Baby Maxwell you are one month!!

And in the spirit of a mom with four kids, Maxwell's post is a few days late, but at least I made it, right??  Haha.

Don't you love his look in the last pic above?  So cute!  He is always making this adorable surprise face.  Also, I am waiting any day now for his first smile.  I've caught glimpses.  So what's new at one month??  Hmmm:

• He seems a lot more alert these days
• He is a champion day napper.  Also, he is teaching himself to fall back asleep after his 45 minute stint.  Wahooo!  Major win there.  I wish I could teach myself that.  Can't relax but so tired.  Ooof
• He is a horrid night sleeper.  I can't figure out what's going on there!  Ugh.  He is regularly up at 12 and then at 3 and 4 and sometimes 5!!  What is going on little dude?  Half the time I end up just holding him so he will fall asleep.  Boo hoo.  Not my intention at all but I am beyond tired.  
• He is sweet and cuddly and so loving and trusting
• He is starting to get into taking baths.  Doesn't cry as much as he used to.

And in other news.   Grace has the throwups and I sincerely pray that the rest of us will not get it, especially Maxwell.  Ay ay ay.  Anyhoo, gotta go and bury my head in a warm bed now.  Sleep has really caught up with me today.  

The Joys of Motherhood

I feel like I haven't written about little Miss Gracie Lou in a while but she deserves many posts.  Also I am tired.  But I hope this blog has enough posts about how much I love being a mom to her and to the other sweetie pies in my life because they surely deserve it.  Here are some of my favorite things about motherhood lately:

• I love putting Grace to bed at night.  She is a real wiggler but at night she and I have cuddle/sing time and she lets me hold her tight and sing to her and doesn't move a muscle.  I love love love this special time with her.  I think she's been having a hard time lately adjusting to the new baby but we still have this special time at night.
• I love when Moses has me carry him and wraps his little legs around my waist.  He is so light and so happy and he has the deepest brown eyes fringed with long lashes.
• I love watching Lizzie dance with reckless abandon and joy.  It's truly hypnotic and I want to learn to dance like her.
• I love how giddy they get when Paul calls on the phone.  They all say "hi dad" and it's cute
• Prayer time is adorable with them.  They love to pray and fold their arms.
• We have a lot of good snuggle time on the floor and we love it.  

Well I am pooped!!  Beyond pooped.  Goodnight.  

Before I forget - a story of faith

I must write this soon.  What a week it's been.  A blur really.  Good news is that baby Maxwell is already 3 weeks old now.  He is growing so fast and I already see his first double chin!!  My little baby.  But this story is not about Maxwell.  It's about poor little Mo, little Mowie.  On Christmas he seemed a bit off so the next day Paul took him in to the walk in clinic at the hospital and the doc said he had some kind of viral infection etc etc take tylenol etc.  He never had much of a fever but by Tuesday morning he was not even eating Paul's yogurt and let me tell you, he LOVES Paul's special Activia yogurt.  He was just a listless lump so I decided to take him to the doc.  Can you believe I almost didn't??  It was gonna be hard but I got a babysitter and took him and boy was that the toughest couple of hours!!

First he got some nebulizer treatments, then they said it was asthma and by the end they put him on oxygen and had me cart him over to the hospital next door where we checked him in as an in-patient and got him all hooked up to the IV and chest x-rays and so forth.  He had pneumonia in both lungs.  So scary.  Oh man even as I write this I tremble with fear for what might have been.  What if I hadn't taken him in?  What if Dr. Schofield (the new partner with Dr. Larsen) hadn't been free or what if they were both out of town?  Luckily, they took this very seriously.  Paul rushed home from work to get to the hospital so I could go home to the babysitter and nurse baby Maxwell.  By this time I was a mess of tears and also was basically bursting at the seams from needing to nurse.  Ouch!  Luckily (I should say blessedly) we also have great babysitters who love Moses so much and were also so supportive and concerned.

Paul told me over the phone they couldn't find a vein on little Moses so they had to do an IV through his neck.  So glad I wasn't there to see that but I guess Moses was so listless they could do anything they wanted with him.  Well for the next day and a half I went back and forth to the hospital and Paul slept there and watched over him and so many friends and ward members helped out and brought food and medicine and came to give him a blessing and texted and called and boy do I feel loved.

Everytime I would leave the hospital, I would cry and I felt so helpless to leave my little Moses there plus I always get postpartum-y after I have a baby.  Lotsa hormones going on over here these days.  So on Wednesday night he wasn't eating or drinking anything and I was so desperate and my mom recommended I give him a smoothie so last minute I decided to make one and I brought it to him and finally he started to drink something!!  Paul and I were so amazed and grateful and right away we knelt down and said a prayer of Thanksgiving.  Praise the Lord!!  I tell you, as we said that prayer, I felt angels around us in the room.  As sure as I am writing this, I can tell you that we were not alone in that room.  That there were those beyond the veil who love and support us and care for us.  I have such a burning testimony of this and I want to share and rejoice in this before I forget.  We had many people praying for us and my heart is full and grateful for all of those wonderful people who believe in the power of prayer.

Well, I should be sleeping but I must write this before I forget.  What a great spiritual experience.  The following day, New Year's Eve in the evening, Moses was released from the hospital and we came home and he is doing better every day and is eating more and drinking more and tomorrow I take him to the doctor.  I am so grateful to the Lord for caring for our beautiful son.  I love you so much Moses.

Our lovely lovely home

What a beauty, no?  I distinctly remember checking out our home to see if we wanted to buy it right before Christmas and falling in love with it then.  It's like living inside a forest.  The logs make me happy every single day I look at them and at Christmas it's even more breathtaking and don't even get me started on the stone fireplace!  One of these days, it'll work again but even when it doesn't now it still completes me.  I cannot believe I actually live here and with my sweet husband and darling kids.  I have to pinch myself.  I wouldn't want my life any other way except this.  And with a great snowfall, it just adds to the beauty of it all.  I am so happy to be where I am and I humbly acknowledge my Father in Heaven for giving this life to me.  I pray I can sufficiently give back to Him.

A baby story - Maxwell Joseph

Oh man oh man it's only been a week and I'm already forgetting, noooooooooooo!  It was a beautiful labor and birth so I must record it before it goes whoosh out of my memory.

Oh dear.  He just started fussing!...Be right back....  Ok I'm back.  But he is a good baby.  A really good little champ.  I am a big big fan of his.  I think he's gonna like it here.

So two Thursdays ago I woke up in the middle of the night and thought oh boy this is it!  And then I walked around and it was just Braxton Hicks.  Then on Saturday, Dec 12 I got a pedicure and about 1 a.m. the next morning I started getting contractions regularly.  Oh man this is really it.  Wahoo!!  I woke up Paul eventually and by 4 we were in the hospital and I was still getting them steady.  I got my good ole epidural and for some reason I was more freaked out than ever by it this time.  I am so so grateful for Paul who is the best birth coach ever.  I could not have done it without him holding my hand the whole time.  I love you Paul.  So then our great doctor came in and broke my water and then I think he went to church for a few hours and we kinda rested and then he came back and after about 3 pushes baby Maxwell was born at 11:34 a.m. on Sunday, Dec 13.

He came out crying and we snuggled right away doing skin to skin for about an hour while he rooted around and drank my colostrum.  He had an apgar of 9 and is a tiny little thing for our family.  7.13 pounds and 19 inches.  Moses was 8.13 and Lizzie was 9.1 and Grace was 9.  But now we are out a week and a half and I am pretty sure he has gained some wait.  He was a bit jaundice-y to begin with but I think he is on the mend from that as well.

So, yeah that's it in a nutshell.  No drama and pure bliss and I am so so grateful for modern medicine and hospitals and healthy babies with no complications and smooth pregnancies.  You just never know.  In the meantime, the kids have really taken a liking to him.  Grace looks gigantic around him and just flops around all cute and fat and says "baby!!!" whenever she sees him.  Adorable.  And Moses is intrigued and Lizzie loves him and maybe is a little insecure about her status but seems to be moving forward from this already.

So it's Christmas Eve today.  Not a creature is stirring cause Moses and Grace AND Maxwell are all sleeping for naptime and I will be doing that in a second cause Maxwell was up a bit at night but it's to be expected, right?  Now I know.  I laugh so hard at the terrified look I had on my face with my first little one.  That was baptism by fire I tell ya.  I was completely clueless.  Anyway, Paul and Lizzie are out doing last minute Christmas shopping and Paul says they are having ball which makes me very happy and life is good if a little fuzzy since it's newborn baby time.

People have been so kind to us this month; so many neighbor gifts and dinners from neighbors.  Even tonight our friend Amanda Sorenson is bringing us dinner.  So wonderful.  I am in heaven and so grateful to our Heavenly Father for my blessed state and to the Savior for His atonement for me.  What a blessed gift He gave us.  I LOVE Christmas so much it hurts and I am so grateful to the Lord for this season.  Merry Christmas!!

We welcome refugees

I've been wanting to blog post for a while now...  A lot going on...  A lot... I'm trying to figure out the worth/importance of this blog.  I've been going through some things emotionally.  Growing experiences.  Good things.  Thinking things.  I'm not sure how much I want to post about my family anymore.  They are so precious to me.  So so precious.  On the other hand, there are some incredible Mormon blogs out there where their stories of their families inspire me and further me along in my life's mission.  So I guess it's out on the table.  Anyway, that's why I haven't posted the usual stats on the kids lately.  So what can I post about?   Hmmm.  So much.  Here are some titles I'd love to post on:

• Reasons why I love my husband
• Special memories of sweet things my husband has done for me
• Why I love being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints
• Syrian refugees.  Oh man, that is on my mind tonight and it's sobering. 
• Why I love my family and why they are my most precious possession
• Why I understand and am so grateful for the Atonement more these days
• Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude

I think I'll do gratitude tonight.  Tonight, I sit here in the warmth and comfort of my lovely wooden home.  I LOVE my home so much.  I feel sometimes ensconced in a little forest, a cradle of sorts.  But I sit here and I could have been born somewhere else.  I could be shivering now in some cold, wet place in Europe hoping to find some shelter for my children because I am a refugee whose fat is ISIS and frying pan is the great unknown.  I pray for those mothers tonight.  My mother's heart goes out to them.  Dear Lord, please bless and comfort them.  Please guide me to know how best to help those mothers.  I just cannot even fathom how they are even coping.  Are diapers changed once a day only?  Are there a bunch of little babies with awful rashes?  Do they have any clean water?  Are they burning up in the sun or shivering in the wet rain?  Oh those poor mothers.  I want to hold and hug them and welcome them all into my home.  By accident of birth, I am not them but I love them.  I empathize.  Dear Lord, please guide me to help them as best as I can.  Please accept my sincerest gratitude for having a safe and warm and loving home and family where we are not only surviving but thriving too.  I am so blessed.  So, so blessed.  I thank THEE.

WE WELCOME REFUGEES

The "Bumblebees game" and other Lizzie stories

Morning time when I wake up Lizzie (about 8 a.m.):

"Mom, I'm tired."

"Why are you tired Lizzie"

"From the last day (read: yesterday, she call it the last day, so cute) when we went to the bumblebees game (Salt Lake Bees game)."

Tee hee.

Here are some lovely pics of Moses too at the game.

In other news about Lizzie.  She is great.  Never has had terrible two's or anything.  She is so sweet and helpful to me and helps me put away toys and dishes and is getting so good at violin and she is even seriously helping me potty train Moses.  Oh yeah, I'm doing the three day potty training with Moses this week.  Day 1 and it's not actually so bad.  Only two small accidents.  This morning I had to run and get something in the basement and when I came back, Lizzie had taken Moses to the potty in time for him to pee.  So grateful for my darling girl.  Oh I love her so and need to give her more hugs.  Yes indeedy.

Oh and the funnest news of all - she can bike now without training wheels!   So so proud of my little cupcake!  You go lovely girl.  It only took her 5 minutes with the bike my mom gave her when we went to visit her in Colorado last week.  The balance bike truly works cause it was almost a no brainer.  We just needed the right bike.

Also, she loves her siblings.  She is so good to them.