We Have Four Kids

The other night something made me look up this old blog.  I haven't been here in a while and once I stopped in, I couldn't pull away.  Instagram has taken over that spot in my life for documenting and sharing pictures.  If I'm "wasting" time online, I'm perusing pinterest or instagram.  But never reading blogs.  Gone are the days of getting on each morning and checking in to see what ventures my friends and their new babies were on... and gone are the days where I'd sit down and start typing all of the current thoughts of this mommy of one baby.... two babies.... a boy! I never even touched the surface of our fourth.  I hardly use to miss the opportunity to post a good meal I made, and now I've missed an entire pregnancy and the first 8 months of Knox's life.

This kid is so cute.  What if I finally print this blog someday and he's not in it?  I think I'm back.  Knox needs stories about his first words, his favorite foods, the crickets he eats...

Not to mention these other three just keep changing! I die when I look at old posts and see Sophia as a little girl. I don't know when it happened but she is practically a young woman.  She turned ten a couple of weeks ago and it blows my mind.

I think I said this in my last post a year ago.  But I don't have time to look back at it.  But I'm making a new resolution to write again.  Instagram has made it super easy to document and save some photos.  But I can't help but be dissuaded by that unwritten rule that everyone is annoyed if you post too many pictures and one a day or less is just not always enough. And sometimes there is so much more to say than is appropriate to put in someone's instagram feed.

So again, I think I'm back. I'm writing to myself now and later. I can't imagine anyone else will check this which might make it a little harder to be motivated because those blog days were fun when we were all back and forth with comments.  I'm not above that and for sure all of that validation gave me all the more fire to write.  But along with nobody checking in comes incredible freedom.  Like right now, I'm not even re-reading this. I don't think I will.  Who has time?  It might be pure gibberish and I'm quite confident it is, but I think it's worth it.  I don't have time to words and I don't have time to edit photos... I don't even have time to edit thoughts.  I probably don't have time to write at all since every night once my kids are in bed I think of a million things I wish I'd done better while they were awake.  My life has a chronic MOUNTAIN of things I could be improving on. But maybe that's exactly why I want to write.  So that all of those thoughts and goals and wishes and regrets can be documented somewhere.  To either help me remember and better myself.... or at least give my kids proof, later, of my good intentions. :/

For now, I'm tired and not sure I actually said anything in this unedited mash of words but I'm hoping this will crack the door to that part of my brain so all of the stories and conversations and moments that are happening in this amazing family and life of mine will start pouring out and be recorded.

This is it.  I used to be a new mom and it feels like yesterday.  But now I'm a 34-year-old woman with four kids ranging from 8 months to 10 years.  I still do diapers and baby food and lullabies but now I do homework and soccer and volleyball and piano and friend problems and FableHaven and chores and sometimes I just don't know when my brain is going to catch up with these crow's feet between my brows.  I'm not sure it ever will-- but I know this is it.  I'm IN my life.  It's not like leading up to it anymore.  I'm in it. Making the forever memories for my kids.  More than halfway done raising Sophia under my roof. I'm in it.

It's so overwhelming but so wonderful.  And I'm just so grateful for these four personalities I scored.. and for such a solid partner in Ross to cross our fingers together and hope we do it right.

And for prayer.

Life is still super good over here.

Beach House with Homecs 2012

After San Diego, we headed up to San Juan where we did our annual beach trip with the Homecs.  Gorgeous weather, yummy food, happy kids and great freinds--- it was perfect.

Finn snatched a bag of popcorn from the neighbors and rationed it out to the other kids.  Naturally.

July In San Diego

Lacy and Joe came in town all the way from Florida, which meant

 it was time to party.

We all squeezed into Nana and Papa's house for a little over a week and slept and walked on top of each other, (mostly Nana and Papa with four kids at the foot of their bed climbing in with them at the crack of dawn... that's love)... ate lots of yummy food, watched a lot of olympics, and filled our days with activities that would knock our kids out come bed time. We did...

- The zoo

-Legoland

- Swimming 'till our hair stayed crispy even when clean and matched the grass.  Yikes.

- A girl's only 8 mile walk in the most beautiful San Diego weather where we wandered the most charming farmer's market in Little Italy (hence the overload on pretty-produce photos.)

- Point Loma Seafood where I could eat every day.

- A birthday party for Joseph's 7th complete with a pinata, swimming, and pony rides!

- The tide pools in Point Loma which were really just beautiful but terrifying cliffs overlooking the water since it was high tide.  

- The zip line.  Many a time.

- The trampoline with no enclosure.  We like to live on the edge.

- A girl's night celebrating my step-brother, Kirk and Janice's upcoming baby!

- The beach.  Oh the beach.  You fill up my senses.

- A date night to enjoy delicious food and ghiradelli down town with Lacy and Joe and no kids

- And ANOTHER in Coronado.  We were spoiled.

- And Nana and Papa's younger-kid cousin's camp complete with a beach day, arts and crafts and a Dinosaur Hunt!  Obviously Papa found huge oversized cardboard dinosaurs to scatter in the yard while scary dinosaur growls were pumped out the windows on loud speakers.  Obviously.

It's like 115 today back in the desert.  Seemed like a good day to download my phone pics and dream of 75-degree heaven.  And cry.

4th of July... a little late

We started in San Diego at my mom's house where we piled in their house with my brother, sister in law, and their 6 kids.  We had big plans to meet some more family at ski beach for wave running fun on the fourth... but decided to avoid the insane crowds and enjoy a day by Byron's pool.  It was cold! But that never stops the kids from swimming... and food and good company is all I ever need.  So it was a success.

After a couple of days there, we went up to San Clemente to play with Ross's sister Brooke and her family for a few days and THERE, we got our beach and blue skies.  Heaven. 

February in instagrams

I love that as long as you put them in a grid, you can include WAY more pictures than anyone would ever want to see.  Or at least I tell myself so.  At least there's no major scroll commitment. That's something.

 right? 

The pictures cover: 

-valentines

-my new barstools, (only the most important things, obviously)

-some kite flying and a nice child-taken shot up my nose

-Mila letting Finn pick her boogers in the back seat "because it's making him happy!"

-Ross's annual mancation

-a trip home to San Diego to see Nana and Papa while Ross was on mancation

-a game night with Nana and Grandpa B.

-cookies- cookies- and more cookies

-Finn walking, then two weeks later REALLY walking

-Sophia winning two metals at her first track meet

-Ross recovering from Kidney stones 

- And lots of other random teensie tiny memories I decided I couldn't possibly live without.

Lizzie took our family pictures

And I'm dying to post them all, but trying to resist until after I decide what's going in the Christmas card at least.... Maybe just one.. or two. A few. THANK YOU LIZZIE!!

Sacrifice

I read this quote a while back on my sister, Lacy's blog. It's not short or sweet or catchy. It wouldn't look that good painted on wood or framed in an etsy shop. It's one you really have to read. And then read again when your three-year-old is full of crazy and your 9-month old is waking up at night and you need reminding that it's THROUGH the sacrifice that you really find happiness. I guess it just really resonated with me. I believe it so whole-heartedly. And it scares me that the world sends such a different message.

“The family by its very nature is an institution based upon righteous self-denial and sacrifice. It is not an individualistic or self-centered organization, but a highly cooperative and other-centered institution. Successful families require that men and women make substantial and long-term sacrifices of their time, money, and personal fulfillment in order to dedicate their efforts to rearing the next generation. Selfishness in any form or degree weakens the bonds that hold families together. The rise of selfishness in our society is the fundamental underlying trend that undermines families and makes successful marriages so difficult. Many today find it irrational to devote so much time and energy to the welfare of the next generation, but if this commitment is not deeply rooted in society, civilization will decline and perish, while children grow up in a moral wasteland, confused, unguided, and unloved.

“Moreover, the sacrifices that fathers and mothers make for their children ultimately will result in the greatest possible happiness for those making the sacrifices. In all of human experience, there are no joys more tender, no love more sweet, no fulfillment higher than that found in the family. Those who honor the calling of righteous parenthood will find their souls refined, their hearts purified, and their minds enlightened by the most important lessons of life. They will rise to far greater heights of happiness than those who engage in the narrow and ultimately unsatisfying pursuit of self.”

Bruce D. Porter, "Defending the family in a troubled world", The Ensign, June 2011.

(I want to be sure and express my compassion and understanding: I know that not everyone is able to have a family and I have witnessed some amazing women give so much of themselves and sacrifice for the people around them. This quote meant a lot to ME because I have three small children.)

El Capitan In Photos

This took way too long to get all of these pictures up... so writing seemed daunting... somehow it was less so if I told myself I didn't have to write in paragraph form.

It was so fun.

Kind of cold in the mornings, perfect in the afternoons.

Which is dreamy to me because I live in an oven. Remember?

Except when I had a fever and couldn't warm up and had to sit in the bottom of the tiny hot shower for like an hour at 6am.

I couldn't get enough family.

Or enough little crispy chocolate chip TJ's cookies.

Or enough of Ian's camp cooking.

Or enough of the wise old trees.

The beach was gorgeous.

Besides the tar stuck to all of our feet. Eww.

We hung.

We ate.

We had s'mores around the fire.

The cousins ran around, jumped off of logs, explored, climbed trees, rode bikes, went for hikes.

We woke up with cold noses.

And didn't brush our hair for three days.

A success.