The Us We Hope You Love

I'm feeling the need to post something about us that will actually be meaningful to me a few years down the road. Here's a brief update on everyone:

Clint is as hard working as ever and has many obligations to attend to outside the home that keep me very grateful for any time I get with him and always wishing I could have him more. In fact, a few weeks ago we were at the breakfast table when Bryce said to me, "Mommy, is Daddy coming tonight?" -- as if it was a rare occasion that he might stop by and visit once in a while, not like he lives with us or anything. For the kids (who go to bed at 7:00) it's sometimes a rare treat to see their Daddy. He often goes to work before the kids wake up and doesn't get home until 6:30 or 7:00, trying to finish all his duties at the office. He has been going to scouts every Wednesday night for years so I generally don't see him at all until nearly 9:00 those nights. Even on Saturdays there is usually someone else who needs his help, a scouting activity, real estate homes to show, or property management apartments to maintain. He was finally able to sell our last hair salon (hallelujah!) last week so that should free up a bit of his time and lower his stress levels. Clint has gotten really into remote controlled helicopters and airplanes lately. He and my brother, Jeremy, have a lot of fun playing with their toys during their lunch breaks at work. Clint also started working out regularly at the gym with a personal trainer for a while and was loving it. The holidays have thrown off his schedule but he plans on picking that up again soon. Clint loves his kids and they adore him. He's got a very soft spot for our little girls and exclaims nearly every day how crazy it is that Baylee is getting so big.

I am as busy as always with my ever-growing diaper business, part-time homeschooling, raising 4 little children, doing my best at planning and cooking meals, trying to keep up with house cleaning and laundry, and I'm pregnant. For anyone who doesn't know yet, we are expecting our 5th baby in April. I'm now 22 weeks along and I'd post a picture but I don't have one. I pretty much look exactly like I did with the previous 4 pregnancies so there's nothing new to see anyway. :)

Baylee is getting so big. Not just tall, but mature too, and she's as helpful as ever with her younger siblings. She is 7, in the 2nd grade, and is loving her part time schooling at a local charter school. I still get her home on Mondays and Fridays for math and language arts homeschooling. She is reading very well and, most importantly, is loving to read. She's got an amazing teacher at the charter school and is in a small class (15 students) of combined ages (1st-3rd grade). She ran into one of her school friends at the grocery store last week and they were both so excited to see each other. They ran up to each other and didn't have too much to say but giggled like crazy. :) Which reminds me, when we go to the grocery store I get a big "car cart" to put Madi and Bryce in and Rigby likes to sit in the main cart area too. So Baylee enjoys getting a short cart to push by herself and following behind me so she can push all the groceries herself. We're quite the train. Baylee's best friend is Lily Clark. She lives a few houses up and across the street. Lately their favorite thing to play with has been their baby dolls. They are both sweet, caring little mommies.

Rigby is a smart kid. He is excelling in everything scholastically. He also attends the charter school 3 days a week, is 5 years old, and is in Kindergarten. He is in an accelerated 1st grade math and will begin 2nd grade math before the school year is over. His latest creative obsession is cutting paper. My office floor is constantly covered with tiny pieces of paper scraps. He and Baylee can work together and make almost anything using paper, glue, tape and staples. Nothing in my office is sacred anymore. Rigby is still a little emotional and is often reluctant to clean up anything, but these past few months he's had spurts of helpfulness where he find joy in doing everything I ask and helping me out even when I haven't asked yet. I need to figure out what causes these spurts so I can reproduce them more often! He is a mama's boy and often at bed time he tells me he loves me. I tell him I love him too and then he says, "No Mommy, I REALLY love you." And I say, "I know Rigs, I REALLY love you too." The other day he said this to me again and added, "No, I really love you. Not just like we say at bedtime, like I really love you all the time."

Bryce, at age 3, has the quirkiest personality and is adorable. Many people still have trouble understanding him and I hope we're not looking at a future of speech therapy but his siblings and I translate for him frequently, even to Grandma. He's currently obsessed with his Lightning McQueen car, which he takes with us everywhere (and frequently loses) and insists on sleeping with every night. He also like to pretend he's Fireman Sam (a cartoon he's gotten into on Netflix) and runs around "saving the day" whenever he "sees smoke". He's always been a kid who knows what he wants and insists on getting it, however unusual the request. He can quickly get upset if things aren't just how he planned but can be just as quickly be quieted by a simple explanation of why it can't be just how he planned. He is still cuddly when he wakes up from his naps and insists on a hug and kiss at bedtime but never from his daddy. For some reason he's on a kick where everything has to be from me. Nothing from Daddy is... well... it's not from Mommy so it's not what he wants. This attitude was especially unfair last night when Clint and I had just climbed into bed and I had finally laid my big belly down to watch TV and Bryce got up to use the restroom. He called for me to wipe his bum. I tried to send Clint in and he insisted it be Mommy. Of course.

Madalyn is as cute as ever and extremely mischievous. She's spilled flour across the kitchen floor 3 times in the past week. She's at that lovely stage where I start cleaning up one mess and she's already created another before I can finish. I'm trying to keep all bathroom/laundry room doors closed at all times but you can guess how successful that's been with 3 other children in the house. Her favorite place to dig is in my purse and my car keys have frequently been misplaced in the oddest places. Just today, she's gotten into the flour again, lathered herself in diaper rash cream, poked her finger into my tube of chapstick, effectively making it useless, pushed all sorts of lovely buttons on the computer to keep me on my toes, thrown away 4 books in the garbage can, put Rigby's school work in the laundry, turned on the water in the bath tub, and probably a few other things around the house I just haven't discovered yet. Thankfully, it's nap time.

Our new little peanut seems to be growing well and is kicking up a storm. We aren't planning on finding out the gender again this time but I may have an ultrasound in January, after our insurance plan changes.

I'll leave you with some pictures to make this post more interesting for the skimmers.

Apparently I do have one picture with my belly visible. This is me reading to the kids before bed. I loved that Madi was inquisitively reading her story book while I read so I called Clint in to take a picture.

 In case you're wondering what my garage looks like:

 

All 14 of the currently available Oh Katy diaper colors.

 

The freezer jam Clint and I made together just before Thanksgiving.

Madi wearing Clint's underwear. She likes to dig in our piles of clean laundry and wear whatever she can put on.

 

One of last week's flour episodes

 The remnants of today's flour episode... those are her jammies.

 

Madi "helping" me bake Rolo Cookies.

 

I didn't plan time for blogging today but now I have officially used up all of my diaper packaging time (/nap time) and have no hope of getting diapers packaged and delivered to UPS before going to the grocery store before it's too late to make a decent dinner. I hope it was worth it. Please validate my post with comments so I feel better about myself.