Snapshots

 Mr. Noah... sometimes happy, sometimes sad.

 Leah started violin lessons last week and, according to her teacher, has a natural talent for holding the bow and the violin.  Let's hope that is a sign of good things to come!  

 An unlikely story spot.

  Leah dressed up like a 100 year old lady for the 100th day of school.   

She refused to wear the wig, but Adam was happy to give it a try.  He's always trying to make us laugh.

 Adam is my laundry helper extraordinaire.  He is happy to help sort, load, start, and switch the loads, but most of all he loves cleaning out the lint trap.

I have so many pictures of Noah sleeping... because I'm always relieved when he finally gives in. 

 I love these brothers.  Adam still approaches Noah with the softest, squeakiest voice and says,
"Hiiiii Noah.  I'm your brother.  I'm Adam."

 We got some fish!  Emma named them "Norman" and "Norman Also", but was later convinced by her big sister to name them "Norman" and "Sofia".

She reminds me just a bit of Darla from Finding Nemo... 

"Eeaaaaat, fishy!  Eeeeaaaat!  Why him's not eating?!!!!"

It might not be a puppy, but everyone is thrilled we have some kind of pet in our home.

Just January

Given that we are in the middle of the coldest winter we've experienced in a while, we've all been sick, the sun is not shining and Jason's been out of town (and will be again soon), this January has not been the best of times.  But the spurts of happiness in my days are the ones I want to remember.  Most of our days are quiet... not literally- quiet doesn't seem to be in our vocabulary- but figuratively.  We're enjoying slow days around here, which is exactly how newborn babies in winter like it.  Our prayers these days are filled with gratitude for a warm house and kids that are content to stay at home reading, crafting, playing endless games of make-believe, Legos, Play-Doh and snuggling up on the couch for family movie night.  Life is simple.  Life is good.

While Jason was in Puerto Rico I took the kids to IHOP for breakfast.  I cringe at eating breakfast out- pancakes and eggs are just not that hard to whip up at home- but the trip earned me Mom of the Year award.  We also went to the library and through the carwash- woo-hoo!  Again, these days make me so grateful for the simplicity of life.  I just can't imagine my kids getting nearly so excited about such things in another 10 years.  

Having Jason gone for a week was really hard toward the end.  While we have our own kind of fun when Daddy is gone, it's no fun being the parent that is left behind while the other one is on an 85 degree tropical island, enjoying full nights of sleep and eating out.  We go through this every year but I have yet to figure out how to make it through these trips without at least one meltdown (from myself and each of the kids) before he gets home.  Next year we are planning on leaving the kids with my parents and going together for a few days before the work starts.  That should help quite a bit.  Then I'll be in these pictures, too.

We put our bounce house away a few weeks ago and pulled it back out again today.  It was just as fun as ever!  Santa sure did bring us a great Christmas gift this year.

Adam was in charge of the lesson for Family Home Evening tonight and wanted to make scripture cookies.  I loved making these as a kid- you follow a recipe that uses scriptures to list the ingredients- Matthew 5:13 says 'Ye are the salt of the earth', Isaiah 10:14 says "...as one gathereth eggs that are left...", etc.  The process was fun and the results delicious!  It was a good reminder that we can truly find the answer to any of our problems- even how to make cookies!- in the scriptures.  Clearly the kids were mesmerized by the process... 

This is my new life three days a week- sitting in the car in the Target parking lot while Emma and Noah nap and Adam is at his new preschool.  I felt like his previous preschool was no longer a good fit for him so we switched him to a preschool at the local gymnastics center.  So far he loves it!  The only down side (for me) is that it's in the middle of the afternoon, so naptime usually takes place in the car.  But it's a small price to pay to see Adam so happy in his new school.

Leah has been dealing with mean girl drama at school, which breaks my heart.  She's only in first grade!  Unfortunately we have seen a bit of the bad attitudes she's surrounded by at school spilling over at home, resulting in things like this- "Adam's mean list".

Thankfully I've been asked to teach Leah's Primary class at church, so she and I get a little bit of "alone-ish" time together every week.  It's just me, her, Noah, and her 5 classmates.  It's an exciting year for Leah- she'll be turning 8 and getting baptized this year!

Emma Grace continues to be the cutest two-year-old in the world.  She has a hilarious vocabulary, a great imagination, and a shriek that is impossible to ignore.  She's straightening her hair with tongs here.

And Mr. Noah gets his own post.  Other than that... that's life!

Three Kids and a Baby...

...is a whole lot different from having four kids.  Four kids implies that your children have basically the same needs- they all eat and sleep and play around the same time every day.  Three kids and a baby means that you have one tiny person who demands your attention all. day. long. and three other small people who spend most of their time wandering around wondering whatever happened to that lady they used to call "Mom".  I remember the transition from two kids and a baby to having three kids.  I'm guessing right around the time having three kids felt easy was the time we decided to have another baby.  Technically we have four kids, but these days it's a whole lot more demanding than that.

Noah has just recently decided that he is okay with sleeping in small spurts not in my arms or with his nose shoved into my armpit.  He seems to like having his own quiet room and his own big crib to stretch out in.

For all of the complaining that I've done over the last three months about having him sleep in my bed, I felt a bit rejected last night when he tossed and turned and shook his head until I finally deposited him back in his own bed, where he immediately fell asleep.  He has never slept for longer than 4 or 5 hours, and that has only happened once or twice.  But he goes to bed around 7:00 and can stretch the night out until 9:00 the next morning, at which time he wakes up full of smiles and coos and the most adorable chubby-legged kicks and wiggles I've ever seen.

He loves to stare down the ceiling fan in my bedroom, and has plenty of emotion directed at "the thing that Mommy is always holding that is constantly in my face" - my phone.  It's where I take all of my pictures now, but he sure does not like it one little bit, as is illustrated by this series of pictures.

What a scowl!

He does not like to be held by other people.  He will tolerate Daddy and his sisters and brother in small doses, but strangers are just not okay.  I always cringe when people offer to "take him off my hands" for me, only to watch him erupt into screams and then apologetically hand him back to me.  I've had other babies that are content to be passed around to anyone that is looking for a quick baby fix, but Noah, not so much.

I confided in a friend one day that for the first six weeks or so I hadn't been feeling much joy in the newborn stage.  Newborns can be so hard.  When they need you, they need everything you have to give, and that doesn't leave much to give the other people in your family.  I hate to think that I've glossed over this fact in the past on my blog, but the truth is, the love that I feel for each of my babies as we've bonded and learn to work together is so huge and wonderful and all-encompassing, it really does erase the memory of the hard times.  The love of a mother's heart is such an amazing thing.  Even on the hardest of days, I am so grateful that I get the chance to be this little man's mother.

And it's not that I want to forget the hard days, but I'd just so much rather remember the good ones.  The chub of his thighs.  The adorable baby snorts when he's crying.  The way he immediately calms down when he hears my voice.  The soft fuzz of his head and the sweet smiles that he offers me in his sleep when his belly is full and he's all settled down.  He is completely irresistible.

60 Pounds

Jason is sitting on the sunny, sandy beaches of Puerto Rico right now while I'm home in the arctic tundra of Iowa (with four sick kids at that).  Since I'm thinking of him and no one is asking for my attention in this particular moment, I thought I'd finally post Jason's weight loss post (that he told me he'd probably never get around to doing himself.  Busy providing for the family and all that...)  Jason lost 60 pounds this summer.  I'll let his selfies with Adam do most of the talking.

End of March- 

 End of August-

Wow.  And hello, Handsome!  He worked hard to get it off.  He went on the Medifast diet and ate no more than 1000 calories for five months.  He was allowed one "Lean and Green" meal each day, which meant we had a LOT of spinach salad and tilapia this summer.  His diet was no small effort, and it took some shifting in habits on the part of the whole family, especially from me, the head cook.  I realized that the food that I cook for my family is not always healthy, but it is always meant as a gesture of love.  Tilapia just doesn't always say "I love you" like a brownie trifle does.  The diet is actually a very small part of the reason that the kids and I chose to spend 5 weeks in Utah this summer.  I wanted to support Jason in his weight loss efforts, but you might recall that I was growing Mr. Noah this summer.  Spinach salad doesn't quite hold a candle to a big cookie when it comes to pregnancy cravings, and we both knew it.  So away we went, and it was awesome to see what a transformation Jason made while we were gone.

Weight is such a tricky thing.  It creeps up and hangs around and you don't really notice it until you start looking at old pictures and wondering how you didn't notice that extra weight in the mirror.  I know this because I've gained and lost the same 60 pounds of my own four times in the last seven years.  Going on a diet was also really tricky around the kids because we really want them to develop healthy eating habits and views of themselves, and not every diet promotes those things.  We were always very specific about the health benefits of Daddy losing weight, not just the desire to look better.

Before we moved from our apartment into our new house in August, we went through all of Jason's old clothes and got rid of about 85% of them.  That was at least another 60 pounds worth of excess that he was so excited to get rid of.

When I took the clothes to the local clothing donation center, there was another lady there doing the same thing for the same reason, only her husband was 65 years old, had diabetes, and was down to 350 pounds.  That made me all the more grateful for Jason's efforts to get healthy now.

If he were writing this post, Jason would say that he wanted to lose the weight so he could be active with his kids and be around when they have kids.  That he wanted to gain more confidence in himself.  That he wanted to prove to himself that he could do it.  That he wanted to feel more attractive.  That he wants to be a better example to our kids of caring for the body that Heavenly Father gave him.  That he enjoys running now.  He would say that going on that diet was a matter of swallowing his pride and admitting to others that he was on it.  That it was really hard to reject every sweet treat, smothered burrito or piece of fruit that passed in front of him for five months.  That there were times when he wanted to gnaw his own arm off or chuck his soy-based brownie out the window.  He would say that this diet was ideal for him because he is such a rule follower, and the rules of this diet are very strict.  Just the way he likes things.  Very clear cut.  He would say that it is refreshing to be able to walk into any clothing store and know that he can find something that will fit.  That hasn't always been the case.  And he would say that weight doesn't represent who you really are inside, but that it feels great to have a body size that more accurately represents who you want to be.

What he wouldn't say is that weight is a very sensitive issue in his life and in his family, or that it can take a long time to realize that no amount of "I hope to lose weight" goals will actually make the scale go down like some real action will.  That the weight that he put on during graduate school was not ideal nor desirable, but it represented another kind of *huge* sacrifice that he was making for our family.  Anyone who has been in graduate school knows about that sacrifice.  You are pushed to the absolute edge of health, sanity, patience... it is a trial all of it's own, and it takes a total commitment.  Losing that graduate student weight has been an awesome way to close an incredibly trying chapter of his life.

And he wouldn't say that he doesn't snore anymore.

But, like I said, he's on a Caribbean beach somewhere right now (hopefully getting at least a little sunburned!).  So I'll say it for him.  I am still so impressed and proud of his amazing achievement!

3 Months

Mr. Noahcakes is three months old today. It feels like he's been with us fovever, and yet I feel as new as a mother of 4 as I did three months ago.  The learning curve isn't so high, but the balancing act is incredible.  Noah loves to be held, awake or asleep, and his horrible daytime sleeping habits can only be blamed on me.  I can rarely resist the chance to lay down with him, to rest and to stroke his bald little head while he sighs in his sleep.  I figure I may not have time to lay with him tomorrow, but I'll do it today while I have the chance.  Eventually I'll leave him alone and force him to figure it out. In fact, we set up the nursery for him this week.  He needs a quiet place to call his own (don't we all?), so the transition out of our room has slowly begun.  It came awfully fast.

Noah doesn't mind tummy time in small doses.  He has stiff arms and legs a lot, so he isn't usually happy to snuggle up in my sling or wraps. I suspect he will enjoy the snugli once he has the head control for it. Right now his head is still quite wobbly and holding him requires both hands.  Combining that with the fact that he loves to be held, and I haven't gotten a while lot done in the last three months.  23 hours a day, I don't mind. The other hour I work frantically on the have-to-do's while he screams or glares or occasionally beams at his brother and sisters.  His smiles are to die for.  He has the best smile and opens his eyes up big and wide- he smiles with his whole body.  He seems to have a lot on his mind for such a little fellow, and often scowls as he is trying to figure things out- like how to get out of this contraption!

He has a tuft of orange hair on the side of his head that leads me to believe his hair will be the same color as Emma's, but his eyes are turning a deep green color.  He's filling out quite nicely- growing out of outfits every day (sniff, sniff).

He is fascinated by Adam.  It is so easy to see the beautiful bond of brotherhood developing between those two already.  Adam is always happy to sit by Noah's side, hold his hand and say, "Noah, it's okay.  I'm your brother.  Your brother is here."  Melts my heart every time.

 As for his sisters, I assure them that he will be bigger than them and running circles around them in no time.  Leah likes to hold him and Emma leans in and gently kisses him on the forehead, but by and large, the kids all know that babies need milk, clean diapers and sleep, none of which they can provide.  So they stay occupied with each other and let Noah get what he needs.  But he'll be an awesome playmate before they know it.

"Hey!  Pssst!  Over here!  Just one more year and I'll be able to chew the pages out of that book!"