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.

Back to School and other Business

But first -- how about I outline my day for you? Because I'm a little worried that it pretty much sums up what my life is going to be from now on...

Alex didn't really want to sleep last night, so that was fun. Scott had a big presentation at work today, so he couldn't miss work and I wanted him to get as much sleep as possible, which meant that I didn't get very much myself. He let me squeeze in one more hour of sleep this morning from 6:30 to 7:30, which was really great, but my morning really got off to a rough start when I came downstairs and Grace told me that her throat was hurting and she didn't want to go to school. Perfect -- 3 days into the school year and it's already starting!

Amy took Ethan to the bus stop for me, I sent Grace, Sophie and Jane down to the basement to watch TV, I scheduled a doctor's appointment for Grace, and then tried to squeeze in just a little bit more sleep before having to take her in to check for strep throat. Luckily (or perhaps unluckily for tonight's sake!) Alex decided to sleep the morning away and I was able to leave him with Amy while I took Grace (and Jane -- who is proving to be quite difficult to deal with alongside the baby -- she's just nuts) to the doctor. Grace's test came back positive -- that's the 4th time this year, folks -- and we headed over to the pharmacy to pick up her meds and then raced home to get Sophie ready for preschool. She had to go early today to start her speech therapy and of course, I was late getting her there. After dropping her off, I headed back home where Alex was finally waking up and I fed him quickly before taking him back to the hospital to get more blood drawn to check his bilirubin levels for jaundice.

When we got back home I was hoping to FINALLY squeeze in a good nap, but my plans were foiled first by Alex not napping and then by Jane who woke up EARLY from her nap. Aaaahhhhh! The day was finished off with me being late to pick Sophie UP from preschool and then completely missing the bus for Ethan who got home 15 minutes earlier then the past 2 days and had to walk all the way home in the blazing heat. The saving grace to the whole day was my bff Natalie who brought dinner to us this afternoon and Amy who helped to keep the kids occupied and entertained for me while I was taking care of Alex.

And that's that folks. The kids actually went down pretty well at bedtime, so that's really good and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the baby will sleep for a little bit longer tonight. But if not, at least the weekend is coming up and hopefully I can catch up on some sleep then!

So, basically --in case you can't catch the theme here -- sleep is very important! A true luxury. And since Alex has been born, I've never felt sleepier! I don't know why it's been harder this time around, but I feel like I just can't get enough...

And now for a little pre-baby (and post) catch-up:

First up? The Annual Plant Picnic. The "kiddie drop" was the highlight of our move here last summer and this year was no different! This year the picnic was a bit earlier in August and took place a couple of weeks before the baby was born. The kids had a lot of fun jumping in space walks, playing in the balloon house, and riding on the swings. And of course, participating in the kiddie drop. Essentially a large area was roped off with all kinds of toys, candy, junk, etc. scattered on the ground and on their mark, get set, go -- all kids under 12 were able to run rampant gathering up whatever they could before it was all gone. Oh the excitement for my kids! They were really mad when we had to leave right after because of me. It was like 99 degrees out there and the humidity was insane. I'm pretty sure the heat index that day was around 110 and with my hugely pregnant self I was just not gonna make it any longer!

Playing in the balloon house -- giant fans were blowing the balloons all over the place. Jane was a big fan herself. Or at least she was until she somehow managed to get stuck in one of the venting holes -- that was pretty scary.

Here is Sophie protesting that she would NOT be too scared to ride on the swings.

And you know what? She proved me wrong! She actually managed to stay on without freaking out and she even said she liked it. Hahahaha.

Grace is really into posing with Ethan for pictures...

Do you see what I mean? Hahaha.

Eagerly awaiting the kiddie drop.

And they're off!

Jane was mostly interested in the tootsie roll pops she found on the ground.

Happy with all their loot.

Could they look any hotter or sweatier?? It was brutal out there.

Up next? Scott's 34th Birthday! Poor Scott. It was a pretty lame birthday. We celebrated the night before and had it double as Family Home Evening. We had strawberry shortcake and Scott opened his one measly present from all of us -- a new power cord for his macbook which has been out of commission for several months now due to the old one being busted. Woo hoo! Hahaha. Super exciting, I know. Fortunately, Scott doesn't really get into birthdays the same way the rest of us do, so HE was not disappointed with the day. I, on the other hand still felt super lame that we didn't manage to do anything else to celebrate. :(




And now a brief interlude for some more Quilting Pictures! I know you're all probably sick and tired of seeing all my handiwork at this point, but this is my blog so you'll just have to suffer through it. Hahahaha. I'm just joking. Although, I'm sure there are many of you who couldn't care less about the following pictures...

Alex's Finished Ticker Tape Quilt

Close-up of the front.

The back.

Close-up of the quilting (and fabric on the back) -- I just love the way hand-quilting looks after it's been washed and dried.

And that's that. I literally finished the quilt the day before the baby was born, so that was perfect timing.

Which brings us to The First Day of School: A highly anticipated event around these parts. :) I was really glad to be back home from the hospital in time for the first day. And it was extra exciting having Scott home for it as well this year. Here are the obligatory Back to School shots of the kids.

Ethan the 3rd Grader.

Grace the 1st Grader.

And Sophie the Preschooler. (Not pictured -- Jane. Although she was running around like a crazy person during the entire photo shoot!)

Grace wanted "one more silly faces" picture. I guess Ethan didn't get the memo. Hahaha.

I didn't manage to get a shot of the big kids getting on the bus, but Scott took some pictures of Sophie going to preschool and then inside her classroom.

I think this is going to be a good year for the kids -- they all seem to really like their classes and teachers, so hopefully that will continue! Ethan was mad that they didn't "learn ANYTHING" on the first day of school, but he's been happy since then. Grace has a new "love" -- his name is Ryan. I didn't clue in on her questions after school the first day about if husbands are always older than their wives. I guess I should have figured something was up (but I'll just blame that on my sleep-deprived brain) -- because she was happy to hear that my sister Sarah is older than her husband, and my friend Natalie is older than her husband, because Ryan is apparently in Kindergarten. Hahahahaha. Sophie seems to like preschool, although she doesn't know any of her friends' names and she doesn't really like to talk about her day when she gets home. So that's that! I'm hoping that as we get back into the swing of things with school routines, etc. that life will get a little easier. Wishful thinking? Perhaps...

And finally -- a little Photo Shoot with Baby Alexander. And I must say he was remarkably cooperative! Not a fuss or a peep out of him -- which is much more than I can say about photographing a certain other son of mine. Hahaha. Here are some of the gems. He is a cute little fellow if I do say so myself. :)

And that, my friends, is that. Until next time...