Sleeping Irony and Agony

The kids sleep best next to someone, and their parents sleep best next to no one. Check out last night's bed hopping: Mark: my bed all night long (he's sick otherwise he would have been hopping) Jennifer: my bed, Jonah's bed (with Eli, not Jonah), then up at 4:00 for the day Anna: Sarah's bed all night long Jonah: my bed, his bed, my bed Eli: my bed, his bed, my bed, Jonah's bed Sarah: her bed all night long Simon: his bed all night long and then up at 4:00 for the day At least the girls stayed put! And I had four kids awake by 6:30 with two wet beds. I'm told we will miss these days.

For those of you in warmer climates....

Our little piece of the world is beautiful. The kids don't realize how lucky they are to have this right outside their front door.

Five In A Row

Fire & a 6yo Boy

What happens when you cross fire with a 6yo boy? You get a manly milestone! Jonah lit his first fire yesterday. He was so proud! He lit a candle and then immediately wanted to call Mark and tell him. It was an obvious boy thing. Working the lighter. Got a flame! Lighting the candle.

Did it!!! Jonah's first lit candle.

Throughout the rest of the day he asked to "practice his lighting." Makes me giggle. Up next? Well....bow & arrow, BB gun, pocketknife....he has all of it in his sights!

Have you ever heard the story where

if you take a group of people, divide them in half, and give money to half of them, eventually all the money will be held by the "savers" in the group. If you do it again, the spenders will spend and the savers will end up with all the money a second time. Rinse and repeat. Well, I have decided that we have a similar force operating in our house. We have one collector of stuff and six others who live here. We could empty the collector's room, and eventually everything we own - furniture included - would end up in her room. I ruthlessly cleaned her room last week taking out bags and bags of stuff. I went in there yesterday, and I found some of my things have already migrated. I should start praying for her future spouse. Here is how Simon spends a large chunk of his day. He gets wrapped up in a special blanket and put between two rolled up towels in his crib. He loves being snuggled like this.

Everyone loves Simon! Sarah says, "Him's cute!" I think she's cute. Even Simon gets to play board games. Anna loves him so much. She always wants to carry him and hold him.

I'm back...I think

Simon is 7 weeks old now, and I think I'm back to carving out some time for blogging. Most nights I can get about 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep so I'm starting to feel like a real person again. Here are some brothers acting silly. Here are my little three. Simon looks tiny! Anna loves the pioneer time period. Here is a picture of her wearing her pioneer get-up. She had just made her own broom from a stick and long grass. She's getting a new pioneer dress for Christmas - one that fits!

Here is a merry-g0-round that Mark's parents found for us. The kids loved it. Too bad they only had a week of so with it before the snow came.

My pioneer girl dressed up her sister too. I was amazed at Anna's creativity with these things in their hands. She wanted a rag doll so she cut some rectangles out of extra fabric, sewed them together, stuff them with grass, and drew dolls on them. She was very pleased with the outcome. She then made versions for Sarah and Simon. Oh, she cut out an apron for Sarah too.