A hole

This Christmas season I feel a hole.  WE don't have our Jaden with us for 8 weeks and we are all feeling empty.  He does like to get everyone worked up, but he also likes to make everyone laugh. He means so much as the oldest sibling in our family.  I hope and pray that our family can make the changes we need to to be happy and peaceful and to want to all be together.

 This squirt barely fits in our kitchen sink.  He likes to take baths, so I figured I'd throw him in the sink every once in a. while to save water.  He wants a bath at least once a day...and sometimes he gets one when he doesn't even ask for one during this post potty training time of his life.

 About a month ago we went up to the ski resort to get passes for the year and we decided to go check out the quakein aspens.  They were beautiful!

Lots of happiness

Lately, noting super exciting has happened, except for lots I guess.   Pearcen had a birthday, which was so much fun, but I'll blog about that separately.  Kamryn has been killing it as volleyball manager and doing dance and piano. I LOVE hearing her play piano everyday.  She's so amazing.  Jaden has been working at the pawn shop, hanging out with friends and of course hanging out with Glory. I love this girl, and I love who Jaden is when he's with her.  She's amazing!

 And this guy, this guys has decided to become a Menace...Dennis some would call him.  He cut his hair and while I was searching for the scissors, he dumped an entire Costco sized bag of veggie straws all over the kitchen.   He also loves to play in make up, ride Otis while yelling "neeeeiiigh!", sneak candy, dump toys all over, hit, throw things and fall asleep at all the wrong times.  But luckily, he's THEE most adorable thing ever!

 And Little Miss Crafts-a-lot is constantly creating. I love her.  She loves baking, crafting, coloring, drawing, reading and gymnastics.  That pretty much describes her day everyday.

Girls Night In!

 Friday night Jase took the younger 3 boys camping and Jaden and Kamryn went to the football game, so Vivian and I decided to have a girls night in.  We had already made 100 cinnamon rolls that day for a church event. So we cleaned up from that.....

 Lit a candle, whipped out a box of M&M's and watched "nailed it" on Netflix, which is Viv's favorite.

 Then she decided that we need to put on face masks....but that feeling left her after having them on for about a minute and they started to tighten.  She said they're too itchy!!  So we took them off.

 Then she wanted to take daddy's spot in my bed so we laid down and started the greatest showman and she was out after the first 10 minutes....just like daddy.

Lately I've been hugging my kids A LOT.  I can't believe we're hitting the stage where they start leaving already.  They're my favorite and I want them to stay with me forever!!!! I'm just going to keep praying that most of them marry locals that want to live here!!!!

Service

I am HORRIBLE at figuring out ways to serve others that don't involve making meals or goodies for them.  And I AM so grateful for the blessing of loving cooking and baking because I'm realizing not all or many moms like it like I do, but I want to do more, so I'm always grateful to hear of other people's acts of service that I can try and do.  A friend posted this today on FB and when I read it, it reminded me of how badly I wanted someone to help me out after my babies.  My mom always came for a day or two...or she got trapped with me for. a week and a half after I had Boston because he came 8 days late, but it's those next few months of feeling trapped and gross and tired and scared and overwhelmed in every possible way:

PSA: If you live near someone who has a baby under 5 months old, assume they need help. Because I had pretty bad postpartum depression after Cohen and then a little bit with each of the others, I worry/suspect that lots of others have it. Instead of telling the new mom, “Let me know if you need anything”, here are things you can offer to do: 

Mom needs physical support in the form of cooking, cleaning, babysitting, grocery shopping, etc. 

She needs emotional support in the form of someone to sit and listen, give a hug, encouraging words, and someone to affirm that what she’s experiencing is "normal". We all deal with it to varying degrees.

Another thing I wish I'd known sooner is that she may crave sweets and carbs but those will make her feel worse. She needs protein each time she nurses or bottle feeds so that she gets some protein every few hours. Protein will stabilize her blood sugar and moods. (handful of nuts, hard boiled egg, beef jerky, greek yogurt, deli meat)

She needs lots of water. 

She needs alone time. Three times a week is not too much! She needs 2 hours alone (or close to it) to feel human. 

There you go. Reach out, offer, insist if you must. Help a momma out ❤️

“I’d like to take your baby for a few hours on Tuesday. What’s a good time. I know I don’t have to, I want to. No, no one at my house is sick.” 😊😜

Of course I know she'd still like meals, so I'll never stop taking meals to pregnant moms and new moms, but to take her other kids is HUGE at that stage.  HUGE!  I'm grateful for the awareness that this post brought to me.

I also have another friend that gets other moms out for walks. And two other friends that offer FREE aerobic classes twice a week for years and years and years!!!!  Right now in life, I need to do simple acts of service, because yes, I'm feeling overwhelmed with my own life and even making an extra mean (or 2 or 3) on my service meal nights sometimes wears me out.   No one warned me that having teenagers and toddlers at the same time would be thee most insane part of this journey, but alas, it is.   A reckless teenager who I believe, truly feels that he is invincible, and a toddler that loves to go around the house making messes faster than I can clean them.  A-N-X-I-E-T-Y!!!!!!

Orren

Our sweet neighbor Orren passed away last week.  He had a heart attack.  He's been pretty sad since his wife died in August but Vivian has always been able to make him smile.  She'd go over there about once. a week with a plate of homemade cookies and he'd trade her for Oreos that he always had in his cookie jar.  He always let us know how much he loved having the kids come say hi.   he even told his parents and siblings because at his funeral they all made sure to come and meet the Vivian that always made Orren's day.  In fact, they told her that Orren wanted her to have his cookie jar...and they filled it with Oreo's.  She hugged his brother and thanked him and then let us know that when she prays to Heavenly Father, she says hi to Orren too.  We'll miss Orren.  He was such a fun, kind neighbor which was a breath of fresh air after our Taylor neighbor that did all he could to try and make our life miserable.

Also, Boston, of course is busy making banana bread and selling it this summer already.  Our house smells SO great every time he does it and he's gotten so good at making them all by himself and cleaning up 90% of his mess.

Starting Summer off....

For the last day of Jaden's lunch group we did a big BBQ here at the house. I love this group of kids.  A LOT!  They're so great and fun and happy and funny and creative and they love each other so much! I always feel ok with Jaden hanging out with them because I know they like to keep him in line.

 Ah, this nakie bum! I love it!  I'm so sad he's getting so tall.  He loves to cuddle after naps and baths and I gladly oblige.  

 Bibs is done with kindergarten!!!! Another sad moment.  So happy for her though.  She was talking about the program for weeks before it was time.  It was thee cutest ever.  Sadly she was put in the back and had 2 tall kids in front her her...ugh, but she did great!  She's already planning lots of trips to her kindergarten teacher's classroom next year.  She's already made some cute artwork for her too.

 I got to take pictures of the Gardner kids this last week and Tru came out in his overalls, so you KNOW I had to snap a few.  He's into putting his arms up in the air and closing his eyes. I have no idea why, but that's what we get for now.

                             
I LOVE being with the kids all the time. Sometimes a vacation or a weekend away, or even a long date sounds nice, but when I actually do it, I enjoy it, but regret the time away from them at this stage....of all of them.  A friend just texted me that she's working as if it were a burden and I thought, "um, single moming for a few days this week 24/hr a day is working"...but then I instantly thought about how there's NOTHING else I'd rather be doing.  Um, of course I'd love a maid and a 2nd full time parent, but Jase is really busy with his clinics right now so he's spending a lot of time down there, but I'm so glad I get to hang out with these guys all summer. We have an awesome plan set up and so far our days are going smoothly...well, a bit messy, but a lot of fun....ok, except potty training Truman...well, it's actually fun, and we're ALL involved, but it's not going well. I don't think he's ready, but we're giving it one more day.

May 2018

May was an awesome month!  Boston got the priesthood!   We were lucky enough to get to do it at our house with grandpa, uncle tracy, and bishop McDowell.   It was very special.  He's such a great kid and he's so excited to be part of young mens!

 The other day I wanted to take pictures of baby Truman and of course, Jaden was walking around without a shirt on, so I had to snap a few since it's so much fun to look back at Jason's shirtless pictures when he was a teenager.    Jaden's a pretty adorable kid.  Sure glad he's part of us!  He keeps me on the edge of my seat...DAILY...but he cracks me up and makes me proud everyday!

 He's officially dating Glory...whom we LOVE!  She's a doll and makes Jaden try harder to be awesome.  They're so hilarious and fun together and all of the kids adore Glory.

 Ok, this is THEE most overload ever!   SOOO many crazy pictures of the baby of our family!  He was being so wacky and cracking us up.

 Boston got a sweet electric scooter for his birthday and Kam took Tru for a ride.  He had a great time!

 Of course Vivi can't let a camera be taking pictures w/o her being in them.  She asked me to shoot a few of her poses....

 And I'm a HUGE slacker...these are THEE only two pictures I got from Easter.  We ended up driving to the valley right after our Easter egg hunt so we could have Easter with the cousins, b ut these are the only pictures I got.

 And this was on Mother's Day.  Tru was helping dad make a shake in his shirtless overall outfit.

 And after church he brought me a chocolate dipped strawberry, they he may have taken a few bites out of already.

 Tru loves just sitting with Jaden on the swing.  They're the cutest bookends ever!

 Vivian helped get Truman ready for church last week and asked if I could take pictures of them before we headed out....again, he did his weird closed eye picture face....

I really love all of these kids.  They're all so great, and so amazing, and so fun!