She is really strong. Her neck control is great as you can see from the pictures and she loves to scoot herself across the bed with her toes. She didn’t have very much baby acne and now it is almost gone. She is just plain adorable and she looks so much different from her sister. It’s crazy! It seems like just yesterday that I was writing this post about Virginia and now I have another baby girl which was so unexpected and yet so appreciated. I am so grateful to have three beautiful daughters and four handsome sons!!!

She is a lovely baby. She was 7lbs 15oz and 20 inches at birth. She was under the lights for jaundice due to severe bruising during her birth and by the time we left the hospital she was 7lbs 4 oz. She is nursing well and at her 2 week check she was already up to 8 lbs 5 oz and 21 inches long. I weighed her at 3.5 weeks and she was 9lbs 9oz! I haven’t had the energy to take many pictures of her. I will include pictures from 2 days, 1 week and 3 wks old here.

Xander- Now age 14, Xander has become quite the teenager. His June was packed with youth activities like Youth For Freedom, Simulations Week, youth conference and a Pioneer Trek. Since then has spent the rest of the summer sleeping. I am not sure what to think of the phenomenon. I am surprised he hasn’t spent more time hanging out with his friends but I’m glad he isn’t getting into any trouble. I wonder if he’s just going through a major growth spurt. Every day he seems taller and I think he may definitely overtake me soon. He has great need of braces and he’s trying to avoid it. I hate to make him get braces just as he’s starting High School, especially since most of his classes require eloquent speech ability, but he really needs to get them done.

Sullivan- Sully is now almost 12 years old. He has been spending the summer playing video games and watching TV. Ever since I had the baby I just can’t enforce the “no screens” rule and that’s what they have all been doing. He hasn’t even been practicing his piano. I feel frustrated but I don’t know what to do other than try to get the whole household back on track.

Ahrana- Rani just turned 9 years old and we celebrated our 6th gotcha day together painting her feet red and telling her adoption story. I started to wonder when she will get too old for our little tradition and what we will do when she does. She is still an extremely helpful and responsible child. She has spent the summer helping me, getting her chores done exceptionally fast and playing at the homes of her many friends. She is a wonderful child and a joy to me. I am so grateful that we have her in our home. She is looking forward to a big year filled with learning. She is on fire to learn. The kids had their clogging and ballet recital in early June and Rani was amazing! She also tried out for a clogging team this year and we are waiting to find out if she made it!

Oliver- Oliver turned 8 at the end of May and he was baptised in early June. We are so proud of him for choosing baptism! Since then Ollie has spent the summer playing with friends and riding bikes around the neighborhood. Other than one late night jaunt on his bike (after 10pm) without asking and burning a plastic cup with a propane torch, he has pretty much kept out of trouble. He is my most accident prone child and the one most likely to get into trouble, so I guess if that’s all that’s happened he’s doing OK. It’s frustrating how difficult it is to keep the kids doing what they should be doing when you spend so much time nursing a baby. I am looking forward to moving into a more structured schedule for everyone over the next month or so. He adores the new baby and asks to hold her quite a bit.

Finneas- Poor little Finn has had a rough go of things. Mid June Finn’s stomach aches turned to major surgery when it was discovered that he had appendicitis. I was 38 weeks pregnant at the time and it was really difficult. David was out of town with the four older kids in Wyoming for a pioneer handcart trek. He finally got back in town about 12 hours after the surgery. It was an extremely painful ordeal and due to his stomach aches continuing still at 6 weeks post surgery I decided to have him see a chiropractor to see if there is an underlying cause to his problems. We discovered that his lower back is indeed extremely subluxated and his spine has curved quite a bit to compensate. I am really hoping that the chiropractic adjustments will improve his stomach issues. I feel so bad that I didn’t discover the problems sooner before it led to surgery. I really hope his attitude will improve as well.

Virginia spent time in the hospital as well. About two weeks after her birthday she came down with some serious hip pain. After doing every test under the sun including a sedated MRI, it was determined that it was just a flare up of her immune system. IMO it was a reaction to the MMR vaccine since she had received it 12 days prior and had had a strange fever a couple of days before. She improved right away on Motrin and it hasn’t been an issue for her since.  She did wonderfully until the baby arrived. Since then she has become a whirlwind of destruction and she loves the baby too much, almost to the point of hurting her. I have to admit that I have had a hard time keeping up with her. It’s so frustrating. Before the baby came we used to cuddle for hours, now I can’t even get her to lay still for a second. The baby makes her too excited. Now four weeks later she is getting better but she is still getting into as much trouble as a toddler can get into.

As far as Dave and I are concerned. We have been through the ringer. I will write separately about the new baby and include some photos of her. She is wonderful.  My garden finally started to grow and I am looking forward to eating tomatoes, squash, peppers and corn soon. David put money down on a BBQ competition that will take place in September. It will be his first competition and we are all excited for him.

Somewhere in the middle of all of her practices my baby turned TWO! I still can’t believe it! She is the sweetest child on the earth. I call her Mary Poppins because she is “practically perfect in every way”. She is always happy and she loves to cuddle with Mommy.  I adore all of my children but I have to say that right now Virginia is the one who has me wrapped around her tiny little finger.  On her birthday day we didn’t really get to celebrate. We spent most of the day at dance classes and the second half of the day taking the older two boys to try out to be an extra on a Liken Media movie. They didn’t make it, but it was fun to try.  We didn’t get to celebrate Virginia’s birthday until about three days after her actual birthday.  She received a new blanket for her bed, a new baby doll she named “Baby Amy”, some new clothes, and a new bike.  She was very happy and oh so adorable! I love this age.  I am going to enjoy it as much as I can.  I am going to miss her being so small when she grows up.  She had her 2yo well-child check up and she is completely back on track at 40th percentile for weight and 30th percentile for height.  Shocking after the ordeal we went through trying to get her on the chart at all!  She got her MMR vaccine and ended up having a bad reaction to it 12 days later. I hope that I have time to right about that ordeal soon. Right now I just don’t have the energy.

I have had quite a few photo sessions as well. They have definitely been interesting. I will post a hilarious picture here because I still can’t believe I did it.  I was taking senior photos for a young gentleman. He wanted graffitti in his pictures and the only place I could think of was out by the Great Salt Lake. Much to my chagrin we discovered that the place has been chained up! I stared at that gate for 10 minutes before I dared to brave it. I still can’t believe my 33 ks pregnant and already chunky self made it over the fence! That wasn’t the half of it. After we made it over the fence we were completely eaten alive by tiny little sand flies. They itched like crazy and we all looked like we had the measles when we were done. It was worth it though because we got some great shots.  I had another photo session a few days later where it rained on the 2yo and babies. The poor 2yo hadn’t had a nap and getting her picture taken was NOT what she had in mind for a nice day, but we got some fun shots anyway.  I am definitely looking forward to my maternity leave. It is tough to do pictures when pregnant. My brain feels fuzzy and I can’t do many things that I need to do to get the best shot. I love my job but I am soooo looking forward to a break! I can’t believe in less than 6 weeks I will be holding my new little one. I can’t wait to meet her! She is so special. I am so excited to spend time snuggling with a newborn again. That has to be my favorite thing in the world.

This year was different.  This year my kids woke me up with breakfast in bed at 8am with no help from Dad.  The problem was I was so sick I couldn’t even breathe all night and when they brought my breakfast I just couldn’t even open my eyes.  After a while I finally sat up but I just couldn’t make myself eat the breakfast bowl even though I was starving.  Xander brought me in a grapefruit that he had cut the wrong way. I asked him to cut it again so that I could eat it. He brought it back duct taped together! I just had to take a picture because it was the cutest thing ever. It’s proof that duct tape can fix anything.

After the breakfast they brought me  a lovely gift wrapped in teal damask wrapping paper all taped up with green duct tape. It was a wooden clothes drying rack! YAY! Now when I wash the girls’ clothes there won’t be clothes drying on all the couches and chairs!

I was too sick to go to church. I felt bad. This was the first time I we haven’t gone to church on Mother’s Day. But it ended up being so nice because while I lounged in bed reading and shhhh watching a little TV, the kids cleaned the house and Dave made my favorite dinner, pot roast and potatoes.

It was the best Mother’s Day! And even though I was sick and it was hard to feel well, I felt loved. Thank you family!

Finneas and Oliver don’t love dance anymore. Both of them say that they won’t be continuing on next year. That’s really too bad, but I’m not going to force them to dance if they don’t want to. If they quit it will leave Rani room to persue it further and try out for a clogging team. She will also add Jazz ballet to her list of classes. I’m excited that she will have the opportunity to work a bit harder in dance and really improve her skills.

I keep thinking that the problem lies in the fact that they don’t have any toys.  Last year we got rid of most of our toys when we were thinking of selling our house.  We have a few toys here and there but none are as engaging as the screens were.  I keep thinking I need to buy something to help them have a more productive free time but I have no idea what to buy. We have no puzzles or board games because they always lose the pieces, the older boys have legos but they rarely play with them and they keep them in their room away from the younger kids, we have dress ups and dolls which are great for my 2yo but not for a 14yo boy who loves to design video games and plays with photoshop in his spare time. I keep wishing we had more land so they could just go outside and do something.  Our trampoline has gotten more use this month than in it’s entire 5 years at our house and now the canvas is breaking. Our playset is leaning and I am afraid it will fall on someone. In the front yard the street is busy and I’m always worried they are going to get hit by a car when they are riding their bikes. And I definitely can’t let the two-year-old out there. sigh

The only positive side of things is that my two older boys have definitely become more physically active. They have been going to the pool more often, playing basketball with their friends, and riding their bikes.  I am definitely excited and grateful for this phenomenon and I don’t want to do anything to change it. They have both decided to earn their Physical Fitness Merit Badges this summer and  I think that’s wonderful!

photo by Sullivan my 11yo. He was making a slideshow movies about two bionicles fighting. I find that extremely appropriate for this post.

And the countdown to baby begins! I can’t believe I am already 30 weeks. I am sooo not ready for this baby! I have so much to do to get ready and I can’t seem to get started. I did go in for a 4d ultrasound yesterday.  Lulu was transverse at my pelvis again! That’s the same position she was in when I went in at 23 weeks. I really hope she doesn’t get comfortable down there.  They couldn’t get a good fix on her to do the 4d video but we did get a nice girly part shot and a 3d picture of her with her legs by her head and her fingers on her forehead. LOL silly girl!