I've genuinely got much more pressing things to do today than spend time blogging, but I miss my baby and I need to record a little bit of what's going on in our lives and in my brain.
I {love} Fall. Winter is always wonderful, with all the wonderful coziness that comes with cold weather. Summer is fabulous with lazy hot days and lots of busy fun. But in the bottom of my heart I hold a special, special place for Spring and Fall. I love the rebirth of Spring. I love the closing that comes with Fall. I love seasons.
This Fall has been particularly beautiful. A gift from the Lord, since Spring was so -- well, un-Springy. It's been lovely. Highs in the 70's most days and not freezing yet at night. I've been loving it.
A few weeks ago, right before our "Fall Birthday Week," we headed down to Salt Lake to go to the Barnum and Bailey Circus with my sister and her family and my parents! It was SO fun and well worth the money and time. The girls were in awe the entire show. There is nothing better to me than watching my girls' faces light up with amazement. SO fun! Lilie LOVED the high wire and the trapeze artists. Well, almost anything where they were high up in the air. :) All of it was incredible.
I also got to go to Relief Society Conference with my mom, sisters, and sister-in-law. What a beautiful experience. I felt absolutely overwhelmed with gratitude for the amazing women that I have been blessed with having in my life.
Hazel and Lilie have been loving school. Those smart little chickies just soak up all the learning that they can. They love their teachers. I still don't think Lilie has learned anything new in Kindergarten, but she has lots of fun and has finally remembered some of the names of the kids in her class. :) (For more than a month, when I'd ask her who she played with that day, she didn't know. She couldn't remember a single child's name. :) She was just too darn busy having fun that she didn't think to ask anyone their names!) Hazel loves everything about school --- except having to get up early. :) She is an EXCELLENT reader and has finally learned to do her homework in less than 3 hours! Ha. Ha. We'll just suffice it to say that she is slowly learning to overcome perhaps her biggest obstacle in life thus far. Focusing on one thing at a time. :) Although I still can't say whether or not I feel that homework is necessary for 1st Graders, it has been good and it's really wonderful to be able to actually see her working on the things she's learning at school. It's been awesome to watch her progress over the past month and a half. I'm so proud of her!
Elsie is my little shadow all day. She loves helping. She misses her sisters while they're gone, but I dare say that she really likes just being with me and Vi, too. Even if I spend a lazy morning blogging or whatnot on the computer, most of the time, she just rolls around on the ground in my bedroom - pestering Violet or talking or admiring her beautiful self in the mirror. :)
Violet is getting more and more mobile by the day. She crawls everywhere - fairly fast now - and pulls herself up to everything. At her last appointment, she was nearly 18 pounds (a feat not accomplished by any of her sisters before they were a year old!) - in the 70 percentile for both height and weight. She is such a happy little bug and smiles from ear to ear all day long. She is such a perfect baby! Our little Smiley Violey. She babbles quite a lot. Ba-ba-ba-ba. Da-da-da-da. And most recently Ma-ma-ma. But she only says ma-ma when she needs something. :) Typical, right? :) I stopped nursing about a month ago. She's had no problem with a bottle and LOVES eating solid foods. It's been wonderful - as it gives me a little bit more freedom. She's also a great sleeper, for the most part. Like I said, she's pretty much a perfect baby. She makes me think that I could just keep having babies forever. :)
The transition in life to having a new baby is always taxing -- whether with #1 or #4, but I must say, having four children is lovely. It seems that by #4, I've learned to relax about all the things that first-time moms STRESS about. -- All those things that baby books make out to be of UTMOST importance. I just love her. I love having a little baby to snuggle. I love the way that she looks at me and needs me. I love her little sounds and her soft little body. I've loved each of my babies fiercely (still do, of course), but at this point in my life, I feel much more able to just roll with the inconveniences and just love it all. Life is so very, very good.
I have four beautiful, healthy, smart, and unique little girls. I get to stay home with them everyday. And daily work on overcoming my own shortcomings and pitfalls. Slowly learning how to be the woman I truly desire to be. I have a wonderful husband who is my very best friend in the whole world. I could never say enough to express my love and gratitude for him. At times I genuinely feel the stress of daily life seeping into our relationship, sometimes I feel like I've barely talked to him in months! But then life slows down a little bit again (maybe or maybe not) - or maybe more than anything I start to focus on how grateful I am for him and start to look for more ways to serve him. That always seems to magically fix any distance I'm feeling between us.
In the coming weeks, we're planning a family vacation!! I'm SO EXCITED!! I'll tell you all about it later, but I've made reservations and lists and lists and lists. I'm so looking forward to having this uninterrupted time with my husband and my girls. It's going to be awesome. Nels, I'm sure, will be working right up until the minute we leave (that always seems to be the case), which leaves me to plan and pack and organize almost entirely by myself. Yesterday I was feeling incredibly overwhelmed by the unfairness of this prospect, but today is a new day. The beds are made, the floor is vacuumed, the dishes are in the dishwasher, the family room is SO clean (thank you Nels and Hazel!) and now I'm ready to tackle my mountains of laundry and my piles of To-Do's and To-Packs and To-Buys.
