overview

It's almost Christmas! I can't believe it!  We leave for Canada in two and a half weeks!  My baby sister is getting married in two and a half weeks!  I keep thinking I'm doing a pretty good job of being organized, and then I realize how soon it is and think I'd better get a move on!  (or I remember that my baby needs a passport that I totally forgot she doesn't have and start stressing about what else I might have forgotten!)

We aren't doing Christmas cards this year I don't think.  We were planning on it.  But we don't have a family picture with Sadie in it, and we were going to get one, but so far haven't been able to find the time!  We have been busy!  And it's been great!  With trying to get our backyard project done, thanksgiving, Christmas, visitors, passports, parks, soccer, and having 4 kids, life has been full!  

We had to take three pictures, one with each person holding Sadie to appease the masses.  By Owen's turn Sadie was done being passed around though!

Brenna holds Sadie any chance she gets!  I have a pictures somewhere of Brenna wearing this exact same outfit.. I need to find it!  They are looking quite a bit alike, and I love how they love eachother!  Until Sadie spits up.. then Brenna is outa there! 

 Soccer has come and gone, and it was so much fun!  This is Mason's first activity besides swimming lessons, and our first team sport experience.  It was so fun to watch them, and they really improved in the rules and their skills in the 10 weeks.  They are so sad it's over, so we signed them right back up for the season in the winter after Christmas!  It will be the last time they can play on the same team, which is really nice for me!  And Jeremy will coach them next time, which will also be cute!  Although he did yell a little embarrassingly loud at their games... at least this time it will be less awkward since he's actually the coach.  haha he didn't think it was too loud!

Mason is loving preschool.  We got to go on a field trip with him and Owen thought that was pretty neat!  Mason is reading pretty well for a 4 year old, and loves getting rewards for good behavior at preschool.

Owen the chill dog.  So cool.  He is pretty easy going and we all love him for it.  He and Mason can be the best of friends, or they can fight and argue... I highly prefer best of friends!

Aren't my boys handsome?

 And our little Sadie!  She is 4 months now!  Which is crazy!  And she is big!!!  We just went to the doctor and she is above the 95% for height and 85% for weight.  Brenna was always in like the 25% for weight, so Sadie's got some lbs on her!  She has become a pretty happy girl, and we all love her to bits.  She did get her shots yesterday though, and she has been a little bit unhappy since then... and she didn't sleep.. so today we are relaxing a bit!

So life goes on and kids grow too fast and seasons change before I know it!  Life seems to be flying by since Sadie's been born!  Before I know it I will be sending her off to kindergarten!  

A day in the life...

I want to blog a bit more just to document life, but I have a hard time finding a chance when I can use both hands!  I don't even have many pictures on the computer to share or anything, and I am doing this as fast as I can since right now I should be sleeping soundly since Sadie is, and this time is precious!  

Life has been busy!  Which is nice!  A little crazy, and I don't always handle it like a super mom should, but I am glad it's busy.

Sadie is 2 months old now.  She is in the 91% for height, 65% for weight, and 25% for head circumference.  Not too bad.  She's definitely growing fast!  A little too fast if you ask me, but I guess I don't have a say.  These last few days she has started cooing quite a bit, which is so lovely!  I could listen to those sweet sounds all day!  But she evens it out with about 5 to 1 crying to cooing ratio, so I don't get to listen to them as often as I'd like!  She can be fussy, but we all love her to pieces!  

I have been doing the Insanity workout videos every morning for 4 weeks now (on Saturday I will be done week 4).  I haven't missed a day!  I am fairly surprised, but it's because I know if I miss one it will be a slippery slope until I stop completely.  It's getting harder to be motivated to do it every morning, especially when we are busy and I'm not seeing the results quite as much as I'd like.  I would really like to fit back into some normal clothes sometime in the very near future... it's not looking good!  It does feel good to be exercising though!  

Usually I get out of bed sometime between 6:30 and 7:15, get kids breakfast, make Brenna lunch, and then start working out while they eat so that I can be done JUST in time to throw Brenna's hair into something while we are inevitably running out the door late to the bus.  Then I feed Sadie, shower, and get Mason ready for preschool for the next hour.  Get him off or drive him if it's my week, and then do errands or clean the house or hold the baby or do whatever until he gets home, lunch for everyone, quiet time for the boys, feeding Sadie usually and hopefully quiet time for me.  We have a couple of hours until Brenna gets home after that, so we usually play yahtzee or do some chores or run out if I forgot errands earlier.  

Brenna gets home at 4, so I let her unwind briefly, we do her homework, and I make dinner (usually all of this is with a cranky baby who needs some attention or food).  By the time that is done it's usually later than I think it will be and we start getting ready for bed.  Mondays we have soccer practice though so those nights are just crazy!  My kids go to bed around 7, so when Brenna doesn't get home till 4 it makes for a bit of a chaotic evening sometimes!

And then we do it all again!  I will say that I look forward to weekends a lot more now, especially with working out so that I am not so stressed about starting or finishing at a certain time!

Oh yah, and throw in in any spare time I might have preparing for our primary program (I'm the chorister) and sewing temple cultural celebration costumes and trying to figure out halloween costumes...

I keep thinking things will slow down, but they definitely show no signs of doing that!  But we are happy.... almost all the time!  I get frustrated with kids who won't get along or incessant whining, or a baby who needs to be held all of the time or a house that won't stay clean.  Sometimes I lose my cool, more often that I'd like to.  But I also feel so blessed to be these kids mom and every day I look at them and think about how much I love them and I think of how much I love our home and how blessed we are!  So really life is pretty good!  Crazy, but very good!

Here are just a few pictuers!

Brenna is a very helpful big sister, and is also getting very good at reading very quickly.  She loves learning and has fun at school.  She loves reading and math, like her mom! 

Mason is excelling in preschool too and is already reading two and three letter words fairly well!  He catches on so quickly, he is always surprising us!

Owen is talking more, although lately he's developed quite a bad stutter.  He is so cute and melts my heart all of the time!

Sadie gets a lot of the spotlight lately, but she is as cute as can be!  We love her!
Jeremy is working hard at work, and is such a big help to me at home too.  I appreciate everything he does for our family, and the help and understanding he gives to me!  And the kids love playing with their dad!  Soccer is a good quality time thing for them now, and it's fun to see!

Stitches

Better late than never, right?  Blogging is harder these days!  We had quite the playdate two weeks ago!  Every Thursday we go to the park with friends for a playdate!  The kids often don't have shoes on since there is sand at the park.  So at the end of the playdate we were getting ready to go, and the kids were all climbing on these rocks in a little ... rock garden?  Suddenly Mason started crying and running my way... honestly, not out of the ordinary.  BUT when he got there, there was blood everywhere!  His hands were covered and he said he stepped on something.  I started cleaning off the cut and realized it was pretty big, and boy was it bleeding a lot!  Luckily, my friend was there and she is a nurse, so she took over applying pressure and keeping the foot up, while I tried to find a bandage and figure out what happened.  She took one look and said we needed to definitely go get stitches.  Since she is awesome, she also took Owen home to her house to watch him while we went in.  It turned into a pretty stressful, horrible day!  I thought stitches are no big deal, but they were a big deal to this boy!  

So first none of us had a band-aid on hand, so we ended up wrapping his foot in a big maxi-pad.  haha you use what you've got, right?  And then we ran to the kids urgent care.  I packed Sadie in the sling, and then carried both of them to the door, only to find it was closed.  So we drove to another urgent care.  Again I put Sadie in the sling and carried both kids in. They saw that he was still bleeding heavily, so they wrapped it up for us, but said they don't stitch kids there!  So they told us we have to go to the hospital ER.  This is no good!  But Jeremy found an urgent care that would do it, so we drove there.  

Mason at this point was over it, happy, and walking fairly well with his foot wrapped and his shoe back on, so I was thinking it'd be fine.  

They kept giving him stickers and the nurse there was fantastic.  He was all smiles and laughter while they figured stuff out!

He had no idea what was coming for him!  Poor boy.  They started by trying to convince me to go to the hospital... haha I should have listened.  I thought he'd be fine.  

Then they put topical numbing stuff on for a while to numb the area.  So I thought everything would be hunky dory with everything frozen.  Turns out the freezing needles still hurt like heck... it sounded like he was dying.  And it was really hard to hold his hand and look into his eyes and not be able to help!... while bouncing a baby on my knee at the same time!

It got better after that for a little.  He was nervous and jumpy while they did some stitches, but being tough.  Then they reached the very bottom and he wasn't frozen enough down there, and he could feel them stitching him up.  After that he never got calm again.  And it still took a LONG time.  It wasn't the doctor, it was a nurse practitioner doing them, and I don't know if it was longer than usual or not, but it was long.  start to finish, 45 minutes or so... Mason was screaming for about 30 of those minutes.  They freezed him more, but at this point he was too scared of the pain and he did not stop.  He was begging to be done and go home.  The doctor arrived but didn't take over, but he did do magic tricks, which almost calmed him down for a minute.  It was really hard.  I was trying to distract him, then I was trying just to not cry myself.  We said a prayer, I bribed him with ice cream when it was all over... whew, it seemed like it took all day!

Not so happy afterwards!

 After that it was good.  He was a little emotional the rest of the day, but he was pretty good.  He barely even walked funny or anything, we had to keep reminding him not to run on his foot because it would start to bleed again.  Then 8 days later, we went and got the stitches out!  This was MUCH faster, probably 30 seconds or less, but just as traumatizing.  haha he did not like people touching his stitches!  

 It is all healed now, and we are back to normal... and much more careful about wearing shoes at the park!  Not something I want to do again any time soon!  Or ever!  Next time I will just go to the ER where they said they put the kids under with gas so they don't freak out... totally worth it in hindsight! 

Crazy Life!

Well, life has been a little nuts lately!  In a good way though!  We had Sadie on July 31st, I got home from the hospital on August 1st, my mom got here on the 5th, Brenna started school on the 6th, Mason started preschool on the 11th, My dad got here on the 15th, we blessed Sadie on the 17th an had the family over, my parents left on the 18th, the same day my brother arrived (he didn't stay with us, but we were able to spend some time with him and Whitney!) and the day they left, my sister Kari arrived, and she is staying with us for two weeks!  Whew!  I'm sure I forgot some things too, but it has been AWESOME!  I have been not getting a ton of sleep, but life has been so good!  I have my sweet baby to love, we have a schedule, Brenna loves school, and Mason does too, and family time is always a good time. 

Having my mom here was incredible!  She was so helpful, and we had so much fun.  We cleaned and organized things, she spent some time with the kids, and took the boys on some grandma outings so I could rest, we shopped, and we enjoyed cuddling Sadie.  I can't even describe how much I appreciated her visit and how much fun I had.

 

Let me back up and start from the beginning. 

 

A couple of nights after Sadie was born Jeremy took the kids night swimming.  We had never done that before and the kids loved it!  Too bad they have such an early bedtime so we don't do it often, but it is something we will have to do again!  Jeremy put some glowsticks in the pool too and they had a ton of fun!  Sadie and I watched from the side!

 

 

 
Brenna's first day of school pictures.  Her first day went really smoothly, and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.  She was smiling when I left, which made me feel better about leaving her.  Not that I didn't cry, because I did, but she loves every minute of school so far!  Jeremy was able to come drop her off too, so I had some moral support.  Also, Brenna LOVES getting her picture taken.. so there are a few!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
These Jammies that my mom brought Sadie are her miracle jammies.  They are too small now, which is sad, but the first time she wore them she slept for 7 hours!  To date that's her record!  Every night she wore them she slept well though... so thanks mom!!

 
This little boy just kills me.  I love every hug and kiss and cuddle and wrestle and high five I get from him.  What a cutie!  And so full of love!

 

 
Mason is really good at playing memory.  He legitimately beat Jeremy 3 times in a row...

 
My awesome S-I-L Aly came over to meet Sadie and take some pictures of her!  We are so lucky to have such a talented photographer in the family!  And we had fun playing dress up and things with Sadie.  She wasn't overly cooperative, but I think we got some good ones!  Thanks Aly!

 

 
Brenna wanted to be just like Aunt Aly, so I gave her my camera... I now have about 150 shots like this :

 

 

 

Grandma's are the best!  My kids are definitely blessed in the Grandma department!  Both of their Grandma's are great!  One doesn't love getting her picture taken though.. haha so there's not as much proof as there should be of her visit... also I am bad at remembering to take pictures!!

 
Grandma spoiled the kids!  She bought them their first Legos!  And they have just loved them!  We play with them every single day, what a great gift!  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Smith! 

 

My dad arrived for a quick weekend so that he could meet Sadie and we could bless her.  We got to go on a double date with them (and Sadie) which was really nice!  I love spending any and all time I can with them! 

 

Pictures from Sadie's blessing day!  We didn't take any at church because I had to go to Primary after sacrament, and all of the kids ran off anyway, excited to get to their classes, so luckily we snapped a few before we left for Church!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Owen really loved Grandpa.  It was so cute to see him always snuggling up to him.  He also was a broken record of asking Grandpa to play on his tablet, but the cuddles were cute either way! 

 

 
I didn't take any pictures of Devin and Whitney's visit, which I just realized and makes me sad!  I will have to make sure and take some of Karli's visit while she's here.  Jeremy and I were able to take Sadie and go on a date while his mom played and watched the other kids, which was really nice and we appreciated the chance to get out and spend some time together.  We have been very blessed lately and are so grateful!  Our family has been awesome, and friends who have brought meals and checked in.  Life is good, and even when 3 kids are crying and messes pile up and things seem like they are falling apart, life is still good!

Sometimes it seems like she never sleeps.. but she is a fan of her bouncy seat!