Back to November :)

Here is the end of November, and the beginning of holiday season. I realize it's a little out of order, but I will correct the order sometime. This season of our life got a little dicey. Actually a lot dicey. Alex had 3 road trips in 5 weeks and the other two weeks were home games, plus the Apple Cup the week after his last road trip. Home games are only slightly better than road trips as far as time at home goes, so around the middle of November I get pretty grumpy. Every year I question why we do this, but the truth is that Alex loves what he does, and that is totally worth the busy schedule for a couple months each year. This first picture is from November 19th, when Alex was on his last road trip. It was the only away game that was early, so the kids got to watch the game and watch for Dad, which was totally exciting. Even better when they got this perfect shot of him clapping excitedly. Kenzie was jumping up and down yelling 'Daddy 'mous' because Olivia told her that only famous people are on TV.

This is how we get through the days. If I make some sort of chart or list, the kids are excited to know what comes next or what they need to finish to get the treat. Sometimes I am more excited about counting down the items until bedtime...I'm not that great of a mom :).

Makenzie took to being 2 quite well. complete with throw-myself-on-the-floor-dramatically tantrums occasionally. I just love how cute her little feet are in this picture, and how long it took her to get to the right position before she started crying :). I'm sure it is much worse for her because I am standing there laughing and taking pictures, but we do what works around here!

Olivia and I had an oatmeal adventure while making cookies :) I'm so glad we still had enough oatmeal to make them, otherwise I totally would have been scooping off the ground and into the mixing bowl.

Most of the time, when Alex is on a road trip, I get done changing a crazy diaper, eating a corn dog, or consoling a hurt child for the 100th time that day when I look at my phone and find a picture of his impressive hotel, or beautiful food, or relaxing, quiet evening. I do my best to be a good sport about it.

Our little sickie just couldn't catch a break; this is him in the rock-n-play, still attached to the Ergo, with a coat laid over him because I just couldn't walk around with him attached to me anymore. It was a long day, but we made it through.

Alex always gets home from football trips in the middle of the night, so he wasn't thrilled when I asked him to get the lights on the house the next day. Also when I mentioned that it was family picture day, and they were being taken 30 minutes away. Also when I said that I desperately needed a break, so the kids were his after pictures. He is amazing though, and got it all done. He even covered some lights in electrical tape so I could have my perfectly straight white lines across the rooftop with no extra lights showing. I am really glad that they got up this day, because it was the last non-snowy weekend until Mid-March, when we took the lights off the house.

This is what the weather looked like as we left for our outdoor family pictures. It was a disaster, but we got a couple cute pictures and that is all we need. Next year we will plan pictures a little earlier in the fall, or find an indoor option. During pictures we were running from overhang to covered porch all over this cute downtown of an old town 20 miles North of Pullman. The photographers were such great sports for not giving up on us, and they got a great family picture, which made it worth the 2 hours of getting ready. Makenzie got her poor little fingers smashed in a car door about 15 minutes in, and she never really recovered, so we called the photo shoot short, but we were all dripping at that point so there wasn't much else we could do.

As we got ready for Thanksgiving, I looked online for an idea of a super easy teaching thankfulness activity, and saw many thankful trees, so I decided to make a construction paper version. I am SO not an artist, but hopefully it doesn't look too much like antlers, and we can try to do better next year. I will say that it was great to work on it throughout the last week in November, challenging the kids to think of something they hadn't thought of yet, and to talk to them about all the different types of things we have to be grateful for.

When there isn't school for a week we do pedicures! My favorite part about this picture is you might notice that the three girls all chose some shade of blue/green, and that sweet boy in gray sweats chose pink. We only do big toes on boys, but I'm not sure that looks much more masculine than all the toes ;).

Monday of Thanksgiving week we had the most exciting guests ever! I can't even express the excitement throughout the house when the Rules came to visit. Allison and I just chatted and caught up while the kids played for their entire visit. Every time I think about this family, I wonder if we could have lived in the Bay Area longer just to continue to live by them and let our kids grow up together. I know that this move to Washington was the best thing for our family, but my selfish side just wants to take that wonderful family with me! I know the kids will make more friends and have a great life here, but I also know that I will never have a friend as easy and perfect for me as Allison is. Hopefully the future brings us closer together again!

I didn't take any pictures while they were here, we were just too busy playing and having fun, but I do have this shot of all 7 kids listening to one of our favorite new stories. We let the girls have a sleepover in one room and the boys in the other, and the whole visit, which lasted just over 24 hours, could have gone on forever :). We love this family!

The week of Thanksgiving was also Hunter's half birthday! This sweet boy has been a part of our life for 6 months, and we are so glad. He completes our family, and has a magical way of bringing the kids together in a happy way to play with the baby. His easy-going demeanor is super fun, and if he figures out the sleeping thing he will just about be the perfect baby :).

His little round face always has the sweetest expressions, he just loves when anyone looks or smiles at him.

The girls couldn't resist joining in on the photo shoot, even with their mismatched outfits and messy hair, but this is our life and I'm so happy to live it.

Not a super great sibling pic, but they tried!

The next day was Thanksgiving, and it was just an easy day at home for us. The rest of the week was Alex's busiest, with the biggest football game on Friday and a basketball game on Sunday that he was preparing for, so we tried to cherish the day we had at home as a family. This is our first Thanksgiving without any family joining us except one year when Olivia was a baby, so I tried to keep the food reasonable and allow for some playing time with Alex and the kids. In the morning we watched the Macy's parade and let the kids make a fun turkey hat, which was the perfect addition to our pictures once we were dressed!

I always take dozens of pictures toget one of all the faces and hopefully most smiling, because msot of them turn out like this one:

We decided to eat mid-afternoon, so around lunch time I made a grab-n-go spread (I know this isn't official hostess terminology...I'm new at being in charge) for lunch, and this was by far the kids favorite part of the day. They especially loved the summer sausage, and have requested about a dozen times to have this lunch again next year :).

Our actual Thanksgiving dinner had turkey, ham, stuffing, funeral potatoes, rolls, deviled eggs, and green beans. We skipped a few things this year, but gave everyone their favorite. Overall a success in the  kitchen, and hopefully next year we know some people to invite over to join in the chaos of a normal day at home.

We ran out of fancy glasses for the kids, so Makenzie had her first shot...of sparkling cider. She wasn't a fan, but she loved the shot glass!

I debated for a long time about deleting this picture, but I decided Hunter's face made it worth putting in. I am desperately trying to keep his hand away from my plate while his other hand is reaching down my shirt...waiting for Dad to bring his bib :).

once the tryptophan kicked in we were done...Charlie Brown Thanksgiving for the kids and a 'nap' for Hunter. Alex was the only one who fell asleep :) We had a small dessert, and after the kids went to sleep I watched my first Hallmark movie to kick off the Christmas season. The entire day was a great start to our holiday season.

The next day was the Apple Cup, so this is how I took a shower. Hunter likes to be *right* by mom all the time right now, so if he's awake, it's impossible to get away for a shower without my little buddy. Someday I will miss these days of so many babies, but I'm not sure I will ever miss having friends join me in the bathroom :).

Olivia wrote her first book, all about a princess who goes into space to be with the stars. I took pictures of a couple pages to quiz my dad on his Kindergarten reading skills. The pages read 'The princess didn't know how to write, she only knows how to scribble scrabble. Each of the pages was more creative than the last, she was writing after she drew the pictures, so some of the transitions are a little funky :)

Our completed thankful tree

This picture cracks me up because it shows how much my mom overestimates my decorating skills :). I had been looking for my rice scoop and funnels since we moved to California about 14 months ago. When I was decorating for Christmas I finally emptied the last decorations box from the garage, and found all of these little kitchen gadgets inside this decorative box, which was in a box with picture frames and such. Sadly, we found this less than a week after i replaced the napkin holder and funnels, but it was a mystery solved! Thanks Mom, for all of your packing help, and for your belief that I would decorate the house that I moved to, even if it didn't happen :).

I always appreciate helpers (Ok that's not true, I usually appreciate helpers), and Carter really enjoyed taking on the role of hair dryer one day. He was so cute making sure every hair was dry, and it only took him about 20 minutes!

Each day is an adventure, but sometimes they are crazy enough to document. One afternoon, right as we were getting home from school, with 3 kids ready for a snack, Hunter had a crazy blowout. A really crazy blowout. I immediately started cleaning him up, and casually asked Olivia to take care of snacks while I got him taken care of. After his bath, I came out to find all the kids sitting in the kitchen together with toast and chocolate milk just hanging out :). That moment makes the chaos of all the other moments bearable. I love all of these kiddos, and am so proud to be their mom.

The End of February

Unfortunately, Dad getting home didn't make this kid's cold go away. Poor little guy has a mean mom who takes pictures of his impressive snot bubbles to show his dad. He did get held most of the day though, so I figure we're even. 

Looking back at these pictures, I realize that by the end of February we were a bit stir crazy. It was a very long winter, with SO much snow, and it's hard to get 4 kids under 7 out into the snow with only one grownup, so we did most of our play inside. Sometimes we had fun, organized activities like Fruit Loop graphing, and sometimes not so much (mattress sliding down the stairs. I write this blog 3 weeks into March, and we are still looking forward to our first sunny weekend...

Anyway, on this rainy weekend when Dad was working, I made a math activity for the kids. I loved seeing their excitement as they figured out each step (sorting, counting, tally, bar graph) and how two of the kids were SO careful not to eat any before it was time (Carter even counted the 1/2 ones), but Makenzie ate 3 for every 1 that she sorted :).

That evening, as we were waiting for Alex to get home from his basketball game, I got a little desperate and just let the kids rip up magazines on the kitchen floor. Surprisingly, they had just as much fun cleaning up as they did making the mess, so it was a total success in my book!

Hunter has officially graduated to real kid food, and he couldn't be more excited. He is nine months old, so it's a little early, and we still buy baby food for when I'm lazy or we are eating out, but most of the time we can just chop up whatever we are all eating. He enjoys any liquid (yogurt, applesauce, pudding) because we are too lazy - or busy - to feed him so he gets to paint his tray while he eats.

Alex had one Sunday where he didn't work and I desperately needed a break, so I got to do the Costco run solo. Costco officially beat me though. By the last few aisles, the nice sample ladies were telling me I either needed to stop shopping or get another cart, and the checkout guy got me a big cart, which has never happened before. I might have been enjoying my time to myself a little too much :)

One afternoon the temperatures got into the 40s, so we headed outside for some bikeriding :). I just love looking at their faces as they go by.

As we were going inside, I noticed Kenzie's little pony coming out of the helmet, she never stops amazing me with her cuteness!

This was President's Day, so we had a LOT of time inside at home again. When I was folding laundry in the loft and I heard the laughter getting suspiciously loud, walked over to find this fun sight. I was mostly just impressed that they made a barrier for Hunter so he wouldn't follow them down the stairs ;).

One fun part of February was officially beginning our after school activities in Pullman. This seems like such a little thing, but I am feeling increasingly like a chauffeur, so we were pretty slow getting started in activities after we moved here. I let each of the kids choose a sport for the spring, and Olivia chose swimming over soccer, baseball, and dance. I am thrilled that she enjoys lessons so much, because she has been our water baby since she was young, and she is totally ready to be swimming independently.

Dad gave Hunter applesauce and pudding to teach him about color combinations ;)

And the last weekend of February, just in case we thought we were ready for spring, we got another snow storm, complete with 6ish" of wet, Oregon-type snow. This was the first time we could really make snowballs or snowmen with our snow, so we brought everyone out to the yard for some tame sledding and playing. Hunter had his first real time playing in the snow, and felt totally ambivalent about it.

As soon as we put Hunter down, all the kids flocked to him, trying to convince him that he loved the whole experience. I'm sure he will be happier when he can walk through it next year.

Kenz wasn't as excited about snow angels as the rest of the kids...she really couldn't handle laying down at all :).

I'm just  going to pretend that this particular sledding trip didn't end with a baby flat on his face in the snow...

Baby bird :)

Getting out the door with all the kids dressed at 8:10 is always an adventure. Some days we don't really care about getting the younger kids dressed, but if we are going grocery shopping or have other errands to run, it's another story. Most days end up with my running frantically around grabbing lunch boxes, boots, blankets, and sippy cups while I beg the older kids to get coats and shoes on and get to the car. We always make it, but we don't always make it happily and I can't remember the last time I had hair or makeup done. One particularly hard morning, Hunter had a blowout at the tail end of the process, so all of the older kids were waiting in the car for a while. I came down to this and suddenly it didn't even matter that we were a couple minutes late.

We also officially completed our collection of 9-11 month old babies climbing into the fridge and loving it :). I have no idea why I have taken this picture with each baby, but it's interesting to note that they were taken in 4 different houses, 4 different fridges, and in 3 different states (Olivia - Fresno, and Makenzie - Concord were both in California). We have moved our little family too many times, but the fridge contents have remained pretty constant!

The last picture is just a brag on myself, because I finally did meal prep for the week for lunches. I happened to have leftover taco meat and brown rice from the week, so I added some veggies and called it good. I will definitely do this kind of meal prep again, it was perfect to have a reason to not eat the PBJ or mac-n-cheese that I was making for the kids, and Alex's lunches were ready to go without thinking about it. A perfect de-stresser for our mornings.