best because that meant more time at the gym pool for the kids to go down the water slides and play in the fountains.

My aforementioned ice cream cake, so delicious I'm not sure why I only have them on my birthday

Justin laughing at me begging him not to ruin my ice cream cake with a zillion candles of fire and candle wax. He does not respect my wishes.

"I try it!!!" Tate would really like a turn with the camera.

Just back from the pool and the gym then straight to cake...calories out and double the calories in

Thanks for the help kids, with each passing year the fire grows larger

finally, the gift from grandpa...the kids were dying to see what was in that huge box!

after opening Bracken's gift that he made me days before my birthday, he fashioned the jewelry out of odds and ends from mine and Abbie's jewelry boxes

a little Betsey bling from the Nordstrom's sale

Bracken's homemade jewelry, bling bling!

And now Abbie got a hold of the camera...she LOVES to take pictures

silly faces

come on Abbie, how about a kiss?

Watch out next July, thirty years old here I come!!!

While You Were Sleeping

Dear husbands (Justin, Spencer, and James),

Do you remember that Sandra Bullock movie from the mid-90's? Well, as you know, we went out to celebrate my birthday tonight and we went to a restaurant owned by Ms. Bullock, Bess's Bistro. It was a wonderful little bistro with Manhattan-esque ambiance and great food. We didn't see Sandra---though we did hear she was there---but we didn't need a celeb sighting in order to have made the night memorable.

Yes, while you were sleeping we were having quite a time. Due to our need to be responsible mothers (and because we had already ditched you with the kids on Tuesday night) we opted to go out a little later tonight so that we could get the kids into bed or, in one case, support you in your church calling and allow you to attend an evening meeting before we headed out for our night on the town. Because of our late start we didn't even arrive at the restaurant until around 9:15pm. We parked in a lot across the street and headed in for our special evening. None of us had ever been down to this quaint little spot off of 6th Street but we had heard good things and knew that we were in for a good time.

Brooke, Jackie, Lonna

Two and a half hours later we emerged from the underground hotspot and crossed the street to Lonna's car. Unfortunately the car didn't seem to be in the spot where we had parked it, indeed I immediately had flashbacks to my BYU days where everyone I knew had their car towed at least once, and Lonna's car had definitely been towed. It turns out that the empty lot across the street was really for an Extended Stay America hotel and that across the parking lot, behind the branches of a tree, there was a sign posted by J & J Towing company stating that all vehicles without a proper hotel pass would be towed at the owners expense.

Because you were all home with our sleeping children we were unsure how to get to the impound lot, the only logical choice was to call a cab so that's what we did. After a rather unsettling drive through a sketchy part of east Austin---with Jackie monitoring the cabbies every move on her iphone map---we arrived on a little street with no street lights across from some factory at a shed with bars on its windows and a lot of sad looking cars parked behind an adjacent fence. I couldn't help but have flashes back to a conversation I had with Allie recently where she nonchalantly mentioned that there have been a lot of pregnant women who have had their baby's cut out of their bellies lately. It was clear that the smartest thing we could do was get out of there as fast as possible, I mean what could two women each in their ninth month of pregnancy, or a 110 lb. woman (who was asked by the tow guy if it was her Dad's car---I thought Lonna may lose it and tell him that she may look young but that she is the mother of two children) do against any creepy kind of danger on a back road? It would clearly be up to me.

Sketchy towing place in the middle of nowhere

We paid the fine of $193.30 and tried to not be infuriated by the fact that we learned that the car had only gotten to the lot 10 minutes before we realized it was gone. If only we hadn't taken that last pregnant-lady bathroom break right before leaving the restaurant!!!

Lonna and her car are reunited, they embrace

As Lonna said, "$75 spent on dinner. $16 cab ride. $193.30 impound fee. Celebrating Brooke's 29th birthday, priceless."

So husbands, sorry that we didn't arrive home until 2am and sorry that we are all at least $70 poorer than when we left home, and a special apology to James---sorry we got your car towed!

Sincerely,

the wives

(Brooke, Jackie, and Lonna)

Thanks girls for a very memorable night!