Then, just like that, it was done.

It was a journey, a really long 4 year journey. It actually felt a lot longer than 4 years. There were times, a lot of times, when I wasn't quite sure how we were going to make it through the papers, stress, and all nighters which would turn into all weekers.

But we did.

And on August 16th Chris defended his 241 page dissertation.

Invitations were sent and the party was planned. I may or may not have started planning this event MONTHS before August came. I was a little anxious for the day to come.

At 1:00 pm Chris started his defense. We are so blessed to be surrounded by family who love and support us. Chris had a record family attendance with 24 people coming to support him.
I snapped this picture right at he was beginning, it is poor quality with poor lighting but I just had to get a shot of my guy up there in his element showing off  what he has worked so hard to accomplish.

He impressed us all with his knowledge although most of us didn't understand a word of what he said. After his presentation they dismissed the general public and Chris was left to defend his work to the board of professors. It was a grueling hour both for him and me. My emotions and nerves were all over the place as I paced and waited outside the lecture hall. When he finally came out he looked a little beat up but he was pleased with himself I could tell. He got to sit with us as the panel deliberated but it was only a few minutes before they came out with a "Congratulations Dr." and he was taken back into the room for their final acceptance. That was about the same time that my composure was lost and happy happy tears flowed. We had made it. The crazy hard, crazy good, crazy intense 4 years were finished. 

a few pictures with the Dr. himself.

Proud parents

The hard part was over. It was time for the party. I have to say that I am not a party planner, but we did our best to put together a pretty big shin dig. I am so lucky to have in-laws who are fantastic party planners. We put our head together and I was more than happy with how it all turned out.

We had a dessert bar with a soft serve ice-cream machine and lots of candy toppings. All in Ute colors of course.

Aunt Kathy made her famous cake balls at Chris's request. 

I made a timeline of Chris's school pictures from preschool to Ph.D. It was a lot of pictures and it was fun to see how he had changed throughout the years. He has been in school for 23 years in all. 

I wish I would have been able to capture a picture of all the people who came to celebrate with us. I believe we had over 80 people come. The saying "it takes a village to raise a child" felt so applicable maybe more just "It takes a village to help Jill make it through grad school". We were so blessed to be lead to an area where we were surround by a strong support system. We had neighbors who were always willing to watch a kid(s) when I had dr. appointments and I will always remember our epic girls nights where we stayed out talking and laughing til all hours of the night. I am pretty sure one such girls night put me into labor with Addison. I have never laughed so hard. We are so blessed to be surrounded by good people. 

I wish I would have gotten more pictures of the night, the guests and activities. We played a few minute to win it games that would have made excellent photo material. However I spent the night running from here to there trying to keep everything running smoothly. I did snap a few pics of the fam, I tried hard to let the party be just as much for the kids as it was for Chris. They put in a lot of daddy-less time and deserved a celebration as well.

The bounce house was the party favorite for the kids. They played on it for the entire 3 hours.

Chris has some awesome uncles who traveled a LONG way to make it. I believe J.D. flew in from Tennessee. Here is a picture of the Clayton men.

Just like everything in life, the night came to a close and we said good-bye to many good friends that we won't be seeing for quite some time. It was a bitter sweet moment. Although we are over the  moon about completing this phase of life, it has been fun. We have grown more than we knew we could. We have made some incredible friends. We found "home" in our ward and the people there. We will miss a lot about this time I am sure of it.

But we are DONE!! And nothing described the feeling that brings better than this picture.

Now it is on to the next adventure in life. Good thing I get to hold these peoples hands while we go.

Tube ride

Kaden went on his first tube ride behind the boat at the lake a few weeks ago. I was a little nervous for him, but he loved it! Thanks to cousin Katey for going with him and Uncle Bryce for pulling him. 

1st grade!

This little man started the first grade on August 14th

We moved a week earlier than we needed to because school in St George started early. Some kids might be a little hesitant going to 1st grade at a brand new school all day long.

Not Kaden.

He was beyond excited. He requested Hootenanies and a smoothie for breakfast and was ready to go almost an hour early.

One day he will stop letting me kiss him for pictures... luckily that day hasn't come.

We felt really bad because we had to leave to head back up to Salt Lake for Chris's defense before he got out of school so I didn't get to go pick him up. Luckily grandpa Clayton was able to leave work for a bit and go get him. When he called me after school he said his very favorite part of school was P.E. I asked him if he had made any new friends and he emphatically said "YES! A whole classroom" which I have no doubt was true.

Little man, I love you to the moon and back. Never ever change.

xoxo- mom

Brielle's Blessing

Baby Bri was blessed August 3rd. Amongst all the chaos of a half packed house and a daddy weeks away from dissertation defense. It was beautiful, she was beautiful. 

Her blessing said a lot about comfort. It couldn't have been more fitting because if I had to choose one word to describe her presence thus far in our family it would be just that, comfort. She brings a peace to my soul that calms the crazy worries and unknowns of our life right now.

Here she is before church waiting in her swing while mom frantically ran around the house worrying about all the last minute details.

We had so many good friends and family join us. They were so kind not to judge me for my half packed house. 

This picture cracks me up. I was taking a few lighting shots and these cute people decided to be my test subjects. I believe this was the conversation before the picture was taken. 

Taycee: "I want to be bunnies" 

Heather" Ok, lets all be bunny rabbits" 

Kaden: "You be bunny rabbits I will be the guy with the shooter." 

Our good friends the Egberts

I had to capture a few of the details of this little beauty. 

A little messy

We had a fun party about a month back with our cousins who were in town from Texas on their way to Japan. We have somewhat of a standing tradition in our family. Every year we have a "messy challenge" It started years and years ago. I think the first messy challenge was while I was still in High School. Every year all the cousins available come together for another annual messy challenge. As the years have gone on and the cousins have grown and started to have kids of their own the messy challenges have dwindled a bit. This year I decided it was time to throw a messy challenge at my house.

We started with a few pudding games, here the kids are digging worms out of a bowl of chocolate pudding with their mouths.

Messy kids

The marshmellow drop. Your partner has to stand above you and try to drop pudding covered marshmellows into your mouth. 

The gummy bear stick. Each kid had to stick 10 gummy bears to their face by licking them.

And the favorite... The shaving cream fight. Pretty self explanatory.

This was a mini version of what is normally done, in the past we had done other games like cheese(or mash potato) the granny. This requires a granmda who is a very good sport and will lay on a tarp while the different teams flip spoonfuls of colored macaroni (or mashed potatoes) try to land the largest amount of their color on top of her. We have also done a few extra pudding games and some whip cream games. But for this group our games were good enough and everyone had a good time,.

We ended the night with smores in the backyard and the kids watched a movie projected onto the back of the house. 

It was a fun way to spend some extra time with the Van Dusens before they flew off to new adventures in Japan!

Brielle's Birth

It happened. Miraculously through the months of stress and worry, tears and laughter, disappointment and excitement a perfect little angel grew inside of me. On June 27th she decided to leave her Heavenly home and join ours.

On Wednesday the 26th I had a doctor appointment. When the doctor checked me during that appointment she guessed I wouldn't make it til Saturday before baby girl made her appearance. My body told me she was right. I had done all I could to give her time to grow, mentally and physically I couldn't take much more bed rest. I went home and made the final preparations, and then waited.We didn't have to wait to long. Thursday morning around 9:00 my water broke. We were lucky enough to have Cassidie staying with us that week to help with the kids. We packed up the car and headed to Salt Lake.

When we arrived I got changed into my hospital garb and asked if I could go walk the halls. I was trying to avoid needing pitocin if possible so I wanted to see if I could strengthen my contractions on my own. Chris and I walked for about 20 minutes, unfortunately walking had the opposite effect. My contractions stopped completely. That on top of the fact that walking with a broken water bag is a little tricky, made the decision to head back to the room pretty easy. 

I layed in the hospital bed for about 2 hours hoping my body would kick in and contractions would speed up, unfortunately that didn't happen. I knew they would only let the baby stay in for 24 hours from the time my water broke so sometime after 12:00 I consented to pitocin.  They got me hooked up to all the IV's and told me my contractions should be picking up quickly. They didn't.  At 2 they came back in and decided to bump up the pit drip to an 8. Contractions slightly increased then, but they were still only mildly uncomfortable. At 3:00 they decided to bump up the pit drip to 12. This did the trick contractions picked up and quickly became uncomfortable. I called for my epidural.

 Unfortunatley my epidural wasn't working too well. My right side still had quite a bit of feeling and I was having a lot of lower back pain. Chris was a champ and spent quite a while rubbing my lower back.

Finally the epidural started to work a little on the right side and I got to a point where I was relatively comfortable. I could still feel most of the contractions but they were dulled and I could easily breathe through them. About 5:00 I started to feel really uncomfortable, things felt off, I didn't feel pressure I just felt like something had changed. I asked the nurse to check me and she told me I was only a 6. I was suprised, but decided my funky epidural must be the cause for my strange new discomfort. Fifteen minutes later the discomfort was growing. I asked the nurse about the pain and suggested maybe my catheter wasn't in right. She said she would check for me, (which a slight chuckle) I could tell she thought I was being overly worried. She lifted the sheet to check and quickly called for the doctor. I was a 10, fully effaced and the baby was coming. I knew it! The doctor made a speedy entrance and with one small push baby girl was born at 5:27pm.

It all happened so fast the team of nurses for the baby weren't there. So she lay on my tummy for a long time before they took her to clean her up and get a weight. She was covered in the cheesy white stuff and boy did she have a set of lungs on her. She cried and cried, it was a beautiful sound. When she came out I knew she was my biggest girl so far. She was so long, so healthy, so perfect.

She weighed in at a whopping 6lb 10 oz. and 20 in long.

There is something transcendent about birth and those few hours following. The four walls of the hospital room become a holy place. The spirit of a new little one fresh from His arms fills every corner and I am reminded that being a mother is God's work. And it is the best work. Love floods my heart and the veil is lifted just enough for me to look into my precious baby's eyes and know her. And just like that she is mine, and I could never imagine life without her. 

About an hour after her birth we decided on a name.

 Brielle Felicity Clayton.

This time around I hired a birth photographer. Amy Monroy took my hospital photos. I put together a combination of her photos and my own to make this little video.

Brielle from Jill Clayton on Vimeo.