Noah is 7

Only one more year until he is baptized! That is CRAZY! This kid amazes me everyday. October is a bit of a blur for me. Between Mason and Noah's birthday and prepping for Halloween I get a little overwhelmed. This year I was happy to not do birthday party's and just spend time with mostly family. After Mason's birthday Noah was all excited and ready for his big day. He made a wish list and item number 5 still cracks me up EVERY TIME I look at it. (Math sheets for his birthday. LOL)

Noah is a pretty smart kid. He LOVES school and it comes very easily to him. I never have to ask him to do his homework, which is AMAZING. Seriously some days (most days) I think homework is more of a punishment for parents than helpful for kids. Yes that's how I feel. His favorite subject is Math and he's pretty good at it. His teacher made a really big deal out of Noah's 100% score on their timed math sheet. Telling the class she has never had a  1st grader ever achieve this this early in the school year. (Franklin is a little bit of a challenging school. Most of the school work is a grade ahead of the average elementary school). I love seeing how proud he is of himself for that accomplishment. Noah is a lot like Ron. He's very thoughtful and plans things out in his head before he makes a choice. This is an excellent quality just not always easy for his impatient fast moving mom. I'm learning though. I love how kind, polite and thoughtful Noah is. He has tons of friends and they all want to play with him. He loves sharing and is always thinking of others. If he gets candy at school or a party he ALWAYS saves some for his siblings. I really hope his generosity lasts for years and years. I'm so lucky and blessed to have my sweet, obedient, confident, reliable Noah. I am also really looking forward to next year and the big step he will be taking.

Noah's birthday fell during October Break so we had the day off. I took the kids to a bounce house place called Pump it Up (Noah got to bring a friend), Dougie from his class. Then we had pizza at the park.

We made this poster the beginning of the year for his classroom spotlight.

Some of his Favorites:

Monopoly

Mac N Cheese

Song- Rotten to the Core

Book- Avengers 

Movie- Harry Potter

Friend- Bentley

Subject- Math

"When I grow up?"- Missionary!

Everyday Noah reads to April. I LOVE how sweet he is to all his siblings.

Mason

Mason has really been amazing. I know he was my oldest for a reason. He is so helpful and so great. He can sense when I'm stressed or a little blue. This kid will just randomly give me a hug at the very moment I need it. If April is fussy and I'm busy I don't even have to ask him he immediately picks her up and takes care of her. Ron's been pretty busy lately with work and his calling. Lots of meetings and late nights. It's fine because I know our family is being blessed because of his service but it is really hard sometimes. I know that I can rely on Mason to help and somehow it makes it all better. He has such a big forgiving heart and that's just what I need with an oldest child. I'm not the greatest mom but I try. I have lots of "mom fail" moments and all of my kids are very tolerant I think. Mason is especially good at reading my mood and helping out. Lately he's been taking out the dumpsters of our elderly neighbors. It's really sweet he does it with out complaining and most of the time with out reminders. I'm not sure how I lucked out with such a great kid but I'll take it!

Man of the House

We celebrated 13 years last month and I am feeling very blessed. The past few months I've struggled a little with a few different things. Some minor health things, figuring out the whole mother or 4 thing, hormonal up and downs, starting up work again, and trying not to stress about nursing. I KNOW that my life in comparison to most is very uneventful and easy. I don't have extremely difficult trials of sickness, death, or financial stress. I am grateful for my life and especially for my family. I know we are being blessed because of our service in the Lord's name. I do have to continually remind myself of that. WARNING: I'm going to brag about Ron in this post. I'm really excited and thrilled at watching the man and father he is becoming. He's always been a good guy but the past few years our marriage has reached some pretty exhilarating highs. I'm not the best at articulating my feelings but here goes! He rarely complains about his meetings and church responsibilities. I love nothing more than to listen to him bear his testimony from the pulpit. He is not a man of many words (except when he has an argument for you) but when he speaks from the heart it really moves me. I believe because he doesn't get much time with the kids he values the little time he is given and makes every moment count. He comes home and immediately starts helping me with bedtime or dishes or whatever. Callie is 100% daddy's girl. Well, when Daddy isn't home all day and still not home by bedtime she's not too happy. We all miss him sometimes but Callie definitely expresses it the most. EVERY single night this girl ends up in our bed. It's to a point where we have a makeshift bed on the floor (Ron's side of course) just for Callie. The other night I woke up at 2am to feed April I came out and found this on the couch. (Sometimes Ron falls asleep watching sports)

Poor Ron lays by Callie every night he is able to until she falls asleep (And sometimes until he falls asleep, haha). I'm sure most people judge us and think we need to work with her and train her not to need this. But I just look at it as it's some precious one on one time that she needs. 2 days a week Ron is in charge of most of the morning routine when I leave for work. I try to do as much for the kids as I can before I leave but Ron usually ends up with the bulk of morning responsibilities. The other day I left for work and didn't have time to do Callie's hair. She was a little worried but Ron assured me he would handle it. I chuckled and thought this would be interesting. I got this picture and the following text a few mins later.

"Not too bad huh?"

I love Ron more and more everyday. I love watching him with our kids and I love just spending time with him even if the time I get is very limited.

April is 4 months old

This little baby girl of mine amazes me EVERY SINGLE DAY. She is ALWAYS soooooo happy. Just the perfect little angel baby. The ONLY negative thing I can say about her is it would be really nice if she would sleep through the night. But honestly I can't even complain about that. She gets up 2-3 times almost every night to eat and then goes right back down. She is just an absolute delight from sun up to sun down. Everyone around here is continuously smitten with her including and especially Ron. He thanks me almost daily for her addition into our family.
She is reaching milestones in bounding leaps. At her 2 month check the Doctor was really impressed with her head control and strength. Now that she is 4 months old she is already scoot-crawling (goes into an almost plank position and pushes herself forward with her feet), she is rolling from back to front and front to back. Her "crawling" is adorable because she holds her hands while pushing herself forward.  

She has this obsession with her own hands, they are always clasped together. She even has scratches on her hands from her own finger nails. She laughs now (it's the most wonderful sound in the world) and is starting to hear her own voice, making different noises just for kicks. Her eye sight is getting really good. She follows things across the room. I'm nervous I might have a finger sucker on my hands. She is constantly sucking on 1, 2 or even sometimes 3 fingers. Plus she doesn't take the bink as well as my other children did.

At her 4 month check yesterday Dr. Guthrie was really excited about her motor skills. He said that she is way ahead of the curve. I think when you have 3 older crazy siblings you have no choice but to keep up.

Her 4 month stats: (Dr. Guthrie called her slim. LOL I don't exactly see that)

Head size (40th percentile)

Length 25.5 inches (80th percentile)

Weight 13 lbs. 8 oz (40th percentile)

Her siblings dote on her constantly. It's crazy how much they love her. At times a little too much. Instead of fighting over toys or video game remotes they fight for April's attention. ALL OF THEM. The boys (and even Callie) like to read to April. Mason loves sharing his eye-patch time with April on the IPad. I feel really lucky to be in such a family with amazing loving children.

Back to School

I can't believe summer is over and school is back in full swing. I have mixed feelings about it all. I'm happy for the routine to start but sad to see less of my boys and REALLY sad for homework to come. I HATE homework. I think it's more punishment for the parents than the kids. ;)

PRE-SCHOOL

Callie has started pre-school and LOVES it! She has Miss Lindsey and Miss Brown as her teachers and I couldn't be more excited about that. She goes to Pre-K on Monday's and Wednesdays from 11:30-1:30pm. I'm a little worried about how this year is going to play out. I have her involved in quite a few extra curricular activities. I realize that less is more but what do you do when your 4 year old is super talented and good at EVERYTHING?!?! I realize I'm biased but honestly this girl amazes me with her skills and personality. Right now I have her signed up for dance, pre-school, gymnastics, and Let's Play Music. I'm really nervous I've stretched us a little thin. I'm trying really hard to talk her out of dance but she's not having it. (Yes. you heard me right my 4 year old calls the shots around here. lol)  

1ST GRADE

Noah is really excited to stay at school all day this year. He has been counting down the days for the past couple weeks for school to start. He is really looking forward to 1st grade. I LOVE that my children are morning people (It's hard sometimes when I just want to sleep in but I LOVE how productive and energetic they are in the mornings. Much better than the alternative. I know many moms who struggle with getting their kids out of bed and off to school on time. We honestly NEVER have this problem.)

Mason is going to rock 3rd grade I just know it! Both Mason and Noah will start basketball this fall and I'm excited to see how that goes.

 Matching shirts was totally not planned. Too cute. I'm glad they have similar interests. They wouldn't even let me take them to school on the first day. Boo-hoo Too excited to ride the bus.

April's Blessing Dress

 My good friend Kaeti offered to take April's baby blessing pictures. We were able to get that done this week and I'm very happy with how they turned out. Picture day STRESSES me out. I just want them to go smoothly. I know I'm a little crazy and fanatical but I love pictures, they are perfect memories for me of important events and life stories. "A picture says a thousand words" Just ask my mom. All through high school I didn't care much about my date and even what we did for our activity. It was all about how our pictures turned out. Silly I know. 

Picture Day was here for April. I timed everything just right with her feeding and getting her in her dress. I was holding her until the photographer showed up when it happened... she pooped. I panicked for a second. Immediately took her to our diaper changing area and flipped her dress up carefully so as not to get any leakage on the white. She was so happy after her diaper change and tolerated the pictures perfectly! I got myself a good baby! (Like there is such a thing as a bad baby.) 

KEM Photography:

After my friend left I held April a little while and took a few more pics on my bed. Not as good as my photographer friend but April is still pretty cute.

Family Reunion in Colorado

Last month we were able to take a family vacation to Colorado. The car ride was a little interesting with a 2 month old. What should have been a 7 hour drive took about 9 hours. But April really was an awesome traveler. My Dad paid for us to stay in these really nice cabins right along the river. Because of the rainy season the river was a little more flowing than we would have preferred with all these little ones. But thankfully no one fell in or got hurt. 

It was good to take a break from real life and hang with family. I wish we would have paid to stay another night. There just wasn't really any way of knowing how fabulous little April was going to be.

So fun to have Grandma & Grandpa Hopkins there too!

Sleeping arrangements were too funny. These 3 crazies on the pull out bed. Ron and I in the next room with our bed and April had a queen bed all to herself. Worked out awesome!

Took a family hike in the beautiful Colorado mountains. So green!!! (And I'm not talking about our shirts!)

I love this crazy wonderful family of mine.