A smattering of photographs, mostly Mother's Day related

So, here is a smattering of photographs from our overly exciting and amazing lives:

Here is Stacey next to a large, concrete, ear of corn.  Very beautiful.  Nice curves.  Soft features.  Reminds me of a real ear of corn.  Stacey is also good looking (she always asks me not to call her hot, so, I won't, although she is).  She also boasts the corsage she got for Mother's day, which she was able to protect through an entire 3 hour block of church from all of her children.  An amazing feat.

Jacob and I, as the standing committee to designate the World's Greatest Mother, held our meeting yesterday.  The vote was close, but, Stacey came out on top as the World's Greatest Mother.  Congratulations to her on an award well deserved.  She will get to wear her sash throughout the year at official family events, but will have to return it next year on Mother's Day, when the committee will meet again.  Perhaps most entertaining is that when I was asking Rebecca who she thought might win, Rebecca was very convinced she would win. She was sincerely distraught over losing the title to her mother, and in this picture, is sobbing uncontrollably behind Stacey.

Blurry, but, one of Hannah's tricks.  She also gets up on her knees.  I forecast she will be crawling many, many months before any of her three older siblings did.  They didn't really have anywhere to crawl...

Rebecca's very sad face after she was not awarded the World's Greatest Mother award.

This Mothers Day, I changed Sarah.  Hold the applause until the end of the paragraph.  I was pretty amazed that they make these things in bathrooms (I am told they are also in female bathrooms) to change babies.  I was astounded when I first used one yesterday.  They were thinking of everything with these little things.  A flat surface, rounded so babies can't roll off as easy when you need to go get a drink in the middle of a diaper change, and all right there in the bathroom where everyone else does their business. All this time going into bathrooms, and I never really noticed them.  Hopefully they don't take them all out before next Mother's Day, when I may have to change some baby again.  Hopefully, though, Stacey can just potty train them all by then.

Rebecca made a handful of small gifts and put them in this very large box for Stacey.  While Stacey and I were still in bed, we heard what sounded like a wounded animal climbing the stairs..."thump, thump, thump, thump."  It was Rebecca, carrying the vary large box up from the basement, to delivery the handful of papers that were in the bottom of the box.

Rebecca matching her doll.  Very cute.

And, as I was putting together dinner yesterday, I had some stuff out on the picnic table.  Rebecca was sitting at the table with Sarah, and Sarah was eying the chips on the table.  I was going to go inside to get something else and I told Rebecca she was in charge of making sure Sarah did not steal any chips.  When I got back, this is what I found.  I rounded up Rebecca, who said that she had left Lindley (her doll, who, like Rebecca, had changed clothes since church) to watch Sarah.  And there she is, Lindley, watching Sarah, eat chips.

Rebecca and Jacob with the garden that we put in a week and a bit ago.  28 tomatoes, and some other stuff.  My crop yields are about 1/7th what a normal persons is, so, it is as if I planted 4 tomatoes (which should be just about right to give us some nice tomatoes during the summer).

Jacob climbing on some rocks at the Fathers and Sons camp-out this weekend.


There are no accompanying pictures, but, here are the two quotes of the week:

1.  I did some errands with Rebecca, and, she got tired.  She was complaining about how her legs were very tired, and she could walk no further.  Then she said, "Why didn't Jesus just make us so we could hop or skip or jump instead of having to walk?"

2.  Jacob and Rebecca had been fighting, and he was very upset about being told he had acted improperly.  He said, "I wish I was Sarah so I could just do whatever I want."

Regarding Sarah, Jacob's understanding of the situation is basically correct.

Backyard Circus and a Compliment

We had a new tent delivered to our home today and I brought Jacob and the babies home from soccer to find that Jeff and Rebecca had set up the tent in the backyard. I walked back there to take a look and a little girl in a lion costume popped up in the window. I asked Rebecca why she had on the lion costume and she was so excited to tell me it was because there was going to be a circus after dinner.  She worked hard writing out tickets for all of us (with our last name and our house number on them) and Jacob practiced his clown act. Our neighbor Ellie brought over a hula hoop and she was the lion tamer so Rebecca jumped through the hoop. I picked Hannah up to bring her under the big top with me and she had a blowout but was quite happy and excited along with everyone else. Sarah twirled in circles with me while I sang circusy kind of music and kept clapping for everyone. There was a little trapeze act on our swing set as well. Jeff was announcing all the acts while he was mulching and planting hostas in the backyard, and attempting to swallow a wooden sword: "And now we have a the amazing clown doing tricks with the white and black ball! And the Lion will jump through the hoop! And we have a blowout!  We even have monkeys riding on dogs!"

The kids went to bed pretty late, we skipped baths tonight (well, I had planned on bathing the kids, no one else seemed to notice) and I realized I didn't care one bit. I had a lot of fun tonight being with the people I love the most and the memory of that matters more to me than if they have stinky feet tomorrow or are a little grouchy at breakfast.

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On the way home from soccer tonight, Jacob told me he was excited to try what I had made for dinner. It was a recipe I got from a friend's blog (recipe here) and I told him we always like any recipe that we get from her so I was sure it would be yummy. "If it is enchilada casserole then does it have enchilada sauce, Mommy?" he asked. I told him it did but that it wouldn't be as spicy as it sometimes is because it had milk and honey also. We chatted a bit more and then he said, "All the dinners you have ever made in the whole world are better than anyone else's."  Now, I don't know that that was necessarily true, but I will tell you that it made my mother heart soar. Six year-olds are all about being competitive, and at least in that moment, I was his #1, and you can bet I told him how much that meant to me.

P.S. dinner was, in fact, quite good. Thanks to Brooke for the recipe and thanks to Jeff for always having enchilada sauce in the fridge ready to go  :)

Easter 2014

This year we finally dyed Easter eggs after bath time the Saturday before Easter. That was cutting it a bit close! Egg dyeing is a tradition Jeff and I both grew up with and we like doing it with our kids as well. An egg is symbolic of the Resurrection of the Savior: though His body was placed in a tomb, He was able to rise again.  Eggs have a hard outer shell but from them can spring new life (not ours, but we did enjoy some egg salad). How grateful we are for the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because of Him, these four smiling children (and their dad) can be with me forever. We are so blessed!  We failed to take formal pictures this year but the choir I lead sounded great in Church on Easter and we had the sister missionaries join us for dinner that night and it was a wonderful day.

I recently reread this excerpt I posted five years ago and I still love it: http://teamhoopes.blogspot.com/2009/04/easter-thoughts.html

She does this face and it always makes me laugh. Glad Jeff got a picture of it :)  

You can fly! You can fly!

When your five year old runs upstairs and says to you (as you brush your teeth), "Sarah got the cornmeal!!", you do not walk downstairs, you run (and get the camera first, butofcourse).  

"All it takes is faith and trust!  Oh and I almost forgot, a little bit of pixie dust!" - Peter Pan

Or in Sarah's case, maybe it takes some cornmeal...that is what I thought of when I took the video from up in the loft above the family room, hence my "are you trying to learn how to fly?" comment in the video.

I read the following last month from another mom (of six!) whose youngest is Sarah's age and I loved it: "God made this age cute, because we just have to love them, we have to, if not, we'll go a little side of crazy.  The messes really don't matter anyways, I don't remember the gajillion messes I've cleaned up from toddlers, but I will always crave those darn chubby cheeks, and soft skin and little pitter patters of feet." (source)

This was definitely a job for the real vacuum but Rebecca was very eager to assist and began with the little one first. :)  

Six Month Hannah (and friends)

Hannah has been doing lots of growing. It is funny to have a baby the age she is because I feel like I had her, then we holed up for the winter and now here we are and she is rolling all over the place and thinking about crawling and sitting.  Here she is for her monthly pictures, November-April!

Mad either because I couldn't find her pink elephant that night or because Dad was out of town. It was hard to tell.

Just over 15 lbs and a remarkably lovely little lady!  Her hair looks red in the lighting against the brown couch. I sometimes think it looks red in sunlight but mostly it still looks brown-ish. We will see!  

I thought it would be fun to see a side-by-side comparison of her with the other three kids. Here they are in order. Guess who had the most blurry pictures during the photo shoot at the six month mark??  :)  Love them all so much!

Ode To Blogging

The other day I was looking up something on our blog to figure out what Rebecca's first word was for a school assignment she had. I am not really good at keeping records like that but I knew we'd find something to use. When she was a baby I was really good about keeping the blog up to date. I feel like everyone says it on their family blogs at some point that they want to dust it off again and write more and post more pictures. I have had some tricky times in years past and there were a few things that helped me ride out the emotional roller coaster I was on. I realized when I was searching through and then reading through all those old posts that, though I hadn't realized it at the time, blogging was one of those things.

I feel like now when I want to share something cute my kids did or talk about our day I default to facebook. It must be that instant gratification and affirmation that humans seek in our day and age. I do like feeling connected to past friends but it really is such a time waster - anyone can tell you that.

So now I am finding myself here in Columbus, still getting used to a new place - though we we have been here since last July so not so new anymore, my youngest is 6 months old this Friday (where does time GO?!), my house is sorely in need of a decorator and unfortunately I feel like I am not confident enough for it to be me, and that whole emotional roller coaster seems to be creeping up on me again. I need to get out my thoughts and I need to just do it for me - so, yep, I'll say it: I want to dust off this blog, write more, post more pictures, all of it. I have had childhood memories come back to me recently in an extremely vivid way and I feel a nudge to record them and I feel like this is a good place. I am trying to be more in tune with my children and I feel like this is a good place to keep track of that progress as they are growing.

So you might be seeing more of me here and probably less of me on The Facebooks.

Going with the title, I wanted to post a couple links to blog posts that I have learned from the last little while. Enjoy!

Arrows: A Secret Weapon in Decorating

Punch Your Fears & Problems in the Face

A Little Epiphany

A few pictures (some bad) taken on my phone...

Salt 'n Pepa

No, not the group from the 90's (or whenever it was that they were popular...)!

Just referring to the hair color of my littlest girls who had an impromptu photo shoot the other night with Dad while Mom and the big kids were out:

Hannah joined our family October 11th and while I need to do a post on the story of her birth, I thought this picture was worth sharing now while I work on getting the other more journaly write-up done. :)

And also this picture:

And one more:

Rebeccaisms

Rebecca and I have been enjoying lots of one-on-one time during Sarah's naps in the morning while Jacob is at school all day. I knew she was fun and imaginative but it really has been a great blessing to spend time with her.  We like to bake things, practice writing, read lots of books, play and color. This week she's said a few things that I thought were pretty cute that are all similar (but they were kind of said unexpectedly, without any prodding from me) and a couple weeks ago she made a point that was also pretty funny. She'll be 4.5 next week and is pretty wonderful.

1. Mom! There are two kinds of bats! (looking at a picture of a baseball bat and reading me the letters) The kind they use for baseball and the kind that flies around!

2. There are two kinds of trip!  The one where you fall down on your knees and the other one where you are gone for a really long time!

3. Yesterday Jacob had to practice printing P and p so naturally Rebecca was doing so as well. Today she was talking about that and said there are two kinds of P. (I braced myself for this one, by the way.)  "The kind of P that is a letter and the kind of pea that you eat!"  :)

4. Today in the car she was making up a song about sea turtles and then she stopped abruptly to tell me something. "Mommy, there are two kinds of sea!  The kind of seeing you do with your eyes, and the other kind that is like sea turtles."

5. Rebecca was lamenting about not being able to use something of Jacob's because he didn't want to share or something and then she stopped being upset and her face lit up as she said, "Jacob! Jacob! I can use it while you are at school, and you can use it on holidays and Saturdays when you are home!"

It is rough having your big brother gone all day, and she tells me often that she wishes Jacob could be home more, but that she is excited to go to school with him next year.

Before the haircut (her third one)

And...after the hair cut!  She was so excited when the stylist offered to braid her hair.

Practicing writing her name!  You can also see Jacob's "[Hey I hope that you are having fun]" on there also 

"Please take a picture of me with this rock!"

Sunday night Rebecca drew her first person with a body. She was so excited: "Mommy!  I drew the arms not coming out of the head! Come see, come see!"