Life with Four Kids

I have been trying to write this post for three days.  Honestly my brain is just not functioning very well and I feel like my thoughts are pretty jumbled.  So ignore my writing abilities and just pay attention to the cute pictures.  :)

What an adventure having 4 kids has been.  Everything has been your typical "bringing and baby home" behavior.  Just lots of work and little sleep.  So far it has been a bigger challenge then I expected, but I am hoping we figure a few more things out and it gets easier.  When I was pregnant with Magnolia people would ask me if I was nervous about adding another baby to the mix.  At the time my response was "three kids is already really hard... it can't get much harder.  Right?"  I truly believed those words and didn't worry too much about adding a 4th child.  Even if that 4th child meant that we would now have 4 kids 5 and under.

Well the day I came home from the hospital it became clear that it could get harder.  Even with an "easy"baby (which Magnolia has been) these crazy kiddos take all of our time and energy.  The other day McKay and I joked (yet were serious too) about the fact that someday life might be fun again.  We don't mean that we hate our life, it is just hard (but a good hard!) and there is not a lot of time for relaxation for us adults.  Right now we are deep into toddler and baby stages of life.  All of our kids take work and have needs, yet none of them are really old enough to help out.  Literally all we accomplish during the day is the basic nessessities of life.  Food, potty/diapers, sleep, clean, repeat.  Leaving the house (no matter where we are going) is stressful and tiring.  Throw daily Kindergarten carpool into the mix  along with 6-7 nursing sessions a day and it has been a big change for me.

 The biggest change has been getting used to having a newborn again (and laundry... oh and loading the car with 4 carseats).  It is amazing how quickly you forget all the little details that having a new baby brings.  They change your family dynamic and force you to slow down a bit.

Currently we are 4 weeks into life with 4 kids and thankfully I can see that there might.. maybe...someday be a light at the end of the tunnel.  The kids will get older and we will find our groove again (just in time to have another one right?! haha!  But seriously.)

Last week I read this blog post from a mother who recently had her 7th child and I loved how she talked about lowering our expectations.  That is exactly what adding a new child does to you.  You just have to let some things go in order to survive.  Also online shopping is a nessessity and I may have almost cried when I found out that our Walmart does not do curbside pick up on groceries yet.

I think Jensen and Declin have discovered that their parents are pretty distracted these days and just started doing things on their own.  Such as take a bath... Oh and lots of food messes thanks to them just helping themselves to snacks.  Boys!

Oh and lets be honest and give some (or a lot of) credit to Netflix.  We may not have survived the last few weeks without it.  Specifially Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  The one show all the kids can agree on.  :)

But joking aside, I am so grateful to all of those people in our lives who have been helping us out these past few weeks.  We have had so many people bring us dinners and every one of them has been appreciated and helpful!  Lots of support and love from those around us.  We are so happy to be surrounded by such wonderful friends.

Life is a challenge these days, but I learn so much daily while taking care of my little family that I definitely would not have it any other way.
 

   

   





     

Halloween 2016

Are you tired of Halloween pictures yet?  I know I am behind on posting these since now we are all focused on what pie we are going to make for Thanksgiving and our kids Christmas lists but I still wanted to post these pictures for the blog book.

This year my kids really got into the Halloween spirit.  They watched Halloween movies on Netflix for the whole month of October.  They talked about ghosts, witches, and monsters all the time and they loved discussing what they were going to be for Halloween.  Even Declin was constantly discussing the Halloween ghosts that lived in our house.  Personally I was a little bit nervous about how the holiday festivities would even go since I possibly could have been in the hospital on Halloween having a baby (glad she came a week earlier!).  But I think in the end they had a great time celebrating Halloween and still got to participate in lots of fun activities even with a new baby thrown into the mix.

This year for Halloween we decided to do a little family theme.  The kids have really been into pirates the last few months so we decided to have that be our Halloween costumes this year.  Adalyn was Tinker Bell, Jensen was Captain Hook, Declin was just another pirate (should of had him be Peter Pan), and McKay was Mr. Smee.  Luckily they all loved their costumes!

Here is a quick recap of their Halloween fun...

First- Adalyn's School's Fall Carnival

Adalyn was SO excited for us to come to her school for the carnival.  She had been begging me for weeks to come inside her school, but with a big 9 month pregnant belly and two little toddler boys in tow I kind of avoided it.  So while I had been to her classroom once or twice it wasn't until the fall carnival that she really got to give us the tour and we got to see the rest of the building.  The carnival was the day after my due date and the night before I went into labor.  My parents were in town that night and were a huge help at the carnival as the kids ran from game to game and played all the activities.  After the games Adalyn showed us around her school and we had a fun little dinner in the cafeteria.

The week before Halloween the kids carved pumpkins with Daddy.  This was our first year carving instead of painting pumpkins and I think we are sold on the carving idea.  It actually went faster then the painting and it was not as messy as I was expecting.  This year was also special since the pumpkins were from our own garden that the kids had watched grow all summer.  Nice work Daddy!

The kids had a blast "carving" their little green pumpkins with butter knives while Daddy carved the big pumpkins for them.

The designs were simple, but the kids thought that they were the coolest scary faces.  I love little kids excitement for life and holidays!

The last day that Grandma Cannon was at our house she made her Halloween sugar cookies with the kids.  She makes these sugar cookies every Halloween and we always look forward to them each year.  Things got messy, but they enjoyed being involved in the kitchen (something I don't do enough!)

The boys really liked rolling out the dough and Adalyn loved decorating the cookies with candy and sprinkles.  I just loved eating them ;)

Our ward also had a Halloween party.  They did a trunk-r-treat and a chili cook-off.  Magnolia and I stayed home while the older kids went with Daddy.  They had a ton of fun and came home with way too much candy!  McKay even decorated the trunk of his car with pirate "treasure" and skulls to go with the theme of their costumes.  

Halloween we had a pumpkin shaped pizza for lunch and then the kids went out trick or treating with McKay that night.  Getting the kids and McKay out the door for trick or treating ended up being pretty stressful with all of the distractions going on and trying to eat dinner as well.  But they made it out eventually!  I stayed home and passed out candy which ended up being quite the task since lots of kids came through our neighborhood.  The kids really liked trick or treating, but still only ended up making it around two circles by our house.  We were all tired by the end of the night after the fun and busy week/day that we had had leading up to the actual Halloween night.  So after trick or treating we all just went to bed!

                    Oh and we can't forget Magnolia!  I didn't get her a costume this year nor was there really time to dress her up on Halloween while answering the door every few minutes while the kids were trick or treating.  But I still couldn't help dressing her up in Adalyn's old Minnie Mouse costume a few days later.  I remember searching Etsy for the perfect little Minnie costume for Adalyn for her first Halloween.  So of course we needed to get another use out of the little outfit.  Fun and cute!  

Also a few throw back pictures of Adalyn in the same costume on Halloween of 2011.  She was a few months older then Magnolia is, but it is still fun to see both of my girls in the same outfit. 

  

While I was looking for the pictures of Adalyn I ran across this next photo....haha!!

Such nice parents we were!  And those photography skills are...awesome.

  

    

          

Magnolia's Nursery

I just wanted to quickly post a few pictures of Magnolia's nursery.  It is not completely finished.  I need to add some of her newborn photos to the wall, a pillow, and maybe a rug.  But instead of waiting until it is finished I decided to just post these pictures now (otherwise I may never get around to it).

Whenever I decorate a bedroom or any space in my house the finished product usually doesn't turn out like I envisioned it.  Probably because my bedget is a little smaller then my imagination.  haha! The same thing happened with Magnolia's room, yet I still LOVE how it turned out.  Her whole pregnancy I was in love with pink and pretty much bought all clothes, blankets, decorations, and anything I could get in the color pink.  So I knew I wanted her room to have pink in it.  The grey came into play when my mom gave me the quilt that she had made and it had pink and grey fabric.  The gold accents were 70's wall decor that i bought used before I even knew that we were having a girl.  I just loved the flowers on them and hoped that I would be able to use them someday.

My absolute favorite part of her room is the felt flower garland over her bed.  Trendy, but I love it.  Simple and dainty.

We have dreamed about adding this sweet girl to our family for a long time.  We feel very blessed that she is here and healthy.

Magnolia's First Week

What a week that first week with Magnolia was!  It was beautiful and wonderful to have her here and to let the kids get to know her.  It was also emotional and exhausting as we began to figure out life with 4 kids (one being a newborn) and I tried to recover from labor.  My mom and McKay were SO helpful and they were very patient as we all worked through the challenges that came each day.  While I dont feel like 4 kids will always feel/be so challenging; it definitely overwhelmed us those first few days.  

My mom was great to run Adalyn back and forth to school each day and to dance.  She also made all our meals (so nice right?).  McKay was mostly in charge of helping keep the boys and their endless amounts of energy under control.   We literally had Jensen run around the house several times each day just to help him get his "wiggles" out.

The first several days after birth I loved snuggling the baby, but I felt very overwhelmed by life and I worried a lot.  Those type of feelings are very normal for me after giving birth.  My mom was great to talk through my concerns with me and let me vent my feelings to her.  I don't cry a ton, just feel very overwhelmed by life.  Then the Thursday after I had Magnolia I felt a definite switch in my hormones and as things started to balance out I was able to gain some confidence and felt more excited about the idea of having 4 kids 5 and under.

Recovery the first week felt slow to me at the time (who has time to sit around all day), but looking back now I am amazed that our bodies can heal so quickly.  The cramping went away around day #3 and so all that was left were aches and pains from the epidural and of course the fun bleeding.  I did not tear with her delivery so things felt just fine in that area (TMI? haha! sorry).

Magnolia did great that first week.  She is a good little eater and figured out breast feeding right away.  She slept ok those first few days and just woke up every 3 hours in the night.  She has more awake time then I remember any of my other kids having at this age, so we do snuggle and hold her more often which is not a bad thing.  She loves to stretch after every nap and she cannot stand to sleep flat on her back.  Currently she sleeps in her rock and play next to my bed, and hopefully someday soon we can transition her to sleep in her own crib.  She had a doctors appointment when she was 5 days old and was back up to her birth weight and continues to grow quickly (which is so sad and awesome at the same time).

Doctor office date with Mommy and Daddy all to her self.

This is where she sleeps.

Stretch time.

My mom gave Magnolia her first sponge bath at the end of the week and of course Magnolia hated the whole thing.  But sometimes crying isn't always a bad thing and she had a great nap after. :)

The other kids did well the first week as they adjusted (lets not talk about how they did the second week ok?)  They were distracted with fun Halloween/fall activites which helped give them something to look forward to.  Some of the things they got to do were carve pumpkins with daddy, another day they made sugar cookies with with grandma, they went to our ward trunk or treat party, and then they got to go trick or treating on Halloween night.  I will add more pictures of their halloween fun in another post but they really enjoyed it!  Adalyn did have a hard time going to school that week since she wanted to just stay home and hold Magnolia.  Declin, our already picky eater, pretty much stopped eating that week too.  At the time we thought it was crazy at how little he was eating and I was getting worried.  But this week he has been back to his normal level of pickiness and has actually had a large appetite.  So I think he is an emotional eater and when life stresses him out he just stops eating.  Fun right?  At least we can be more aware of this in the future.

All in all the first week was a success and a pretty typical "first week" for our family.  I still cannot believe that I have 4 kids and that they really are all mine.  I kept wanting to get a good picture of all the kids during the first week, but the task felt too overwhelming so I kept putting it off.  Finally on Thursday we went and had newborn pictures taken by Racheal Cook and thankfully she got a beautiful photo of all of my kids.  Yay!  Cannot wait to share with you soon!

Our ward was awesome too in checking on us and offering lots of support and help.  They had meals brought in and gave us a super soft blanket and burp cloths.  We love our ward family!

Besides my mom and dad our other visitors were Mykelti and Draesen who were spending the weekend at his family farm here in Idaho.  They stopped by on Sunday to snuggle Magnolia and then they helped McKay take the older kids to church.  We are happy that they love spending time in Idaho and hope to see them often. :)

 
 

A huge thank you to my mom who was amazing and came straight from helping my sister Corinne with her new baby to our house and helped us with our kids for a week!  Super woman!  She is such a great support and there is no one else that I would have rather had to be here that first week.  I always learn so much from her and am grateful that we got to spend a whole week together.  Spending time with my mom is such a wonderful "bonus" blessing after having a baby.

First week down!  Many many more to go!