A day in the life January

I have a few photography goals this year, intended to improve my skills.  One is to do a monthly “Day in the life” post.  The plan is to take pictures all day long on the same date each month, chronicling the day.  I chose the 8th because it’s not too close to the beginning or the end of the month and none of us have birthdays or anniversaries on that date.  Yesterday happened to be a pretty busy day and I didn’t want to haul my DSLR around, so many of the pictures are lousy ones with the iPod.  So, as far as advancing my photo skills, I don’t think yesterday exactly qualified.  :)  But it was fun, and if I keep it up, it will be very interesting to look back on in a year or so.

3:30am: We hear the boys wake up, and Matt goes in to change diapers and bring them to me.  (Isn’t he the best?!!)

3:45am: I nurse them sitting up in my bed.  I always browse Facebook and my blog reader during this time.  They usually nurse about 20 minutes.

4:10am ish: We put them back in their bed and fall back asleep.

6:40am: The big kids are up (or getting that way) and I haul myself out of bed because there’s a lot to do.

6:55am: Natalie has Hootie the Owl from her preschool class this week.  She gets to take him everywhere and we write in a journal about his adventures.  (He’s having a bit of a dull week.)

7:00am: I fix a gourmet breakfast of cereal with milk.  The kids eat while I get laundry going.

7:20: I sit down to nurse the babies.  (I have before this gotten them, changed their diapers and maybe outfits and listened to a fair amount of crying from two hungry and impatient boys.)  The girls get themselves dressed and help pick out James’ clothes during this time.

By 7:42 the babies must be done because I snap this picture of James getting his jeans on.

7:55: I have put the boys in their bouncers (which they like very much) to wiggle and Momma Natalie is taking care of some spit up.

When I know I’m going to be leaving the house, I snap a picture of my nursing notebook so I don’t have to remember.  I just downloaded an app that might serve this purpose, but I keep forgetting to use it. :)  I will have to put away the notebook to remember, I think.  A 10 week habit is hard to break!

8:07: I give James a covert snack in the laundry room since I know he’s hungry, and frankly, I don’t feel like feeding the girls who aren’t hungry but will be if they see he’s eating.  (He’s always hungry, and a bowl of cereal goes right through him!)

8:18: The babies are fussing a little bit but it’s too early to leave and too late for them to have a nap.  Joanna snapped this one of us rocking.  (And I’ve got coffee!!)  Clearly I’ve gotten dressed, but I don’t remember when.  :)

8:30: We load up in the van and drive to church.  We arrive about 8:45am (early).  We sit in the car for a few minutes then start unloading.  I drop the big nursing pillow in the fellowship hall where Young Mom’s Bible Study will be.  I push the babies in the stroller to drop the big kids off in their nursery classes at about 9:00.  James screams and clings to me even though he has tons of fun once I leave.

9:10: I grab myself a plate of super yummy breakfast and eat while I push and jiggle the stroller to keep/put the babies to sleep.

About 9:30 the boys are finished with their little nap (though they had a much better carseat nap than usual!) A couple of friends hold the fussers while I get set up to nurse them.

9:40: I nurse both babies in a little chair with the big pillow wrapped around me, under a cover.  I have one hand free and finish eating my breakfast.

After they eat, Candice grabs Thomas and I hold Michael.  I can’t remember why, but he needed an outfit change.  I also change his diaper, then switch him out with Thomas and change his diaper.

10:20: Candice has Michael; I have Thomas.  We’re watching the Bible Study video.

Soon after that Linda next to me takes Thomas and jiggles him to keep him happy.  He never gives it up and has a proper nap though.  Michael does.

11:30: The study is over and it’s time to pick up the big kids.  I load up the boys and the big pillow (very useful but huge!) and stop to talk with Paula Cade on the way out.  She (among many other things) schedules the baptisms at church, and I tell her we want to baptize the boys in the next month or so.

By this point Thomas is kind of screaming as I pick up the big three.  We walk out to the car and I realize Joanna has forgotten her jacket.  Thankfully it was in a room that I could see from the parking lot so she could get it herself. 

11:50: We’re driving out of the parking lot and on the way to my mom’s for lunch!

12:10: I’m nursing the babies again, and the kids are eating garlic toast and watching Paw Patrol.  All is good!

1:20: We load the grouchy (don’t really know why!) kids in the car to head home.  Mom shows them this bird nest David found in the yard (old, abandoned chickadee eggs).  Cool!

The kids are grouchy, the babies are fussing, and I’m a little worried about what the afternoon will bring, so I stop at McDonald’s for a drinkable nap (aka Dr. Pepper).

1:50: We’re home.

2:00: I lay the boys down for a nap in their swings and get the big kids a snack.  They are so hungry these days!  Natalie feeds Hootie a bit of apple.

I collapse on the couch for a little while, nursing my Dr. Pepper and browsing the web while the kids eat.  By 3:00 I’m feeling better and the babies are thankfully still sleeping.  Joanna and I work through some math on the couch.

Natalie plays with the rubber bands and this board that I can’t remember what it’s called.  Ahem.  Bad math teacher.  :)

The boys have a marathon nap (the first one is what feels like weeks), and I’m able to do some laundry and dishes.

4:50pm: I wake up the babies (Matt has come home by this point and gotten changed.) so I can nurse them before we head to church.

5:20: We get everyone loaded in the car and drive to church (late!)  The girls and I hop out and get plates of food while Matt brings the boys in.  We all eat yummy loaded tostadas and dessert.

6:00: I drop Joanna and Natalie off at choir.  You can see Natalie singing and dancing below.  You can’t see it, but she’s holding Hootie.  :)

I also drop James and the babies off in the nursery.  It’s their first time!  Finally about 6:15 I make it up to Joanna’s choir to “help.”  Basically I just watch.

7:00: Choir and Matt’s Bible study are over and we start gathering up the children.  Natalie is of course wearing dress-up when we get her.

She doesn’t forget Hootie!

Michael had an excellent first stay in the nursery – he let Miss Kathleen put him to sleep.  Thomas was a little grouchier for Miss Tasha.  But everyone survived!

Sweet sleeping Michael:

By 7:35 we’re back at home and I’m nursing the babies one more time.  The big kids get ready for bed and give me kisses goodnight.

8:15: I shower and Matt helps me apply ointment and band aids to my biopsy spots from yesterday’s dermatologist appointment.  (They’re on my back.)

8:35: We sit on the couch, eat ice cream, and watch Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (It’s our show to watch while our regular shows are on winter break.)

9:15: I decide I have to go to bed even though the show’s not over.  Matt finishes watching it.  I sleep like a LOG until about 2:45am.

Well, that was kind of a lot of work and quite possibly TMI.  Maybe I won’t keep up with it, but it was kind of fun!

Sunday

The kiddos were all wearing boots on Sunday, and they looked so cute I made them pose for pictures, even though it was getting pretty cold!

I love this one of Joanna, but James looks grouchy.  :)

Silly boy!

My cute kiddos!!

The boys had eaten and needed a nap, so I spent most of the 9:40 service walking them in the stroller.  I did manage to listen to most of a sermon while pushing the babies in the back of the gym.  Yay!  Then I nursed them in the nursery pretty successfully.

Mom and David invited us over for lunch, and we got to visit with Laura one more time before she headed back to New York.  David grilled some delicious pork chops – yuuuuum!

The kids were playing with play doh back at home, and James brought this to me so excited about it.  He said “Natalie made this.  It’s my tee-tee part!”  He was so thrilled I had to take a picture.  Ha!

We must have been watching some television.  :)

Momma and her middle child!

Matt took these of the boys chillin’ in their bouncers.

Michael:

Thomas:

Love my sweet family!  And I sure do really a whole lot love weekends.

Natalie’s birthday is on Saturday, and I’ve been trying to take a picture of her everyday this week.  I’ll put them all up as a set in a birthday post later on.

We’re easing back into our regular routine, including school.  We did a lot of reading over the break so we’re sort of “ahead” on that, but we have some math, science, and language arts to do.  It’s good not to have a full load as we get back into the groove.  Our attention spans are short.  :)

New Year’s Day and so on…

Almost all of the pictures in this post were taken with my iPod and often at night, so they’re pretty poor quality.  But I happen to think that poor quality sometimes trumps no pics at all!

We went to the Vandenberge’s for dinner on New Year’s day to spend some time with them, the Ruckers, and our friends the Eges who have moved to Florida and who were in town.

I don’t know what came over me, but I let James eat this giant train.  :)

He was extremely happy.

This is Kim’s picture that I stole off her blog.  It was NOT taken with an iPod.  :)  We love trying to get a picture of all the kiddos together.  I think we did a great job!  Thomas was fussy, but Michael was zonked!

We may have bribed Callie into moving her legs away from her face by saying she could hold a baby when we were through.  :)  She was very happy to hold Mr. Thomas!

Last January I got the hankering to clean out a lot of the closets in the house, and this January I have caught a similar bug.  I’ve done a bit of purging and organizing that I was simply not capable of doing over the past year.  I was reading a blog and there was a beautiful photo of a lovely living room with wall to wall bookcases in the living room surrounding the television.  I decided I’d love to have a bunch of beautiful matching bookcases lining the wall where my TV is, but I’d better stick with what I have for now.  :)

I’ve had this bookcase in my bedroom for forever, and it’s been totally jammed full of photo albums, pictures, textbooks, instruments, memorabilia and what-not.  A couple (few?) years ago I bought a scanner and started scanning old pictures.  I kept some favorites and ditched the rest after there was a digital copy.  I didn’t get very far, and the bookcase was a major mess.  I just decided I needed it in my living room, so I vowed to do a bunch of scanning and organizing to be able to clear it off.

AND. I. DID.  (Now that it’s done, I’m sad I didn’t take a before picture…)

This is what my living room looked like before.  The stuff on the coffee table came off the bedroom bookcase.

And after.

I think it fills up the space much better.  I have to keep the spaces on either side of the TV cabinet if I want to be able to close the doors.  And I do.  I call this phase one, with phase two hopefully being a different home for the TV.  I’d like to move the cabinet (and give it a different job) and put a low, wide dresser type piece there for the TV and components.  I’m not really she-who-buys-new-furniture, so I’m kind of just waiting for such a piece to come into my life.  :)

The second day of the new year I made some yummy new year’s-ish type of food.  I put a meaty ham bone in the crockpot with some navy beans.  My house smelled SO GOOD that day; it was almost more than I could stand.  :)  I also cooked some cabbage in butter – so good.  So, so good. 

Joanna took this one of me with the boys one evening.

Everybody at our house loves that Joanna is a reader!  The middle kids get to listen to a lot more books than if just Mommy and Daddy were reading!

I love my little Natalie artist.  The scribbles on the house are a song… can’t remember which one now.  And at the bottom is Santa on his sleigh and a reindeer!

It’s just so wonderful how different my kiddos are from each other.  Happy momma!

The Rest of Christmas

These pics are from David’s camera from we went over the day after Christmas.

The kids playing with Aunt Laura and Uncle Dusty!

There’s me; I’m holding Thomas.  And David’s mom, watching the fun.

Back inside.  I can be found in this position a lot.  :)

Joanna loves this foster puppy!

David’s sister brought some Christmas crackers (poppers?) for the kiddos.

Aunt Laura gave the kiddos a Playstation Vita.

They’re in love.  :)

Some of the last of 2013

I saw this article posted on Facebook last week, and I just loved it.  The author calls it an ode to her postpartum body.  I was inspired to set up my tripod to take a picture of my own “ruined” belly.  I’m not posting it here because I don’t want to break your computer and have to hunt all of you down and shoot you.  And also because I am not a twenty-one year old mother of ONE.  I have carried five babies in this belly.  I’m proud of it, but it’s not exactly internet material.  :)

All that to say… while the tripod was up, I took a picture with my biggins.

LOOK at Natalie’s hand on her hip. 

At some point Mr. Michael found his thumb for a few seconds.

On New Year’s eve we got together with a couple of other families to have dinner and spend time together.  It was lovely!  I didn’t take many pics, just these of some sweet big sisters holding the boys right before we left.  Julianne has Michael.

Anna has Thomas.

Big sisters are the best!  (Even when they’re not your own.)

James dug through his drawers and brought me this shirt on New Year’s Eve that he was determined to wear.  I almost said no since it’s a Fourth of July shirt, but then I realized NYE is a perfect time for sparklers as well!  Good choice, James!

And he really is my sparkler, even with the grouchy face.  :)  I’ve noticed a lot this past week that he’s really been my shadow a lot.  I’ve been doing a lot of organizing, culling, and purging, and he’s been right there with me.

I printed off these “About Me” pages for the kiddos again this year.  You can find last year’s here.  And in that post is a link to 2011.

James actually helped me fill his out this year – what a big kid!  Anything that’s in parenthesis is purely me either giving more information or providing what I think would be his answer.  Sometimes he just shrugged his shoulders at me. 

Natalie wrote her name, but I wrote everything else for her.

The kiddos got a Playstation Vita for Christmas from Aunt Laura, so that’s what they mean in favorite games or gifts.

Joanna filled hers out all my herself – what a difference a year makes!!

I’m going to retype some of it here though because some of it’s hard to read, and I don’t want to forget.

Grade: 1st grade
Friends: Anna, Aidan
Toys: Yummy Luvvies Pascal the Pug
Games: Hot shot Golf (on the PSVita)
Christmas Gift: (not sure what the first thing is), tent, Pez dispenser, Blink, Pascal the Pug
Animal: Pony
Book: Fairy something (it’s a series), No Children, No Pets
Movie: Star Trek: TNG
Song: Silent Night
Free time: Play with the Vita
Grow up: Teacher
Laugh: when I get wet, jokes
Cry: When I get hit
Best thing: Christmas morning and Christmas Eve
Worst thing: This is my favorite answer – she couldn’t think of any “worst” things!  Love her!
Place: Galveston

I didn’t fill out ones for the boys.  I’m not even sure I know enough about them to answer all of those questions.  :)  Next year!