Pinewood Derby

Our last Pinewood derby.  So sad... and yet so wonderful!  ha Although there is a good chance some sort of car race will be in the new program.

Not surprisingly Noah made a Fortnite car - much to my dismay.

Megan wanted to make one - so Jason being the amazing father that he is made one with Megan - even though she didn't get to race.

Daner

Here are more random pictures of Dane that I just can't help but take.

He has had strong neck muscles from day 1.  These pictures are from back in January.

upside down - woops.

Dane's (and all of our babies) favorite way to be held by dad.

Great things about Dane: He hasn't peed or pooed while changing his diaper or in the bath.  It is been wonderful.  And he RARELY spits up (none of my babies have ever really been spitter-uppers)

I mean... come on!!  I die

He has started grabbing toys! This was his first grab ever!

He will smile and talk to you.  He will laugh... sometimes.

Aunt Jen comes!!!

My aunt Jen came to visit in January.  It was the nicest thing!  I have missed my aunts so much while living here and I feel so loved that she would fly out here by herself to visit me and my new baby (especially when she has other children she could have gone and visited).  It was an AMAZING week.  Mostly becasue we did nothing.  Literally.  We sat in my living room and talked for 3 days.  One day we were at the kitchen table and had breakfast and we sat there so long talking that we then had lunch - I think we solved all the worlds and family problems that day.  ha.  Jen is so easy going that it was just so pleasant.  

On the last day she felt bad we hadn't done anything and she wanted to at least do SOMETHING - so she took us to Red Robin.  It was a hit and our kids' new favorite restaurant. (she is all the way in the back! - see her head).

It was a great week cuddling Dane and catching up on all the family gossip :)

Sick

One weekend in January I started feeling sick.  I woke up Sunday morning with a sore throat but that was it.  Monday morning I felt a little achy but nothing big.  By Monday about 11:30 am I was dying.  I don't think I have ever been that sick.  I had a 105 fever, my whole body hurt - like my hair and my teeth hurt.  It was horrible.  I just cried to even have to sit up.  I called about 5 people to see if I could get some help.  No one could help me.  Jason has his MBA class on Mondays and doesn't get home until 10.  Dane was having a hard day too.  Probably becasue he knew I wasn't taking good care of him - but he would not nap.  He would just cry and cry.  We cried together.

I picked up the kids from school and they knew things were bad.  I couldn't even talk to them with out crying.  I told them I needed their help - they needed to just be big and take care of themselves.  They were imminently all in.  They insisted they take care of Dane too.  I went up to bed and napped (for the first time) and the four of them did everything.  Even before I napped Brock made sure I was "set up" in bed.  He refilled my water, got me my phone, a box of tissues and a blanket - he turned off the light and shut the door and asked "is there anything else you need?".  It was amazing.  And Dane was perfectly happy.  They fed him bottles, changed diapers, played and even got him to sleep for an hour.  They all made and ate dinner, cleaned it up, did homework, cleaned up the house, and went to bed on their own.  When the girls went to bed at 8 the boys insisted on staying up with Dane until Jason got home.  I was feeling a little guilty about putting all this burden on them - but then I watched them care for Dane and work together and I realized how good this was for them.  I think they will always remember it.  When he would fuss they would work together to come up with ideas to help him.  My heart just melted.  They never once complained or anything.  Jason didn't  get home until 10:30 and the boys took care of Dane and me the whole time.  He brought our ministering brother with him and they gave me a blessing.  In the night my fever broke and I woke up Tuesday morning almost perfectly well.  By Wednesday I was 100% better.  I am grateful for my family and the priesthood.

Camping

Brock's first camp out as a deacon was the Klonderee - the winter/snow camping trip.  I was surprised at how nervous I got for him. The high was 0 degrees.  I was sure he was going to come back with frost bite.  I wanted to pack everything on that list absolutely correctly.  I was up at 5 am feeding Dane and said a prayer for Brock - hoping he was warm.  He was.  He had a great time and said he was never really that cold.

young mens basketball

With Brock becoming a deacon he has started Young Men's basketball.  There is quite a size difference!  But he is scrappy and gets right in there.

Getting our Groove

I am going to interrupt "catching up" for a quick update post.

Dane and I have a good schedule going right now.  Not everyday is the same.  But a typical day looks like this.

Eats around 5 or 6 am and goes back to bed until I wake him up to take the kids to school at 8:30.  I go back to bed after I feed him at 5 or 6 and Jason gets up with the older kids and gets them ready.  He leaves for work around 7:30 - that's when I get up and finish the kids and do family scripture reading.  My before the kids go to school: eat breakfast, shower, clean room, make bed, and do scriptures with the kids. 

After We get home from taking the kids I feed Dane (9:00) and I play with Dane, give him a bath (when it's bath day), and do what ever else you do with a baby (read books, tummy time, etc).  He will take a nap around 10:00.

The first thing I do when Dane goes down is read my scriptures and pray.  Right now I am studying about Jesus Christ from the topical guide.  I have been working my way through this for about a year.  Right now I am on "Jesus Christ, Savior.  So I am almost done.  Then I spend about 10 minutes in Come follow me.  Then I spend 15 minutes on Family Search and then I spend 10 minutes updating my blog.

Dane will nap from 10 to about 12.  My whole scriptures, prayer, FH, and blog take about 45 minutes.  I spend the next hour or so doing things around the house that need to get done.  This includes: cleaning, ironing, laundry, cooking, making phone calls (doctors, insurance, family or friends), doing my calling (Primary presidency), etc. 

Dane wakes up about 12:00 and I feed him again and play with him again. 

He takes another nap about 1:30 or 2:00.  This nap is less reliable.  Some times he will sleep for 2 hours - sometimes only half an hour.  Sometimes he sleeps the whole time - sometimes he cries every 15 minutes but just wants his binkey back.  IF i have errands to run I run them during this nap.  He is still young enough that he will sleep through getting in and out of the car in his car seat.  If I don't have errand to run I typically take a nap myself and make dinner.

Dane gets woken up at 3:30 to go get the kids.  Then we are doing kids activity stuff the rest of the night.  He will take 2 more 1 hour naps between 5 and 9 and I will feed him 2 or 3 more times.  Our evenings are just really inconstant and unpredictable. 

His last feeding is around 8:00 and he takes a 5 oz bottle (of breast milk) at 9:30.  (he wants a big last feeding and I just don't have enough milk at 9:30.)  He is in bed by 11:00 - sometimes 9:45, sometimes 10:30, sometimes 11:00 - it's anyone's guess.  I am SOOO tired by 9:30 - I am a zombie from 9:30 until he falls asleep.  Once he is asleep I pump (for his bottle the next night - because NOW I have enough milk) and then fall into bed.  He will wake up around 3:00 - but I don't feed him anymore - I just put him back to sleep.  Then he is up at 5:00 or 6:00 as mentioned above.

Boom!  That's my life!

Winter Break

Winter break was kind of a bust and kind of awesome.  I didn't take the kids to do anything.  We stayed in jammies and mostly stayed home - playing games, reading books, and watching home videos.  The kids played with friends a lot - either at our house or at their house.

Brock and Finn playing checkers

Girls playing American Girl Dolls with Zoe.

Jason made a sledding hill in our front yard - it is pretty awesome and will probably be there until May.  Every time he shovels he adds to it.  Also - it turns out they have been throwing water on it at night so it is now basically a death hill of ice =- better yet it goes right into the street!  Ha.  

One day after sledding on it the girls and their friends wanted to go "real sledding" - so Jason took them.  So nice!

Also my friends took the kids swimming, had a sleep over, took them to lunch and breakfast, a movie, and the mall.  I have great friends.

On the last day of winter break I felt bad we hadn't done anything and I felt like getting out of the house - but not doing anything BIG.  So we tried something new.  We went to the mall and window shopped.  We looked at cool stores, played on the escalator and ended it with an ice cream cone.  It was pretty fun.  

New Years Eve

This was our first New Year's Eve celebration ever.  We had never celebrated before.  We just put the kids to bed at the usual 8:00 and never mention anything about it.  I know, I know, LAME.  Last year Noah said, "aren't we supposed to stay up tonight?"  I told him maybe next year.  This year the Weister's decided it was time as well so they had us and the Clark's over.  We pretended 10:00 was 12:00 and watch the ball drop on New York time.  It was perfect.  We played a Harry Potter trivia game and a game called 5 second rule.  We had good food and spent the evening with good friends.

Christmas Sunday

I didn't do a Christmas card this year - for lots of reasons.  But if I did it would have been this.

 This is right before church on the 23rd.  Brian Weister came over to take these pictures.  I love them. I love my family.  I love my neighbors and friends - this picture represents that.  The girls dresses were borrowed early Sunday morning from 2 of our neighbors because the girls wanted Christmas dresses.  Brian came over to take a picture for us - I just thought he would use my camera and say "smile".  He took about 15 minutes setting up the house and getting the right lighting and lens.   And then their's my husband and boys who would rather do about ANYTHING else than take a family picture.

Our best present under the tree

It's cheesy but true - Dane will be what we remember about this Christmas.  He has been the light of our lives these last 7 weeks.  He was all our family really needed.   I tried to get a good photo representing this idea but he was pretty grumpy.  These were the best.