control

I'm not sure that I'll ever really truly learn, but somehow the Lord keeps finding ways to gradually teach me that I can't always be in control...  I kinda like to have my day planned out and be in control of the situations, but this fourth child is proving to be a bit of a challenge.  :)  He's gone back to napping only 20-30 minutes at a time, but for the most part I think I'm doing better at just rolling with it.  It's okay if I'm not getting other stuff done, I won't have a baby to snuggle forever.

I've also taken a different approach to my household management in order to hopefully lessen my stress, especially on Monday's.  I was seeing a pattern of Monday's being really difficult (to the point of me standing there in tears holding a crying baby, and feeling like I just can't do this (mother four children, cook, clean, be a good wife, etc, etc...) and I don't know how I'm going to go on).  After thinking it through I think one of the problems is that I wasn't doing as much around the house on the weekends, so when Monday rolled around I felt overwhelmed with everything that should get done. I am now trying consistently stay on top of things so that I don't find myself on a day with way too much to accomplish.  Rather than waiting until it's "too late" with the cleaning, I'm trying to just focus on one area each day, and not let it get out of control.  This past Monday was definitely better, and today I was able to have a friend over for coffee without scrambling to clean the house because it was already in decent shape.

Two weeks ago Caleb woke up sick and threw-up several times throughout the morning.  I felt so bad because he kept puking so much and was getting so weak.  But, by mid-afternoon that day he was ready for a snack, and he was back to his normal self by evening.  And, no one else got it!  Phew!!

This past Monday I was able to go help out at Caleb and Logan's school Valentine's party.  I love having the chance to see them at school, and interact more with their friends.  It's also a nice chance to meet some of the other moms.

We've still got full on Star Wars fever over here.  The guys just keep watching the movies over and over again (a little bit each evening).  I do enjoy it too, and it's fun to have something that Mike enjoyed as a child that he can now get into with our kids, and they'll hopefully be able to with their kids someday.  :)  I wonder for how long we'll be as into it as we are now, though.  :)

Caleb and Logan are doing well at school, and it's really neat to see them learning to read and write!  We've mentioned to Levi how we're planning to send him for one day of preschool next year.  Today he said something to me about being worried there wouldn't be a backpack for him.  :)

For the most part Jackson is doing well at night, so at least he's got that going for him.  :)  He's becoming more and more vocal, which is one of my absolute favorite things.  Love that smile with his little tongue sticking out, love the sounds he makes when he's "talking" to me.  I love watching him interact with and smile at his brothers, they love him so much and it's really sweet to see.  

3 months

As of yesterday, Jackson is 3 months old!  He's definitely growing, and becoming very interactive, which is so much fun to see.  He smiles a lot, coos, and almost laughs.  He mostly keeps his eyes on Mom, but enjoys watching Dad and his big brothers some, too.  :)  We had a miserable day on Monday - lots of crying inconsolably and hardly any napping.  But, yesterday Jackson was like a completely different baby.  Not just different from the day before, but different from the whole first three months.  He actually napped!  For like a couple hours at a time!!  This is completely unheard of with him.  As much as I was doing my best to get used to and work with the 20-30 minute naps, there were still times that it was very frustrating, so I sure hope we've turned a corner here.  Just a few minutes ago he had been napping for about 45 minutes and woke up, but I WAS ABLE TO GET HIM TO GO BACK TO SLEEP IN HIS BED.  This is huge (in case you can't tell).  Holding my breath that we're starting on a new trend of taking longer naps...  Jackson had been eating 6x a day still, but with his long naps yesterday he dropped a feeding and still made it through the night fine.  And, oh yeah, I can't forget this part (because Jackson will really appreciate this someday) - for the last month he's pooped only every 2-3 days.  On the one hand it's nice to mostly only change wet diapers, but when that one dirty comes, boy oh boy!!  Yikes!  It's not a nice one.  And, he never does it for Mike, only me.

One of the fun conversations we've had with the boys lately is about all the things they can do when they're adults and have their own house.  You know, things like jump on the couch, eat whatever they want, jump off the top bunk, etc.  Mike even made sure to point out that they can even bulldoze their house if they want, but they CAN'T burn it down as that's illegal.  :)

This morning Caleb and Logan had a two hour delay for school.  Unfortunately, I didn't discover that until I got there and the parking lot was empty.  Not only that, we somehow got loaded up early today, so I drove around a bit before heading to school!  I ended up getting groceries with all four.  Not ideal, but we managed.  :)  That was actually the first time I've taken them all with me to the store.