Simple Pleasures

So, I feel like every scripture I stumble across these days is telling me I need to give thanks in all things. Clearly, there is a lesson here for me to learn. Which I've decided is supposed to be my coping mechanism for surviving the chaos that has engulfed our house from the moment we walked in the door with baby #5! Because let me tell you it is nuts around here. The transition to 5 has been a lot harder than the transition to 4 was. In a lot of ways I feel like it's deja vu of the transition from 2 to 3. I once again have 3 LITTLE children home all day with me; Jane is Grace 2.0 -- i.e. she's only 2, she doesn't listen to save her life, and she's crazy and hilarious all at the same time; and I have to spend a LOT of my time holding the baby. And then when you add a couple more kids into the mix, it can be a bit overwhelming. Especially when you consider that none of my children are exactly low maintenance. Hahahaha. BUT, I'll take a full house over an empty one any day. And even though Alex is definitely not my easiest baby (that would be Grace), he is most assuredly not my most difficult (THAT would be Sophie), and for that I'm thankful! All in all, I'd rather be busy than bored. And you can stitch that and put it on a pillow. Hahaha. Here is what we've been up to over the last month...

Jane is 2!

I can't even tell you how much I love this picture of her. It makes me laugh every time I look at it. She is so hilarious. Her actual birthday was on a Sunday this year, so we decided to celebrate a day early on the Saturday. I even went all out and rented a super nice camera lens (Canon 50 mm f/1.2) for all the potential kodak moments. The kids were excited to pick out presents for her and I was excited that her promised butterfly cake was easy peasy to make. Not so exciting? Oh, I don't know. Probably the fact that each and every child was having a melt down kind of day from sun-up to sun-down.

This shot could have been any of them.

Ta Da!

Jane was SUPER excited for the cake and even more excited about the presents. Although Ethan was really upset when the present he picked out -- an electric bubble blower, didn't exactly get the reception he was hoping for. But really, he didn't have a chance after Jane opened MY present for her -- Ramona and Beezus (the movie). She LOOOOOOVES this movie (we've checked it out of the library several times) and I kid you not when she opened the package and saw the movie she screamed. With excitement, of course. It was so funny I wish we would have had it on video. Oh well!

Grace picked out some giant sunglasses for her, Sophie got her a toy microphone, and "Alex" got her some Color Wonder markers because she has a bit of a problem. We call her the marker monster because she is always coloring on EVERYTHING -- her arms, her legs, her clothes, the floor, bedding, walls, furniture, you name it. The Color Wonders were a bit of wishful thinking, though, because she still prefers the real thing. Hahaha.

Cute little Stinky Pants.

After the party it was an early bedtime and that was that! I stayed home from church the next day with the 2 little ones and then when Scott was home to help I attempted Jane's Birthday Shoot on the front porch. She's not exactly the most cooperative model. Most attempts to get her to smile and look at the camera went a little like this:


Or this:

Or this:


In the end I got a few cute shots but the shoot was cut short after my attempt to bribe her with a popsicle ended in failure. For her dress that is. Hahaha. Oh well, I still managed to get a good one for her frame on the mantle.

Here she is pointing to her "smart little brain." Apparently her cheek is where it's at.








And the money shot. It encapsulates so much of the essence of Jane. Hahahaha.

And just in case you're wondering what the rest of the crew was up to while the photo shoot was taking place, wonder no more. They were playing school. Please welcome Principal Sophie:

Ahahahahahahaha. I died laughing when I first saw her in this get-up -- Ethan's discarded church clothes from the day. Hahahaha. So funny. On the real school front Sophie is loving preschool and loving Speech Therapy even more. Because really, what's not to love when you have someone's undivided attention for 30 minutes, you play lots of fun games, AND you get candy at the end? As she told the shoe salesman at Nordstrom's the other day, she's been working on "f" words in speech. Hahahaha. This kid kills me. And yes, that IS what she's working on. For her homework she's been practicing making the "f" sound. She's definitely making progress. When she's consciously thinking about it she can say it correctly. She just talks really fast and a lot, so it could take some time before she is consistently saying it right.


The kids had no school the Friday before Labor Day, so in an effort to keep me from going insane Scott took the day off as well resulting in a lovely 4-day weekend. Our ward had a picnic on Monday which we were all excited to go to -- our first family-of-7 outing -- but Jane put a bit of a damper on the day by getting sick. Or I guess sicker. She had had a runny nose for the last couple of days, but I thought getting outside and running around might help her. As we were driving to the park, however, she started to wheeze really bad. And her breathing seemed really labored. By the time we got to the park she sounded better but once we finally got home it was sounding worse again. Luckily, we always have albuterol around, but even after a few breathing treatments she was still kind of scaring me. And of course, it was a holiday so it's not like I could just run her over to the doctor. In the end Scott took her to the emergency room around 5 because her breathing was sounding so bad. They diagnosed her with reactive airway breathing -- it's too soon/early to tell if she has asthma -- which is basically triggered by colds and other respiratory infections. After giving her a few more breathing treatments and a chest x-ray they sent her home with instructions to keep doing the nebulizer every 4 hours for as long as she needed it. Which thankfully wasn't for very long!



Other than that excitement, things have been pretty low-key around here. Ethan has decided he loves to read which makes ME happy; Grace is still a bit too boy crazy for a 6 year old; Sophie has actually been the most helpful around the house these days -- her new thing is saying "yes ma'am" to almost anything I ask her to do (unless she's in a bad mood); and Alex is just the cutest little thing there is. He reminds me so much of Sophie it's crazy! I discovered he has a dimple in his right cheek when he was around 1 week old -- which is just about the time I discovered Sophie's; and I think they have the same nose and eyes. Here are some shots from the swing a couple of weeks ago:

And here are some pictures I took last week for his 1 month mark:









Are they doppelgangers, or what?? When I was uploading the pictures these 2 were side by side. How funny is that? They have the same head tilt and expression going. Hahahaha. I think they're kindred spirits. He smiles more for her than any of the other kids.

Jane wanted in on the action. Could she look any dirtier?? Hahaha.

Well folks, that's about that. As for the simple pleasures that the post title is alluding to, I'd just like to say that there's nothing like sleeping in your own bed. Or just sleeping. Hahaha. Perhaps it was the stark contrast of the hospital bed, or perhaps it's just that I am now 20+ pounds lighter and thus a lot less uncomfortable. Whatever the case may be, I don't think I've ever fully appreciated until now just how lovely it is to sleep in my bed.

Thank you and Good Night.