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.