The beginning of a new year

We had some big to-do's this year. A couple visits to the ER, a big RV project, new schools and activities. Best of all, a new baby. I spent most of the year pregnant, which....bleh. But now we have our perfect little Eric, and he keeps getting better and better.

He will be eight weeks old this week. He finally started smiling at me around six weeks old, and he still saves almost all of his smiles for his mama. The kids looks at me like his world begins and ends in my face, and I am just soaking in all the love I can get. He gets cuter everyday and so our streak of making the most adorable children around continues.

Everyone loves the baby and he gets his fair share of kisses during the day. He has started extending his first sleep of the night to about five hours, which is nice, but the rest of the night are still not always great. He has really turned a great corner personality-wise in the last two weeks - now that he is used to having a human body and is feeling a little better.

It has been a pretty overwhelming having four kids. I keep thinking of things I would like to take the older kids to do, but the thought of leaving the house with all four of them is just so daunting. I took all four to lunch at Sams Club the other day while Tim took a conference call at work on his day off and it went surprisingly well and I am still proud of myself. I had all four out in public for over an hour and I didn't threaten anyone and everyone left happy AND they were still pretty clean when we left. But still. It is terrifying.

Mostly it is Ava. She is just everywhere all the time. It is impossible to keep an eye on her in the confines of our own house, so anywhere else is a nightmare. When we got to the grocery store she won't sit in front of the cart, she won't sit in the big part, she won't walk, she won't ride on the side, and I can't hold her. But she also wants to do all of those things. At once. She just has so. much. energy. Add Mason's nearly constant pestering of Brielle and we basically just don't get out much.

All that being said, my life is so full. There is so much love and happiness to true enjoyment. Some days I feel like I could just sit and watch them all day. Every little mannerism, and their sweet little voices, and those giant imaginations all just fill me with so much satisfaction. I made these beautiful, innocent little creatures and now I get to enjoy them every day. Maybe the hard makes the good that much better.

We have been a little off our schedule this week and I guess Mason noticed because on Christmas Eve when he was going to bed he asked his dad to remind me that we need to read scriptures in the morning. I guess I'm not totally failing.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas with kids is just wonderful.

Mason and Brielle have been so excited. Christmas questions began around Halloween and the build up has been great. We went to the English's and the Arbon's for Christmas Eve and it was good seeing everyone that night. In the morning the kids started waking up around 6:00 and by 6:30 everyone was awake and wondering where Santa was. There were no presents under the tree! Mason and Brielle both snuck out to check before coming in our room and then came in to tell us that he didn't come. Luckily, that sneaky guy did come, he just put everything downstairs this year.

Watching those happy faces and hearing "This is the best Christmas EVER!" a hundred times was the best.

Thanksgiving

This year Tim's family decided to go to his sister Steph's cabin for Thanksgiving, so we didn't get to see any of them over the holiday. It is always weird when we don't see one side of the family on a holiday.

So we had the day with the English's. Unfortunately, they decided to schedule around Brady's family's holiday, and our dinner didn't start until 4:30. That meant that Tim had time to seriously injure his foot with an exercise band (he went to the ER a couple of days later and the x-rays didn't show a break, but it has been a month and it still hurts). So he couldn't walk all evening. Which meant that I got to wrangle all four kids all evening during the hardest time of the day.

But other than that, it was really nice. And I got to meet Emily's sweet baby Ivy for the first time. She is so dainty and adorable. It made me happy to finally get to hold her. I think the kids had a good time and the food was delicious. I have a lot to be thankful for. I have everything to be thankful for.

Here are some photos from the the last part of November, including Thanksgiving.

A Wall

We have had the house up for sale, off and on, for the three years we have lived here. Every time someone goes through it it seems there is just one major hang-up. One thing they don't like and they either can't change it, or they don't want to do the work. I can't blame them, because as much as I love it here, I have those hang-ups too. Mine is the backyard. It isn't kid-friendly and most of it is useless.

For a lot of other people, it has been the lack of RV parking. There is also a great garage in the back, but no good way to get there. So this fall we decided to remedy our parking problem and get an RV pad. We have gotten a few quotes over the years and they have all been so ridiculously high that we didn't really consider it a possibility. But someone gave Tim a referral for a cement guy that was desperate for work and would give us a great deal.

Enter Michael L. Smith, and his pal Jimmy. He did give us a great quote. It was to pour footings, build a 10-foot tall retaining wall, back-fill, compact, and then do flat work on an RV pad, and a ramp and large sidewalk leading to the suspended garage.

Unfortunately, he didn't build a secure form for the wall and our cement blew it out. So then we got to pay extra to have Heath Mote come and reinforce the re-bar skirt and use metal frames to pour a new wall. Then Michael came back at Tim's insistence and did the gravel back-fill and almost all the of the flat work on Halloween. We still have to hire someone ELSE to come and finish the saw cut joint lines, because Michael is MIA. As flaky as Michael has been, Tim still likes the charismatic guy.

So, a few months later, a few thousand dollars extra later, and an unbelievable amount of stress and work (and head-into-cement-mixer-chute injuries) for Tim later, the RV pad is finally finished. Now we just have to build stairs on the Wheeler's property (to replace the ones we tore out because they were halfway on our property), raise the level of the grass at the bottom, and plaster the outside of the wall and then the whole project will actually be done. Hopefully the sprinklers still work in the spring - since day number one on the job, our main line got broken.

Don't worry, Tim got to tear down most of this wall himself.

And here is a nice 5.5 yards of concrete spilling onto the lawn.

Starting over.

Eric Bus Arbon

November 7, 2014 at 2:55 PM

Our precious little Eric arrived, safe and sound.

8 pounds 8 ounces, 21.5 inches long