My Life This Week

It is amazing what happens when you eat a whole bunch of vegetables. Surprisingly enough, I have a lot more energy today. Life has been moving along for our family. I haven't really felt that inspired to blog, but I figure I can just start writing something and then maybe the creative juices will start flowing again.

It is intimidating to move into a new house, especially one with vast and empty wall space.  Where do I hang the pictures? I don't feel like my life is complete until the pictures are hung, but it feels like such a commitment to decide where to put them.  Like the unraveling of a scroll, I am starting to find a place for everything. I just have to keep reminding myself that nothing is permanent. If I don't like it, I can always put it somewhere else.

I am trying to get all of my children involved in learning and some kind of school. They are all getting old enough to do something now. This week, we started some preschool stuff and Eli, Harry, and Julia seemed to enjoy it. Naturally, we had to start with the letter A.

I found a few things online and we did those activities. We made a silly letter A lady and sang some songs and did rhymes. I also checked out "The Letter Factory" from the library. Julia really liked to watch it, Harry was somewhat interested, and Eli really didn't care for it.  I think it is a little below where he is right now.  But I did push on with reading lessons for him.  He is pretty bright, but does have reading tendencies like Raef. I hope that I will be able to deal with that better this time around. I guess I will find out really soon.

I am going to be getting two new callings in church: Primary pianist and Webelos leader.  Piano will be fun and I am grateful for the chance to really develop that skill to another level.  As for Webelos, I thought I was done with Cub Scouts for a while, but I guess I will get to enjoy it from another angle this time around.

My pregnancy is going well, as far as I can tell. I feel good and have lots of energy.  I am trying to remain positive about everything and I do feel that my attitude is changing a bit. I do have a lot of anxiety about the impending c-section, but I guess I am just going to not think about it. It is completely out of my control and I will just have to put my trust in the Lord, and the doctors.

Rinar headed out to St. George today with Raef and Julia. He is competing in the St. George Half Ironman. I hope he survives, as he has not had the luxury of being able to train very much, with all of the craziness we have experienced over the past few months.  But he seems confident that he will manage it just fine, so I can only hope for the best. It will be nice to have a few days with fewer kids. It will be a nice break.

I Guess I Ought to Blog Something

I have been in a blogging funk. Sorry, Grandma(s). I have just been so busy trying to get my life back to normal around here. My house is in complete disarray and I am trying to re-array it.

I almost have all of my Christmas decorations up. Rinar just needs to put some on the outside of the house. I cleaned up a lot of corners and stacks of clutter downstairs. This weekend I also purged all baby clothing, separated it, and put things in proper bedroom spaces. I cleaned out three bookshelves and re-put things in new places. It is all so convoluted because when I was pregnant we moved all of the kids' bedrooms around. Raef and Zach's new room is pretty set, but the other two are just sketched out. They both need to be painted and redecorated and everything. So I am just trying to take it one step at a time. Lots of little things add up to big things. I am a big believer in that.

On top of trying to restore order to my home, I also have to nurse two babies, change loads of dirty diapers, and shuttle kids to music lessons and such. My one saving grace is that I started a little dinner group co-op. Hence, on Tuesday and Wednesday I don't have to cook. I have a lovely meal delivered to my doorstep. Then on Thursday I cook for me and the two other families. I have been able to be more thoughtful about my cooking day and plan for it without the burden of daily cooking duties. It has truly been a huge blessing.

Harry and Julia are doing fantastic these days. They are growing like crazy and are sleeping longer at night. Last night they did 6 hours, from midnight to 6:30am. Hence, I slept for about 5 1/2 hours uninterrupted. It was great. Each night it gets a little bit longer, so I would guess that within the next 2-3 weeks they will probably sleep 8-10 hours. I look forward to normalcy.

We had a wonderful double Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving day we spent it with our good friends Stan and Amy O. They have 4 kids about the same age so it worked out well for all of us. It was a very traditional dinner that was a breeze to put together because we split up the cooking duties. Then on Friday we went to St. George to have Thanksgiving with Rinar's family. We have been doing this for many years now and it works out great. There is no conflict with other family functions with all of his brothers and sisters.

Here are a couple of random photos from the last couple of weeks.