Quick Post with Way Too Many Pictures

Sorry I haven't been blogging as much recently.  I've been busy with getting Bentley and Kendra to their respective schools, trying to exercise, feed the family, take people to the doctor, and do my calling.  All the normal stuff, plus feeding a baby every three hours (and trying to grab naps, because these feedings are pretty consistently every three hours during the night, too).  That would be pretty manageable, except Craig has been super busy, too.  He's had yearbook deadlines, papers to write, and a video to edit, so he hasn't been around much.  And when he's not around to help out, the blog is one of the (many) things that fall by the wayside.

He's mostly done, though, so hopefully I can get back to handling my life better again.  And by "handling my life," what I really mean is "making Craig pick up the slack."  Which makes my life SO much better!

Anyway.  A couple thoughts from recently...

-My parents are in Africa on safari right now.  (Don't even ask me how jealous I am!)  They were flying out through Dulles, but weren't going to be there long enough to be able to meet up.  Until there was "weather" all across the country, delaying their flight from Seattle, causing them to miss their connecting flight and spend a night near the airport!  So guess who got to see them after all?!?!  We went and surprised them at the airport, which absolutely delighted me-- you never get to do stuff like that any more!  Best of all was getting the opportunity to introduce my Dad to his newest grandson!

The whole gang, including my Aunt Ann and her friend Sharon, at my parent's hotel room

-And Grandpa Rex wasn't the only person Colton got to meet!  The following day, Favorite Aunt Rachael took the bus down from New York to visit, too!  So we've been having a lot of fun here!

We actually documented someone's visit!  First time for everything...

And we had to do a funny face shot, too, of course!

-On a completely different note, Bentley is finally really reading.  And by that, I mean that he has caught the vision of reading and stays up late holding his book up to the window to catch the light from our neighbor's porch light.  And I have to tell him to put his book away during dinner and he'll respond by saying, "But Mom, once you can read, it's like that's all you want to do!"  I know, son.  I know.  This whole "problem" thrills me more than just about anything.

Case in point.

Unbeknownst to me, Craig snapped this picture at the same time.  I guess he was trying to make a point about where Bentley gets this rude behavior from.  Or something.

-While I'm talking about Bentley reading, can I just mention how thankful I am for the teachers at his school who have been teaching him this?  At the beginning of the school year when I sat down to practice reading with him, I quickly realized that I have absolutely no patience and no skill for this sort of thing.  I don't know how to teach a kid to read!  And trying to get him to do it properly made me want to pull out my hair (or worse yet, scream at him for not doing it right-- can you think of a worse way to get a kid to want to read???).  So I'm glad that his teachers have done such a good job.  Clearly, I was not cut out for that task...

-A month ago when it was Easter, we got to spend the day with Craig's parents, doing your traditional Easter day stuff (egg hunts and eating ham and candy.  What more could you ask for?).  We didn't take nearly enough pictures, but here are a couple:

I know Ryder's blurry here, but I LOVE how happy he looks!

And a not-blurry picture

Grandma holding Colton (all swaddled up)

And, because this has sort of turned into a photo dump (that wasn't my intent, but oh, well), here are a bunch more that I like:

Daddy Daughter Nap Time (and they're actually asleep here, not just pretending!)

Bentley makes me laugh these days

And Ryder sort of frightens me.  Who sits on top of stacked benches to eat a banana?!?

A crazy turtle Craig found in our backyard

Colton looks good in blue

And he's been smiling at us!  (Sorry it's blurry, but you get the idea.)

He also rocks the mohawk look.

I love this picture: love the hair, love the facial expression.

Have I made up for the fact that I hadn't posted in over a week?  Next time, I'll be back to my usual blathering about nothing.  I promise!

Trade Off

Sometimes I feel bad for Colton, since he doesn't get nearly as much one-on-one time with Mommy or Daddy as his older siblings (especially Bentley!) have had.  But then I watch as his three older siblings rush to give him kisses as soon as our morning prayer is done, and I realize that he's not getting any less love.  He's just getting it from a lot of different sources. 


And I wonder if he's not actually getting a better deal than Bentley did.

Sleeping through church

Wide awake, ready to go shopping with Mommy

Not So Idle Threats

It was two years ago that Craig planted a cherry blossom tree in our front yard for me.  And I'd been begging to have one for two years before that.  So when it never bloomed, I was disappointed.  I assumed that it had been mislabeled at Lowe's and wasn't a cherry blossom tree after all.  For the last few weeks, I've been trying to figure out if it would be worth chopping the stupid thing down and finding a tree that would actually get some flowers for me.

Apparently it knew its life was in danger, because it finally produced a few blossoms for me:

Yeah, there were probably about ten flowers on the entire tree.  But it's better than nothing!  I'll take it.

Who knew that threatening a tree would actually work?

I wonder what else I can get it to do...

Observation

It's funny.  Craig and I have both noticed a change in how people react when you have your fourth kid.  With all the others, we got the usual compliments-- Yay, a boy!  Yay, a girl!  Ooh, so cute!  What a chunk!-- nice, congratulatory comments like that.  And we didn't really think too much of it, except to enjoy how nice it all was.

But with #4, everyone (especially if they aren't Mormon) wants to slip in something about us being "done."  It's not necessarily rude, it's almost more like a fact-- they'll say something like, "You got your perfect birth-- now you can be done!" or "You know it's time to stop when..."  Or they'll point out that we can stop, since we have both genders represented.  (Actually, my doctors have been saying that ever since we found out that Kendra was a girl.  Everyone is very concerned that you not get stuck with all the same gender among your children.)

I guess this means we have officially crossed the line from "normal" family size to "kind of big."  My friend Christina assured me that once you have five kids, the comments change again so that they're more along the lines of, "Wow, how many kids are you going to have???"  She said at that point you're so out of the realm of normal that it just makes people curious.

That might be kind of a nice change, actually.  I can handle being an oddity-- otherwise I never could handle being Mormon!  But people trying to tell me what to do makes me just want to go and do the opposite.  I find my inner voice wanting to growl, Watch me go and have another kid!

But Craig seems to think that this line of action would be a bad idea at this point in our lives.  So I'll desist.  For now.

We Clean Up Real Good!

My visiting teacher, Lindsay Rowe, offered to come and do a photo shoot of the family and since we NEVER do family photos, I jumped at the chance.  All four of my kids (yup, even Colton) were pretty difficult for her, so I was SUPER impressed that she still managed to get so many beautiful shots-- nothing could have made me happier! Enjoy!!!

This is a better representation of how Colton was for most of the sitting...

What Every Girl Needs

Today I was on my own.  Not only did Craig have to go to work, he also had class tonight, so it was just me and the kids ALL DAY LONG.  Plus, we'd cleverly kept them out way past their bed time last night, so Ryder was super tired and grumpy.  Fun!  And, the plans I'd had to hang out with a friend and her kids (and thus entertain my kids) fell through, so it really was just me and the four of them for the long haul.

But despite that, I SURVIVED.  Not only did I survive, I actually got a few things accomplished.  I folded and put away three (3!!!) loads of laundry.  I took the kids to the park, even if we didn't last for very long-- it was windy and Colton got cold and cranky very quickly.  I also dragged them all to Target (yay for Easter candy on sale!  boo on the fact that they were already out of Reese's Peanut Butter eggs...).  I kept everyone fed and dressed.  We ate dinner together.  Well, I ate a slice of pizza, and then cut it all up into small slices so they could feed themselves while I fed the baby.  I got everyone to bed, except Colton who wanted to see Daddy.  And I vacuumed the downstairs and had the house in a not-too-messy state before I went to bed.

I'm pretty proud of myself.  Now I just have to keep it up for three more weeks until Craig's schedule calms down a bit and he can start coming home at a decent hour and helping me again!  But at least I got off to a good start.

Now this is slightly embarrassing to admit, but I think one of the things that has helped me is that I've picked a theme song for myself:



I don't know why, but somehow this just makes me feel like I can do it all.  Everyone needs a song that makes them feel like that.