Summer Craziness

Summer has been really crazy, and this last week has been especially intense. Bridget woke up the morning of Katy's baptism (Saturday) with a fever again, (she had run one all day last Tuesday) and I feel like she cried most of the day. :-( I was a little worried that I wasn't going to be able to go to the baptism if I couldn't get her feeling a little better, and she was too upset to really leave with other people. :-/ Thankfully motrin made it possible for me to attend the baptism, and even stay in the room for most of the program. I just held her the whole time, since that's what she wanted, and since I didn't know if she had an ear infection (what I was suspecting) or something contagious. Emily (my sister) gave the talk on baptism and she did a really nice job. I appreciated her lugging all 4 of her boys down for it, and then going back again that night with the littlest guy. That's a lot of driving in one day, but she had lots of responsibilities at church Sunday, and her "baby" doesn't sleep that great other places than home at this age. (Bridget either!) We shared a baptism time with the Daleys in our ward, even though they just moved back to Thatcher last week actually. We will miss having them in our ward! It was a good experience though, and I was just grateful everyone was able to be there.

Bridget was still very upset and feverish on Sunday, so I stayed home from church with her and Jeremy took the other 7 kids to church by himself. :-o  It was a bit of a rough day, just having so many busy kids with only Sunday activities to entertain them. Plus Bridget was bad enough and acting like her ears hurt, so Jeremy talked to one of his naturopath friends that happened to be in her office to see another friend, and Jaina and I took Bridget to see her. She basically had a double ear infection, which was probably why she was so miserable. :-( We started her on amoxicillin (which we've avoided up until now with everyone except Reilly once) and by Tuesday she was feeling much better.

Despite Bridget feeling awful, we tried to do some fun things with Emily's boys for our half of the Great Cousin Summer Exchange. Monday Jeremy took them to a park, and to get Hurts Donuts, (They had a "pay your age" day) and to Target, and took some of the oldest kids to play laser tag. Bridget was still having a pretty rough day, though her fever was gone, and I spent most of the day holding her. We took them to Organ Stop Pizza for dinner with Phil and Sophie, and then Jeremy took Bridget home (she did pretty well at the pizza place actually) while the rest of us went to Carlee's 5th birthday party, unicorn rides and all. They had a great time there, and she was the cutest little unicorn birthday princess ever. :)

Tuesday we did a lot of cleaning up, and I let Logan and Shawn just hang out and watch movies (because Logan had a fever the night before and Shawn's foot was acting funny) while Jeremy took Bridget and the rest of the kids to the State Capitol Museum. 

After that they got to play Minecraft (their favorite activity together) while we got ready to go, and about 3 PM seven kids and I road-tripped to Joseph City. Definitely a bit of an adventure. We managed to keep anyone from getting car sick, and they were excited to get Happy Meals in Payson. The last hour was getting a little dicey, so we broke out the tablets, but we only had 4 tablets for 7 kids. Also exciting.

It has been nice to have some quiet at home (especially after 3 very loud, chaotic days). Bridget is feeling much better, but still has a lot of fluid in her ears and has some temporary hearing loss. :-p In other news, we ordered a new bed (a "Tuft and Needle" on an Amazon Prime Day deal) so our old mattress is hanging out in our living room while we try to decide what to do with it. Hopefully I will adjust to the new bed soon. My back wasn't sure what to think of it last night. 

Also, my computer, which was 7 years old went to the Jason's house to be converted to a SSD, but the jury's out on how much longer before I just need to buy a new one. He doesn't often get stumped, but my computer managed it...  It won't let him install any Windows operating system on it except a 32 bit version of Windows 7 (It originally had a 64 bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium) and I really need 64 bit to run my Adobe Programs. So I might make do with it for a while with the goal of changing to a new computer in a couple months. I technically have a laptop too, but I don't prefer using a laptop that much, and the kids use it quite a bit for game and school stuff. I know, first world problems. But my photo and video stuff does really help keep me sane in my stay-at-home-mom life, so I know that they're important to me. (And to our family in that way, haha.) You gotta nurture the things that keep you sane and bring you a sense of accomplishment. Laundry and dishes and cooking never STAY done, and that's a little exhausting to do the same things over and over again, especially with my personality. I loathe re-doing tasks, even in games or whatever. That's one reason I never enjoyed any of the Super Mario games. If you die, you have to re-do some things you've just accomplished!

Anyway, enough typing. I need to put away some of the endless laundry while Bridget is sleeping.

Sara

End of School Busy-ness

These last few weeks have been pretty crazy! We've had a choir concert, an orchestra conert, dance dress rehearsals, two mini dance/musical theater recitals, a school presentation including a little musical play Reilly was in at Eagleridge, finishing and proofing the school yearbook, regular scouts, a dr's appt, our anniversary (including a date to dinner and some fun arcade games one night and Les Miserables another), and 3 birthday parties. And Abbie was here last weekend for the girls' recitals and we went to dinner with her, and she took the kids swimming.

Les Miserables at Gammage was amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed about 90% of it, and there were som really beautiful moments. The cast did a great job. The 10% I didn't enjoy was some content that I expected and some that they had kind of thrown in, that I felt was distracting. But It was still awesome, and something we've been looking forward to for like a year. (that's how long ago we bought the tickets!)

The last day of school was Thursday, and Jaina and Katy both had some awards to attend, as well as their end-of-year parties. I am so grateful that between Reilly and Jeremy I didn't have to take any little ones to any of that, because though my foot is a lot better, I've still been using the knee scooter for any kind of distances. I have been able to carefully go to the gym some the last two weeks, and that has cheered me up. My foot has improved quite a bit just in the last week or so, thankfully, because these kids are ready to do a lot of swimming this summer!

People have been taking turns over the last two weeks with an upset stomach too, which is not fun.  I had a low fever with mine, which was weird. Reilly was pretty sick with it, but for less than 24 hours. Thankfully Katy waited until the day after school got out to get sick, because she probably got it the worst, and ran a decent fever for close to 24 hours too. Poor kid! In happier news, we have a new nephew! David & Nicole had their baby! His name is Russell Graham, and I'm so glad he's here! Actually, we thought we were going to name Shawn Russell for several months before he was born. :) He's definitely more of a "Shawn" though...


Bridget has been getting up early with the other kids most days lately, which means she has been extra grouchy and extra tired sometimes. She's cute, but I wish she would sleep in until 7:30-ish like she used to instead of getting up between 5:45 and 6:30. It's hard to put her to bed any earlier than she already goes (7:45-8) because Shawn goes to bed at 7 and it works best if he's all the way asleep before I put her down. I'm sure we'll get it figured out. Most days she can take a long nap and help make up for it. She has also been continuing her quest to get into everything she shouldn't, and color on everything in the house. Not really, but she sure is a colorer, and I find it ironic that my 1 year old holds crayons and pens correctly even though I can't get my 4-year-old to yet. I just wish she would stick to crayons and paper... (instead of the sparkle markers and liquid eyeliner she's modeling below)

Nobody actually reads blogs anymore, right?

I like Facebook. But I spend way too much time there accomplishing almost nothing, and use a lot of emotional energy empathizing with people that are having a hard time, or reading random facts about other people I barely know in real life (or don't know at all, really). I miss blogging. I miss lots of people having blogs. I enjoyed reading what people were up to, seeing their cute pictures, and getting a glimpse into their life. I don't know many people that still blog regularly, and I don't think I'll become one of them. Five kids has kind of done me in. So many things I used to enjoy, or at least used to get done at a decen pace, have fallen by the wayside... Katy pulled out her first year scrapbook the other day and I realized it wasn't done. It's like 1/3 done. And she just turned 7. Sigh.
I don't know why five has been so much harder (it seems) than four. Maybe because Katy was a year older than Shawn when she was born. Maybe because there was just a touch bit more space for four little people in our 3-bedroom rental than there is for five. I really don't know.

Nursing went better with Bridget than with Shawn, (not having a c-section or tongue tie helped a TON) but there was still lots of worrying and donor milk and supplementing and pumping. She was getting a few extra oz a day of donor milk until about 2-3 months until she decided bottles were not for her and she refused to take them anymore. And then I worried about her very slow weight gain and nursed and nursed and nursed and had to eat a ton of food to keep my milk supply even adequate for the next 4 months until she finally decided to take a bottle again at 7 months. By 9.5 months she was completely on formula (Nutramigen) since my supply declined rapidly once we started supplementing again, and I have been mostly just relieved. I am so grateful I was able to nurse her so much and give all of them a good start, but I sincerely hope I never have to try to nurse another baby. And I pray my girls won't have the same trouble I did when they have babies of their own someday!

We sent my little brother, Spencer, off on a mission to Tampico, Mexico in November. It was really awesome to be together with all my siblings in the temple the month before that, and it has been cool to see how much he has grown and matured in the last year or two as he has prepared for this. I still can't believe he's all grown and off saving China, since I was almost 16 when he was born, and helped raise him quite a bit for the first 4 years of his life before I transferred to BYU. It was especially fun to have David surprise most of us and fly home from Kentucky (where he's been going to medical school) when we were all there for Spencer's farewell. Spencer has been out like 8-ish months now, and he's doing awesome.

One of our biggest adventures of the last year was our family trip to Disneyland. It had been almost 4 years since we had taken the kids, and they have been asking to go back ever since. For some reason I thought going with a 4-month old wouldn't be too bad, since they're still pretty portable at that age, and Shawn was still free until last mid-December, so we decided to do it the week after Thanksgiving. We got an AirBnb with two bedrooms/2 bathrooms and a living area so we'd have plenty of space, sprung for 4-day tickets, so we could take our time, and loaded up an amazing amount of stuff into our Honda Odyssey (which I love) and headed to California. (A good friend lent us her double jogging stroller, so we didn't have to try to pack ours) Our kids had a blast, mostly, and have great memories from our trip, and ask when we're going back. But Jeremy and I are a bit traumatized. The first day, instead of being the Best. Day. Ever. (like our first trip) was pretty rough, starting when Shawn woke at 3:30 AM local time and the other 3 olders woke at 4:30. And nobody went back to sleep or napped. Ever. And Jeremy was sick with a bad cold the whole time, and just tried to soldier through as much as he could. I think the latest we managed to stay one night was about 7:30 PM maybe. We barely made rope drop (and it was at like 10 am most days), never saw any fireworks, Bridget was too stimulated to nurse well half the time, but wouldn't sleep out and about unless Jeremy was wearing her (not me) and were an exhausted mess (the parents) by the time we were done. And my, was it expensive. But we rode everything we wanted to (usually several times), including the misses from the first trip. Reilly and Jaina were both tall enough for Screamin' (one loved it, one hated it). All three older kids got to do the Jedi Training Academy, and they -loved- Hyperspace Mountain. Shawn loved all of it, and had a blast, and only got lost once. We enjoyed all the holiday decor, and got to experience the holiday versions of Small World, Jungle Cruise, and Haunted Mansion. Bridget did pretty awesome, other than not nursing well, and I got to check out both baby care areas. We managed to see the parade, though getting a seat was a little iffy. We got a ton of cute pictures, and made some more memories for the kids. Jeremy said we need to go back, just the two of us, so he can remember that he likes Disneyland again though.

As soon as we got back from Disney, we jumped back in the car and headed to Flagstaff for a fun Polar Express experience that Abbie had planned for the kids for part of their Christmas. They had a great time, and we enjoyed it. We probably would have enjoyed it more if we hadn't been so exhausted, but it was fun to go up in the cold and see some snow and be together with Jeremy's family.

Our other big adventure in the last few months has been Jeremy moving his chiropractic business into his own office. It has been quite the endeavor, and has been very exciting and fairly nerve-wracking. It's hard to take on all the debt and responsibility of being in charge of your own office, and hope that things continue to go well and you can pay all the bills and still have enough left over to take care of all your family's needs. It has been fun, but I also look forward to being a year or two forward in this process and having all the dust (literally) settled.

This summer has been a little overwhelming for me so far. Okay, a lot overwhelming. There are lots of wants and needs and questions and arguments and kids wanting to go-and-do all the time. And with 5 kids (including a baby), in this heat, I don't feel much up to going-and-doing. Things kind of came to a head a week or two ago when we had Cub Scout day camp (I was called to be a wolf leader earlier this year) and I ended up doing a lot of the coordinating. I think my coping skills just got maxed out, and it was harder for me to not yell at the kids and spend a lot of time wishing everyone would just leave me alone and stop talking to me. I'm working on my self a lot, and taking time for quiet, and creating, and the scriptures, and writing out my feelings (on paper!?) so they can get released little by little and not explode in frustrated little thunderclouds. Hopefully it will help, because there are only 5 weeks of summer left, and I want us to have some more good times.