finley is 4 months old!

i cannot believe that she is already 4 months old...she is officially out of the newborn status and can simply be called an infant now. she is so sweet that i just cannot make myself get away from her. everything makes it more difficult for kyle and i to get away for just the 2 of us. with harper, as much as i wanted to embrace life as a mother, i was not completely ready. she was also the most difficult baby. and she was bottle fed. by the time finley has come around i find myself not wanting to leave my children with anyone. not even for a couple of hours. sometimes it is necessary and so far those are the only reasons we have managed to get it together enough to make it happen.
kyle and i know that we need to get out and have a date night, but the idea of asking someone else to come in and take over this ship is becoming an increasingly obviously difficult thing to ask of a person. plus...i like my family. i love my kids. some days we have rough days, but everyday they bring joy to my life. i don't want to miss anything. with finley's 4 month juxtaposed with harper's 6th year i am incredibly aware of how quickly all of this passes.
harper will only be a little girl for a little while longer and i want to enjoy every moment of her wanting to be with me and looking up to me. she may only proudly display the things that i make her for a little while longer. she may only want me to read to her and take her to ballet for a few more years. and at this point i feel like i cannot take those moments for granted.
calvary will only be a little boy for a little longer. next year he starts kindergarten. it won't be long before he realizes that he's too cool to want to hang on to me. he won't want to stay with me at church instead of hanging out with his friends. he might not say "i love you" 500 times a day. he might not need to kiss me 15 times before bed or draw me pictures when he thinks (knows) i'm upset with him. and i know i don't want to miss it.
oliver jack is growing more and more everyday. he's no longer the little baby that wants to snuggle and sweetly play. now, he's a little boy who wants to express his independence and the mind that he is learning is his own. he will soon be too busy to realize that i still want to hold his hand or snuggle in the bed. he's carefree attitude might make it difficult for him to realize that i just want him to come and play with me, and while i can, i want to be the one that gets those rare snuggles and moments of quiet.
finley is an answer to prayer. i prayed that jack would be a laid back baby, and that he is. he will go with the flow as long as we are doing and going. he's too busy to be still. and he is the picture of idle hands and devil's playground. i have rescued many things from the toilet and cleaned crayon off of countless surfaces for evidence. with finley, i prayed that she would be a gentle spirit to counter all of the big personalities in the house. so far she has been just that. she would contentedly sit on my lap all day if i would let her. she calmly and sweetly watches all of the chaos around her. she sweetly smiles at her brothers and sister as they sing and dance and make crazy noises to entertain her (if only they knew that they entertain her all the time without even trying). she lovingly tolerates all of the misplaced fingers, toes, and arms that haphazardly find their way on her head, face, or body. she sleeps. she sleeps through all the chaos, all the noise, all the time. she handles being put in the car a million times a day like a champ. some days i make the executive decision that finley will not leave the house so that she can get the rest her body needs. she refuses to sleep in the car or while we are out and about. so, some days i know that we need to take the time to let her get the naps that all of the other babies got without interuption. it has been a great reminder to slow down and enjoy life.
i have loved watching kyle with her. just as i have watched my own love and nature evolve with each child, i have watched kyle change as well. oliver jack served as a reminder to us both how quickly these days pass. we both held onto his infancy as long as we could and we try to figure out ways to keep harper and calvary from getting any older and any more independent. but they have a taste and are on their way more than we can help. finley, on the other hand, holds on. kyle goes out his way to hold her. if i suggest the gym, bouncy seat, or swing he politely declines. he says, "i'll just hold her." one day he said he just wants to make her into a necklace so that he can wear her all the time. weird. but sweet. he loves how she holds on to his arm when he holds her and how content she is to be held. he has refused several people who have offered to hold her in his place (he swears he didn't understand or had a justified reason). i call her a living doll and that is exactly what she is.
i have also watched as he has spent more time doing things with harper, calvary, and oliver jack. playing legoes, riding bikes, playing ball, taking them shopping...
i am thankful everyday for the decision that we made to have more children. and i am unbelievably thankful that God believes that we could handle it...still not totally sure of that one.
i believe that i needed oliver jack and finley to show me that they truly will not be little for long and reminded me that with each day and each request i will have more things that i will miss. these children have made me rich beyond compare and i only hope that i can show them each day how much joy they bring to my life. i am proud of every single one of them and i pray that i live up to their expectations so that one day they will believe that they had the best mother in the world because that is what they deserve :)

finley's 4 month sats:
25.5 inches long--75 %
14 lbs -- 50 %

oliver jack's 4 month stats:
26 inches
16 lbs

calvary reid's 4 month stats:
25 inches
15 lbs 3.5 ounces

harper faye's 4 month stats:
24 inches
13 lbs 9 ounces

the evolution of a fort...

what started out as a cozy little lean-to in the living room to make enduring strep throat a little less painful slowly evolved into a bed clothing mansion.


day 1 and 2...one king size sheet, a couch, and two chairs...

day 3: two king size sheets, 1 full sheet, 4 chairs, and a tunnel...

day 4-7: ...an entire room, three king size sheets, two full sheets, 3 curtains, a tunnel, 1 twin comforter, 1 full comforter, and a rearranged tv and dvd player...

two doughnuts won't kill you...

...i hope.

let's recap one of the most stressful days of my life...

what started out as an impossibly busy monday morning quickly turned into the day that would never end...
1. i wake up to rush to get EVERYONE ready before school because not only do we have to take harper to school by 8:00 but i have to get to an appointment for calvary by 9:00.
2. calvary is not feeling so well, an illness that would turn out to be killer strep and would end up with a painful penicillin shot by the end of the week.
3. dealing with not so happy calvary and sleepy harper results in frantic out the door mindset and almost tardy harper.
4. i reluctantly cancel an appointment for calvary that took weeks to schedule because of his illness.
5. instead i stop by dunkin donuts for some coffee (this turned out to be on of the highlights of my day)
6. since my appointment was cancelled, i head home.
7. as i pull into my neighborhood i see an old lady walking. a lady so old that it struck me as odd that she was walking at 8:30 in the morning. it also happened to be 43 degrees outside.
8. i get into the driveway and unload everyone and jack turns around and shouts, "GRANNY!"
9. i turn around and see the old lady at the end of my driveway staring at me.
10. i go and talk to her and see that she is holding mail and a tv remote and her nose is running down to her chin. i quickly realize that she is very confused. however, i'm not that great in a pinch and i immediately start panicking in my head. i know that i must find out where to belongs and i also must figure out a way to keep her with me so that she won't try to wander off.
11. i try to get her to come to my house but she is so tired from wherever she walked from that she can barely make it up my driveway. i get her settled into a chair and head in for the phone and some tissue.
12. once outside, i realize that she does not know her phone number which makes the phone useless.
13. i decide that maybe i can down the road and she will identify her house for me. so i load her into my car and then go and get all of my children. calvary is less than thrilled with this situation. oliver jack makes up for his disdain with pure delight.
14. i drive down the road and she points at a house and identifies it as hers. i get out and go and knock at the door and i disappointingly, yet not surprisingly, realize that it is empty.
15. i return to the car and ask her if i can go in and see if i can find a number to call. she responds, "this isn't my house. i don't know who lives here."
16. awesome.
17. i ask her if she would like to return to my house and wait there. once i get home, i panic.
18. i call kyle and beg him to come home. he does come home because he rocks like that.
19. we decide to call 911 and they come.
20. she has a lifeline necklace on but she won't let me push the button because that is "for real emergencies" which was evidently not what we were dealing with.
21. eventually the police realize who she belongs to and her son comes and picks her up.
22. jack kept her company and kept calling her granny and telling her that went pee in the potty. calvary pretended that she wasn't there. finley slept.
23. by 10:45 that adventure was over. however, i still have the vision of her standing at the end of my driveway. what would have happened if i would have gone to that appointment? what would have happened if i didn't stop for coffee and would have made it home too early to see her? praise the Lord for taking care of her!
24. later my mom calls and freaks me out with her news that she is going to the hospital because she thinks she is having a heart attack.
25. i realize that some big mess is happening down the road from me so i decide to prepare for harper's ballet class and meet kyle at his parents' house so that we will not be late waiting on kyle.
26. i rush around getting harper's school work done and all of my stuff together all the while worrying that my mom is having a heart attack.
27. i head off to ballet...rest.
28. my dad calls and says that my mom's EKG was good and that they were waiting on blood work...another sigh.
29. kyle calls and tells me not to try to go home because the police will not let us go home because of all the mess from earlier. apparently bombs were involved.
30. all i want to do is go home and sit on my couch and watch dancing with the stars with my husband!
31. we go to kyle's parents' house and wait. thankfully we had somewhere to go. many people did not.
32. at 10:30 i decide that we should just go home. calvary is getting sicker by the minute, harper is exhausted, jack is out of his mind, and finley needs to eat.
33. we go and the police let us through but warn that they might turn us back around if we get too close to the house they are investigating...we were almost a mile away from the house.
34. we get inside and tuck everyone in and finally at 11:00pm my day ends...
35. breathe.

oh...i forgot....between 31 and 32 jack decided to throw harper's ballet shoes and bag out the window. so jack and i had to walk down the highway in pitch black looking for her shoes...

i thanked my children the next morning for being so wonderful. if they had had a bad day then my bad day would have been a nightmare. praise the Lord for taking care of us...

misplaced?

recently, christy came over and put something in my freezer. when she opened it up she laughed and took this monkey out of the freezer. she chuckled and said, "is this where this goes?" i laughed and threw it into the living room. i have learned to overlook the monkey in the freezer because apparently my children believe that the monkey does indeed go in the freezer. how do i know this? because this picture was taken after christy came over. it was also taken after i had taken the monkey out again. so for now, the monkey remains in the freezer.

harper's field trip to the farm...

harper had a field trip with her class to the farm a few weeks ago and thankfully my mom came and watched the other kids because her new school is not accepting of younger siblings. boo new school. yay old school. anyway, harper and i had a great time and i love that i have some pictures of her in pants. she usually refuses to wear pants, but this morning she requested to wear them because she doesn't like the way hay feels on her legs. its a good thing that she had enough foresight to plan for things like that because at one point she whispered to me, "i have hay in my panties." i'm still not sure how that happened, but i can only imagine the state of her underclothes if she had worn a skirt...

off to the pumpkin patch...

my mom and i took the non-school kids to the pumpkin patch on one of the only rainy days we have had in quite a while...cause that is how we roll. thankfully, it stayed dry enough for us to have a hayride, pick a pumpkin, play (smell) with some farm animals, and briefly enjoy some apple cider. the ladies at the farm were awesome and accommodated us in spite of the fact that they usually reserve the hayride festivities during the week for schools. my mom and i wrangled all the kids and even though they were all a bit tired and hungry by the time we were done we had very well behaved children. well behaved children= fun for all.

one doughnut won't kill you...

i hope :)

pumpkin painting fun...

we love to paint around here and we generally do many paint related art projects throughout the year. one of our favorites started last year and that is pumpkin painting.

i sometimes forget that not all kids are natural painters. harper and calvary have always kept their paints separate and worked diligently to paint with purpose. on the other hand, little jack-jack brings the joy to painting. he generally starts with painting various parts of his body and finishes up with painting the intended project. clean-up with jack is normally a bigger chore.

calvary meticulously paints his pumpkin...he was quite upset with himself that the black bled into the white part of the eye...

contrast with oliver jack's method...never have two artists been more different.

jack's plate of paint 5 minutes into the project...

calvary's plate of paint as we finished up...

sometimes...

confessions of an imperfect mother...

sometimes, when the bread is low, give my kids the heel of the bread while i take the nice, yummy inside bits.

sometimes my children do not brush their teeth in the morning and i count eating breakfast as the way to get rid of the night grime.

when my kids forget to brush their teeth before bed, *sometimes* i do not go and get them out and make them brush.

*and by "sometimes" i mean "never".

sometimes i let calvary play computer games while oliver jack and baby rose sleep so that i can watch a show on my dvr.

sometimes i let calvary watch a show so that i can take a shower.

sometimes i throw mcdonald's toys away and then lie about where they are when the kids ask.

sometimes i feed my kids raman noodles for dinner.

sometimes i watch icarly when the kids are not around.

JUST GIVE ME THE CUPCAKE...

3 month babies...

finley rose at 3 months...

oliver jack at 3 months...

calvary at 3 months...

harper at 3 months...