Happy 40th Wedding Anniversary to my wonderful parents!
FORTY YEARS!!!!
That's a really long time to be married to the same spouse.
Well done, Mom and Dad!
... To have and to hold,
from this day forward,
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love, honor, and cherish,
till death do us part.
I saw a picture on Instagram a few weeks ago and I thought it was pretty cool. It was of a mom who is expecting her 6th baby and while she was standing sideways for her pregnancy profile picture, all her other children were lined up sideways as well.
I thought that was pretty cool and worth trying with my little crew.
Here was our inspiration:
Here were our first attempts:
Addallee wanted nothing to do with it, and the kids had their own ideas about how we should line up.
The results were MUCH better the second time.
Definitely better results when Lee Lee was in a good mood! I can't believe how big they all are getting... its so easy to notice when they're lined up like that.
I don't know that we will take these pictures every week... but it is a pretty cool picture and very special knowing that this is (we believe) my last pregnancy and our other children as so involved and excited to meet their new brother or sister.We are rounding 4 weeks since the little Maizey Blue has joined our family, and I am going to cautiously state that a puppy joining our family has gone much more smoothly than I anticipated.
When I remember getting Lloyd as a puppy, I remember a puppy as A TON OF WORK! Which... there's not doubt, a puppy is a ton of work.
But contextually, adding a puppy to our lives right now brings a different amount of work than a puppy did 9.5 years ago when Lloyd joined our family.
Hubby and I got Lloyd Carr the puppy in October 2011. He and I were married in June. We moved in together for the first time in August, and in a new rental home. He started a new job in August. When Lloyd joined our family, we were just adjusting to married life and our only dependent was Lexie, my three-year-old cat.
For us, a new puppy was A TON OF WORK -- and really, our first shared responsibility in marriage.
Really... a month in, she is not as much work as I remember Lloyd being.
She's still a rambunctious puppy who chews and needed to be house trained, and still needs a lot of training... she is a puppy who is a ton of work... but really, Hubby and I juggle A LOT of things that are a ton of work.
We now have five children (who are very demanding). When we got Lloyd, we had JUST received a number of lovely wedding gifts (which our sweet puppy was now trying to chew). With Maizey, those beautiful wedding gifts were put into storage about five years ago when the twins were born with no plans to take them any time in the next decade.
Our house is already baby-proofed because Hunter is a newly walking toddler and loves to explore. The baby-gates were already up for his safety... and now Maizey has the same boundaries.
We are teaching Maizey what toys are HER toys to chew, and what she is not allowed to chew... but truthfully, we don't have THAT many nice things in our life with five children and one more on the way. We teach our children to be respectful of our furniture and our home... but accidents happen, and we expect accidents to happen. This is why Hubby and I will not be investing in a new family room furniture set for another decade or so.
I'm sure she'll find her own mischief and prove me wrong... but really I'm not sure what Maizey could damage that our children haven't already damaged.
She was sleeping through the night a week after we got her. She is very at home in her kennel (which she spends time in at night, when we leave the house, and when we're eating meals), and she has not had an accident inside in over a week.
She is also a LOT of fun, very gentle with our children (even Hunter), and she copies everything Lloyd does -- and Lloyd is a very good dog.
When Lloyd was a puppy, I remember feeling very guilty that if Hubby or I wasn't playing with him, he was by himself. Now... wow, we have a LOT of people to love on Maizey. She plays and cuddles with Lloyd, and Hubby, and Tracey, and Howard, and Caroline, and Lee Lee, and even Hunter. Of course we need to makes sure are being gentle with he and that she is being gentle with them... but there are a lot of people to make her feel loved and wanted.
The only one who spends zero time with Maizey is Lexie. She watches her from up high and from afar -- but she enjoys the fact that she can go places that Maizey cannot, and when Maizey is in her kennel, Lexie continues to enjoy the king size bed cuddling by my feet.
All in all, we are not in the market for another puppy and time soon... but a new puppy (especially a really good puppy like Maizey Blue) did not bring nearly the chaos I was expecting to our already crazy crew.
Ask me again in three months when the baby arrives and I might have a different story.
These are a few of Hunter's Favorite Things
Brushes...
Tooth brushes
Toilet brushes
Hair brushes
Combs
Brooms
Swiffers
Wipes
Knives (adult, child, and pretend)
Scissors (adult, child, and pretend)
Remote controles
Cell phones
Baths
Mama
I get a lot of work done for my job early in the morning before the little ones wake up.
Then, Tracey gets off to school without much effort on my part... and I get more work down before the little ones wake up.
It has become my work routine -- anything I need to do that will require my most brain power (like writing evaluation reports and IEP reports) is done early in the morning before children are awake.
Monday morning, for whatever reason, my little Caroline awoke before Tracey left for school. This was VERY surprising because Caroline is a FANTASTIC sleeper. It is a toss up between Caroline and Howard as to which one will sleep later on any given days. Hunter and Lee Lee are sometimes awake an hour or more before the twins (and when Tracey is here... she can beat them out of bed by as many as three hours).
So, to see Caroline dressed and at the breakfast table at 7:15am was very rare.
No big deal... Caroline is pretty low maintenance, and I kept going with my work -- which, Monday morning, did require a lot of my concentration.
On this particular Monday morning, over the span of 10 minutes, Caroline felt the need to ask me the following questions,
"What causes people to cough?"
"Why is it called a phone call?
"Why are they called computers?"
"Why are they called vitamins?"
For the record, she is not known for inquisitive questions. She doesn't usually sit around asking any questions in particular... but this day, when she was uncharacteristically the first younger child awake, she also was uncharacteristically curious.
It really became comical as I was trying to write my reports and explain to her the history of telephones, and calling on neighbors... and I really hope I didn't accidentally substitute Alexander Graham Bell for the names of one of my students while writing my Monday morning evaluation report.
Rolling right along... 27 weeks (and counting) with Baby Number 6.
27 Weeks with Baby Number 6
and look, Lexie jumped in the picture
After Hunter has a bath - which is between every night and every other night, he is very predictable.
After I dry him off with a towel, but before I can get a diaper on him, he wiggles away and crawls to the middle of the bed. He finds the television remote and happily lays back against the pillow and makes himself at home laughing and smiling.
I think he has learned that this is the ultimate manly goal in life -- to be fed, clean, and tired, and happily lay naked in the middle of a huge bed with control of the remote.
Last Saturday Hubby took out his daughters for Valentine's Dates, and I took Howard out for a Valentine's Date. Hunter's date was a baby-sitter this year.
Hubby and the girls had lunch at Red Lobster and then they kind of wavered on their plans. First Daddy thought he'd take them roller skating, but then he saw they have great family deals in the furture with roller skating so he decided he would take the girls to ride go-carts. But then he realized Addallee hadn't brought a coat. Our older kids are do well when she say, "Get your coat, and gloves and hat and boots and got to the car." Lee Lee doesn't quite follow through with that whole laundry list of items and so she got to car with boots and not much else.
So instead of scraping go-carts, Hubby decided to try to shop for a coat and hat for Lee Lee at Once Upon a Child and Ross. They finally found her a sweatshirt (which she now LOVES and will not take off!) but by then it was too cold and rainy to do go-carts.
They stopped for ice cream, and then ended up at the roller rink which also had an arcade and a big jungle gym.
Howard and I had similar stops on our date, but (in true Mama fashion) I had one plan for the day, and I stuck to the plan -- very different from the way Daddy operates.
Howard and I had lunch at Texas Roadhouse, but then we swung by Red Lobster to drop something off for the girls. Then we went to a Rock Climbing gym where Howard proceeded to climb everything possible for the next two hours. I finally had to tell him that we had to leave otherwise we wouldn't have time for ice cream on our date.
We also did some quick shopping, but it was for swim suits and pajamas (not anything we needed on our date... just some fun shopping while we were in Junction), and we got ice cream.
At the end of our date, we swung by the roller rink for me to get money for the baby-sitter... and Howard ended up joining the tail end of the Daddy-Daughter date because they were going to stay out a little longer (since they had done so much running around in the afternoon) and Mama needed to get home to relieve the baby-sitter.
All in all it was SUCH a fun day with our little daughters and sons and we can't wait to go back to the rock climbing gym, and the roller rink as a whole family -- well, maybe not with Hunter again, but at least as one big group.
We also encouraged the kiddos to take home movies on our phones throughout he dates so we could tell their brothers and sisters about our time when it was over (and decide who had the better date).
Here are some pictures of our fun:
