Saturday fun

when honey got me my new phone last month, I told him I neeeeeded one with tons of storage space. now I have a 128gb phone and can take 70+ photos and videos on just an average Saturday.  don't worry... I'll spare you and only post some.

it doesn't matter how big our house is... we're just always going to all end up within four inches of each other.

I just can't even handle this cuteness and his little narcoleptic self.

Elizabeth kept getting super excited and yelling "HIIIII!!!!" at the screen when we took a selfie.  not sure if she thought it was FaceTime or what, but the kids and I thought it was hilarious.

she's getting an attitude, but holy cow she's still so sweet and precious.

as a mother, I do my research on stuff.  I needed to know if fairies leave notes or glitter or anything else these days (I realize my tooth fairy experience wasn't traditional as I had a special little pillow that had a special pocket for lost teeth and my tooth fairy didn't take my teeth) that I should know about.  the suggested searches made my heart cry.  I'm gonna go ahead and say that if a kid needs to google about the realness of a tooth fairy, they probably shouldn't have unsupervised access to the internet. but to each their own I guess.

if her hair isn't pulled back, it falls straight in her face.  her head is basically a 360 waterfall of hair.

I think this was her first time with proper pigtails.  my first thought was "holy cow, you look ridiculous!" but as the day went on, it grew on me and I just kept wanting to take pictures of her because everything she did was just that much cuter with pig tails.

heading to the library.  he really doesn't wake up for much but I'm sure he just loved this library trip anyway.

cuter with pigtails.

Abigail was looking through her new fairy books that we had on hold...

which of course turned into wiggling her tooth some more.  so much wiggling.

I keep looking at Brady and thinking that he looks so old.  when did that happen?! there is nothing little kid left about him at all.

there's not really anything little kid left about either of them and I'm not sure when I turned into a mom that has big kids.

with two items left that we wanted to get, we got the "you are barred from borrowing" popup on the checkout screen.  you can only check out 99 things per library card and we've been really having to budget our space lately because Abigail goes through fairy books so fast.  I think right now she has 35 or 40 checked out.  that's such a huge chunk of our space and only leaves us with 60 spots left to check out picture books, board books, dvds, and cds.  at the recommendation and encouraging of one of the librarians, I got Abigail her own library card.  I still have mixed feelings about it (mostly managing 2 different library accounts and also scared at the ability to check out 198 library items at a time) but we'll try it for a bit and see how it goes.  maybe we'll just continue to use our one library card and keep this one on hand for overflow stuff like when we just need a little more but don't have space.  anyway, she's excited about it.

honey left Andrew propped up and then went off to get himself a bowl of cereal.  Andrew fell through the crack in the pillows (rookie mistake) and I gave honey a hard time about Andrew being abandoned by his father.  I will say though that while it looks like he's crying, he's actually not.  he must have been rooting or yawning or something.  this kid seriously puts up with everything.

honey and I both fell asleep during nap time and when we woke up, I wasn't in the mood to go to Texas Roadhouse (was our previous plan) and he made a joke about getting Chinese.  I held him to it and then gave him three kids and told him to return with Chinese.  being a great dad, he took them to the park by the restaurant first and the kids loved it.

Andrew is just a constant little milk fountain volcano baby.  I had to blow-dry my jeans after I took this picture because I was about to go outside and was too lazy to change pants.

honey found a snake in the neighbor's yard while he was getting the mail so he came back later with a shovel and disposed of it.  the kids supervised it.

we supervised from a more substantial distance.

she says "NO!" constantly, so we resort to making her laugh and giggle until she forgets about saying no over and over and we forget about her being so disagreeable.

7.22.17 - Abigail lost her first tooth!  and I'm guessing the other front tooth won't be too far behind.

it was a good day.

fairies are real

a few days ago, Abigail was talking about how she really wanted me to pull out her loose tooth.

"I want to stay awake so I can see the tooth fairy! I know fairies are real, I just KNOW it!"

I just about melted on the spot.

for everything that girl says and does that makes me want to scream, cry, pull my hair out, bang my head on the wall, and just curl up in a ball and give up on life... I couldn't even handle how precious she was.  and I'm going to keep replaying it in my mind as frequently as possible so I remember.

Abigail is just so creative and imaginative and I really do love it when it's not driving me crazy.  she's also insanely into those rainbow magic fairy books at the moment.  I know people are always talking about how long their kid believes in Santa, but I'm mostly just hoping that the fairy magic can stay alive for this girl.

also, on Saturday, honey got home from youth conference and pulled out Abigail's tooth for her.  she carried it around with her for most of the rest of the day... with the exception of when she would put it down so carefully under her pillow.  at one point she lost it and started crying, but crisis averted, I found it neatly on her bed.  she must have just not remembered placing it there.

anyway, the tooth fairy came and left a crisp $2 bill.  because fairies are real.

Elizabeth

she loves the camera.  can you tell?

he's a saint

let me tell you, before Andrew was born, I spent plenty of time stressing about how I would handle four kids.  specifically, how I would be able to handle having four kids at home with me during the summer when two get into trouble 24/7, one is still very much a baby that just gets into everything, and one being a newborn whose personality, no one had a clue about yet. mostly, I was terrified that I might get another Brady-style devil newborn that would never give me a break and test my sanity by never giving me a moment of quiet.

well, I'm happy to report that while the first three are as predicted (except Elizabeth is harder because she has overnight left the baby stage and entered the kid stage and does stuff like go outside with Brady to walk across the street by herself to the neighbor's house to play), Andrew is an absolute angel.  he is a saint through and through.  I mean, it's not that he NEVER cries... but a typical day involves no crying.  maybe a whimper here or there if he's neglected or is having a lot of reflux at the moment, and definitely a hard cry when he's in pain (sometimes from the reflux, but mostly if Elizabeth accidentally hurts him), but typically, nothing.

I lot of my time stressing about having the kids on my own also included stressing about the days that honey would be gone at youth conference.  when he initially told me, I was all "why are they making you go to youth conference?!?!  don't they know we'll have a newborn and I'm going to be taking care of a one month old baby in addition to three other children?! during the summer when no one is in school!" and I wasn't too thrilled about it.  I was mostly scared about it.  I had visions of me staying up all night with a baby that screamed and wouldn't go to sleep.

but, don't even worry about it... I didn't get that baby.  I got Andrew.  he never tries to stay awake at night (although I frequently do because of the overwhelming frequency and noise level of his spitting up/choking/gasping for air/etc. during the night) and instead just eats quickly and is fine to go right back to sleep.

today, for whatever reason (maybe a growth spurt?), he's barely been awake.  I'd have to wake him up to feed him and he would basically just sleep eat and then fully fall back asleep.  or he would doze on and off during his wake time.  or even this evening, I actually got him to stay awake (just laying on my bed) for some awake time while I was tending to the other three with getting us all showered and fed and ready for bed and I just kept forgetting about him or getting distracted or whatever and so he just put himself to sleep.  and then a few hours later, I'd hear him sneeze and remember that I needed to tend to him but then he'd already be back to sleep.  for someone that swaddles religiously, I was mostly just baffled that he was able to sleep without his arms pinned down.  and even though it seemed like he would wake frequently and go back to sleep, I'm not sure if he was actually waking up or if it was just that newborn thing where they seem awake even though they're not.  at one point, I just decided to wake him up and change his diaper so I could feed him and put him to bed.  I changed his diaper and he fell immediately asleep again as I buttoned up his sleeper.  I watched him and waited for him to wake up again but after an hour I gave up.  I did my bed to dream feed him (he took one side and not the other) and just swaddled him and put him in his little travel bed bassinet.  with the exception of me waking him to feed him for ten or fifteen minutes (maybe three times?), he has required no attention from me in the last 15 hours.  I mean, I feel like that's even far easier than he typically is and I like to think that today was a special gift to me from Heavenly Father while my honey was at youth conference.

while Andrew snoozed the whole day away, the rest of us had a pretty good time.  I slept in till almost 9.  the kids got Elizabeth out of bed when she woke up.  I love that they can do that now.  we went outside to play around 10:30 maybe and watched the new neighbors show up at the house across the street.  I'm gonna need to stop calling it "Lucy's house" now.  Lucy and Presley came over to play around 1.  Elizabeth took a nap.  the kids read books, had a coloring contest, and played don't spill the beans... as well as a number of other made up games... until 3:45.  then we all headed outside and they ate quesadillas and snap peas on the driveway and rob and Stephanie came over and joined me (since they're temporarily homeless now), and we hung out in camp chairs on the driveway for a few hours.  at 6:30, I had the kids clean up their stuff and we all headed inside.  four showers later, we were moving slowly but making progress.

somehow I walked up the stairs and they were all just sitting there in silence... reading books.

the great coloring contest

new neighbor boy... about 8 months older than Brady I think?

he likes to blow-dry his hair

I think that's just how it is when you're relying on a 7 year old and 5 year old to do all the stuff you typically would have your husband do.  I showered Elizabeth off with me but then handed her out to Brady instead of honey (since he's not here) and had Brady dry her off.  he was unsuccessful getting a clean diaper on her (Elizabeth had turned into a feisty, disobedient little bugger all of a sudden) but with Abigail's help, they got it done and got her pjs on her too.  I stayed in the shower and told them to get themselves yogurts and some "soft bread " (that grandma sycamore's bread is so delicious) and hoped for the best.  well, it was a bit of a disaster when I got out in that they were all spinning around on the red chair and the table was a mess, but it all got straightened out (with a few strategic threats about going straight up to bed) and they got everything cleaned up.  Elizabeth had a hard time going to bed and kept crying on and off, but I had Abigail and Brady clean up upstairs and go potty and brush teeth by themselves (apparently my theme today was giving them a bunch of new responsibilities to see if they could handle any new things) and Abigail was already passed out in bed by the time I got up there.  Brady asked me a bunch of questions about... well everything... and went to sleep quickly after.

I can't get over Brady's questions.  asking me about if wolves eat people and do wolves come out at night and do they live near us and if they eat us will we come back alive and will we come back alive if another animal eats us and how do we get old and die and then come back alive and not be old anymore because papa was old and died and how will he not be old anymore and how does Santa get down the chimney when it's so small?  and when half of my answers were "well, that's how Heavenly Father made it happen" and "Heavenly Father knows everything" then he had to ask about if grandmas and grandpas and moms and dads know everything too.  he just asked me yesterday if grandmas and grandpas were perfect (when I said something like "well, nobody is perfect") and holy cow, that kid has a question for everything.  also, I have to figure out a good enough answer for everything he asks because I've taught my kids that mom's know everything.  tonight I tried to tell him that I didn't know if wolves like to eat people and he corrected me because "you're a mom so you know things." touché.

so, that's a random stream of my thought process story telling of the day. Abigail is getting new responsibilities since she's seven now, Brady continues to ask tons of intellectually thought provoking questions, Elizabeth says no constantly and delights in being disobedient, and Andrew is a perfect little pet rock that is easily forgotten except for his loud sneezes that remind us all that he's still there. we're all doing okay, thank goodness, and excited to spend some time with honey tomorrow.  I can't believe it's already saturday again.  how on earth did another week happen again so fast?

blows my mind.

a slow day

day two of having four kids

Brady wakes up in the morning and comes straight to me.  most of the time at least. this time, he just crawled right in my bed, snuggled up next to me, rested his head on my arm, and gave Andrew continuous kisses.  such a sweet boy.  

it does have it's downsides though.  like when I just want to nurse Andrew with a little peace and quiet and instead have Brady and Elizabeth either playing and climbing around my bedroom or have them just staring at me and asking me a million questions.  so lately I've started just quietly walking from my room and hiding upstairs in Elizabeth's room to finish nursing Andrew.  this works great for about five minutes until they realize I've left and they form a search party, calling out "mom!" as they wander around the house.  and then they just set up shop and continue to exist in my presence again.

they found a lady bug as we left out neighbor's house.

so sad that our neighbors are moving.  I'm going to miss this sight of all the kids hanging out on their driveway.  this time, in the rain.

this guy.  I think he's still a little shell shocked at what he got himself into by being born into this family of ours.

I'm sure he'll grow up to be just as crazy as the other monsters.

when I make dinner, I typically line the kids' plates up on the counter and dish everything assembly line style.  when I had my back turned, Elizabeth apparently tried to grab a plate to take to the table.  she wasn't so successful.  that phrase "even the best laid plans..." keeps coming to mind these days...

maybe I'll be able to handle a few weeks of four kids after all.

count your blessings

I know I suck at blogging.  I'm too busy and too tired.  but mostly, it's because I don't have a blogging app on my phone so I can't throw up a quick post while I'm waiting for my oven to preheat or something.

BUT I got out my laptop just for this so hopefully I can express my gratitude in the few minutes I have before I start nodding off and falling asleep.

this morning, Abigail seemed a little sensitive and out of sorts but nothing that created a red flag for me... she's a sensitive sort of girl in general.  then all of the sudden she started crying like crazy and clutching her stomach and telling me that her stomach hurt and it hurt to breathe.  those few minutes passed but then a little while later, it happened again.  and then it kept happening for several hours... these waves of pain would just suddenly wash over her and she was clutching her belly, doubled over in pain, and telling me through crazy tears what pain she was in.  even when these episodes of pain weren't happening, she was obviously still in pain from her stomach.  she wouldn't talk or say anything and was sniffly and sad.  I'd taken all the kids with me to Costco and she actually rode in the top child seat next to Elizabeth because she was too uncomfortable to stand or walk.  and I know I sound like a horrible mom for taking her to Costco during all of this, but it was so weird and came on so suddenly that I kind of just kept expecting it to disappear at any second.  but it didn't.  most of the way through our Costco trip (and you better believe, I've never shopped at Costco so fast, ever),  I decided that there was no chance we'd make it to sprouts so I grabbed a few produce things from Costco and hurried home.  on the way I called my mom about it (like fifty times... eventually she called me back and the first thing I said was "don't worry... no one died.") and she said I should take Abigail to the doctor to rule everything out.

getting home, I unloaded groceries and made a sandwich for Elizabeth and Brady for lunch since it was noon.  Abigail had gone straight inside and I assumed she'd gone up to her room to rest in bed and read a book.  once I put out food for Brady and Elizabeth, I went upstairs to check on Abigail... expect that I actually found her on the stairs.  asleep.  she'd made it up about three stairs and just parked herself right there for a snooze.  well, probably she was just resting and then accidentally fell asleep.  so I helped her up to bed where she could actually sleep.  then I got Brady up for quiet time and Elizabeth down for nap.  finally around 12:30, I was able to call kaiser to schedule an appointment for Abigail.  they said she could be seen at 1:30.  

at noon

12:15pm

12:45pm

I spent the next half hour trying to figure out childcare for Brady and Elizabeth which was trickier than it should have been because people were busy running errands and stuff.  eventually, I got a hold of Janel's husband and he brought his daughter over to the house to sit with the kids.  at one, I took Abigail and Andrew with me to the doctor's office to have Abigail checked out.  our doctor couldn't say for sure one way or the other about appendicitis and said we should go to the ER.  half an hour later, we showed up at children's hospital and Abigail cried and begged me to take her home so she could rest in bed.  she was just so tired.  I mean, even at the doctor's office, she'd been laying down and falling asleep during the appointment.  and crying as she told the doctor that it only hurt a little.  I think she must have been comparing it to what it was like during one of the painful episodes.

anyway, we got in to be seen at the hospital and they were worried about appendicitis.  they did a long ultrasound while Abigail watched pj masks on the tv in the room.  then they wanted to do blood work and the guy came in and turned on Moana and got some blood.  we watched the entire Moana movie.  I think it was an hour and a half.  other people came in and out, but the whole hospital experience was a lot of waiting. every time we talked to someone, they were concerned about appendicitis.  looking at it online, Abigail had all the symptoms, and when the doctors pressed in certain places and asked if it hurt, she was answering all the things that pointed to appendicitis.  EVERYTHING pointed to appendicitis and I prayed that wouldn't be what was wrong with her.  she described the pain as coming in different places during the different episodes and even not during the episodes of pain.  sometimes high or low or left or right and sometimes just a general pain all over.  they had her use to her finger and told her she had to just use one finger to point to where the pain was.  she pointed to her belly button.  I was relieved that she wasn't pointing to her lower right abdomen where the appendix is... until I looked online to find that pain around your belly button wasn't good.  ugh.  I told our main doctor that I felt like Abigail was improving a lot because she hadn't had one of those episodes of pain in over two hours (it was 3pm at the time) and that her fever was going down (it had been 102.2 just before 1pm) and she said that actually that worried her because those things described what would be the case if an appendix had already burst.  seriously, nothing was looking promising and I was trying to brace myself for bad news.  google told me best case scenario hospital stay for appendicitis was a few days and if it had already burst, it was more like 8 days. no one has time for that.  also, I was nearly in tears every time I watched Abigail writhe in pain and clutch her belly and cry while she curled up in the fetal position.  it was a little hard to take.  what wasn't hard to take was that she was so well behaved.  so polite and zero sass.  it brought out all of my compassion for this little girl that looked so broken.

in the car, she'd been crying that she was too sleepy and wanted to go home to rest in a bed.  I told her the hospital would have a bed for her to sleep in.  I know she didn't believe me.  but you better believe when I told her she could lay down on this bed, she crawled right up and fell asleep.  

hallelujah for nursing... I wasn't planning on being gone for seven hours and was glad, as always, to know that I had plenty of food on hand (on chest... sorry, couldn't resist the cheesy joke) for Andrew.

she was too tired and in too much pain to walk so the nurse carried Andrew's carseat while I carried Abigail to and from the ultrasound room.

watching pj masks.

always curled up in fetal position

thank goodness for this guy's easygoing nature.  with the exception of when I took him out to nurse him for ten minutes, he was in his carseat from 10am (when we went to Costco) until 7:30pm when we returned home.  he just slept and hung out.

watching Moana

the internet wasn't giving me much hope.  but then again, neither were any of the doctors.  thank goodness for this little miracle that nothing was truly wrong with Abigail.

eventually, a new doctor came in with our regular doctor and said that the ultrasound results looked really positive... they could see her appendix! woohoo!  but her bloodworm came back that there was definitely some sort of infection going on (which would explain the fever that she'd had... even though it was coming down in the past couple hours).  he asked Abigail about her appetite... "what's your favorite food?" [sad, crying mumbles from Abigail]... repeat question and answer again.  then he was all "what? shrimp?" ha.  "if I had a big plate of shrimp right here, would you want to eat it?" haha.  she said yes but stated for the fiftieth time that actually she was just sooo thirsty.  they gave her a zofran and then ten or fifteen minutes later gave her Motrin and gatorade that she could have one tablespoon of every five minutes.  then our main doctor came in again and asked her more questions (I mean, a million people did over those several hours we were there... so many people and so many questions) and said that she could have apple juice and didn't need to measure her fluids anymore.  it was an amazing transformation.  within a half hour of getting those meds, she was acting like her usual self.  well, almost.  she was still really polite but she was also chatty and actually standing up and walking around!  the final diagnosis guess was that she had some sort of viral infection that was causing severe abdominal cramping.  so the zofran and painkiller took care of the nausea and fever and basically the girl was healed.  I was so glad to be walking out of there with a daughter who was yapping away about who knows what instead of the lifeless daughter I'd walked in with. the daughter that kept falling asleep four seconds after she put her head down and feet up.  hallelujah.

kambryn had watched the kids until five when I had Sarah come over to drop off Jane and take kambryn home for me.  I'm so thankful for good friends that are so willing to help me out and lend their daughters.  I mean, they offered to do so much more, but really, the daughters were the best and it eased my mind that I knew my kids were just fine playing at home until Christopher could get there at 6.  Abigail and Andrew and I got home around 7:30 and Abigail was acting 99% normal.  I have a feeling that Christopher probably thinks this ER trip (and bill) was a little unnecessary, but honestly, if I were him, I probably would think so too. such a transformation.  what a precious miracle for us... even when I was so lacking in faith.

so here I am, just nodding off right now, but hoping to capture this little story.  my heart is full of gratitude to have all four of my kids, happy and healthy and peacefully sleeping in their own little beds tonight.

man, it's been a long day.

the best laid plans...

even the best laid plans go awry.

I had this genius idea to take the kids to the pool today. ms. stacey normally comes Monday morning from 9:15-10:15, but today need to come at 12:15.  I could have Elizabeth sleep in, skip a nap, and go to bed early. I would meet my friend Sarah at the pool to hang out for a few hours and catch up. and things were really going my way this morning when Brady, who normally greets me at 6am when I'm feeding Andrew, didn't wake up till after 9am! and he would be able to take an evening nap in the car on the way to the rockies game with Chris.  seriously, everything was coming together so perfectly.  after stacey left around 1:15, I got Brady and Elizabeth both ready and sunscreened and then went to get myself ready.  it took a little while because Elizabeth kept coming in to harass me... and maul Andrew.  then I realized that it was late and I was hungry.  so I attempted to eat one of the stuffed peppers mom made before she left.  it was delightful but I had to heat it up three different times because I kept getting interrupted and finally (like an hour later) I ended up just finishing eating it... cold.  I thought getting ready would be a breeze because I put on paw patrol for Brady and Elizabeth and Andrew was asleep.  nope.  Elizabeth had a dirty diaper that needed to be changed, and Andrew, during one of my attempts to eat stuffed peppers, started screaming from his bouncer.  well, his pjs were soaked right now to his toes.  it was his first blow out/leak out and also his first time in the bouncer.  not sure yet if those two are connected.

anyway, I had texted my honey at 1:04 to say I was going to take the kids to the pool in a bit and also texted my honey at 2:30, when he was on his way home, to tell him that we hadn't left yet and would see him shortly.  so uhh, I think we didn't leave for the pool till after 3.  and by that time it was pretty overcast.

and actually, Brady rode his bike to the pool, but not the little red bike because he's too cool for that now.  he rode his big Spiderman bike even though it's too big for him.  so he had a little bike crash when he stopped to cross a street and busted his finger.  it turned red and puffy immediately and his nail turned purple.  he cried the rest of the way to the pool and literally the entire time we were there and then the whole walk home and for at least 10 minutes after we got back.  also after we got there, it turned pre-stormy weather and literally pool furniture and umbrellas were getting knocked over INTO the pool because it was soooo windy.  it was like we were at the beach.  during a tropical storm.  it was crazy windy, super cloudy and dark, really cold, and oh, it started raining as soon as we got there.  sprinkling I guess, but those were cold sprinkles.  Brady got in the pool up to his waist but complained that the water hurt his finger even more.  I never even put Elizabeth's swim stuff on and was just sitting there wishing that I'd brought a hoodie.  we could have stuck it out just fine except that literally Brady was just standing on the pool stairs crying about his finger.  sooo I told Brady he might be better off cuddling on the sofa for a bit to watch more paw patrol. I walked his bike home for him while he walked and cried and told me he didn't want his finger to hurt anymore.  I was glad to have Christopher with us because he'd put Elizabeth in a stroller to push her (I would have just had her walk and that would have been a little more complicated on the way home) but seriously, I couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

so, y'know... sometimes you can just plan your whole day around going to the pool and put in a few hours of prep work only to have it, quite literally, rain on your parade crying four year old.

not so new anymore

7.1.17

time is still going by way too fast.  life feels normal now.  which is great, but also sad.  there's something so special about the new-ness of a newborn and coming home from the hospital and holeing up in bed with a tiny baby that still smells so fresh.  my baby doesn't look so new anymore.  he definitely doesn't smell new anymore.  he's acting less new.  I don't feel like I've had a baby anytime recently.  I definitely don't look as thin as my normal self, but I also don't really look like I've just had a baby.  mom and I have done yard work and errands and house projects and a whole lot of stuff that makes this feel like she's been here for a normal visit, not a "you just had a baby" visit.  it just blows my mind.  yesterday afternoon I thought, "we've been home from the hospital for two weeks now!"  how did this happen?!?!  it just passes by so fast.  maybe in heaven we can rig a way to relive some of these extra special moments.  it hurts my heart to think of only experiencing them just one time for so short.

anyway, I got Andrew out of his swaddle this morning to change his diaper and when I unzipped his pjs, I'd found that he had a little belly button and his umbilical cord stump had fallen off.  part of me was all "yeay! finally!" and the other part was all "holy cow, that was your last tie to the fact that you were so recently in the hospital!" and it made me a little sad and a little happy.