Welcome baby Benjamin!

So, I finally have few minutes to do a quick blog post. I can't believe that this time last week my labor hadn't even started yet and now Benjamin is almost a week old! Things are really going great with our little family of 6:) my mom stayed with us last week and today has officially been my first day on my own and so far, so good. Of course we have crazy times when all 4 kids need/want me at the same time but for the most part we're just cruising along. I must confess that I am enjoying our sweet Benjamin much more than I was prepared for. As excited as I have been to finally meet this little guy I was also kind of dreading the whole new born phase of crying and no sleep. But so far this sweet boy has been a really good sleeper and for the most part only fusses when he's hungry or really tired. I feel like the Lord is pouring out a triple portion of grace over our house right now because you would think 4 under 4 would just be chaos but it's really manageable right now.
I wish I had more pics to share but that is one thing that kind of gets forgotten about. Life is busy enough with out remembering my camera everywhere. When James was born I think we took about 100 pics just in the labor and delivery room but with this little guy I think we took about 5 and they were all on the iPhone :)

Here's our new family of 6!

The rest of the Allen gang came to meet Benjamin for the first time Sunday afternoon after the boys soccer game. They have all been so sweet with him. James is a great helper and loves to help me with Benjamin. Gracie likes to try and help too but she's not quite as helpful :)
Gracie loves the "baby" and wants to give him lots of kisses every time she sees him :)

Sweet boy snuggling with my mom

While the kids were visiting the nurse came in to take my temp and John-Mark and all the kids wanted to take their temp too :)Ready to go home!LOVE:)

Love, Love, Love a sleeping baby!

Quick birthday story so I don't forget:
Around 8 pm, Friday, Sept 23 I started having mild contractions every 5 minutes or so. They continued to get worse and by 10:15 they were about 3 minutes apart. I decided to try and take a long shower and relax and by the time I got out about 30 minutes later they were coming every 2 minutes or so and were pretty intense. Thankfully they were only lasting about 30 to 45 seconds. In true Allen (financially savvy:) fashion I wanted to wait until after midnight to go to the hospital to save $300 so I continued to work through my contractions at home. Finally around 11:45 we headed to the hospital and by the time we got there and I got out of the car my contractions were on top of each other and I couldn't walk through them. When I got to my room and they checked my I was only 5 cm. I was hoping I was further along and was going to be able to go natural but when they told me I was only 5 I knew I wanted to go ahead and get the epidural because it would take another hour before I actually had it in and had any relief. After I got the epidural they broke my water and I was about 6 1/2 cm then. I was fully dilated in the next 2 hours and ready to push. Benjamin arrived at exactly 4 am on the dot after very little pushing. Over all a pretty quick labor and delivery. So thankful everything went smoothly and Ben and I are both healthy and safe.
On a side note many people have asked if my Dr. (Dr. Ross) delivered me this time. I missed him by an hour! He was on call starting at 5 am! Almost every doctor in my practice has delivered me except my actual Ob/Gyn!