Hatch Family Christmas 2008

Well,

We just had Christmas here as a family and I just wanted to show some reactions to some gifts and put a general thank you to all who made our Christmas so much fun.

Holly opening her "favorite" gift (or at least the gift that got the biggest reaction) brand new slippers.

Alana, showing off her chapstick.

Rebekah, so excited about her finger paints.

Patrick "What do you mean I can't eat the wrapping paper?"

Patrick, "Ha, I did it anyway."

Test

I just wanted to take some pictures with my new 50mm f/1.2 Canon lens (which is an amazing lens by the way) mounted on my new Canon EOS 50D which has amazing noise reduction and the ability to expand ISO up to 12,800.  Anyway...thought that since it had been so long since I posted that I would post those images here. 

Luck would have it that Patrick was having a field day with a chocolate covered pretzel and so I took a picture of that.

And then it was bathtime...I hurried into the bathroom to find that Holly had already pulled the plug and was getting Patrick ready for bed.

Wet and Cute

Wild Hair

GQ (Holly said that this hair style wasn't very flattering, I loved it.)

That was my bathtime experience.

Halloween 2008

HALLOWEEN

Halloween.... we survived.

We had a great time at Trunk or Treat.

Everyone's costume fit them this year.

I managed to throw something together in the 2 minutes before we left the house.

Olivia got her face painted.

Ella got her costume wet and did a quick change from princess to cheerleader. Is there really a difference?

Abby was a ballerina, so was Olivia, and Johnny, of course, was Indiana Jones. His favorite part of his costume? The fake stubble... (no, not really - I thought he was going to kill himself practicing with that whip, but everyone escaped unscathed).

Olivia loved being a ballerina. We trick or treated over at Macklyn House, and when the little old ladies were asking her what she was, she'd say,

"I'm a ballet girl. I mean, a ballerina."

Then she'd hand me her basket, and show off her ballet moves. She's quite a dancer, let me tell ya.

And Noah....?

Noah was the cutest ladybug.... ever.

a couple of Halloween pictures

Well, Holly and I had a rather busy Halloween. We had our friends, Brian and Heidi Carlson over for fish and chips with some ling cod and black rock cod that I had pulled out of the ocean on a fishing trip. We ate around 4:30 and then went to a co-worker of Heidi's for trick or treat and to see some ducks. Here is a picture of all the kids and and two adults.

(from l to r) Brian, Zander, Rebekah, Zachary, Alana, Zoe, Patrick, Holly

After trick or treating we went to the trunk or treat party at the church where we ran into these two folks...

nothing like recycling huh Jere?

After the trunk or treat, we had to split up for a little while, I went to the football game to work shooting photos.

This one ran in the Pilot

Up until this game versus Sutherlin the Bruins had had a dismal season with no wins going into Friday's game losing most games by margins larger than 28-0. They pulled this one out of the hat and won 22-21, going for the win with a two point conversion, with limited time on the clock. I missed the end of the game as I went to catch up with Holly and friends at a Halloween party at the Clarkes.

Anyway, that's our Halloween...Doris had asked for pictures of the kid's costumes and I provided what I could. Heather, Jamie, post some pictures of your kids if you have them, PLEASE...

Jef

Summer is almost over...

Well, summer is about over for us... and we are gearing up for school. We have had kind of a busy few months with the new baby, getting Ella ready for Kindergarten, and all the family reunion stuff. Ella finished Safety City and had a great time.

She would NOT pull up her hat during the graduation ceremony, and believe it or not, this is the best picture out of 10 that I got of her!

We also have been getting used to Noah, and life with a new baby. I have almost forgotten him in the car twice now, and vaguely remember what sleeping through the night was like. He is a great baby, and the kids are so good with him, we are just having to do that 'baby thing' all over again!

Ella also wanted me to chop off her hair before school started, so she could completely do it herself, and it is SO much easier, and very cute. We took pictures for my mom's birthday yesterday with all five kids (the first photos of all five and Noah is already 10 weeks old!), and you can sort of see her new haircut.

I hope everyone is great... We are all fine, if totally exhausted. I used to wonder why my parents looked forward to the end of summer vacation... I don't wonder that anymore. :)

Noah Benjamin...

Well, I am finally putting our 'new news' on the family blog. It took me a week to get off of the couch and over to the computer. Noah Benjamin has arrived. He is one week old today, and he is VERY cute, if I do say so myself. The c-section went well, and recovery is going fine. He was 8 lbs 15 oz, and he sleeps a lot. They were worried about the bones in his skull, because baby's bones aren't supposed to be fusing together until after they are a year old, so the head can grow. They thought his skull bones might be growing together too soon. But, they took some x-rays, and he is just fine. Jeremy goes back to work on Monday, but then he gets two weeks off for the reunion in just a couple of weeks, so hopefully I can handle things on my own until then!

The kids are so excited about the new baby, and everyone is doing really well. The kids are in swimming lessons, and baseball is over (thank goodness), so we are taking it easy. I will post some pictures when I get around to it, and hope to see everyone soon.

Karianne's Birthday Party

Tommy and I went to Karianne's birthday party last night. I took some pictures and posted them on our blog, if anyone wants to look.

Our newest arrival

Our baby girl has made her debute weighing in at 7 lbs 14 oz and 19 inches long. I made apost to mine and Loren's blog. The address is lorenandsandra.blogspot.com
Jef can you please make a link from the lrmarksprogeny to ours? Thanks

We're Still Alive

Tommy and I got our new place just over a month ago. We have finally got everything furnished and love it. However, we are still working on getting our internet working. We've had several problems. Once we finally get everything up and running, though, I'll post some pictures on our blog.

We are really excited to come out to Oregon in just over a month. I really hope the weather will be great while we're there, because the weather is still terrible here. I don't think we're ever going to get a real summer again, and I'm really depressed about it. So everyone pray for good weather for the reunion! We'll see you soon.

Well,

Holly, Alana, Rebekah, Patrick and I just got back from camping at Nook over Memorial Day weekend with our friends, the Hillers, Clarkes, and Carlsons. We had a grand time, with campfires, swimming (albeit a little chilly), games and all around good fun.

While we were there, I let Alana use my "back-up" camera to take pictures of whatever she wanted. While a few were of "nothing" or out of focus, she took some really great shots and I just wanted to share some of them with you. I made her sit down with me last night and edit pictures, so that she gets an idea of what constitutes a "good" picture vs. a "bad" one. I let a few of the "bad" pictures slide when, after pressing her for a reason to keep them, she said, "I just like them." It was good enough for me...unless I could talk her into deleting them.

Her main subject seemed to be Maddie, Alan and Melissa's dog, as everytime she got the camera, she would eventually wind up taking pictures of her. Here is one that I really liked.

Mind you, I have done nothing to these images except post them to the site, all the cropping was done in camera by Alana.

Here is one of Brekken, Alan and Melissa's boy...he is two months younger than Alana.

and finally a two shot image of Aisha, one of Alan and Melissa's little girls, who is a year older than Alana and Brekken.

Hope you enjoy these as much as I did. It was especially fun to watch her take the images.

Some of you may be wondering how it came to be that I would let a 4.5 yr old use a 1500 dollar piece of equipment, and it's simple really...it's insured! Actually, I was at the theatre one night doing head shots for the production I was in (Shadowlands) and needed someone to take my picture. Alana was standing there and I thought it would be fun for her to do it and so I handed her the camera and showed her which button to push and how to look through the "window" to be able to see me and told her to push the button. She did and when I got her down she wanted to take more pictures so I let her for about 3 minutes, during which time she captured two great images. So during the camping trip, I decided to let her have 3 different 15 min. periods during which she could take pictures as long as she, 1. didn't go near the water, 2. didn't press play to show her playmates, 3. didn't look through the "window" while she was walking, and 4. didn't go near the water.

Anyway, I figure it this way...things are just that, things! and while I was concerned about my things, I was more concerned that if I let time slip away, it would never come back...of course, this opens up a whole new world of exploration for Alana and me as I take her on photo expeditions and to assist me on shoots as she gets older. (as long as that is what she wants to do.)

We love and miss all of you who are far away, and we love those of you who are near.

The official date...

We have finally booked an official date for the baby! The c-section will be on Thursday, June 12, 2 days before Johnny's 8th birthday, and the day after school finally gets out. It was going to be the 16th, but my ob/gyn is going on vacation that week, and I wanted him to get it done before he left so I didn't end up with whoever is temping. I was hoping for a VBAC, but after talking with several doctors at other hospitals, having a VBAC after 1 c-section is doable, but after 3 it starts getting riskier. Plus the logistics of having the baby far from home, etc. and we decided to just pick a day and go with it.

I am in major nesting mode, having had Jeremy put in new floors, and starting to landscape the front yard. Now we are going to build a small fence, and hopefully paint the house (inside and out) this summer. Yea!

We are planning (I think, and this is VERY tentative) an upriver family get-together for Johnny's birthday the week after the baby is born. I know it's a little soon, but I'm probably going to miss his birthday day or at least spend half of it in the hospital, and my mom will be here that week and Jer is off, so I will have lots of help.

We are hoping to schedule the baby blessing to be a double blessing with Loren and Sandra's during the weekend of the Fam Reunion, along with Johnny's baptism. He wanted to postpone it for a few weeks to give me a bit of a break, and so everyone could be there. Tommy and Doris have agreed to 'perform' (can I say that about a church function?) a song at the baptism, so it should be a lot of fun. Johnny requested them specifically and they are being VERY good sports about it.

I hope everyone is good, we are just cruising along.... 3 more weeks from today and we're done!

Wedding Pictures

Well, I've finally gotten all the pictures edited and put up from Doris' wedding. They can be found at the following website. I emailed Doris and let her know they were up but she hasn't responded...so I'm letting the family know that they are ready to be viewed.

Jef

http://www.hatchphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/4820939_sxoJe#286773391_B5Vyq

Loren's claim to fame

Hello family. I knew Loren would be too embarrassed to tell you he was interviewed for LSU media, so I am taking it upon myself to tell you. It is a really neat interview and the topic is something that means a lot to Loren. Here is the link to see the actual footage of his interview. http://multimedia.lsu.edu/media/Marks.wmv

Hope all is well for everyone. I am getting huge and uncomfortable, but I suppose that is to be expected. I will miss all of you at the wedding. Please send me photos so I can see what I missed. Loren and I are going to at least go up to the open house in Dallas to meet Tommy's family and so I can see Doris. See you in a few months.

cute things kids say, or maybe it's just the way they say them

The other day, Holly and I were discussing Alana's "pooping" problems...she has a tendency to wait to go until the absolute last minute and it tends to plug her up quit severely...anyway, we were standing in the kitchen and Holly said something to the effect of all the starch that Alana eats causes her to get plugged up and that she needed to stop eating so many noodles. At this point Alana pokes her head out of the bathroom where she is trying to go and says, "wait, wait, wait...just a minute, those noodles I was eating were soft. You mean to tell me they don't help my poopies come out?" Holly and I just about lost it...of course, we had to turn away so she wouldn't see us laughing and try to be cute.

Just thought I'd share a laugh.

Patrick Leland Hatch

Well, I should have had a post up a long time ago, but I couldn't afford to hire a photographer to take any pictures of my new son...oh well, I took some snapshots and hope they are good enough.

Patrick Leland Hatch was born February 20, 2008 at the Gold Beach Hospital in Gold Beach, OR. He weighed 10 lbs. 5 oz. and was 21 3/4 inches long. He had dark hair and came into the world without any glitches.

Patrick's name is one of interest, Holly and I have actually had the name chosen for the past 4.5 years. When Hol was pregnant with Alana, we didn't know whether we would have a boy or girl and as such picked names for both. We chose Alana Renee of course for a girl and our choice for a boy was Patrick Leland. Both first names were Irish (don't ask why...we just like Irish names) and both middle names were from someone Holly and I both thought embodied the type of person we would have our children emulate.

Renee, of course is from Holly's mom, who is the nicest, most caring, loving and forgiving person I know. (everyone knows that behind every good bishop, there is a GREAT wife.)

Leland is from my grandfather, who dedicated most of his life to building up the kingdom of God, literally. He helped to build the first branch building in Monmouth, he helped to build additions to that building, he helped split wood to raise money for the church, he caught turkeys for the same purpose, and I'm sure that he did a number of things I don't even know about. In short, he is the type of man that I want my son to be.

So Patrick is in the world, and here are some photos of him, his mom and his sisters.

First time for Alana to see her little brother.

We were so grateful to have both Grandmas able to spend time. Renee took the girls under her wing for most of the week, and my mom was able to come up and stay at the hospital with Holly and Patrick and take care of them both. We would have been sunk without you. Thank you both so much!!!

OPG (one proud grandpa)

Always sleeping...

...with one eye openit's been a long day...time for sleep again. "Dad, quit flashing me with that light."

The best place for a popsicle!

Is in the bathtub...no mess no fuss...and they're about to get washed anyway. Rebekah likes to hold hers underwater, as you can tell by the shape of it.

Logan gets Baptized

Hello. We wanted to tell you about our exciting weekend. My Grandparents flew in from Washington to attend Logan's baptism. The Spirit was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Logan's favorite teacher, Sister Throckmorton, whom he had for 3-4 years in nursery and primary gave the talk on baptism. My Grandma Jody gave the talk on the Holy Ghost, Loren baptised him, the primary children sang "I am a Child of God", and my Grandpa Carl Confirmed him. It was a special day, one which we wish you could have shared with us.
We are doing well in other senses also. The pregnancy is going okay. Age really makes it harder or maybe the fact that my body has already gone through 4 pregnancies makes it more difficult. I tried explaining to Denton that I have a baby in my tummy and now he thinks everyone has a baby in their tummy and that big breasts are also babies. That went well I thought.
Mishonne fractured her radius in her arm when she flipped off her scooter a few weeks ago and had to miss her last 2 basketball games. She is doing better now and just got her brace off. She and Logan are looking forward to baseball starting in a few weeks.
Haley is loving life. She is my child that comes home from school eager to do her homework and asks if she can do the next days work as well. She still loves animals and has been promised a turtle since Mom is allergic to most other animals and Dad wont allow them in his home.
We can't wait to see everyone in July. Hope all is well in the mean time.

Johnny's prayers have been answered!

We found out last week (or the week before?) that we are having a boy. All the kids were in the ultrasound room with us, and when the doctor said he saw 'boy parts,' Johnny busted out with a "Woo Hooooo!" Everybody in the family already thought it was going to be a boy, except Olivia. She is pretty disappointed... "I WANT it to be a GIRL!" Maybe next time, if there is one. We have an 'official' due date of June 21, exactly one week after Johnny's, but the ultrasound was measuring me further along, and since I am going somewhere else to deliver, who knows what will happen? Just thought you would like to know!

It's a Girl!

Just wanted to let y'all know we had our 22 week ultrasound today. It revealed that we are indeed following our girl-boy-girl pattern. Our little baby girl Marks will arrive the middle of June. The photo is from the ultrasound. The top left shows her foot, top right shows her face, the bottom left shows it is in fact a girl, and in the bottom right she is giving a thumbs up to Mom for putting up with her.
Hope you all had a fun Valentine's Day. Loren was in Utah but we had fun anyway. OUr good friends are moving to Virginia and while they were house hunting we got to babysit their 11 year old son and 10 year old dog. The child was good but the dog kept digging holes under our fence to escape. Luckily he would come right back to the front door. He also barked all night so we ended up letting him sleep in the back room with Spencer, the boy. Loren could only say, "It's a good thing we like the Fishers (our friends)."
Logan and Mishonne are having a good time playing basketball. Mishonne is quite the player and Logan is still trying to figure out if he wants to use his right or left hand. He is excited for his baptism next month though. Haley loves school, gymnastics, horses, and to read right now. She is a good playmate for Denton who is starting to talk much better now. Hope all is well. We love and miss you all.

Ella is her father's daughter...

... in many ways. I thought I would give everyone the story, for those who haven't heard it yet. She had been thirsty and wet the bed two nights in a row - very unusual. So I thought I would have Jeremy check her blood sugar after he woke up, but she says, "let's check it now!" So we did, and it was too high for the meter to read. I woke Jeremy up and confirmed that wasn't good, so we took her to the urgent care clinic. Her blood sugar was too high for their meter to read, too, so they sent us to the ER. All this time, Ella is just cruising along, feeling fine. We went to the ER, and their meter reads: "Critically High". Yikes. So they drew blood, and admitted her, and tried to start an IV. Through all this, Ella is not complaining, mind you. Not even when they had to put the IV needle in 9 TIMES. Yes, 9 TIMES, all over her arms and hands, because the high blood sugar and dehydration had made her veins so fragile. She didn't say, "I don't want to," or "that hurts" or "how many times do you have to do this?" She didn't even wince!!!! She just watched them, and talked to all the nurses, and was just generally very cute.
They didn't have very much experience treating 4-year-old type 1 diabetics, so they decided to send us to a specialist - the nearest being Dornbecher's Children's Hospital up in Portland. So they didn't treat her, just sent her up there with us. We got there at about 1:00 at night, and they had to poke her finger, get her admitted, etc. Still chipper and peppy. We got to sleep at about 2:00 a.m., and they woke her up at 7 for more finger pokes and some new shots. Still not complaining. We got to watch cartoons for a couple of days, and she got her own meter, and syringes, etc. She was adamant about being able to check her own blood sugar (which the doctors and nurses were amazed at), and would have done everything else on her own if they would have let her. She said she was having a fabulous time, but wanted to go home, because on the way home, we were going to stop at the Newport Aquarium. We got a bunch of diabetes training, which went much faster due to previous experience, and they were saying how unusual it is to catch the diagnosis this early, before the symptoms start to really crash the body. So, we were glad.
They said that they usually don't talk about the patients, but all the doctors were telling the fellows and interns that they had to take turns on checking this patient because she was so cute and VERY grown up, they wanted everyone to meet her. She knows that she has to check her blood sugar 5 times a day... forever. And that this isn't going to go away. We give her shots twice a day, and she has been really good about eating what she has to, and not eating what she can't. Still NO COMPLAINTS!! How is that possible? I would be whining quite a bit about my rotten luck, but not Ella, or I guess Jeremy either, when his time came.
The only trouble she had was remembering the word - "Mom, I'm... detergent. Magnetic. Mom, what am I?" "Diabetic." So, so far, we're doing good, and we are having a family home evening tonight where Ella gets to show off all her new stuff, and educate the kids. Thank you for all your phone calls and prayers, it went so unbelievably well. Only with Heavenly Father's blessings would this have been so trauma-free. On the way home she said it was the best trip ever. Even the shots. What a kid. Definitely her father's daughter.