The kids and I made it home last night around 5. It was a wonderfully uneventful drive! Traveling 500 miles with 4 children by yourself can be quite the gamble. I am so thankful it went well. I had such a great time visiting with all of you while we were down. I am sorry we couldn’t stay longer and visit more. I love Chico, but it would be so awesome to be closer to you all. I am hoping to add some pictures of our trip soon, but today is a day just to relax and decompress. Sadly, I am so lonely. I am missing sewing with my sisters, and watching Nana run around with the boys….
Remember Thrifty Ice Cream as a kid? It still exists at Rite Aid. I took Zeb and Mahlon to get a Thrifty ice cream cone last night at RiteAid. On the way I was telling them the story about how a janitor at our church when I was a kid would give me and my brothers each a quarter so that on the way home from church my Mom could take us to Thrifty’s and we could get a single cone for 25¢. Now a single scoop is $1.19. Those were the days!!! Can you believe I am saying that when I am only 30??? So, we get there and Stacie promised Zeb that he could get a triple scoop (I never got a triple scoop when I was 7) and it almost fell over before the guy could hadn the cone to Zeb so it went in a cup. The triple scoops are now $1.99. I had such a good time taking them to get the same kind of ice cream cone I would get as a kid. What a blast!!!
Time flies when you are having fun sewing little tutus and bows! Our most prefect daughter turned 3 months old yesterday. We asked our amazingly talented friend to document the milestone for us. (Her blog is HERE by the way.) Thank you Jeanette!!!
We took Olivea for her check up today. She weighs 13 lbs even, and is 24 1/4 inches tall. She is only in the 75% for height, but I am trying to keep the faith that she will catch up! She started sleeping 10-11 hours at night at 8 weeks. So amazing! I can’t believe I have 4 kids, and I get to sleep all night. Well, most nights anyway. Mahlon still wakes up now and again. She is smiling a lot, and she always has a smile for Zeb. I think she has a special liking to the calmest of the brothers. They all still adore her, and ask to hold her on a daily basis. It is so fun to have all 5 of us just adore her; she is just such a joy to all of us. I know I would have loved having 4 boys because you all know how much I LOVE little boys, but God just knew how much fun we would all have with this pink bundle. I just pray that she will always know what a joy she is to us all, and that she was knit together perfectly by His hands! And here is a little gift for you from our sitting yesterday…
If you would like to see the whole sitting leave a comment, and I will email it. Thanks.
Yesterday we received this most amazing gift in the mail from Bob and Joan Mathison. It is absolutely adorable and I plan on filling it full of pictures that Jeanette has taken for us, and her milestones. I was so honored to receive such a thoughtful and exquisite handmade gift! Thank you so so much Bob and Joan. We love it ! Who told you I love pink and green together? 
Tonight we were sitting at dinner doing our daily run down of what we learned today. Zeb tells Gabe 6 of the continents; Malachi chimes in with Europe to finish out the 7. Then, we were talking about how tomorrow we are going to learn the 4 oceans. The 2 boys are trying to see if they can name them. They got three of them, but I had to tell them the Indian Ocean. Malachi then tells us that sometimes the pomegranates and Indians didn’t get along…Uhhh…. I might need to go over that story one more time!
Yesterday afternoon we went to the Chico Tree Farm. We were exploring for plants from as many continents as we could find. We ended up running late, had to run off to gymnastics so we only got 4 continents. It was fun anyway, and we snapped a few pics for fun besides our documentation of leaves and their trees.
Here are the 4 posing wonderfully for my picture.
Malachi is showing you how beautiful it is there. Don’t you wish you lived in Chico?
Anyone know what plant this came from? Malachi really wanted it, but I don’t know what it is! What continent do I put it under? Stressful stuff I tell you!
Like I said we only had a little bit there, but we never cease to have a great time. I wish I had a picture of me climbing through the foliage (in flip flops no less) with Malachi up on my shoulder so we could grab a sample leaf from a tree. What’s that you say? Shouldn’t I go easier on my back?? Heck no, what fun is that?
We got to learn how to read a nature map, talk about the continents, meet a dog a named Lucy, see some huge piles on doggy poo (I have boys how we could we not notice), throw rocks in the creek, and run like crazy with Olivea in the stroller. (She has a nut for a mom, and 3 big brothers. She’ll get used to it) I think it was a good day.
Remind me to check the playdoh!
Will I forget all of these precious moments? Even if there is a picture to remind you how can you remember all that there was to the moment? Will I remember how warm his sweet little hand was stroking my face?…his sweet smelling breath from the Skittles he just ate?…how he over pronounced O-U-T when he heard someone open and close the door. Olivea beginning to squeak in the monitor….Ehhh! I thought she was down for the count. We laid there stroking each others face, looking into each others eyes listening to the boys play in the backyard until he drifted off to sleep. I would have too if we didn’t have to leave for gymnastics in a bit. I am just glad Gabe walked in to catch our little moment. It isn’t like these moments are few. HARDLY! One of us is with him almost every time he falls asleep. But the scary part to me is not remembering those precious details. Even now just a few hours later I can’t remember exactly his sweet sweet breath and My doodlebug is only 7 and I don’t remember any exact moments of putting him to sleep. I know I did…all the time…but no details stick in my mind. Even though I fear losing these moments and panic fills me as I think of the millions of moments that only our Maker remembers…we can take solace in knowing the relationships we build here in these moments are the most important “details” there are.
Check out the list of videos on the Videos page.
I haven’t posted anything new for awhile so I wanted to post to catch everyone up with all we have going on.
I will start with the kids. Zeb and Malachi are full ahead into homeschool and are both doing amazing. Zeb is becoming so big and grown up. Malachi is amazing and always energetic. They are both doing Gymnastics and are really enjoying it. Mahlon is definately now 2 and testing Stacie and I to the max but is still as cute as ever. Olivea is an angel and just the other night we put her in her room to sleep and she slept all night.
Stacie is doing a wonderful job with the kids and managing all she does. She continues to amaze me with her commitment to homechool, doing fun things with the boys and managing the household. I couldn’t do anything without her. She is absolutely loving having a little girl. I created a category on this website for Stacie to blog about her recipes and I am hoping she will do that soon. She continues to sew but it is now more for fun than for building up stock.
My job continues to provide me new challenges. I am managing a high profile project for my department that is key to the entire company. On January 1, I will have 3 people on my team reporting to me and I know that will bring even more challenges. I am excited about my future there.
We will try to provide updates more regularly but that is proving to be more and more challenging with 4 kids.
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