catchin' up with life

It's Spring!

Carrying Jaci around in the sling before we got the new Mei Tai and backpack. She especially likes to be close to me when I'm making dinner, so this allows her to be close and my hands to be free. Aaron often falls asleep in the Mei Tai and has the longest nap afterward-- feeling so secure and fetus-like in there! We're looking forward to getting outside and carrying our babies on hikes as the weather gets warmer!

Homeschooling is going well! After Ella expressed her boredom with the math curriculum we were doing, I casually mentioned to a friend in Kalispell that maybe I should begin giving the lessons in Spanish. So I have! It's great fun, adds a bit of a challenge, and accomplishing two subjects at once! Tessa asks for a reading lesson every day, and I'm hoping Jaci will be done potty training at the end of this week. I absolutely love the freedom I have to school my kids at home. Nobody else could love my children like I do!

The kids learn more from what I DO than what I say. That truth inspires me to take care of myself, my relationship with God, and do anything to avoid the hypocracy that so often yields rebellion.

All in a day's work: nursing & giving Tessa a reading lesson.

Like father like son. Adrian bought me a Nintendo set like the one I had when I was a kid. Aaron seems especially interested in the colors flashing on the screen. I love how this picture captures that all have a similar expression on their face as they watch Mario run around! I love, love, love my family.

Keeping the kids in the right sized clothing for the right season is a full time job around here! This is my pile before it went to the basement for storage. We are so thankful for many family & friends who have given us wonderful clothing for all our kids!

After I noticed that Jaci had already grown past some shoes that I had from Ella/Tessa, it was time to take the plastic bags full of little girls' shoes and make them more accessible. I bought a shoe organizer that is designed to hold 10 adult pairs of shoes at WalMart for around $7. Then I divided each compartment by sizes; girls shoes on one side and boys' on the other. Now it will be much easier to find the next size when I need it! Mr Aaron already has a nice collection of cute boy shoes too! Whoops-- my husband doesn't like me to use adjectives like "cute" regarding boy stuff. Can't think of another word though.

Easter Sunday photo shoot.. kind of impromtu... didn't get one that's great of all 4, but I still enjoy capturing my kids just how they are!

Aaron has been pushing himself up with strong little arms. We're amazed by him!

And yesterday when I pondered the thought that we should worship the CREATOR and not the CREATION, I realized that applies to kids too -- I absolutely adore my kids and like to gush about all of their individual stages. I love to watch them grow and learn and develop. That's probably an ok feeling, being a mommy. But when I do, I should always remember that every heartbeat and every way they amaze me is thanks to the God of heaven -- he formed them in my womb, and HIS awesome creation continues as they grow!

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We had some beautiful warm weather last week, so took advantage of it with lots of bike riding and outdoor play. After a months of preferring her scooter and balance bike (small bicycle with no pedals), Ella just TOOK OFF with riding her bike without training wheels on Thursday. She's just as excited about it as we are!

THREE MONTHS ~ Aaron Rio is:

still super easy going and smiley

still sleeping peacefully through each night

handsome as ever

grabbing toys & mommy's arm during diaper changes

extremely ticklish, with a cute little giggle

fun to play games with
over 15 pounds!

...Don't you just want to pick him up? :)

This week Adrian is in Vancouver and the girls and I are living on plywood floors. By next week, we will have new floors in the kitchen/bathroom, all new plumbing, and a rearranged laundry room. I'll post pictures of that later...

Thinking about 1 Corinthians 13 ~ in my own words ~ even if I do everything "right" and don't have love, it is all worthless! My choices include how I worship, how I parent, how I devote quiet time to the Lord, how I eat, how I exercise, how I run the house and life and manage time ... oh, there's something to consciously choose every day. Of course I make choices based on what I think is best. But LOVE should rank higher than all that. And when I look around, I see many ways that the enemy is 'winning' in relationships among Christians. That wretched lion of a devil is creating division, and causing friendships to dissolve over disagreements. I, too, disagree with many choices of people around me. However, I am called to love despite that. When Christ asked us to love, he knew how difficult it would be for us, and he whispers, "My Grace is sufficient..." Please reconcile any division or unforgiveness you find in your life.

BIG BOY!

Jaci is now chewing gum! Here's a picture of her with some orange gum between her cute little teeth. She chewed it for nearly an hour and then put it into the garbage, just like her big sisters do! She has wanted to do this for so long, it's exciting to see her be so happy about it!

~ sweet sleeping baby ~
Mr Aaron has been growing very fast, we know -- but I finally took a minute to see how his growth compared to his older sisters. They were all born within a few ounces of 7 pounds.
At 10 weeks:
Ella was 11 pounds
Tessa "chunkbug" was 12 pounds
Jaci was 11 pounds
Aaron is 14 pounds!

Like a lady at church says, "Those aren't cheeks; those are sucking muscles!!"

I often tell little Aaron that I'm glad he's growing so fast after he was born, not before!

I totally love every ounce of him!

Jaci has such a beautiful smile!

8 weeks

We've been away from home for 2 weeks, but now have a minute to share some pictures! We are loving our girls and baby as much as you can imagine! They have all done awesome with packing up, living in the hotel in Kalispell for 2 weeks, and now we've landed in Portland for another week. We've been battling cold symptoms, but otherwise everybody is happy ~ and we'll be happy to get back home next week too!! It's super hard to pick *just a few* photos to share from the last 2 weeks. So here are many angles of our smiley (and growing very fast!) little boy.

What do YOU do when...?

What do you do when, after putting your kids to bed at 9 p.m., you go to their room at 10:30 p.m. and find them quietly sitting together on an office chair, each with a pen and paper in hand? I, unfortunately, scolded them and put them back in bed before I saw what they were writing: love notes to mom. And Tessa had even asked Ella how to spell "MOM" and written it in her best 3 year old penmanship. Seeing that drove me to tears and made me vow to be more patient, and less quick to jump to conclusions. Especially when I'm tired.
What do you do when the sun is shining, and everyone could use some fresh air, but it's only 20 degrees outside? Knowing how long it takes to bundle up and un-bundle for just a few minutes of outdoor activity, I usually opt to stay in. Or, like yesterday, let everyone go outside with just a coat on, and come in when they are cold. It's less work that way.

Ella and Tessa have begun spelling words, Scrabble style, with the Leapfrog letters. Maybe soon Ella will provide some Scrabble competition for Daddy and Aunt Sandy!! Tessa completed her 11th reading lesson today and is reading am, ram, sam, sat, mat, see ... Ella is doing Saxon Math. I thought she was enjoying the lessons as I am. But today when I wasn't looking, she wrote, "Schol is Boring" on her worksheet. sigh I guess she needs more "scholing"!

What do you do when your husband, upon seeing his co-workers' hobbies, laments that he doesn't have any hobbies, and it seems as though life aside from work consists of emptying and filling the dishwasher? Sounds like we need a little more balance in our lives! The mundane chores are never-ending with 4 little kids under the roof. Also, we've been improving this little old house for 3.5 years and it's still not all done!! But we want it to be! We're considering hiring out the bathroom/flooring project to save ourselves some time and sanity. And we're quite confident we shall NEVER own an old house again. Maybe after that my husband can have a hobby?

A little pat on the back for us: even though it's winter, Adrian and I got the kids everyone out the door and took a hike every day last week. One day I was first in line up the trail, carrying Aaron in the sling, so I turned around to see the rest of the gang. I burst into hillarious laughter when I saw my family behind me ~ Adrian with the Kelty backpack on his back, pushing our double jogger stroller with Jaci inside, pulling Tessa with a rope on her trike, and Ella scooting her scooter alongside; all of us in winter hats, boots, gloves, coats and scarves. At that point, with the thermometer reading 27 degrees, I thought we were quite ridiculous!! Wish I would have had the camera!

So this is how we warm up feet after we've been outside, even bundled to the hilt!

By the way, the above little one is back to potty training this week! We're homeschooling in the kitchen to make clean up easy. I must have confused her royally yesterday. Fruit snacks were the treat of choice for attempts or successes on the potty chair. One time, in the hustle of teaching Ella & Tessa, I remember Jaci asking for a treat ("MOM! BEAT!!") but I reminded her she could have one if she used the potty chair. Quite a while later, I found a deposit in the potty chair, but have no idea when it was done-- the little sweetie had a completely unrecognized success! We all cheered and had a fruit snack after the fact anyway.

Sweet baby is so content and easy going. I make sure he keeps the warmest of anyone on our outings! He continues to sleep 7-8 hours each night, then feeds, then back to sleep for 3-5 more hours. Here's what he is wearing today... thanks Uncle Dale & Aunt Mary for this adorable outfit!!

Now the girls are playing "mommy" behind me (I just heard, "you have to cut the umbilical cord and check the heartbeat"). and I've typed this entire post one-handed while nursing little dude. It's time to be done! ~A

'nother photo shoot

Some more photos of the babe, taken this morning. And we finally caught a smile on camera -- he has been smiling and talking to his big sisters lately!

baby mugs

Here are our 4 babies, each around 1 month of age ... can you guess who is who?

1 month young

Here's some more photos of the baby -- just a menagerie from the last week or so. He's GROWING!! Now weighing in at 9 1/2 pounds, he looks a lot different than at birth. We are still enjoying his easy-going nature very much!

Ella's Hawaiian dress up outfit from Gramma Mary

Happy Valentines Day!!