She came, she worked, she left.

This last week was quite a whirlwind. I don't remember much, but I have been left with some pleasant changes. My mom came for a "baby visit" and helped me get my life back in order. And by help I mean she did a whole bunch of work while I complained about anything I could think of. I have pictures of some of what she did, but sadly none of her.

She took a disaster of a storage room and turned it into this:



She put together a collection of family pictures in our dining room:



She made Rex an official member of our family by adding him to our fireplace mantle:



And she stained this desk that Matt has had unfinished since he was in high school:



And in her free time she managed to mop our floors, clean our kitchen, babysit our kids, make a perfect chicken pot pie, clean our kitchen again, fold our clothes, pick up our living room, wash off marker from cars and desks and any other surfaces Nina victimized, clean the kitchen again, make lots of food, clean up our basement and clean the kitchen one more time. I love my mom and how generous she is. She does so much to ease our burdens and I hope I can one day be like her.

3 months and still a dream

I am going to admit something, and don't judge me. The whole time I was pregnant with Rex, I cringed when I looked at little babies. They are SO HARD. They don't sleep, so you don't sleep. They cry a lot. And this thing would be attached to me one way or another for a long time. Like over a year. Who in their right mind would want something like that??? I wasn't sure I really did. But I did feel like it was right that one more child belonged in our family and I kept praying that we would be able to handle this last one.



And this last one is a complete angel.



I have heard people say that a new baby brings a measure of peace along with it. I'm not sure I noticed that on the last maybe 4 go-arounds. I can't say for sure though because a lot of my life is a blur. Like the months after every baby we've had. And like a year after Cameron.



But even in our noisy house, I do feel more peace than I did before he was born. I also feel a little more disorganized, but I've made peace with the messes that I will be seeing for the next lots of years. We're going to be great friends, me and those messes.




And I don't mind because I have this little guy to hang out with.



This total dream of a baby.

ps

I hate this game too:



In this game, you have to line up all your clean Star Wars ships with your dirty hands before they all take off and shoot the bad guys.



But I really like this boy. He can be quite entertaining.

I hate this game

This picture was taken after Cameron took every lunch box, lunch bag and water bottle we own, lined them up in the kitchen, then ran full-speed through the barrier as many times as it took to make it look like this:

Some Rising and Shouting

March Madness is truly the most wonderful time of the year. And what made it even more wonderful was the awesomeness of my dad and brother in finding us tickets for both BYU games. Matt, Rex and I got to go to Thursday's game. It wasn't the most exciting game, but a win nonetheless. Then Rex escorted me to a much more exciting game tonight. Matt won dad of the year as he took the 4 other kids to watch the Rapids play in their home opener. Add the two soccer games of Donovan and Howie and it was a great day of sports for us all.

Found some common ground

I'm not sure of the exact saying. Or if a real saying even exists for that matter. But the one that I'm thinking of essentially says, "if your daughter sometimes drives you crazy, start by finding something you both have in common and before you know it your daughter will start behaving like an angel and you will become the best of friends". I'll continue looking for that exact quote. But until then, I did find something we had in common. We should be excellent friends any day now!

And that commonality? We both wish we had another little girl in our family.

A 2 month dream

Lately whenever I sit down to post something, I find myself wishing I would have taken more pictures. That is definitely the case tonight. We love our poor 5th child, and we will try to capture more of his life. Time has flown by since Rex was born. We are slowly getting to know him. What we have learned so far is that he is a dream. He is a calm, low maintenance little guy. It would appear that he is very curious about his surroundings. But he could also just be in shock from all the chaos. He doesn't seem to mind being passed from person to person allowing everyone a chance to hold him. He sleeps okay at night, we're not going to complain. But he sleeps very well during the day.






Yes. This is the only picture we took on Rex's blessing day. Thank goodness my dad had his camera.